The Watcher in the Pine

by Rebecca Pawel

  “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.

  A road has to go somewhere, she thought fuzzily, too tired to wonder why her kidnappers had gone to the trouble of imprisoning her and then left her apparently totally unguarded. A road has to go somewhere. And it looks like it’s flat enough to walk, thank God. So follow the road, slow and steady.

  Getting to her feet was difficult, and she had a splitting headache by the time she was upright, but standing up on a clearly marked road made her feel slightly more human. For a few minutes, walking upright was sheer joy. Then she found that it was making the contractions worse. Although it was not steep, the road was heading steadily down, and Elena hoped that this meant it led toward civilization. She stopped thinking and focused on forcing herself to go on in an endless pattern: Walk, rest through contraction. Wipe forehead. Walk again. Sometimes it seemed as if she progressed no more than a few steps between rests.

  She stopped expecting to meet guards, and began instead to have the irrational feeling that she was completely alone in the valley. Somewhere an eternity ahead, the road ended where there were people, but here there was only the rustling of the wind in the trees, and the stones underfoot, and the brambles by the edge of the path. She cried out freely now when she was in pain, because there was no one to hear. What will happen if the baby is born here with no one else around? The two of us will be alone in the valley, in the night. Don’t think about that. Walk. Rest. Walk. The sun will come up before then. Walk. Rest. Walk. You’ll reach the end of the road before then. Walk. Rest. Walk.

  Then, miraculously, the trees fell away on her left hand, and she was next to an open field, dotted with dark shapes that were oddly familiar. She stumbled forward, paused as another contraction shook her, and realized she was leaning against a fencepost. She bent over and pillowed her forehead with her hands on top of the post, crying with relief. A fence post meant people. A fence post meant civilization. She remained that way for several minutes, unable to force herself to move farther, and so shaken by her own sobs that she didn’t notice a dark shape that suddenly loomed over her and said sharply, “Hey! What are you doing here?”

  Elena turned her head and made out the bulky silhouette of a man carrying a rifle. The rifle hardly gave her pause. “I’m in labor,” she said simply. “I need a midwife.”

  At the time it seemed a perfectly logical thing to say, although afterward Elena could hardly blame the man for being taken aback. “Er . . . why are you in labor here?” he ventured.

  “It wasn’t by choice,” Elena said, indignant. “Is this your land?”

  “These are my herds,” he explained. “The land is common grazing pastures. I heard you and thought maybe one of the ewes was in trouble.”

  “I am not a ewe,” Elena snapped.

  “You sound a bit like one having trouble with a lamb.” His voice was amused, but he added, “Can you walk a little ways? There’s a shelter near here, and I can go for my wife, if you don’t mind being left alone.”

  The idea of walking farther was suddenly almost unbearable, but Elena agreed. It was far easier to walk with someone to lean on and without having to worry about which direction to go. Ten minutes’ walk along the edge of the forest brought them to a windowless wood-roofed hut with a hole near the top of the stone walls for smoke to escape. An oil lamp sat in one corner of the hut, along with a blanket and an empty bowl with the remnants of stew clinging to the inside. A bale of straw lay along the opposite wall. The floor of the hut was earth, but the whole place smelled of clean straw, and stew, and to Elena it looked like a haven of safety. She gratefully sank down beside the straw, to test her theory that lying down would be a lot more comfortable. It was not more comfortable, but getting up took an energy she discovered she did not have.

  “Will you be all right alone?” the man asked again. “My wife is in Congarna. I could get her. She’d know what to do.”

  Elena managed a smile. “I’ll be all right,” she said. “I’ve been on my own so far.”

  In spite of the words, Elena was sorry when the shepherd left. The human contact had seemed like a link to sanity. Now, lying alone and vulnerable and in increasing pain, she began to fear that her rescuer would never return. He would forget about her, or be caught by the maquis or the Guardia, or an avalanche. How far away was Congarna? It was horrible to have no way of knowing what time it was, or how much time had passed. She had never thought she would have to have the baby alone. She did not know what to do. She would die here and the baby would die before he returned, before she was able to tell him her name and give him a message to send to Carlos in case she died.

  She was near hysteria when the door to the cabin opened again, and two figures entered. Elena recognized th
e first as the shepherd who had guided her. The second one was a woman wrapped in shawls, carrying what looked like a bundle of blankets in her arms. “Now then,” the woman said, casting an experienced eye over Elena. “There’s no need to be crying yet, dear. When did you start having pains?”

