Story: "Werewolf" (Part 2)

This is Part 2 of the story.
If you haven't read Part 1 yet, please start there.

We find Segundo some distance from the camp. Why did he leave the safety and security of our little huddle of tents, alone? Had someone, something, tempted and tricked him to leave the camp?

Primero is inconsolable. You have never seen a grown man, an old man like Primero, break down and cry like a woman, like a small child.

Gratia is very busy. You don’t know exactly what Rollo Frank has him doing, but it’s keeping him occupied, obsessed. Something to do with a painting.

You find Gratia on a promontory overlooking the camp below, the City further down the mountain, his beret hanging on the easel, hair wild.

You are drunk. It is ten a.m. in the morning.

“Do you not care about Segundo?” You hear the whining tone, the overly dramatic, slurring accusation.

“Certainly I care.” Gratia is only half paying attention.

“What are you working on?”

“It is for Rollo.”

Which of course is not an answer. Well, what did you expect?

You shake your head. “You did not bother to come to see him, what remains of him. You don’t care about Segundo.”

“Naturally I care.” Gratia looks up. “Segundo was one of the good ones. How is Primero doing?”

“Like a man whose heart has been ripped out of his chest.”

Gratia stops, uses a large oil cloth to cover up the painting he is working on, then turns to you. There is something in his face, a strange light in his eye.

“Tell me about him,” Gratia says, then repeats it. “Please, tell me about him.”

“Who, Primero?”

“Segundo.”

“What the hell.” You are drunk, so you — instead of leaving — step closer to Gratia, threatening. “You want to know how he looked … after the wolf had his way with him? Gratia, you’re … you’re a bastard.”

Gratia sits down on a boulder, shakes a cigarette out of his pack — where does he get these packs of cigarettes, out here — lights it, takes a long drag.

“Why? Because I am fascinated with death? I admit it. Who is not?”

“You really are a bastard.” It is late afternoon, but that is not an excuse. The truth is you have drunk far too much wine, starting far too early in the day. You stagger towards Gratia. “He was ripped apart.”

“Worse than the woman?”

“Much worse.”

“Sit down,” Gratia says. Something about the tone of command in his voice, or maybe it is just the effect of the wine, regardless, you drop to the ground, as if your legs collapse under you.

“That is better,” Gratia says. “Now, let us straight-talk.” He takes another long drag on his cigarette. “Have I ever told you about the time I painted the little dead girl?”

You’re mute. You shake your head.

“Ah.” He smiles. It is a sad smile, the way his eyes crease in the corners. “It was in the village of M_.” He mentions the name of a village close to the Capital, one of the early skirmishes, before Rollo determined the best strategy was to withdraw to the North, build the numbers of the movement before returning for the Capital one day, later on. “Do you remember the place?”

You nod. The village had been a cesspool. How humans could live in such squalor was beyond comprehension.

“I see you do,” Gratia say. “This woman was sitting in an alley, holding her infant, rocking back and forth, singing to the child. But the child was clearly dead. Had been dead for days, many, many days. The infant was blue, the skin almost purple. Most likely the mother fell asleep, rolled over, and smothered the child to death. She did not mean to, you see. This happens, no? But her mind, it must have snapped. So, I offered that the child I would paint. And I did. Of my paintings, this was the most beautiful I ever made. To this mother who had inadvertently killed her own child, the painting I gave.”

“You painted a dead baby,” you say. “And you gave the painting to the mother. That is grotesque.”

“No, you do not understand,” Gratia says. “The mother and child, together, I painted. The way the mother saw the child, in her mind’s eye. Together, I painted them, the child grown to a young woman, the young woman she would have been, had she not suffered this unfortunate interruption of her timeline. The mother, mature and strong, happy, embracing her daughter, pride in her eyes. The daughter, healthy and alive and everything the mother hoped she would be. The future, I painted. The future that should have been. Because I saw it.”

“You saw it?”

Gratia laughs. “Maybe I am gypsy too, ja? Like you.” His perhaps-German accent was more pronounced this afternoon. You see the wine skin next to the easel. He follows your eyes.

“Ah, you would like some?”

