“If we were at war, I’d say that was unwise,” Maini said.
“They’re abandoning the field to the Woodsman — if they’d won it in the first place,” Soneri agreed.
Their conversation was abruptly interrupted by the sound of gunfire, sudden shots blasted out to disturb the peace of the valley. It seemed almost possible to see flashes as they dispelled the darkness in the foliage and cut through the evening mists, or perhaps it was the torches fanning out in search of the source of the volley. The first salvo was followed by the rifles’ angry retort. Other shots rang out in quick succession, or simultaneously, from many angles, it seemed. It was clear the carabinieri were firing blindly, more in the hope of neutralising the threat than of hitting their target.
“Good God! He’s firing like a devil.” Soneri recognised Volpi’s voice in the middle of the group that rushed out from the Rivara. “He’s attacking them in the dark to scare them off.”
Confused shouts came drifting down. Someone could be heard bawling out an order intended to restore discipline in the ranks. The favourable wind carried indistinct sounds, not intelligible words.
“He’s trying to wear them down with these ambushes,” Volpi said.
“It’s stupid. He’d have worn them down more quickly if he’d simply kept out of their way,” Soneri said. At that moment, an image of Captain Bovolenta came into his mind: all military stiffness and ingrained stubbornness, his head filled with notions of honour.
“He feels sure of himself and he’s bursting with rage. If you ask me, I don’t think that what Gualerzi did deserves so much as a fine,” Delrio said.
“It’s the reaction of a man who’s been ruined.” It was Rivara who spoke. “His brother once kept a regiment of Germans at bay at Badignana with nothing more than a Sten gun.”
“And he was at his brother’s side.”
“He’s not even afraid of tanks.”
The carabinieri had switched off their torches so as not to provide their enemy with an easy target. They appeared to have spread out in the woods, waiting. Everything settled into an unnatural calm. Not even the hoot of an owl could be heard. They too had been silenced by the shots cutting through the air.
“If they get too far off the path, one of those boys is going to get lost, and if the Woodsman finds him, he could finish him off with a single punch,” Delrio said.
“Do you remember that time at the San Matteo fair when he stunned a cow with one blow between the horns?” Rivara said.
At that moment, the firing started again, this time further up the mountain, among the chestnut trees at Campogrande.
“He’s moved. He wants them to know he can attack them anywhere he likes,” Maini said, his voice almost drowned out by a new volley. The bullets seemed to fly across the valley, a whistling sound followed by a bang.
“That’s the Woodsman’s Beretta alright,” Volpi said.
He was presumably firing in the air, since his objective seemed to be to frighten them, not to hit them. Bullets sailed through the trees, snapping off branches as they passed, and Soneri imagined a shower of bark falling on the crouching carabinieri. Suddenly, they returned fire from several different positions, all aiming in the direction where they believed the Woodsman was. They had allowed him to shoot at will, but they were now obeying orders to open fire in unison, like an execution squad. The valley shook to the terrible roar of the guns, the woodland was lit up by brief flashes as rifle fire was concentrated on a ten-metre range where the breaking of branches and the thud of bullets against tree trunks was the only sound heard.
“They’re focusing on the one zone, but they’re covering a wide front. They hope they’ll get him that way,” Delrio said.
There was a sinister silence, a lull before another storm, and then an explosion, this time from some hundred metres above the carabiniere position. The wind from the blast once again ripped through the village at gale force. The Woodsman had lowered his sights and was firing into the woods. The carabinieri replied immediately, but with staggered shots which sounded like firecrackers. It was now a skirmish among the trees, fought blindly, the outcome dependent on the vagaries of chance. The trees alone provided a certain target, the wood crumbling as each bullet impacted.
Soneri shook his head. “He couldn’t have done anything more stupid.”
The others turned to him in disbelief, and for the first time he had the sensation of really being a policeman.
“You’d have to be there in the middle of it,” Rivara said, in an almost hostile tone.
“All he had to do was keep away from them. He could have led them on a merry dance for months.”
“They won’t let him go back home and his wife is ill,” Volpi said. This news plainly came as a surprise to the others.
“The Woodsman’s made that way. When he’s in a rage, he behaves like a charging boar,” Rivara said.
“His wife is seriously ill.” The speaker again was Volpi.
“Isn’t her daughter there to look after her?” Soneri said.
“She’s doing all she can, but with the carabinieri always in the house… She has got to go regularly to the hospital to be kept under observation.” Volpi was keen to let it be known that he was well informed, and the group listened attentively. He spoke slowly, choosing his words with the same patience as a hunter stalking his prey. He was dressed in a heavy green jacket with many pockets, which made him look stouter.
They stayed there another quarter of an hour, listening for more exchanges of fire. There might have been bodies lying in the woods, but none of them cared. More time went by, then they heard trucks starting up and they made out the headlights shining over the reservoir. The carabinieri drove swiftly down the path through the woods and accelerated when they reached the road. The vehicles came into the piazza at speed, one behind the other. As they passed, everyone could see an officer in the front of one of the trucks holding a bandage to his forehead. Rivara announced that he saw blood flowing. “There was one taken to the hospital this morning, and now he’s shot another one,” he said. The vehicles did not head for the hospital, but drew up at the police station, ignored by the few bystanders.
The group outside the Rivara broke up, one after the other drifting off without the usual goodbyes. Indifference and passivity seemed to have infected the community, and a dull hatred lurked among the cluster of houses. In the centre of the village, the Olmo played host to its veterans, spectators at a drama whose latest act was unknown to them. When the commissario passed by, Magnani appeared at the door. He stubbed his cigarette out on the road, giving the impression he had been listening to all that had been said until then.
“Fine battle, eh?” he said.
“It’s war now.”
“If you know that captain, tell him to steer clear of the Woodsman. His chances of capturing him are slight, but the chances of Gualerzi putting a bullet in some carabiniere’s head are considerable. If you tread on his toes, he won’t think twice.”
“I’ll be sure to pass the word on, but the Woodsman is doing one crass thing after another.”
“One good thing he did do, get rid of Paride.”
“If it was him. But he had good reason.”
“I agree the whole business is odd. Unless Rodolfi really did ruin him.”
“He did the same to a lot of people.”
“It was different with the Woodsman. There was nothing about Palmiro he didn’t know. He could have landed him in the shit any time he wanted.”
“Because he went to bed with his son’s wife?”
“Lusts, desires, nothing more.” Magnani was not interested in this aspect. “There were more important things. It seems there was some kind of pact between Palmiro and Gualerzi. They were both men of the woods, and men of that sort understand each other by smell alone.”
“He did fix his daughter up with a job at the Rodolfi factory.”
“I have an idea they used to meet on Montelupo and when they were there, they went back to being boys together. When you get right down to it, Palmiro had no idea what his business had become. Finance, stock exchange… these words reduced him to a babbling wreck. His son more or less shut him out of all the dealings, and he was none too pleased about that.”
“From what I hear, they didn’t even seem like members of the same family.”
