They were a courageous-looking lot. The sunburned _hacendados_ had the bodies of people who live outdoors, for even the asthmatic Count had been a stockman. The powdered women stood out among the peasants who needed only a feather or two to put them back a thousand years. Fine faces, buck faces, pretty girls, hags with tortilla cheeks, all gazed with sympathy at the grave of the child. A bright cloud hung over the group, its shadow twisting toward the slope of the volcano. Shadows flecked the grove, the bent heads, the casket and its wilting flowers; other shadows fled across fields where oxen grazed. Gabriel said a few words and prayed and Angelina wept, clinging to Raul's arm, hating his black, hating Lucienne. She longed to return to her room and hide her grief, to be away from Lucienne's auburn hair, her placid face. Had she never known tragedy? Why had she come? Not out of respect! No, no ... to see Raul, to bribe him away, to laugh at her sorrow ... let me go, Raul. I'll go back alone! Slowly, everyone began to leave the grove. Raul thought himself the only one left, and then he saw his father in his chair among the trees. A great iguana peered at him from a palm immediately behind: its iridescent greenish head and dark eyes faced the ground, the tongue licked out. Click, click, ssh, ssh, said the blackbirds. "Shall I call the men to carry you?" asked Raul. "No," growled Fernando. "I told them to leave me here." A flock of parrots fanned through the wood, loros, with red on their shoulders, yellow daubs on their beaks. "My wife's gravestone is the parrots' roosting place," said Fernando. "She gave up her fight too soon. They'll not dump their excrement on my grave any sooner than I can help it." Raul kicked at a scrap of palm and admired his courage. "Death is for fools," the old man spluttered. "Then we're all due to be fools," Raul said. "Light a cigarette for me." Raul's wax taper flared and dropped among the fronds and and grass. "Caterina was no fool," Fernando retracted. "But you shouldn't have buried her in her scarlet dress." "What would you have liked?" "That doesn't matter." "Your men have come to carry you." "Let them wait. I came to sit and think. I'm old enough to sit and think. Over there is Pepe. He called himself 'The Tiger.' Under that crooked palm is Mama; I was glad to see her go because she never had a well day. There's Papa--the man I murdered. He'll be glad to see me go." The old man's voice was blown by the wind. "I counted them one day last year ... quite a lot of them buried there. The jungle has us under its vines and lianas and rot...." "I'll have this place cleaned next week." Fernando guffawed. "You'll have it cleaned. What for? Can you keep back the jungle? Are you thinking of Caterina? The jungle has her already. This palmera stretches all the way to the Pacific. You can't stop it, boy.... Neither can you change the hacienda." "I can try."