The Candidate

by Paul Harris

  “It began on a day much like this one,” Rodolfo said, and stretched out his stick to point back to the road to the village that they drove in on. “Soldiers came in on a jeep. Just four of them. They were looking for rebels, the men who took to the jungles to fight the government and the army. They said some comrades were attacked and killed while on patrol. We knew nothing of this. We told them we have nothing to do with the guerrillas. They did not believe us.”

  Rodolfo shrugged. “But they were right not to. We were lying. The men in the jungles were our brothers and our cousins. But we wanted a quiet life. We wanted no trouble. We are simple farmers and fishermen. But how could we refuse our relatives help when they asked for food or shelter?”

  “What did the soldiers want you to do?” Mike asked.

  “They wanted us to tell them when the rebels came. They gave us names of people they wanted and told us to alert them when they came to our village. Our village leaders said we would do this. But, of course, we did not. We cannot betray our own. Not to those monsters who hate us for the color of our skin and don’t even speak our language. We thought they would go away and leave us alone. They had done so before. But that was a mistake.”

  Rodolfo’s voice faded. A wind whipped across the lake, spurred by the late heat of day. It rustled past the shore and reached up to the craggy crater walls above. It seemed to whisper something as it went, twirling around Mike and Lauren like fingers made of air.

  “A week later they came back. They said they knew the rebels who attacked the patrol were in our village and that we did nothing. This time, they said, we would be taught a lesson. We begged and pleaded but they made us wait for a new unit of soldiers to arrive. These were soldiers we did not know. They had not been in our village before. They came in a convoy of trucks and jeeps. Everyone in the village was herded into the town square. We went like sheep to the market. Even then we did not know what would happen. It was only when they picked out twelve men and put them against the church wall that we understood. They shot them all down right there.”

  Mike sucked in a sudden breath. He saw that Lauren understood too. Her face grew pale. Mike thought of the church below. It looked sleepy and innocent enough. Just a simple place of worship, not of murder.

  “Our young men were killed before our eyes and so we began to fight and run. That is when the soldiers turned on everyone. Man, woman and child. Old and young. They did not care. We ran into the fields. We hid among our corn and prayed to Maximón to save us. On that day he answered some of our prayers. But not all of them.

  There was silence between them now. Mike already knew the simple facts of the killings. At least 75 men, women and children mowed down in cold blood by the army. But those were just statistics. Now he looked down at the spot where it happened, talking with someone who witnessed the deaths of his friends and loved ones. Perhaps only yards from where they sat people were killed. Perhaps this very spot was drenched in blood; the full stop to someone’s life, dying suddenly and terrified. Mike felt the hair stand up on his arms. He reached into his wallet, unfolded a black and white picture of the shooter and held it out to Rodolfo.

  “Who is this woman? Was she there that day?”

  Rodolfo looked at the picture. Mike did not expect him to recognize her. But he hoped against hope he would. That he would spot some long-lost cousin or distant childhood friend. Someone who witnessed the terrible killings and thus provide a reason for the dreadful things that he saw lying behind the shooter’s eyes; explain the terrible death grip he felt constrict around his own throat.

  But Rodolfo reacted like Mike handed him something in fected with a deadly disease. As soon as Rodolfo saw the face in the photograph, his eyes widened in shock. Fear even. He looked back at Mike and spat out angry sounds in Mayan. He jumped to his feet and raised his stick above his head. Mike backed away and Lauren scrambled to her feet. Rodolfo screamed at them, one clear word in Spanish, which left no doubt as to what he wanted them to do.

  “Go!” he yelled. “Go!”

  CHAPTER 18

  THE MAIN STREET of Dawson, South Carolina, was lined with empty lots and shuttered storefronts. Hodges’ convoy drove down it at a leisurely pace and formed virtually the only traffic. A red pick-up truck passed by them on the other side of the road and its bearded white driver craned his neck to stare at the procession, while keeping one hand firmly on the wheel, ensuring the vehicle did not drift even an inch from its course. Dee watched him with a grin and let the wintry southern sun warm her face.

