Kino attacks and kills the trackers

Kino attacks and kills the three trackers who have pursued his family into the mountains, but in the final exchange Coyotito is accidentally shot and killed by the trackers' rifle fire, an event that transforms Kino's desperate bid for freedom into an irrevocable tragedy and sets the stage for the family's return to La Paz.

The Plan and the Descent

Kino, Juana, and Coyotito have taken refuge in a shallow erosion cave thirty feet above a small pool in a mountain cleft, the only water source for miles. Below them, the three trackers—two on foot and one on horseback—have arrived at the pool at dusk. The horse could not climb the last steep slope, so all three are now on foot. Kino watches from the cave entrance as the trackers eat and then settle for the night: two curl up like dogs to sleep, while the third squats on the sand with the rifle between his knees, keeping watch. Kino knows that if he does not act, the trackers will find them in the morning. He tells Juana, "There is a way," and explains his plan: he must get to the man with the rifle first, then he will be all right, because two are sleeping. Juana protests, "But they will kill you," and warns that his white clothes will show up in the starlight. Kino replies that he must go before moonrise. He gives Juana final instructions: "If they kill me, lie quietly. And when they are gone away, go to Loreto." Juana's hand shakes as she holds his wrist, but she says, "Go with God." Kino touches Coyotito's head and then Juana's cheek, and she holds her breath.

The Silent Approach

Kino strips off his white clothes, for even though they are dirty and ragged, they would show up against the dark night; his own brown skin is a better protection. He hooks his amulet neck-string about the horn handle of his great knife so that it hangs down in front of him, leaving both hands free. Then, crouched and silent, he is gone from the cave entrance. Juana moves to the entrance and looks out, peering like an owl from the hole in the mountain. The baby sleeps under the blanket on her back, his face turned sideways against her neck and shoulder, and she whispers her combination of prayer and magic, her Hail Marys and her ancient intercession, against the black unhuman things. The night seems a little less dark now, and to the east there is a lightning in the sky near the horizon where the moon will show. Kino edges like a slow lizard down the smooth rock shoulder. He has turned his neck-string so that the great knife hangs down from his back and cannot clash against the stone. His spread fingers grip the mountain, his bare toes find support through contact, and even his chest lies against the stone so that he will not slip. He knows that any sound—a rolling pebble, a sigh, a little slip of flesh on rock—would rouse the watchers below. But the night is not silent: the little tree frogs that live near the stream twitter like birds, and the high metallic ringing of the cicadas fills the mountain cleft. Kino's own music is in his head—the music of the enemy, low and pulsing, nearly asleep—but the Song of the Family has become as fierce and sharp and feline as the snarl of a female puma, alive now and driving him down on the dark enemy. He creeps silently as a shadow down the smooth mountain face, moving one bare foot a few inches, then the other, then one palm, then the other, until the whole body, without seeming to move, has moved. His mouth is open so that even his breath makes no sound. It takes him a long time to reach the bottom and crouch behind a little dwarf palm. His heart thunders in his chest and his hands and face are wet with sweat. Only twenty feet separate him from the enemy now. He kneads his legs against cramp and finds his muscles jerking after their long tension. He looks apprehensively to the east: the moon will rise in a few moments, and he must attack before it rises. Silently he draws the amulet string over his shoulder and loosens the loop from the horn handle of his great knife.

The Moonrise and the Fatal Cry

Kino is too late. As he rises from his crouch, the silver edge of the moon slips above the eastern horizon, and he sinks back behind his bush. It is an old and ragged moon, but it throws hard light and hard shadow into the mountain cleft. Now Kino can see the seated figure of the watcher on the little beach beside the pool. The watcher gazes full at the moon, then lights another cigarette; the match illumines his dark face for a moment. There can be no waiting now: when the watcher turns his head, Kino must leap. His legs are as tight as wound springs. Then, from above, comes a little murmuring cry. The watcher turns his head to listen and stands up. One of the sleepers stirs on the ground, awakens, and asks quietly, "What is it?" The watcher replies, "I don't know. It sounded like a cry, almost like a human—like a baby." The man who had been sleeping says, "You can't tell. Some coyote bitch with a litter. I've heard a coyote pup cry like a baby." The sweat rolls in drops down Kino's forehead and falls into his eyes and burns them. The little cry comes again, and the watcher looks up the side of the hill to the dark cave. "Coyote maybe," he says, and Kino hears the harsh click as he cocks the rifle. "If it's a coyote, this will stop it," the watcher says as he raises the gun.

The Attack and the Aftermath

Kino is in mid-leap when the gun crashes and the barrel-flash makes a picture on his eyes. The great knife swings and crunches hollowly; it bites through neck and deep into chest. Kino is a terrible machine now. He grasps the rifle even as he wrenches free his knife. His strength and movement and speed are a machine. He whirls and strikes the head of the seated man like a melon. The third man scrabbles away like a crab, slips into the pool, and then begins to climb frantically up the cliff where the water pencils down, whimpering and gibbering as he tries to get up. But Kino has become as cold and deadly as steel. Deliberately he throws the lever of the rifle, raises the gun, aims deliberately, and fires. He sees his enemy tumble backward into the pool, strides to the water, and in the moonlight sees the frantic frightened eyes. Kino aims and fires between the eyes. Then he stands uncertainly. Something is wrong; some signal is trying to get through to his brain. The tree frogs and cicadas are silent now. Kino's brain clears from its red concentration, and he knows the sound: the keening, moaning, rising hysterical cry from the little cave in the side of the stone mountain—the cry of death. Coyotito has been shot.