Mapuche (52 page)

Jana opened hers, but that didn't help. Diesel had left, his tail between his legs, and had not come back. The animal had probably understood what was going to happen. A melancholy drizzle was falling. Jana got up, a metallic taste in her mouth, and walked toward the center of the clearing where the prisoners were floundering. Von Wernisch's crumpled face was whey-colored; he was praying silently, turning his back on El Toro, a greasy mass crawling in the mud out of which he had been born. The killer must be looking for a stone, something with a sharp edge. Jana grabbed the cardinal under his arms and pulled him backward toward the dry ground. “Uuh! uuh!” the old man yelped through the gag as she dragged his stiff body, but he no longer had the strength to resist. El Toro stopped creeping, on the alert. Von Wernisch implored the Indian, pitiful tears in his eyes, and panicked when he saw the pile of earth next to the hole. He struggled, kicking weakly, and vigorously shook his head: Jana pushed the howling package into the grave.

The priest's body disappeared from the surface of the Earth. El Toro, on his knees, gulped. Chained to the tree trunk, Franco Díaz observed the scene with terror: the Mapuche had lied to him. The agreement they'd made was a fool's bargain; she wasn't going to spare him, as she had promised, in exchange for his obedience: the savage was going to massacre them one by one. Jana did not listen to von Wernisch's muffled cries and supplications at the bottom of the grave: she took up the Selk'nam knife and went toward El Toro.

The man tore madly at his bonds and threw back his head, uttering what had to be taken for threats. She crouched down next to him; he was grimacing with his smashed jaw.

“El Toro, huh?”

Jana turned toward the edge of the clearing and the araucaria where El Picador was hanging

“See your little pal?” she said in a voice that was too calm. “I'll make a deal with you. If you rape him to death, the way you did Miguel, I'll spare you; otherwise I'll bury you alive with the old man.”

A veil of stupefaction passed over the prisoner's eyes. Jana did not depart from her falsely tranquil tone.

“You have a choice, El Toro: it's you or him.”

He could hear von Wernisch moaning in the pit, very nearby. El Picador was no longer moving, his twisted foot attached to the branch. A grimace of hatred made the torturer's bloody mouth even uglier.

“
India de mierda!
” he muttered.

Jana stood up. The fat man was squirming at her feet, mad with rage. Of course. He raped boys but he wasn't like Miguel, no, not El Toro. Jana was a Mapuche, one of the people whom the Spaniards hunted with dogs trained to devour them, people who were paid by the number of ears they cut off. She would begin with the worst: the pig.

She jumped on him and made him roll in the mud. He fought back, shoving her desperately with his shoulders, but she straddled him, her eyes blazing. Jana grabbed El Toro's scalp as he lay on the ground, and took a firm grip on the handle of the knife. A tear of cruelty rolled down her Indian's cheek.

“This is for Paula,” she said as she cut off the first ear. “And this is for Rubén.”

Diesel was waiting in the trees, impassive in his dog's way. A timid sun pierced the clouds after the first rain of the morning. The animal was sitting on the bank of a stream that flowed there, examining the limited horizon as though a hypothetical vessel of flesh and bone might emerge from it. A familiar odor diverted him from his hungry reverie: suddenly cheering up, Diesel abandoned his observation post and trotted toward his mistress, who was approaching him.

Jana had left the clearing and was walking like an automaton toward the stream, which she had found the day before. The sight of the animal didn't affect her one way or the other. Diesel licked her hands to welcome her, wagging his tail, without seeing the collar of ears that was dripping blood on her stunted breasts. Jana was no longer herself. Neither a sculptress nor a Mapuche ghost or Selk'nam risen from beyond the tomb to avenge her people: she remained crouched at the edge of the stream, her cracked paint on her face, her eyes empty. The T-shirt under her jacket was sticky with blood, and El Toro's cries still echoed in her head, but she wasn't done yet. The two others were still out there: Parise and Ardiles. Only afterward could she go back to her own. Rubén . . .

Diesel yapped, as if trying to bring her back to the right side of the world, a mouse's squeal that was lost in the lapping of the stream. Jana washed her hands and the knife in the water, which briefly took on a rosy tint. The air was blowing over the carpet of moss as she stood up. The fugitives had gone north. According to her detailed map of the park, there was only one trail that could be taken across the forest: the one that led to the former mission. They must have waited for daylight so that they could get their bearings. They had one, maybe two hours' head start. The Mapuche put on her backpack, shouldered the rifle, and started off between the trees.

