14
By the time they reached the camp it was snowing and the flakes were dropping diagonally through the pines.
They slanted through the trees, sparse at first and circling as they fell, and then, as the cold wind came driving down the mountain, they came whirling and thick and Robert Jordan stood in front of the cave in a rage and watched them.
"We will have much snow," Pablo said.
His voice was thick and his eyes were red and bleary.
"Has the gypsy come in?" Robert Jordan asked him.
"No," Pablo said.
"Neither him nor the old man."
"Will you come with me to the upper post on the road?"
"No," Pablo said.
"I will take no part in this."
"I will find it myself."
"In this storm you might miss it," Pablo said.
"I would not go now."
"It's just downhill to the road and then follow it up."
"You could find it.
But thy two sentries will be coming up now with the snow and you would miss them on the way."
"The old man is waiting for me."
"Nay.
He will come in now with the snow.
Pablo looked at the snow that was blowing fast now past the mouth of the cave and said,
"You do not like the snow, _Ingles?_"
Robert Jordan swore and Pablo looked at him through his bleary eyes and laughed.
"With this thy offensive goes, _Ingles_," he said.
"Come into the cave and thy people will be in directly."
Inside the cave Maria was busy at the fire and Pilar at the kitchen table.
The fire was smoking but, as the girl worked with it, poking in a stick of wood and then fanning it with a folded paper, there was a puff and then a flare and the wood was burning, drawing brightly as the wind sucked a draft out of the hole in the roof.
"And this snow," Robert Jordan said.
"You think there will be much?"
"Much," Pablo said contentedly.
Then called to Pilar, "You don't like it, woman, either?
Now that you command you do not like this snow?"
"_A mi que?_" Pilar said, over her shoulder.
"If it snows it snows."
"Drink some wine, _Ingles_," Pablo said.
"I have been drinking all day waiting for the snow."
"Give me a cup," Robert Jordan said.
"To the snow," Pablo said and touched cups with him.
Robert Jordan looked him in the eyes and clinked his cup.
You bleary-eyed murderous sod, he thought.
I'd like to clink this cup against your teeth. _Take it easy_, he told himself, _take it easy_.
"It is very beautiful the snow," Pablo said.
"You won't want to sleep outside with the snow falling."
So _that's_ on your mind too is it? Robert Jordan thought.
You've a lot of troubles, haven't you, Pablo?
"No?" he said, politely.
"No.
Very cold," Pablo said.
"Very wet."
You don't know why those old eiderdowns cost sixty-five dollars, Robert Jordan thought.