You make a tired gesture. Gratia stands up, gets the skin of red wine, sits down on the boulder again, uncorks it, takes a swig, hands it to you. You take a deep draught. The red, too young, too sour, but potent, hits your tongue and esophagus, then like a slug to your gut, and the warmth begins to spread. You take another deep draught.

“So,” you say. “You can paint the future. Do you want to paint Segundo’s future? His imaginary future if the wolf had not killed him?”

“May be.” Gratia takes the wine skin back from you, draws another long swig, then corks the skin and sets it down on the ground next to the boulder. “Although, with someone like Segundo, more interesting is the past, ja?”

“You tell me.”

“Hmm, no, I do not know any more than you. We all have heard about the tragedy in the twins' lives, their lost loves.”

“The sisters.”

“Ja. Yes.”

“Is that what you would like to paint? Segundo and Primero, happily ever after, with their wives, the sisters?”

“That is so. But since I have never met the two women in question, this is not something I could do. Too bad, this is.”

“Do you still want to paint the wolf.”

“Even after what he did to our Segundo, you mean?” Gratia takes another long drag on his cigarette. “More so,” he says. “Now that there is a closer connection between myself and the wolf. I loved Segundo, as did we all, and so the wolf, him I hate, and that makes me want to paint him all the more.”

“You are a very strange man.”

Gratia laughs. The sound is sudden and violent. Birds flutter away, startled. “You do not know, no, not the half of it.”

“Why did you join this war?”

Gratia leans back on his rock. “Would you believe me if I say that I am an idealist, that I want to die for the cause.”

“No,” you say. “I thought so, perhaps, at one time, about you. But that is Raphael, not you. You are not a Romantic.”

“A Romantic.” Gratia tastes the word, rolls it around on his tongue. “That is a good description of Raphael, and others like him. But, no, you are right. I am not a ‘Romantic’, no.”

“But you are not one of the Wounded, like Primero, like Segundo. And you’re not someone who follows Rollo, not a Disciple.”

Gratia shakes his head. “None of those."

“Yet,” you say, “I do not see you as a Pragmatist.”

“Is that what you call them, the ones who are in it for themselves?”

“Yes, but you are not one of them.”

Gratia uncorks the wine skin again, takes a long drink, hands you the skin. You drink.

“No,” he says. “I am not one of them either.”

“Then, why are you here?”

“Can you not guess? You, who like riddles. What about the riddle of Gratia?”

“Hmm.” You set the skin down, still holding on to it. The red wine is warming you from the inside out, filling your skull. “So, you are someone different from all these?”

“Like the wolf,” Gratia says. “A hunter.”

“A killer?”

“Perhaps. If I need to be. But mostly, and above all, a hunter.”

“What do you hunt?”

“Life. Truth.”

“And that is why you are here?”

“Where better?” Gratia takes another long drag on the cigarette, stamps it out on the rock. “Where else can I find the unvarnished? Have you ever lived in a big city?”

“Yes, that is where I had my first job as a journalist, in the Capital.”

“But it is not where you grew up?”

“No,” you say. “I really did grow up a gypsy, one of the Romani. We traveled.”

“And which is closer to life, closer to the truth?”

“I do not understand. What do you mean.”

“Oh,” Gratia said. “I think you do. Which is closer to life, to truth? When did you feel closer to the vital? Was it when you lived in the Capital, or was it when you traveled with your Romani people?”

“I have a feeling I know what you want me to say.”

“And I have a feeling I know what you would say, if you chose to do so. But if you do not,” Gratia said, “that is good too. We know. So, you see, that is why I am here. I suck the marrow from life. I drink the great draughts of truth. And this is where I find it, here, on this mountain, with you, with this band of freedom fighters. That is why I am here.”

“You sound,” you say, “like a vampire.”

“And in a sense I am.”

“Wonderful.”

“Yes, it is.” Gratia leans closer. “You are a writer, no? Do you not wish to write about Life? Do you not wish to write about Truth? Are these not the only subjects truly worth writing about?”

You give this some thought.

This is the first time, honestly, you have given this any sort of thought.

