Free Out in the Open by Jesús Carrasco Page A

dried his eyes, placed his two hands together beneath one cheek and, shortly afterwards, fell asleep.
    Despite having lain down to sleep a couple of yards away from the goatherd, he woke the following morning to find himself lying pressed up against the old man’s motionless body. The harsh glare from the plain forced open his eyes, and the first thing he noticed was the putrid smell emanating from the old man, as potent as the smell he himself gave off, only less familiar. He blinked in an attempt to wake himself up and crept back to the spot where he had originally lain down, hoping that the goatherd was still asleep. The old man, who had been lying in exactly the same position all night, turned his head and asked the boy to bring him a goat. The boy felt ashamed when he realised that the old man had woken before him and he was at a loss as to how he could interpret the fact that their two bodies had remained so close, and that the goatherd hadn’t moved away. He stood up and brushed the dust off his clothes. His shirt was covered in large grease stains and the bottoms of his trousers hung in tatters.
    After breakfast, the old man asked the boy to use the blanket to make an awning to protect him from the morning sun. The boy stuffed two corners of the blanket into holes in the wall, then propped up the rest of the blanket on two poles. When he had finished, he sat down next to the old man, albeit out of the shade, awaiting new instructions, because this was how their new life together was taking shape. The goatherd, constrained by the growing stiffness in his joints, taking shelter from the inclement sky. The boy, like an energetic extension of the old man, prepared for whatever labours the plain and the elements demanded of him. For some time, they remained quite still, the old man leaning back against the saddle and the boy waiting in the sun. When the boy could bear it no longer, he got up, walked round to the other side of the wall and lay down in the torrid shade beyond, where he fell asleep. The sun again woke him as it rose above the top of the wall. He returned to the goatherd’s side and they ate a few bits of cheese and a little of the remaining dried meat.
    The old man spent most of the afternoon reading an ancient Bible with rounded corners, which he kept wrapped in a piece of cloth. He followed the words with one finger, pronouncing them syllable by syllable. Meanwhile, the boy set off to explore the ruins with the dog. He was able to map the plan of the castle from what remained of the foundations and he wondered where all the stones from the walls and vaults had gone. He discovered a few desiccated lizards and some pellets full of fragments of bone and fur. On the south-east side of the wall he came across feathers and bits of twisted skin which he interpreted as the leftovers from some owl’s banquet.
    At the far end of the area opposite the wall, he scrambled down a bank full of rabbit-holes. The boy went back to where the old man was lying and told him about the tracks and droppings he had found. He also told him about his experiences of ferreting and how closely it resembled the way the old man had trapped the rat in the bone pit. He spoke of days spent hunting on the railway embankments and how, when he caught a rabbit, he would kill it by holding it by its back legs and striking it with a stick on the back of the neck. ‘The rabbit goes like this,’ he said, pulling a face and holding out trembling arms. According to the boy, July was the best month for catching partridge chicks. ‘You have to go out at midday, when it’s hottest, and if you find a female with her chicks, you choose one and run after it. It soon gets tired.’ Then, without mentioning his mother, he described, as if they were his own, his techniques for skinning a rabbit and breaking the neck of a young pigeon. Beside him, the dog was wagging its tail as if wanting to breathe life into the boy’s