012
"I have heard that you are an excellent guerilla leader, that you are loyal to the republic and prove your loyalty through your acts, and that you are a man both serious and valiant. I bring you greetings from the General Staff." "Where did you hear all this?" asked Pablo. Robert Jordan registered that he was not taking any of the flattery. "I heard it from Buitrago to the Escorial," he said, naming all the stretch of country on the other side of the lines. "I know no one in Buitrago nor in Escorial," Pablo told him. "There are many people on the other side of the mountains who were not there before. Where are you from?" "Avila. What are you going to do with the dynamite?" "Blow up a bridge." "What bridge?" "That is my business." "If it is in this territory, it is my business. You cannot blow bridges close to where you live. You must live in one place and operate in another. I know my business. One who is alive, now, after a year, knows his business." "This is my business," Robert Jordan said. "We can discuss it together. Do you wish to help us with the sacks?" "No," said Pablo and shook his head. The old man turned toward him suddenly and spoke rapidly and furiously in a dialect that Robert Jordan could just follow. It was like reading Quevedo. Anselmo was speaking old Castilian and it went something like this, "Art thou a brute? Yes. Art thou a beast? Yes, many times Hast thou a brain? Nay. None. Now we come for something of consummate importance and thee, with thy dwelling place to be undisturbed, puts thy fox-hole before the interests of humanity. Before the interests of thy people. I this and that in the this and that of thy father. I this and that and that in thy this. _Pick up that bag_." Pablo looked down. "Every one has to do what he can do according to how it can be truly done," he said. "I live here and I operate beyond Segovia. If you make a disturbance here, we will be hunted out of these mountains. It is only by doing nothing here that we are able to live in these mountains. It is the principle of the fox." "Yes," said Anselmo bitterly. "It is the principle of the fox when we need the wolf." "I am more wolf than thee," Pablo said and Robert Jordan knew that he would pick up the sack. "Hi. Ho. . . ," Anselmo looked at him. "Thou art more wolf than me and I am sixty-eight years old." He spat on the ground and shook his head. "You have that many years?" Robert Jordan asked, seeing that now, for the moment, it would be all right and trying to make it go easier. "Sixty-eight in the month of July." "If we should ever see that month," said Pablo. "Let me help you with the pack," he said to Robert Jordan. "Leave the other to the old man." He spoke, not sullenly, but almost sadly now. "He is an old man of great strength." "I will carry the pack," Robert Jordan said. "Nay," said the old man. "Leave it to this other strong man." "I will take it," Pablo told him, and in his sullenness there was a sadness that was disturbing to Robert Jordan. He knew that sadness and to see it here worried him. "Give me the carbine then," he said and when Pablo handed it to him, he slung it over his back and, with the two men climbing ahead of him, they went heavily, pulling and climbing up the granite shelf and over its upper edge to where there was a green clearing in the forest. They skirted the edge of the little meadow and Robert Jordan, striding easily now without the pack, the carbine pleasantly rigid over his shoulder after the heavy, sweating pack weight, noticed that the grass was cropped down in several places and signs that picket pins had been driven into the earth. He could see a trail through the grass where horses had been led to the stream to drink and there was the fresh manure of several horses. They picket them here to feed at night and keep them out of sight in the timber in the daytime, he thought. I wonder how many horses this Pablo has? He remembered now noticing, without realizing it, that Pablo's trousers were worn soapy shiny in the knees and thighs. I wonder if he has a pair of boots or if he rides in those _alpargatas_, he thought. He must have quite an outfit. But I don't like that sadness, he thought. That sadness is bad. That's the sadness they get before they quit or before they betray. That is the sadness that comes before the sell-out. Ahead of them a horse whinnied in the timber and then, through the brown trunks of the pine trees, only a little sunlight coming down through their thick, almost-touching tops, he saw the corral made by roping around the tree trunks. The horses had their heads pointed toward the men as they approached, and at the foot of a tree, outside the corral, the saddles were piled together and covered with a tarpaulin. As they came up, the two men with the packs stopped, and Robert Jordan knew it was for him to admire the horses. "Yes," he said. "They are beautiful." He turned to Pablo. "You have your cavalry and all." There were five horses in the rope corral, three bays, a sorrel, and a buckskin. Sorting them out carefully with his eyes after he had seen them first together, Robert Jordan looked them over individually. Pablo and Anselmo knew how good they were and while Pablo stood now proud and less sad-looking, watching them lovingly, the old man acted as though they were some great surprise that he had produced, suddenly, himself. "How do they look to you?" he asked. "All these I have taken," Pablo said and Robert Jordan was pleased to hear him speak proudly. "That," said Robert Jordan, pointing to one of the bays, a big stallion with a white blaze on his forehead and a single white foot, the near front, "is much horse." He was a beautiful horse that looked as though he had come out of a painting by Velasquez. "They are all good," said Pablo. "You know horses?" "Yes." "Less bad," said