Out in the Open (19 page)

There was still no sign of daybreak, but he reckoned that it would not be long before the sun came up. He felt incapable of moving the man's body on his own. For a moment, it seemed to him that it really didn't matter if the man stayed where he was. His quarrel was with the bailiff, not the deputy. He looked across at the well. The goatherd was sitting very still, with the dog at his side and the goats scattered nearby. An idea came to him.

He went to the well and hauled up several pitchers of water which he gave to the animals, letting them drink their fill. Then he climbed onto the wall of the well and detached the pulley from the well arch. The sheer weight of it almost made him topple over into the water.

He went back to the inn and put the pulley down on the table. He groped his way along the walls for any store cupboards in which he might find a length of rope. With only the pantry as yet unexplored, he stopped. In the silence, he could hear his own breathing. As he passed the bailiff's body, his boot skidded in the pool of blood coagulating on the floor tiles. To clean the blood off his soles, he scuffed them along the floor as he made his way over to the pantry. With the cripple's stinking body at his feet, he reached out and felt along the shelves, where he found the handles of tools, strings of garlic and a length of rope hanging from a nail.

The chain and manacle of his captivity were still there on the pillar. He managed to hook the pulley onto the manacle, then passed the rope through the rusty wheel. He pulled the two ends of the rope over to the deputy's body and tied one end to the rope around the man's ankles. He then tugged on the other end until the dead man's boots were parallel, as if he were standing to attention. He tried to pull still harder, but the sheer weight of the dead body threw him off balance. Then he rested his feet on either side of the door frame and, using his own weight, pulled again as hard as he could. The corpse moved, only slightly, but it moved. Twenty minutes later, he had managed to winch the deputy far enough into the room to be able to pull the door to.

What he did next was not done on the orders of the goatherd. He went over to the bailiff's body and, keeping his eyes tight shut, patted the man's jacket, feeling for the silver lighter, which, once found, he slipped into his own shirt pocket. He then drenched the bodies with oil from a can he had found in the pantry. The liquid soaked the men's clothes and, when these were saturated, spilled onto the floor, permanently staining the painted tiles. On top of the bodies he scattered wattle fallen from the roof, the rope from the pulley, and the broken wooden crates in which the cripple had kept soda siphons. He picked up the shattered remains of the wicker chair and added them to the pyre, keeping back one slat from which he made a torch by wrapping bits of sacking and cloth around it, secured with twine. Outside, it was beginning to grow light.

The boy returned to the well carrying a wooden crate, and when he got there, squatted down next to the goatherd.

‘Everything's ready. We can go now.'

‘Are the bodies safe?'

The boy glanced across at the inn, whose whitewashed walls now glowed red in light from the rising sun.

‘Yes, I think so.'

‘Hell will already have opened its doors to them.'

‘It will.'

He placed the straw hat on the old man's head and helped him up. The goatherd scarcely had the strength to stand. His trousers flapped loose about his legs. His ragged jacket barely covered his bruised and beaten body. The boy had not realised until then how very thin the old man was. He helped him sit down on the edge of the wall, placed the wooden crate under his feet and, by pulling on his arms, managed to get him onto the box. Then he brought the donkey over and positioned it sideways on to the goatherd so that the packsaddle and the panniers were at stomach height. The boy helped him lie face down on the load and, by tugging on the old man's arms and legs, finally got him sitting upright on the donkey's back, his legs slotted in between the bulging panniers.

The boy returned to the inn one last time. It was light in the street now, but it would be several hours before the sun penetrated the room. He picked up his improvised torch and peered in, although he could see very little. He breathed in the rancid air and, for the first time, caught the familiar smell of mice. A smell composed of sawdust, nibbled corn grains and chocolate-brown droppings. He could smell the cripple's body, whose insides were doubtless already beginning to putrefy, as well as all the other meaty aromas that still lingered in the atmosphere despite his plunderings. He grabbed the door knocker and pulled hard, but the door wouldn't close. He tried several times without success, then noticed that the deputy's hand was blocking it. He kicked the hand out of the way and this time managed to slam the door shut, listening for the latch to click home. He then looked across at the well and saw the goatherd still mounted on the donkey, head bowed and hands folded submissively like a captive.

