Watcher in the Pine (16 page)

The song ended in a round of applause, then there was a moment of stillness. Tejada wondered if the people in the cabin had been dancing, and were now catching their breath, perhaps even sweating a little from the exercise. The fire must have warmed the small cabin thoroughly by now, and they had eaten and drunk heavily. Or perhaps they were simply quiet and staring into the heart of the flames, wondering whether the next singer would pick a love song or a war song. They were probably happy. Relaxed. Off guard. “Now,” he said.

The quiet of the mountains was shattered by a burst of machine-gun fire that pockmarked the adobe and shattered the windows of the cabin. Inside, someone screamed. As the echoes died away, Tejada raised his voice. “Guardia Civil! The house is surrounded. Throw out your weapons, and come out with your hands over your heads!”

For a few tense moments there was silence. Then the lights went out in the cabin, and there was a burst of return fire. Tejada flattened himself against the earth as bullets rained around him. “You’re making it worse for yourselves!” he called, as soon as there was a pause. There was another round of firing. The shots came considerably nearer this time. They were aiming at his voice. Tejada edged himself a little farther out of range, and spoke up again. “If you give yourselves up peacefully now, I give you my word it will weigh in your favor at trial.”

The cabin’s inhabitants fired again, and Tejada heard a grunt to his right. Then one of the guardias from Panes said softly, “I’m hit in the shoulder, sir.”

“Get out of range,” the lieutenant ordered. “And stay low. We’ll take care of them.”

“Yes, sir.” There was a sob in the man’s voice, but he began dragging himself backward.

“Last chance,” Tejada yelled. “Come out now, or we come in shooting.”

He waited thirty seconds, and then started firing. The echoes of the guns multiplied, as Corporal Battista and the guardias on the other side of the house began shooting as well. After perhaps five minutes, the door to the darkened cabin opened, and a figure emerged, crouched, and running in a wild zigzag. He seemed to have the Devil’s own luck in dodging bullets, and he made it almost twenty meters down the path. Tejada wasn’t sure which of the guardias finally hit him. The guardias crawled forward, still firing rapidly. The return shots became more infrequent, and finally stopped. There were no more casualties among the Guardia, and after a few more minutes, Tejada called a halt. “Had enough?” he shouted. There was no answer. Cautiously, he pushed himself to his knees. “Anyone still alive in there?”

Again, the only answer was the whistling of the breeze. “All right,” the lieutenant said in a low voice. “Carvallo, you and I will take the door. The rest of you, cover the windows. Be prepared for a trap.”

They reached the walls of the cabin without incident. It was designed for housing sheep, and the door opened outward. Cautiously, Carvallo reached over to the handle and pulled the door open. No one emerged. The unwounded guardia from Panes and one of the guardias from Unquera were flattened on either side of the windows. Tejada took a deep breath, and then stepped into the black hole of the cabin’s doorway, strafing the floor as he did so. He was rewarded by a sudden cry. “Light!” he yelled.

The faint beams of Battista’s flashlight helpfully flickered through a window on the other side of the cabin. The firelight on the hearth was brighter. It illuminated a bare room with an earth floor, empty except for two long wooden benches and several bales of hay stacked along one wall. Empty bottles of wine lay on the floor, along with a confusion of tin plates holding cheese rinds and the bones of well-gnawed lamb chops. Two men were lying dead beside the windows. One of them still clutched his machine gun. A third was obviously the one who had cried out at Tejada’s entrance. He had been crouched at one side of the door, probably holding the hunting knife that now lay beside him. He was now clutching a wound in his thigh.

The guardias quickly occupied the little space. “The magazines are empty, sir,” Carvallo reported after checking the guns. “They must have come without spare ammunition.”

Tejada relit the lamp that the bandits had blown out when they were attacked. The unwounded guardia from Panes jerked the wounded man’s hands away from his leg and handcuffed them. “The others are dead, sir, right?” he said. “So it’s just this one.”

The harmony of the voices raised in song came back to the lieutenant and he shook his head. “Search,” he said briefly. “There should be a woman as well.”

They found her hiding behind the bales of hay, with mud on her dress and straw in her hair. Her eyes were enormous, and in the flickering light she looked very young. “Pedro!” She jerked her elbow out of Carvallo’s grasp and flung herself at the wounded man with a cry.

“Stand away from him!” one of the guardias said sharply.

“It’s all right.” The man she had called Pedro spoke at the same time. His teeth were clenched and he was sweating, but his voice was soothing. “It’s just a scratch. I’m fine.”

She began to cry, still kneeling by him. “I said stand away!” The guardia cocked his pistol.