The wine is making your head buzz with a thousand bees, and you see what Gratia is earnestly imploring you to see. And something shifts in you. Something clicks into place, like a tumbler in a lock. And you realize that — until now, until this moment — you have only been writing for the ordinary reasons: to entertain, to get praise, to use your facility with words to express what others would like to have said, so that you are essentially a mouthpiece for them, your readers.

What is lost in this is truth and life.

The truth is lost to the fantasy that your readers want, so they can lull themselves to sleep with a pleasant bedtime story, fool themselves and fool their friends, tell their friends what they know their friends want to hear. In this sense, you, the writer, is an accomplice with your readers in their great needs, to be entertained and to be liked, accepted, and you provide them great, big, dry logs of wooden words to fuel that fire. This kind of writing is a lie. And in that lie, there is no life, no true life. Instead of looking at life as it is, all the beautiful hideous horror of it, and working hard to express it, just as it is, you, the writer, gloss it over, dress it up, put makeup on it. Worse yet, you, yourself, no longer look at — nor experience — the real world, life, truth. You may have, at one time, but by now, your writing comes from inside your own head, disconnected from the objective reality. All this comes to you in a flash.

“Yes,” you say.

Then you vomit, a long stream of red wine.

Gratia puts his arm around your shoulder. He says nothing.

***

There is a sour taste of wine and puke in your mouth as you make your way back to the camp.

“Hey!”

You turn around. Bice sits on a boulder by an old pine tree. Two full-grown men hugging that pine trunk could barely, barely — straining with all their might, veins  popping out, shoulder sockets nearly out of joint, as they reach around — touch fingertips.

“Bice, what are you doing out here alone?” You want this to come out stern and commanding, instead is sounds whiny and limp. “You know Rollo said we are not to leave camp alone.”

“Funny that.” She looks around. “I don’t see your escort.”

I wave my hand. “Gratia is up on the promontory.”

“Yeah, what’s he doing there anyway? Outside the camp, alone? Sounds like Rollo has some disciplinary problems here.”

“Bice, never mind Gratia, what are you doing outside the camp on your own?” It comes out better this time. Firmer, stronger.

And instead of playing her game, getting into an argument, you have just repeated your statement. As you see Rollo do so effectively.

“She is not alone.”

It is Raphael, emerging from the other side of the large, old-growth pine tree.

Bice looks up at him, smiles, reaches up and grasps his hand, squeezes it, a quick squeeze, like she does with you, then lets go.

That sour taste of wine comes back up, along with some bile.

“What’s wrong?” Bice has a look of concern.

Raphael leans close, sniffing. “Wine,” he says. “Drunk. Before noon.”

You want to punch him. But, in spite of his sensitive temperament, Raphael is a fierce fighter, and his size advantage is substantial.

“So, what are you both doing here?”

“Checking the snares,” Raphael says.

“And I came along,” Bice adds. “Like Rollo says, so none of us are alone.”

“How are the snares?”

“Untouched.”

“All of them?”

“Yes,” Raphael runs a big, mitten-sized hand over his forehead, wiping sweat. “I have walked the whole periphery. None of them are touched.”

“So, the wolf did not take the bait, went right for Segundo instead.”

“That is the way of it.”

“Poor Segundo,” Bice says. “And poor, poor, poor Primero.”

***

Back in the camp, you seek him out.

Primero sits in the middle of the camp, alone. It is as if he is surrounded by a repelling magnetic field of grief, everyone keeping their distance, unable to penetrate this fog of sorrow, unsure of what to say, how to react, so instead they stay away, huddling with their own, living loved ones, or stay busy, so as not to have to face Primero or their own fears.

You cut through all that open space, sit down across from Primero, on the ground, tramped hard by yesterday’s feet.

“I am so sorry,” you say.

Primero looks up, his eyes for a moment uncomprehending, as if he doesn’t remember why he is sitting there, why there are streaks tracing down his cheeks.

“Thank you,” he says.

“Segundo was a good man.”

“A very good man.”

“Tell me about him.”

“What is there to tell. He was my brother.”

“Your twin?”