He took the lighter from his shirt pocket and flicked it on. The bluish flame illuminated his grimy face. If he could have seen himself in a mirror, he would have burst into tears. He applied the flame to the torch and blew on it until the flame took hold. He held the torch head downwards and turned it slowly until the whole thing was alight. He opened one of the shutters, threw the torch onto the pyre and watched. Nothing happened at first and, for a moment, he feared that the pyre might not catch fire at all and that the torch might burn out. Then, after a couple of minutes, the wicker chair began to burn and the rest followed. Leaving the shutter ajar so that the air would feed the flames, he rejoined the goatherd and the animals. It was daylight by the time he once again took up the donkey's halter and they set off northwards out of the village, heading for the mountains.

IT WASN'T UNTIL
later in the morning, when they were far from the village and the smoke, that he realised the goatherd was dead. He had decided to stop and rest in a small grove of trees away from the road, because, now that night had passed, it seemed prudent to seek shelter from the sun and from other people, and to try and sleep a little. He thought the goatherd would approve, because that had been the way he himself had organised their journeys, travelling by night and lying low during the day.

This was the first time since they had met that he, rather than the old man, had been the one to decide when they should stop and, in taking that decision, the boy felt that he was now the person in charge and that the old man would perhaps be grateful for his collaboration.

During the journey, he had glanced round several times to make sure that the goats and the old man were all right. At one point, he had noticed that the old man had slumped forward and was actually lying on the necks of the flasks protruding from the panniers. The boy assumed he had fallen asleep and, knowing how deeply weary the old man must be, he was not surprised that a man his age could maintain such an uncomfortable position.

They left the road and crossed a dry, stony stretch of ground. He noticed the tracks they were leaving and felt an impulse to erase them, but although he could brush away the donkey's tracks with branches, he wasn't prepared to go back and pick up all the goats' droppings. He thought about the previous night, about the deputy's crushed skull and the bailiff's head blown to pieces thanks to gunpowder, lead and the goatherd. He thought, too, about the days they had spent travelling, and about the sleepless nights, the hunger and the rare occasions when they had been able to stuff themselves with food. Close now to their destination, he felt his eyelids tremble and, at that precise moment, he really didn't care any more. He could have stopped right there, in the middle of the plain, knelt down and fallen asleep, but they were so very near the wood that he determined to make one last effort.

It was a small pine wood, but dense enough for them to be able to camp inside it and not be seen from the road. Of course, for anyone intent on finding them, it would be easy enough, but, just then, even that did not matter to him. He gathered together a few branches and, using a rough circle of bushes as posts, quickly built a corral of sorts. With the help of the dog, he herded the goats into the corral and went back to help the goatherd dismount and then unload the donkey.

‘We can rest here for a while if you like.'

The old man said nothing. The boy went over to the donkey and lifted the brim of the old man's straw hat. His eyes were closed, and the boy rather envied him. He released the goatherd's legs from where they were lodged between the panniers and the donkey's ribcage. Then, propping one shoulder against the old man's waist, he tried to pull him off the back of the donkey. The weight proved too much for him, however, and both of them fell backwards onto the carpet of crisp pine needles.

The old man's body, lying on top of him, stank as much as his. For a moment, the boy couldn't understand what he was doing there underneath, and had it not been for the unbearable stench, he might have stayed there. He pushed at the goatherd, whose body fell back onto the ground like a door opening. He remained there next to the old man's corpse, as if he had thrown off a blanket on a particularly warm morning. Exhaustion bound him to the earth. He lay there, breathing and gazing up at the tops of the pine trees. The millions of needles combed the yellow light and sifted the glow from a sky too bright to be looked at directly. In the breeze the needles kept up a soothing murmur. There was no point shaking the goatherd's head or trying to open his eyelids. The boy knew the goatherd was dead and that was that. He had neither the energy nor the desire to think about what had happened nor about what was to come, because his child's body was utterly exhausted. He shuffled his bottom and his shoulders deeper into the pine needles he was lying on. Then, without thinking, he linked arms with the old man and surrendered to sleep much as someone standing at the seashore allows the wind to cool his face.

