“No!” Remi whispered. “No!”
Sam said, “What are they doing?”
The man who had waved his arm took out a pistol and fired a round through the mayor’s head. All of the witnesses, including Remi, groaned in horror.
Sam said, “What was that shot?”
“They killed the mayor.”
Ruiz spoke into the bullhorn. “Let no one move his body from this spot. We will come back in five days. If he’s not here then, we’ll hang five others up there in his place. If this paper is not signed by every one of you, we will put ten who have not signed up there and ask again.”
“Did you understand that?” Remi whispered to Sam.
“I’m afraid I did.”
Russell stepped to the nearest building, which was the church. He nailed the papers to the front door. Then he and the other men climbed back into the truck. They turned around in the space in front of the church and drove back to the crest of the hill and began to coast down the long road in the direction of the Estancia.
The wails of women began immediately and soon reached the window of Sam and Remi’s cell. Remi said, “They’re gone.” She jumped to the floor.
A half hour later, they heard footsteps in the outer office. The plank door opened and several people filed in—Señora Velasquez; Father Gomez; Dr. Huerta; Pepe, the mechanic; Señor Alvarez, the restaurant owner; and the two farmers who had volunteered to dig their graves. Father Gomez said, “Do you know what happened?”
“Yes,” said Remi.
Señora Velasquez unlocked their cell, and they all walked through the office, where Sam’s and Remi’s backpacks sat. Dr. Huerta went to his office two doors down the street and returned with a wheeled stretcher. He wheeled it across the street to a spot below the hanging body of the mayor. He and Sam held the rope taut while one of the farmers produced a knife and cut the rope so they could lower the mayor onto the stretcher. They lifted the stretcher to straighten the legs, covered the mayor with the blanket, and pushed him to Dr. Huerta’s infirmary. Many of the townspeople followed them in and others stood outside.
Inside the office, Remi said, “Is there a regional government to handle this?”
“Not one with troops,” said Father Gomez.
“The police?”
“You saw them,” said Dr. Huerta. “They were the ones trying to arrest you for smuggling drugs after you fought the killers who attacked you on your last visit.”
“Then it has to be the national police in Guatemala City,” Sam said.
Dr. Huerta said, “I just spoke with them on my satellite phone. They said they would send an inspector to take our statements next month, two months at the latest.”
“One inspector?” Sam said.
“Yes.”
“Oh, by the way,” said Father Gomez, “I brought you these.” He took the two pistols and two spare magazines out of his coat pockets and handed them to Sam and Remi.
“Thank you,” said Remi.
“Your car is ready too,” said Pepe. “No charge. I’m sorry for what we did to you. Maybe when you’re back in the big world, you’ll tell people we weren’t so bad.”
The door opened, and the crowd parted to let a small group of townspeople enter the clinic. Sam and Remi recognized many of them. Señor Alvarez, the restaurateur, seemed to have been chosen as a spokesman. “Señor and Señora Fargo,” he said. “What just happened was exactly what you said would happen. Those men came from the Estancia Guerrero. Instead of asking to look at the old stronghold peacefully, they made us watch them murder the mayor. They’re going to take our town and the stronghold and even our homes and families. We won’t ever be able to complain, because they’ll keep us deep in the Estancia. If we try to get help, they can kill all of us, and there will be nobody left to say what happened. We were wondering—I know it’s more than anyone has a right to ask—if you would stay and help us fight.”
Remi said, “After what just happened? Of course we’ll stay.”
“I have to warn you that we’re not soldiers,” said Sam. “But we’ll do everything we can to help.”
Dr. Huerta said, “You fought the men who were guarding the marijuana fields and won—just the two of you.”
“They attacked us, we defended ourselves for a while, and then we got away. That’s not winning.”
“You killed a dozen of them and you’re just fine,” Huerta said. “I call that a victory—a big one.”
Sam said, “I don’t think we’d have much chance against these people in a fight. They’re heavily armed with modern weapons, they’re trained and organized, and they’ve clearly fought before. Our best chance is to keep trying to get the authorities to protect the town.”
“I agree,” said Dr. Huerta. “I hope we can, and we will keep trying. But we should also be ready to fight.”
“Yes,” said Señor Alvarez. “We’re all willing to fight, but all we have is five days before they come back. We need to start preparing.”
“I’ll get started by making a few phone calls,” said Sam. He put an arm around Remi’s waist, and they stepped toward the door.
“But you’re going to stay?” said Dr. Huerta.
Remi said, “You bet we are. When he’s all gruff like that, it means he’s digging in.”
“Thanks,” Sam said.
“Just don’t get in any more trouble for now.”
“No, we’ve got enough to last us.”
Sam hung up and called the number of the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City. He identified himself and asked for Amy Costa.
In a surprisingly short time, he heard Amy’s voice. “Sam!” she said. “Good to hear from you. Is everything all right?”
“I’m afraid not,” Sam said. “We’re in the town of Santa Maria de los Montañas, maybe twenty miles west of the Estancia Guerrero.” He told her about the truckload of armed men arriving, the demands, and the murder.
