Watcher in the Pine (25 page)

Finally, after what seemed like a long time, Battista opened the door. “The patrols have gone out, sir.”

Tejada inspected the corporal in the light that filtered in from the hallway. Battista’s stance was cautious, but he had not drawn his weapon. The lieutenant spoke carefully. “I haven’t eaten anything today, Battista. Would you get me a tray?”

“Of course, sir.” The corporal’s voice was sympathetic. “You’ll feel better after you eat.”

“I hope so,” Tejada said. “Send one of the men with the tray, and spare yourself the stairs,” he added casually, as the corporal withdrew.

“We’re the only ones left at the post, sir. The sergeant thought it would be better if no one else knew about . . . your situation.”

“Tactful of him,” Tejada said. His mind was clearing the way it did in combat, picking up details of Battista’s stance, gauging distances and timing.
If the maquis are smart
, he thought,
they’ll attack the post now. They could pick up the ammunition and there’s no way Battista and I could hold them off. My God, suppose the kidnapping is a decoy. They might return Elena once they have what they need, and then Márquez will have quite a bit of explaining to do about leaving the post unguarded!

Cheered by these thoughts, Tejada waited impatiently for Battista’s return. He considered telling the corporal of his worries about the post’s vulnerability. He doubted that Battista would release or rearm him. Still, it seemed worthwhile to say cautiously as the corporal opened the door a second time, “Have you thought about what will happen if the maquis try to attack here?”

“Yes.” Battista nodded, pleased that the lieutenant appeared to be recovering his sense of responsibility. “I thought of that. I’ve locked the stuff in the cellar for the night. And I’ve stored the key separately, so if anything happens to me they won’t get it, even if they think of looking there.”

“Good work,” Tejada said, sincerely pleased. He sat quietly on the cot as far as possible from the door, his hands dangling between his knees. “That smells good,” he added sociably, as the corporal turned his back.

“
Favada asturiana
,” Battista said cheerfully, over his shoulder.

Tejada knew that he would not have more than a few seconds. Battista had brought a tray with bread and a heavy bowl up the stairs, but he was no waiter. The tray had occupied both his hands. There was no place to set it down in the hallway, and the heavy bolts on the cell door were unoiled so that it was easier to open with two hands. Even so, Tejada had hardly dared to hope that Battista would set the tray on the floor before opening the door. But the lieutenant was lucky. Battista stooped, half-facing away from his commander, and picked up the heavy tray. The corporal heard a faint creak, and something flickered in his peripheral vision, but his instinct was to not move too quickly to avoid spilling the hot
favada
. Before he could straighten to see what had happened, a weight landed on his back and his hands were jerked behind him. The tray crashed to the floor, the
favada
spraying along the wall.

Battista stumbled and lost his footing, landing heavily on his knees. He was lowered inexorably onto his face, and the weight behind him resolved itself into a knee in his back. “Didn’t they teach you at the academy never to turn your back on prisoners?” Tejada said, slightly breathless, as he reached for the pistol in Battista’s holster.

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”

“This is grounds for court-martial,” Tejada said dryly, standing up but keeping his weapon trained on the prone guardia. “But thanks to Sergeant Márquez, you’re the only person available to make sure the post isn’t raided by maquis tonight. Try not to screw that up.”

Battista pushed himself to his knees and felt the barrel of his own pistol against his shoulder blades. He froze. “What about you, sir?”

“I’m going to find my wife,” Tejada said grimly. “Before this damn house-to-house kills her.”

“B-but, sir!”

“Lie down and put your hands on your head,” Tejada interrupted. “And pray that the maquis don’t make off with so much as a teaspoon from the post while I’m gone. I may overlook insubordination, but not incompetence. Have a good night, Corporal.”

He stepped over Battista, and hurried down the stairs. He headed for his office at a run, unsure how long Battista would remain cowed. His cloak was there, along with his own pistol. He tossed Battista’s weapon onto the table, grabbed his own, and left the post, thinking rapidly.