“Yes, I am the elder.” Primero smiles, and his face lights from within, gap-toothed, dark-umber. “By five minutes, I am the elder.”

You laugh. “So, he was your kid brother.”

“It is a tremendous responsibility,” Primero says. “Segundo was always the less mature. I was always the one watching after him.”

Funny that. You could hardly tell them apart, either in appearance or in behavior.

“It is a great responsibility,” you agree, matching his sober expression.

“Do you have a younger sister … or brother?”

“No, I am the only child.”

“It is not good to be alone.” He rubs his eyes.

“You are not alone, Primero.”

He smiles. There is no light in the smile this time.

You sit in silence, the two of you, for a few moments, then you renew you request:

“Tell me about him.”

Primero looks up and to the right. Where to begin.

“Segundo was bold,” he says. “He was a bold man. I was always the cautious one.”

“You are a bold man, Primero, a fierce fighter. I have seen you attack a machine-gun nest. You are bold.”

Primero shrugs. “That is not boldness. That is cold fury, perhaps a form of madness.” Again he sits quiet for a few moments. “Yes, that is simply the madness of war. I meant boldness where it counts. With women.”

“Ah.”

“It was Segundo who had the boldness with the women, and it is thanks to Segundo that I ended up with my beautiful Maria.”

“Your wife.”

“Yes, sister of Martha, Segundo’s wife.”

You want to be careful, knowing here is another deep wound.

Yet, you find yourself asking:

“So, tell me about her, your Maria.”

There is no smile, but a softening of the eyes, around the mouth, his creased face smoothing. He closes his lids, lifts his head, and it’s as if he is breathing a scent on the wind.

“Maria,” he says. “She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.” He draws a deep breath, opens his eyes. “I was thunderstruck, the moment I saw her.” He looks away, eyes faraway, remembering. “She was dancing. Out in the field, after the harvest, with the setting sun behind her, dancing, all by herself, spinning, her hair flowing in the wind. I did not think that she saw me. Later, much later, when we were betrothed, I told her, and she laughed, told me that she knew I was there watching her. She danced for me, and I did not know it.”

“That is a beautiful story,” you say.

“As beautiful as her. She was so beautiful that I was made into a stone. I was made into a statue. When I saw her, I was struck mute. But for Segundo, I would not have the boldness to approach her. In fact, I did not. Segundo saw her sister, saw Martha.”

“And he was bold enough to approach her.”

Primero laughs. “Yes, and more. This is Segundo’s boldness. At the harvest dance, he walked right up to Martha, and, without a word, he held out his hand, then pulled her into the dance. He was a great dancer, Segundo was. And then it did not require boldness to approach Maria, because Segundo had brought us all together. He gave me this gift, the gift of a lifetime, my Maria, my angel.”

His eyes are shining.

You know you should not ask, and still you do.

“What happened?”

He focuses his eyes, on you, dark eyes, a terrible aspect.

You hold up a hand. “I should not have asked. Forgive me, and please do not answer this question. It was thoughtless.”

He shakes his head. “No, no. We never spoke of it, after … after it happened. Not even the two of us. I would like to tell someone. I would like,” he says, “to tell you.”

“I am honored.”

He inclines his head. “I do not know if I can tell it,” he says. “But I will try. It starts with a man.”

“A man?”

"Yes, a very small man. His name is not important, and one that I would rather not mention. What is important is that he followed Maria with his eyes. Small pig-eyes they were, pink in color, and a small pig-like man he was, with a little pot belly, his hair completely white, although he was a young man, Maria’s age, ten years younger than me, and his white hair was cut very close to his pate, like bristles, and his ears were small and set close together in his round face, and his nose was upturned, and his cheeks round and shiny, and his skin was a very soft pink, almost white but with a faint blush of red, and he smiled much, and his teeth were large and yellow and his lips were thin, and his mouth smiled much with the yellow teeth, but his little pig-eyes, they never smiled.

