The Exile

by Mark Oldfield

  Guzmán paused, listening intently to the silence. A funereal quiet that amplified his cautious steps into shimmering Judas sounds, each ready to betray his presence. Slowly, he turned, scanning the cavern for signs of life. The bleak light from the gallery created long shadows over the skeletal framework of the well, almost hiding the man sitting with his back to the rough stone parapet, a rifle across his knee.

  Guzmán crept forwards, keeping the Browning raised. It was unlikely El Lobo would take a nap here, in the centre of this dank grotto. More likely this was one of his men, taking a furtive break. That was fine. No matter how many men Lobo had with him here, Guzmán would kill them one by one if he had to. Flexibility in combat was necessary to survive in fluctuating circumstances. There was only thing Guzmán would not change now: El Lobo had to die.

  The man gave no sign of movement as Guzmán worked his way closer. Slowly, he holstered the Browning and drew his knife. This man would die without his sleep being disturbed.

  Holding the knife ready, he moved in for the kill, aware now of a thick odour, both repugnant and familiar. The stench of putrefaction. The pallid torchlight from the gallery played over the man’s features as Guzmán spat onto the rough stone floor, clearing the taste of death from his mouth as he glared at the bloated face. In death, the late Señor Bárcenas was no less ugly than in life, though he smelled much worse.

  A sudden flash. Powdered stone stung Guzmán’s face as he threw himself flat, hearing the rippling cadences of the shot hammer through the dark silence of the cavern.

  He lay by the well, trying to see where the shot had come from. A noise to his left as Bárcenas’s corpse slid across the stone wall towards him. Guzmán inhaled the stench of rotting flesh as he glowered at the corpulent face half a metre from his. Accurate shooting, Guzmán thought, realising the bullet had not been meant for him. Someone was playing games.

  ‘I knew you’d come.’ A deep, resonant voice from somewhere on the gallery. Guzmán glanced across to the stone tables. There was good cover behind those, enhanced by the heaps of cannon balls piled on them. If he could get among the tables, Lobo would need to lean over the balcony to get a shot at him. And that would make him a target.

  Guzmán leaped up and fired, aiming at the sound of the voice. Harsh sharp cracks, the cartridges rattling onto the ground as he ran to the stone tables, firing again as he saw a dark shape rear up behind the balcony. He hurled himself into the shelter of one of the big stone tables as a rapid series of bullets exploded around him, whining away in clamorous ricochets. Sweat trickled down his face as he sheltered under the ancient carved stonework, planning his next move. He was safe for now, but the moment he moved, Lobo was in a prime position to pick him off.

  ‘You lack finesse, Comandante,’ the voice said. ‘Men like you have no time for thought, you rely on your brute instincts.’

  ‘I didn’t come here for flattery,’ Guzmán grunted, squirming through the space below the table towards the wall of the cavern.

  ‘You came here to die.’ The words bounced around the gallery, low and threatening. ‘Perhaps you didn’t realise it before. I’m sure you do now.’

  Guzmán rolled onto his back and looked up through a lattice of cobwebs. He still had no clear shot at the gallery, so he twisted and slid forward under the next table.

  ‘There’s no escape from here.’ The voice rolled around the walls of the cavern.

  ‘Not for you, there isn’t.’ Guzmán scanned the balcony with his pistol. ‘So far, every time I got near you, you ran. You won’t do it again.’

  A strange noise from above. The sound of cold laughter. ‘Guerrilla warfare.’

  Guzmán peered up at the gallery. The echoes made it hard to locate where the voice was coming from. He had to keep Lobo talking. ‘You call running away guerrilla warfare?’

  ‘Of course. You were so sure I’d walk into your trap, you never thought about other possibilities.’ A mirthless laugh. ‘Not until it was too late, anyway.’

  Guzmán felt sweat trickle down his back as he struggled to control his anger. ‘What’s Bárcenas doing here?’

  ‘It would have spoiled my plans if you’d been arrested for his murder, so I took him while you spent the night with General Torres’s daughter.’

  ‘I’d say I got the better deal.’

  ‘I could have killed both of you any time I chose.’ Lobo’s voice had a sour edge to it. ‘But I don’t kill innocent women.’ The words rebounded in muted echoes. ‘How does it feel now? Are you afraid like we were, tied to those chairs? Or have you forgotten that night?’

