by Rusty Young
It was strange to think that a quick decision taken in the heat of a single moment could change the course of a boy’s life. And that it could also make the difference between a person being your best friend or your mortal enemy.
In October, an itinerant worker in Puerto Galán accidentally drowned. Nobody knew how to reach his family, so his colleagues sent for us and the priest. We arrived at the wharf and transported the body to the local burial ground. But Padre Guzmán sent back a message: ‘Sorry, very busy.’
‘I’ll go,’ said Palillo, kicking the Yamaha stand.
He returned doing wheelies along the main street with Guzmán behind him, his robes flailing and his chubby white fingers clutching Palillo’s waist. Braking suddenly, Palillo skidded out the back tyre.
‘Well? Off you get,’ he ordered. ‘Do your job!’
The priest, ashen-faced, stared at the compacted earth in the corner of the cemetery where we’d marked out a rectangular area and began sprinkling holy water on the body.
‘What are you doing? Give me that!’ Palillo snatched the leather gourd of holy water out of his hands and held out a shovel.
‘Now dig!’
I pulled Palillo aside. ‘You can’t threaten a priest!’
‘I didn’t threaten anyone.’
‘Then how did you persuade him to come?’
‘I simply knocked on the church door holding a piece of paper and said, “Are you Orlando Guzmán?” He started shaking and said he’d do anything. I told him he didn’t have to do anything, just his job.’
The next day, the priest applied for a transfer back to Bogotá. However, his mulata maid had settled into town life and would remain behind.
I phoned Padre Rojas immediately. He was delighted to hear from me.
‘Perhaps you should apply for your old position,’ I suggested.
Rojas laughed but I was serious, and after I explained that I could guarantee his safety, he agreed – not because of me, but because the town needed a priest.
Two weeks later, we stood together beside Papá’s grave, where I’d arranged for a new granite gravestone to replace the bullet-riddled cross.
‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here for your father’s passing,’ he said. ‘But you need to forgive the men who did this, Pedro. Or you will have no rest.’
War was an expensive business. The Díaz family’s funds had covered initial operations and would last well into the future. But if everyone benefited, why should only they continue paying?
I wasn’t sure about charging vacunas at first, but Trigeño convinced me.
‘Pedro, I don’t like charging taxes,’ he said, ‘but businesses and land values region-wide have appreciated much more than what we’re requesting as donations. We’ve added value to the community. We’ve reignited the economy. We’re maintaining a presence down here, keeping the peace and upholding justice. But that costs money, just like running a government does, and people are happy to pay to keep the Guerrilla away. Besides, citizens need to get used to paying taxes as their civic duty. When we hand over control to the army and politicians, they’ll be paying much higher rates to the government.’
Unlike Guerrilla vacunas, our taxes were fair – based on turnover rather than a commander’s whim. We charged 1,500 pesos – or one US dollar – per hectare of arable land; 5,000 pesos per canasta of beer; 15,000 pesos per harvested bag of rice, cassava, corn or African palm; 50 pesos per gallon of gasoline and 20,000 pesos per head of cattle sold. I assigned Ñoño and three boys to collection duties for smaller fincas, where they also monitored crop yields and counted cattle and poultry to ensure nothing was diverted to the enemy.
In November, Fabián Díaz commenced his election campaign. His supporters erected billboards and glued posters to walls. Fabián now looked the part – mature, serious and purposeful. In his VOTE 1 DÍAZ photo, he had short hair, wore a suit and had even removed his earring.
But that didn’t fool me. In Colombia, políticos like Fabián don’t seek office to transform the country – they do it to get richer. Once elected, they skim a percentage from government-awarded contracts, hire non-existent workers whose salaries they pocket themselves, and then siphon off health funds and workers’ pensions. They half-build roads with low-grade materials, steal the remaining money and then get awarded the repair contract when the roads collapse. In the rare event they are exposed, they share their ill-gotten gains with investigators and judges, and then drum up political protection by threatening to expose those who brought them to power.
