by Mario Puzo
Guiliano’s men were astonished that he showed no emotion at this betrayal, that he seemed to accept it as a matter of course. He took his men further into the mountains and told his chiefs to make their camps near his own so he could assemble them all at a moment’s notice. As the days passed, he seemed to retire more and more deeply into his own private world. Weeks went by as his chiefs waited impatiently for his orders.
One morning he wandered deep into the mountains by himself without bodyguards. He returned in darkness and stood in the light of the campfires.
“Aspanu,” he said, “summon all the chiefs.”
Prince Ollorto had an estate of hundreds of thousands of acres on which he grew everything that had made Sicily the breadbasket of Italy for a thousand years—lemons and oranges, grains, bamboo, olive trees which provided wells of oil, grapes for wine, oceans of tomatoes, green peppers, eggplants of the most royal purple as big as a carter’s head. Part of this land was leased to the peasants on a fifty-fifty basis, but Prince Ollorto like most landowners would first skim off the top—fees for machinery used, seed supplied and transportation provided, all with interest. The peasant was fortunate to keep twenty-five percent of the treasures he had grown with the sweat of his brow. And yet he was well off compared with those who had to hire themselves out on a daily basis and accept starvation wages.
The land was rich, but unfortunately the nobles kept a good portion of their estates uncultivated and going to waste. As long ago as 1860 the great Garibaldi had promised the peasants they would own their own land. Yet even now Prince Ollorto had a hundred thousand acres that lay fallow. So did the other nobles who used their land as a cash reserve, selling off pieces to indulge their follies.
In the last election all the parties, including the Christian Democratic party, had promised to strengthen and enforce the sharing-of-land laws. These laws stated that the uncultivated lands of large estates could be claimed by peasant farmers on payment of a nominal sum.
But these laws had always been thwarted by the nobility’s practice of hiring Mafia chiefs to intimidate would-be claimers of land. On the day for the claiming of the lands a Mafia chief had only to ride his horse up and down the borders of the estate and no peasant would dare to make a claim. The few who chose to do so would invariably be marked down for assassination and the male members of his family with him. This had gone on for a century, and every Sicilian knew the rule. If an estate had a Mafia chief as its protector, no lands would be claimed from it. Rome could pass a hundred laws, those laws had no significance. As Don Croce once put it to Minister Trezza in an unguarded moment, “What do your laws have to do with us?”
Shortly after the election, the day came when Prince Ollorto’s lands could be claimed from those parts of his estate that had not been cultivated. All one hundred thousand acres had been designated by the government, tongue in cheek. Left-wing party leaders urged the people on to make their claims. When the day arrived almost five thousand peasants congregated outside the gate of Prince Ollorto’s palace. Government officials waited in a huge tent on the property furnished with tables and chairs and other official apparatus to formally register their claims. Some of the peasants were from the town of Montelepre.
Prince Ollorto, following the advice of Don Croce, had hired six Mafia chiefs as his gabelloti. And so on that bright morning, the smoky Sicilian sun making them sweat, the six Mafia chiefs rode their horses up and down along the wall surrounding Prince Ollorto’s estate. The assembled peasants, under olive trees older than Christ, watched these six men, famous all over Sicily for their ferocity. They waited as if hoping for some miracle, too fearful to move forward.
But that miracle would not be the forces of law. Minister Trezza had sent direct orders to the Maresciallo commanding them that carabinieri were to be confined to their barracks. On that day, there was not a uniformed member of the National Police to be seen in the whole province of Palermo.
The multitude outside the wall of Prince Ollorto’s estate waited. The six Mafia chiefs rode their horses up and down as consistent as metronomes, their faces impassive, their guns sheathed in rifle holsters, lupare on shoulder straps, pistols tucked in their belts hidden by jackets. They made no menacing signs toward the crowd—indeed they ignored them; they simply rode in silence back and forth. The peasants, as if hoping the horses would tire or carry these guardian dragons away, opened their food sacks and uncorked their wine bottles. They were mostly men, only a few women, and among these was the girl Justina with her mother and father. They had come to show their defiance for the murderers of Silvio Ferra. And yet none of them dared pass the line of slowly moving horses, dared to claim the land that was theirs by right of law.
