Savage Coast Read Online Free PDF Page B

line of hills—“ Costa Brava , it’s called: Savage Coast.”
    â€œSavage Coast!” Toni repeated.
    The noise in first class was growing louder. The old woman sat listening, her lined face turning intent and critical. “Moncada,” she whispered to herself.
    Helen started up the aisle.
    THE ENTRANCE TO first class was crowded shut by tourists. She shouldered past the anxious surprised faces, and came to the center of the group.
    A girl in a cotton dress stood at the door of one of the compartments with her back to the aisle and to the two armed boys who followed her, holding their carbines ready. She was talking to three men who sat with their hands in the air. The girl frowned at them, explaining; but they were terrified, and would not listen.
    The fever sense of dream, dream unreal, spoke in her head. Dream, she thought, as if she had said it aloud; and, acting as she would in a dream, said “Excuse me” to the first boy, and started to push by his gun. He brought it up chest-high, barring her way, and spoke a word to the girl. She swung around. Her face was broad, active, angry.
    â€œ Fotografies ?” she demanded.
    A man behind Helen muttered in rapid French. “ Ils détruisent des photographies ,” he said. “ Répondez non .”
    â€œ Nada ,” answered Helen. And, lamely, “ tercera .”
    The girl’s face cleared. She turned back to the three tourists. “ Aparat fotogràfic ?” He motioned to one of the boys. As he went forward to open the suitcase, Helen passed. She saw him, with the tail of her eye: he was thumbing through the baggage, while the girl held his gun.
    Peapack sat, alone and shaking, in the next compartment, her face gone to pudding. The laxness in her flesh had softened still further with fear; the white skin, which had been groomed and creamy when she got on the train at Paris, was dismal, floury now; her voice shook with an incongruous shiver, menaced and cold in the great heat.
    â€œThe bandits!” she said. “They’re raiding the train!”
    Helen went to her, and put her hand on the woman’s soft, cowering arm. Where have I seen a sheep, she wondered, sick and afraid? For herself, she thought; should I be afraid? Examining. There wasa sweep of sensation, in the heat, the new country, the peculiar danger, but no fear. Not now.
    â€œDid they bother you?” she asked the woman, touching her arm with an effort, trying to remove the pasty violet-white look from her. “Did they search here?”
    The woman moved out of her corner with a soft shuffle of her hips, pulling away from a black box behind her. She drew back her lips in a pale grin of pride. “An Englishman came running through just before them,” she said, “the coach was in an uproar. I put my movie camera here, and sat against it. But they went through my suitcase.”
    â€œWell, then,” said Helen, “put it away. Put it in your suitcase, and change some clothes to the case . . .”
    â€œThe Reds!” Peapack was going on. “They must be Reds, violating property that way. I wish to God my husband could be here now, he’d put an end to that sort of thing. Searching innocent people, stealing cameras.”
    â€œThey didn’t take anything, did they?” asked Helen.
    â€œThey might have,” Peapack retorted, “anything might happen if they’re going through the train. Listen to that!”
    There was a noise of voices on the platform outside. It was the first time they had realized they were in a station. Helen put her head out of the window, and saw the concrete walk, lined with rows of yellow blossoming trees, the brick station house, the wall around the restrooms marked “Caballeros” and “Señoras.” At the end of the coach a few passengers grouped around the searchers. The girl was holding a large camera in her hands, snapping back the hinged flap, and