“Oh, Sam,” she said. “I can hardly believe this. You said they gave the town a deadline. What is it?”
“They said they’d be back in five days to get the signed agreements and presumably to move the townspeople to barracks on the Estancia. But it doesn’t seem to matter much to these guys how the town gets vacated. They drilled the mayor in front of two hundred witnesses.”
“Five days,” Amy Costa said. “It’s the worst possible timing. Commander Rueda is the only one we can count on to react the way we want and he’s suspended for the next thirty days.”
“I’m sure that isn’t a coincidence.”
“Sarah Allersby makes her own coincidences,” said Amy.
“Can you get us any help?”
“I’ll try. But the high-ranking officers all know what happened when Rueda agreed to go after Sarah Allersby. It will take time to get somebody else to stick his neck out.”
Sam said, “Do you know of any way we can get some weapons to defend the town?”
Amy said, “Weapons? I’m sorry, but involvement in unauthorized firearms transactions would get the embassy expelled from the country. And it would require going all the way up the chain of command to get permission at the highest levels. Some of my superiors don’t see Sarah Allersby as our business. They think the locals should take care of her.”
“Let’s just hope the townspeople are still alive when that happens.”
THE ESTANCIA GUERRERO
Sarah Allersby was waiting in the old countinghouse, a relic from the days of the Guerreros. She sat at the biggest of the old desks, directly under a ceiling fan operated by a belt attached to a long shaft along the ceiling and turned from outside the building, originally by hand but now by electric motor. She sat back, closed her eyes, and took a couple of deep breaths to relax. Russell had telephoned her a half hour ago, so she guessed they were almost here by now. Soon she heard the sound of the truck gearing down on
the highway, then making the turn onto the drive. It still amazed her how quiet the Estancia could be. There was noise whenever there was a flurry of work—harvest, planting, or shipping—but for weeks on end there was almost no sound out here. She stood, stepped up to a window that faced the forest, and looked at her reflection in the glass.
She wore a loose white silk blouse, a pair of fitted black slacks with black knee-high riding boots, and a black flat-brimmed hat that hung down her back from its stampede string. She adjusted the black leather belt on her hips so the gun hung lower on the right, as though she were about to engage in a quick-draw gunfight. She stepped outside onto the wooden porch, her leather boot heels making a hard clicking noise on the boards.
The truck grumbled up the gravel drive and stopped in front of her. Men jumped down from the truck bed. They looked impressive to her, all carrying AK-47 knockoffs, most of them armed with fighting knives in sheaths. They stood in a wavering line beside their truck and looked at her expectantly. Russell and Ruiz jumped down from the cab and approached her.
She said, “You sounded on the phone as though it went well.”
“I guess it did,” said Russell. “We herded them outside and gave them the message.”
“Good.”
He spoke more quietly. “An old guy who claimed to be the mayor tried to make a speech about not signing. We shot him and hung his body from a tree. We said if anybody moved him before we came back in five days, we’d shoot some more.”
Sarah clapped her hands. “I never would have thought of that. Brilliant. I’ll bet they were utterly terrified.”
“It’s hard to tell. They were all sort of stony-faced.”
“Well, watching the mayor rot for a few days should soften them up.” She turned to the men that had been with Russell. She said in Spanish, “You can all go along now, gentlemen. Mr. Ruiz will pay you while I talk with Mr. Russell. Mr. Ruiz, the money is in the black briefcase on the desk.”
She and Russell walked toward her car, a black Maybach, which was parked a distance away. “Without you, my efforts and a considerable sum of money would have been wasted. I’m acutely aware of the hardships you’ve endured because of your work. You’ll be paid very well for everything. The trust you’ve earned will pay dividends.”
“I hope the risk pays off for you.”
“It’s essential that we succeed. These Indian peasants are sitting on a major Mayan site, and we’ll need a free hand to exploit it. They have to be removed quickly, before the word gets out and they become ‘a cause.’”
“What I’m worried about is what happens after we’ve brought them here. Will San Martin let you keep what you find? His mercenaries make him stronger than we are.”
“Trust me,” she said, “Diego needs me more than I need him. Being on land that belongs to me keeps him untouchable. And as long as you give me your loyalty, I promise you’ll be safe.” She stopped walking. “My driver is new, and I don’t know if I can trust him yet. If you have anything else to say, say it now.”
In that moment of her immobility, frozen for two seconds, Russell saw many things—her beauty, which was something she possessed, just like her cars and land and bank accounts. And he knew that this chance to speak and change things was one he would never have after this moment. If he wanted out, the doorway was closing. When the two seconds had passed without his speaking, she turned and walked to the black car. She opened the door herself, sat in the backseat, and closed the door. Her face, even her silhouette, became invisible behind the tinted glass. The driver swung her car wide and brought it back along the gravel drive to the main road.
SANTA MARIA DE LOS MONTAÑAS
The whole town attended the funeral of the mayor, partly because of his heroic death. And Carlos Padilla had been a popular mayor because he did little except to fill out and sign the papers that had to be filed in Guatemala City each year. He was such a comfortable mayor, in fact, that there was some question as to whether he was still legally in office. There had not been an election in some years, and it was possible that he had not wanted to bother anyone with voting again.