Fabián moved back to Javier’s hacienda to re-establish his presence in Garbanzos. Caraquemada’s response was immediate: the Guerrilla sprayed over Fabián’s posters with FASCISTA and phoned Eleonora in Bogotá with death threats against both her sons. Trigeño’s counter-response was lightning quick.
‘I’m sending Beta down with three trucks and thirty men,’ he told me. ‘Fabián needs twenty-four-hour protection.’
‘But Colonel Buitrago won’t be happy. Remember he said—’
‘Fielding a candidate was part of our pact. If Buitrago doesn’t like Beta, then the army needs to guarantee Fabián’s safety. If they can’t, closer to the elections I’ll send extra troops and establish a base in Puerto Princesa for when Fabián is campaigning in the villages.’
Of course, Buitrago protested, but his resources were already stretched so he tolerated it. As for me, I hoped Trigeño’s setting up a second base further south might be part of a secret offensive against the Guerrilla camps. The sooner more troops came the better. I couldn’t wait for Trigeño’s long-promised attack against Caraquemada.
A week after Beta’s arrival, we received good news. Don Felix announced that, after considerable reflection, he’d changed his mind – he’d stand independently in the elections. Privately, he told me it would be a tough race, particularly since Fabián was the Autodefensa-sanctioned candidate, but he couldn’t let him win unopposed.
Buitrago and I were overjoyed. Felix had integrity and grit. Although he couldn’t match the Díaz clan’s campaign funding, his goodwill among townspeople gave him a chance of victory. Everyone knew the Velasquez name from his buses and also how Felix had stayed loyal to the region, when a weaker man would have fled.
November 17 marked the second anniversary of Papá’s death. I still felt his loss keenly.
We marked the date by celebrating Mass at Llorona church. Since the return of Padre Rojas, attendance at Mass had soared.
Afterwards, I invited Mamá, Camila, Uncle Leo, Amelia, Palillo and Piolín to a special lunch and memorial ceremony at our finca. Mamá was overcome with emotion. She cried when she saw the renovated finca and our old photos in new frames. Uncle Leo brought back Mamá’s glassware for the new bureau. Camila had baked a cake. Piolín made limonada while Palillo barbequed fish I’d caught.
Following lunch, we stood at Papá’s new granite tombstone under the oak tree and I said a prayer for him. Mamá scattered flowers. Uncle Leo held Mamá’s hand.
‘You’re looking more and more like him,’ Mamá said. ‘People in town say you’re the only man around here with enough guts to do what’s right.’
Pleased she no longer referred to me as a boy, I put my arm around her. ‘And what do you say, Mamá?’
‘I say: thank you, hijo.’
It was the first time in two years she’d set foot on her own property. And it was the first time she’d been able to properly farewell Papá. He was her true and only soul mate, just as Camila was mine.
‘I was thinking of having him moved to the cemetery,’ I suggested quietly.
‘I think he likes it just fine where he is. And besides,’ she said, tapping my shoulder lightly with the remaining flower, ‘since you no longer listen to me, someone has to keep an eye on you.’
That afternoon, sitting with my family and friends, sipping limonada, and inhaling the fresh country air while soaking up the magnificent view over our majestic town, I felt that all the risks, hard work and pain
ful sacrifices had been worthwhile.
‘It won’t be long before we can live here again,’ I told Mamá. ‘I think maybe after the elections next March.’
Once the Autodefensas had reinstalled legitimate governance with an honest leadership, hopefully under Felix Velasquez, the Guerrilla’s power would wane and social order would be restored. The Autodefensas would hand over control to the army and government. Llorona would return to normal; it might even be better than before.
In early December, Camila, who was now sixteen, graduated from high school a year early. She’d come top in her exams yet again.
Christmas that year was particularly special. At the start of the Novena prayer period, I erected a five-metre Christmas tree in the plaza. At night, my men ran a soup kitchen for the homeless. Villagers no longer hid the little wealth they had. Women wore jewellery. Parents bought presents for their children at market stalls. Couples walked in their finest clothes, blinking their eyes at the bright fairy lights as though waking up from a decade-long coma.
‘Good news,’ said Trigeño as we walked through Llorona markets. He’d flown down to congratulate me on what we’d achieved. ‘We’ve located Buitre’s brother.’
