When I began this, I called it ‘BETTER FORGOTTEN.’

 

Moncayo leant idly in the doorway of the hut with both hands on the studded cartridge belt which he wore low about his hips. The brim of his sombrero was pulled down making his eyes - already heavy-lidded and menacing - seem even more formidable. A cigarette smouldered away between his lips, the ash half an inch long and threatening to fall off at any minute. No one seeing him that day could have taken Moncayo for anything else but a desperado, a criminal who had seen the inside of several prisons, a thief and a killer who had somehow contrived to break out whenever the death sentence had threatened to close for good the bloody chapters of his career. And yet Moncayo was somehow a pathetic figure too - one of fifteen children born in a shack somewhere in Bolivia, the son of Indian peasants, a child left to fend for himself, an illiterate, hungry, inadequate man who had cowered in the jungle after his first killing, certain that God would strike him dead for an act of such wickedness.

Now, twenty five killings later, Moncayo gloried in his reputation which he had taken with him into Peru and now into the western extremes of Brazil. All the local peasants and small- time farmers knew of him and those who saw him that day were frightened to think of him and kept their distance. They did not see a dust begrimed wasted figure of a man, they saw the legendary Jose Luis Moncayo, the trigger-happy assassin from Bogota.

That day Moncayo had another murder to contemplate. It is difficult to say whether this new business was uppermost in his thoughts as he gazed out from under that wide-brimmed hat, from out of that narrow doorway of the peasants’ shack where he was sheltering; where he leant idly smoking his cigarette and looking on the torrential rain as it fell on the village and the jungle beyond. After a while he grew tired of looking at the rain for he knew it would not be finished for a while yet and it was futile hoping for the rain to go away.

He had three companions in the wretched little shack; two of these were native American  peasants - brothers, in fact. One of them owned the shack and had agreed to help Moncayo with his mission. The men were actually being paid for their services though the pistolero was certain that he could have threatened help out of them for nothing. These two men were from exactly the same sort of background as Moncayo himself; they had suffered the privations he had experienced himself and yet the famous bandit regarded them with contempt. They were, he felt, as far beneath him as the dirt floor he was standing on and, when he turned to face into the room, he paid no more attention to them than he would the floor. Far different was his attititude to his other companion.

“I congratulate you, senora,” he said chivalrously, “on the patience you have shown today. But there is no need for alarm; the rain will stop and then we shall go on. These people assure us that it is only four miles - perhaps not so far.”

The person he addressed was a rather stout, middle-aged European woman. She was dressed in a shirt, shorts and boots designed for the route march, though she looked too old and lacked the athleticism for a hike through the jungle at altitude. In one way she was pleased that they had decided to shelter and sit-out the afternoon storm, for she was nearly exhausted - hot and sticky and short of breath. But, another way, she resented the time that was passing. She feared any delay that might allow her enemy a head start, should anyone tell him of her approach; and she had no wish to sit in this hut brooding on how close she was now to the culmination of many years’ work. It should be said that nothing in the world could endear her to Jose-Luis Moncayo. 

She had not employed him for the quality of his company; but she found some relief in the fact that he suddenly wanted to talk; any distraction at that moment had some value and she had had few enough to talk to in the last thousand miles.

“I have enough patience,” she replied. “Just so long as we find him.”

Moncayo removed the remnants of the cigarette from his mouth as a mark of deference and he took time to think out his next sentence while he crushed the butt beneath his heel.

“He will get a big surprise, I think,” laughed Moncayo. “He will not have many visitors.”

When he heard this, one of the forest people was tempted to say a few words. Moncayo told him pretty sharply to shut up.

“What is wrong ?” asked the woman.

“This pig has nothing to say, senora.”

“Just so long as he shows us the place, he will tell us all that we need to know. But what was it he said?”

“He says that the gringo has stayed up there on the mountain for many years; that he does not like company.”

The woman said nothing to this and so Moncayo added mischievously, “They say the people who live here think he is a good man.”

The woman looked at Moncayo balefully. There was nothing to frighten her in the looks of this outlaw and indeed, it must be said, Moncayo knew this and found it off-putting. Perhaps it helped her that she could see out of only one eye and so missed the dark brooding in his look which put others at a disadvantage. Moncayo thought perhaps there was some truth in this and the idea comforted him.

“And what do you think, Senor Moncayo?” she said in an even voice. “You will have to kill him before the day is over. Do you think he is a good man?”

“What I think does not matter, senora. You say he has done much harm and your gold is enough to make me agree.”

The bandit thought this was witty but the woman did not smile.

“Have you no feelings then, Senor Moncayo, for anything except money?”