  Guzmán wiped a hand across his brow, beginning to understand now. ‘You were at Villarreal?’ He tried to remember the faces in that cellar. There was only one he recalled in any detail and that was Arantxa’s. ‘Did you think we’d send you home with a warning? It was war.’

  A dark figure appeared on the balcony. Guzmán brought the pistol up fast, the bullets glancing off the stone balcony in eccentric patterns of fleeting sparks as the staccato bark of the Browning echoed up into the roof of the cavern, provoking a frenzy of startled bats.

  ‘You had no need to kill her.’ The deep voice was calm, almost thoughtful. Lobo fired again and another bullet exploded into the stone table above Guzmán’s head. ‘You said she could live and then you killed her in front of me.’

  ‘I wasn’t even there,’ Guzmán snapped. ‘And at least her child lived.’

  The torches outlined Lobo in wavering fire. ‘You’d say anything to stay alive. All of them died. All but me. I cheated death and now I’ve come for you, Comandante.’

  ‘You’re wrong – the child didn’t die,’ Guzmán said. ‘A drover took her to Arantxa’s farm. He was supposed to take both of them. For some reason Arantxa stayed with you.’

  ‘No. I was there. I know what you did.’

  ‘You couldn’t have been, I’d never forget a face as ugly as yours.’

  ‘This was your handiwork with that sword.’ Lobo’s voice pulsed with anger. ‘You should have killed me. Vengeance has a long memory – as you’re going to find out.’

  ‘You talk like a poet,’ Guzmán snorted. ‘And that’s not a compliment.’

  ‘That was what they called me. But my poetry ended that night. Poetry comes from love. I have darker inspirations now.’

  Guzmán remembered the lantern light, the row of chairs. ‘The Englishman.’ A statement, not a question. ‘Was Arantxa your woman?’

  ‘In a way. Though I had no time for whores. It was her mind I valued, not her body. ’

  ‘No wonder you lost the war,’ Guzmán sneered. ‘You sound more like a fucking Jesuit than an anarchist.’

  ‘I believed in what I fought for, Comandante.’

  ‘Really? I found photos of you and Mellado in his office. You make a strange couple.’

  ‘I joined the Legion after the war. As long as a man could fight, Mellado didn’t care about his past. I enjoyed my time in the desert. They say the hardest steel goes through the fire.’

  ‘And you changed your politics as well while you were there, did you?’

  ‘A marriage of convenience,’ Lobo said. ‘The general and I have similar aims.’

  ‘And what would those be?’

  ‘We want this region to burn, Comandante.’

  Guzmán frowned. That was not the answer he’d expected. ‘Why would you want that?’

  ‘He wants an uprising so he can put it down. And so do I, though for different reasons.’

  ‘That’s why he supplied you with those rifles over there, is it?’

  ‘Exactly. He wants the resistance to be well armed so he can slaughter them.’

  ‘And he’s got no idea of what your plans are?’

  ‘Of course not, he’s half-crazy. He doesn’t realise the damage it will do to the economy. There’ll be no foreign investment, just war, Guzmán. And this time it will be a war you won’t win. No Germans or Italians to bail you out now.’

  ‘You’re th
e one who’s fucking crazy,’ Guzmán growled.

  Lobo’s voice throbbed with sudden passion. ‘People here are too accustomed to defeat. They need blood to be spilled, their homes burned and their children murdered. That way, they’ll realise fighting is their only option. Once the people rise up in arms none of you fascists will be able to stop them.’

  Guzmán saw furtive movement on the balcony as Lobo shifted position. ‘You’re still an anarchist, then?’ he asked, hoping Lobo would move again. He raised the pistol.

  ‘I believe in perpetual conflict, Comandante. Fire and revolution, constant upheaval.’

  ‘But you’ve no interest in Arantxa’s daughter? Some comrade you were.’

  ‘Why should I care about her bastard child? When we were captured, Arantxa said you were the father. That was why she believed you’d help her escape.’

  So it was true. Sweat ran into Guzmán’s eye and he blinked it away. He began to raise himself from cover, ready to empty the magazine into Lobo’s scarred face. But for that he needed the bandit to show himself. ‘She’s the image of her mother,’ he called. ‘If you saw her, you’d think it was Arantxa back from the grave.’

  ‘I’d put a bullet in her,’ Lobo said in a hoarse whisper. ‘Let the child join her mother.’

