The Second Son

sleep.

Hoffner said, “I think this is different.”

“Then you’d be wrong. It’s never different. Not when you’ve been through it before.”

Hoffner waited for more. Instead, Gabriel reached his hand down to a small tin box on the floor. He flipped open the lid, pulled out a Coca-Cola, and handed it across to Hoffner. For the fifth time in the last two hours, Hoffner opened a bottle and handed it back. This was the last of the stash Gabriel had brought.

Hoffner said, “A Spanish anarchist and his dedication to the American capitalist dream.”

“It tastes good. That’s all.”

“I’ve seen this stuff take the rust off a tire bolt in twenty minutes.”

Gabriel nodded and took a swig. “Just think how clean my insides must be.”

For the first time since Hoffner had met him, Gabriel pulled a healthy cigarette from his mouth. He held it in the hand with the bottle. He was thinking something through. Finally he said, “You know Asturias?”

Hoffner had never been to the northwest of Spain. He shook his head.

“Very beautiful. My family has been there a long time. Gijon. On the coast.”

Gabriel set the cigarette back on his lip and placed the bottle between his legs on the seat. He downshifted as the road began to climb.

“Two years ago we had a miners’ strike. Very bloody. Strikes weren’t popular back then. Right-wing government. The miners tried to take the capital. They marched on Oviedo. They were gunned down. Three thousand killed, another twenty-five thousand thrown in prison. And the man the government sent to break the back of Asturias? Franco. The same Franco who now sits in Morocco and waits to do the same to Spain. Not so different.”

Gabriel spat something out the window, and Hoffner said, “You were there?”

“In the streets, at the barracks, in the hills-of course.” Gabriel took the bottle from between his legs. “I told my wife to spit on my picture when the asaltos came looking to arrest me. I haven’t been back since. Now I go home.” He drank.

“And she knows you’re coming?”

Gabriel remained quiet for nearly half a minute. “Yes,” he finally said; if there was regret in his voice, he refused to admit it. “She knows.”

Hoffner watched as Gabriel tipped the bottle all the way back before setting it on the floor.

Gabriel said, “I hear our doctor pulled a gun. Impressive.”

Mila was now leaning against Hoffner’s shoulder, the heat from her back and neck full against him. She had shivered once or twice in sleep-from a dream or a memory-but now lay perfectly still.

Hoffner said, “I’m sure Aurelio was impressed.”

“She’s too slim for Aurelio to be impressed. You’d think he’d like them that way-little as he is-but he never does.”

“I was talking about the gun.”

“Anyone can pull a gun. It’s the shooting that makes the difference.”

“And you think she can do that?”

“What? Shoot a gun?” Gabriel took a pull on the cigarette. “Why not? Don’t worry. She’ll get through. She’s a doctor. Everyone needs a doctor.”

“If they believe her.”

“Why shouldn’t they believe her? It’s you they won’t believe.” Gabriel was baiting him.

“You think I’m going with her?”

Gabriel tried a laugh, but the pain in his cheek got the better of him. “No, of course not. You’ll be letting her slip into Zaragoza all by herself. By the way, did she sleep alone last night?”

Hoffner let Gabriel sit with this one before saying, “I’ve no idea.”

Again Gabriel snorted, and again the pain was too much. “I imagine she likes them older.”

And Mila said, “I imagine she does.”

Her eyes were still closed, her arms folded gently across her chest. Gabriel was lucky to have the road in front of him; Hoffner stared out as well and tried to piece together the last half minute. There was a chance he had made an ass of himself. Cleverness was never much of a virtue in his hands.

Mila said, “Where are we?” Her eyes were open now as she straightened herself up.

Gabriel said, “Coming up on Barbera.”

She peered out. “And he likes a bigger woman, something to grab onto?”

Hoffner expected a look of embarrassment from Gabriel, but all he saw was the smile underneath the mustache. The cheeks rose and Gabriel suddenly coughed through a laugh. This, evidently, was worth the pain. “Something like that,” he said.

She looked at Hoffner. “Would you have guessed that, seeing how little he is?”

She was giving him a way out. She might have been giving him more, but Hoffner knew not to take it. “He’s keen on guns,” he said. “A girl like that-more space to hide one.”

Gabriel’s laugh became a throaty growl, and Mila said, “What happened to the headlights?” It was only now that she seemed to notice.

Again Gabriel spat something out the window. “Not so good to advertise through here.”

“I thought it was safe up to the Durruti line?”

“It is-mostly. Just not through here.”

“And they won’t hear us?”

Gabriel downshifted and the truck began to climb. “They’ve been hearing us for the past ten minutes. Hearing, seeing-either way it’s not so good, but why take the chance? Even a blind pig finds the mud sometime.”

“This is Republican territory,” she said.

“Is it? My mistake. I must have missed the day they brought the mapmakers out, pictures for everyone nailed to the doors. You be sure to tell the boys guarding the church up ahead that they’re breaking the rules.”

The road leveled off and the truck took on speed. There were lights somewhere in the distance-candles, judging by the flickering-but most impressive now was the moon. It was directly in front of them, its glare spreading out across the fields like foam on lifeless waves. It was only a momentary pleasure.

“Duck down,” Gabriel said. “They won’t hit anything, but just in case.” He tossed his cigarette out the window and accelerated.

Without thinking, Hoffner pulled Mila close into him and the two slid low on the seat. Gabriel held the wheel with two hands and angled his head back against the cab wall as far as he could take it. Hoffner imagined them caught like a rat in a lantern’s beam, scurrying toward the darkness and helpless against the naked light. Then again, a rat has an instinct for survival: not much chance of finding that in a truck heading west to the hills of Zaragoza.

The first ping came from behind them, then beyond, then in a wild series that seemed to stretch out in all directions. Hoffner’s eyes darted aimlessly with the shots until he found himself fixed on a spot outside Gabriel’s window. It was off in the distance, turrets, ancient and stone, clawing at the sky like raised talons. He felt Mila’s body against him. She, too, was staring out.

Gabriel swung the truck hard to the left and the turrets vanished. A last wave of shots flew by and then fell away. Hoffner waited another half minute before pulling himself up. Mila sat with him.

“What was that?” he said.

Gabriel tried his best not to mock. “Boys with guns?”

“No,” said Hoffner. “On the hill. The turrets.”

Gabriel flipped on the headlights, and Mila said, “Montblanc. The old city wall.”

“And they don’t mind the shots at night?”

Gabriel said, “No one’s shooting at them.” He downshifted, and the gears ground out with a sudden kick.

“Besides,” said Mila, “they’ve had worse. They say it’s where Saint George killed his dragon. You live through that, you live through anything, don’t you?”

A Man In The Ground