Martin Walker - The Crowded Grave

Suddenly Carlos made a decision, lowered the gun and fired into Gigi’s back. The dog jerked but hung on, still snarling. Carlos fired again, the gun pressed against Gigi’s skull. It exploded in a red mist, and Bruno felt his heart break through the shock, everything civilized within him swept away in a raw, barbaric rage. Somehow Bruno staggered to his feet knowing he would kill this man. Carlos kicked the dog aside and half ran, half limped to the door leading to the stable yard and his parked Range Rover.

Knowing that the sight would be seared on his brain for as long as he lived, Bruno threw a despairing glance at the sprawled body of his dog and darted past Isabelle to pick up her gun from the floor where it had fallen. He released the safety catch as he turned and fired three fast shots at Carlos as he leaped down the steps. The gun was unfamiliar and he knew he had missed.

He ran after Carlos, pausing at the top of the steps to shoot again, aware of the two mobiles in the yard, standing with their mouths agape and their weapons still slung over the shoulders.

“Stop him, he’s the ETA leader,” Bruno shouted and fired again but the gun jammed. Now Carlos was in the driver’s seat, the engine kicking into life. Bruno threw the useless gun at him and then ran down the steps to grab a weapon from one of the mobiles, but the Range Rover was coming directly at him. The only thing at hand was the pitchfork in the pile of manure. In desperation he forked up a heap and hurled the stinking mass at the vehicle. It skidded from the hood and onto the windshield, blocking Carlos’s view. The vehicle changed direction as if to roar up the steps of the Domaine. Carlos put his head out of the window to see ahead and wrenched the wheel. He skidded, mounting just one step and toppling a small stone pineapple from the balustrade before accelerating past and out of the stable yard.

“Give me a gun,” Bruno shouted at the mobiles, but they just stared at him as if he were mad, each of them trying to key his radio to find out what their orders were. Shouting curses at them, his pitchfork still in his hand, Bruno ran to the stable and mounted Hector. A cold rage in his heart for the killing of his dog, Bruno kicked his startled horse into life and rode out into the courtyard, knocking one of the mobiles aside and racing into the lane after the Range Rover.

As Hector accelerated into a fast canter Bruno called on his mental map of the Domaine and the lane that Carlos was taking. It led to the main vineyard, where a military jeep would block the path. He’d have to turn aside, but if he found the track the tractors used to collect the grapes, he might be able to get back toward the avenue and take the side route to the road.

The Range Rover was nearly six hundred feet ahead, but it was slowing and skidding. Carlos must have seen the jeep blocking the road before him. He tried to turn the vehicle, but as Bruno galloped forward, closing the distance, he saw one wheel of the vehicle leave the ground as the sturdy vine stumps blocked Carlos’s way. The Range Rover heaved back as Carlos threw the four-wheel drive into reverse. He began roaring back down the track toward Bruno, who could just see the Spaniard’s head through the rear windshield, trying to keep a straight line as he reversed at high speed. Bruno could see the front wipers swinging back and forth, still trying to clear the smeared windshield of the manure he had thrown.

Suddenly the brake lights flared. Carlos must have seen the entry to the tractor track. Wheels spinning, the Range Rover surged forward again and turned onto the track. Bruno slowed his horse, and Hector found his way between the vine stumps and began to race his way along a row of vines that was parallel to the track, matching the vehicle’s speed as Carlos fought the wheel through the bumps and deep ruts the tractors had left.

Carlos suddenly slowed, and Bruno saw the gun aiming at him through a side window. He ducked as Carlos fired, and pulled on the reins to slow Hector. Carlos braked and fired again, his vehicle veering to one side and bouncing back from a row of vine stumps as he almost lost control. Bruno was just one row from him now, and the valiant Hector was still racing between the vines. In the distance Bruno saw one of the jeeps racing to block the end of the track.

Carlos must have seen it too. He tried to accelerate to force his way through the vine stumps but bounced back hard, two wheels in the air and almost turning the vehicle onto its side. The engine stalled, and the Range Rover was now stuck sideways on the track as Carlos tried to start it again.

Time suddenly slowed, and Bruno saw Carlos’s bloodied face staring grimly at him through the open side window. The gun, Bruno’s reliable gun that did not jam, was rising in his hand when Bruno rose in the stirrups, and with all the force in his body and a great roar from deep in his throat he unleashed the pitchfork.

It flew like a javelin through the side window. And with a flooding sense of satisfaction and vengeance Bruno watched as one shit-smeared tine went through the spokes of the steering wheel and the other plunged deep into Carlos’s arm.

Bruno heard a shriek of pain from inside the car. The wooden haft of the pitchfork poked from the window.

Then the engine caught. Carlos must have jammed his foot onto the accelerator, and the Range Rover surged forward at accelerating speed, bouncing off the row of vines with its engine screaming in the lowest gear. But ahead of him was a parked military jeep, a machine gun mounted on its rear and pointing down the track toward Carlos. He must have spun the wheel, for the vehicle swerved, plowing into the vine stumps. For a moment it seemed Carlos had forced his way through. But then it reared up on two wheels and fell hard onto its side with a crash of glass and metal that overwhelmed and then silenced a human scream.

A plume of steam jetted from the battered radiator. There was no other sound.

Hector had slowed, but Bruno leaped off before the horse stopped and advanced at a careful crouch toward the stricken Range Rover, his elation at Carlos’s defeat mixing with the uncomfortable knowledge that he was now unarmed. He reached the wreck just before the military jeep arrived.

“I need a weapon,” Bruno shouted. The soldiers looked at him blankly. He glanced behind to see Hector raise his head at the familiar sound of racing hooves. The paratroop major del’Sauvagnac was coming up fast on his exhausted mare.

“Give me a goddamn gun,” Bruno shouted again, and this time one of the paratroopers in the jeep handed him a FAMAS submachine gun, a weapon he knew so well he could have stripped and reassembled it in his sleep. He released and reseated the magazine, cocked it and advanced on the Range Rover, the wheels in the air still spinning, and tried in vain to see in through the smeared windshield. The rear was jammed against vine stumps and the glass cracked and smeared with earth. He had no idea what he might find inside, if he could ever get in to see.

“Corporal, all of you here on the double,” shouted the major. “Get to the side of this damn truck and push it back onto its wheels.”

He and the major helping, they rocked it back and forth until with a final heave it toppled in a slow, dignified fall one side a few inches off the ground by the vine stumps. The wheels still spun. It bounced hard and then settled, and Bruno could finally see inside.

Carlos was pinned into his seat by the splintered haft of the pitchfork, his head hanging limply. Its tines were stuck into the instrument panel, one tine pinning his arm and the other through the spokes of the steering wheel. The broken haft had penetrated his chest. One airbag had been punctured and drooped over Carlos’s waist, slick with his blood. The passenger bag and the side bag held him upright. He was either unconscious or dead. Bruno poked him hard in the cheek with the muzzle of the gun. There was no reaction. The place stank of gasoline. He backed away.