New Pearl Ending

The Pearl

Against the sky in the cave entrance Juana could see that Kino was taking off his white clothes for dirty and ragged, though, they would show up against the dark night. His own brown skin was a better protection for him. And then she saw how he hooked his Amulet neck-string about the horn handle of his great knife, so that it hung in front of him, and left both hands free. Juana had given up her prayers of magic and tradition by this time. She felt them to be pointless after all she had been through. However she did whisper her hail Marys, against the black inhuman thing.

She looked down the cliff and could see, only the cigarette of the man with the rifle, and hear only the water, of the little spring. Then she heard something else, something stirring on the ground, near the water. It was one of the men. She knew only because she heard them talking. She could not make out what they were saying, but wondered if they were talking of Kino, who by now, was probably pretty far down the cliff.

Kino was nearly down the cliff now. He had been very quietly, slithering down the cliff, hearing nothing but his own footsteps, and the music of the enemy, which was getting louder as he got closer. He had turned his neck-string so that the great knife hung down from his back and could not clash the rock, because he knew that any sound, alien to nature, would get the watcher’s suspicion up, and he would be on his guard.

Once he got to the bottom, it seemed to take forever for him to get close to the men. He stopped about twenty feet away from them when he heard them talking and moving. One man was still sleeping, but the other was up talking with the watcher. Kino looked over the watcher. He was dressed in brown leather pants, and a nice shirt, all under a large black duster. The long clack coat ran all the way down to his black boots; He wore his cowboy hat low, over his eyes, so Kino couldn’t really see his face, above his big mustache.

The man talking to the watcher walked off into the bush, out of sight. With one man still sleeping, the watcher sat, holding his rifle, staring into the horizon, where the moon would soon rise.