The Sicilian

As Adonis watched them now, Pisciotta lounging on his back in the grass, Guiliano staring at him with dark brown eyes and with a smile that seemed to say he knew exactly what his godfather was thinking, a curious transformation of the scene took place. Adonis saw them as statues carved in marble, their bodies wrenched out of ordinary life. Pisciotta became a figure on a vase, the gecko in his hand an adder, all finely etched in the morning sunlight of the mountains. Pisciotta looked dangerous, a man who filled the world with poison and daggers.

Salvatore Guiliano, his godson Turi, was the other side of the vase. His had the beauty of some Greek Apollo, the features fully molded flesh, the eyes with whites so clear they gave almost the impression of blindness. His face was open and frank with the i

Even when they were boys Pisciotta had showed a practical cu

Pisciotta's mocking voice broke into these daydreams of Hector Adonis. "Please say yes, Professor. I am the second in command of Guiliano's band, but I have no one under me to give orders." He was gri

Though Adonis was not provoked, Guiliano's eyes flashed with anger. But he said quietly, "What is your answer?" Hector Adonis said. "Yes." What else could a godfather say? Then Guiliano told him what he had to do when he returned to Montelepre and outlined his plans for the next day. Adonis was again appalled at the boldness and ferocity of this young man's schemes. But when Guiliano lifted him onto his donkey he leaned over and kissed his godson.

Pisciotta and Guiliano watched Adonis riding down the trail toward Montelepre. "He's such a little man," Pisciotta said. "He would have fitted in much better when we were playing bandits as children."

Guiliano turned to him and said gently, "And your jokes would have been better then. Be serious when we talk of serious things." But that night before they went to sleep, they embraced each other. "You are my brother," Guiliano said. "Remember that." Then they wrapped themselves in their blankets and slept away the last night of their obscurity.

CHAPTER 9

Turi Guiliano and Aspanu Pisciotta were up before the dawn, before the first light, for though it was unlikely, the carabinieri might start in darkness to surprise them with the morning sun. They had seen the armored car from Palermo arrive in the Bellampo Barracks late the evening before with two jeeploads of reinforcements. During the night Guiliano made scouting patrols down the side of the mountain and listened for any sounds that would be made by anyone approaching their cliff – a precaution Pisciotta ridiculed. "When we were children we would have been such daredevils," he told Guiliano, "but do you think those lazy carabinieri will risk their lives in darkness, or even miss a good night's sleep in soft beds?"

"We have to train ourselves into good habits," Turi Guiliano said. He knew that someday there would be better enemies.

Turi and Aspanu worked hard laying out guns on a blanket and checking them in every detail. Then they ate some of La Venera's bread cake, washed down with a flask of wine Hector Adonis had left them. The cake, with its heat and spices, lay glowingly in their stomachs. It gave them the energy to construct a screen of saplings and boulders on the edge of the cliff. Behind this screen, they watched the town and the mountain paths with their binoculars. Guiliano loaded the guns and put boxes of ammunition into the pockets of his sheepskin jacket while Pisciotta kept watch. Guiliano did his job carefully and slowly. He even buried all the supplies and covered the ground with huge rocks himself. He was never to trust anyone to check these details. So it was Pisciotta who spotted the armored car leaving the Bellampo Barracks.

"You're right," Pisciotta said. "The car is going down the Castellammare plain away from us."

They gri

In an hour the carabinieri would send a detachment up the sides to Monte d'Ora in a frontal attack to flush them out. It helped that the police thought of them as wild youths, simple outlaws. The scarlet and gold flag of Sicily that they flew from the cliff edge confirmed their careless impudence, or so the police would think.

An hour later, a troop van and a jeep carrying the Maresciallo Roccofino left through the gates of the Bellampo Barracks. The two vehicles traveled leisurely to the foot of Monte d'Ora and stopped to unload. Twelve carabinieri armed with rifles deployed on the tiny paths that led up the slope. Maresciallo Roccofino took off his braided cap and pointed it toward the scarlet and gold flag flying over the cliff above them.

Turi Guiliano was watching through the binoculars from behind the screen of saplings. For a moment he worried about the armored car on the other side of the mountain. Would they have sent some men up the opposite slope? But those men would take hours to climb, they could not be close. He put them out of his mind and said to Pisciotta, "Aspanu, if we're not as clever as we think, we won't be going home to our mothers and a plate of spaghetti this night, as we used to do when we were children."

Pisciotta laughed. "We always hated going home, remember? But I have to admit, this is more fun. Shall we kill a few of them?"

"No," Guiliano said. "Fire over their heads." He thought about how Pisciotta disobeyed him two nights before. He said, "Aspanu, obey me. There's no point in killing them. It can't serve any purpose this time."

They waited patiently for an hour. Then Guiliano pushed his shotgun through the screen of saplings and fired twice. It was amazing how that straight confident line of men scattered so quickly, like darting ants disappearing into the grass. Pisciotta fired his rifle four times. Smoke puffs appeared in different parts of the slope as the carabinieri fired back.

Guiliano put down his shotgun and took up the binoculars. He could see the Maresciallo and his Sergeant working a radio communications set. They would be contacting the armored car on the other side of the mountain, warning them that the outlaws would be on their way. He picked up his shotgun again and fired twice, then said to Pisciotta, "It's time to leave."

The two of them crawled to the far side of the cliff out of view of the advancing carabinieri, then slid down the boulder-strewn slope, rolling for fifty yards before they came to their feet, weapons ready. Crouched low, they ran down the hill stopping only for Guiliano to observe the attackers through his binoculars.

The carabinieri were still firing up at the cliff, not realizing the two outlaws were now on their flanks. Guiliano led the way down a tiny, hidden path through massive boulders and entered a little forest. They rested for a few minutes and then they both started ru