Free Sacred Sierra by Jason Webster Page B

gunfire very close to the farm. One of things we’d had to deal with living so far out in the countryside away from any towns or villages was an urban fear of isolation, so often expressed in subconscious images of wild axemen coming in off the hillside to do you in. ‘
On a mountain no one can hear you scream
…’ Typical horror-movie stuff. But these nightmares almost invariably took place in a night-time setting. I had never expected bloodthirsty killers to show up at this tranquil time of day.
    Dragging myself tentatively out of bed, I threw on my overalls and searched for something I might use to defend myself. Nothing came to hand – all my tools were downstairs, out of reach. The only ‘weapons’ available were a couple of books, a pair of slippers and a bright orange collapsible umbrella Salud usually kept in her handbag. Cursing my luck, I realised I had no choice but to head out anyway: Salud was pulling the bedcovers up under her chin and looking concerned. It was my manly duty to go out and find out what was happening, armed or not.
    I poked my head out of the door and saw nothing. The gunshot had come from the direction of the old oak tree behind one of the other ruined houses. It was there that I had to go.
    Bleary-eyed, I tiptoed my way over, unsure if this sunny, clear Sunday morning was about to become my last. After we had bought the farm, a friend from Valencia told us that when he bought a similar place, out in the middle of an empty valley a few miles further south, the local police had paid a visit and told him simply to shoot and bury anyone if they came round giving him trouble; they wouldn’t want to know. A feeling of the Wild West about the area was growing stronger by the day, and I felt like a cowboy about to get into a gunfight. The only problem was I had no gun.
    I turned the corner round the back of the ruined house and the oak tree and patio beneath it came into focus. Rubbing my eyes, I saw a group of men standing next to half a dozen four-wheel-drives, shotguns and rifles clearly and nonchalantly tucked under their arms. By their dress and manner – all dark-green clothing and an air of cockiness that seems to come over most people once you put a gun in their hand – I understood they were hunters, out for a jaunt with a view to taking out a few wild boar and perhaps the odd partridge or two.
    The chances were they hadn’t come with murderous intentions – at least not towards humans. But as I began to breathe more easily, I realised there was another problem to deal with. These men were treating our patio as though it were some public square. And they were about to go hunting on our land, something I wasn’t entirely keen on them doing. But how on earth did I go about telling a group of armed men to clear off? I had no idea. Unsure as to the protocol, I decided to go in softly.
    As I walked towards them, some of them spotted me out of the corners of their eyes and turned away guiltily, like naughty children caught out by the headmaster. One or two faces were familiar: they were local men, thickset, with short limbs and closed faces. I caught the eye of one of them, an old man with close-cropped white hair, and approached him. He had what looked like a twelve-bore shotgun in his hands, while a couple of grey hunting dogs were sniffing the ground near his feet.
    He smiled nervously and started talking before I even said a word.
    ‘Those wild boar are ripping up your trees,’ he said with a forced chuckle. ‘Causing a lot of damage.’ And he pointed over towards our almond grove.
    I understood: he was doing us a favour by bringing his hunting chums out here on a Sunday morning and waking us up with his gunfire. I’d seen the trees he was talking about, and the damage was considerable, but nonetheless I wasn’t too happy about encouraging him. I’d come across hunting types before – you gave them an inch and before you knew it they’d built a lodge on your land and were