  Furious, Guzmán stepped out from behind the tables, aiming up at the gallery. ‘Why the fuck would you do that, you crazy bastard?’

  Standing in the mouth of the tunnel, Nieves sensed León’s grip slacken as he leaned forward, preoccupied with Guzmán and Lobo’s confrontation. With a sudden twist of her body she broke away from him and ran back into the tunnel. In the darkness it was impossible to see the uneven stone floor and she tripped, falling full length onto the ground. Before she could get up, León was on her, driving the air from her lungs as he pinned her down with his great weight, his big clammy hands clamped around her wrists, his legs clasping hers. Cold stone pressed against her cheek as he pressed himself against her, breathing into her ear. ‘Not yet, niña. But soon now.’

  She gasped as he grabbed a handful of her hair and dragged her to her feet.

  Up on the gallery, Lobo stepped out of the shadows, a tall, bulky outline against the glow of the torches. ‘Death has a strange symmetry, Comandante. Let the girl join her mother. If she knew who her father is – what he is – she’d welcome death.’

  The bitter crack of the rifle. Harsh shimmering echoes. White, searing pain.

  The bullet struck Guzmán high in the left arm, knocking him to the ground. He clutched the wound, looking up at the gallery as El Lobo slid over the balcony and dropped down into the chamber. He landed lightly on his feet and came sprinting forwards, the rifle held like a club.

  Guzmán struggled to his feet, gripping the Browning with both hands. As Lobo closed on him, he aimed and pulled the trigger.

  A hollow metal click.

  Before he could even think about clearing the jam, Lobo was on him, and Guzmán grunted in pain as he blocked the rifle blow with his forearms. Desperate to get at him, Lobo dropped the rifle and launched a frenzied onslaught with his fists, driving Guzmán back towards the well, Guzmán’s head snapping back as the bandit’s punches struck home.

  This close, El Lobo was even more monstrous, his ravaged face a taut mask of pale shiny flesh crossed by the marks of inept stitching. A dead face devoid of expression apart from his dark eyes, glittering with violent intent as he rained a flurry of blows at Guzmán, picking his spot now, hitting the side of his head, the chest, hammering into his ribs.

  And Lobo was taller and stronger, Guzmán realised as he raised his fists, defending against the furious barrage of punches to his head. A sharp blow above the eye rocked him and he staggered back, blinking away the flickering lights dancing across his vision, feeling a trickle of blood from a cut.

  Lobo had done this before, that was for sure. The punches were well timed and varied, one moment smacking against the side of his head, the next hammering into his body with savage force, knocking the breath from him in noisy grunts. Even when Guzmán used his good arm to try and land a blow, Lobo moved fast, blocking it and then returning to the attack, striking with fast one-twos, forcing Guzmán slowly back, step by step, forcing him to block with his wounded arm while trying to hit back with the other.

  Sensing Guzmán’s disadvantage, Lobo slowed, striking with greater precision, picking his spots as he looked for the opportunity to finish him. Guzmán reeled as a heavy punch hit him full in the chest. For a moment, time slowed, as if his heart had stopped. He stood, gulping in air as Lobo squared up for his next attack. He raised his head, shaking sweat from his face, his fists clenched as he saw the pitiless eyes staring at him, glazed with fury. A killer’s eyes. A reflection of his own.

  And then Lobo moved in again, unleashing sharp, explosive punches, driving Guzmán back towards the well.

  The pain was brutal. Nothing existed outside this grunting, spluttering world of fists and sweat and blood. It was not going well. Guzmán landed a punch here and there, but for every blow, Lobo landed three or four in return. Guzmán aimed a kick at Lobo’s knee but the bandit danced back out of range before attacking again, confident now as he saw the damage he was inflicting.

  Guzmán felt thick blood in his nose and spat, watching Lobo’s fists as he prepared to hit him again. A succession of darting thoughts flashed through the pain. The feeling of being helpless when he was a kid, as his father bore down on him. The feeling when he saw Arantxa’s body, deep furrows of bloody flesh bulging through her clothes where the sword had struck. Helpless. And now, wondering if this might be the day he’d always thought would come. The day he lost control of his destiny. His future no longer in his hands but those of his killer.

