The darkness of the road to Montredon closed on Domingo like a dark tunnel as he navigated the five kilometers on his cycle, its headlamp turned off. Once, the lights of an oncoming vehicle loomed too late to kill his motor. Abreast of the shiny vehicle, he held his breath—most likely they were Gestapo investigating the conflagration caused by this night’s work.
He shrank back from the vehicle’s rush. Its shimmer took him back to the night of his beloved Sancha’s death, but Domingo refused the familiar call—no good came from dwelling on what might have been. His next thought denied that truth, as that American pilot reappeared in his consciousness—impossible to shrug off those eyes, since Domingo bore responsibility for abandoning him.
His next thought, of Katarin staying with Maman, sent fiery emotion through him. No, he mustn’t contemplate the American agent. Not now.
Thankfully, the vehicle maintained its speed, whipping his shirtsleeves in its wake. Since he’d lit another fuse just several hours previously, a suffocating sensation gripped his throat. If someone stopped him, the smell of sulfur would testify to his participation.
Crossing the Lot River Bridge eased his breathing. He threw cold water on his face and neck before gunning the cycle toward Figeac. At long last, the glow from Decazeville faded. Figeac slept, except for two men standing in the street, staring east—friend or foe, who could tell? Domingo idled downhill, and two streets past a tall steeple, turned toward home.
The very word enticed him. Home. Months had passed on the trail until circumstances forced him to bring Kate to this isolated corner of Lot a few days ago. After the circuit supplied her radio, he relayed daily messages from the Résistance leader north of Prendeignes, and took whatever nighttime assignments headquarters supplied.
This time, they included a motorcycle, though he’d almost killed himself on the back trails earlier. Recalling that out-of-control slide constricted his throat, but this machine certainly cut down his travel time. Maybe he could stay home awhile, to lighten Maman’s load.
Though she hid her worries, he must attempt to take his father’s place. Perhaps now, with another woman, she would let down her guard. In spite of language obstacles, maybe Kate could comfort her more than he.
Around the final curve, Domingo turned off the motor and secured the cycle under a vine thatch. Good—no light from the granary. But halfway down the path, the transmitter’s incongruous clamor met his ears.
His chest tightened. He must find a new place for Kate’s transmissions tomorrow ... today. But where? He strode toward the barn, aware of something troubling him even more—how had he come to feel so responsible for her?
He pondered the first query and shelved the second at the sight of Gabirel standing watch outside the door. Heat burned the backs of Domingo’s eyes as he touched his brother’s thin shoulder.
“Thank you for watching. I’ll do morning chores—sleep.” Gabirel withdrew to the house in the ebbing night.
Past doleful barn animals asleep on the hoof and spent kidlets sprawled beside their mama, Domingo reached the granary stairs. Usually, clarity reached him in this haven, but the transmitter intervened. Still, his answer came to him as he climbed.
Only Père Gaspard could secure a safe transmission location, just as he had provided the agent a new Basque identity.
Mottled hair streamed from the knot at the back of the agent’s neck. She must not have heard him steal up the ladder. The shock in her eyes when he appeared so suddenly the other night troubled him—mustn’t repeat that error. He didn’t want to startle her.
When he rattled the ladder, she focused beyond him, as if waking from sleep. No wonder. It was nearly four o’clock, and she’d started working before he left. But then, a relieved smile broke out and tawny waves brushed the hollows of her cheeks. Domingo glanced away.
“Your mission went well?”
He let his eyes answer for him. “And yours?”
She pointed to an envelope.
“A message for me to deliver?”
“I’m sorry. You need sleep.” Her voice brushed his soul—such a gentle sound.
“We both do, but for the cause ...”
“Let me do the milking.” Her black-brown eyes glinted up at him. On that December night when he carried her to safety after she injured her ankle in her parachute drop, her eyes had conjured Sancha’s, but now distinct golden flecks marked the difference.
“Yes, and when I return, we visit Père Gaspard.”
“I was about to click the switch.” She did so and without thinking, Domingo patted her shoulder, then drew back. The night he left to search for Gabirel, he erred by standing too close to her. Maybe thinking of her as Agent Merce instead of Katarin would help.
Pre-dawn stillness accompanied them to the house, where Domingo submerged his canteen in the water pail, grabbed fresh bread, and wolfed some cheese. He whispered a final instruction to Kate.
“I’ll ride the cycle, so I should be back soon. Rest until you hear the cows call you.”
He pulled the door shut and retrieved the cycle. The sooner he delivered the messages, the sooner he could return, to Maman, to a few hours of sleep, and to Gabirel. But an insistent realization nagged at him. He would also return to this Amerikan agent.
He must cover the distance before daybreak, when the Milice brandished their fancy cars and pistols. A hidden turn-off gave way to high rocky country, and every kilometer increased Domingo’s sense of safety.
Soon, his headlight grazed jagged woods concealing the entrance of the Ségala encampment. A guard took the cycle. He would find the machine full of fuel when he exited.
Free-French agents and Francs-Tireurs-et-Partisans members, or FANA, claimed the camp now, qualifying it for extra supply drops, though London questioned other organizations operating under the FTP’s Communist arm.
The partisans borrowed the term Maquis from the Greek island of Corsica, where it meant the brush. And they stole other words, techniques, and ammunition from every quarter.
Jacques accepted the messages and waved Domingo inside. “Perhaps this intelligence comes from the National Council of Résistance. Tonight, the number of our local parachute welcoming committees exceeded last night’s. When dawn breaks with no reports of deaths, I’m always relieved.”
