Ovejas

Ovejas, the flock shepherded by Zacarías González Peña, anchor the events surrounding his discovery of a body in Casa de Campo on New Year’s Day 1950. They are not merely scenery: their number and ownership determine what Zacarías can risk, interrupt his routine, and return the story to the fragile domestic life that his shepherding supports.

The Flock and Zacarías’s Livelihood

War had kept Zacarías away from the ravine he knew so well: after serving as a rank-and-file soldier in the Republican army, he spent two years in prison and three more in military service. When he returned to Mari, his wife, only four sheep remained from the animals they had accumulated together after their wedding. He resumed his old trade, and his seriousness and reliability gradually persuaded other Aravaca neighbors to entrust their animals to his care.

The Discovery in Casa de Campo

At six o’clock on the morning of January 1, 1950, Zacarías passed through the gate of Casa de Campo as he did every day, followed by sixty-eight sheep. In a hollow he found another dead man. Unlike the bodies he had come across there during the previous five years, this one had been wrapped in a colorful rug. The sheep accompany Zacarías into the scene, but his attention turns to the carefully concealed corpse and the watch visible at its wrist.

After taking the watch and rug, Zacarías drove the flock home, hid both objects, and then took the sheep back out to graze before notifying the forest guards. His return to the ordinary work of tending them interrupted his schedule: they were restless at the abrupt change. The discovery thus occurs within a working day organized around the flock, not apart from it.

Responsibility and Risk

When Civil Guards asked Zacarías to guide them to the body, he pleaded that he could not leave the animals unattended. He explained that he had only thirteen sheep of his own; the rest belonged to other people, and losing even one could ruin him. The distinction between his own animals and the neighbors’ flock makes his dependence on trust concrete. The sheep are both his means of living and a responsibility he cannot casually set aside.

A forest guard who knew the location offered to accompany the officers instead. The flock’s practical demands therefore shape the investigation’s immediate course: Zacarías can tell the truth and cooperate, but his livelihood requires him to get back to the animals.

The Flock and the Family’s Epiphany

On January 6, Zacarías brought the flock in earlier than usual. The night before, he and Mari had placed inexpensive gifts on the kitchen table, bought with money from the watch and rug. The sheep’s place in this ending is indirect but essential: the work of shepherding frames Zacarías’s early return, while the proceeds from what he took from the dead man finance sweets, toys, and small presents for the children. His greeting that the Three Kings had come turns the discovery’s grim consequences into a brief family celebration, without erasing the flock’s continuing place in the household’s precarious livelihood.