  Dawson was a shit hole. There was no getting away from that. The only large town in a small Low Country county it was part of the “black belt” of the South. A wide swath of former plantation land sandwiched between the coast and the mountains, it was a region of dire poverty and tense race relations where time moved at a different pace from anywhere else. But also, for Dee, it reminded her of home. She grew up in a little isolated burgh like this in Louisiana. Like her hometown, the black and white communities lived largely separate lives, divided by a railway track. The only place where they really met was in the few surviving shops in the battered downtown and the Piggly Wiggly out by the highway.

  Hodges seemed to sense Dee’s thoughts. “See anything familiar?” he asked.

  “Lots,” Dee said and she surprised herself at how hard that word was to get out. She felt a huge pressure in her head and a rush of memories and images. She pictured the rundown house of her early childhood and watching her momma do a towering stack of dishes at a filthy sink. The fights at high school. She also remembered the endless heat of summer and the cool of an afternoon storm. The steady understanding that she was different from the other kids at her school. The taunts of her peers, that she first endured and then learned to counter, giving every bit as good as she got. She felt a flush of blood to her cheeks – a mix of shame and defiance – just as when her father started coming home drunk after he lost his job.

  Hodges put a friendly hand on her shoulder. There were not many people who would dare to do that to Dee. Fewer who would get away with it. But the gesture from Hodges not only felt genuine, it felt welcome. Comforting.

  “We’ve come a long way, Jack,” she said. “But South Carolina ain’t Iowa or New Hampshire. Folks here been down so long, they’ve gotten used to it. It’s going to take more than pretty words to get them excited.”

  Hodges nodded. The convoy approached a red brick school building at the end of Main Street. It was a huge structure but even from a distance it was clear it was in a dilapidated state of repair. Its brick walls were a patchwork of repairs and cracks and its roof looked ancient. Its playing fields were a worn scrub-brown, more dust than grass.

  “Martin Luther King High,” Dee said, looking down at a sheaf of notes on her lap. “Intake 3,500. Average class size 41. Dropout rate of 56 percent.”

  Hodges whistled through his teeth. Dee ploughed on.

  “That’s not all of it. The gymnasium’s been out of action for two years. Hole in the roof means it floods every time it rains. The railway goes right around the back of the building and messed with the foundations. The whole building shakes every time a big freight train comes through.”

  “I don’t know how the town puts up with it,” Hodges said.

  Dee fixed him a glare. “The white part of town doesn’t. Most white folks send their kids to a private school in the next county. This place is just for poor cracker trash and the blacks.”

  The car pulled into the school grounds and they saw a crowd of people snaking out of the main entrance. Several hundred people, many of them carrying placards with cam paign slogans, broke into a cheer and a frenzy of waving. The car swung around the rear of the building. Dee and Hodges got out and were greeted by a small throng of people. One young black woman introduced herself as the principal, Mary Sloane. Hodges kept hold of her hand after she proffered it.

  “Principal Sloane,” he said. “It’s an honor to meet you. It really is. Dee told me of the diffic
ulties you guys face here. I have to say, I was shocked.”

  Sloane looked like someone caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. The tone of real anger in Hodges voice clearly caught her off-guard.

  “We’ve got some good kids in this school,” she said. “We just want to give them a chance.”

  Hodges looked at his watch. “Look, I’m not due on stage for twenty minutes yet. Why don’t you show me around? Dee said your gym is out of action. Why don’t you show me that hole in the roof?”

  Dee made a move to stop him. She had a list of local dignitaries Hodges needed to meet. The local mayor, a half-dozen ministers from the black churches and the editor of the Dalton Gazette. But Hodges stopped her with a fierce look.

  “Let’s go,” he said to Sloane and he strode into the school, leaving no one any choice but to follow.

  * * *

  THAT NIGHT Dee sat cross-legged on the dusty bed of the highway motel they ended up in and poured over the latest poll data emailed to her on her Blackberry. The figures blurred in front of her. They were in a dead heat with Stanton. Forty points each. Not as good as she hoped. But not bad either. She scanned the deep data, running her eyes along columns of figures and breakdowns of social type. Independents, blacks, whites, the college-educated, the conservatives and the liberals. She needed to master what trended up and trended down in order to tweak their message and deliver the election. But she could not shake the afternoon’s events out of her mind.

