The Secret of Raven Point (37 page)

The German who had grabbed her lay facedown, his back a tangle of innards. Behind him sat Barnaby in the wheelbarrow, a pistol in his lap, smoke rising from the chamber. The other German lay on the floor, his head crookedly upturned, a pool of blood gathering beside him. His chest was motionless. Willard stood against the wall, his eyes fixed on a bloody hammer in his hand.

Juliet touched her chest, her arms, her stomach. She patted her face, her neck.

“You’re okay,” said Willard.

Brother Reardon moved slowly to Barnaby. “Why don’t you give me that, Christopher.”

“I’m no coward,” Barnaby said angrily.

“Not in the least,” said Brother Reardon.

Juliet was still touching her body, confused. She couldn’t stop looking at the dead Germans. She gulped the cold, dusty air. Her chest rose and fell so forcefully, she thought it might burst through her shirt.

“Where did the pistol come from?” Willard asked.

The quarry was silent.

“From me,” said Reardon.

“Where did
you
get it?” Willard asked.

“Liberata,” he answered calmly. “In Pistoia. She insisted we take it. All the children carry them now.”

They dragged the bodies to the corner, blood streaking the marble floor. White dust settled on the corpses, their faces ghostly, dust mixing with blood to form congealed pink paste.

God, thought Juliet, were they that close to the German lines? Or were there dozens, hundreds, roaming the Italian countryside, just as they were?

“We better undress them,” said Willard. “Whoever comes across them, we’ll be safer if no one knows who they are. We don’t need a revenge party coming after us.”

Juliet began to tug off their shirts, her hands shaking. She’d seen hundreds of corpses, but she kept expecting these would come back to life, grab her ankles, and drag her to the floor. She tried to stand as far away as possible as she pulled off the pants; from the pocket a dozen teeth clattered onto the marble floor, teeth of all sizes with gold fillings.

“Are those
human
teeth?” she asked.

“Reardon and I will take care of this,” said Willard, pulling her back.

Willard plucked the teeth up one by one and shoved them back
into the dead man’s pocket. He unlaced and removed the muddy boots, peeled off the socks, and shook free the men’s pants. He took off their identity tags. He dropped the clothing in the center of the quarry.

“They’re no more German than the day they were born,” said Reardon, making the sign of the cross over each body. He handed Willard the pistol, and Willard checked the safety and tucked it into the back of his pants.

Juliet turned to Barnaby, seated quietly on the wheelbarrow. “Thank you,” she said.

He nodded and began packing his bag, barely looking at her. “It’s what Tuck would have wanted me to do.”

They headed northeast, trudging through frosted deadfall. The ground was frozen, and they held tightly to tree trunks and branches as they tested their footing on ice-crusted rocks. Juliet’s gloves snagged on bark, and within hours wool fringed her fingers.

They walked in single file, in absolute silence, afraid their voices would reveal them, afraid they wouldn’t hear approaching footsteps.

The image of the gun and the German kept returning to Juliet, and each time a wave of nausea forced her to stop in her tracks. For the first time she felt how quickly, how easily, she could die; a mere branch, snapping beneath the weight of snow, could take her life. The air itself, cold and silvery, seemed filled with peril. In all the tears she’d shed for Tuck and Beau and the hundreds of men who had died beside her, she had never before felt it had anything to do with her. She’d felt pity, not fear. But now she wondered: Was the darkness she saw when looking at them the shadow of her own death? She wanted to live; she knew that now in a way she had never before known. She would stay alive, yes, for no cause or reason, for no one but herself. She felt herself weighing, measuring,
considering. She looked around at her friends. She cared for these men but she did not think she would be willing to die for them. She was not like Tuck. She saw it sharply: she was kind and caring, but if the horrid moment ever came, she would save herself. It was cowardice, the most natural and primal cowardice, and she could speak of it to no one. Self-preservation was the loneliest of instincts.

By afternoon, they came upon tidy piles of white stones, the jagged remains of a long wall. Farther on, a vast basin, what might have once been a bath, yawned from the ground. Several smaller buildings looked more than a thousand years old. Cypress trees grew between what had once been houses, thick roots upheaving the foundations.

They sat on the edge of an old cistern and ate cold K rations and candied chestnuts. As the food melted on Juliet’s tongue, she looked around at the ice-capped Apennines: How many peaks had they crossed these past few days? How many other people were wandering the mountains now, bands of people trying to make their way to safety? And how many thousands had walked this cold, hard ground before them? During the Great War, or the Conquest of Rome, surely friends and families and neighbors had wandered this path, sat on this wall. Here they were, creatures of yet another brutal epoch. Even if they survived all of this, she knew history would swallow them, silently, as it did everyone.

Quietly, solemnly, they packed up the scant remains of their food and continued walking. As night fell, stars piercing the black sky, they came upon a monastery. Willard shined his flashlight on a scrap of his map. “I know where we are.”

Inside, the air was damp and mildewy. Willard flicked open his lighter, and a domed, frescoed ceiling came to life, cracks spidering from the center. The place had been ransacked—altars stripped bare, pews splintered, tapestries torn from the walls, stained glass splintered on the floor. After making a quick inspection to ensure they were alone, they hung blankets over
the windows. The floor was crusted with bird droppings; abandoned nests clung to the eaves.