  “I don’t know,” Elena admitted.

  “Is this your first?” The woman knelt by her, unwrapping the bundle as she spoke.

  “Yes.”

  The woman clicked her tongue. “And at your age. Well you just lie comfortable, and do what I tell you, and everything will be fine. How did you ever get into this mess?”

  Elena smiled faintly. “It’s a long story.”

  “Well, if this is your first, we probably have time for it,” the woman said briskly. “Go ahead and talk, dear. It’ll take your mind off the pain.”

  Chapter 21

  Tejada set off along the highway toward Espinama on foot, regardless of the risk. Going back to the post to take his horse would have taken too much time, and would have involved another encounter with Corporal Battista. Besides, more mounted men tonight could only endanger Elena. He walked quickly, restraining himself from running only by force of will and the knowledge that if he exhausted himself too quickly he would be of no help to Elena.

  He did not bother to turn on the flashlight. He knew the road well by now, although he had never walked it in the dark before. The distance seemed blessedly short at night. Only a few minutes brought him to the turnoff to Santo Toribio. “Check around Monte Viorna,” Father Bernardo had said. He turned left sharply, and began to head up the hill, his blood pounding in his ears. The maquis had hidden their arms along Monte Viorna. It was logical to hope that they had hidden Elena there as well. He would have liked to follow the path he had taken with Elena when he had found the hidden arms, but he was not at all sure that he could find it in the dark, and he was afraid of getting lost. Gaining as much altitude as possible and then working downward seemed like a logical plan. I never took Elena up here, he thought grimly, as the road wound up the mountain in long lazy curves. I promised to take her to the monastery and then I never went with her. If I hadn’t found the arms that time we would have gone. If I hadn’t found them, the maquis wouldn’t need replacements now. We shouldn’t have taken that shortcut. If I hadn’t made her talk about Montalbán we would have come this way, and I wouldn’t be here now. Oh, God, why did we have to pass the spot where Montalbán was killed on our way to the monastery? Why did it have to upset her?

  Somewhere an owl hooted. Tejada hoped it was an owl and not a man signaling to someone. He took off his tricorn, since he knew the silhouette made him instantly recognizable, even by night. But the wind blew cold, and he disliked having his hands occupied, so after a few steps he put it on again. We’ve been lucky so far, he told himself. We just have to keep being lucky. He tried to concentrate on his good fortune, instead of feeling guilty about taking Elena past the site of Anselmo Montalbán’s death, but it was difficult. Suddenly, the subterranean stream of thought gushed to the surface, and mingled with his over-counted blessings. A murky pattern began to emerge in the depths of his mind. Divine guidance, he denied desperately frightened by his conclusion. Father Bernardo would say it was divine guidance. Every time we’ve been on the verge of disaster something has happened to save us because God is on our side. That was why we found the dynamite. That’s why there have been no more thefts from Devastated Regions. Because we’re blessed. It’s a lack of faith to think otherwise.

  It was a lack of faith, but alone in the darkness before dawn, with Elena still a prisoner of the maquis, and his own officers in open rebellion against him, Tejada could not help thinking of a secular explanation. He walked faster as his mind worked, occasionally breaking into a jog trot without noticing it, until the road opened out before the looming bulk of the monastery. Then he stopped. He had no proof, and nothing more than a series of coincidences that seemed logical at two in the morning but would probably look as insubstantial as mist in the sunshine. And none of them helped him find Elena.

  Santo Toribio was dark and silent. It had apparently been undisturbed by patrols. Who, after all, would suspect the guardians of the lignum crucis of protecting the maquis? Tejada stood in the shadows of the trees by the side of the road and inspected the building. Turned in on its cloister, it had the unfortunately fortresslike quality of many secluded religious communities. The chances of finding Elena there were slim, and the time it would take to rouse the inhabitants, explain his errand, and search the building would kill the rest of the hours before dawn, even if the monks were cooperative. Remembering Elena’s narration of her day at Santo Toribio with Father Bernardo, Tejada kept to the edge of the woods, giving the buildings a wide berth and searching for a path that led into the forest.