“Except,” Primero continues, "when he looked at my Maria. Then his eyes smiled, in a peculiar way. They became like little, round pebbles, and they turned from pink to black, probably a trick of the light, probably his pupils dilated, but it was an odd thing to behold, like hard, shiny, polished stones they were, hard, but smiling, although this was one of the few times when his mouth was not stretched in a yellow-tooth grin. When he looked at Maria, his mouth was like a thin line, a sort of sneer, but sometimes his tongue poked out, a little, pink pig-tongue, running fast over his thin pig-lips, when he looked at my Maria.

"But he never tried to do anything to her, not even talk to her, he just looked. And looked. And looked. It was like he was eating her with his little pig-eyes. She was his breakfast, his lunch, his dinner. Whenever he could catch her, he would look, and feast.

"This is the way it went on for twenty years. It was unnerving, but we got used to it, Maria and I, laughed about it even, as we settled into a marriage that was perfect, in every way. But then, things changed.

"Our village was not far from the Capital, so when the coup happened, when the Junta took over, and when, eventually, the Presidente killed the others and ruled supreme, then he needed the little pig-man and others like him, people with no honor.

"So, the pig-man became the mayor of our village, appointed by the Presidente himself. You should have seen him strut around, down the main street, wearing a white suit with a white tie and a wide-brimmed, white hat, and in the winter he wore a white coat, draped over the shoulders. He smiled much less, now that others had to smile at him. You see, he was the kind of man who does not really like people, and who is not pleased to be in their company, so it was a relief to the pig-man that he no longer needed to smile in order to ingratiate himself, now that it was the others' turn to ingratiate themselves to him.

“And he treated us very well, Maria and myself, seeing to it that even with the rationing, we never wanted for anything, and he likewise treated Martha and Segundo, who had also now been married for twenty years, in the same way, with great grace and courtesy.”

Primero draws a long breath, and you hear a shudder and a bubbling sound in it, right at the end, as if something is wrong with his lungs.

"And Segundo and I, we had no interest in the politics. We were simple farmers, content to work our land, and whatever masters ruled the Capital and the South Country, and, sometimes, the North Country, made no difference, as long as we could work the land and trade at the markets.

"Which is why it was a lie when they said we were aiding the Partizans. We were not. We had nothing to do with any resistance against the Presidente. Not at that time. That came later. Not then. We were innocent. But there was evidence against us. Witnesses came forward, telling lies. We were both of us, Segundo and I, arrested and taken to jail, and worse, we knew we were headed for the gallows.

"And then he came to see me in the prison, the pig-man did. The prison was a terrible place. The cell was a hole in the ground, dug into the hard-stamped earth, with a cover made of iron bars, and the hole was too small for a man to stand upright, and yet too narrow so there was no way to lay down or even to sit down, so that one had to stand half-bent, using the wall as support, and clinging to the rusty bars, and I was half animal already, after some weeks in that place, and he came and two soldiers carried in a chair, a fine chair from the prison-warden’s dining room, and he sat down, and he asked the soldiers to leave us alone together, and he spoke to me in a soft voice.

"He spoke of his deep disappointment in myself and Segundo, how he had always treated us well, and how could we have treated him so shamefully to have his trust abused in such a way.

“And I protested my innocence. I wept. I am not ashamed to say so. In such a situation, it is not shameful for a man to have strong emotions, and tears are natural with such strong emotions.”

You agree this is so, and Primero continues:

"And then he comes around to it. He says that he is especially sad that Martha and Maria will be made widows, with no-one to support them, and also that they will be left in the unfavorable situation of having been the wives of traitors, with the fog of suspicion covering them in a grey cloak from which no good can come. Who will want to associate with them now, for fear of being enveloped in their fog, their contagion, the displeasure of the Presidente?

"I pleaded with him. If he did not believe in my innocence, in Segundo’s innocence, then at least would he believe in Maria and Martha?

"''Ah,' he says, ‘this may be the right way. Perhaps, if you and Segundo were to make full confessions, and if Maria and Martha were to disown you, publicly, then when you go to the gallows, then, afterwards, I can make sure that they are both well cared for.’

"And suddenly, I see it. I see it in his eyes as he speaks her name, Maria’s name, and his little, pink, pig-eyes turn black, like shiny, polished pebbles, and his little, pink pig-tongue flies out and over his thin pig-lips, and I know the truth of it. He is the one who has put us in this situation, Segundo and I, so that he can have her, have Maria. And his next words make it even more clear.