‘Did he talk?’ I asked excitedly.
‘No. He doesn’t know we’re watching him,’ said Trigeño, stepping aside for a pigtailed girl on a tricycle. ‘We’ll wait until he leads us to Buitre. Patience, Pedro. Keep working hard. We’ll bring Buitre to you.’
‘And Caraquemada and the Guerrilla bases?’
‘Everything at its right time. The enemy is still strong, so stay on guard.’
On the morning of December 24th, Mamá and I attended Mass. We sat in our old pew. I was sad Papá wasn’t there beside us. But I knew he was watching and I imagined he was proud.
‘We were right, Papá,’ I said to him afterwards. At midday I went fishing in our dinghy, imagining him beside me. ‘No one else will have to go through what we did.’
In the afternoon, Camila and I made love, not in a hotel but at our finca, in my own bed – just as I’d always envisioned. Afterwards, I rang Mamá and suggested the three of us attend evening Mass.
‘Twice in one day?’ she exclaimed happily.
Wandering towards the church through Llorona’s December plaza with Mamá on one arm and Camila on the other, I no longer imagined a time when my town would enjoy peace and prosperity. I was seeing it with my own eyes.
PART EIGHT
THE DARK ALLIANCE
123
FOR THE FIRST three weeks of the new year my life was clear blue skies. The only cloud on my horizon was Camila’s approaching departure for university. Fabián Díaz had sent a text offering her accommodation in his spare bedroom in Bogotá. Although Camila hadn’t responded, I didn’t like the idea that she might run into him in the city with their mutual friend Andrea. However Camila had trusted me for months on end when I’d been away. Now that she was leaving, I needed to show her that same trust. At least she’d finally given up begging me to leave the Autodefensas and stopped mentioning my pursuit of Papá’s killers.
In fact, Camila had grown accustomed to the pistol on my belt and the arsenal of weapons my men kept by their hammocks, and often stayed the night at my base. Sometimes I’d awake in our caretaker’s cottage to a find a dandelion inserted into the muzzle of my rifle or a pink ribbon tied around the grip of my Smith & Wesson. She enjoyed talking to Piolín, and they’d fast become friends.
Strictly speaking, civilians weren’t permitted on Autodefensa bases, much less to spend the night. But with Camila leaving soon, we treasured every moment together.
Of course, I wanted a future with Camila more than ever, and as soon as I’d eliminated Buitre and Caraquemada, I’d request a discharge from Trigeño and join her in Bogotá. In the meantime, she’d visit me during semester breaks and I’d travel to the city during my leave periods. And, naturally, we’d email and talk daily by phone.
But while I waited impatiently for us to attack the Guerrilla’s mountain strongholds, Trigeño was busy flying around the country, meeting with the heads of other Autodefensas units, as well as the candidates he was backing in the March elections. He was also capitalising on his book’s success by doing media interviews.
‘Quite the celebrity,’ Colonel Buitrago had commented cynically at one of our regular security briefings. ‘Let me ask you a serious question, Pedro: how truly committed is your boss to going after Buitre, Caraquemada and their camps? Looks to me like he’s happy to hold Llorona, and that’s it.’
Recently, Beta’s ‘electoral security’ unit had doubled in size. Two platoons were camped in the grounds of Javier’s hacienda outside Garbanzos. But there was no sign from Trigeño that any of these soldiers had been sent here to go after the Guerrilla. Instead, Fabián now paraded through the villages in a six-vehicle caravan: his own bulletproof vehicle plus five utility trucks, each with eight soldiers seated in the tray. Beta drove a red SUV that he referred to as his own, wore a thick gold necklace and ate at restaurants that were beyond a soldier’s salary.
Buitrago’s doubts made me uncomfortable. Since I looked up to Trigeño like a father, I wanted to trust him. However, as Camila’s departure date drew nearer with still no action from Trigeño, my anger and impatience grew, and the assurances he fired back at me seemed as hollow as spent cartridges.
In late January, Don Felix Velasquez sent a message through Iván, asking me to meet him inside the Llorona church at 3 pm, alone.
