Tales of the Mantequero

Chapter 2

Several weeks passed without any sign of the Mantequero and people began to think that maybe he really had gone away for good. The wind changed direction and a cooler wind blew in from the west. Cautiously the people began to open their shutters at night and let in the blessed cool air. Even Esperanza was beginning to wonder whether her precautions had been a little extreme. Maybe she could just open one set of shutters on the windward side?

The one person who did not believe the Mantequero had gone away was José María Carmen. Every night he sat in the shadows in the alley opposite the baker's house, with his two dogs either side of him and his father's gun across his knee. Silently his eyes searched the dark corners of the square; his ears pricked for any unusual sound.

Then, at last, his opportunity came. He had been dozing, his head bent over the gun, his hands slowly losing their grip on the stock, when something - some small noise - jerked him awake.

He could see nothing, just the shadow of the mimosa tree moving over the white wall of the house opposite. He glanced to left and right. Both dogs were straining forward, rigid, their noses pointing towards the house wall. He looked again. Was there a darker shadow moving amongst the shadows of the leaves and branches? A more solid shape? A shape like that of a man? It moved in a disturbingly un-human way, like a toad - a crawling movement and then a strange flopping down. He watched, fascinated, as the shadow made its way up the sheer face of the wall.

He would not shoot until he was sure. He did not want to shoot one of his neighbours by mistake or to alert the Mantequero without killing him. Silently, with the utmost care, he raised his gun to his shoulder and gripped the trigger. He would just have one chance. If he missed, he would never have time to reload before the creature escaped.

There! There it was! Without doubt - the shape of a man carrying something on his back. And very softly he heard the words. "Let me in, Esperanza. Please say you want me to come in."

Without a moment's hesitation, José María Carmen pulled the trigger. The shot rang out, shockingly loud in the sleeping square, rebounding off the house walls and echoing down the alleyways.

The shape dropped down like a stone. José María Carmen stood up to look, but his legs had become stiff with sitting on the cobbles and he could only limp forward slowly, reloading the gun as he went.

There was nothing there! The Mantequero had escaped!

He looked up and saw something out of the corner of his eye - something wriggling along the ground like a snake. He gave the signal and the dogs leapt forward.

As he stumbled towards the place where he had seen the wriggling shape he heard the sounds of the village waking up around him - a voice crying, "What in the name of God was that?"

And another, "Someone is shooting. Holy Mother of God, it is the Lord's men come to kill us all."

There were other, less articulate, sleepy protests, but José ignored them all and carried on walking around the corner into the next street. And there were his dogs, standing over the dark form of a man on the ground, their paws planted firmly on its chest, their teeth bared in a low, menacing snarl.

José came up to them and looked down on the face of his daughter's murderer. He was shocked by how young he looked. He seemed little more than a boy. And he had such a beautiful face!

The boy was terrified, looking from one dog to the other and then up at José. "Please,"he whispered, "let me go. I will go away and never return. Please."José had raised the gun but he could not shoot. He found himself gazing at the boy's beautiful face, entranced. His hands slowly began to drop to his sides.

Suddenly the gun was torn from his hands and he was pushed aside. He fell to his knees on the cobbles as another shot rang out, and when he looked up, the beautiful face of the boy had become a red ruin.

"You must never look them in the eyes,"hissed the baker as he thrust the gun back into José's hands. "Don't you know that? They can enchant you."

Despite his appalling injuries, the Mantequero was still wriggling and making grunting sounds as the men of the village dragged him along the street towards the cross roads.

~ * ~

Sebastián, who had watched the whole thing from an upstairs window, waited until the men had disappeared and then ran lightly downstairs and into the square. He thought he had seen something drop when the Mantequero fell from the wall.

Sure enough, there at the foot of the mimosa tree was a dark shadow. He bent down to look, full of excitement at being the only one to know about this treasure, but it was only an old leather bag. Furious with disappointment, he picked it up and flung it away, then ran to catch up with the men who were dragging the Mantequero to the crossroads.

He wanted to see what they did to him.

~ * ~

And so it was that Ignacio, returning from a successful poaching trip and burdened with three rabbits and a pheasant, stumbled across the bag as he crossed the square on his way to his house. He looked around to see whether anyone was watching, but the village was unusually quiet. He picked up the bag and examined it. It was beautiful; made of calf leather with neat stitching, shiny and supple. With one last look around he stuffed his illicit gains inside and slung it over his shoulder, thinking what a bit of luck that was.