“You put yourself forward as a delegado, did you?”
Juan Prieto grinned ruefully.
“There were those in the village who wished me to serve,” he admitted. “But to go on with the story – the majority of people in the assembly were in favor of forming a collective, but there was quite a large minority of individualistas who said that it would not work – that men who farmed their own land themselves would be far more successful than any collective could possibly be.”
“If you were in the majority, you could have forced them to join – at gunpoint if necessary – whether they wanted to or not,” Paco pointed out.
Juan Prieto sighed.
“True,” he agreed, “but we had not turned our guns on our enemies, so how could we now turn them on people who we considered no more than misguided friends?”
“That has happened in other places,” Paco said.
“But not here,” Juan Prieto said fiercely. “Instead of fighting each other, we reached a compromise. Those who wished to join the collective could do so immediately. Those who wished to remain individualistas could continue to farm their own land – in addition to extra parcelas which we had confiscated from the landlords. Then, when the spring came and we could see the results of the two systems, we would decide by a vote which was in the best interests of the Republic. If the vote were to go against the collective, then any member who wished to could leave it, taking out exactly what he put in. But if there was still a majority for the collective, then the individualistas would have no alternative but to join us.”
“Spring is not so far away,” Paco said.
“Not so far at all.”
“And how do you think the vote will go?”
“We have lost a little of our initial support,” Juan Prieto admitted, “but if we can just hold on to what we have left, we will win easily.”
“You sound as if you think there is a possibility that you won’t hold the support,” Paco said.
“I think that there are men in this town who will do all they can to ensure that we fail.”
“Tell me about your accident.”
Juan Prieto smiled.
“You are a clever man.”
“I am a man who has learned to distrust convenient coincidences,” Paco told him.
“My ‘accident’ happened late one evening. Everyone else had gone home, but I was out with the tractor in the fields, trying to make up some of the time I had lost doing my delegado work. The tractor turned over. I was trapped under it, and my leg was crushed. It’s a good thing that my son came looking for me, or I would probably have frozen to death.”
“What made the tractor turn over?” Paco asked, though he suspected that he already knew the answer.
“I was driving over some bumpy ground, and the bolts which held on one of the wheels suddenly sheared off. It could have been a genuine accident – such things do happen – but the collective’s chief mechanic swears that he had checked the tractor over thoroughly only the day before.”
“Are you saying that someone tried to kill you?”
“I would not go so far as that,” Prieto said. “But it certainly suits those who are against the collective that I should be unable to campaign for it.”
“I think I’m beginning to see how Samuel Johnson fits into all of this,” Paco said.
“Are you?”
“Yes. After you were injured, you needed someone to replace you. Someone with the same power to persuade as you have yourself. And even though he could not speak our language, Johnson had that power.”
“Samuel believed in strength through unity,” Juan Prieto said. “Believed in it enough to fight for it at every opportunity which presented itself. When he addressed the members of the collective, they did not understand his words – but not for a second could they doubt his sincerity.”
“With him on your side, you would have won?”
“Yes,” Prieto agreed. “With him on our side, I do not see how we could have failed.”
“And you think that’s why he was killed?”
“I don’t want to believe it – and perhaps the fact that I’ve even considered the possibility shows I have a jaundiced view of my fellow man – but, like you, I distrust convenient coincidences.”
“Which of your opponents is ruthless enough to contemplate such an act?” Paco asked.
Prieto hesitated for a second.
“I told you that I argued for releasing the guardias civiles and the landlords unharmed.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“And I won the day – but not without a struggle. One man, in particular, was eager to spill our enemies’ blood. His name is Iñigo Torres.”
“Is he, by any chance, a big man with a broken nose and a scar over his right eye?”
“How could you possibly know that?” Prieto asked, surprise evident in his voice.
“We met last night, in the same bar where I talked to your friend Angel,” Paco said. “He told me that if I insisted on trying to find Samuel Johnson's murderer, I’d be well-advised to focus my search somewhere a long way from San Antonio de la Jara.”
“And will you follow his advice?”
Paco shook his head.
“I still can’t see someone coming in from outside the town to do the killing. And I can’t see Samuel Johnson being inside the church by accident, either. I think he’d arranged to meet somebody – though whether it was a friend or a foe, I’ve no way of guessing. Does he strike you as the kind of man who would deliberately put himself in danger?”
“If he thought it would benefit a cause he cared about, he would do so without a second’s hesitation.”
There was a click as the front door opened. Paco swung around to see who was entering the house.
A young man stood in the doorway. He was about twenty or twenty-one years old, and dressed like every other peasant farmer from the area. The resemblance to both the man lying on the couch and to the young woman standing near the window was obvious – almost as obvious as the expression of anger which spread across his face when he saw that the family had a visitor.
The young man looked first at his father and then Concha, who had been so quiet while Paco had been talking to Prieto that the detective had almost forgotten she was there.