He was woken by the dog prodding him in the small of his back. He opened his eyes and touched the dog's head, and the dog immediately relaxed and lay down on the ground. The tops of the pine trees were still there, but they were no longer filtering the intense midday light, and were filled instead with the dusty orange of evening. Suddenly aware of the old man's arm in his, the boy sat bolt upright. His stomach hurt. Something sharp was sticking in his back. He turned, knelt down and scrabbled among the pine needles until he found a small, sharp pine cone. Still rubbing his back, he studied the cone, then lobbed it over the top of the corral. He didn't know how long he had been asleep. The donkey was still there, laden with all the food and implements. The boy went over and pressed his face to the animal's muzzle, stroking its cheeks. Then he emptied the panniers, removed the halter and poured some water into a saucepan he had taken from the inn.

Despite his aching stomach, he walked to the edge of the pine wood to look back at the road. The light was brighter there and, from where he was standing, he saw the road stretching away in either direction. Seeing no sign of movement, he went back to where the old man was lying. The pain in his stomach, he thought, might well be due to the putrid water they'd been drinking, and the only reason his stomach hadn't hurt before was because his body hadn't had a moment's rest. He felt thirsty but, instead of drinking more of the untreated water, he decided that, from then on, he would boil it first. He saw the donkey with its muzzle deep in the saucepan, and his eyes moved from the saucepan to the donkey and then to the goats. He looked around him as if hoping to find some solution in the air around him. A slight breeze to fan a fire or a spring appearing out of nowhere to pour cool water into his leather-dry mouth. Then he felt the bailiff's lighter in his pocket and this decided him against lighting a fire.

He wandered aimlessly about the wood, deliberately avoiding looking at the old man. He checked their store of food, tested the solidity of the frying pan and sniffed the oil. He let the goats out of the corral so that they could move around a little and watched as the dog immediately sprang into action to keep them in order. He again stroked the donkey, went back to the edge of the wood and sat down on a fallen tree trunk. After a while, he remembered that he was thirsty and returned to the encampment.

Choosing the goat with the fullest udder, he sat down behind it and worked the teats with one hand until he had extracted the first few drops. He placed a saucepan underneath and milked until the pan sounded fairly full. He then shooed the goat away and raised the pan to his lips to drink the little milk he had managed to get. He sat still for a while, then put the saucepan down on the ground and went over to where the goatherd was lying. For the first time since the old man had died, the boy dared to look at his corpse. The old man was stretched out on the ground, his face relaxed and seemingly less lined. His straw hat lay about a foot from his body, where it had landed when he fell off the donkey. His fists were almost clenched. His filthy jacket was unbuttoned to reveal the scars from the beating he had taken. He could have been asleep, but he was doubtless already rotting inside. Behind him, the boy heard the clink of goats' bells and, falling to his knees beside the motionless body, he wept.

It was still dark when the ants woke him. They were running over the back of his hand, which served as his pillow, and onto his face. He got to his knees and quickly brushed the ants off. He could barely see six feet in front of him. He touched the old man's body beside him and felt how cold it was. With his hands he scraped away the pine needles until he reached soil and then made a slightly larger clearing. In the centre he piled up a few dry leaves and with the lighter lit a tiny bonfire. The feeble flames were just bright enough for him to be able to see that the goatherd's face and chest were also covered in ants. He got rid of them by using a small pine branch as a broom. He then went to the panniers to fetch the frying pan and stood at the goatherd's feet. Starting at the top of the old man's head, he used the handle of the frying pan to draw a horizontal line out to the left, then he went down to his heels and drew another line. He then extended these lines further out to the left, measured the width of the body with his hands, and transferred that measurement out to the two parallel horizontal lines.