“Put that away!” Tejada snapped, and moved to stand in front of the girl. He took her by the shoulders and dragged her to her feet. “Come on, Señorita. Perhaps you can identify these men for us?” He turned the girl toward the first of the dead men as he spoke, and felt her sway in his grip, racked by dry sobs. “Stop bawling. You obviously know who he is. We just need a name.”

“Rafa-Rafael,” she choked, twisting away from the sight of the corpse. “Rafael Campos.”

“Thank you. And this one?”

“Oh, no,” she whispered. “Oh, no. No, no, no, please, God, no.”

Tejada frowned, wondering why she refused to name the dead man and also why the man’s face looked vaguely familiar. “That’s Luis Severino,” the voice came from behind him. It was the wounded Pedro. “And you might spare his daughter the chore of identifying him.”

Tejada stared at the corpse and suddenly remembered Bárbara Nuñez saying, “Good night, Luis,” as the wagon that had brought him to Potes drove off into the night. Another piece of the puzzle fell into place as he remembered his first encounter with Luis Severino at the railway station in Unquera. “To Argüébanes, sir. I live there. See, here are my papers.”
No wonder he hadn’t wanted to take a pair of guardias as passengers
, Tejada thought, grimly amused. Ortíz was already going through Severino’s pockets, while one of the guardias from Unquera did the same to Campos’s body, under Corporal Battista’s direction. Another guardia from Unquera was searching Pedro. The wounded man’s eyes were closed, and his face was drawn in pain. His leg was still bleeding heavily.

Tejada handcuffed the girl, but left her wrists in front of her so she would be less uncomfortable, speaking as he did so. “Carvallo, Guardia Riera—from Panes—was hit. Take his partner and get him back to the post as quickly as possible. Take one of the trucks. The rest of you, move it. Make sure you take the weapons with you when we go.”

They left the cabin quickly, two guardias dragging the semi-conscious Pedro, and Tejada still escorting Severino’s daughter. The town was dark and still, and Tejada wondered if any of the neighbors had heard the gunfire in the forest, and what they had thought of it if they had. Everyone was keeping their windows shuttered. “What are we going to do with the girl, sir?” Battista asked as they reached the remaining truck.

“Put her in one of the cells for the night,” Tejada said. “We have an extra one. And they have facilities for female prisoners in Santander.”

The guardia who had searched their other prisoner laughed. “No need to worry about the little lady’s virtue, Lieutenant,” he said. “Her friend Pedro had condoms in his pocket.”

“Interesting.” Tejada raised his eyebrows and turned to look at Pedro’s slumped form. “You’ve been over the border recently then?” The wounded man did not reply.

“You won’t get anything out of him now. He’s out like a light,” a guardia said. “You’re sure we shouldn’t question the girl? Find out what such a cute little thing was doing unprotected up there in the mountains?” He gave their prisoner an appraising glance that made her shrink back against the seat.

Ortíz saw the glance, opened his mouth, and then closed it again, looking unhappy. Half-buried memories of wartime slithered out of the muck like crocodiles, making Tejada’s stomach clench. “No,” he said. “Put her in one of the cells. And don’t touch her.”

“Yes, Lieutenant. At your orders.” The guardia shrugged, philosophical. Ortíz and the girl both heaved silent sighs of relief as Tejada turned the key in the ignition, and the little convoy rolled out of Argüébanes, and back to the post.

Chapter 13

H
ow late did you get in last night?” Elena kept her eyes on the flow of coffee into the cup and her voice neutral.

“Not late. A little after one.” Tejada hesitated, and then added, “I’ll tell you about it, if you like. But I wonder if you’d do me a favor?”

Elena had expected him to be reluctant, or even ashamed, but she had not imagined he would ask for her help. She looked up, forgetting her reservations. “Of course. Why? What’s the matter?”

Tejada hastily summarized the night’s adventures. Elena was frowning heavily by the time he finished, but when he said, “So I thought, maybe—Severino’s daughter doesn’t look more than eighteen, and we have no female wardens,” she instantly understood him.

“Of course I’ll visit the poor girl,” Elena interrupted.

“I thought you might be willing to search her,” Tejada explained, embarrassed. “I don’t mean a strip search or anything,” he added quickly, seeing that she was about to object. “Just go through her pockets. It’s really a formality. But I thought she might prefer having another woman do it. In case she’s carrying—how should I know?—something private. And of course you could stay and talk to her a little. I’m sure she’d be grateful for the company. The poor kid’s just lost her father, after all.”

Elena scoffed. “Delicate attention from someone who’s just blown him away! Oh, you don’t need to worry,” she said impatiently. “I’ll do it. I’ll do it.”

“You’re a woman in a million.”

“I know,” Elena retorted. “The other nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine wouldn’t put up with you.”

