The List

The people of Orgosolo, like those in many another village of Sardinia, live with banditry as they live with poverty--helplessly, fearfully and always. Orgosolo's bandits often slip into town from their hiding places in the mountains to spend a night with their wives and children, but the villagers who recognize them stay mum, for the bandit code called omerta exacts a heavy penalty from the informer, whether bandit or honest man.

Whitewash & Tar. For years the most feared bandit in all Orgosolo has been a dark-eyed ruffian named Gian Battista Liandru, who turned outlaw some 32 years ago when he became bored with sheepherding at the age of 17. In time Liandru's forays became as legendary in the Sardinian hills as those of Jesse James in Missouri. Local law officers credited him and his band with more crimes than they could ever have found time to commit, but they could never find him to press the charges. Then, three years ago, Liandru's luck seemed to turn. Time after time the carabinieri barely missed catching him. How that could be, nobody was saying, but one Sunday morning in 1949, the parishioners of Orgosolo got a strong hint. On the whitewashed wall of the little Church of Santa Croce was a list of 36 names crudely lettered in tar and labeled: "These are the spies of Orgosolo." The names were those of Orgosolo villagers from all walks of life. They even included that of Liandru's own wife, Maddalena, who married him at the little church in 1947, after living with him for nine years.

The parish priest slapped whitewash on the fearful roster, and the villagers clamped their jaws shut and tried to forget it. But five months later the man named first on the list was shot to death in the woods. A shepherd and a woman followed him to their graves soon afterward. Then, in July 1950, the police caught up with Outlaw Liandru and clapped him into jail.

Fairy Tales & a Bullet. But the code of omert`a is not repealed with a bandit's capture. The Liandru band still lurked in the mountains, and the list still stood, hidden by whitewash, on the church wall. Maddalena Liandru herself was shot down on her way to visit her husband in jail soon after his capture. Her sister's lover, Salvatore Patteri, whose sudden affluence may or may not have come from a 2,000,000-lire reward paid for Liandru, was killed a short time later as he staggered home from a drunken spending spree. Six more listed victims followed Salvatore; all were shot through the head.

The village secretary, also on the list, railed at the Italian mainland press for its sensational scare stories on the Orgo-solo killings. "It's high time to stop telling fairy tales. People shoot and kill in Milan too," he scolded. A bullet through the head put a stop to his complaints.

Last week the villagers of Orgosolo trooped once again to the local churchyard to sob the age-old Sardinian funeral lament of one Antonio Francesco Manca, 48, a goatherd by trade and the father of four children. By ancient tradition, his death notice was posted in the village streets, "killed by an unknown hand and unexpectedly taken from his dear ones . . ." Why? Nobody knew, except that Antonio was No. 13 on the list.

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