“‘Better yet,’ the pig-man says, 'if Maria and Martha will both denounce you, and if they will let the Priest annul your marriages, for neither of you have children'' — and this was true, neither Segundo nor I had children with our wives — 'then I can arrange it so that both you and Segundo disappear from the jail, and I will swear to the Presidente that you have been executed. You, and your brother, will live. Not in this village, not in the South Country, but you will live. And you will know that Maria and Martha are both safe, that they are taken care of, I swear that on my life.''”

Primero laughs, a raw, scratchy laugh, and you hear that bubbling, gurgling hiss again from his chest.

“Sure,” he says, "sure they would be ‘taken care’ of, and especially my Maria.

"So, I say that I need to see her, need to see Maria, so I can explain to her what she must do, and why she must do this.

"He agrees, and the next morning, he brings Maria in to see me, brings the same chair in that he sat on, the day before, asks her to sit, and she does. I can only see the points of her shoes and the hem of her skirt. She does not realize where I am, down in the hole. As we have agreed, the pig-man leaves us alone, so Maria and I can talk.

"I call out from my hole, and she realizes where I am. She falls down on her knees, clasps my outstretched hand, kisses it, crying, and I see that her face is very thin, her eyes sunken and red-rimmed. It has been many, many weeks since we saw each other last, and I have lost track of the time, and the time has been hard on both of us.

"I explain the situation to her. She listens without a word, her face strong.

"'Then this is what we must do'', she says. 'I can get away, Martha and I can both get away, and we will find you in the North Country''.

"'Yes,' I say, 'but I do not trust him, the pig-man. I believe he will arrange to have me killed, to have both Segundo and me killed. This is his best move, so I am certain this is what he plans to do. He will have us killed, secretly, either here in the prison, or on the road at some point outside the village, on the road as they transport us to the North Country, and he will leave us to the griffons. In that way, we may not come back for you, and to take our revenge on the pig-man.'

"''I see'', she says, she is such a strong woman, and we have spent twenty good years together, and we do not need to say much in order to understand each other.

“'But i have a different plan,' I say. And I explain what we must do, so that we may escape from the trap the pig-man has set for us.”

“Yes, I think I have heard this part before,” you say. “This is when you joined Rollo’s company.”

“That is right,” Primero says. “Maria knew who to speak with in order to find Rollo. We all knew how, but it took more than a week for Maria to make the connection and set up the meeting with him, and for Rollo to verify that we were trustworthy and that this was not a trap, and that we would be valuable additions to the cause. Then he agreed.”

“And it was Rollo’s band who broke you free.” Rollo’s band. They had just been a ‘band’ at that time, hardly more than a dozen dirty scarecrows, but bold and determined. Only Rollo and one other remained of that original band, Rollo and Primero, now that Segundo was dead too.

“Yes,” Primero’s eyes are faraway, “you should have seen his glory that day, Rollo, his golden hair flying, and the way he braved all danger to his person, and the way he laughed as he did so, and the way he led his men, and the way he was the fiercest fighter among them, and we saw that this was a good man, and we would have followed him, Segundo and I, even if he had not saved us that day, now that we saw the kind of man he was, and is.”

You realize that Primero is more than one of ‘The Wounded’ and that there is a fair amount of ‘Disciple’ in him, a true follower of Rollo Frank, not just a soul-wounded man using the cause for his personal justice and revenge, though that is also true.

“It was Rollo’s idea to stage the breakout right there in the town square,” Primero continues, "where we were on display as first we confessed our crimes, then our wives denounced us, spat on us — all part of the theatrics, as we had agreed — and where the priest then annulled our marriages, and the pig-man smiled with his pink eyes turning into shiny, black pebbles.

“Right then, when he was certain of his victory, right then, Rollo’s men fired from the rooftops, and then they came out of hiding, from within the shops, from within the crowd, from under the platform where we stood, and it was a glorious chaos, and many, many of the soldiers under the pig-man’s command were killed that day, and we escaped on horseback and rode and rode and rode into the North Country.”

