The Empty Trap by John D. MacDonald Page A

so much money, the little they left me was not of importance.”
    “What will you do?”
    “When I am strong, I will leave here and I will go back to my country and I will kill them.”
    Armando and Roberto nodded.
    “There are four of them,” Lloyd said.
    Roberto said, “It is miraculous that a man as badly broken could raise up such a great pile of stones over the body of the woman.”
    “So the zopilotes would not have her body,” Lloyd said. “They angered me.”
    “If that is the quality of your anger,” Roberto said, “when you are in health you can kill them with your hands.”
    “All but one. With him I am a child.”
    “Then use the knife.”
    He looked at them and he knew he had not yet matched their honesty, nor repaid them with frankness for all they had done for him. He groped for words, knowing he would have difficulty with abstract ideas.
    “I will tell you this thing. It is about the money and the woman. The thing I did was not honorable.”
    Armando said, “It is not necessary for you to tell.”
    “I feel it is necessary.” He found himself looking at Isabella. She was looking down at her clasped hands. “The money and the woman. They were not mine. I took them. I was followed.” He looked around at impassive faces. “But a thing cannot be black or white. I was a thief when I took the money, but that money had been stolen from others. I was a thief when I took the woman, but she was gentle and unhappy and often beaten. She asked me to take her away, and I wished to give herhappiness. The men found us. My actions were not honorable, perhaps. But their actions were the actions of animals. With me and with the woman. Most of all with the woman, before one of them killed her. That is why it is necessary to kill them. I will not be a man again until that is done.”
    It was not something he could have said in his own land in his own tongue without feeling ridiculously melodramatic. And he wondered whether the need to kill would have been as understandable even to himself in another place and time. Yet here it was perfectly clear, and he could see that Armando and Roberto accepted it. Here there was no talk of the futility of revenge. This was a mission of honor.
    After a long silence Armando reached his hand over and shook hands with Lloyd in American fashion. “It is good you have explained,” he said. Lloyd felt the lantern heat on the underside of his wrist.
    When his hand was released, he opened the wallet and took out the pesos. He held them for a moment, then turned and placed them in Concha’s ample lap. “Many things are needed. This is not a payment. It is a gift. I wish, with your permission, Armando, to remain here until I am truly strong. When I can work, I will do so. With the money Roberto can buy things in the village for the good of all. More warm clothing for children is needed, more serapes for men, rebosas for women, blankets.”
    Concha touched the money, looked shyly at Armando. He nodded. “Mil gracias,” she said. “It is cold here in the winter months.”
    Roberto left and came back proudly with a large bottle of mescal. The earthenware cups were gotten out. The drink tasted like varnish and sulphuric acid and had an impact like an unexpected blow on the head. Rosario arrived with battered guitar. There was singing and dancing. More people arrived until Lloyd was willing to swear the entire community of twenty-eight had gathered in the small room. He sat on the pallet, back against the wall, grinning and watching and beating time, drinkingwhenever anybody thought to pour something into his cup. Eleven hundred pesos was a little over ninety dollars. It merited a fiesta.
    Isabella came and sat beside him, flushed and moist with the effort of dancing. She sipped from his cup. He took her hand. She tried to tug it away but he held it. She sat rigidly then, face half turned away.
    “Do you care much,” he said, “about the stolen money and the stolen