“Anything for me to take back?”
Jacques shook his head and sniffed. “You smell of sulfur and smoke. Except for that, I’d have guessed you had been sleeping after a day of tending your sheep.”
“As I would, given half a chance.”
Someone moved behind Jacques and he called, “Kerriac—more messages.”
A slight man emerged from the shadows. His immediate eye contact and ready smile gave him away—Amerikan—perhaps a new OSS agent.
“Hang around a minute, in case a question arises.”
Domingo shrugged. “I know nothing of the content, and today the agent moves to another location.”
“You’ll still bring us word?”
“Perhaps she must move too far away. The SS has reached the Causse de Limogne.”
“Brutes.” Jacques cursed and offered a cigarette, but Domingo declined. “Still, we take heart. Last night, our men pilfered enough Hun dynamite from across the Auverne to decommission a hundred train engines. They repair pylons too quickly, so we blow the engines and transformers now, since one small charge disables them.”
“You expect l’Invasion very soon?”
The squat leader ran his hand over heavy beard growth, and with two dirty fingers, pushed between his eyebrows as if fighting a headache. “One sure sign, mon ami—drops from a USAAF Flying Fortress last night.”
“A B-17? Here?”
“Never doubt the importance of our efforts.” Steel-gray eyes settled on Domingo. “Travel safely, and here’s to liberty.”
A team entered the encampment with rifles slung from their shoulders. Farther on, two tall Caucasians wearing khaki military-style jodhpurs chatted. Russians? Yes, their accents gave them away. Aitaita warned against such—Bolsheviks, Communistas—out to change our way of life.
But General de Gaulle’s Forces Français es de l’Interieur—the FFI—all stood united to free France. Everyone answered to General Koenig, de Gaulle’s chosen British commander. Some may have sworn allegiance to separate political organizations in the early days, but they’d now joined forces to dispel the Reich. From his grave, Aitaita might disapprove, but not if he were here.
One man in this gathering was a Spaniard. Another’s espadrilles gave him away as a Lot peasant. He stirred a huge porridge pot—perhaps a cousin’s cousin.
A guard guided Domingo’s cycle to him, and he kicked it to life. As the camp faded in the distance, one goal enveloped him—that he, Domingo Ibarra, citizen of Lot, France, perform his duty for the liberation. Hopefully, unlike Poland, this country would emerge free.
He touched the brake where he failed to slow the last time. But seeing a large branch torn from its trunk, he idled the motor. This obstacle could hinder the Milice. French police loyal to Vichy irritated him almost more than the Gestapo.
He tore off his jacket and shinnied up, littering the earth with bark, and smashed the branch down. Soon Domingo had created the perfect roadblock, another hassle for the Milice and five extra treasured minutes for the Maquisards. Small things like this could tip the scales.
Toward St. Perdoux, early morning cooking smells emanated from vine-covered stone houses, and a peasant led his sheep across the road. Then a gendarme stepped from behind a thick stone fence. Dressed to the hilt, his revolver bulged from its holster, and a scabbard tapped his thigh.
“Destination?”
“Home from helping my grandfather.”
“With a cycle?”
“His neighbor found a canister with this inside. He says we take what we get, payment for the trouble this war brings upon us.”
The gendarme twitched his turned-up mustache. “Papers?” Domingo handed them over. “Ibarra. That name sounds too familiar. Come.”
Domingo weighed his options. He could race off, but then would need a new card. He leaned the cycle on the wall and entered the building, greeted by a Petain bust.
Le Marechal Philippe Petain,
chef de l’etat français,
vainquer de Verdun
Under his kepi with its silly pillbox circle, arm outstretched, Petain portrayed a kindly older friend, but the message inscribed below soured Domingo’s stomach.
“Français! Vous n’etes ni vendus ni trahis ni abandonnes.
Venez a moi avec confiance.”
“French! You are not sold nor betrayed nor abandoned. Come to me with confidence.” Who still believed this rubbish?
“You honor le Marechal?”
The lie came easily. “My grandfather keeps a bust on his hearth.”
“False information, I suspect. Go, but watch yourself.”
Along the way, a farmer strapped his iron plow to two oxen. The peaceful sight gripped Domingo. Could that Gendarme not discern how Petain had hurt these peasants? What motivated his loyalty to Vichy? His paycheck, or did he honestly believe Hitler’s puppet government worthy of his service?
When the River Célé glistened in the distance, Domingo slowed the cycle. Soon, rocky cliffs gave way to murky water sprigged with late spring insects and humidity. He walked the bike through a frog chorus, the muddy river bottom defying him to breathe.
Suddenly, sun flamed through the chestnuts, and he reconsidered his route. He could take the easy road, but this back way saved time. A few extra minutes meant a little more sleep, a precious commodity.
An early fisherman nodded, so Domingo wished him well. How often had Maman filleted and fried Papa’s early morning catch?
But where was that rocky turn-off? Domingo sniffed the fertile, weedy earth until a break in some low bushes led him to yesterday’s tire tread.
The long, quiet trail cooled his emotions, down through an area bedded with crushed rocks, then into a meadow and the sycamore-lined road winding past his generational homestead. Like this wide path, his life had become light and shadow, morning and evening and night.
Beyond the river, Ibarra land called his name ... ah, to stay here forever. But his conscience remonstrated. Katarin had no home, no family. She discovered her uncle only when he was dying. Long before this war, life left her with the same theft, betrayal, and abandonment Petain promised to stop.