They shook off their packs and pulled out their rations.

Their food wouldn’t last more than another day, Juliet estimated.

She assembled the stove and poured what was left of their kerosene. She struck a match, and a small blue flame leapt to life. Huddling close to the stove, they opened their cans.

It was a quiet, somber meal, and when it ended, Willard wandered up a narrow flight of stairs.

“With one eye in a dark cave,” Barnaby whispered, gazing up at the fresco, “I’m still a good shot.”

“The army’s loss,” said Juliet.

“The army can go to hell.” He lay back, his arms crossed behind his head, and closed his eye.

As Reardon began arranging his bedroll, Juliet moved cautiously up the darkened stone staircase.

“Dr. Willard?”

At the top of the stairs she found him seated by a large bell that was green with oxidation. The rope had been cut, and bullet casings littered the floor. She settled beside him, facing the mountains. A stunningly bright moon presided over the sky.

“I’m scared,” she said. “Out of my wits.”

He put his arm around her. “I know.”

“How on earth are we going to find the hospital? It could be encamped miles from where we left it.”

“Let’s get them to Signora Gaspaldi’s first; after that, I’ll get us to the hospital.”

“You didn’t say ‘I promise.’”

He was silent. “I promise. But in all likelihood, Juliet, I’ll be relieved of my duties after this.”

“Not if we lie.”

“Well, I’m not quite sure I’m up to the task of sending soldiers
back to the front anyway.”

He picked up a bullet casing and studied it, and she saw that he was in fact studying his trembling hand. He extended his fingers so she could see, then threw the casing into the night.

“I was never soldier material.”

“No one is. Who the hell would want to be?”

“I was built for clinics and tents. For listening.” He shook his head, as though disgusted with himself. “Not like your soldier in the cave.”

It was the first Willard had mentioned of what she told him on their way back from Florence.

“He was scared, too, for what it’s worth.”

“Will you see him again?”

She could not bring herself to say that he’d died. “No, I don’t think I’ll see him again.”

Willard nodded slowly. “Someday, Juliet, find yourself a man who hasn’t been here, hasn’t seen all of this. It makes us all madmen. Cowards and madmen. It’s only the degree that varies.”

“Even Barnaby’s not mad anymore.
You
brought him back,” she said. “He’s speaking, he’s thinking clearly. And he’s safe. You’re the one who
fixes
all of this, all of us.”

He stood. “We should go make sure they’re settled in okay.”

“I think you’re very brave,” she said.

He began descending the stairway, and she saw the pistol bulge at the back of his pants. He looked back. “Thank you.”

JULIET RECOGNIZED THE
street almost immediately, except that where children had once scampered and reached for her pockets, the wet, gray cobblestones stood in eerie silence. Shards of broken glass flashed from the gutters, and the smell of urine clung thickly to the wintry air. From the darkness of an alleyway, a cat mewled in fright.

The walk had taken them almost an entire day, and they moved slowly along the street, holding back at the last minute as they approached the house, fearing that after all this time, after the distance they had traveled, there might be no one inside. The front window had been barricaded with planks, and through the narrow blade of an opening no light could be seen.

Brother Reardon stepped forward to knock.

Juliet set down her pack and massaged her aching shoulders, bracing for a long wait, but almost immediately Signora Gaspaldi’s face emerged from behind the door. Once again a look of distress overtook her, and Juliet had to assure her they had not brought bad news about Alfonso.

Relieved, Signora Gaspaldi looked them over; it was clear that the sight of all four of them gave her pause. She looked down both ends of the street and, after staring thoughtfully into the cobblestones for quite some time, gestured them inside.

The house was cold and dark. Signora Gaspaldi lit a candle and set it on the table amid a globular sea of hardened white wax. The light wavered gently across the room, and Juliet could see it was distinctly barer than when they last visited. She guessed that a good deal of furniture had been bartered for food. Shelves were missing from the walls, and there was only one stool left at the table; Senora Gaspaldi insisted that Juliet take it.

Juliet’s legs tingled and slackened as all of her weight, finally, came off her feet. The sweat that had coated her back all day had begun drying, and she felt a chill down her spine. She explained as best she could, in her rudimentary Italian, what had happened; she included Captain Brilling’s harassment of Barnaby; she mentioned the horrid episode of Barnaby almost eating the eyeball; she emphasized any detail that might persuade and soften Signora Gaspaldi. It was the first time Juliet had tried to make sense of the entire story, and what she settled upon, as she concluded her recounting, was that Barnaby had suffered battle fatigue worse than other men, in part because he had been badgered and hounded by members of his own squad. She said quietly that Barnaby was different—different in a way that some other men did not like. She did not want to harp on this, but she believed that a woman, and a mother, might be sympathetic to such a fact. Finally, she explained that Alfonso had suggested they bring the fugitives to her; if nothing else,
this
would compel Signora Gaspaldi to offer them shelter.

Signora Gaspaldi, who had listened intently to each part of the tale, nodded and glanced intermittently at Barnaby. She stood, holding the edge of the table, and with the nail of her thumb began to scrape at the hardened candle wax. Apprehension showed in her expression, and she looked to each of them, her eyes finally settling on Brother Reardon, on the silver crosses pinned to his lapels. She closed her eyes, her lips working through some silent thought, then asked if the chaplain would also need to stay in the house.