That was why after breakfast Elena found herself retracing the steps of her first day in Potes, over the ancient stone bridge to the Guardia’s makeshift headquarters and up the stairs to the long hallway where two of the doors stood locked, with Guardia Torres on guard outside. Tejada had remained downstairs in his office, but had obviously informed the rest of the post about Elena’s errand. The guardia saluted when he saw her. “Good morning, Señora. You’re here to see the prisoner?”

Elena nodded. “How is she doing this morning?”

Torres shrugged and sneezed. “How you’d expect, I suppose. I’ll let you in.” He unlocked one of the doors and pushed it open, saying cheerfully but not unkindly, “Morning, sweetheart. You’ve got company. Call if you need me,” he added to Elena as she stepped through the door and it swung shut.

The cell was bare except for a cot and a basin and pitcher in the far corner. The cot had no sheets, but someone had left a pillow and a folded blanket across one end. The girl had been curled up on the cot, her face buried in the pillow, but she sat up as the cell door opened, and watched Elena, wide-eyed. Unruly ringlets of hair escaped from the knot at the back of her neck and frizzed wildly over her head. Her face was smudged with dirt and tears, and the fingernails clenched in the pillow she was clutching to her stomach were grimy. Her skirt was an ankle-length plaid, the clothing of a schoolgirl, not a grown woman. She stood up, a little clumsily, as Elena approached. “You—are you a prisoner, too?”

Elena felt a surge of pity for the girl’s grief and confusion, and thought that Carlos had probably overestimated her age. “No,” she said gently, putting one arm around the girl’s shoulders. “My name is Elena Fernández. I’m the lieutenant’s wife. My husband thought you might like company.”

The girl shivered. “I have to go home.” Her voice was pleading. “I’m the oldest. Concha can’t get breakfast for the boys without me. And they’ll be up by now, and see that I’m not there. Or Papa.” Her voice died.

“I’m sure your mother . . . ” Elena began.

“My mother died three years ago. I
have
to go home!”

“I’m sorry,” Elena said quietly, sitting down and drawing the girl down beside her. “I’m sure the neighbors will take care of your little siblings for today. But I’ll take them a message if you like. What should I say?”

The girl screwed up her face. “Tell Concha that Juan and Avelino should stay with Marcial and keep working, and that she should take the babies to Uncle Nino in San Vicente until I can send word. And tell them I love them.”

“I will,” Elena promised. “What’s your name?”

“Dolores. Dolores Severino.” The girl took a deep breath. “Señora Fernández?”

“Yes?”

“What’s going to happen to me?”

“I don’t know,” Elena said honestly. “I think you’ll be taken to Santander for trial. You might go to prison. But from what I heard, you didn’t participate in the shooting and—how old are you?”

“I’ll be sixteen in April.”

“I don’t think anyone would consider you a dangerous criminal,” Elena said encouragingly.

Dolores gulped. “Papa told me not to go,” she whispered. “He said he’d bring a message for me if I wanted to say hello to—if I wanted to say hello. But I wanted to see everyone so badly. I baked bread for them.” Her voice warbled around a sob. “They all said they liked my bread. And then when Rafa was hit, Papa yelled at me to get down behind the hay and hide.” She was crying openly now. “I was so scared. I put my head down and put my fingers in my ears and I didn’t help them! I didn’t help them.” The rest of her sentence was unintelligible.

Elena put both arms around the girl and rocked her back and forth as if she were a much younger child.
I’m damned if I’ll search her
, she thought.
She can go to Santander without a search, and Carlos will just have to live with it
. She waited until Dolores’s sobs had subsided somewhat, and then pulled out a handkerchief. “Blow,” she commanded, still using a voice appropriate to a child.

Dolores hiccuped, sniffed, and blew. Elena stood up and went over to the basin. It was empty. She picked it up and rapped on the door. “Get some water,” she ordered Torres. “And a sponge, if you can find one.”

He hurried down the hall and returned a few minutes later with the basin three-quarters full. The water was icy cold, but the guardia had brought clean and reasonably soft towels, and a small chunk of soap. Elena thanked him and turned her attention back to Dolores. By the time the girl had washed her face and hands and run her fingers through her hair, she was calm enough that Elena thought she might like breakfast. “The guard brought some before,” Dolores admitted. “But I said I wasn’t hungry so he took it away again.”

“Maybe he’ll bring it back,” Elena suggested. “And I could go and see about getting word to your little sister.”

Dolores nodded. “Yes, please.”

Elena called Torres to the door. “Señorita Severino wants her breakfast now,” she said. “And I’ll be back to see her in a little while.”

As Elena left the cell, Dolores raised her voice. “Señora Fernández!”

“Yes?”

The girl gave her a timid smile. “Thank you.”

Elena found her husband alone in his office. “How can I get to Argüébanes?” she demanded. “I need to take a message for Dolores.”