“You ask hard questions, senora. But what is this word you use? Feelings? Con emocion. This rabble here (he indicated the two native Americans) perhaps they do things with feelings and I do not want to be like them.”

“Do you never worry?”

“Ha,ha! Perhaps when I want to pee and I cannot! You worry, senora, I see it in your face but there is no need to worry. The gringo is the one who must worry, for Moncayo means to kill him!”

“You are disgusting!”

Moncayo scowled. At last she had said what he had sensed from the time of their first meeting a week earlier.

“You are unfair, senora. You pay me much money to kill a man and then you are disgusted with me.”

“Because you are killing only for profit - not because he is a wicked man who deserves to be punished.”

But Moncayo was not pacified. His pride had been hurt and he turned away and stared at the rain again and sulked. He did not take insults kindly. He told himself that he was a fool to put up with such talk from a woman - and a woman who was not even vaguely attractive; an old woman who could only see out of one eye and who could not get her breath properly. Also she was not English, though she had spoken to him in English because her Spanish and Portuguese were bad. He toyed with the idea of killing her or at least robbing her and taking the rest of the money she had promised to pay him: ten thousand now; ten thousand when the job was done. Already he had more money in his pocket than he had ever had before. It gave him satisfaction to pat the wad of bills he could feel in his hip pocket. No doubt about it this was easy money - cash on the barrel - and he might not have to kill her to get much more. Moncayo disliked women in a general way - even the ones he slept with - and yet it was beneath a man of his position to actually kill a woman without a good reason. He was prepared to do most things for money and there was, for the moment, plenty of money here without the need to waste bullets. And so, though she had insulted him, Moncayo did not shoot her. He did not want to admit to himself that the plan of this alemana was unsettling. She had spent a long, long time finding her quarry, she had told him so - a whole life-time in pursuit of one bad man. Moncayo had decided that it was better to do nothing with her until that man was dead. After the shooting perhaps the senora would not care about losing her money; perhaps then she would be less vigilant and forget how dangerous Moncayo could be; but first he would shoot the extranjero, the man they said lived in the forest. Moncayo knew himself to be an intelligent man. He knew that, while this other man lived, the old fat woman was dangerous. He had seen her sitting by the campfire in the jungle watching the hours of darkness pass with her one eye. She was quite unafraid for Moncayo could smell fear. When they had climbed the hill trail on foot, when they had sweated in the jungle, she had looked tired and breathless, but she had never once admitted to pain or fatigue. There was no fear in this grey-haired, ugly woman and he knew it. He knew that revenge could make people brave. He knew too that she carried a gun; not a heavy colt revolver like his but one of those squat, ugly, flat little guns which the detectives in the movies carried. She did not carry her gun boldly in a holster as he did and yet he knew it was there, in her pocket, and he knew that she would shoot in order to get her revenge. He could tell. Her eye and her resolve and her fearless manner and her gun all troubled him; she was no native to be bullied and frightened with a glance. She had insulted him and was not afraid of him. And so he had decided that first they had better kill the man in the forest and then, when her revenge had been taken, he would worry about killing her.

While Moncayo looked out on the rain, the two forest people had summoned up the courage to speak once more to the woman. She had only met them a few hours before and they regarded her with awe because of the way she had spoken to Moncayo. Now they were bold enough to offer her some of their coffee.

Conversation within this little group was an interesting business. The woman and Moncayo spoke to each other in English though his own tongue was Spanish with plenty of local dialect thrown in and her first language German. The two guides, however, spoke a local dialect and some Spanish and so Moncayo was usually required as an intermediary. But now, without the outlaw noticing, the two men supplemented their talk with suitable use of gesture in offering the coffee to la patrona.

She smiled a little (she smiled rarely) touched by their generosity. She decided to risk a sip or two of the coffee even though she had been feverish in the night. She had been bitten mercilessly by insects and it was her most fervent prayer that some silly illness should not wreck everything now. Even though the coffee tasted horrible, it might at least keep her mind alert. She drank it black with a spoonful of sugar and, though it tasted very bitter, she smiled her appreciation to them.

When Moncayo saw what they were doing, he demanded a drink too. The guides drank no more themselves but responded with alacrity to the gunfighter’s command. On tasting his drink, he spat the first mouthful out.

“Disgusting slop! Not fit for the senora!”

But the senora rebuked him and told him to appreciate the sacrifice they were making. Moncayo did not turn away this time. Instead he sat on a rough stool with his back to the doorway. Then, on impulse, he moved so that his back could rest on the nearest wall.

“I never have my back to the door,” he explained, “and do you why, senora ? It is because some honest little farmer like these campesinos might put a bullet in me. Oh yes! They look weak and harmless but this is how it happens! Has the senora heard of Wild Bill Hickock ?”

