The Winemaker Page 15

  31

  Old Debts

  In a couple of days Francesc was visiting him again with regularity, looking as energetic as ever. Josep liked the child, but the situation was awkward. He and Maria del Mar were carefully friendly in the presence of others, but he believed that Clemente Ramirez had spread the word that they were connected, and the village took note that he was spending a lot of his time with her son.

  The village was quick to jump to conclusions, right or wrong.

  One evening as Josep walked to Nivaldo’s, he passed Tonio Casals lounging before the church with Eduardo Montroig, Esteve’s older brother. Josep thought that Eduardo was nice enough but far too serious for someone who was not an old man. Eduardo rarely smiled, and at the moment, Josep thought, he appeared particularly uncomfortable as Tonio lectured him about something in a loud and truculent voice. Tonio Casals was a big and handsome man, like his father, but there the similarity ended, because he was often an ugly drunk. Josep had no desire to join in their conversation, so he wished them both a good evening and would have passed.

  Tonio smiled. “Ah, the prodigal. How does it feel to plow your own land again, Alvarez?”

  “It feels good, Tonio.”

  “And how does it feel to plow a woman better men have broken in, eh?”

  Josep took a moment to keep himself in check. “Once you get past the tiny used bit, it’s truly wonderful, Tonio,” he said pleasantly.

  A big fist smacked into the side of his mouth as Tonio flung himself at him. Josep hit back in a fury with two fast, hard punches, his left fist striking into the side of Tonio’s jaw, his right fist solidly finding the place under the other man’s left eye. Tonio went down almost at once, and to Josep’s later shame he drew back his foot and kicked the fallen man. And spat at him, like an enraged small boy.

  “Ah, Josep, no, no!” Eduardo Montroig said, placing a cautionary hand on his arm.

  They looked down at Tonio. Josep’s mouth was bleeding and he licked his lip. He told Montroig of his reason for deceiving the wine buyer. “Eduardo, Maria del Mar and I. We are just neighbors. Please tell people that.”

  Eduardo nodded seriously. “Maria del Mar is a good sort. Oh, Déu. This one is disgusting, no? When we were younger, he was such a good fellow.”

  “Shall we try to take him home?”

  Montroig shook his head. “You go along. I’ll fetch his father and his brothers.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, they are very accustomed to taking charge when Tonio is like this,” he said.

  The next morning Josep was pruning his vines when Angel Casals came to the vineyard.

  “Good morning, Alcalde.”

  “Good morning, Josep.” Breathing heavily, the alcalde took a large red handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face.

  “Let me get you some wine,” Josep said, but the older man shook his head. “Too early.”

  “Then…some water?”

  “Water would be good, if you please.”

  Josep went into the house and came out with two cups and a cántir. He gestured respectfully toward the bench by the door, and the two of them sat and drank.

  “I’m come to make certain you’re all right.”

  “Oh, I am fine, Alcalde.”

  “Your mouth?”

  “It’s nothing, just a mark of my shame. I shouldn’t have hit him at all, for he was drunk. I should have walked away.”

  “I doubt that would have been possible. I’ve talked to Eduardo, and I know my son Tonio. I apologize in his name.

  “My son…For him each swallow of brandy is a plague. It takes only a little taste, and his soul and his body cry for more, but little more than a sip and, sadly, he becomes crazy and acts like a beast. It is his cross to bear, and his family’s.”

  “I’m all right, Alcalde. I hope I didn’t cause him real injury.”

  “He will be all right also. He has a swollen eye. He looks a lot worse than you do.”

  Josep’s lips hurt as he smiled ruefully. “I suspect that if ever we fight while he is sober, the results will be sad for me.”

