Chapter 6 Summary and Analysis

It is a windy night, and Kino and Juana walk north toward Loreto, “where the miraculous Virgin has her station.” Juana follows Kino, whose fear is penetrated by an “ancient thing” that has come alive in him. He hears the triumphant music of the pearl playing alongside the Song of the Family. As the wind settles and the moon rises, they unwittingly leave footprints in the sand, which can be tracked by those in pursuit.

During the day, they hide in a crevice by the side of the road. At first light, Kino erases their footprints, telling his wife that there are surely people pursuing them for the pearl. Juana tells him that the pearl could be valueless, that he might be wrong to think that the pearl will bring him fortune. Kino argues that the pearl would not be coveted by the robbers if it were valueless. Kino gazes into the pearl, hoping to see his beautiful visions of the future, but all he sees is the recent evil that has occurred. The music of the pearl turns sinister, and he puts it away.

Kino sleeps in the heat of the day and awakens with an animal light in his eyes. Creeping to where he has a view of the road, he sees the three men who are pursuing them. Two of the trackers are walking, and a third follows on horseback, carrying a rifle. Afraid, Kino readies his knife. He knows that if they succeed in tracking him, he might have to kill the horseman and take his rifle. He watches the trackers observe the spot that had contained his and Juana’s footsteps. The trackers seem to think that they may not be able to trace them. However, Kino is sure that they will be back to find him later.

Kino returns to Juana in a state of panic and wonders if he should let himself be captured. However, Juana protests. Deciding they must go west toward the high stone mountains; Kino runs unconcealed for the high places as all animals do when pursued. Juana follows.

Kino tells Juana to hide. He will go into the mountains and let the trackers follow him, while she is tasked with traveling to the nearest city up north and wait for him to escape and come to her. Three times she refuses him, insisting that they stay together. He tells her that he knows she is unafraid and urges her to remain brave. Kino continues walking toward a cleft in the mountains where he expects to find water. He takes a long, confusing path in the hope of getting the trackers stranded.

Kino and Juana come to the spring in the cleft. As a source of water in the water-scarce desert, the spring draws animals from all around. Such springs are therefore places of life and places of killing. As the sun passes over the mountains, Kino finds a shallow cave. He says they must hide there until the trackers ascend. When the trackers have ascended, Kino says he and Juana will have to slip away, down to the lowlands. He also urges Juana to keep Coyotito from crying. Kino watches from the cave as the trackers move toward the spring, arriving there on foot at dusk.

As darkness falls, Juana tries to keep Coyotito silent. Kino sees the three trackers quite clearly when one of them lights a cigarette; the other two are sleeping, and the watcher holds the rifle. Kino hopes to overtake the man with the rifle before the moon rises. He must then kill him and secure the rifle. He believes there is no other choice, for the trackers might spot them in the morning quite easily. “Go with God,” Juana tells him, and Kino removes his white clothing to camouflage himself in his “own brown skin.” From the cave, Juana “whisper[s] her … Hail Marys and her ancient intercession, against the black inhuman things.” Kino leaves her and descends “like a slow lizard” down toward the spring. The sounds of the night around him arouse the “Song of the Family … fierce and sharp and feline” in Kino’s mind.

As the moon is about to rise, Kino comes to a hiding place a mere foot from the trackers. Just as he prepares to attack the watcher, the moon rises, casting a hard light and hard shadow on everything. Kino prepares to leap into attack when from above comes a little murmuring cry. The watcher, commenting that it may be the cry of a baby or a coyote, raises his gun toward the cave where Juana and Coyotito hide. In the same moment the tracker fires his gun, Kino leaps and kills the shooter with his knife. Having become “a terrible machine … cold and deadly as steel,” Kino takes the gun and kills the second man with the knife. The third scrabbles away. Kino shoots him from a distance, then moves closer and shoots him between the eyes. But it is too late: Kino hears “the cry of death” coming from the cave above.

Kino and Juana’s return to La Paz late the next afternoon is an event that everyone remembers because it “happened to everyone.” Strangely, the two walk side by side, bearing with them “two towers of darkness.” Kino holds the rifle, while Juana holds her bloody shawl containing the body of Coyotito. They seem detached from all kinds of human experience, as if their ordeal has put them under some magical spell. The crowd gathers, but no one speaks to them as they walk through the city.

Passing his burned-down house and broken canoe, Kino, hears the Song of the Family as a battle cry. Kino and Juana stand on the shore, and Kino looks at the pearl’s gray and ulcerous surface. In it, he sees “the frantic eyes of the man in the pool” and Coyotito “with the top of his head shot away.” Hearing the music of the pearl, distorted and insane, Kino offers the pearl to Juana so she can throw it into the sea. “No, you,” she says. Kino tosses the pearl into the lovely green water, where it settles into hiding on the seafloor. Its music drifts to a whisper and disappears.