  Hodges stalked around the school in Dalton for 30 minutes, eventually dragging an entire retinue of local big wigs around with him. They traipsed through the corridors to look at peeling paint, toilets more suited to a prison camp, metal detectors at the main door to stop students with guns, a library of worn and used books and, finally, the mildewed gymnasium with a hole torn in its roof through which peeked a square of blue sky. Then Hodges walked onto the stage of the school hall and tore up his speech and launched into an impassioned monologue on his Second New Deal for America. Perhaps it was revenge for Dee’s taking the wind out of his plan’s sails when he announced it in New Hampshire, but she didn’t think so. She thought he really believed his ideas would help here. He genuinely thought he had answers that would make places like this a thing of the past.

  By the end of it all, the entire hall stood and applauded as if they had won a state football championship. They chanted his name and tried to rush the rope line. In all her long days, Dee had never seen anything like it. Never seen a crowd react like that. Yet Hodges barely recognized it. The words just poured out of him in an impassioned torrent and at its end he stood statue-like, as surprised as anyone by the reaction.

  “He’s a natural,” Dee breathed to herself.

  She could not concentrate now and she closed the file of numbers. She would get up early, with a fresh mind, and study them in the morning. There were four campaign stops tomorrow, ending up in Charleston on the coast. That was plenty of opportunity to try out some fresh messages and roll out a few new tricks. She put down her Blackberry on her bedside table and lay back on the lumpy mattress and stared at a spider web of ugly cracks that traced their way across the dirty white paint of the ceiling. She felt the tug of deep exhaustion at her mind’s edges close in like a lengthening shadow.

  Ping!

  The sound of her Blackberry’s message alert jolted her back from sleep. Groaning, she reached over and glared at the tiny screen. At first the name on the new message was unfamiliar to her. Sheriff William Jackson? From Corinth Falls, New York? Then her mind flared with recognition and she clicked on the attachment. She forgot she called in this particular favor.

  The PDF file downloaded and she scrolled down. It was an arrest report. The full case history of two people arrested in New York on drugs allegations. One charged and the other let go. She stared at the mug shot pictures and smiled grimly. In one picture a thin-faced woman stared sullenly into camera. In the other, a red-haired man glared angrily back with a mix of fear and confusion.

  “Damn, Mike,” she said. “You gotta smile for the camera.”

  Then she began to read the arrest reports, the thought of sleep forgotten.

  * * *

  RODOLFO GLARED at Mike, his arm raised high, holding his gnarled walking stick in his hand. Mike edged in front of Lauren and they backed carefully away. The old Mayan was at least thirty years older than them, but the look in his eyes made them back away.

  “Wait.. wait…” Mike said.

  Rodolfo’s eyes bulged out of his sockets and he looked half-possessed. He stared at them wildly and muttered under his breath in Mayan. Then he stalked back down the hillside in the direction of the village. Mike and Lauren looked at each other. Lauren was breathing heavily and looked terrified.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  Mike shook his head and watched Rodolfo’s back retreating down the path towards the village. He grabbed Lauren’s hand and started after him. “Come on,” he said.

  Mike shouted at Rodolfo, but the old man kept striding onwards, nimbly striding down the rutted path at a pace that belied his age. Mike’s mind whirred. Why did he react like that to the photograph? Who was the woman? Based on Rodolfo’s response Mike felt certain she was not a victim. But maybe something so awful happened to her that she was shunned by her former neighbors. The answer to the puzzle was walking rapidly out of sight.

  “Rodolfo! Wait!” Mike yelled.

  Finally, Rodolfo stopped and faced them. With his arms folded across his chest and clutching his stick like a scepter, he waited for Lauren and Mike to catch up to him. When they did, he glared at them.

  “Who is she?” Mike asked waving the photo at him. “You need to tell me who she is!”