Tejada raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t mean for you to transform yourself into her personal servant.”

“Carlos, do you have any idea what that poor child has gone through?”

“The poor child was involved in a shoot-out that left Guardia Riera seriously injured,” Tejada retorted. She began a furious retort but he held up one hand and cut her off. “I know. She wasn’t the ringleader. I’ll drive you over to Argüébanes this afternoon. I’d like to see Severino’s family anyway.”

“Dolores says he was a widower,” Elena said. “She’s the oldest child.”

Tejada looked quizzical. “Is that what she says? How interesting.”

“Why?”

The lieutenant tapped the papers on his desk. “I pulled the civil register on Severino. According to this, Dolores has an older brother, Luis Gil, born in ’22. I’m wondering where he is.”

“Maybe he died young.”

“It’s not recorded.” Tejada made a wry face. “Unless, of course, you think he’s the one who panicked and headed out under fire last night, in which case, yes, he did die young. We still haven’t identified him, but Dolores was in no state to tell us more last night.”

“You wouldn’t ask her to do that!”

“Not if I can get Father Bernardo or a reliable neighbor to do it instead,” Tejada said pragmatically. “I don’t want to have to drag her out to the morgue and back.”

Elena frowned. “At any rate, she’s responsible for her little brothers and sister. She wants to know what’s going to happen to them.”

“That would have been a good question to ask before she decided to play queen of the bandits,” Tejada said.

Elena stared at him, unable to believe what she was hearing. “You don’t care at all?”

“Her father and his friends tried to kill me last night,” the lieutenant reminded his wife. “I admit that lessens my sympathy.” He eyed the civil register thoughtfully. “Although Severino passed up a chance to kill us both when he picked us up in Unquera. So maybe I owe his daughter something for that.”

“All we did was ask for a ride!” Elena protested.

“I was in uniform,” Tejada reminded her. “And he could have caught me off guard easily.”

“Maybe he was unarmed,” Elena said grimly, disliking her husband’s logic. “He probably didn’t take a machine gun along when he went to visit his brother in San Vicente.”

“How do you know he has a brother in San Vicente?”

“Dolores said she wanted to send the younger children to her uncle there, and I assumed . . .” Elena heard what she was saying and stopped. “Where else could he have been traveling?” she asked, but her voice lacked conviction.

“That was a very unpleasant experience,” Tejada said, again tapping his pen on the desk. “Waiting for so long at the station, remember?”

“Because the guardias didn’t arrive to pick us up,” Elena said slowly.

“Because they were searching for the Valencians who had just escaped,” Tejada finished, beginning to smile. “And along came an old peasant making a seventy-kilometer trip in a snowstorm and I was so cold and tired and impatient I didn’t even think to ask where he’d been and why!” He began to laugh. “Jesus, poor man! Here he takes the Valencians down to the coast, where they’ll have a shot at a boat to France, or a train south, or God knows what, and he trundles along home congratulating himself on a job well done and then out of nowhere up pops a guardia civil demanding to know who he is and where he’s going. I must have given him a heart attack!”

“And then you asked for a ride,” Elena said, smiling a little reluctantly as she recognized the grisly humor of the situation.

“And damn near made him pull up in front of the post.” Tejada was still grinning. “No wonder he said he thought I was on duty!”

The door opened as he was speaking. “Who was on duty?” Sergeant Márquez asked.

“Nothing. I think we’ve just figured something out about the Valencians.” Tejada sobered in the presence of his subordinate, but his voice was still good-humored. “Luis Severino was the man Elena and I rode with on our way to Potes, and it seems he has a brother in San Vicente. We were just considering the possibility that he’d taken the runaways to the coast.”

“It’s a good thought,” Márquez agreed, moving toward his desk.

Elena, who had unthinkingly taken his chair because it was available, stood up. “I’m sorry to intrude. I’ll see you this afternoon then?”

“I’ll pick you up at home,” Tejada agreed.

Elena nodded and left. When the door had closed behind her, Márquez turned toward his commander. “You and Señora de Tejada have plans for this afternoon?”

Tejada was uncomfortable as he said, “Elena wants to visit Severino’s family. I thought I’d drive her over this afternoon and ask about the brother as well.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?” the sergeant asked. “I mean, given her sympathies, I think any contact with the maquis—”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Tejada interrupted shortly. “Have you finished the patrol schedules, Sergeant?”

Márquez still looked disapproving, but there was nothing more he could say. It was perhaps just as well that paperwork kept him in the office all morning, so he missed Elena’s second visit to the prison. This time, she came carrying a package with an extra blouse, a sewing kit, and a hairbrush. She found Guardia Torres, and demanded to see Dolores Severino again. The girl was sitting on her cot looking rather forlorn, but she brightened at the sight of Elena. “Did you find Concha?”