It was not only fear that restrained them; these riders were “men of respect” who were in fact the lawgivers of the towns they lived in. The Friends of the Friends had established their own shadowy government that functioned more effectively than the government in Rome. Was there a thief or cattle rustler stealing a peasant’s cattle and sheep? If the victim reported the crime to the carabinieri, he would never recover his goods. But if he went to see these Mafia chiefs and paid a twenty percent fee, the lost stock would be found and he would receive a guarantee that it would not happen again. If a hot-tempered bully murdered some innocent workman over a glass of wine, the government could rarely convict because of perjured testimony and the law of omerta. But if the victim’s family went to one of these six men of respect, then vengeance and justice could be had.
Chronic petty thieves in poor neighborhoods would be executed, feuds settled with honor, a quarrel over land boundaries resolved without the expense of lawyers. These six men were judges whose opinions could not be appealed or ignored, whose punishments were severe and could not be evaded except by emigration. These six men had power in Sicily that not even the Premier of Italy could exercise. And so the crowd remained outside Prince Ollorto’s walls.
The six Mafia chiefs did not ride close together; that would have been a sign of weakness. They rode separately, like independent kings, each carrying his own particular brand of terror. The most feared, riding a mottled gray horse, was Don Siano from the town of Bisacquino. He was now over sixty years of age and his face was as gray and as mottled as the hide of his horse. He had become a legend at the age of twenty-six when he had assassinated the Mafia chief preceding him. The man had murdered Don Siano’s father when the Don himself had been a child of twelve and Siano had waited fourteen years for his revenge. Then one day he had dropped from a tree onto the victim and his horse and, clasping the man from behind, had forced him to ride through the main street of the town. As they rode in front of the people, Siano had slashed his victim to pieces, cutting off his nose, his lips, his ears and his genitals, and then holding the bloody corpse in his arms had paraded the horse in front of the victim’s house. Afterward he had ruled his province with a bloody and iron hand.
The second Mafia chief, riding a black horse with scarlet plumes above its ears, was Don Arzana of the town of Piani dei Greci. He was a calm, deliberate man who believed that there were always two sides in a quarrel and had refused to kill Silvio Ferra for political purposes, had indeed forestalled that man’s fate for years. He was distressed by Ferra’s murder but had been powerless to intervene, since Don Croce and the other Mafia chiefs insisted that the time had come to make an example in his area. His rule had been tempered with mercy and kindness, and he was the most loved of the six tyrants. But now as he rode his horse in front of the assembled multitude his face was stern, all his inner doubts erased.
The third man on horseback was Don Piddu of Caltanissetta and his steed’s bridle was garlanded with flowers. He was known to be susceptible to flattery and vain of his appearance, jealous of power and murderous to the aspirations of young men. At a village festival, a young peasant gallant had stricken the local women dumb with admiration because he wore bells on his ankles when he danced, wore a shirt and trousers made of green silk, tailored
in Palermo, and sang as he played a guitar manufactured in Madrid. Don Piddu had been incensed with the adulation shown this rural Valentino, furious that the women did not admire a real man like himself rather than this simpering, effeminate youth. Who danced no more after that fateful day but was found on the road to his farm, his body riddled with bullets.
The fourth Mafia chief was Don Marcuzzi of the town of Villamura, who was known to be an ascetic and had his own chapel in his home like the old nobility. Don Marcuzzi, despite this one affectation, lived very simply, and was personally a poor man since he refused to profit by his power. But he enjoyed that power enormously; he was tireless in his endeavors to help his fellow Sicilians but he was also a true believer in the old ways of the Friends of the Friends. He had become a legend when he executed his favorite nephew for committing an infamita, the breaking of the law of omerta, giving information to the police against a rival Mafia faction.
