Gringos by Charles Portis

ignorance. It was alien to me. Some sort of Nipponese hydraulic booster up there, a slave cylinder. The only clutches I knew had a straight mechanical linkage. What I needed here was Manolo and his thirty-three wrenches. I was only a shade-tree mechanic, and an impatient one at that. Get a bigger hammer or put a bigger fuse in and see if anything smokes. That was my approach.
    I decided on a show of violence. Burt and I got the truck going in the lowest forward gear, and I drove around and around the clearing, poking the gas pedal for a lurch effect, and pumping on the clutch pedal, hoping to pop something loose. It worked, to everyone’s surprise. The clutch disc had stuck to the flywheel with rust or some fungoid rot and was now free again.
    Skinner had been chasing after us, shouting and waving his arms. We were abusing his truck. Now he was doubly annoyed. All the to-do had ended with a quick fix, and he had made a spectacle of himself before his crew. He was a fat lady running after a bus.
    Then he tried to beat me down on my prices. He went over the list, muttering, going into little fake body collapses. As the hated, profiteering middleman, I had seen this show before.
    â€œYou must think you’ve got a gold mine here, Burns.”
    â€œIf it’s such a gold mine then why can’t you find anyone else to do it? What about the wear and tear on my truck? My prices are not out of line. I’m not even charging you for the clutch repair.”
    â€œAm I supposed to be grateful? It’s not as though you actually did anything. I’m not even sure it’s fixed. You and Bautista may be able to take advantage of Henry, but you’re dealing with me now.”
    â€œYou called me, I didn’t call you.”
    â€œAnd this famous bucket of shrimp. I can’t find the price listed. Where have you hidden it?”
    â€œI was throwing it in free, as lagniappe, but now I want thirty dollars for it, and I want it now. I’m not going to stand here and haggle with you, Skinner. Pay me now or everything goes back. Nothing comes off that truck until I get my money.”
    A bearded engineer named Lund interceded. He took Skinner away to calm him down. In the end they paid. Lund paid me. It was all Becker’s money anyway.
    Some truckers refuse to lift things, but I wasn’t proud in that way. We unloaded the goods and stowed them in the “secure room,” which was a stone chamber in Structure II-A. Wonderful dead names these arqueos have for their pyramids. The entrance could be closed off with a ramshackle door made of poles and locked with a chain. Here the food was stored, and the more valuable pieces of equipment, and the finds, running largely to fragments of monochrome pottery. There were beads and other knickknacks sealed in clear plastic bags, and some chunks of organic matter—wood and charcoal—wrapped in aluminum foil, for carbon-14 dating. I saw nothing worth locking up. Pots put me to sleep. The romance of broken crockery was lost on me.
    Great care would be taken here, every last pebble tagged. Then the loot would be sacked up and hauled away and dumped in the basement of some museum, where tons of the stuff already lay moldering. Buried again, so to speak, uncatalogued, soon forgotten, never again to see the light of day. But the great object would have been achieved, which was to keep these artworks out of the hands of people. Don’t let them touch a thing! A sin! A crime against “the people!” By which they meant the state, or really, just themselves. At least Refugio and I had put these things back into the hands of people who took delight in them, if not “the people.” We gave these pieces life again. Sometimes I thought there weren’t enough of us doing this work. That was the way I put it to myself. I stole nothing. It was treasure trove, lost property, abandoned property, the true owners long dead, and the law out here was