Diesel followed her through the ferns, wagging his tail.

 

*

 

The birds were singing again among the damp branches. Mist still lay on the ground after the terror of the night; his ankle hurt, but Parise could walk. They seemed to have lost the killer who was following them, but apart from that the situation was not promising: he was out of ammunition, he had nothing but a pocket knife and his jacket, which was too thin to protect him against the cold, and the pain was making him nasty. Fifty-nine years old. The former interrogating officer was no longer young, but he'd manage, as he always did. Ardiles had chosen him for that—even crippled, this guy remained a force of nature.

The two men had fled in the darkness, plunging straight ahead, deaf to the cries they heard behind them. They had made their way through the anarchic vegetation; one hour had seemed like a hundred, until they finally stopped somewhere right in the middle of the forest, exhausted. It was too dark to go on. In any case, they were lost, and they both needed a rest to regain their strength. They had taken turns keeping watch, slept a few hours with fear in the pit of their stomachs, until dawn finally came. Parise's pale face had hollowed as if it had been sucked inward, the bullet stuck in his ankle hurt him, but the daylight appearing between the foliage had perked him up a bit. The giant had chosen a heavy branch that would serve as both a cane and a club. Soaked, their bellies empty, they had set out again, keeping an eye out for shadows in the undergrowth.

The light guided them through the thorny brush. The forest grew less dense as they moved higher; the two men followed the ferns that led under the foliage and after an hour's forced march, they found a marked trail. It rose gently uphill toward the ridge.

“What do you think, Parise?” Ardiles asked, out of breath.

“This trail has to go somewhere. A road, or a pass . . . With a little luck, we'll get some reception.”

They decided to continue north. It would be very surprising if they didn't find civilization. As for the mysterious killer who was tracking them, they preferred not to mention him—it was a miracle they'd survived that night. The drizzle accompanied them through the forest. At 6,500 feet, their blood was short of oxygen, and the slope was getting steeper. The general struggled on, but the wound in his arm had started acting up again—that brute Parise had knocked him down when he'd demanded a weapon—but this was not the time for making acerbic remarks or settling accounts. They kept going, in silence. Sweat and rain ran down their faces. The ground was slippery, the pines fewer.

“We're coming to the summit,” the head of security announced, looking even paler.

They came first to a low stone wall amid the ferns, and then rockslides; a little higher up, they found more walls, the remains of an ancient building that had been overtaken by vegetation.

A former mission.

The fugitives approached it slowly, wary of unpleasant surprises. Bushes and weeds had covered the crumbling walls, but the outline of the monastery could still be discerned; given the state of the ruins, it must date from the Conquest of the Wilderness.

“Let's stop,” Parise panted.

The wind was stronger on the heights, and the sky was finally clear, despite the gathering clouds. He sat down on a low wall to rest his wounded ankle while the general explored the ruins. Ardiles's shoes slipped on the rocks; he caught himself by grabbing with his good hand the scrawny bushes thriving there, swore under his breath, and soon reached the back of the building. The mission was located on a rocky outcropping that overlooked the wooded valley. The foothills of the Andes, whose summits had never seemed so near, stretched out under the vaporous clouds. The old soldier frowned. A lake glimmered in the distance, inaccessible; a ravine about thirty feet deep blocked the way. Below, a mass of tangled brambles and bushes spread out like a sea of thorns and rock. They'd come all this way to end up stuck in a dead end.

 

*

 

Jana walked for more than an hour before finding their tracks. The giant was wounded—she'd hit him in the ankle the day before, along the road—and the footprints in the mud were of unequal depth. The old man who was with him was not in much better shape. A bird of prey soared over her in the pale sky; she climbed through the forest, her throat dry despite the full supply of water in her pack. Diesel was still sniffing around alongside her, more concerned with the dragonflies than with their own odor of carrion: Jana could almost smell it despite her crushed cartilage, an odor of death, intoxicating. She followed the tracks on the damp soil. Old hunting reflexes. Things would have been different with her brothers, but what did that matter now? El Picador's and El Toro's ears were coagulating on her breast, and she no longer thought about them. No longer thought at all. The revolver was loaded, she still had five bullets, and six more in the rifle. Jana, who up to that time had walked at a steady pace, slowed down. The sun had climbed higher, now it could be seen through the sparse treetops, and the fugitives were no longer very far ahead. What would they do once they were backed up against the old mission? Would they retrace their steps, or would they try to go around the obstacle by going along the precipice? The Mapuche hadn't reconnoitered that far, guessing that seized by panic they would flee in the direction opposite the gunfire. She moved forward, full of apprehension, and reached the first ruins.