It was nearly eleven, and low-moving clouds scudded across the sky in a heavy wind. Tejada could see lights in the houses high above the river and hear the angry residents arguing with guardias who were making their way through the town. He sprinted for the parish house, and pounded on the door. It seemed like a long time before he saw a light go on in the hall, and heard the bolt being drawn back. Father Bernardo’s eyes widened at the sight of the lieutenant. “Good evening, my son. Come in. What happened?”

Tejada stepped inside, gasping for breath. “I need to find the maquis,” he said.

The priest’s eyebrows shot up. “That is your job, yes. But why this urgency?”

“I don’t mean find them to stop them,” Tejada explained. “I need to find one of their leaders. To speak to him. Just for a few minutes. That’s all. I’ll go anywhere within reason. You know the people here. You must know who has sons or brothers in the mountains. Vouch for me to them.” As the priest opened his mouth to reply, Tejada added, “If it’s something you only know under seal of confession, I won’t ask for names. We can meet anonymously. They can be masked, if they like. But I have to give them a message, and it has to be tonight.”

Father Bernardo frowned. “There are one or two families who might talk to me,” he admitted. “But in the middle of the night? And while the guardias are doing a house-to-house search?”

“That’s the problem,” Tejada interrupted, in agony. “I have to tell them that I didn’t order the house-to-house. That they can’t hurt Elena because of it. Tell them I’ll give them what they want, but they can’t hurt Elena.”

“Why would they hurt your wife?” Father Bernardo asked, frowning. “What do they want?”

Tejada hastily summarized the contents of the note he had received, and his encounter with Sergeant Márquez. “You understand why I have to find her,” he finished desperately. “I never got a chance to tell her I was sorry after all those things I told you about, and if . . . if anything happens to her now she’ll think that it’s because I didn’t care enough to protect her.”

“Yes.” Father Bernardo took the lieutenant’s arm and led him into the study. “I don’t like to mix in Guardia business,” he said. “But Señora Fernández and her child shouldn’t be endangered like this. Sit down and wait here. I can’t promise you anything, but I’ll try to pay some calls.”

“Bless you!” Tejada leaned on the chair Father Bernardo had indicated, too nervous to sit down.

At the door to the study, the priest turned. “I won’t ask whether you really intend to comply with the maquis’ demands,” he said quietly, “because I don’t like to bargain in bad faith. But I suggest you have the answer clear in your own mind.”

He left, and Tejada paced back and forth, trying to crush the hope that Father Bernardo would be helpful before it became too strong.
If I can just have a
clue
where to start looking for her
, he thought.
Just a
clue
and a little more time. We’ve been lucky so far
.
Lucky with Santiago telling us about Argüébanes, and lucky about finding those Thompsons, and about recovering the dynamite. Hard to believe how lucky. Almost divinely guided. We just have to stay lucky a little longer. Just one more miracle, please, God, just one more small miracle and I’ll never ask for anything else
.

Tejada had hoped that Father Bernardo would return quickly, but the little clock on the mantelpiece ticked quietly past eleven thirty and chimed midnight, and there was no sign of the priest.
Hurry, hurry, hurry
, Tejada willed silently.
It can’t be too late yet. But hurry
. At twelve thirty, Tejada began to wonder whether he should strike out randomly searching for Elena, or risk walking to Tama to find the Álvarezes and see if they had any information. At one o’clock, he began to worry that Elena might already be dead. Finally, a little before one thirty, the door opened and Father Bernardo came in, looking grave. Tejada, who had finally sunk into a chair, shot to his feet. “Well?”

“The whole town is up because of the house-to-house,” the priest said. “So I was able to talk to a few people.”

“And?”

“Check around Monte Viorna,” Father Bernardo said quietly.

Tejada seized the priest’s hand. “Thank you.”

“Wait a moment,” Father Bernardo said as Tejada headed for the door. “Do you have a flashlight?”

“No.”

