Ahumado had made it all happen, so that, as he was dying, a death more cruel than his own would come to Xitla.

She crawled faster, carrying the rope, although she knew well that such haste was foolish. Her fear grew so strong that she threw away the rope she had come so far to get. The rope was only another trick of Ahumado's; its loop was the loop of time that would close and catch her soon.

It was all a joke of Ahumado's, Xitla realized. He had put the white man in the pit to tempt her, to awaken her loins again, to draw her away from camp, where she had herbs and leaves to protect her. She had the black leaves that made a bad smell when burned--if she put them in the fire, then Puma would let her alone.

Puma did not like the smell the black leaves made when they were burned.

Xitla was only halfway back to camp when the night began to end. She had travelled slowly; often she had to stop and rest. Now the light of day was beginning to whiten the sky overhead; when the light sank into the canyon Xitla saw something near the canyon wall, not far ahead. At first she thought it was Puma. She yelled and yelled at it, hoping to scare it away. Puma would sometimes run from people who yelled.

It was not until the animal began to glide toward her that Xitla saw it wasn't Puma, it wasn't Bear: it was Jaguar. Around her neck she had a little red stone; the stone had hung around her neck all her life. The red stone was Parrot. Xitla clutched it in her hand as Jaguar came. Xitla knew that Jaguar would not stop for Parrot. Jaguar was coming to eat her.

But Ahumado too was dying--dying of poison somewhere to the south. He would not reach the Tree of Medicines. Xitla clutched the red stone tight and sent a message to Parrot. She wanted Parrot to find the body of Ahumado and peck out his eyes.

When Scull realized the old woman was no longer in the camp above him, he fell, for the first time, into raw panic, a kind of explosion of nerves that caused him to hop wildly around the floor of the pit, cursing and yelping out strange ^ws; he emitted cries and bursts of language as if he were farting fear out of his mouth.

He became afraid of himself; if he could have bitten himself to death at that time, he would have. He leapt on top of the mound of earth he had heaped over the three corpses and sprang at the wall of the pit several times, hoping to claw his way out of it by main force.

But it was hopeless. He could not leap out of the pit. When he exhausted himself he fell back, his eyes raw and stinging with the dirt that fell in them when he leapt at the walls of the pit.

Scull tried to calm himself but could not stifle his panic. He knew the old woman's absence might be only temporary; perhaps she had had to hobble a little farther than usual to gather the corn she brought him. Perhaps she had even journeyed to another village, to bring back someone who would help him out of the pit. He used all his force of mind to try and find a rational reason why the old woman's absence was temporary, but it was no use; the panic was violent and strong, so strong that he could not stop hopping around the pit, gibbering, mewling, cursing. There were many reasons why the old woman might only be gone temporarily, but Scull could not calm himself even for a second by thinking of them. He knew the old woman was dead, she would never be back, and he was alone, in a stinking pit in Mexico. His heart was beating against his ribs so hard he thought it might burst, and hoped it would; or that the arteries of his brain would pop and bring him a quicker death than starving, day by day, amid the scorpions and fleas --for fleas were one of the worst torments of the pit.

They were in his hair, his armpits, everywhere. If he sat still and focused he could see them hopping on his bare leg. From time to time, crazed, he tried to catch them and squeeze them to death, but they mostly eluded him.

With the old woman there Scull could manage a little hope, but now his nerves told him all was lost. The old woman was dead; he was stuck.

He knew he should resign himself, but for hours he was fired with panic, like a motor, a dynamo.

He jumped and jumped; it was as if lightning ran through him. He could not make himself stop jumping; he saw himself soaring with one miraculous jump all the way up, out of the pit. He jumped and gibbered all day, until dusk.

Then he collapsed. When the sunlight of a new day woke him, he was too drained to move.

He still had a little water, and a few scraps of food, but he didn't drink or eat, not for several hours; then, in a rush, he choked down all the food, drank all the water. Though he knew there would be no more he didn't care to ration what there was. He wanted to put sustenance behind him. He had, he thought, fought well; he had held out against torturous circumstances longer than many a man of his acquaintance would have, excepting only his second cousin Ariosto Scull. But the fight was over. He had seen many men--generals, captains, privates, bankers, widowers--arrive at the moment of surrender. Some came to it quickly, after only a short sharp agony; others held to their lives far longer than was seemly. But finally they gave up. He had seen it, on the battlefield, in hospital, in the cold toils of marriage or the great houses of commerce; finally men gave up. He thought he would never have to learn resignation, but that was hubris.

It was time to give up, to stop fighting, to wait for death to ease in.

Now he even regretted killing all the rattlesnakes. He should have left one or two alive. He could have provoked one or two to strike him; while not as rapid as the bite of the fer-de-lance that had killed his cousin Willy in a matter of seventeen minutes, three or four rattlesnake bites would probably be effective enough. Scull even went over and examined the dead snakes, thinking there might be a way to inject himself with the venom; it would ensure a speedier end. But he had beaten the snakes until their heads were crushed and their fangs broken; anyway, the venom must have long since dried up.

After his day of hopping and jumping, raging and gibbering, clawing at the walls and spewing fragments of old orations and Greek verse, Inish Scull settled himself as comfortably as he could against the wall of the pit and did nothing. He wished he had the will to stop his breath, but he didn't. Whether he wanted it or not, his breath came. It was a bright day; to look up at all with his lidless eyes was to invite the sun into his brain. Instead, he kept his head down. His hair was long enough to make a fair shade. He wanted to let go the habit of fighting, to die in calmness. He remembered again the Buddhist, sitting calmly in his orange robes by the Charles River. He had no orange robes, he was not a Buddhist, he was a Scull, Captain Inish Scull. He thought he had fought well in every war he had been able to find, but now was the day of surrender, the day when he had to snap the sword of his will, to cease all battling and be quiet, be calm; then, finally, would come the moment when his breath would stop.

Call and Gus were moving cautiously into the canyon of the Yellow Cliffso when a great bird rose suddenly from behind a little cluster of desert mesquite. Five more rose as well, great bald vultures, so close to the two men that their horses shied.