“What’s he doing here?” the young man demanded.
“Luis ...” Concha said, her tone both tentative and warning.
“I asked what he was doing here, Papa,” the young, man said, ignoring his sister.
“He’s here because he wants to find out who killed Samuel,” Juan Prieto said quietly.
“And does he think we did it?”
“Of course not. But he wants to know if we can tell him anything about Samuel that might ...”
“If he doesn’t suspect us of the murder, then he should leave us alone,” Luis said.
“Be reasonable, son,” Juan Prieto pleaded.
“Why should I be reasonable?” Luis demanded. “These foreigners have brought us nothing but bad luck.”
“They are here to fight side by side with us. They are here to defend the Republic.”
“They have no right to be here.” the boy said fiercely. “They should have stayed in their own country, instead of coming over to Spain and meddling in our affairs. I’ve been told what happens to black men like Samuel Johnson in the United States. If he’d tried to do there what he did here, they’d have strung him up from the nearest tree. And a good thing it would have been, too.”
“You will apologize,” Juan Prieto said sternly “both for being so rude in front of our guest and for saying such terrible things about a man who had become a good friend of the family. You will apologize immediately.”
“No, I won’t apologize to him,” the boy replied defiantly. “He has no more right to be here than the brigadistas.”
And then he turned his back on them, and stepped quickly out into the street again.
Even before Luis had slammed the door behind
him, Concha was crossing the room to follow him.
“Leave him alone, Concha,” Juan Prieto said.
“I can’t. He’s too upset.”
“He’ll calm down, given time. You stay here.”
The look which Concha gave her father managed to both plead his forgiveness for disobeying him and to show her determination to do what she felt she must. Without another word, she opened the door and followed her brother out onto the street.
Juan Prieto was silent for a while.
Then he said, “I know what you are thinking. You are wondering what kind of man it is who is so weak that he cannot control his own children in his own home.”
“Having talked to you even for a few minutes, I would never accuse you of being weak,” Paco said.
But he was wondering how a man like Juan Prieto – a man who obviously exerted considerable moral influence over his community – could have so little effect on his son.
“My wife died many years ago,” Prieto explained, reading his mind. “Concha was still a child at the time, Luis was little more than a baby. My daughter had to become a mother to her brother. As for myself, I ... I tried to give him more than a father should, in order to compensate for the fact that his real mother was no longer here. As a result, perhaps, he does not always show the respect to his father that others might expect him to. But that does not mean he loves me – or his sister – any less. He is a good boy.”
“I believe you,” Paco said.
But what he really meant was, “Because I have learned to respect you, I’m prepared to accept your judgment of your son – at least until I know enough to reach one of my own.”
“I want you to find the man who killed Samuel,” Juan Prieto said. “I would like it to be one of my enemies – a fascist from beyond the front line, or the man who arranged my accident – but that is not the important thing. What really matters is that you get the right man – so that Samuel can be properly avenged.”
Paco looked Juan Prieto squarely in the eyes.
“Would you hold to that view even if the right man is someone close to you?” he asked.
“If you could prove to me that I had done it myself while sleepwalking, the answer would be the same,” Prieto said, staring straight back. “If Samuel had lived, he could have done great things, both for us and for his own people. And if life is to make any sense, then those who deprive us of men like him must be punished.”
“I’ll do my best to find his murderer,” Paco promised.
“I’m sure you will,” Juan Prieto said. “But learn to tread cautiously, Señor Detective.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because in many respects you remind me of Samuel yourself – and men like the two of you have a way of making enemies.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Paco stood in the middle of the unpaved street outside Juan Prieto's modest house and looked around him. To his right was the vast Castilian Plain, which seemed to stretch endlessly – monotonously – to the very edge of the world. To his left was the street which would lead him to the Plaza Mayor, where Samuel Johnson had stood to watch the start of the fiestas before making his way to the ruined church to meet his lonely death. But the ex-detective’s mind was not focused on the town itself – he was thinking instead about Luis Prieto.
Why did the young man seem to have so much hatred in him for the foreigners who had come all the way to Spain to offer their help without any expectation of reward?
“But perhaps it isn’t all foreigners that he hates,” Paco speculated. “Perhaps he only hated Samuel Johnson.”
Could it be that Luis Prieto, who would never have seen a black man before the brigadistas were unexpectedly billeted in his town, had suddenly discovered an instinctive racism lurking deep inside himself? And if that were the case, was he alone in his feelings – or were they shared with others in San Antonio?
Cindy had already explained to him that when a black man was lynched in the southern United States, it was not always necessary to look for any reason other than that he was black. So was it possible, therefore, that the same was true in San Antonio – that Samuel Johnson’s murder had nothing to do with war or politics at all. Could it have been no more than an act of violence carried out by men who were striking out blindly at someone who was so different from them that he either frightened them or disgusted them beyond endurance?
