Caravan to Tarim by Goodis David

Author:Goodis, David [Goodis, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Footsteps were going away, a door was closing, and Kelney was calling himself the same names he had called Mezar. It occurred to him that perhaps he had deserved this sort of thing for a long, long time and now there was nothing to do but take it with philosophy.

Blank cartridges, he was thinking. That was a lovely arrangement and for that deal alone he deserved to get his head kicked in. Even though he hadn’t been given the opportunity to go through with the transaction, the fact remained that he had agreed to it and he certainly would have gone through with it to soften his own mattress. And that made him a thousand varieties of louse and he was lower than any Bedouin.

He had to grin. It was so easy to feel this noble remorse, this inner cleansing, when the four surrounding walls were walls of odds. Give him a chance to get out of this and he would go back to the strategy, the fencing, the scummy bargaining that he always engaged in when he was bargaining with what he recognised as scum.

But was Nadi scum? What about those Bedouins? Were they really scum? He gave himself a picture of them, their rags, the food they ate, the sad faces of their children. On another canvas he was seeing fat Mezar with a mouthful of figs, and gems against fleshy fingers and all the silk. He thought about the good Arabians, honest and fairly decent men crawling across sand and dying of thirst because a noble soul named Kelney had placed blank cartridges in their rifles. He heard the door again, and then the footsteps.

Slanting light straightened itself out as Mezar placed a torch in a wall bracket. Mezar was alone and breathing hard.

This is going to be good, Kelney thought.

But he hadn’t dreamed it would be this good, because Mezar was unfastening the clamps and saying, “I am humble.”

Kelney rubbed his wrists. “Say it again.”

The fat Arabian said it again.

“So what brings about the change of heart?”

“Tiggs is here.”

“You can say that again, too.”

“Tiggs has been brought in. He was picked up by another caravan coming this way from the coast. He was dying. They had a physician with them, a famous man from Charfa. An operation was performed in the desert, and a bullet was taken from Tiggs’s body. He is recovering fast. And he has told me what happened with the Bedouins. I know now that you spoke the truth.”

“Thanks,” Kelney said, “for nothing.”

“Let us forget this unpleasant affair,” Mezar said. “In a short time Tiggs will be well again. You will take out another caravan-“

“I want more payment,” Kelney said.

“Of course. You are a good tradesman, Kelney, and I am happy to reward my best workers.”

“I don’t work for you,” Kelney said. I only deal with you. Remember that. And here’s another thing. I don’t want to wait around for Tiggs to get back on his feet. I’ll take out the next caravan as soon as you make out your buying schedule.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.