  “You will not fight him again. He is leaving Santa Eulália.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Since he is unable to perform a first son’s responsibility to our farm, each day he remains here reminds him of his weakness. I have a lifelong friend, Ignasi de Balcells, who has olive groves in the village of Las Granyas. For many years Don Ignasi was the alcalde of that village. Now he is a justice of the court there, and as well he serves as the alguacil, the director of the regional jail. He has known my son all of Tonio’s life and loves him. Ignasi is accustomed to dealing with the weaknesses of men, and he has offered to take Tonio into his own house. He will teach him to grow olives and make oil, and Tonio also will work in the jail. And we devoutly hope, he will learn to discipline himself.”

  The alcalde smiled. “Between the two of us, Alvarez…my friend Ignasi has an incentive to succeed with my son. He has an unwed daughter, a good girl but nearly beyond the age of marrying. I wasn’t born last week. I think Ignasi will try to reform Tonio into a son-in-law.”

  “I hope it works out well for him,” Josep said awkwardly.

  “I believe you, and I thank you.” Angel Casals looked about, casting an approving glance at the neatly pruned vines, the recently planted rose bushes, the soil plowed and banked against the rows. “You’re a farmer, Josep Alvarez,” he said.“Unlike one I could name who is not a farmer but a butterfly, a damn papallona,” the alcalde added thinly, looking beyond Josep’s land to the tangled and nondescript vineyard of Quim Torras.

  Josep kept his silence. It was well known that the alcalde was an angry denouncer of Quim’s relationship with the village priest, but Josep didn’t want to discuss either Quim or Father Lopez with Angel Casals.

  Casals rose from the bench and so did Josep. “Another moment, Alcalde, if you please,” he said.

  He went into the house and came out with some coins that he placed into Angel’s hand.

  “And…this is for?”

  “Payment for two hens…”

  Angel cocked his head.

  “…That I stole from you five years ago.”

  “The hell you say,” Angel said fiercely. “Why did you steal from me?”

  “I needed the chickens badly, and I had no money to pay you.”

  “So why do you pay me now?”

  Josep shrugged and told the truth. “I can’t stand even to walk past your damned henhouse.”

  “What a sensitive thief it is!” The alcalde looked down at the coins. “You have paid too much,” he said sternly. He reached into his pocket, found a small coin, and handed it to Josep.

  “An honest thief must not cheat himself either, Alvarez,” he said, and his loud laughter spilled over.

  32

  The Intruder

  Late in February the first pale yellow-green buds appeared, and as winter turned to spring, Josep spent long days working in the vineyard, finishing the pruning and pulling the banked soil away from the base of the vines. By April the small tender leaves were open, and soon after that the sun turned warmer and more ardent, and flowers made the vineyard heady with their scent.

  His father had always said that grapes would be ready for picking one hundred days after the flowers appeared. The blossoms attracted the insects that pollinated them and made grapes possible, but the green vines attracted destructive animals as well.

  Francesc was with him the morning Josep discovered half a dozen plants lying in ruins, uprooted and chewed. The damage was done in the rear of his property, near the base of the ridge. There were tracks in the soil.

  “Be damned,” he whispered and had to stop himself from saying worse in front of the child.

  “Why are the vines broken, Josep?”

  “Wild pig,” he told the boy.

  Quim Torras had lost vines, too—eight vines—though Maria del Mar had not.

  That evening Josep sought out Jaumet Ferrer and asked him to hu
nt down the pig before it damaged more of the vineyards.

  Jaumet came and squatted on his heels near the wasted vines.

  “The tracks were made by a boar, I think just one rascal. All the sows and…ah…you know, the young ones?”

  “Shoats,” Josep offered.

  “Shoats.” Jaumet tasted the word. “Sows and shoats bunch together. The boars wander off alone. This one probably stays close to the river because of the dryness. He went for the roots of your vines. Pigs will eat anything. Dead meat. A live lamb or a calf.”

  Josep asked Maria del Mar to keep Francesc home and in her sight for a while.

  Jaumet came before dawn with his long hunting rifle and patrolled their vineyards all day under the hot sun. After dusk when it became too dark to see, he went home.