  The blow caught him on the side of his head, above his ear. Lights flashed before his eyes. Helpless. Ironic for a man who earlier had congratulated himself on being a winner. Helpless. A man who had always thought he had what it took to survive in this world. Though not for much longer: he was thinking like a loser.

  A voice in his head. You’re the smart one chico. You work it out. Her voice. Arantxa.

  The next punch caught him on the temple, sending him reeling against the crumbling parapet around the well. The ancient wall trembled under the impact, sending shards of ancient brick rattling down into the depths. Struggling to stay on his feet, Guzman put a hand on the wall to steady himself, feeling a sharp stone protruding from the rough surface, loosening from the ancient mortar as his grip tightened on it. Breaking away in his hand. He looked up and met Lobo’s eye as he came towards him, ready to finish him. As Lobo swung his fist, Guzmán lifted his injured arm to deflect the blow, knocking the bandit’s arm to one side.

  Guzmán head-butted him in the face.

  Lobo staggered back and Guzmán saw the long bloody gash above the bandit’s eye where the flesh had torn open along the ragged scar lines. Lobo blinked as a rivulet of blood ran into his eyes and lifted his hand to wipe it away. As he did, Guzmán leaped forward and seized his throat with his left hand. Instinctively, Lobo clutched the hand on his throat, trying to break the choking grip. That was a mistake.

  Guzmán smashed the jagged stone in his right hand into the open wound, ripping open more of the old scar tissue. With a howl of pain, Lobo broke away, clutching at the ragged flap of bloody flesh drooping over his left eye. A wound like that would distract any man and as Lobo hesitated, Guzmán struck again, tearing open more of the scarred flesh as he pounded the stone into the bandit’s face again and again, feeling the blood splattering him with each blow.

  Lobo staggered back, clumsily trying to push the fold of skin away from his eyes, which were filling with blood. In that one faltering moment, Guzmán was on him, his fingers tearing into the gaping wound as he gripped the tangle of muscle and sinew and brought all his strength to bear as he spun round, ripping part of the bandit’s face away as he hurled El Lobo into the parapet of the well. With a dry crack the ancient brickwork disintegrated, s
pilling into the well in an avalanche of tan dust, taking Lobo with it. Moments later, the huge stone chamber echoed to the sound of his body as it hit the rocks below. A few desultory flurries of loose stones and dirt followed before the silence closed in once more.

  Gasping for air, Guzmán went over to the ragged gap in the parapet and looked down, seeing nothing but shadow. He wiped sweat from his face, grunting at the pain coursing through his battered body. He put a hand to his shoulder. The bullet wound was not the worst injury he’d ever had but he was alone here. If he lost too much blood and passed out, it was unlikely anyone would come looking for him. He needed to bind the wound quickly and doing that would make him vulnerable, especially if Lobo had brought men up here with him.

  He looked round for somewhere he could attend to his injury without being surprised by Lobo’s gunmen. In a corner of the cavern, he saw a cluster of boulders, each of them taller than a man. He staggered over and slipped into a gap between the rocks.

  Hidden from view, he sat with his back to one of the ancient stones and tore a strip of canvas from the lining of his hunting jacket. Slowly, he looped the canvas strip around the wound. It was not easy working one-handed: he needed to be patient. But after two days of exertion and combat with little sleep, his patience was almost exhausted.

  Sweat stung his eyes and the end of the canvas slipped from his fingers again and again. Cursing, he forced himself to work slowly, taking more care. This time he managed to work the strip around his arm into a half-knot and leaned back against the rock for a moment, almost comfortable. If he closed his eyes, he would sleep at once, he could tell. That was an attractive option. Just let sleep overtake him and abandon this running battle. Fuck Franco’s secrecy, his need for Yanqui money. He was tired of all of it. He closed his eyes and felt the darkness calling to him, a siren song promising oblivion.

  His head rolled back and hit the rock with a sudden jolt. His eyes snapped open and he looked up at the vast cavern above him and shook his head, dismissing the ideas spinning through his exhausted brain. When had he ever abandoned a job? He stuck with things, pursued them to the end. That was what brought him his rewards. And his reward for completing this job would be a return to Madrid, not sitting slowly bleeding to death in a fucking antiquated fortress. He would complete his mission, not out of a sense of duty but because he was – and always had been – a winner. There would be no lying back and sleeping, no resigning himself to fate or the whims of others. His fate lay in his hands, those big powerful hands now encrusted with the blood of a dead bandit.