Pablo. "Do you see a defect in one of these?" Robert Jordan knew that now his papers were being examined by the man who could not read. The horses all still had their heads up looking at the man. Robert Jordan slipped through between the double rope of the corral and slapped the buckskin on the haunch. He leaned back against the ropes of the enclosure and watched the horses circle the corral, stood watching them a minute more, as they stood still, then leaned down and came out through the ropes. "The sorrel is lame in the off hind foot," he said to Pablo, not looking at him. "The hoof is split and although it might not get worse soon if shod properly, she could break down if she travels over much hard ground." "The hoof was like that when we took her," Pablo said. "The best horse that you have, the white-faced bay stallion, has a swelling on the upper part of the cannon bone that I do not like." "It is nothing," said Pablo. "He knocked it three days ago. If it were to be anything it would have become so already." He pulled back the tarpaulin and showed the saddles. There were two ordinary vaquero's or herdsman's saddles, like American stock saddles, one very ornate vaquero's saddle, with hand-tooled leather and heavy, hooded stirrups, and two military saddles in black leather. "We killed a pair of _guardia civil_," he said, explaining the military saddles. "That is big game." "They had dismounted on the road between Segovia and Santa Maria del Real. They had dismounted to ask papers of the driver of a cart. We were able to kill them without injuring the horses." "Have you killed many civil guards?" Robert Jordan asked. "Several," Pablo said. "But only these two without injury to the horses." "It was Pablo who blew up the train at Arevalo," Anselmo said. "That was Pablo." "There was a foreigner with us who made the explosion," Pablo said. "Do you know him?" "What is he called?" "I do not remember. It was a very rare name." "What did he look like?" "He was fair, as you are, but not as tall and with large hands and a broken nose." "Kashkin," Robert Jordan said. "That would be Kashkin." "Yes," said Pablo. "It was a very rare name. Something like that. What has become of him?" "He is dead since April." "That is what happens to everybody," Pablo said, gloomily. "That is the way we will all finish." "That is the way all men end," Anselmo said. "That is the way men have always ended. What is the matter with you, man? What hast thou in the stomach?" "They are very strong," Pablo said. It was as though he were talking to himself. He looked at the horses gloomily. "You do not realize how strong they are. I see them always stronget always better armed. Always with more material. Here am I with horses like these. And what can I look forward to? To be hunted and to die. Nothing more." "You hunt as much as you are hunted," Anselmo said. "No," said Pablo. "Not any more. And if we leave these mountains now, where can we go? Answer me that? Where now?" "In Spain there are many mountains. There are the Sierra de Gredos if one leaves here." "Not for me," Pablo said. "I am tired of being hunted. Here we are all right. Now if you blow a bridge here, we will be hunted. If they know we are here and hunt for us with planes, they will find us. If they send Moors to hunt us out, they will find us and we must go. I am tired of all this. You hear?" He turned to Robert Jordan. "What right have you, a foreigner, to come to me and tell me what I must do?" "I have not told you anything you must do," Robert Jordan said to him. "You will though," Pablo said. "There. There is the badness." He pointed at the two heavy packs that they hadbuy electronic from china Free Shipping Bluetooth mono headset BH08R jing cheng k2 phone electronic wholesalers china 9.2-inch LCD Roof Mounted Car DVD chinese free shipping i9 phone problems 9.2-inch Super Slim Roof Mounted Car Monitor/DVD/IR/VGA/FM/USB/SD/MMC Slots/AV-IN Jack f020 phone buy china cheap wholesale i68 l01 A9630 Quad Band Single Card With Windows Operation WIFI GPS Smart Phone ktw08 2 Din Touch Screen Car DVD Player With SD/MMC Port And Bluetooth Multi-colour Back Cover for iPhone 3G Unique Chewing Type Design Camera wholesale phone china buy china cheap wholesale eg110 1.8-inch TFT 1GB 2ND MP4 mp3 FM Radio+Video Music five colors Available Clamp Design Photo Frame 5 Card Slots USB2.0 All in 1 Card Reader cheap cell phones for sale online Cute USB Light&Fan With Pen Holder wholesale wifi touch screen mp4 player online vendors Motor 12V Moving Up-down Bulb With Slim Ballast Exquisite Hang Decoration USB Flash Drive 1GB max.10.0mega pixel 3.5"HDD Player 3.0 Inch LTPS Screen 12.0 Mega Pixels Digital Camcorder 7-inch Headrest Car DVD Player Secret Agent Camcorder Pen 4GB buy walkie talkie M860 Tri Band Dual Card With Camera Touch screen Watch Phone Q5 Quad Band Dual Card With Analog TV Unlocked Phone cheap wholesale electronics cheap cell phones for sales buy phone china cheap tv from china company that wholesales phones cd041 buy china cheap wholesale tv 1800 1PC Classic Controller Gamepad For Nintendo Wii GameCube WII GAMEPAD 4.3 inch touch screen mp4 player TV F029 Cell Phone + Free Gift B8000 Tri Band Dual Card With Bluetooth Unlocked Cell Phone china wholesale car video h601 phone buy cheap iphone online 2-Din Car DVD Player - 6.5-inch Touchscreen + USB Port touch screen mp3 players for cheap 2.4G wireless mouse lowered to the ground while they had watched the horses. Seeing the horses had seemed to bring this all to a head in him and seeing that Robert Jordan knew horses had seemed to loosen his tongue. The three of them stood now by the rope corral and the patchy sunlight shone on the coat of the bay stallion. Pablo looked at him and then pushed with his foot against the heavy pack. "There is the badness."
TAG:
