“They wouldn’t come?”
“Not until dark. Do you think they want the police tracking them back to their valley? A raid?”
Excuses, she thought, always excuses. “How many are there?”
“Two. A man and his son.”
“Is that all?”
It’s quite enough, he thought. She hasn’t seen them. I have.
She said, “Go back and tell them—”
“Go yourself!” He never wanted to see them again. They troubled him. They lived in absolute freedom, a communal life, everything shared. Idyllic? He remembered their faces, the eyes that had studied him. Absolute freedom did strange things to some men. Men? They were animals. Not proud or noble animals, either; just... Quickly, he corrected his heresy. Those outlaws never had the chance to practise absolute freedom properly. They were free only in their miserable valley; and even there, they lived with fear, keeping constant watch, ready to abandon their huts and run to the mountains. How many raids had they survived in the last fifteen years?
“Where is this cave?”
“Xenia, don’t be a fool.”
“On the contrary,” she said coldly. “If we don’t find that girl, do you realise what we must do?”
“Get out of here at once.” We should have left hours ago. The girl was probably as dead as the sheep.
“We go back to Metsos and tell him what has happened. He has to know what has happened.” As he frowned, finding that an unpleasant and dangerous complication, Xenia asked anxiously, “You did see Metsos last night when you left the car at the house near Delphi? He had arrived? He is all right?”
“He is safe enough.” There were three trails on to the hills from the back of that house; a clear view, in front, of the road by which any danger would come. A well-placed house. Yes, Metsos was safe enough. Safer than we are, he thought, and a sight more comfortable.
“You gave me a fright, for a moment,” she said angrily.
“He is safe,” he repeated. “But the road to the house is no longer safe by daylight, for us. There are villages. We would be noticed. They must have heard the motor cycle, this morning. If they see it, now—”
“Anastas, the fool!” she said derisively. “What makes you think we can ever risk going back for your motorcycle? We may have to walk. Yes, walk! And the sooner we get rid of that girl, the sooner we can start.” She turned to climb up the hill.
“Don’t go!” he told her. And I’m damned if I do much walking. I hid the motorcycle well. I’ll find it. But soon. I must find it soon.
She looked down at him. “What has happened to you? These men are friends of Metsos. They listened to his message, didn’t they?”
“Because he offered them something for nothing.” And he didn’t see Metsos visiting them himself.
She said coldly, “They are free men, Anastas. Since when have you become frightened of free men?”
“All right,” he said, angry now. “Have your own way. But don’t waste any time. And keep under cover. There are shepherds over on the meadow, to the west.”
“Shepherds!” she said derisively. “Are you afraid of them, too? Don’t worry. I know how to keep my head down. You keep yours! Watch that ravine!” She left, making for the scattering of stunted trees that lay under the crest of the hill. From there, she would follow a sheep track through them, over the shoulder to the other side of the hill. He tried to imagine the scene: Xenia laying down the law to the lawless. She would have a long climb for nothing. They would do things their own way, not hers. In their world of free men, women did not give orders. For a moment, he almost smiled. He wondered if he should have told her to keep a distance from them, her revolver ready but out of sight. The men might take a fancy to it.
He waited impatiently, staring down at the ravine, searching its sides carefully with angry eyes. The girl was not here, he told himself again, and persuaded himself completely. Xenia had been the fool to waste time like this. He would have to climb up to the cave and hurry her away. But I’m damned, he thought, if I’m going back to the Delphi house to tell Metsos. I’ll telephone him from Levadia. My orders were to get out of this district as soon as the job was finished, and stay out. Well, the job seems to have finished itself. What does Metsos do when he faces a reverse? He cuts his losses and gets out. And plans to fight another day. The trouble with women was that they never knew when to get out. They kept on and on.
He cursed Xenia, the ravine, the American girl, that eagle planing overhead. He watched it uneasily. It was still flying at a great height, but it seemed to be circling round and round over the same spot. Could it actually see the sheep lying on that ledge of cliff? He liked the ravine less and less. Time to leave this place and find Xenia. And then he saw a shepherd, standing quite still, watching him from across the ravine, leaning on his long staff.
