Ping! A bullet kicked up the dirt not three feet away and Fat Cat was back in the ditch. This time he did not get up. He lay there on his belly in the water, screaming: "Prick! Indian shit! It is me, Fat Cat!"
"Fat Cat?" The older Santiago's voice echoed hollowly down the mountainside.
"Yes, Fat Cat, you sightless, crawling maggot! Fat Cat!"
There was a scrambling through the brush and Santiago suddenly appeared at the edge of the ditch. He looked down into the ditch. "Fat Cat!" he exclaimed. "Why did you not say it was you?"
Fat Cat came up out of the ditch even more bedraggled than before. Water dripped from his hat brim down onto his face, and he sputtered speechlessly.
"Fat Cat, it is really you!" Ecstatically The Older threw down his rifle and embraced his friend. "You are alive!"
"I am alive!" Fat Cat shouted angrily, trying to escape the Indian's grasp. "No thanks to you!"
"We thought you were dead," Santiago said in wonderment. He stepped back and examined Fat Cat. "You are alive and safe. Not a mark on you!"
Fat Cat looked down at himself. The new shirt and pantalones that Senor Moncada had given him were filthy with mud. "Not a mark!" he bellowed, lashing out with his fist.
The blow caught Santiago on the side of his face and tumbled him backward into the road. He looked up at Fat Cat with a hurt expression on his usually impassive face. "Fat Cat," he asked in puzzlement, "why are you angry with me? What have I done?"
"What have you done?" Fat Cat roared. "Look at my new shirt. Look at my new trousers. Ruined! That's what you've done."
He aimed a kick at the Indian's head, and Santiago rolled quickly out of the way. Fat Cat's foot went up and suddenly he lost his balance. Backward he tumbled, straight into the ditch. He lay there out of breath, screaming curses into the air.
I heard someone else coming through the brush, and suddenly Manuelo emerged. He glanced at the Indian lying in the road, then walked over to the edge of the ditch and looked down at Fat Cat. After a moment he said in a flat, emotionless voice, "Perhaps when you have done with your childish games, you will tell us what you have in the wagon?"
It had been only twelve days since we had left the mountains for Bandaya, though it seemed as if I had been gone a year. We went on into the camp, where they clustered around us and treated us like heroes. They could hardly wait until the first barrel was opened and the women took the meat away to the cooking pots. For almost all the time we had been away they had been living on small game and roots. Mostly the latter, for the game had fled the mountains because of the drought.
There were eight men, four women, and four children in that small camp in the mountains that Diablo Rojo used as his headquarters and hideout. Three of the women were his, as were three of the children. The other woman and child belonged to Manuelo.
Each of the general's three children had been born of a different mother. Roberto, the oldest and my companion, was dark. He had an Indian cast to his features, as well he might, for his mother was a distant cousin to the Santiagos. Eduardo, the younger son, resembled the general most, though he also bore the mark of his mixed blood in the coarseness of his features. Only Amparo, the daughter, and the youngest, was fair-skinned and blond. Her body was slim and lithe, her eyes bright and alive. They always sparkled with an inner kind of excitement. And there was no doubt that she was the general's favorite, just as her mother was.
The mother was slim and blond, unlike the other two women, who were dark and rather pudgy. They were extremely jealous of her but dared not speak out against her. She had come from somewhere on the coast and it was said that the general had found her in a whorehouse there, though she claimed to be the daughter of an impoverished Castilian gentleman and a German refugee. At any rate she acted the grand lady and the others had to cook and wait on her like servants.
She spent most of her time when the general was away playing with Amparo, dressing and undressing her as if she were a doll. This, plus the favored treatment she received from the general, and every other male in the camp for that matter, was enough to completely spoil the child. For a seven-year-old she was imperious and quick to show petulance when she did not get what she wanted. Most of the time she did, and then everyone basked in the warmth and brightness of her smile.
Amparo stood beside the wagon now, in a pretty white dress, as I climbed down from the seat. "They told me you were dead," she announced in a rather disappointed voice.