The senora had not but the name seemed to register with the two guides. At any rate they sat forward to listen even though Moncayo spoke in English.

“Wild Bill sat down to play cards in the saloon in Deadwood,” went on the outlaw, “and he said, ‘Will no one change places with me? I do not like to have my back to the door.’ ‘Take it easy, Bill,’ his friend says, ‘no one is going to try anything.’ And so he sat where he was. Next thing a man with revenge in his heart, a man called Jake McCall, came in behind Wild Bill and shot him in the back! That is the story, senora and I swear on the Bible it is the truth. That is how Wild Bill, the famous sheriff, was shot; if it can happen to him then it might happen to me.”

The woman listened closely to him for he told his story dramatically and she saw how impressed the two guides were.

“There must be no shooting in the back with our man,” she said. “I want to face him when he dies.”

“It will be just as the senora wishes. If you wish I will hold him while you spit in his face.”

“The spit would be wasted,” she said coldly. “I suppose you have shot a man in the back, Moncayo?”

“Sometimes - when it was the easiest way. Sometimes it is safest! What would have happened to Jake McCall if he faced Wild Bill man to man? But those things happened a long time ago and I do not feel sorry for Wild Bill. He was a sheriff and no friend of mine!”

“Wasn’t this McCall a coward?”

“I do not know, senora - but he was for certain a fool - to do such a thing when others could see. I could tell you of other wiser killings.”

“Carried out by yourself, I suppose?”

“Si, senora, sometimes - but I have always done my own killing when I needed to!”

“Meaning, I suppose, that I have hired someone to do mine for me. But you have been well paid and I may be able to shoot him myself even yet. My fear is that my sight is not good and I might miss him and let him escape; and he must not escape!”

“You have not forgotten our agreement, senora?” Moncayo did not like to hear this talk about her doing her own killing.

“You will be paid as we agreed if that is what concerns you. But there must be no shooting in the back! I want to talk to this man first.”

“You wish to tell him everything that he did?”

“Yes. I want to tell him.”

“You say many years have passed. Will he have forgotten?”

“He will not have forgotten, Senor Moncayo, for, compared to what he did, shooting a man in the back is kindness. He must know why he is being executed.”

“And yet, senora,” Moncayo continued with a malicious gleam in his eye, “I believe that only the Jews were gassed.”

The woman spoke bitterly. “That fact may have saved me; I do not know; the truth is that many of my friends were murdered.”

Once again Moncayo saw the terrible force of hatred and revenge in her face and it made him feel afraid.

“I am no Christian,” he said, “but Christians say we must learn to forgive.”

The woman once more turned her eye on him and Moncayo did not like to meet her gaze.

“After my friends died,” she told him, “I could think only that Christ was a fool to sacrifice himself.”

“Ah! So you do not believe either!” exclaimed the killer triumphantly as though she had made a damaging admission. The two guides could only guess at what was being said but heard the name of Christ and sensed something blasphemous. In any case the words of anger and hatred disturbed them. Moncayo sensed their disapproval for he suddenly turned his spite on them, “What are you two looking at? You are sheep! You are nothing!”

For once the older of the brothers retaliated reminding the pistolero that God would be listening to what he said. This produced a flow of invective. The woman needed no translator even though the only word she actually comprehended was that of Christ spoken by her guide.

“Don’t talk to me of God!” shouted Moncayo in Spanish. “What has God done for me? He has let me be hunted down across the country like a puma with a price on my head! There!” and he spat in the dirt. “What will God do to me for that? If God is there I say let him strike me down! Let him do it now!”

The guides recoiled. Moncayo’s words struck them as though he had fired bullets. The woman too was shocked. She could guess at what he had said for it was easy to understand the name of God as it was that of Christ. The arrogant sharp-shooter had not actually finished. He became bold with the patrona now and he told the two local people (still in Spanish) to ask the senora what she felt about God and his vengeance. After all, she was paying a poor man to kill someone on her behalf.

“These men have told me,” he said turning back to the woman and reverting to English, “that the gringo has lived here for many years. He has hurt no one. He is a reformed man; perhaps he has made his peace with God.”

“You don’t know what you are talking about!” came her angry reply. “This man is not a man of peace. I would not hire another man to help me kill just anyone.”

“But have you, senora, the right to order a man’s death? In the Bible it says, ‘Vengeance is mine!’”

At this the woman sneered. “You do well to quote the Bible to me, senor ! You would make a fine priest!”

