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"One hundred eight women and 173 men live in this village," the priest went on. "Since it is the tradition here for everyone to learn how to hunt, each inhabitant owns at least one shotgun. Well, tomorrow morning, I want you each to leave a shotgun in the sacristy, with a single cartridge in it. I'm asking the mayor, who has more than one gun, to bring one for me as well."
"We never leave our weapons with strangers," a hunting guide shouted. "Guns are sacred, temperamental, personal. They should never be fired by other people."
"Let me finish. I'm going to explain how a firing squad works. Seven soldiers are chosen to shoot the condemned man. Seven rifles are handed out to the squad, but only six of them are loaded with real bullets, the seventh contains a blank. The gunpowder explodes in exactly the same way, the noise is identical, but there's no lead to be fired into the victim's body.
"None of the soldiers knows which rifle contains the blank. In that way, each of them thinks that his gun contained the blank and that his friends were responsible for the death of the man or woman none of them knew, but whom they were forced to shoot in the line of duty."
"So all of them believe they are innocent," the landowner chimed in, speaking for the first time.
"Exactly. Tomorrow I will do the same: I'll take the lead out of eighty-seven of the cartridges and leave the other shotguns with live ammunition in them. All the weapons will go off at the same time, but no one will know which of them has pellets inside; in that way, all of you can consider yourselves innocent."
Tired though the men were, they greeted the priest's idea with a huge sigh of relief. A different kind of energy spread through the crowd as if, from one hour to the next, the entire situation had lost its tragic air and had been transformed into a simple treasure hunt. Every man was convinced that his gun would carry the blank ammunition, and that he would not therefore be guilty; he was simply showing solidarity with his fellows, who wanted to change their lives and where they lived. Everyone was excited now; at last, Viscos had become a place where different, important things happened.
"The only weapon you can be sure will be loaded is mine, because I can't choose for myself. Nor will I keep my share of the gold. I'm doing this for other reasons."
Again, the mayor did not like the way the priest spoke. He was trying to impress on the people of Viscos what a courageous man he was, a generous leader capable of any sacrifice. If the mayor's wife had been there, she would doubtless have said that the priest was preparing to launch himself as a candidate for the next elections.
"Wait until Monday," he told himself. He would publish a decree announcing such a steep increase in tax on the church that it would be impossible for the priest to stay on in the village. After all, he was the only one who claimed he didn't want to be rich.
"What about the victim?" the blacksmith asked.
"She'll be there," the priest said. "I'll take care of that. But I need three men to come with me."
When no one volunteered, the priest chose three strong men. One of them tried to say "no," but his friends stared him down, and he quickly changed his mind.
"Where will the sacrifice take place?" the landowner asked, addressing the priest. The mayor again sensed authority slipping away from him; he needed to regain it at once.
"I'm the one who decides that," he said, shooting a furious look at the landowner. "I don't want the earth of Viscos to be stained with blood. We'll do it at this same time tomorrow night up by the Celtic monolith. Bring your lanterns, lamps and torches, so that everyone can see clearly where they are pointing their shotgun, and nobody misses."
The priest got down from his chair--the meeting was over. The women of Viscos once again heard footsteps in the street, the men returning to their houses, having a drink, staring out of the window, or simply collapsing into bed, exhausted. The mayor returned to his wife, who told him what had happened in Berta's house, and how frightened she had been. But after they--together with the hotel landlady--had analyzed every single word that had been said, the two women concluded that the old woman knew nothing; it was merely their sense of guilt making them think like that.
"Make-believe ghosts, like the rogue wolf," the mayor said.
The priest went back to the church and spent the whole night in prayer.
Chantal breakfasted on the bread she had bought the day before, since the baker's van didn't come on Sundays. She looked out of her window and saw the men of Viscos leaving their houses, each carrying a weapon. She prepared herself to die, as there was still a possibility that she would be the chosen victim; but no one knocked on her door--instead, they carried on down the street, went into the sacristy, and emerged again, empty-handed.
She left her house and went down to the hotel, where the hotel landlady told her about everything that had happened the previous night: the choice of victim, what the priest had proposed and the preparations for the sacrifice. Her hostile tone had vanished, and things seemed to be changing in Chantal's favor.
"There's something I want to tell you; one day, Viscos will realize all that you did for its people."
"But the stranger still has to show us the gold," Chantal insisted.
"Of course. He just went out carrying an empty rucksack."
Chantal decided not to go to the forest, because that would mean passing by Berta's house, and she was too ashamed to look at her. She went back to her room and remembered her dream of the previous night.
For she had had a strange dream in which an angel handed her the eleven gold bars and asked her to keep them.
Chantal told the angel that, for this to happen, someone had to be killed. But the angel said that this wasn't the case: on the contrary, the bars were proof that the gold did not exist.
That was why she had insisted to the hotel landlady that the stranger should show everyone the gold; she had a plan. However, since she had always lost every other battle in her life, she had her doubts as to whether she would be able to win this one.
Berta was watching the sun setting behind the mountains when she saw the priest and three other men coming towards her. She felt sad for three reasons: she knew her time had come; her husband had not appeared to console her (perhaps because he was afraid of what he would hear, or ashamed of his own inability to save her); and she realized that the money she had saved would end up in the hands of the shareholders of the bank where she had deposited it, since she had not had time to withdraw it and burn it.
She felt happy for two reasons: she was finally going to be reunited with her husband, who was doubtless, at that moment, out and about with Miss Prym's grandmother; and although the last day of her life had been cold, it had been filled with sunlight--not everyone had the good fortune to leave the world with such a beautiful memory of it.
The priest signaled to the other men to stay back, and he went forward on his own to greet her.
