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CHAPTER 13

      HECTOR GUZMAN paid the taxi driver and, followed by Consuelo and Tonio, he carried the heavy box into his shop.

      He went past Rosa and a couple of tourists looking at carved walking sticks and put the box behind the partition that marked off the office and storage part of the shop. Then he came out and waited patiently for the tourists to drift away. When they were gone, he locked the door and put the closed sign in the window.

      Rosa came into the back and hugged Consuelo and Tonio, although she scarcely knew them. Consuelo began weeping again as she told how her husband had been killed, and soon Rosa, too, was in tears. Guzman always thought Consuelo had made a bad marriage, and was probably better off without the Indian.

      He had asked her in the taxi what was in the box that made it so heavy, but Consuelo had raised a finger and pointed at the driver and remained silent.

      Now he stared at it suspiciously. The back of the shop was stifling and he was getting impatient.

      Consuelo untied the rope and opened the box.

      The gold ingots gleamed dully in the light of the overhead bulb. The intake of Rosa's breath was the only sound in the room.

      Guzman's jaw fell slack. "Are these real?"

      "Real enough for my husband to die for."

      Guzman got down on his knees and lifted one of the ingots. He stared at it, studying it intently, turning it over. "I know gold," he said. He moved it into the shop and studied it in the better light, oblivious to the people passing by the window. He tasted it, and compared its color to the 14 karat gold ring he wore. The small bar was redder, suggesting that it had greater purity than the ring. He studied the symbol struck into the bar.

      "What does this mean?" he asked, pointing to it.

      Consuelo shrugged. "It looks like a 'C'. For my name, maybe. Maybe God put it there for me?" But she was not serious.

      "Where did it come from?"

      "Pedro stole it from a man who stole it from somebody else. He told me a rancher with a white beard. I don't know where he got it."

      Guzman shook his head in amazement and went back and replaced the ingot. He lifted up the box gently, and set it down again. "So heavy! It's worth a fortune!"

      "Yes," Consuelo said. "But how do we get pesos for it? Who can we trust not to cheat us?"

      "Hector, you could take it to Seņor Mendoza," Rosa said. "He will know what to do with it."

      Guzman smiled. "I'm sure he would. The first thing he would do is take it away from us and threaten to turn me over to the police as a thief if I said anything."

      "You could make it into jewelry, and sell it," Consuelo said.

      "And people would ask us where we got the gold." He was assuming the role of older brother, although in fact he was five years younger than she was. "Anyway, what difference does it make. Why should I worry? It's your gold, not mine."

      She was flustered. "I think there is plenty for us all. We'll share."

      "You would? You would do that for Rosa and me?" He was overwhelmed. "Why, we could open our own store, or move to los Estados Unidos, or go to California and get richer. Perhaps the 'C' stands for California!"

      Tonio, who had been standing silently, soaking in the shop, the tourists, the huge city of Juarez, and an uncle and aunt he barely remembered, spoke up suddenly. "I would like to use part of the money to kill the men who murdered my father."

      Guzman saw the hard anger in Tonio's eyes. "Perhaps we can arrange that," he said thoughtfully.

      "I want to kill them myself," Tonio said.

      "God says to forgive," Rosa said.

      The boy shook his head. "Never for me!"

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