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And hope was all we had. There might have been fifty people living up in the cave. Perhaps half were freedom fighters, like Uncle Juan. The rest were refugees hiding out in the hills, terrified to return home for fear of the soldiers, or the police, the
Guardia Civil.
Food was scarce; we had only what was brought up to us at night from the villages, or gleaned from the forest around.
    I didn’t have to tell Uncle Juan about the bombing of Sauceda. He knew about it, everyone knew about it, but there was no one else in the cave from Sauceda, and no word of any other survivors. I was the only one, and only I knew why that was. If I had not chosen that night to set Pacofree, then I too would have been dead in the ruins of the farmhouse, or shot down trying to escape.
    The more I thought of it, and I thought of it almost constantly, the less I felt I had the right to be alive. I hadn’t survived just by good luck, but because I hadn’t been there. I’d been away committing a dreadful crime. I’d been releasing all Father’s beloved bulls into the wild, his whole pride and joy, robbing him of his lifetime’s work. When I cried now it wasn’t from hunger or grief, but from shame, from a deep sense of my own unworthiness.
    Uncle Juan would hold me tight to comfort me. “I know, Antonito,” he said one morning, wiping my tears away with his thumbs. “They were terrible things you saw. I know the pain you must feel.Everyone here in this cave knows the pain you feel now. So cry, cry all you want. But when you’ve done crying, then be brave again, be my little brave bull, and come out fighting. Evil, Antonito, must be fought, not cried over. You understand me?” He smiled at me and laughed. “We are few, but we are strong. Even the beasts are on our side, do you know that? Have you heard about the Black Phantom of Maracha?”
    Uncle Juan often told me stories to cheer me up, to take me out of myself. He told them well, too, and I loved to listen.
    “This is not just one of my little tales, Antonito, this is true. There are patrols out in the hills – soldiers,
Guardia Civil,
looking for us. Don’t you worry, Antonio. They won’t catch us. We ambush them, we fight them. We send them running like the rabbits they are. But yesterday they sent out a patrol from Maracha – maybe twenty men from the
Guardia Civil.
They thought they saw something move in amongst the trees. They started shooting. Suddenly out of the trees he comes, the Black Phantom! You know what he is, the Black Phantom?” I had no idea. “A
nobile,
a young fighting bull. He came charging at them. And what did they do? They dropped their rifles and ran.
    “But one of them didn’t run fast enough, and got himself tossed in the air like a pancake. Then the bull chased the others off, scattering them into the forest. When they turned to look, he had vanished, like a phantom, a Black Phantom. They went searching for him, but it was as if he had never been there. Yet he
had
been there. There were hoof prints, the hoof prints of a young bull. What do you think of that, Antonito?”
    I could think of nothing to say. I had so much to say, so much I was longing to tell him, but I could say nothing without confessing all I’d done, without betraying myself. I knew, even as he was telling me, that it was Paco. It
had
to be Paco. Paco was alive! He was out there, somewhere. He was looking for me. One day we would find each other again, I was sure ofit now.
    After a while, because I had to say something, I said: “That bull, he must be the bravest bull in the whole world.”
    “You’re right, Antonito,” said Uncle Juan. “And if he can be brave against all the odds, then so can I. So can you.”
    The story of the Black Phantom lifted our flagging spirits – everyone knew about him by now. That evening the whole cave was suddenly a happier place. I heard the sound of laughter again, and when the children got together to act out the drama, I got up and joined