Shadowing his mistress faithfully, Diesel stopped whipping the ferns with his tail. He saw her crouch amid the vegetation, lifted his head toward the high ground, and, his nose to the wind, suddenly started to bark. A hoarse bark that echoed through the valley.

“Fuck,” Jana grumbled. “Fine time to open his mouth.”

She kicked the mongrel away and kept her eyes glued to the mission for a long time: no one. But they were there. Diesel kept his distance, ashamed, his tail between his legs to beg her pardon.

“Get out of here, damn it!”

Putting actions to her words, she drove the animal away; he took off without protest. A few feverish seconds passed. She soon found an observation post at the edge of the woods, put down her rifle, lay down among the ferns, and sought a target through the telescopic sight. Two hundred yards of open ground between her and the ruins of the mission. Jana hesitated. The tracks led here, but she didn't see any others. She crept forward between the low crumbling walls, the Remington pressed against her shoulder, on her guard. It had started to rain again, a few large drops that bounced off the leaves of the succulents. The soles of her Doc Martens crackled on the little stones; she advanced little by little, in the shelter of the walls, sweeping the site as she approached the main building. Diesel had disappeared; his stupid barking had betrayed her presence, but no one was making any sign of life. They couldn't have gone very far: the old general must be exhausted, and the bald man burning with fever with his ankle in fragments. Jana moved forward again, very cautiously, without realizing that her advance was being watched.

 

Parise had been trying to make a bandage with part of his shirt when the dog's barking made him sit straight up. Someone was coming: it had to be the killer, the one who had set a trap for them on the road. But this time it was broad daylight and they were the ones who had the advantage of surprise. Parise limped back up and took cover behind a hole in the wall through which he could observe the enemy without being seen. Ardiles, who had been wandering along the edge of the ravine, had rejoined him, anxious.

“Did you hear that?” he whispered.

“Yes.”

The two men crouched down, watching the movements at the edge of the forest. Parise's heart jumped when he recognized the girl who had escaped from the delta. The whore had tracked them to the dead end and was trying to flank them on the right. She was no longer very far away, about sixty yards, a furtive silhouette among the plants and rockslides.

“Get up, general.”

“To do what?” murmured the old soldier as Parise was helping him to rise. “Be careful of my arm, for God's sake!”

Fatigue and fear made him stagger. Leandro Ardiles hardly had time to regain his balance.

“Sorry, general, but I have no choice.”

The giant pulled him toward the slope.

“What are you doing? Parise! Parise, stop! Aah!”

Ardiles tried to grab the collar of Parise's coat but lost a shoe and slipped on the pebbles.

“Parise! What . . . ”

The bald man gritted his teeth as he awkwardly put his weight on his broken ankle and pushed the old man toward the ruins down below, where the Indian was hiding.

Jana heard his cry. She waited a few seconds, her hand gripping the handle of the revolver. Then she heard his calls for help. She put down her things, released the safety, and climbed up under cover. The moans were coming from the summit. She moved slowly closer, keeping an eye on the shadows under the rain, her weapon in her hand, and found Ardiles lying among the thornbushes, against a wall that had checked his fall. He was moaning and holding his wounded arm, pale as a sheet. Jana pointed the revolver at him, felt the icy wind hit her, too late: she turned around and found herself face to face with Parise, who leaped out of the ruins. She pulled the trigger just as he brought his club down on her wrist. The bullet dug several inches into the earth and the gun flew out of her hand. Jana stepped aside to avoid Parise's charge but the giant grabbed her by the hair and threw her brutally to the ground. She fell facedown and the killer immediately jumped on her. Rolling over on her back, she fought with the energy of desperation. She shouted as she kicked haphazardly, hoping to break what remained of his ankle, but Parise was too quick, too heavy: he pinned her to the ground, 250 pounds of hatred weighing on her rib cage.