Anastas looked up the hill. No sign of Xenia, damn her. But, up there, was the shepherd’s dog, a huge brute even from this distance, pointing toward the crest of the hill. Xenia would have to choose another way down. She would. Xenia would walk through a gate of fire if she could report back about it to Metsos.
He watched the shepherd coming slowly along the top of the ravine. Soon, Anastas thought, he will be near enough to see my face clearly. He turned his head quickly away, hesitated, started along the hillside path back to the shelter of the wood. It was the only intelligent thing to do, he kept telling himself. Xenia? She would be already there, waiting impatiently, angry because she couldn’t get the men to show themselves by daylight on this hillside.
But Xenia was not waiting near the pool.
I’d better make sure of that motorcycle, he thought, while the wood is still quiet. He began to run down the shaded, silent path. At the last trees, he halted and listened. No sound at all. He came through them slowly, stopped behind a huge plane tree, looked cautiously out on the meadow. The hut was a glowing heap of ashes. Three peasants were grouped beside an olive tree, watching in silence. That was all: the quiet meadow, three silent peasants. Let them try to stop me, he thought: a woman, an old man, a boy. Let them try!
They watched him, motionless, making no effort to stop him at all. He reached the bushes where he had hidden, the motorcycle. It was still there.
Then two policemen closed in, one from each side.
* * *
The shepherd came slowly along the top of the ravine. He watched the man in the dark coat stumbling over the path toward the wood. A frightened man. What is frightening him? Foreigners are strange people.
He whistled to his dog and brought it bounding back down the hillside. “What do you smell up there?” he asked the dog. “What angers you? Yes, yes, I’ll go and see. Later. First things first.” He dropped his stick and began to climb down the cliff towards the sheep. There was still a little life in it. Kneeling by the sheep, he looked up at the eagle with a toothless grin of triumph. The giant stretch of wings made its last circle. It rose into a current of air, and turned to float away across the valley.
From his high perch on the cliff, he saw—down there, hidden behind a clump of bushes—a colour that his eye had been trained to notice. The colour of natural wool. His heavy eyebrows knitted in a puzzled frown. Not a sheep. A woman. Why does she lie there? Is she dead? No. She moves. She sees trie. A foreigner. She does not belong to this valley. Strange people, these foreigners, from the towns and the city. Crazy people, stupid. And their women are the craziest of all. Like the women in the hut last night. They come, in a car. They wait for the sun to rise, so that they can climb the mountain. Every summer, they come. Women dressed like men, bundles on their backs, climbing the mountains by all the wrong paths. For what? So that everyone must stop his work and search for them. Crazy and stupid and selfish.
He stared down at the other bank of the ravine. This one is very quiet, she does not scream or cry out, she needs no help. A strange foreigner. She is resting. She chooses a nice warm place in the sun to lie on the grass and watch the sky. She is not so c
razy, this one.
Slowly, gently, he hoisted the sheep over his shoulders. “Keep still, keep very still!” Slowly, slowly, he clambered back to the top of the ravine, to the green grass and the flowers of the meadow, the sheep’s little bell sounding sweetly with each step he took.
The dog was waiting obediently beside his staff, but it whined as it looked up the hillside towards the crest. “First things first,” he told it sharply. A good dog, brave and willing, but it has much to learn.
He set out across the meadow, the sheep stirring on his shoulder as it sensed it was safe, He put it down as he neared the scattered flock, watched by his brother and his brother’s dog. It felt so safe, it even tried to run on its shaking legs, which made him laugh. His- eyes swept over the flock: sixty-five white, forty-seven black. All there now. He leaned on his staff, listening to the tinkling bells as the sheep grazed safely over the-blue-flowered meadow.
His brother limped over to talk. “The dog is restless.”
“It smells their trail again.”
“Where are they? I see nothing.”
“Perhaps they rest in the cave.”