As I rode my Yamaha down the bumpy dirt road, trying to ignore the oppressive heat, I wondered why Felix hadn’t contacted me directly.
Only a month earlier, he’d welcomed me joyfully to his staff Christmas party at the bus station. He was no longer being extorted by Caraquemada’s eleven-year-old henchmen and his buses were once again travelling their full routes down to Puerto Princesa. Local polling placed Felix as the leading candidate for senator with seventy per cent of the likely votes. Fabián Díaz trailed on twenty-five per cent, while Yolanda Delgado, the human rights attorney who was running a class action on behalf of the limpieza victims, was placed third with five per cent of the vote.
At the church, Padre Rojas ushered me inside, frowning at the pistol on my belt. ‘Pedro, por favor, hide that thing in the urn,’ he said, gesturing to an empty brass vase. ‘Let’s hope God can look the other way for five minutes.’
Inside, the only illumination came from an eerie stream of sunlight piercing the round stained-glass window above the altar. The fateful 9mm bullet hole that had prompted the padre’s departure over two years earlier had been repaired, although the shade of blue didn’t quite match the surrounding panels.
Felix was kneeling in prayer in the second pew. He’d removed his trademark fedora and was resting his forehead against his interwoven hands.
‘Don Felix, why all the secrecy?’ I asked, sitting down beside him.
Felix crossed himself and looked up.
‘I’m sorry to break this so suddenly, Pedro, but I’m pulling out of the elections. Those Díaz brothers are as dirty as sewer rats. I’ve been through this mierda before when I stood against their father. Only he wasn’t backed by a private army.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It began a month ago, after I moved into the lead. When Fabián campaigns in the river villages, my buses are stopped on the way south by his security team – led by your colleague Beta – and my passengers intimidated with aggressive “security” searches. Meanwhile, the Díaz buses are waved past undisturbed. During the rallies themselves, soldiers go knocking door to door, herding villagers into the plaza to attend.’
Although these allegations were new, I wasn’t entirely surprised.
‘Don Felix, I assure you none of this is coming from me or Trigeño.’
‘Of course not. Your patrón phoned me personally in December to congratulate me on my success. But last week I received a very different phone call. “For your own good health,” said the c
aller, “withdraw from the elections.” And yesterday morning I found this hanging by a noose from the rafters of my porch.’
He handed me a rag doll in tattered trousers and shirt, its face and limbs roughly fashioned from coarse canvas. Upon its head perched a miniature fedora. And pinned to its shirt was a printed card inviting Don Felix to his own funeral.
I was shocked. If Fabián Díaz had sent this, it was a new low, even for him.
‘I’ll assign you two of my soldiers during the day, and another two to watch your house at night,’ I said. ‘But you can’t pull out. You know Fabián won’t run the local government honestly.’
Felix laughed bitterly. ‘He’ll rob the region blind like he has with that highways contract. For six months those earth-moving machines have been driving down to Puerto Princesa. Yet less than a kilometre of road has been asphalted. People are scared, Pedro. The Díazes want power at any cost. And Beta is their personal puppet. If you can guarantee my safety, I’ll stay in the race. But you need to do something about those brothers. They have to be stopped.’
After Felix left, I sat for ten minutes in the pew, considering my next move. I felt responsible. I’d created this situation by introducing the Díaz brothers to Trigeño, despite knowing they were dirty. And now they were corrupting Beta. Villagers would make no distinction between Beta’s actions and mine – we were all Autodefensas. My good reputation and all the positive work we’d done for my hometown were being dragged down by association.
For the first time since the limpieza, I felt ashamed to be a member of La Empresa. Felix was right: the Díaz brothers had to go.
But how?
The Díaz money made them Teflon. A journalist might throw accusatory mud, but none would stick. And although authorities like Buitrago scoured deeply into their affairs, the brothers emerged without a scratch.
My first instinct was to inform Trigeño. However, the villagers would never denounce Beta’s men, especially not to other Autodefensas. As for the threats against Felix, even if I could prove the Díaz brothers were behind them, I doubted Trigeño would break up our successful alliance over a patchwork doll hanging from a porch. Instead, my accusations might backfire and make me some powerful enemies.