The gunman was pleased he had nettled her. He was far from annoyed now for his moods were in a constant state of flux. Indeed the idea of Moncayo the priest appealed to his dreadful vanity and he laughed. All this time the rain in the forest had continued, heavy, soaking rain which gave no promise of ever abating. Moncayo went back to his former position in the doorway and lounged there and drank the last of the coffee and smoked another cigarette. The woman stood up herself and stretched and heaved a great sigh. She did not want to be any closer to the gunman than she could help and yet she wanted to see the rain. She stood therefore by a hole in the shanty wall which served as a window. She had recovered from her earlier fatigue and felt a return of the nervousness as she anticipated the coming show-down.

“How much longer?” she asked the storm. The rain was so heavy that it had pierced the roof of the hut and the damp, humid atmosphere was becoming too much for her. She looked appealingly to the two villagers but they could not do anything to help.

“It always rains like this in the afternoon,” observed Moncayo.

“There must be no shooting - no shooting until I say!”

“Ha, ha! You do not trust me, senora. But I will keep our bargain. You will see this man shake like a monkey facing a boa. He will feel what a goat feels before the jaguar bites its head. Isn’t that what you want, senora ?”

She made no movement, but he knew he could follow her thoughts.

“How long is it, senora, since you saw this man from your country - this aleman?”

“You’ve asked me that already.”

“Si, senora - and I have asked myself whether you will be sure?”

“Leave that to me.”

“Even with only one eye, you will be sure?”

“I shall not need eyes to know.”

Moncayo was impressed but he enjoyed taunting her.

“But remember, senora, I will kill whoever you say and I would hate to kill a poor, simple innocent man,” he waved his arm as he spoke to where the guides were waiting and promptly burst into laughter.

“You are a wicked man, Moncayo,” she said wishing that she had never seen him.

“Of course, senora but a man who is going to help you with your work!” and his eyes danced maliciously. “Who knows? Perhaps some  day a woman will ask a man to kill me for my crimes!” and he laughed again.

The woman hated him.

“Have you then no fear for your own soul?”

“No, senora for I have no soul!”

 

The storm cleared. Its torrential rain had persisted into the early evening just to be a hindrance for as long as possible. The woman, her patience stretched to breaking point, was left to reflect on the purpose of her mission and the end to forty years of patient investigation. Not every minute of that time had been spent in pursuit of the mass murderer for the trail had gone cold – even for Mosad - and everyone in South America had been against extradition and there had seemed no chance of bringing a guilty man to justice. For years it seemed that the jungle had swallowed him and then her husband had died and most of those who had remembered with her; and the woman was left to wonder whether her poisoned memories of the concentration camp had not faded a little. Then more years had passed until a famous hunter of war criminals had come to her with photographs and a story from the forest on the hills below the Andes. Suddenly there was no doubt; on the instant the memories were alive again; the forty years were no further than yesterday and the woman was sure; absolutely certain that, when she saw her enemy again with her one good eye, her appetite for vengeance would never been sharper. Even so, forty years had brought her to be more than sixty and she could not ignore her age. There was a real possibility that she might not have the strength for such an undertaking. She had smoked cigarettes for far too long and she had problems with her circulation and she was too fat and she could not see well; and yet, if someone did not go to find this man who had murdered her friends in the camp, then he would go unpunished and perhaps laugh at the idea of retribution.

Now, as she sat in the primitive hut in the storm, the woman began to draw new strength from that longing for revenge. It had been powerful enough to drive her to Bolivia and now to this border area somewhere in the jungle. Nearby sprang the currents from which the Amazon drew its strength. The torrential rain which nourished these rivers must somehow nourish her too. It must not be the water to wash away sin and free the mind from torment, for no water was pure enough to cleanse that man’s crimes; no water cool enough to slake her thirsting for his life.

So the storm passed on and there was still just enough daylight left to reach the farm of the gringo. The guides knew this man as Senor Cordoba, but the woman knew better than that. She had seen his picture with forty years’ age in his face and still been able to identify the man who had sent thousands to the gas chambers. Now she reflected on those days of nightmare when, as a young woman, she had been rounded up with the others and put on the train and sent to that place somewhere in central Europe.

 

................Ich bin keine Judin......... You have been very lucky, Frau Helden, you will not die with the others, though you deserve to die for living with these untermensch.................so, if you were friends at University, you can help move what is left to the crematorium.

 

She heard the words again and realised anew what she had told herself several million times: there could be no forgetting. She was resolved; she had no compunction; she owed the others too much. She saw Heidi’s face now as if it were yesterday and Anna’s and little Kristin and the von Neumans. The tears came to her eyes and she sobbed. The guides looked on in wonder and Moncayo drew away and said nothing. There was, she felt, too much for her to remember and perhaps God had watched over her after all, for who but God could have brought her to this time of justice?