"Well, I'm not."
"I already said a novena for you," she replied, "and Mother promised we could have a Mass said the next time we went to church."
I studied her. We had been children together, and now I felt suddenly as if she had remained a child. "I'm sorry. Had I known, I would have allowed myself to be killed."
A sudden smile brightened her face. "You would, Dax? You would have done that for me?"
"Certainly," I said, humoring her.
She threw her arms around me and kissed my cheek. "Oh, Dax," she cried, "you are my very favorite! I'm glad you weren't killed. Really I am!"
I pushed her away gently.
She looked at me, her face glowing. "I've made up my mind."
'To what?" I asked.
"I'm going to marry you when I grow up!" She turned and started to run off. "I'm going to go tell Mother I've decided!"
I watched until she reached the house, a half-smile on my face. Before I had gone away she had thrown a tantrum because she had decided to marry Manuelo and her mother had told her she couldn't because he already had a woman. And just a few weeks before that it had been a young messenger who had come from the general bearing the latest news. I turned back to the wagon and began to unhitch the horses.
On the other side I could hear Fat Cat bragging to the others about the black stallion. Then I became aware of Roberto and Eduardo.
I turned to look at them. "Hello."
Eduardo answered immediately. He was only a few months younger than I but much smaller and thinner. Roberto merely stared at me sullenly. His face was pale, his eyes looked yellowish and sick.
"What's the matter with you?" I asked.
Eduardo answered before his brother could speak. "He's got a dose."
"A dose? What's that?"
Roberto still did not answer, and Eduardo shrugged. "I don't know. The Santiagos and Manuelo caught it too. Manuelo's woman is mad at him." "Eduardo!" his mother called from the house.
"I gotta go."
I finished unhitching the horses in silence. Roberto stood there watching me, so I tossed him one set of reins. "Help me get them into the corral."
He took the bridle and we led the horses off. I opened the gate and we pushed them inside. Immediately they began to graze on the far side, away from the others who warily watched the newcomers out of the corners of their eyes.
"Look at them," I said. "They pretend they don't even see each other. By tomorrow they'll be friends. Horses act like people."
"Horses don't get the clap," Roberto answered sullenly.
"No? How did you get it?"
He spat on the ground. "From the putas. We all got it. Manuelo's woman is furious at him."
"Is it bad?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Not so bad. It hurts when you pee."
"What's that got to do with it?"
"You're stupid! That's where you get it, in your pecker. You'll get it too. Manuelo says you're not a man until you've had the clap."
"I had a woman."
"You did?" Roberto said, disbelief in his voice.
I nodded. "Marta, Senor Moncada's daughter. Where we got the meat. I jumped her in the barn."
"Did you get in?"
I wasn't quite sure what he meant. "I think so. Anyway, I wouldn't have noticed. I was too busy. I would still be raping her if Fat Cat hadn't pulled me off."
He stared at me. "How old was she?" "Fourteen."
He sniffed. "She's just a girl." "Do you think I'll get a dose?" I asked.
He shook
his head. "Nah, she's just a kid. It takes a woman to give you the pox. Does Fat Cat have it?"
"I don't know. He didn't say."
"Maybe he was lucky," he said. "Maybe he didn't catch it."
He began to walk off and I followed him. I didn't understand. If you weren't a man until you got it, how could you be lucky if you didn't catch it?
CHAPTER 16
Fat Cat sulked as I followed him up to the lookout post. He turned and looked back at me. "Where do you think you're going?"
"To take a look around," I replied innocently.
"Go ahead and look, but do you have to be behind me every time I turn around? Someday I'm going to trip over you. You'll be squashed like a bug."
I didn't answer as he turned and continued up the path, kicking angrily at the rocks. I followed at a safe distance, not wanting to be squashed like a bug. Fat Cat had been like that all week. Ever since Manuelo refused to let him go back for the black stallion. We were too shorthanded, Manuelo had said.
