Thief steals the cart

After days of rest and recovery on the beach, the man and the boy had built a camp stocked with supplies salvaged from the wrecked sailboat Pájaro de Esperanza. They had eaten huge meals, dried their clothes by the fire, and pruned their stores to a manageable load for the grocery cart. But when they returned to camp late one day, the man saw bootprints in the sand. He stopped, cold with dread. The tarp was gone. Their blankets, the water bottle, their campsite store of food, and even their shoes had vanished. The sailcloth leanto had blown into the dunes. The man ran up through the swale of seaoats where he had left the cart, but the cart was gone. Everything was gone. He cursed himself as a stupid ass. The boy stood wide-eyed, beginning to cry. The man told him to stay close and not to cry; they needed to find the thief.

Tracking the Thief

The man could see the tracks of the cart where they sloughed up through the loose sand, along with bootprints. He lost the track on better ground beyond the bracken, then picked it up again. When they reached the road, he stopped the boy with his hand. The road was exposed to the wind from the sea and blown free of ash save for patches here and there. He told the boy not to step in the road and to help look for sand—even just a little bit—to see which way the thief had gone. The boy soon found a half teaspoon of beach sand that had tilted from somewhere in the understructure of the cart. The man stood and looked out down the road. "Good work," he said. "Let's go." They set off at a jogtrot, but the man could not keep up the pace. He had to stop, leaning over and coughing. He looked up at the boy, wheezing. "We'll have to walk," he said. "If they hear us they'll hide by the side of the road." The boy asked how many there were. The man did not know. "Maybe just one," he said. "Are we going to kill them?" the boy asked. "I don't know," the man answered.

Confrontation and Retribution

It was another hour, deep into the long dusk, before they overtook the thief, bent over the loaded cart, trundling down the road before them. When he looked back and saw them, he tried to run with the cart, but it was useless. Finally he stopped and stood behind the cart holding a butcher knife. When he saw the pistol, he stepped back but did not drop the knife. The man ordered him to get away from the cart and put down the knife. The thief was an outcast from one of the communes; the fingers of his right hand had been cut away, leaving a fleshy spatula. He tried to hide it behind him. The cart was piled high with everything he had taken. The man cocked the pistol—two loud clicks. The silence of the salt moorland was broken only by their breathing. The man said, "If you don't put down the knife and get away from the cart, I'm going to blow your brains out." The thief looked at the child, and what he saw was very sobering. He laid the knife on top of the blankets and backed away. The man ordered him further back. The boy cried out, "Papa, please don't kill the man." The thief's eyes swung wildly. "Come on, man. I done what you said. Listen to the boy." The man then ordered the thief to take off every stitch of clothing. The thief protested, but the man threatened to kill him where he stood. The thief stripped slowly, piling his vile rags in the road. The man ordered him to take off his shoes as well. The thief looked at the boy, who had turned away and put his hands over his ears. He sat naked in the road and unlaced the rotting pieces of leather laced to his feet. He stood up, holding them in one hand. The man ordered him to put them in the cart. He stepped forward and placed the shoes on top of the blankets, then stepped back, standing raw and naked, filthy, starving, covering himself with his hand. He was already shivering. The man ordered him to put the clothes in the cart as well. The thief bent and scooped up the rags in his arms and piled them on top of the shoes. He stood there holding himself, begging. "Don't do this, man. You didn't mind doing it to us." The boy pleaded, "Papa, come on." The thief said, "Listen to the kid. I'm starving, man. You'd have done the same." The man replied, "You took everything." He pulled the cart back, swung it around, put the pistol on top, and said, "Let's go." They set out along the road south, with the boy crying and looking back at the nude and slatlike creature standing there in the road shivering and hugging himself. "Oh Papa," he sobbed. "Stop it. I can't stop it." The man asked what the boy thought would have happened to them if they had not caught the thief. "Just stop it." "I'm trying," the boy said.

The Boy's Compassion and the Aftermath

When they reached the curve in the road, the thief was still standing there. There was no place for him to go. The boy kept looking back, and when he could no longer see the thief, he stopped and sat down in the road sobbing. The man pulled up and stood looking at him. He dug their shoes out of the cart and sat down, beginning to take the wrappings off the boy's feet. "You have to stop crying," he said. "I can't." They put on their shoes, and the man walked back up the road but could not see the thief. He came back and stood over the boy. "He's gone," he said. "Come on." "He's not gone," the boy said, his face streaked with soot. "He's not." "What do you want to do?" the man asked. "Just help him, Papa. Just help him." The man looked back up the road. "He was just hungry, Papa. He's going to die." "He's going to die anyway," the man said. "He's so scared, Papa." The man squatted and looked at him. "I'm scared," he said. "Do you understand? I'm scared." The boy did not answer. He just sat there with his head bowed, sobbing. "You're not the one who has to worry about everything," the man said. The boy said something the man could not understand. "What?" he said. The boy looked up, his wet and grimy face. "Yes I am," he said. "I am the one."

They wheeled the tottering cart back up the road and stood there in the cold and the gathering dark, calling out, but no one came. The boy said the thief was afraid to answer. They went up the road calling out in the empty dusk, their voices lost over the darkening shorelands. Finally the man piled the thief's shoes and clothes in the road and put a rock on top of them. "We have to go," he said. "We have to go." They made a dry camp with no fire. The man sorted out cans for their supper and warmed them over the gas burner. They ate, and the boy said nothing. The man tried to see his face in the blue light from the burner. "I wasn't going to kill him," he said. But the boy did not answer. They rolled themselves in the blankets and lay there in the dark. The man thought he could hear the sea, but perhaps it was just the wind. He could tell by his breathing that the boy was awake, and after a while the boy said, "But we did kill him."