And so, when the rain had passed and the day had left enough light for a woman with one eye to see her way, Frau Helden did not hesitate, but followed the guides over a sodden trail for those last few miles; and, for the first time on her journey, Moncayo walked at the rear, his gun at the ready, coolly prepared to prove himself by doing the job he had been paid for.

The farm where Senor Cordoba and his family lived was in the foothills on the verge of the forest. There was a town nearby and even a road where a four wheel drive could go; but the farm, it was obvious, had a concealed location; it was a difficult place to get to.

The first people they saw were an old woman and two half grown children working in the fields; the guides recognised them; there was a tribal connection. Moncayo came to the front of their procession again and asked these workers where he could find Senor Cordoba and the old peasant woman looked at Moncayo fearfully as though she knew him. El patron had gone hunting, she said, and had not yet returned.

Frau Helden uttered a great sigh and then sat on the roots of a tree to rest. She could not understand the relief she felt at hearing that her man was away. Instead she felt overcome once more by fatigue - for her journey had begun thousands of miles away; and, of all those miles, perhaps the few leading to this settlement had been the worst - twenty miles in steamy heat, some of it  on foot, for the trail, the guides had said, was unsuitable for mules and horses and they had left their animals behind. It was even more miles, endless miles Frau Helden thought, to the railway spur where a goods train had brought them into the interior. He had agreed to take them back in return for a hefty bribe for it was all, as he had been at pains to stress, strictly against regulations. As she contemplated the eternity of the miles, Frau Helden admitted that, when she had set out from her home in Bavaria, the thought had been with her that she might never complete her journey. Now, as then, she did not fear the risks. She felt afraid of only one thing; that she might not accomplish what she had set out to do. If only it were over and done with.

Meanwhile the gunfighter, Moncayo, spoke further to the old peasant woman. Eventually he came across to the tree.

“She says el patron has gone hunting for the puma which has raided the ranch and killed sheep and goats here. He may return with his men any time.”

Frau Helden hardly seemed to hear the words of the gunfighter.

“Are you unwell again, senora ?”

“Just tired - muy cansada. Is that the house?”

She had noticed the house the moment they came upon this hacienda in the forest. It seemed a fine place as they looked across the ground that had been cleared for cultivation.

“Let us go to the house, senora ,” Moncayo advised her for he too felt tired. “We can wait for him there.”

“We must be careful. There are sure to be others. He may have his family here with him.”

Moncayo shrugged. “If I hated a man as much as you do, senora, then I would shoot him when all his family was there! But there is no one in the house. This old woman says the patrona has gone away; she is with friends many miles to the north.”

“So the house really is empty?”

“Yes, I think so. There will be servants but that is all. Come, senora, you are tired. It will be better for you there.”

Moncayo showed no great sympathy. He knew that it would be dark very soon and he had no wish to stand in the wilderness with shelter so close.

She paid the two native American guides who said they could stay with someone they knew who worked here on this estate. Moncayo gave them dire warnings about what would happen if they gossiped. Then he set off along the trail to the house. In this area the trees and undergrowth had been cleared for a couple of miles around. Many of the logs lay strewn near the side of the trail. They were already overgrown with sweaty vegetation. As he walked ahead with Frau Helden behind him, Moncayo chuckled. The German was as angry with him as ever. She had grown weary of this illiterate, mannerless bully with his boundless vanity. She decided he was at his most irritating when he thought he had formed a clever plan.

“What is it now?” she asked breathlessly. “We must keep quiet at all costs.”

“I was only thinking, senora, of the surprise this man will get!”

“Is that anything to laugh at?”

“Why not? This great hunter will get his leon and then he will come back and find another hunter waiting for him - a much better hunter!”

He walked on and laughed from time to time in spite of the fact that the house was now very close.

By the time they reached the building, Frau Helden was more than just weary. She had been feverish all day long and she knew it was not just the heat. Some disease was tormenting her just when she was so close. It was bad enough having her usual respiratory problem, but this fever was threatening to be the last straw. Frequent recourse to her inhaler did little to help and she suddenly found herself leaning against a door frame hardly aware of how she got there. As she did so she saw two vehicles parked on the corner of the building and she realized that there must be a road out of this place coming from another direction. Her guides had said nothing of this.

“We are here, senora.”

It was Moncayo’s voice. She must not let him see how weak she was. But the man could smell weakness. It was a wonder that he did not rob and kill her now and run away into the forest. She patted the pocket where her own pistol lay, but she need not have been quite so alarmed. Moncayo had his back to her. He was up on the verandah face to face with an old, crippled servant.

“Ay el patron?” she heard him say.

It was the same story. The hunt for the cougar in the foothills was still going on.

