He wore the stripes of a corporal on his sleeve, a huge pistol at his belt and worst of all he regarded Pisciotta with the utmost suspicion and distrust as the guard recited his story. When Corporal Silvestro spoke his accent revealed him to be a Sicilian. "You are a lying piece of shit," he said to Pisciotta. But before he could go any further, Guiliano's voice could be heard shouting inside the gate.

"Hey there, carabiniere, do you want your wine or not? Yes or no?"

Pisciotta admired the style of Guiliano's voice; the tone coarse, the dialect so thick it was almost unintelligible except to natives of this province, the choice of words arrogantly typical of the well-to-do peasant.

The Corporal growled with exasperation, "What in Christ's name is that fellow bellowing about?" and with great strides was out the door. The guard and Pisciotta followed him.

The painted cart and its white mule were outside the gate. Bare to the waist, his broad chest streaming with sweat, Turi Guiliano was swinging a jug of wine. There was a huge idiotic grin on his face; his whole body seemed oafishly askew. His appearance disarmed suspicion. There could be no weapon concealed on his person, he was drunk and the accent was that of the most loutish dialect in all of Sicily. The Corporal's hand dropped from his pistol, the guard lowered his rifle. Pisciotta took a step backward ready to draw his own gun from beneath his jacket.

"I have a wagonload of wine for you," Guiliano bawled out again. He blew his nose with his fingers and snapped the mucus off into the gate.

"Who ordered this wine?" the Corporal asked. But he was walking down to the gate and Guiliano knew he would open it wide to let the wagon through.

"My father told me to bring it for the Maresciallo," Guiliano said with a wink.

The Corporal was staring at Guiliano. The wine was undoubtedly a gift for letting some farmer do a bit of smuggling. The Corporal thought uneasily that as a true Sicilian the father would have brought the wine himself to be more closely associated with the gift. But then he shrugged. "Unload the goods and bring them into the barracks."

Guiliano said, "Not by myself, I don't."

Again the Corporal felt a twinge of doubt. Some instinct warned him. Realizing this, Guiliano climbed down from the wagon in such a way that he could easily snatch the lupara from its hiding place. But first he lifted up a jug of wine in its bamboo case and said, "I have twenty of these beauties for you."

The Corporal roared out a command toward the quarters barracks and two young carabinieri came running out; their jackets were unbuttoned and they wore no caps. Neither did they bear weapons. Guiliano standing on top of his cart thrust jugs of wine into their arms. He gave a jug to the guard with the rifle, who tried to refuse. Guiliano said with rough good humor, "You'll certainly help drink it, so work."

Now with the three guards immobilized, their arms full of jugs, Guiliano surveyed the scene. It was exactly as he had wished. Pisciotta was directly behind the Corporal, the only soldier with his arms free. Guiliano scanned the slopes; there was no sign of any of the searching party returning. He checked the road to Castellammare; there was no sign of the armored car. Down the Via Bella the children were still playing. He reached into the wagon and pulled out the lupara and pointed it at the astonished Corporal. At the same time Pisciotta pulled the pistol from beneath his shirt. He pressed it against the Corporal's back. "Don't move an inch," Pisciotta said, "or I'll barber that great mustache of yours with lead."

Guiliano kept the lupara on the other three frightened guards. He said, "Keep those jugs in your arms and everybody go into the building." The armed guard hugging the jug let his rifle drop to the ground. Pisciotta picked it up as they moved inside. In the office, Guiliano picked up the name plaque and admired it. "Corporal Canio Silvestro. Your keys, please. All of them."

The Corporal's hand rested on his pistol and he glared at Guiliano. Pisciotta knocked his hand forward and plucked out his weapon. The Corporal turned and gave him a cold examining stare that was deadly. Pisciotta smiled and said, "Excuse me."

The Corporal turned to Guiliano and said, "My boy, run away and become an actor, you're very fine. Don't go on with this, you'll never escape. The Maresciallo and his men will be back before nightfall and will hunt you to the ends of the earth. Think it over, my young fellow, what it is to be an outlaw with a price on your head. I'll be hunting for you myself and I never forget a face. I'll find out your name and dig you out if you hide yourself in hell."

Guiliano smiled at him. For some reason he liked the man. He said, "But if you want to know my name, why don't you ask?"

The Corporal looked at him scornfully. "And you'll tell me, like an idiot?"

Guiliano said, "I never lie. My name is Guiliano."

The Corporal put his hand to his side for the pistol Pisciotta had already removed. Guiliano liked the man more for that instinctive reaction. He had courage and a sense of duty. The other guards were terrified. This was the Salvatore Guiliano who had already killed three of their comrades. There was no reason to think that he would leave them alive.

The Corporal studied Guiliano's face, memorizing it, then, moving slowly and carefully, took a huge ring of keys from a desk drawer. He did so because Guiliano had the shotgun pressed tightly against his back. Guiliano took the keys from him and tossed them to Pisciotta.

"Release those prisoners," he said.

In the prison wing of the administration building, in a large caged area, were ten citizens of Montelepre who had been arrested the night of Guiliano's escape. In one of the separate small cells were the two locally famous bandits, Passatempo and Terranova. Pisciotta unlocked their cell doors and they gleefully followed him into the other room.

The arrested citizens of Montelepre, all neighbors of Guiliano, flooded into the office and crowded around Guiliano to embrace him with gratitude. Guiliano permitted this but was always alert, his eyes on the captive carabinieri. His neighbors were in a delighted good humor at Guiliano's exploit; he had humiliated the hated police, he was their champion. They told him that the Maresciallo had ordered them to be bastinadoed but the Corporal had effectively stopped this punishment from being carried out by the sheer force of his character and his argument that such an action would create so much ill will that it would affect the safety of the barracks. Instead, the next morning they were to have been transported to Palermo to appear before a magistrate for interrogation.

Guiliano held his lupara muzzle down to the floor, afraid that an accidental shot would go into the crowd around him. These men were all older, neighbors he had known as a child. He was careful to speak to them as he had always spoken to them. "You are welcome to come with me to the mountains," he said. "Or you can go visit relatives in other parts of Sicily until the authorities come to their senses." He waited but there was only silence. The two bandits, Passatempo and Terranova, stood aside from the others. They were extremely alert, as if poised to spring. Passatempo was a short, squat ugly man with a gross face marked by childhood smallpox, his mouth thick and unshaped. The peasants in the countryside called him "The Brute." Terranova was small and built like a ferret. Yet his small features were pleasant, his lips molded into a natural smile. Passatempo had been the typical greedy Sicilian bandit who simply stole livestock and killed for money. Terranova had been a hard-working farmer and had started his career as an outlaw when two tax collectors came to confiscate his prize pig. He had killed both of them, slaughtered his pig for his family and relatives to eat and then fled to the mountains. The two men had joined forces but had been betrayed and captured when they were hiding in a deserted warehouse in the grain fields of Corleone.