They were already in the hallway. The priest turned and disappeared up the stairs, leaving Tejada shifting from foot to foot with impatience. He was back within a few minutes, holding out an electric flashlight. “I find this useful in the sacristy. Don’t wear out the batteries,” he said quietly.

“I’ll replace them,” Tejada promised.

“Go with God,” Father Bernardo said as he opened the door for his guest. Tejada thanked him again, and set off into the night.

Chapter 20

A
spasm of back pain jolted Elena awake. For a moment she was conscious only of her discomfort and a cold terror that the baby had been hurt. Then she understood that she was uncomfortable partly because she was lying on her back—which had been an uncomfortable position for the last several months—and partly because her hands were tied behind her, digging into the small of her back. The baby was utterly still, but its by-now-familiar weight was still there. Slowly, her panic receded, and, to her relief, the pain followed it. She was still uncomfortable and frightened, but terror and agony no longer made it impossible for her to think.

She was lying on damp and uneven stone, in near-total blackness. The cellar—or cell or vault or whatever it was—was wet and probably not overly clean. She wriggled onto her side in an attempt to make herself more comfortable, and felt grit when she turned her cheek against the damp rock. A breeze made her shiver, and brought the incongruously pleasant smell of pines. Elena craned her neck sideways and upward, and saw that her prison was equipped with an open doorway. Although “doorway” was perhaps a grandiose term for the long rectangular opening, gray against the blackness and measuring perhaps five feet by one, which rose just beyond her feet. She inhaled the sweet chilly wind, trying to shake off the last traces of chloroform. It was too dark to tell what lay beyond the gray opening, but the temperature and wind suggested that she was in some sort of structure that was open to the outdoors. Judging from the darkness, she had been unconscious for several hours. It was not an overly cold night, but Elena had no coat, and now that she was awake she was shivering uncontrollably. The baby was still not moving, and Elena’s first thought was to reassure it.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered to her stomach. “We’ll get out of this.”

No friendly squirm or kick greeted her reassurance, and Elena began to worry again about the baby’s health.
He was probably kicking a lot when I was unconscious, and I didn’t feel it
, she told herself.
He’s asleep now, that’s all. Come on, baby. Come on, move
, move
. Let me know you’re all right
. The only answer to her plea was an intense cramp that did not ease her fears at all.

She took a few sobbing breaths, trying to calm herself, and realized that her movements must be clearly audible to her guards. There was no use in feigning unconsciousness, and her pain and fear made even the company of enemies preferable to loneliness. She raised her voice. “Hello? Where are we? Why have you done this to me?”

There was no response. She could not even hear the sighing wind or the distant hoot of an owl, only a terrible overwhelming silence, and her own harsh breathing. She had never been anywhere so completely quiet before. “Hello?” Elena called a little louder, and her voice cracked. “Hello? Answer me, please!”

She listened hard enough to hear her own pulse thudding in her ears, and almost hard enough to hear the baby’s heartbeat as well. But no one answered her. She tried again, her voice shaking. “You don’t have to tell me where we are. Or why we’re here. Or anything. But please say something! Anything!”

It slowly dawned on Elena that no guards could be so totally silent. Curiously, the thought that she had been left unguarded did not raise her hopes for escape. Rather, it plunged her into an irrational panic. “Come back!” she cried uselessly. “Don’t leave me here!”
There are bears up here
, she thought, light-headed.
And wolves. I’ve been left in a bear’s den. And they’ll come back to the cave and eat me and no one will ever find my body so no one will ever know what’s happened. But Carlos will look for me. Unless he’s still angry with me
. It struck her that Carlos might have no idea what had happened.
He’ll think I’ve run off and left him
, she thought.
That I’ve taken the baby and hidden from him on purpose. He won’t know that it wasn’t my fault
.