  Rodolfo breathed heavily, like a bull at bay in the bullring. Mike would not have been surprised had he started to paw the ground with his feet. But eventually he spoke.

  “She is the bringer of death!” he said. “She is one whose name should not be mentioned here.”

  “But Rodolfo…” Mike began but the old man cut him off.

  “Enough! Go! Maximón blessed you but perhaps it was a curse on us.”

  Rodolfo lurched forward and Lauren retreated down the path. Mike stood his ground. “This woman is in jail in my country. She is many miles away. But she is important to me. I must know who she is.”

  Rodolfo stopped mid-charge, as if suddenly confused by the insistence of the matador on staying still. He seemed a little calmer now. Finally, he spoke, in slow and deliberate Spanish. “If you want to know of her you must see the priest, Father Gregorio Villatoro. He was here before and after the massacre. He is at the San Gabriel mission in Guatemala City. He can tell you about this demon. But not us!”

  Mike was aware a crowd was gathering. Like ghosts emerging from the shadows, a handful of laborers appeared from the cornfields. They stood and stared, machetes and hoes in their hands. Mike tried to read their faces but they were blank and silent and just stared at them. A few young boys, who earlier were full of chatter and laughter, were now silent and still, taking the lead from their fathers and grandfathers. The children’s eyes were dark and glowered like the hint of thunderclouds on a far horizon but getting nearer. Mike opened his mouth to speak but stopped when he felt Lauren tug at his sleeve. Her face was pale with fear.

  “I’m scared,” she whispered.

  Mike looked around. More figures emerged from the fields. About twenty people stood around them with Rodolfo at their head. Mike took Lauren’s hand and slowly walked through the crowd, trying not to catch anyone’s eye, back through a village as threatening and alien as anywhere he had ever been; full of mystery and an angry cigar-smoking God.

  * * *

  THE VILLAGE rapidly receded into the distance in the rear view mirror but still Mike looked up to check no vehicle was following them. It seemed insane, but he would not be surprised to see Rodolfo drive after them in some beaten up old truck with a mob of machete-wielding Mayans in the back. Beside hi
m Lauren sat and stared straight ahead. She was on the edge of tears. Now that he had calmed down and was over his fear he began to worry about her.

  “Are you okay, Lauren?” he repeated several times and she nodded each time in a way that fell far short of convincing.

  Mike resisted the temptation to simply floor the accelerator and speed away as fast as possible. The road back to Guatemala City climbed out of the crater in a series of terrifying switchbacks. He needed to take it easy. Not panic. Not kill them both in some stupid car crash. He glanced again at Lauren as they finally climbed out of the crater and saw again a broad panorama of mountains ahead of them. She looked silently out of the window, keeping her thoughts to herself. He surprised himself by feeling responsible for her. She was the one who came out here, practically sabotaging his mission, but now he simply and guiltily thought: what had he dragged her into?

  He had no answer. It was a hard confession to make. He felt he was on a roller coaster. At first the shooter was a violent, evil mystery. Then she seemed a traumatized victim. Now it was clear Rodolfo and the others feared and hated the very sight of a photograph of her. And still he did not even know her name. Or have a link back to Hodges. He felt lost, and a long way from South Carolina where the political battle was being fought. Caught in his own thoughts, he heard Lauren speak at last.

  “What’s going on, Mike?” she asked. “Who the hell is that woman? Why did she want to kill Senator Hodges?”

  Mike shrugged. Despite Dee’s instructions to keep Lauren in the dark, he found himself telling her the truth.

  “I have no real idea,” he said.

  * * *

  THEY ARRIVED back in Guatemala City that night and headed straight to the bar of the Marriott. They sat in a dark corner with a pair of strong drinks and relaxed. Finally, returned to the familiar environment of a modern hotel bar, they were at ease. It was a whole world away from the village of Santa Teresa with its massacre and strange pre-Christian Gods. That was a glimpse into an alien world, one that unsuspectingly lurked just under the surface. Always there but hidden. Even though they saw that now, and knew it existed, the surroundings of the hotel bar allowed them to convince themselves they were again on safe ground.