AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Got it.”
There were a couple of seconds of silence. Then Zollner shouted, “Have you ever heard of the zattere and the zattieri?”
‘Zattere’ meant rafts. ‘Zattieri’ meant raft drivers.
What’s this fucking psychopath talking about?
“No,” I shouted as I darted behind another tree. “Why don’t you enlighten me.”
I figured if Zollner was talking, the less attention he would be paying to what he was doing. Maybe he would slip up and I could shoot him without endangering Lucia.
“Back in the Middle Ages, Venice needed wood desperately for their vast fleet of merchant ships,” Zollner called out. “However, there are no trees in Venice, and they had deforested the banks of the Venetian lagoon in the previous centuries. So the city purchased a large section of the very region we stand in, solely for the timber. But the problem was, how to get all those trees nearly 100 miles to their destination?
“The solution was quite ingenious. An entire industry sprang up where they would cut down trees, then fashion them into rafts and float them downstream all the way to the Venetian lagoon. Once in the larger body of water, the zattieri would steer their craft towards the city. Once they reached their destination, the rafts would be disassembled, and the wood was used for building ships that would sail around the globe.
“Not only that, but the rafts could also be loaded with provisions from the mountain regions! So not only did the Venetians get the wood, they also got metal, cloth, cheese, all sorts of meat and fruits… a splendid assortment of supplies.
“The problem was, you needed an enormous amount of water to float the logs from Padola to the town of Perarola, where the rafts were constructed. Far more water than was normally in the rivers. So the town of Padola built stua, or artificial damns… like the one behind me.”
Shit.
Through the trees, I saw what Zollner was talking about. A stone dam stretched across the river with a covered walkway on top. The dam itself was about 40 feet tall and 100 feet wide. A 20-foot-wide sluice gate at the bottom of the stua was open, letting through a huge amount of raging water.
I was guessing, though, that there was a lot more water backed up on the other side.
Zollner left the trees and started to drag Lucia across the wooden walkway atop the dam.
“They would store up months’ worth of water behind the stua, you see, while they cut the logs.” Zollner had to shout to be heard over the rushing waters beneath him. “Then they would release all that water in one gigantic burst, lifting up all the logs and floating them 50 miles downstream. Once the timber reached Perarola, the zattieri would construct the rafts, which would then be washed another 50 miles down to the lagoon, where they would wind up at their final destination – Venice. Isn’t history fascinating?!”
“Fascinating,” I shouted. Anything to occupy the madman.
Zollner got all the way across the stua’s covered walkway and onto the opposite bank of the river with Lucia.
A few seconds later, I emerged from the trees.
I could see I’d been correct: the water level on the left side of the dam was significantly higher than the fast-moving stream on the right.
As soon as I reached the edge of the walkway, Zollner pulled his pistol away from Lucia’s head.
I crouched behind a wooden column just in time.
BLAM!
The shot blasted splinters out of the wood.
“Don’t come any closer, Herr Rosolini,” Zollner yelled as he dragged Lucia farther back amongst the trees. “This is your final warning.”
I ignored him. I ducked around the column he’d shot and took cover behind the next post.
If Zollner shot at me enough times, he would eventually have to reload –
And I could rush him and tackle him to the ground.
I just had to get close enough.
Zollner pulled something out of his jacket pocket. I took the opportunity to dash 20 feet across the walkway and took cover behind another wooden column.
“You might be wondering why I told you all that about the stua and the zattere,” Zollner shouted.