The fifth man on horseback was Don Buccilla of Partinico, who had come to see Hector Adonis in behalf of his nephew on the long-ago, fateful day when Turi Guiliano became an outlaw. Now, five years later, he was heavier by forty pounds. He still wore his opera peasant clothes despite the fact that he had become enormously wealthy in those five years. His ferocity was benign, but he could not abide dishonesty and executed thieves with the same righteousness as those eighteenth-century English High Justices proclaiming the death penalty on child pickpockets.
The sixth man was Guido Quintana, who, though nominally of Montelepre, had made his reputation by taking over the bloody battleground of the town of Corleone. He had been forced to do this because Montelepre was directly under the protection of Guiliano. But in Corleone, Guido Quintana had found what his murderous heart yearned for. He had settled four family feuds by the simple expedient of wiping out opponents to his decisions. He had murdered Silvio Ferra and other union organizers. He was perhaps the only Mafia chief who was hated more than he was respected.
These were the six men who, by their reputations and the respect and enormous amount of fear they could generate, barred the lands of Prince Ollorto to the poor peasants of Sicily.
Two jeeps full of armed men sped down the Montelepre-Palermo road and turned off on the path that led to the estate wall. All but two of the men were masked with wool coverings that had slits cut open over the eyes. The two unmasked men were Turi Guiliano and Aspanu Pisciotta. The masked men included Corporal Canio Silvestro, Passatempo and Terranova. Andolini, also masked, covered the road from Palermo. As the jeeps pulled up about fifty feet from the Mafia horsemen, additional men pushed through the crowd of peasants. They too were masked. They had been picnicking in the grove of olive trees. When the two jeeps appeared they had opened food baskets and taken out their weapons and their masks. They spread out into a long half circle and covered the horsemen with their rifles. All told, there were about fifty of them. Turi Guiliano jumped out of his jeep and checked to see that everyone was in place. He watched the six riders going back and forth. He knew they had seen him, and he knew the crowd, too, had recognized him. The smoky Sicilian afternoon sun tinged the green landscape with red. Guiliano wondered how these thousands of tough peasants could be so intimidated that they let six men keep the bread out of the mouths of their children.
Aspanu Pisciotta was waiting like an impatient viper beside him. Only Aspanu had refused to wear a mask; all the others had feared a vendetta from the families of the six Mafia chiefs and from the Friends of the Friends. Now Guiliano and Pisciotta would bear the brunt of the vendetta.
They both wore the gold buckles engraved with the lion and the eagle. Guiliano had only a heavy pistol in a holster hanging from his belt. He also wore the emerald ring he had taken from the Duchess years ago. Pisciotta carried a machine pistol cradled in his arms. His face was pale from his lung disease and excitement; he was impatient with Guiliano for taking so long. But Guiliano was carefully watching the scene to make sure his orders had been carried out. His men had formed the half circle to leave an escape route for the Mafia chiefs should they decide to ride away. If they ran they would lose “respect” and a great deal of their influence; the peasants would no longer fear them. But he saw Don Siano turn his mottled gray horse and the others follow him to parade again before the wall. They would not run.
From one of the towers of his ancient palace, Prince Ollorto watched the scene through the telescope he used to chart the stars. He could see Turi Guiliano’s face clearly and in detail—the oval eyes, the clean planes of his face, the generous mouth now pressed tight; and he knew that the strength in his face was the strength of virtue, and thought it was a pity that virtue was not a more merciful asset. For it was terrible indeed when it was pure, as the Prince knew this to be pure. He was ashamed of his own role. He knew his fellow Sicilians so well, and now he would be responsible for what was about to happen. The six great men he had bound with money would fight for him, they would not run. They had intimidated the great multitude who were before his wall. But now Guiliano was standing before them like an avenging angel. Already it seemed to the Prince that the sun was darkening.
Guiliano strode to the path the six men rode. They were squat heavy men on horseback and they kept their mounts to a slow steady walk. From time to time they would feed their horses off a huge pile of oats heaped against the jagged white stone wall. This was so the horses would defecate continuously and leave a constant insulting trail of manure; then they would continue their slow ride.