Ordinarily ten men guarded the hideout. But two of these were already dead. One by the army sergeant, the other before we had gone out for meat. He had got drunk and tried to rape one of the general's women. I think it was Amparo's mother but I wasn't sure. All I had heard was a scream, then two shots. By the time I had got there he was already dead.
The younger Santiago was in the lookout. "It's about time," he grumbled. "I am starving."
"The best thing for a clap," Fat Cat replied maliciously, "is an empty stomach."
The Younger glared at him. "In that case I would advise your getting a dose. If you eat any more no horse will be big enough to carry you."
"Bah!" Fat Cat snorted. "My black stallion could carry me easily were I five times as large."
"I don't believe there ever was a black stallion," The Younger said sarcastically as he started down the path.
"You are only jealous," Fat Cat shouted after him. "Dax was with me. Dax saw him. Didn't you, Dax?"
"Si, I saw him."
But Santiago was already out of sight down the path. I turned to Fat Cat. He was looking out over the mountains toward Estanza.
"He is a great stallion, eh, Dax?"
"Caballo magnifico!
Fat Cat sat down, his back against a rock, his rifle across his knees. He still faced south. "Manuelo does not understand what it is to own such a magnificent beast. He never had one, so how could he?" I didn't answer.
"You'd think I was asking for the borrow of his woman," he continued. "Not that she wouldn't appreciate it, the way he is. But, no. You have to stay here, he says. We're too shorthanded."
He shrugged. "What would they have done if we hadn't come back? I wouldn't be here for Manuelo to refuse such a reasonable request. And they would be starving, eating field mice and rabbit turds and road apples."
I still didn't speak.
But Fat Cat didn't seem to care whether I did or not. "After all I've done for them they have the nerve to doubt I even have such a beautiful beast." He put down his rifle and lit a cigarrillo. "I'm telling you it's more than a man can bear."
I watched as he blew out a puff of smoke, then took a last look around. The hillside was peaceful. Dusk was little more than an hour away. "Good night, Gato Gordo," I said, and started down the path.
I looked back for a moment as I rounded the bend. He was still sitting there, letting the smoke curl reflectively from his nostrils. Halfway down the path I heard the cry of a wild turkey. Almost immediately, my mouth watered. It had been a long time since we had such a dish. I was sick of our steady diet of salt beef.
"Gobble—gobble—awk," I called.
It answered, but the sound seemed to come from off to my left. I crept into the brush. I called again. It answered. But it still was moving away from me. It was dusk by the time I caught up to it.
I don't know which of us was more surprised when the turkey's head popped up suddenly out of the bush right in front of me. For a moment we stared at each other incredulously, then the huge bird raised his head to gobble in protest. But he never finished, for quickly I flat-edged my knife like a machete and chopped off his head.
I felt the hot splash of blood against my shirt as the headless body rushed past me, then flopped crazily about on the ground. It was almost ten minutes before he was fully blooded and the body became still. It was almost dark when I picked up the great bird by the legs and hoisted it over my shoulder, the neck hanging down behind me.
Slowly I started down the path. Manuelo was near the corral when I came in. "Where have you been?" he asked angrily. "You know you're supposed to be back by dark."
I swung the turkey around from behind me and dropped it on the ground at his feet. He looked down at it. "Jesus Christ," he said in an awed voice, "where did you get it?"
"I heard him call as I was coming down from the lookout."
Manuelo picked up the big bird and hefted it. "At least fifteen kilos. Estrella, come see what Dax has brought! There'll be a feast tomorrow!"
But there was to be no feast because the soldiers came that night.
It must have been only a few hours before dawn when I heard the first shot. I rolled out of bed and reached for my shoes. I was already dressed, for I had taken to sleeping like the others since our return. I felt for my knife under the pillow.
From somewhere in the house I heard a woman screaming. I didn't go out the door; I turned and dove from the window head first. I hit the overhang and rolled down the back roof to the ground, just as the house burst into flames behind me.
I saw flashes of gunfire and heard men shouting as I scrambled to my hands and knees, then broke for the hillside. I leaped over some low bushes and rolled into a ditch. I caught my breath and then cautiously raised my head.