  There was a grassy hill that sloped down to the monastery’s grounds and what seemed to be an opening between the trees. Tejada thought a moment, and then decided that the flashlight was worth the risk. He switched it on and held it out toward where he thought the path might be. It was definitely a path, and definitely recently used. The rain had made it muddy, and there were traces of footprints. He inspected the grass. It was a meadow, probably used for grazing, with no apparent tracks. He turned off the light, allowed his eyes to adjust once more to the night, and then started up the path.

  It led steadily upward, curling around the back of the monastery into Monte Viorna. Then, quite suddenly, the path ended along with the forest, and he was in an open field, with a trail running perpendicular in both directions to the path he had followed. Shit, the lieutenant thought. Which way now? His own instinct was to keep to the woods. The maquis would want cover. Both they and their prisoner would be too exposed on the tableland opening ahead of him and to his right. He turned left and continued up the mountain until he was well into the trees again. Then he took a deep breath and flicked on the light, prepared to turn it off and dive for cover. The time it takes three men to light a cigarette is the time it takes to aim, he thought. He flashed the beam along the path, feverishly looking for further signs of use, and mentally extending a match toward a cigarette. Let it catch, pass the match to the next man, let it catch. There were footprints here, too, and where the road curved suddenly— Tejada forgot about the three-match rule and trained the flashlight on the brambles by the side of the path, fascinated. They were wicked-looking spiked blackberries that had curved around a nearly dead tree branch that stuck out into the bend in the path a little above waist height, ready to treacherously catch at any unwary traveler. Suspended among them, sparkling in the faint electric light like dew in a spider’s web, was a single diamond, set in a tiny gold cross.

  Tejada reached out and gently untangled the necklace from the brambles. The fragile chain had snapped, and it fell into his hand like a dead thing. He knew now that he was looking in the right place. Elena had been here, perhaps had stumbled carelessly from weariness and lost the chain. Or perhaps she had been dragged unconscious or—unconscious, the lieutenant decided, refusing to consider other options—and her captors had not noticed that her necklace had snagged here, betraying them. He pocketed the necklace and switched off the flashlight, uncomfortably sure that he had left it on for far too long.

  He waited a few minutes for his eyes to readjust to the dark before going on, straining his ears for the sounds of anything unusual in the forest. There was no sound. He was about to start up the path again when he heard a faint moan. He froze. It’s a sheep, he thought. They always sound human. The meadow I passed must be grazing grounds. It’s only a sheep. The moan was repeated. He crept back down the path in the direction he had come. It would do no harm to check that it was in fact some lonely and wakeful sheep.

  He turned off the path before he reached open ground, and worked his way through the woods. There were definitely dark shapes outlined against the meadow that were the right size for sheep. There was also—he sniffed the air—the smell of wood smoke. Someone human had built a f
ire nearby. The clouds were clearing, leaving a faint glimpse of the moon. He could see a house silhouetted against the meadow. That had to be where the smoke was coming from. Tejada took a deep breath. It isn’t illegal to pasture sheep, he reminded himself. They could just be there with the spring flock. He crept closer, expecting to hear the sharp bark of a guard dog. A lamb bleated, sounding eerily like a child crying, and the lieutenant relaxed. He had heard a sheep, and nothing more. A shape stepped out of the shadow of the house and became a man. Tejada felt his pulse speed up. The man was carrying a rifle.

  Then Tejada heard the moan again, much closer, and his doubts vanished. No sheep made noise like that. He pushed away the thought that the only humans he had ever heard make noises like that had been under interrogation for several hours, and crept toward the house. One outside, he thought. With a rifle. And at least one inside. Probably armed as well. I suppose a rifle’s better than a machine gun. I could take him out from here. But that would alert them, and if they decided to hurt her—hurt her more—they’d have too much time before I could get inside. I have to get them all together.

  The man with the rifle was watching the path along the woods, not the woods themselves. He paced back and forth and then walked into the shadow of the building. Tejada made his way to the edge of the trees, holding his breath. A match flared, and a moment later there was a pinpoint glow of a pipe. The sentry made no effort to cover the glow with his hand. He was inexperienced, or self-assured, or both.

  There was another semihuman groan. Tejada was close enough now to hear it die away into quiet sobbing. This time he recognized his wife’s voice definitely, distorted as it was by agony. For a moment he was glad she was still alive and conscious. Then his stomach knotted with rage at the indifference of the smoking sentry. They’ll get back everything they’ve done to her, he promised himself fiercely.