“They are not here,” Moncayo told her. “Now listen,” he went on, turning back to the servant. “The senora is here to visit the patron. She knows him well but she has caught a fever. She must sit in the house until the patron returns.”

Their entrance could not have been easier. Under other circumstances Frau Helden might have found the idea of sitting on her enemy’s chair repulsive, but she was in no state to consider such an idea.

In fact the living room was scrupulously clean, comfortably furnished and pleasantly cool. Frau Helden lay prostrate on the settee for some time. She still had some water in her canteen, but the ancient servant, alert in spite of his years, brought her what he said was iced spring water and a bottle of aspirins. He assured Frau Helden there was other medicine but the drink and a couple of tablets helped her simply to feel a little better.

When at last she sat up, she saw Moncayo sprawled in an easy chair looking thoroughly scruffy in that well-kept place as he filled the air with cigar smoke.

“This is very good!” he said cheerfully. “They have everything here!”

Frau Helden wanted to ask him why he had said nothing of the road coming from the other side, but she made no reply. When Moncayo stopped talking it occurred to her how horribly silent the place was. There was no sound that she could truly identify and the quiet made her very tense. She felt dreadfully weak and afraid.

It was, she thought, as though the spirits of the house knew she and her hired killer were waiting.

She looked around. Moncayo had remained in his lounging position silent just for once as though the atmosphere in that house had affected even him.

The furniture certainly looked very fine, even the cane chairs seemed aristocratic. Then there was a beautiful Steinway piano near one of the spacious windows. It surprised Frau Helden to see it there and she was tempted to look more closely at the family photographs arranged on top of it. She fought off the nausea affecting her by this time in order to do so.

The light was fading fast. For all that Frau Helden needed no torch to see the faces. One was a family scene: a youngish man, his wife and two children. The man looked vaguely familiar though it was not him. All four had the blond hair and the fair skin of the fatherland. Here was another family scene with the children much older. The two boys looked fine, healthy young men though she read in their eyes an arrogance that she cared to place there. Their mother was still lithe and blond and good-looking - certainly the camera betrayed no wrinkles. If only, thought Frau Helden, the camera-eye could conceal her own aged face. There was just one other photo and, when she saw it, the huntress knew that she had not come in vain.

He too had aged, this man she meant to kill, but his image could never change enough to deceive her; for this was him. They must have hidden the pictures of him in military attire - the insignia and the crosses must have aroused curiosity among visitors and they must have their worries about the fugitive they were harbouring at the hacienda.

Yet it was him; she knew him immediately. It seemed to her then, as she fixed her one good eye on that hated face whose smile even in this pose seemed grim-lipped and forced, that he was made young again, restored with his regalia and his officer’s hat and that cruel, dispassionate voice and she heard him again and knew that the time was very, very close for both of them. In just a short while she would face him and accuse him and order the execution which thirty years had delayed. It helped her to see him again for she grew strong with the certainty that he must die.

Now there came another voice intruding into her thoughts - the distinctive intonation of the famous pistolero, Jose-Luis Moncayo.

“So, this is him,” he said from behind her shoulder. His closeness made Frau Helden appreciate how much bigger than her was this paid assassin; and it was good to find him so tall and believe him strong. Somehow Moncayo had become a different man. Now that the time for attack was very close, the outlaw was growing tense in a way that a cougar might as it gets ready to spring.

“Yes.”

Frau Helden responded to his comment with a single word. “Whatever else happens do not shoot until I speak!” Suddenly she doubted him. “You will not miss?”

She turned to face him to be sure and his leering eyes and cold look frightened her. For a few seconds she had the horrible feeling that comes with a dreadful mistake. It seemed just then that perhaps this killer was actually a friend of the mass-murderer. And why not ? What better hideout could there be for a notorious criminal? Both had pretensions to rank and superiority and both were masters at premeditated murder. What did it matter that one was an expert shot with a revolver and the other initiated into the rites of Xyklon B? But these chilling ideas were a nightmare of only seconds. Frau Helden suddenly got a grip of herself yet again and realised that Moncayo meant to earn the rest of his gold. It made her lips go dry to think it - so frighteningly close was she to the end of her mission.

“I tell you, senora, he is already dead. He may look like a man walking about but he is already a ghost.”

Moncayo had stopped smiling and Frau Helden could tell what cruelty she had paid for.

The wait was not to be much longer. Four riders came from the foothills just as the sun had disappeared into the towering kettles of the Andes and only firelight was left to show them coming. The ancient servant came to tell the visitors. He lit a lamp in the room and said he would tell the patron of their coming. He also asked courteously about the lady’s health but Frau Helden told him that she was feeling better though her voice was no more than a whisper. 