“But your wives, Maria and Martha, they were not rescued in this manner?”

Primero hangs his head. “No.” He swallows hard, once, twice, three times, then looks up, tears streaming down his face. "That was the plan, that we would all ride off together, with Maria and Martha. We had even planned to marry again, in the North Country, before God and the church, undoing the renunciation of our wedding vows, celebrating our love. But it was not to be.

“Two of Rollo’s men — the ones who were hidden under the platform where we were displayed — were tasked with rushing all of us through the crowd and to the horses that were waiting for us by one of the shops, while the men on the rooftops gave us cover, and the men in the crowd continued to create the chaos. This was the plan.”

“What went wrong?”

“He did, the pig-man. At the last minute, he understood, and the only thing he cared about was not his soldiers, not Martha, even, just my Maria. He pulled his pistol and he shot the man from Rollo’s band who was coming for Martha and Maria, and he shot Martha on the spot, shot her dead, and he shot many men in the crowd until the crowd parted for him, and, together with three soldiers, he carried my Maria away, into the courthouse, where he barricaded himself with many soldiers, and then he commanded the counterattack, so that we had to withdraw.”

Primero shakes his head, remembering.

“Rollo did a marvelous thing that day, and I cannot fault him in any way for what happened, and we always knew this was a risk. In many ways, it was much harder for me than for Segundo. Martha was dead, killed by the pig-man, and so Segundo hated the pig-man and he mourned Martha, and he grieved for Martha, and he treasured her memory. I have had to live with, for all these years, that the pig-man has my Maria.”

You can think of many questions, such as whether the brothers ever tried to rescue Maria, and if so, why this was not successful, and if not, why not, and the deeper question of how Primero’s soul-wound has affected him all these years, questions that cannot be asked, only answered if Primero chooses to do so, on his own accord without the questions, and he does not, at least not now. He is silent, and we sit together for a time.

“She is a good woman, your Maria,” you say, to break the heavy silence, “as was her sister, Martha.”

“Yes.”

“And Segundo, he was a good man.”

“A very good man.”

“We should bury him,” you say.

Primero looks away, up at the sky. A large predator bird takes off from the top of one of the pine trees, far above, spreading dark wings, soaring, then circling. An eagle, maybe, but more likely a griffon, the vultures of this land.

“Yes.” He says this as he looks back at you, and his eyes are firm. “We must bury him soon. What remains of him.”

"If you wish, I could … "

“No, no.” Primero shakes his head. “I must. He is my brother,” he adds, with feeling.

“Will you permit me to assist you, my friend?”

“Thank you,” he says. “But this is my task. It will be good for me to do this for him. Segundo would want it to be this way.”

“I understand,” you say.

Primero stands up, readying to go bury his brother.

“One thing,” you say. “Do you have any idea why he went outside the camp, on his own, knowing that the wolf was roaming?”

Primero shakes his head.

That is all.

His back is ramrod straight as he walks away.

***

“I tell you, the wolf was standing up. On two legs.”

Jose sits by the fire. He is a tall, thin man, cheeks hollow, a look of hunger, though he is one of the heartiest eaters in the company. There is something wrong with one of his legs, his right leg, something that always bothers him. He stretches it out, stiff-legged, rubbing his thigh, massaging his knee.

Jose is missing an eye. He does not wear an eye-patch. Where the right eye once was, there is now only an angry red scar, the skin sunken into the eye socket, so that it looks like someone who lives inside his skull took a long lacing needle and laced the skin, pulling it inward.

Jose spent time in prison. He does not speak of it. Something happened there, many somethings, and he wants to forget. He drinks more, and earlier, than you, which is to say he fits a disturbing amount of alcohol into a long day and night of near-constant drinking.

“Where did you see this?” Rollo’s voice is matter of fact, not doubting, not skeptical, he is searching for the truth, weighing the information, as he does with scouting reports.

“Where I found Segundo. This morning, early. It was still dark, just beginning to light, but my eye … " he points to the one eye he still has " … it is a good eye. It has to do the work of two. I had been up for maybe twenty minutes, maybe thirty, so my eye was dark adapted.”