“They have guns,” his brother warned him. “Twice, this morning...”
The shepherd nodded sombrely. He left his brother and began the long walk back to the hill. If the bandits are there, as the dog believes, I go down to the village for help. Eleven years since they have come hunting so near this valley. That time, they steal three sheep. They kill a farmer. They take his wife. The soldiers go after them. Seven days and nights of searching. Five caught and punished. But they are like rats in an old wall. Always one or two who slip away, find another place to nest. They never have enough sense to stay there, to leave other people alone. “We do not want them here, eh?” he asked the dog as it led him over the shoulder of the hill to the shallow cave at the edge of the forest. “They steal and kill too much.”
For a long time, the shepherd lay watching the cave. He could hear no sound. There was no movement. Frowning, he studied the forest which began close to the cave and then slipped downhill to a desolate valley. Beyond the valley were hills and mountains, and between the hills and mountains were valleys which he could not see. A wild and lonely land. Beautiful. Peaceful. As peaceful as this hilltop. He looked again at the cave.
He rose, releasing his grip on the dog’s neck, letting it run free. It bounded toward the cave, and stopped, whining. He followed, still cautious, crouching, one sharp stone in his right hand, two more thrust inside his shirt.
The cave was empty.
But the dog is right, he thought, as he saw the signs of men on the dusty earth floor. He dropped the stones he carried, and spat for good riddance.
The dog was worrying at the edge of the forest now. He called it back. He stood, leaning on his staff, looking over the long northward stretch of trees. Then he turned away, and spat again. “We sleep tonight,” he told the dog, and they went back towards their meadows.
Curiosity took him wandering past the ravine’s edge to look down at the bushes. He held the dog by its long heavy hair, tugging and cursing until it stood obediently quiet. She was still there. This foreigner would not come disturbing his sheep, annoying his dogs. It was all he asked of any stranger. He crashed his stick over the dog’s head when it almost lunged away from him, and made it pay attention enough to follow him back to the flock.
“They are gone,” he told his brother.
“Did you see them go?”
“Perhaps,” he said, evasively, “they go through the forest back to their own place.”
His brother stared up at the hill for a long long time. “Is it a trick?” he asked, at last. “They hear the dogs. They see you. They find some place else to hide until it is dark.”
It was an unpleasant suggestion. The shepherd thought about it. He looked at the grassy knoll where he had hoped to spend the rest of the afternoon. He looked at his brother. “We must tell the police,” he said reluctantly.
His brother nodded. He rubbed his bad leg to show he could not walk so quickly nowadays.
“Stay here!” the shepherd told his dog. “Keep your mind on your own business.” He left them both, grumbling to himself, and struck across the meadows to the west. It would take an hour to reach the little trail that would lead him down over the western hillside to Arachova on the Delphi road. The afternoon would be over before he got back to his knoll, and the warm sun gone.
Cecilia had wanted to call to the shepherd. But a call, a wave, might bring Anastas and Xenia right back to the ravine. At least, she thought, lying quite still, watching the wild head of hair making the large head larger even from this distance, he is keeping one of his eyes on me. The other, thank heavens, must be restraining that dog.
It was the same huge black monster she had seen last night. It stood more than waist-high to the shepherd, and looked fully his bulk. An amiable beast, no doubt, provided his master chugged at his neck and cursed in his ear. But this was hardly the day when her nerves were strong enough to climb up the ravine, walk over the meadows, and join the shepherd’s family circle. Because if Anastas or Xenia arrived, and could talk Greek when she could not, the shepherd might even believe the story they had no doubt concocted and let them take her away thinking they were her friends. She would do better to lie here, keeping quite still, and let this heavenly sun relax her body. She was hungry and thirsty and tired and frightened, but—at last— she was warm. Perhaps, now that the shepherd had vanished, a little lighthearted, too, with relief; that last glimpse of him kneeling on the top of the ravine, looking over, reminded her of Notre Dame Cathedral somehow.
