“Let it go, Tito,” one said. “He’s a priest, for Christ’s sake.”

The two men had Tito’s arms across their shoulders and were doing their best to get him away from Casa Alpina. But the gang leader was straining to look back.

“This isn’t over,” Tito bellowed. “Especially for you, boy. This isn’t done!”

Pino stood next to Father Re, shaken.

“Are you all right?” the priest asked.

Pino was quiet for a long time before saying, “Father, is it a sin if I’m asking myself if I did the right thing in not killing that man?”

The priest said, “No, it is not a sin, and you did the right thing not killing him.”

Pino bobbed his head, but his lower lip was trembling, and it was taking everything in his power to swallow the emotion surging in his throat. Everything had happened so fast, so—

Father Re patted Pino on the back. “Have faith. You did the right thing.”

He nodded again, but couldn’t meet the priest’s gaze for fear of crying.

“Where did you learn how to handle a gun like that?” Father Re asked.

Pino wiped at his eyes, cleared his throat, and said in a hoarse voice, “My uncle Albert. He has a hunting rifle, a Mauser, kind of like that one. He taught me.”

“I can’t decide if you were brave or foolhardy.”

“I wasn’t going to let Tito kill you, Father.”

The priest smiled and said, “Bless you for that. I wasn’t ready to die today.”

Pino laughed, winced, and said, “Me, neither.”

They went back inside the school. Father Re got ice for Pino, and Brother Bormio made him breakfast, which he devoured.

“You keep growing and we won’t be able to keep up,” Bormio grumbled.

“Where’s everyone else?” Pino asked.

“Skiing with Mimo,” Father Re said. “They’ll be back for lunch.”

As he was eating his second helping of eggs, sausage, and black bread, two women and four children came timidly into the room, followed by a man in his thirties and two very young boys. Pino could tell in an instant they were new refugees. He’d come to recognize the expressions of hunted people.

“Will you be ready to go again in the morning?” Father Re asked.

Pino shifted, felt a dull ache in his loins, but said, “Yes.”

“Good. And can you do me a favor?”

“Anything, Father,” Pino said.

“Go to the chapel tower, and watch for the signal from Campodolcino,” he said. “You can take your books with you, get some studying done.”

Twenty minutes later, Pino gingerly climbed a ladder into the chapel tower. He had a book bag on his back, and his balls still ached. With the sun beating on the tower, it was surprisingly warm, too warm for the amount of clothing he was wearing.

He stood on the narrow catwalk that went around the interior of the chapel spire, glancing at the void where the bell should have been. Father Re had yet to install one. Pino opened a narrow shutter to look down through a slot in the cliff, which allowed him to see the upper two windows of the rectory in Campodolcino over a kilometer below.

Pino took off the book bag and dug out the binoculars Father Re had given him. He peered through them, surprised again at just how close they made the rectory seem. He studied the two windows. Shades drawn. That meant a German patrol of some kind was in the Splügen drainage. They seemed to make the drive up and down the road to the pass near midday, give or take an hour.

Pino checked his watch. It was a quarter to eleven.

He stood there enjoying the warm spring air and watching birds flit among the spruce trees. He yawned, shook his head to clear the incredible desire to go back to sleep, and stared through the binoculars again.

Thirty minutes later, to his relief, the shades came up. The patrol had passed through, heading down the valley toward Chiavenna. Pino yawned and wondered how many more refugees would come to Motta tonight. If there were too many, they’d have to split up. He’d take one group, and Mimo, the other.

His brother had done a lot of growing up in the last few months. Mimo was less—well, less a brat, and as tough as anyone in the mountains. Pino realized for the first time that he saw his younger brother as his best friend, closer even than Carletto.

But he wondered how Carletto was, and how Carletto’s mother was, and Mr. Beltramini. He looked down at the catwalk, eyes drooping. He could lie down there, make sure he wouldn’t fall off, and snooze in the nice, warm—

No, he decided. He could fall off and break his back. He’d go down the ladder, sleep in one of the pews. It wasn’t as warm, but he had his coat and his hat. Just twenty minutes of shut-eye.

Pino had no idea how long and how far he’d gone into dreamless sleep, just that something made him stir. He opened his eyes groggily, trying to figure out what had woken him. He looked around the chapel and up into the tower and—

He heard a far-off donging noise. What was it? Where was it coming from?

Pino got up, yawned, and the donging stopped. Then it started again, like a hammer on metal. Then it stopped. He realized he’d left the book bag, binoculars, and the flashlight on the catwalk. He climbed up the ladder, got the bag, and was reaching to close the shutter when the noise started again. Pino realized it was the bell in the church down in Campodolcino pealing.

He glanced at his watch to see how long he’d slept. Eleven twenty? The bell usually rang on the hour. Now it was ringing over and over and—?

Pino snatched up the binoculars, stared down at the window. The blind on the left was closed. A light was flashing in the right window. Pino stared at it, wondering what it meant, and then realized the light was going on for a split second and then longer. It stopped and started again, and Pino realized it was a signal. Morse code?

He picked up his light and flashed it twice. The light below blinked twice, and then went dark. The bell stopped ringing. Then the light came on again, blinking shorts and longs. When it stopped, he grabbed a pen and some paper from his bag, and waited for the light to start again. When it did, he started writing down the sequence of shorts and longs until the end.

Pino didn’t know Morse code, or what the watcher in Campodolcino was trying to say, but he knew it couldn’t be good. He flashed his own light twice, stowed it, and clambered down the ladder. He sprinted to the school.

“Pino!” he heard Mimo yell.

His brother was skiing down the slope above the school, waving his poles wildly. Pino ignored him, ran into Casa Alpina, and found Father Re and Brother Bormio talking with the refugees in the hallway.

“Father,” Pino panted. “Something’s wrong.”

He explained about the bell, the shades, and the lights flashing below. He showed the priest the paper. Father Re looked at it, puzzled. “How do they expect me to know Morse code?”

“You don’t have to,” Brother Bormio said. “I know it.”

Father Re handed him the paper, saying, “How?”