She wondered if the old servant had seen her shaking. Like Moncayo she avoided standing near the light but tried to see who was coming by taking a position near the window. But this plan did not work for the horsemen took a route to some outbuildings well to the side of the house where she had seen the heavy duty vehicles. Voices called triumphantly in Spanish. Moncayo told Frau Helden that the hunters had apparently killed their puma. 

They could only wait now; wait to see if the patron came into the house alone. It seemed likely, Moncayo thought; the ordinary men would be sent to their own quarters. It had never occurred to him, in his arrogance, that the old servant might be a little suspicious to see a pistolero and an old European woman with one eye. He did not reckon either on the loyalty and devotion this old man might have for his master, and Frau Helden was so overwhelmed by the nature of the moment that she did not think clearly either. They should, of course, never have allowed the old servant to report their presence. Instead, when el patron appeared, he did so with two armed men. Too late  now for Moncayo to understand that they should have concealed themselves outside and bided their time.

His arrival did nothing to calm Frau Helden. It had been a desperate last few minutes for her in which she felt she might collapse. The armed escort was bad enough but far worse was the appearance of this man, el patron. She sensed that she had seen him somewhere but he was, at best, half the age of the man she had expected to see. The blow of failure was too great for her at this stage. Already exhausted and wracked by fever, she half sat, half fell onto the settee. Ironically this saved the situation. The owner of the ranch was a compassionate man it seemed. He ordered medicine to be brought and more water and blankets and, after a while, unwisely, asked his men to leave the room.

While all this was happening, a snatched conversation took place between the master and Moncayo. The latter had also got a surprise when he found himself confronted by three well-armed men. When he answered the patron’s questions he did not need to feign humility. The guides would have been surprised to see him so changed.

Moncayo’s manner made the patron less cautious - after all the man would need to be armed to come through the jungle and there was no threat in the presence of this deathly pale, sick old woman who had still to speak to him.

“But why did the lady tell my people she was my friend?” he asked Moncayo. “I have never seen her before.”

“That I do not know,” replied the gunman. “I came with her as a guide and to guard her against bandidos and jaguares. We heard there had been a puma killing the sheephereabouts.”

  Now Moncayo thought he was being very cunning, but the patron wondered why they had not brought rifles with them.

“You must ask the senora all of these things. I only know she was eager to see you.”

The patron disliked Moncayo but did not feel threatened by him with his own people close at hand. He was distracted anyway by Frau Helden’s struggling to sit up at this point.

“Senora,” he said to her in fluent Spanish,” you must be careful. You have a temperature and we don’t know yet what is wrong with you. Try to compose yourself and then you can tell me what brings you here.”

Frau Helden did sit up, however. By now she had collected her thoughts. She realised that she had made a very simple mistake. She had assumed that the patron referred to by all the people here would be the man on whom she planned to avenge both herself and her long-dead family and friends. Instead this was not her enemy; this was the man featured on some of the photos she had so recently looked at, almost without question the son of the mass murderer. In fact there could be no doubt. The resemblance was very strong though the eyes and mouth did not have the father’s cruelty. 

Once again she felt her strength return; once again she knew she must hurry. By the time she collapsed again, it might be too late. 

“I am afraid,” she said in English, “that I do not understand Spanish. Do you know English?”

She saw that she had surprised him, but she was not yet ready to say anything in German. She thought it might give the game away. In her weakness she did not realise that he could already tell, from her accent, where she was from.

“You see,” she continued. “I thought there were other people living here with you.”

“And so there are,” came the reply in English. “But my family are away on a visit.”

Frau Helden gasped. “Then it is too late,” she said faintly. “Such a long journey wasted.”

“Wasted, madam? I hope not. But I do not believe we have met.”

“Of course not. You see I used to know your father. I had hoped to see him just once more.”

“My father!”

Frau Hellden saw the alarm in his eyes. She was ready for that. She must not ruin everything now. 

“Yes, I had hoped to see him. I have not seen him for many years and now I am not well.”  All her old fears grew. How could she tell whether he had understood everything?

“And now you tell me he is not here. Senor, I have come a long way. I have not seen him for so long. Is he here?” It was too much for her, the demands of self-control in the face of such disappointment and she found to her amazement that tears were on her cheeks and she could do nothing about it. But the tears helped make up her host’s mind for him.

“Please be calm. I will see what can be done.”

“Then he is here?”

“Yes, but please be calm.”

“May I see him?”

