Chapter XXII
José Mertos, when he came at Fargo's bidding, looked exactly the same as always. He seemed to have partaken of the changeless quality of the desert where he was born. His lips were thin, his face impassive, his dark eyes somber as ever. Fargo himself, however, had undergone certain transformations. He was not quite so boastful as usual, nor so arrogant. He looked as if some especially effective medicine had been administered to him. It was plain, however, that the dose had not been entirely to his liking. There were little angry glowings in his eyes that seemed never entirely to fade out.
Anger had always come quickly to Fargo, but it isn't good for the spirit to have it remain indefinitely. It cuts deep lines in the face and fills the eyeballs with ugly little blood vessels, and it makes the hands shake and the heart burn. It also swells the little sacks under the eyes, a thing that is never pleasant to see. It was plain that certain events had recently occurred that Fargo had not yet forgotten, but which had incited a strange hunger within himself that must be satiated with something quite different from bread. And as the days glided past the more fierce the hunger became.