  He returned before dawn the next morning, and the morning after that. But he told Josep that the following day he was going to hunt rabbits and birds. “The wild pig may never bother you again,” Jaumet said.

  “Or,” he said carefully, “he may.”

  The following morning Josep left the casa very early, and as he entered the vineyard he heard animal noises among the vines deep in the plantings. Seizing a rock in each hand, he ran. He made too much sound, for he reached the invaded row just in time to see the back and the long tasseled tail as the boar darted into Quim’s vines.

  He threw both rocks and ran after it, shouting senselessly, but lost it almost at once. When he ran into the Vall vineyard, he startled both Maria del Mar and Francesc, who had seen nothing of the animal.

  Maria del Mar frowned as she listened to his description of the boar.

  “He can cost us. So what shall we do? Call Jaumet again?”

  “No. Jaumet can’t stay among our vines permanently.”

  “Then, what?”

  “I’ll think of something,” Josep said.

  He remembered exactly where to dig for the two packets he had buried in the neglected sandy corner where Quim’s land touched his own, and he found them remarkably unharmed by the rare rains that had drained past them through the porous soil. He brushed the packages carefully until they were free of the coarse sand and then brought them into the house and cut the cords and unwrapped them on the table. The outer layer of wrapping was browned by contact with soil minerals, but the two inner layers of oilcloth appeared absolutely unmarked and in excellent condition, and so did the contents of both packets. The parts of the LeMat revolver were covered with so much grease that it took him until very late that night to wipe them free, using every available rag that he owned and then sacrificing an old shirt, a bit ragged but still wearable. He tore it up, and he had only one square left when the assembled gun lay in front of him denuded of grease, freshly oiled, clean and shiny and scaring him because he had hoped never to see it again.

  He laid out the contents of the second packet and loaded the cartridges very slowly and carefully, at first uncertain that he remembered exactly how it was done, pouring the powder from the stocking into the leather measuring sack and from the sack into one of the empty chambers.

  The gun and the act of loading brought him to memories he preferred to avoid, and for a time he had to stop because his hands were trembling, but he placed a lead ball into the chamber and pulled the loading lever to drive it into the powder, dabbed a bit of grease over the powder and ball, and used the capping tool to set a percussion cap over everything. Then he moved the cylinder by hand and loaded all the other chambers except two, because he found there was only enough powder in the stocking to provide seven loads.

  He tidied up the table and placed the LeMat on the mantel next to his mother’s clock. Then he went upstairs and lay awake in the bed for a long time, afraid that if he slept he would dream.

  33

  Cracks

  For almost a week the vine-destroying boar was the subject whenever villagers spoke with one another, but the wild pig didn’t appear again, and soon it was replaced in their conversations by heated arguments about the door of the church, which was dented, battered, and gouged. Local legend said that it had been ruined by the musket-butts of Napoleon’s soldiers, but Josep’s father had talked knowingly about a village alcoholic and a hand-held rock. A long and jagged crack also marred the wood, a surface opening that didn’t harm the structural intergrity of the door but was threatening to split the village community. Parishioners had attempted several times to fill the fissure with putties made of various ingredients, but the break was too wide and deep, and every unsightly attempt had failed. The church had enough money to buy a new wooden door, and some felt this should be done, while others were unwilling to empty the church treasury lest a more important emergency should arise. A small minority, led by Quim Torras, thought that a priest with Padre Lopez’s sensibilities deserved a more elegant door on his church. Quim proposed an artistic door with carvings in a religious motif, and he urged that the village begin to raise funds.

  One morning Josep was going to the well for water when he met Angel Casals.

  “So. What do you think about the church door?”

  Josep rubbed his nose. In truth, he had given little consideration to the church door, but the thought of any unexpected drain on his meager cash alarmed him. People said that for years Angel had watched over a small village fund, never making public the amount of money in the village treasury, never wanting to spend a centivo because no emergency was ever large enough for him to touch the fund.

  “I wouldn’t care for a tax to raise the money, Alcalde.”