Father Gomez said the proper things about him during the mass and then led the villagers to the large churchyard, where their people had been buried for centuries, and placed him in the row created for this year’s dead. There, Father Gomez said the rest of the customary pronouncements and prayed that Carlos’s goodness, bravery, and unselfishness would make his soul quickly rise to heaven.
While old Andreas, the mayor’s brother, took his turn filling the grave, Father Gomez asked the townspeople to return to the church for a meeting.
When the people were all sitting in the church, or standing immediately outside where they could hear, he introduced Dr. Huerta.
Dr. Huerta spoke simply and frankly. “We have spoken to the authorities in the government offices and embassies, and the earliest that help can come here is thirty days.”
“But we have only five days,” a woman shouted. “What can we do?”
“You can sign the paper and be taken to the Estancia to work in the fields or you can stay and fight. The choice is yours. But we saw those men shoot Carlos to death. I don’t know of any reason to trust them. Once they have you on the Estancia, with no place to hide and no means of fighting back, will they let you live?”
There were cries of “We have to fight!” and “We have no choice!”
“There’s a third way,” said Father Gomez. “We can pack everyone up and run away to another town. We can try to hold out there for a month or two and hope the government will act by then.”
“All that will do is get two towns killed,” said Pepe. “And once we leave, they’ll take over everything, dig up the tombs, burn our houses and fields. We’ll never be able to come back.”
Within minutes, the discussion was only a series of speakers who all said the same thing—running was futile and was more dangerous than staying. Signing away the town was unthinkable, and the only way to survive was to fight. At last, Dr. Huerta said, “It’s time to hear from Sam and Remi Fargo.”
Sam and Remi had remained silent through the discussion, but now they stood. Sam said, “If you want to fight, we’ll do what we can to help. Tomorrow morning at seven, meet us in front of the church. If you have any guns and ammunition, bring them with you. We’ll begin to work out a strategy.”
At seven a.m., Sam and Remi sat on the church steps and waited. The first to arrive were a few of the hotheads who had helped capture Sam and Remi up on the plateau. Then came people who considered themselves to be part of the gentry—the business owners, independent farmers, and their wives, sons, and daughters. After them were others, people who worked for wages or helped on the farms for a share of the crops.
By seven-thirty, the street was full of more people than it had been during the mercenaries’ roundup. Sam stood up and called the group to order. “Beginning with the people on this end of the street, form a line and come talk with us. After you have, then go wait in the church.”
As people came to the steps to talk, Sam and Remi would interview them, always speaking Spanish now. “Do you have a gun? Let me look it over. Are you a hunter? What do you hunt? Are you a good shot?” When there was no gun, they would ask, “Are you healthy? Can you run a mile without stopping? Do you want to fight? If you needed a weapon to fight a jaguar, what would you reach for?”
Women seemed to prefer to talk to Remi, possibly out of local standards of propriety. Her questions varied little. “How old are you? Are you married? Do you have any children? Are you willing to fight to protect them? Are you very strong and healthy? Have you ever fired a gun?”
The older children, the teenagers, were the hardest to interview, but Sam and Remi persisted. All the armies of the past had relied on boys from fifteen to twenty to fill the ranks.
By ten, they were alone on the steps. The town’s firepower am
ounted to seven rifles with about one hundred rounds each, eight shotguns with about one box of twenty-five shells each, mostly bird shot. There were seven handguns, including four .38 K Frame revolvers that looked like old police sidearms, Señora Velasquez’s old .38 Colt, and two .32 caliber pistols made for concealed carry.
Sam and Remi stood, staring at the villagers, whose faces were tinged with hopelessness. “Thank you all,” said Sam. “Now we have a better idea of where to start. Your ancestors could not fight soldiers trained in modern tactics or go up against new technical weapons and neither can you. You, your wives and children would die within minutes of the first attack.”
Remi could easily see a deep sadness in the villagers’ eyes, as mothers pulled their children closer and the men looked around at their friends and neighbors in frustration.
Sam steeled himself against the impossible odds. He nodded at Dr. Huerta and Father Gomez. “Can I talk to you in the vestry?”
They entered and sat down in the hand-carved chairs around the large Spanish-style table. Father Gomez spoke directly to Sam.
“Do you have a strategy?” he asked.
Sam shook his head. “Nothing I can guarantee.”
“You have no plan, no strategy, to help save my people?” said Father Gomez coldly.
“Nothing I can talk about,” asserted Sam.
“What do you want us to do?” Dr. Huerta demanded.
“Take your people up the mountain to the fortress and tombs.”
Father Gomez glared at Sam. “I believe the villagers would just as soon die in their beds as be dragged down the hill to trucks that will carry them to the Estancia fields, where they would work themselves to death. And then there are the children. It will be like a concentration camp.”
Remi, who had been standing in the doorway unnoticed, stared at Sam with stunned incomprehension. “You don’t know what you’re saying. Sending the villagers up to the old fortress is like giving them a one-way ticket to a slow death.”