“Not just now; he is - having his dinner. There is something -”

He broke off and there was good cause for his alarm. One moment he was certain of this unknown woman’s sincerity and actually felt sympathy for her; the next moment she had stood up and was looking at him with that dangerous eye. His attention was so captured by the expression on her face that he did not see the feline Moncayo rise stealthily from his seat by the wall. The gunman knew when it was time and he was ready for his work. He hated this young man anyway for having frightened him and he intended to have some of the senora’s revenge for himself.

“Senor Cordoba,” said Frau Helden with some finality. “I must see him now!”

Cordoba (to give him his adopted name) faced her gravely and with commendable calm.

“As you wish, meine Frau,” he said. “But my father has, like you, been unwell. He is in no fit state to receive visitors.”

“Quickly, then, before it is too late!”

The patron would have led her from the room straight away; but he paused when he saw Moncayo.

“We will not need you,” he said brusquely.

“Yes, I think we will,” Frau Helden told him and, as though her words were a signal, Moncayo’s hand came to rest on the butt of his revolver.

“You may as well know,” the patron said icily, “that if you are here to harm my father then you will never leave this building alive.”

Moncayo drew the gun deliberately and the leer of triumph returned to his mouth.

“Show us where he is, senor,” he said. “Or you will not live to see him again.”

It made Frau Helden feel despair to stand on a level with the pistolero . She half-expected this Senor Cordoba to resist and be a hero. She felt some relief when he replied, “This way, then.”

The patron set off briskly out of the room and into an adjoining corridor where several doors were available in a long wing of this spacious household. At the end of the corridor he stopped and turned to face his unwanted guests. They did not really need telling by now that here was the place. He opened the door very gently and, having looked to satisfy himself that all was as he expected, stood aside to let them see.

For Frau Helden this was the end of a lifetime’s searching; in seconds she was looking down on the evil man she had last seen in a concentration camp over forty years ago. Looking at last with the one eye spared for this reunion.

In seconds too the vengeance she had born for so long met with an obstacle she could never have considered and this brought her so effectively to a standstill that she was utterly oblivious to what was happening behind her.

In those seconds Moncayo grew careless. Though his gun was drawn and ready he kept his eyes riveted on what was ahead of him. Once again he had underestimated the withered old servant who had seen the pistolero with a drawn gun from a doorway at the other end of the corridor. He quickly alerted the patron’s two men who were waiting in the kitchen and they now came up behind Moncayo with their own guns. The hired killer remembered to guard his back too late; as he turned the patron was quick to push him off balance; there was an explosion of gunfire and the outlaw lay dead in the corridor with bullet wounds in his chest and head.

The puma hunters of earlier in the day were alongside their master in seconds, but a wave of his hand told them that all was well and they must be silent. In the wake of the gunfire a dreadful stillness descended on the room. The patron did not know of Frau Helden’s tight grip on the pistol in her pocket; he supposed the danger to his father had passed.

Frau Helden’s manhunt ended unusually. It ended when she saw the Nazi monster of years ago propped up in a bed with pillows all around him. A nurse was at his bedside trying to spoon soup into unwilling, shaking lips, for the truth was that this shrivelled, senile creature seemed barely able to comprehend the presence of the soup, the nurse or anyone else.

The invalid’s son allowed Frau Helden to stand and look for a minute more. To her the time seemed as long as the years she had been waiting. It was him; she was certain. She knew there were cases of victims who had struggled to recognize their tormentors decades later, but she would , she had told herself, know him anywhere. Though he had changed from the man whose photo stood on the piano; though he was thousands of miles and nearly forty years from the death camp, this was the man; and yet the moment was not as she had expected it to be. How had these dribbling lips ordered the deaths of her mother, her sister, and those precious friends?

After a minute, the son went close to the father and leaned over very close to his ear.

“Father, this woman has travelled a long way to see you.”

The head wobbled and the hands on the sheet twitched but the words did not mean anything to what was left of the man; he tried to give his dribbling attention to his supper.

The son turned to Frau Helden. Not for a moment had the witness taken her eye from the face of the old man.

“Irreparable brain damage,” said the son in a flat tone as though the thought of it came as a shock every time he said the words. “It happened two years ago and he has been like this ever since. Do you want me to tell you how it happened?”

Frau Helden seemed not to hear him. Her eye stayed with her would-be victim trying to follow the truth of this final scene.

“He was a murderer,” she said in an empty voice. “I heard him order my sister and my mother to their deaths and I vowed not to forget. I vowed to them that I would not forget.”

Her finger was still on the trigger of the hidden pistol but she was too ill to press it. This was not as it should be. She might as well fire into an empty gas cylinder.

Senor Cordoba knew by now that his first suspicions about her presence at the house were correct.

“He did his best to forget about those times,” observed the patron drily. “As you see, in old age, he has finally managed to do so.”

2.11.83