Turi Guiliano placed himself very close to their path, Pisciotta a step behind. The six men on horseback did not look his way or stop. Their faces were inscrutable. Though they all wore lupare over their shoulders, they did not attempt to unsling them. Guiliano waited. The men rode past him three more times. Guiliano stepped back. He said quietly to Pisciotta, “Bring them down from their horses and present them to me.” Then he crossed the path and leaned against the white stone wall of the estate.
Leaning against the wall he knew that he had crossed a fatal line, that what he was doing this day would decide his fate. But he felt no hesitation, no uneasiness, only a cold rage against the world. He knew that behind these six men loomed the enormous figure of Don Croce, and that it was the Don who was his final enemy. And he felt anger against this very multitude of people he was helping. Why were they so docile, so fearful? If only he could arm and lead them he could forge a new Sicily. But then he felt a wave of pity for these poorly clad, nearly starved peasants, and he raised his arm in a salute to encourage them. The crowd remained silent. For a moment he thought of Silvio Ferra, who might have roused them.
Now Pisciotta took command of the stage. He was wearing his cream-colored sweater with the dragons rampant woven darkly in the woolen material. His sleek dark head, narrow as a knife edge, was etched in the blood-red Sicilian sunlight. He turned that head like a blade toward the six obelisks riding their horses and watched them for a long moment with his deadly viper’s gaze. Don Siano’s mount defecated at his feet as the six men rode past.
Pisciotta stepped back one pace. He nodded toward Terranova, Passatempo and Silvestro, who ran to the fifty armed masked men forming the covering arc. The men spread out further to close off the escape route that had been left open. The Mafia chiefs continued riding proudly as if they noticed nothing, though they had of course observed and understood everything. But they had won the first round of their battle. Now it was for Guiliano to decide whether to take the last and most dangerous step.
Pisciotta moved into the path of Don Siano’s horse and raised his hand imperiously to that gray fearful face. But Don Siano did not stop. When the horse tried to shy away the rider pulled his head tight, and they would have ridden over Pisciotta had he not stepped aside and, with a savage grin, bowed low to the Don as he passed by. Then Pisciotta stepped directly behind the horse and rider, sighted his machine pistol on the gray hindquarters of the horse and pulled the trigger.
The fragrant, flowered air was filled with ropy entrail
s, a vast shower of blood and a thousand golden flecks of manure. The hail of bullets swept the horse’s legs beneath him and he fell straight down. Don Siano’s body was trapped by the fallen body until four of Guiliano’s men pulled him out and bound his arms behind his back. The horse was still alive and Pisciotta stepped forward and mercifully fired a spray of bullets into the animal’s head.
A low moan of terror and exultation rose from the crowd. Guiliano remained leaning against the wall, his heavy pistol still in its holster. He stood with his arms folded as if he, too, were wondering what Aspanu Pisciotta would do next.
The remaining five Mafia chiefs continued their parade. Their mounts had reared up at the sound of gunfire, but the riders quickly brought them under control. They rode as slowly as before. Again Pisciotta stepped onto the path. Again he raised his hand. The lead rider, Don Buccilla, stopped. The others behind him reined their horses still.
Pisciotta called to them, “Your families will need your horses in the days to come. I promise to send them. Now dismount and pay your respects to Guiliano.” His voice rang loud and clear to the ears of the multitude.
There was a long silence and then the five men dismounted. They stood there proudly gazing at the crowd, their eyes fierce and insolent. The long arc of Guiliano’s men broke as twenty of them came close, guns ready. Carefully and gently they bound the arms of the five men behind their backs. Then they led all six chiefs to Guiliano.
Guiliano regarded these six men without expression. Quintana had humiliated him once, had even tried to assassinate him, but now the situation was reversed. Quintana’s face had not changed over these five years—it had the same wolfish look—but at this moment the eyes seemed vacant and wandering behind the Mafioso mask of defiance.