All I could see by the light of flames was red and blue uniforms everywhere. Manuelo and Santiago the Older came running around the side of the house. I saw the flashes from their rifles. One of the soldiers fell over, another screamed and clutched at his belly. Then one of the soldiers reached behind him and threw something at Manuelo which turned over and over in midair.
"Manuelo!" I screamed. "Watch out!" But nobody heard me. One moment Manuelo was standing there and the next he seemed to explode into a thousand pieces. Two soldiers were after Santiago now. His rifle was empty and he ran from one to the other, swinging it like a club. Then they lunged toward him and I heard his scream as one bayonet went through his neck, the other drove into his intestines from the rear.
I put my head down and ran along the bottom of the drainage ditch toward the front of the house. When I got to the lookout path, which was hidden by bushes, I peered up over the ditch again. I heard a scream and saw Amparo running past, her white nightdress billowing out behind her. I grabbed for a leg, and she tumbled to the ground. Before she could scream again, I put my hand over her mouth and pulled her down into the ditch.
Her eyes stared up at me, wide, stricken with terror. I put my face close to hers. "Be silent!" I hissed. "It's me, Dax!"
The terror left her eyes and she nodded. I lifted my hand from her mouth. "Lay there and be quiet. I'm going to have another look."
I stuck my head up above ground level. Santiago the Younger lay dead not four feet from me, his sightless eyes staring at me. Others lay dead, nearer the house. The soldiers were still there. A woman, her clothing ablaze, ran screaming from the house. Behind her ran Eduardo, crying, "Mama! Mama!"
There was a burst of gunfire, and the woman tumbled to the ground. Eduardo, just behind her, fell over her, and a soldier ran toward them and lunged with his bayonet, again and again.
Another figure came charging out of the house, the fire highlighting the machete he was swinging with both hands. It was Roberto, and the general would have been proud of him. There was no fear on his face, nothing but hatred as he ran screaming toward the soldier.
Taken completely by surprise, the soldier turned and ran. But it was too late. The machete came down and suddenly the soldier's arm
seemed to fall away from his shoulder. He yelled in agony and fell sideways, just as a burst of gunfire came from behind him. Roberto seemed to hang in the air for a moment, then crashed backward to the ground, near the bodies of his brother and his brother's mother.
Now there was only the crackling and roaring of the fire. Then I heard the sound of a woman crying. Three women were huddled together to one side of the house. They were surrounded by soldiers. I could see Amparo's mother in the middle. She seemed to be trying to hold up Roberto's mother. Manuelo's woman appeared stony-faced, beyond feeling.
An officer came walking over. I couldn't see his face but it didn't matter. I knew him the moment he opened his mouth. I would never forget that voice, not until the day I died.
"They are all dead?"
"Si, Coronel," a sergeant answered. "All but these women here."
The coronel nodded. "Bueno. Do what you will with them. But remember, they must be dead when we leave. I have sworn an oath that not one traitor shall live!"
"Si, Coronel."
The coronel turned his back and walked around the corner of the house, out of sight. The women were already stripped and spread-eagled on the ground, and a line of soldiers was queuing up in front of each. I felt a motion beside me and turned. It was Amparo, her eyes wide. "What are they doing?"
I knew what they were doing. Raping and killing. That was the way it was. But suddenly I knew it would serve no purpose for her to see. She was only a child. How could she be expected to understand what men did in the course of fighting?
I pulled her back down into the ditch. "It doesn't matter," I whispered.
"What are we going to do?" Her voice trembled. She was beginning to get frightened again.
I took her hand and pulled her along after me toward the path to the lookout. But when we got up there, it was deserted. Fat Cat was not there. Suddenly I knew where he had gone.
To Estanza for the black stallion.
I looked down the path on the other side to the south. It lay dark and deserted. If we hurried we might catch up with him. The night was breaking, the day just beginning to appear over my right shoulder. The morning chill lay heavy on the ground.
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