Paco looked up the street again. A couple of skinny dogs lay in the wintry sunshine, dreaming of bones, or perhaps just waiting for a stray cat to wander by so that they could chase it. An old man, leaning heavily on his walking stick, hobbled towards some bar where his fellow domino players would already be waiting for him. A small group of young children were crouched over the hard ground, engrossed in what was, to them, an all-important game of marbles. But there was no sign anywhere of Concha Prieto or her younger brother, Luis.
Paco tried to picture what they would be doing at that very moment. In his mind’s eye, he saw Luis making angry gestures with his hands as he explained to his sister that his view of the world was absolutely right, and everyone else’s was absolutely wrong.
And Concha – the girl who had been forced by circumstances to be like a mother to him for most of his life?
Concha would be listening patiently, waiting for a break in his fury so that she could quietly explain to him that sooner or later he would have to go back and face his father.
If he wanted to find out what was on the boy’s mind, Paco thought – and he did want to find out – then he should do it soon, because once the boy had returned home and listened to his father counseling moderation and caution, he might start to sing a very different song.
He lit up a Celtas, and greedily inhaled the acrid smoke. Yes, talking to Luis Prieto immediately was an excellent plan, and the only flaw in it, as far as he could see, was that he had no idea where the young man was.
The village bars seemed as good a place as any to start his search, and Paco checked the two closest to Juan Prieto's house without any success. He did not find Concha and Luis at the third, either, though this bar’s only customer was not a complete stranger to him.
The big peasant with a scar over his right eye was standing at the counter, a copa of anis looking tiny in his large callused hand. He looked far from pleased to see Paco standing in the doorway.
“I thought I’d made it clear that I didn’t expect to see your face in this town again,” he growled.
The man was looking for trouble, Paco thought – and suddenly realized that after all the emotional turmoil of the previous twelve hours that was exactly what he was looking for, too.
“Did you hear what I said, you piece of human offal?” the big peasant demanded.
Paco glanced quickly over his shoulder, then turned to face Iñigo Torres again.
“Oh, you were speaking to me, were you?” he asked innocently.
“So you’re a comedian, as well as a cop, are you?” the big peasant demanded. “Well, your clever ways will do you no good down here. We’re real men in San Antonio, and we can crush you city boys with no more effort than it would take us to crush a troublesome ant.” He turned to the barman who was standing on the other side of the counter. “Isn’t that right, Jose Antonio?”
“Whatever you say, Don Iñigo,” the other man answered worriedly.
“So what are you doing here?” Torres asked Paco. “If it’s a drink you’re after, you've come to the wrong place, because this is an individualista bar, and unlike the colectivista bars, it doesn’t have to serve scum like you if it doesn’t want to.”
“I don’t want a drink,” Paco said. “And even if I did, I’d go somewhere I liked the company better, Señor Torres.”
“So you know my name, do you?” the big peasant asked.
“That’s right. I got it from a friend of yours.” “Which friend?”
“A friend who's recently had a rather nasty accident with his tractor.”
“Accidents happen,
” Torres said. “Juan Prieto had one, and so could you, if you’re not careful.”
“But I am careful,” Paco told him. “I can see trouble coming long before it happens.”
“You wouldn’t see me!” Torres boasted. “Before you’d even started to know what was going on, I’d have broken every bone in your body.”
Enough of just trading insults, Paco decided. He sniffed the air ostentatiously.
“Just as I thought,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“I wouldn’t need to see you coming. The stink of cow shit you carry around with you would have tipped me off before you’d got within a hundred meters of me.”
Torres slammed his glass down on the counter. “I could beat you to a pulp right here and now,” he said angrily, “and there’s not a man in this whole town who’d dare say he’d seen me do it.”
“Shall we step outside?” Paco suggested.
“What?”
“You want to beat me to a pulp – and I want to see you try. There’s no point in smashing up the bar, so why don’t we step outside?”
Torres ran his eyes assessingly over Paco’s frame. The man from Madrid was several centimeters shorter than he was, and at least twenty kilos lighter. Any fight they had should be a walkover for him. So why, he wondered, was he hesitating? Could it be because the other man seemed to welcome the thought of a fight even more than he did himself?
“Do you want to stand there all day, trying to kill me with your hard stares, you maricón?” Paco asked.
“You’re a policeman,” Torres said, amazed to discover a fear growing inside him. “Policeman aren’t allowed to fight.”
“I’m an ex-policeman,” Paco told him. “And ex-policemen can do what they like.”
Torres raised his hand to his mouth, and hit one of his chipped fingernails.
“Why should you want to fight me?” he asked wonderingly. “It can’t be to impress your fancy yanqui whore – because she isn’t here.”
Paco moved with a speed which took even a seasoned street brawler like Torres by surprise. One second he was standing by the door, at least a meter and a half from his target, the next his fist had buried itself in the big peasant's stomach.
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