“Hmm,” Rollo mulls this over. “How long would you say Segundo was dead when you found him?”

“Difficult to tell,” Jose says. “The way Segundo was mauled, I mean. I should say no more than a few hours, maybe four or five hours at the most.”

“But certainly not a fresh kill?”

“Certainly not.” Jose shakes his head. Then he straightens up, his eye narrows. “Ah, yes, I see. Why would he have stayed around, the wolf, eh? That is what you wonder.”

“Perhaps,” you say, “the wolf was coming back to eat.”

“Why does he not eat the kill right away?” Rollo’s question is simple and clear, the way he always cuts through to the core.

“Perhaps,” you try again after giving it some thought, “he was startled away from the kill by something, or someone.”

“Yes, the cautious wolf, he is easily startled,” Rollo says. “That is in his nature, yes. But then he investigates. Maybe he finds it was just a rabbit running away, so he returns to this kill. He eats. On the other hand, something startles him very much, a real threat, something or someone chases him from the kill. But then he will stay away not for hours, but forever. He will not return in a few hours. You see, he is not a coward. He is very clever, the wolf. He knows that he can make another kill, in a safe place, then eat. He does not run away and then come back to a dangerous place. He quickly judges it a safe place, stays and eats, or he judges it an unsafe place and runs, and he does not come back.”

“You are saying,” says Jose, “that I did not see the wolf. I saw a man.”

“What is more likely,” Rollo reasons, “that this is a strange wolf who does not behave like a wolf, a wolf who walks on two legs, or that this is a man?”

Jose nods. “I see.” He rubs his thigh again, then massages his knee. “I must have been wrong.”

“It is easy to do, in the low light,” Rollo says. “And with Segundo ripped apart like that, and knowing the wolf is the killer, and knowing the wolf is out there in the dark. Then you see something, someone, and your mind, it makes this connection: the wolf killed, the wolf is out there in the dark, there is a shape, it must be the wolf.”

“Yes,” Jose says. “I see that now.”

“But,” says Rollo, “let us not be so hasty. There must have been something about this shape in the dark that would allow your mind to make this false connection. For example, it could not have been a child.”

“There are no children in the camp,” Jose reasons.

Rollo smiles. “I was just using this as an example. It could not have been a child, no? Even if there was a child out wandering in the dark, someone not belonging to the company, that could not have been what you saw, is that right?”

“No,” Jose smiles, “it was not a child.”

“Why not?”

“There are no children in the camp.”

“Yes, yes,” Rollo is as patient as a kind grandparent, letting Jose talk his way through this blind alley. “There are no children in the camp, as we said before. But other than that, what was there about the shape that would tell you this was not a child?”

“It was not as small as that.”

“Good, it was bigger than a child.”

“Much bigger.”

“Bigger than a woman?”

“There are some big women,” Jose grins, “even in the camp.”

“That is true. But it was either the size of a man, or a big woman.”

“Yes, yes,” Jose is finally starting to see where Rollo is leading him. “A big man.”

“Big as in fat, as in tall?”

“I only caught sight for a short time.”

“But you said your good eye was dark adapted, and you were very certain that it was walking on two legs, so it must have been clear, even for a short time? Why?”

Jose rubs his thigh again, but before he gets around to massaging his knee, he suddenly snaps his fingers.

“Ah,” he says. “Because he was standing between two pines, close to the edge of the plateau, and then he jumped down from the plateau and vanished into the night, but just as he stood there at the edge, before jumping, the sky was just beginning to light up, so I saw his dark outline clearly.”

“And, what? Big, fat, thin, tall? Anything specific you remember about him.”

“The arms,” Jose says. “Well, the one arm. I only saw the one arm, the way he was standing. Yes, I remember now. I think that’s why I was so certain it was an animal, not a man, even if it was standing on two legs.”

“The arm,” Rollo says, “what about the arm?”

“It was long, very long. So long it almost reached to the ground. And the … the fingers .. they were also very long, and pointed, sharp, like … like claws.”

— END PART 2 - TO BE CONTINUED —

Click here to go to Part 3 of the story.