Robert Wilson - A Small Death in Lisbon

They didn't see them at first, the acoustics of the river valley playing games with the sound of the hooves on the rocks. The guarda appeared directly above them, their peaked caps silhouetted against the lighter distant sky. One of the men pointed down to their position. Two of the guardas unholstered their sidearms, the third took out a rifle from the back of his saddle. They shouted down to them. The rifleman levelled his weapon and aimed. Abrantes and his man put up their hands. The two guardas with pistols galloped along the ridge and came down into the gully. Their horses trod carefully over the rocks towards the two mules. The guardas dismounted. The man on the ridge lowered his weapon, stuck it back in his saddle, and reined his horse round to join the party down by the river.

The chefe da brigada approached the two men still with their hands up. He adjusted the grip on his gun in his gloved hand. He looked over the mules.

'What are you doing out here?'

'We've had trouble with the mules,' said Abrantes. 'This one's lame and the other's girth has broken.'

'Where's your cargo?'

'We don't have one.'

'Where have you come from?'

'Penamacor.'

'Where are you going?'

'Foios,' said Abrantes. 'We're taking the mules back to their owner. They've been used for work outside Penamacor.'

'What sort of work.'

'Transport.'

'Transporting what?' said the guarda, getting frustrated.

'You know, working around the mine.'

'Wolfram?'

'I think so. I think that's what it was.'

'Were you carrying any wolfram?'

'No, we're just taking the mules back.'

'You're wet. Up to your waist, you're wet.'

'We've just brought the animals across the river.'

The chefe pointed them over to the mules with his pistol. He slapped the mules' bellies, satisfied himself that they were wet. He went to the riverside. The guarda with the rifle arrived and dismounted. He tore a branch from a tree and joined the chefe. They walked along the side of the river dragging the branch along under the water.

It was late afternoon now and the light was failing. Abrantes didn't know where the guarda were from, but they had a two-hour ride ahead of them, wherever. The chefe and the rifleman talked out of earshot. They came back to their horses, all three mounted and rode back out of the river valley without exchanging another word.

Abrantes brought Salgado to his side and they sat and watched the river for some minutes, the rain driving into their backs. He took out his Walther P48 and checked that it was loaded and still dry. They made a fire. Abrantes worked on the mule's hoof again, Salgado repaired the girth. Night fell and they slept around the fire, having eaten some stale bread and ham.

In the morning they were up at first light wading into the river to bring out the sacks of wolfram. It took some time, as the river had swollen some more during the night, and they could only bring them out one at a time. They loaded the sacks on to the mules, giving the lame mule the lighter load. The rain had stopped, but the cold wind was still blowing and there was more on its way down from the meseta. They moved out of the gully and up on to the ridge to start the climb across the serra to Spain. That's where they were waiting for them, on the other side of the ridge.

The chefe de brigada raised his gun and told the men to stop. Abrantes fell to one side as if he'd taken a bullet in the side of the head. The chefe instinctively squeezed the trigger and Salgado open-mouthed took the bullet high in his chest where it shattered his clavicle. Salgado's mule took off. The second bullet hit Salgado in the stomach before he'd reached the ground.

Abrantes dragged his mule down to the floor, he tore the gun from his waistband and shot the chefe in the chest under the armpit. The man fell to the ground. The rifleman was trying to keep his rearing horse calm and Abrantes let off two shots, the second hitting him in the head. The third guarda wheeled his horse round in time to take a bullet between his shoulderblades. He fell backwards with a crack and his horse ran back down into the gully.

Abrantes tethered his mule and approached the chefe who was still breathing but bubbling blood out of his mouth. He shot him in the head. The rifleman was already dead. The third guarda had a broken neck. Abrantes went to Salgado who was lying on his back so flat that it was as if the ground had already claimed him. He was panting, scared and in pain, his lips and face white. Abrantes tore open the man's coat and shirt and saw the mash of bone and flesh at his clavicle and the dark hole in his stomach. Salgado whispered something. Abrantes put his head down to his mouth.

'I can't feel my legs,' he said.

Abrantes nodded at him, stood back and shot him in the eye.

The chefe's horse had stayed. Abrantes loaded two guardas on to it and took them down to the river. The other two horses were down there and he tethered them to a tree. He went back and loaded the chefe and Salgado. He filled the dead men's clothes with rocks and dragged each one of them out into the river.

Riding the chefe's horse he picked up his own mule and found Salgado's grazing in a hollow, still fully loaded with the wolfram. He spread the loads from the mules over the guardas ' horses and set off once more across the serra for Spain.

It was the afternoon of Christmas Eve and Felsen was still in Abrantes' house, waiting with his cleaned and loaded pistol. It had been a long wait and one he had not been prepared for. There was only so much time he could spend thinking about Abrantes, the missing wolfram, and how he was going to manoeuvre the Portuguese across the border and leave him out there, amongst the rocks and broom, with a bullet in his brain.

Occasionally Maria came in with coffee and then later food and drink. She wanted his attention but he wouldn't give it to her. Her presence irritated him. She triggered strands of thought that he'd rather have left dormant. He remembered a look she'd given him when they were burying the Englishman in the courtyard, and that would start him thinking about that afternoon in the old mine, and he'd have to shake his head and pace the room to get rid of it. He wondered why he'd had her now. How could it have been to spite Abrantes when he was going to kill the man anyway?

At that moment she'd appear again, and the word 'rape' would climb into his brain, and he'd remember the thrill as he rammed gently into her, her eyes darting afraid above the knuckles of his hand over her mouth. But then it had turned into something else. He'd felt that heel on his buttock. She'd come back the next night and it had sickened him. He told her to stay in the kitchen.

He thought about other women. He thought about the first woman. A girl who was supposed to be out in the field working for his father, but who he'd caught sleeping in the barn. She'd seen the way he'd looked at the flesh between her stocking top and skirt, and had let him have her to keep him quiet.

She was still the only one by the time he arrived in Berlin as a young man. A girl picked him up in the railway station. He'd thought that this was all part of the wild city life until he'd finished, and she'd demanded her money He'd asked, what for? And her lips had hardened to chisel tips. She'd called the pimp, who'd taken one look at the size of the farmboy and produced a blade. He'd paid and backed out and then heard the pimp beating the girl. Wilkommen in Berlin.

The weather closed in again over Amêndoa. The rain raked die tiles. Felsen smoked and continued to amuse himself by trying to remember all the women he'd ever had in the right order. If he missed one he had to start again. It took him some time to work his way to Eva.