The growing certainty that her kidnappers could no longer hear her broke Elena’s self-control. Perhaps even the baby could no longer hear her. “Help me! Don’t leave me alone!” she sobbed. And then, more than half way to hysteria, “Carlos!” She wept until the pain in her back took her breath away again. The need to alleviate her discomfort cleared her mind, and she awkwardly rubbed her bound wrists against the sore place as best she could.
Carlos wouldn’t expect you to cry like a baby
, she told herself sternly.
And if you don’t get out of here he’ll never know that you didn’t leave him voluntarily. It’s good that this place is unguarded
.
If you could get your hands free, all you’d have to do would be to find your way home
. Forcing herself to think logically in small steps, she considered ways to free her hands. They were bound with rope that felt coarse against her wrists. So if she could find something sharp to rub the ropes against they would part. Where could she find something sharp? Perhaps on the floor of the cave there was a sharp stone.

She inched along her side until her forehead brushed one wall of her prison. A little more inching put her in place to wriggle her way into a semisitting position. Her elbows were scraped and the back of her head was sore by the time she finished, but she was leaning against one wall, relatively comfortably. It was definitely a wall. She could feel irregularities in the stones, and something that felt like mortar crumbled behind her fingers. Not a cave then. Experimentally, she slid her arms up the wall, palms outward, feeling for jagged rocks that might cut her loose. There were none. With a sigh, Elena began to move sideways along the wall, searching for a sharp and convenient stone. “It’s all right,” she whispered, half to herself and half to the baby, who remained ominously still. “Don’t worry. I’ll find a way to get us out of this.”

She reached the corner of her prison without finding a stone that would suit her purposes, and stopped to rest, temporarily overwhelmed by pain and exhaustion. Her entire body seemed to hurt, either from various scratches, bruises, and cramps, or from general weariness. She took a few deep breaths and began to scoot her way along the next wall, blocking out the thought that the structure might have been too smoothly built to harbor the cutting edge she needed.

The walls were smoothly built, but she found a sharp stone halfway along her second wall by the expedient of sitting on it painfully. For a moment she was afraid that the jagged shard had escaped from her in the darkness, or that it would be too difficult to pick up, but by bracing her shoulders against the wall and scrabbling with her fingers, she managed to pick it up. She dropped it three times before she was able to force it into a workable position to saw at the ropes binding her hands, and each time it clattered in the darkness her heart leapt into her mouth for fear that its edge had been dulled.

The cutting was painfully slow, and her fingers were sticky with blood long before the first strand parted. She stopped often, panting to clear her mind, and a few times she nearly despaired of ever making progress, but finally the first loop separated. The extra play made it easier for her to grip her chosen tool, although her impatience made it seem as if the final cutting took twice as long as it actually did. The moment of bringing her hands in front of her was ecstasy. She massaged her wrists, sucked her bleeding fingers, and gave the baby a comforting pat.

Fortunately, her exertions had warmed her up. Elena rubbed sweat from her forehead, glorying in the ability to freely use her hands, and stood up, cautiously clinging to one wall. She promptly doubled over again, nauseous and slightly dizzy, her back throbbing. Even this setback did not dim her sense of triumph. She sank to the floor again, afraid that lightheadedness might mean a fall dangerous to the baby, and then stood up in stages and tottered toward the gray outline of the doorway of the room she was in, half-expecting a guard to confront her.

She reached the doorway and stepped out into what seemed to be a tiny grassy clearing, surrounded by woods. Clouds blotted out the moon and stars, but the sky was a ghostly gray, far lighter than it would have been on a clear but moonless night. The night air on her face felt like a victory.
Now all I have to do is find my way home
, she thought joyfully.

She turned around to see what lay behind the structure she had just emerged from, and felt her optimism dim a little. The place where she had been left was clearly not a typical shepherd’s hut or barn. It was too small, and too well concealed. It looked as if it had been built into the side of a mountain, and the slope rose above it, far too sheer to climb. If she had not felt the stone walls herself, she would almost have believed it was a natural cave. A ledge extended a few feet on the other side of the cave like building, but the drop below it was steep as well. Elena worked her way along the ledge, hoping that the cave blocked an obvious path in the other direction.
If there were stars, I could tell which way was north
, she thought.
Or, I think I could
. She was slightly depressed by the thought that knowing which direction was north was a useless piece of information since she did not know in which direction she wanted to go.