The silence of the hills surrounded her again. It had been a long time since she had heard any voices, or Anastas’s fumbling footsteps crashing around the gully up there. She doubted if Xenia would give up the search so easily, though. That woman was more terrifying than the savage dog.
I’ll wait here, she decided, until the sun is almost set. Then I’ll have to move quickly, back towards the wood, before it gets so dark that I’m lost all over again. In the dusk, I’ll reach the road. I wish I weren’t so scared. I’d be less afraid if I knew where I was. That’s silly, I know, but if I only knew where this hill was, what valley lies far over to the west, where I can see the two eagles circling high in the sky, I’d feel a little less lost. Well, I shan’t be lost if I can reach the road. Ken, she told him, you’ve got to be there, you’ve got to be...
29
Kenneth Strang reached the meadow by the road in the late afternoon. He got out of the car, stretching his shoulders, exchanging a quiet nod with Costas. Between them, they had made good time. “Record time,” Elias acknowledged, forgetting—in the excitement of their arrival—the qualms he had endured in silence during their wild ride on to the mainland and through the hills toward Parnassos. He made his way quickly to the two cars parked ahead of them at the meadow’s edge.
Strang waited, looking around him. It seemed as if a small field headquarters had been set up at this point. There were three uniforms—army, or perhaps police—and two grave-faced civilians grouped around one car. A little distance away, there were a few interested spectators—two old women sitting on donkeys, a girl guarding a small herd of silk-bearded goats, some children.
There must be definite news to have brought us here, Strang thought. At Corinth, Elias had been told to head for Levadia. At Levadia, he had been told to take the Delphi road. And here they were, still about fifteen miles away from Delphi, with not a village in sight. Behind him were bare hills, through which their road had travelled. In front of him was the beginning of the Parnassos slopes, which stretched west and east and up as far as he could see: a pleasant meadow, with a stream at one side, a wood climbing behind it on to a steep hillside; more hillsides to the east; and to the west, high above the Delphi road, a buttress of precipices, meadows, more hillside. God, he thought in despair, if this place is where they brought her, where do we begin to look? Grimly, he eyed the wreaths o
f grey-white mists that blotted out the topmost peak. Were they lifting? Or were they settling lower?
Elias came back, followed by a man in police uniform. “They are expecting Colonel Zafiris immediately.” He looked pleased for a moment. “We got here before him.”
“Why here?”
Elias spoke to the policeman, who produced a key wallet and a hotel key. “You recognise these?”
Strang took them. He nodded.
“The key wallet was found, at the side of this road, by a farmer on his way to Arachova. The hotel key was found halfway across the meadow, just after the hut over there was discovered to be on fire.” He pointed to a heap of black ashes beside a grey stone sheep fold. “The wallet was found at half past six. The fire was seen, much later, by a boy and his sister, herding goats. The boy went to Arachova for help. The girl stayed here, and one of her goats tried to eat the hotel key. The police came, just after ten o’clock. They searched all around, found a motorcycle hidden behind some bushes. When its owner came out of the woods, he was detained. Naturally. He had a revolver. Two bullets had been fired.” Elias paused, trying to search for non-alarming words. “The girl with the goats said she had heard two shots while she waited for her brother. She couldn’t say where, exactly. But the shots may mean very little.” He looked away from Strang. “The man who was detained for questioning has a very simple story. He was travelling to Athens. He stopped to rest in the wood. He saw a man running away from the hut—a rough shepherd, he thought. Then he saw the hut was on fire, so he followed the man. He tried to stop him by firing twice in the air. That is his story. And he does not change it.”
Strang said bitterly, staring up at the hillside, “Do men carry revolvers when they travel to Athens?”
“No. And when men travel by this road to Athens, they must pass through Delphi and then Arachova to reach here. No motorcycle was heard or seen in Delphi. Yet one was heard, just before dawn, passing through Arachova. Interesting.” Elias took the wallet and key from Strang, and looked at them for a moment before he handed them back to the policeman. “These things, by themselves, seemed not important—just strange little events, until—”
Decision at Delphi Page 48
