The Diezmo by Rick Bass (top fiction books of all time TXT) 📗

of you will draw the black bean of death,” he said. “Others of you will draw a white bean and will be spared, if but a little longer.” The interpreter—a young man not much older than myself, and seeming nervous in his uniform—related all of this in a calm voice, as if. he were giving us directions to some long-sought destination only a short distance farther down the road. Colonel Huerta, however, was smiling wickedly.

We were all silent for a minute, stuporous. Then Cameron went berserk, charging the guards, followed by a small group around him, and the guards had to beat them back with the butts of their muskets.

Almost immediately, altar boys brought out an earthen crock and a bench. The crock was placed on the bench. Colonel Huerta brought out a sack of white beans and counted out one hundred fifty-nine of them, one by one, speaking quietly in Spanish, dropping them into the clay pot as we watched. Then a smaller sack was brought to him—black beans—and from this sack he counted out seventeen and poured them in on top of the white beans, then shook the pot weakly in a thinly veiled attempt to keep the black beans of death near the top, as our officers and captains would be drawing first.

We were further surprised to see Shepherd again, standing among the fort’s cavalrymen, though he no longer appeared to be in their ranks. He was bruised, beaten, and cowed, and the guards shoved him roughly toward us, making it clear that he, too, was expected to draw a bean.

All my life up to that point, I had been a conscious creature of restraint, more comfortable standing back and waiting and watching, observing things to the fullest extent possible before making a decision. I felt that this course was prudent, and it had usually served me well.

But there in the stone fort, when I saw Huerta counting, with pleasure, the white and black beans into the pot, I was lifted suddenly by a tremendous wave. All of my life’s inaction had been but a quiet gathering for the action that was demanded now. I had been seized as if by a great storm, and I had no choice.

As the Mexican officers were posting sentries on the walls all around us, I sorted surreptitiously through my small handful of beans for the cleanest white ones I could find.

I could see no way, in the chaos of the moment, to gather and explain to all those for whom I cared deepest the nature of my surprising and secret bounty. In my first surge of panic, I had the thought that survival would be as easy as merely passing out white beans, and I started to do this, making a mental list, an awful prioritization of those whom I wanted to survive.

On the far side of our throng, I saw Charles McLaughlin, who even at this dire time was seated on an overturned saddle, sketching. I was alarmed to see that Cameron and Wallace were also over on the far side of the courtyard; I did not think there would be time to reach them.

Clearly the protection of Fisher and Green was my duty, one of my loyal obligations, and yet something in me counseled hesitation as I made my way toward them, and then I realized what it was. If any of the other men to whom I gave a white bean was to draw a black bean, and then discarded it, revealing the white bean I’d given him, the Mexicans’ quota would be off. Whoever I handed a white bean would have also to somehow secretly drop two beans into the pot, even while they were reaching in to select another. Because there would be no chance to put one’s hand into the pot a second time—to add another white or black bean to replace whatever color each prisoner had drawn honestly—we could only guess what those colors would be: Somehow, they had to add up to seventeen black beans. It was possible that by dropping another black bean in and revealing in the palm of one’s hand the substitute white, there might end up being eighteen black beans in the pot. Perhaps General Huerta would think it possible that they had somehow miscounted, despite their painstaking care, but what would he make of nineteen or even twenty black beans drawn?

And if an eighteenth black bean did appear, from my sleight of hand—my assurance—that would mean my survival had come at the expense of not just one but two of my comrades.

The switchings required were too complex to explain to more than one person in the time remaining, and only I and possibly one other could get through the gate of life, even if only for a little while longer. I made my choice.

James Shepherd was standing off from the rest of us, shoulders hunched up in the big officer’s coat he still wore, head tipped down, as if he were studying the soil in which he might soon be buried. He looked young again, younger even than he had been when he’d started out, and though he was diminished by the loss of his arm, he still possessed the handsomeness and elegance that had first caused the officers of both nations to take him in under their wing.

I hesitated, then hurried over and reached for his hand, took it, and pressed a white bean into his palm.

He looked down at it with no emotion that I could discern, and then looked back at me, and I saw with a shock that he was angry—and my breath caught, and I stared back at him, uncomprehending. Looking away from me then, he clenched the bean in his fist, then cast it to the ground fiercely.

I bent down quickly, picked it back up before anyone could see it, and pressed the bean upon him again, more urgently, saying, “You don’t understand, this can get you home.”

He looked at me