Her hopes for an easy path on the far side of the cave were dashed as soon as she reached the end of the stone wall. The ledge ended abruptly, merging seamlessly with the mountainside. Far below her, in the distance, she could see pinpoints of light from what must be a village. Elena looked at the lights hungrily, knowing that they would be impossible to reach from her current position. With a sigh, she turned and headed back along the ledge toward the front of the cave, to look for another path.
I know what direction to head in now
, she thought.
If I can just find a village, I’m sure someone will take me in for the night
.

She was walking with one hand along the edge of the cave for support, so when she was attacked by another intense pain she had something to lean on.
This is all I need
, she thought grimly.
It feels like I’m going into labor. Oh, my God! Not labor! Not here! Not now
! With some alarm, Elena mentally checked her physical condition against all the friendly advice and anecdotes she had heard since she had known of her pregnancy. Everything fit.

“Oh, no.” Elena spoke the words aloud as she hurried toward the boundary of trees that hemmed in the clearing. “No, baby, this is a mistake. You’re not due for another two weeks. Just stay quiet now, and I’ll drink a nice glass of milk for you when we get home.”

She was answered by another contraction.

“I can’t deal with this right now!” Elena spoke aloud, because words seemed more dignified than a moan.

No friendly and obvious road opened between the trees, but Elena knew that logically the men who had brought her here— wherever
here
was—must have followed some path. She strained her eyes through the darkness, and finally made out what looked like a definite gap between the trees. At any rate, there was no underbrush there, and although it was hard to tell in the dim light, the ground looked as if it had been trampled recently. Naturally, the trail—if it could be called that—ran almost directly down the steepest part of the slope, at an angle that she would have found difficult to scramble down under the best of circumstances.

“Why does everything have to be halfway up a cliff in this country?” Elena murmured, disgusted. Then her brain started working. Her kidnappers had taken some trouble to get her here without serious injury. Obviously, they did not want her to escape. But they did not want her dead either. So she must be a hostage for something. If she was a hostage then they had told Carlos, and he would not be angry with her for disappearing. He was probably looking for her already. Elena’s wave of relief was abruptly dammed by another contraction. When it had passed, she continued thinking rapidly. The men had not posted guards around the cave. Either they did not have the manpower, or they trusted that she would be unable to escape on her own. Or they had posted guards
somewhere else
. At the bottom of the only path leading away from the cave perhaps? That was a clever way, if they knew the guardias were searching. Even if the guards were found, they would not lead directly to Elena.

She peered dubiously through the gloom of the forest, trying to make out the end of the track. A man could be hidden within a few yards of the path in the darkness, and she would never know. And making a rapid escape was impossible. Elena considered what her kidnappers might do to her if they caught her escaping. Another contraction decided her. She was a hostage, and they wanted her alive. Besides, she couldn’t think of anything much worse than being in labor alone on a mountaintop. Cautiously, she sat down and began to lever herself down the path. If her guards attempted to stop her, she would take the opportunity to tell them that they had better find a midwife if they wanted their hostages to remain healthy.

It was almost pitch-black in the forest, and her progress was hampered by increasingly frequent pauses to deal with labor pains. She had little sense of time, and she began to hope that she would encounter her captors soon, if only because of the protection they could provide from wild animals and the simple danger of losing the path. She was vaguely aware that the trail became less steep and more definitely a path as she progressed. Then, quite suddenly, after what felt like forever and was probably between one and two hours, the trees opened, and she was in another clearing, this time with a wide, level road fit for a horseman, and almost for a truck, leading out of it in one direction. Unfortunately, as far as Elena could tell, it was heading away from the lights she had seen from her prison.