  “There will be no tax to support the church!” Angel growled. “No one wishes to pay it. One may as well try to squeeze wine from a stone.”

  “I don’t think we need the kind of door that graces a cathedral. We have a very nice country church. It needs a plain wooden door, stout and good-looking. If it were up to me I would spend some of the money for lumber. We should be able to fashion a suitable door and still leave the church a portion of its funds.”

  The alcalde looked at him with interest. “You are right, Alvarez, you are right! Do you know where to buy proper lumber?”

  “I believe I do,” Josep said. “At least I can make inquiries.”

  “Then please do so, Josep,” Angel said with satisfaction.

  Late the following afternoon, when the sun had moved low in the sky and Josep’s body was signaling that soon it would be good to end a long day of labor, he heard the dreaded noise.

  He stopped the pruning at once and froze. He listened…

  Listened, and the sound came to him again, an energetic snapping of vegetation that caused him to move at once to the house. The LeMat hadn’t been touched since he had placed it on the mantel. He took the revolver into the vineyard and moved down the rows as quietly as he was able, hearing the sound louder now. He held the revolver pointed forward, ready to fire but telling himself not to shoot too quickly, lest the sound was being made by Francesc, or perhaps by Quim.

  But in the next moment he saw the boar, larger than he would have thought from the glimpse he had had earlier.

  The boar had thick black-brown fur, unlike any domestic pig. His body was bulky and dense, the head scarily huge in proportion, and the legs were short but wide and looked strong. The animal stared, seemingly fearless but wary, his eyes small and dark above the flatness of the black leather nose.

  It’s just a pig, Josep told himself.

  Tusks!

  Josep saw the tusks clearly, two small ones pointing downward from the corners of the upper jaw, two longer ones rising from the corners of the lower jaw, perhaps twelve or fifteen centimeters long, curving to wicked points. The boar gave a coughing grunt and tossed his head up with a long thrust. Josep knew that was how it would fight, using the tusks to disembowel.

  The boar lurched sideways to flee, and Josep was suddenly perfectly cold and cruel.

  He led the animal only slightly, his arm rigid and controlled, and his finger barely caressed the trigger. The roar was loud. He saw the bullet
punch into fur just behind the right shoulder, then the boar stopped and turned and took one running step toward Josep, who fired two more shots from the revolver, straight at him.

  Three shots.

  (Flat, barking reports. The man in the stalled carriage, doom already in his face, twisting and grimacing as the bullets found his body. Horses bucking, carriage thrashing. Enric screaming shrilly, like a woman. Running, everyone running.)

  He had forgotten the puff of smoke that appeared with every shot, and the smell of something burning.

  The wild pig veered off and ran straight into the only cover, a clump of brush at the foot of the ridge. Suddenly it was very quiet. Josep stood there, trembling and staring at the stand of tall growth into which the animal had disappeared.

  Time passed slowly, perhaps half an hour spent with his eyes nervously fixed on the stand of brush, his gun at the ready. But the boar didn’t come out.

  Presently Jaumet was there with his rifle.

  “I heard the shots.” Jaumet studied the bright spilled blood that led into the brush stand. “Best we wait.”

  Josep nodded, drawing great relief from his presence.

  The two of them stood, watching.

  They waited for perhaps an hour, but nothing happened.

  “Together,” Jaumet whispered finally, gesturing with his rifle. Rifle and pistol pointed, the two of them walked to the thicket.

  Josep’s heart was pounding. He pictured the boar about to charge out at them as Jaumet parted the foliage.

  But nothing was there.

  The trail of blood on the underbrush led to the base of the ridge, and they could see an opening under an overhang of rock and earth. Jaumet signaled a retreat.

  “Some kind of den. He’s in there.”

  “Do you think he’s alive?”

  Jaumet shrugged.

  “It will be dark in a couple of hours.” Josep was worried. If the wounded boar still lived and got away from them during the night, it could be very dangerous.