The Adventurers (2 page)

"Por qui, senor?"

"This was a strong man," the journalist said. "The earth moved before him when he walked, men loved him and feared him, women trembled at the power in his loins, people sought his favors. And now there is no one here who remembers him." He began to turn away. "You were right. The dead are alone."

The director caught at his sleeve again. The journalist turned to face him. He felt weary and tired. He wanted to be back in the bar at the new hotel with a tall cool drink. He wished he hadn't found the notice, hadn't come out into the terrible sun to this horrible place, to this world without memory.

"No, senor," the director said softly. "I was wrong. He was not alone. You were here."

BOOK 1

VIOLENCE & POWER

CHAPTER 1

I was playing in the hot sun of the front yard when I heard the first thin scream from far down the road toward town. My dog heard it too, for suddenly he stopped frisking around me and the little adobe hut I was trying to build in the hard-baked dirt. He looked up at me, his eyes white and frightened, his yellow tail curving protectively against his testes. He stood very still and began to tremble.

"Quien es?" I asked, my hand reaching to soothe him. I knew he was frightened but I didn't know why. The scream had been eerie and curiously disturbing but I wasn't frightened. Fear is something that has to be learned. I was still too young. I was six years old.

There was the rattle of gunfire in the distance. It quickly died away and then came the sound of another scream, this one louder and more terrified than the first.

The dog broke and raced away to the cane field, ears flat against his head. I ran after him, screaming, "Peru! Peru! Venga aqui!"

By the time I reached the edge of the field he was already gone. I stood very still, trying to locate him by sound amidst the heavy stalks.

"Perro!" I shouted.

He did not come back. The sugar cane rustled slightly in the warm breeze. I could smell its pungent sweetness. It had rained last night and the sugar was wet and heavy in the stalks. Suddenly I was aware that I was alone.

The workmen who were there only a few minutes ago were gone. They had vanished like the dog. I stood there thinking that my father would be very angry with them. At ten centavos an hour, he expected each of them to give him a full measure of work.

"Dax!"

The scream came from the house behind me. I turned around. My older sister and one of the kitchen girls were standing on the galena along the front of the house.

"Dax! Dax!" my sister screamed, her arm waving.

"The dog ran into the cane," I shouted back, and turned once more to look into the field.

A moment later I heard her footsteps behind me and before I could turn around she had scooped me up in her arms and was running back toward the house. I could hear her labored breath against my ear and the sobbing husky murmur of her voice. "Ah, Dios! Dios!"

My mother was at the doorway even before we reached the galena. "Quickly. A la bodega!" she hissed. "The wine cellar."

We pushed through the doorway. La Perla, the fat Indian cook, was standing behind my mother. She took me from my sister and began to hurry through the house to the pantry off the kitchen. Behind us I heard the click of the heavy bolt on the front door.

"What is it, La Perla?" I asked. "Donde esta Papa?"

She held me tighter to her heavy bosom. "Shh, nino."

The pantry door was open and we clattered down the cellar steps. The other servants were there already, their faces dark and frightened in the shadows cast by the small candle burning on top of a wine barrel.

La Perla set me down on a small bench. "Now sit there and be quiet!"

I looked up at her. This was fun, I thought, more fun than playing in the yard. It was a new kind of game.

La Perla hastened up the stairs again. I could hear her hoarse voice shouting above me. A moment later my sister came down, and there were tears running down her cheeks. She ran over to me and put her arms around my neck and pulled my head down to her chest.

I pulled away angrily. Her chest hurt my face. It was bony. It wasn't comforting and soft and warm like La Perla's. "Leave me alone," I said.

My mother came down the steps, her face drawn and thin. I heard the sound of the heavy cellar door being slammed and bolted, and then La Perla came too, her face red from the exertion. In her hand she held a huge cleaver, the one she used to chop off the heads of the chickens.

Mother looked down at me. "Are you all right?" "Si, Mama," I said. "But Perro ran away. He ran into the cane field. I couldn't find him."

But she wasn't listening. She was trying to hear any sounds from the outside. It was a waste of time. No sound could penetrate this far into the ground.

One of the servant girls suddenly began to cry hysterically.

"Shut up!" La Perla hissed, with a threatening gesture of the cleaver. "Do you want them to hear us? Do you want to get us all killed?"

The girl shut up. I was glad that La Perla had made her because my sister stopped crying too. I didn't like her to cry. Her face gets all ugly and red.

I held my breath and tried to listen. I could hear nothing. "Mama—"

"Quiet, Dax," she whispered sternly.

I had a question to ask. "Where's Papa?"

At that my sister began to cry again.

"Shut up!" my mother hissed, then turned to me. "Papa will be here in a little while. But we must be very quiet until he comes. Comprende?"

I nodded. I turned to look at my sister. She was sobbing under her breath now. I could see that she was frightened but there was no real reason for her to cry. I reached out for her hand. "No tengas miedo," I whispered. "I am here."

Somehow a smile pushed its way through her tears. She pulled me close. "My little hero," she whispered. "My protector."

The thud of heavy boots came from the ceiling overhead. Suddenly they seemed to be all over the house.

"Los bandoleros!" one of the maids screamed. "They will kill us!"

"Shut up!" This time La Perla did more than speak. Her hand flashed in the dim light. The maid tumbled to the floor whimpering softly. The footsteps seemed to be coming toward the kitchen.

"The candle!" my mother whispered hoarsely. The small light went out abruptly. We sat there in the blackness.

"Mama, I can't see," I said.

I felt a hand press across my mouth. I tried to see in the dark but all I could do was listen to the sounds of the others breathing. The footsteps were over our heads now. They seemed to be in the kitchen.

I heard the crash of a table as it was overturned and dimly the voices of men, the sound of their laughter. There was the creak of a door, and now they were in the pantry. The cellar door rattled. I could now hear their voices more clearly.” The chickens must be hiding down there," one of them said, and there was a sound of laughter.

"Cock a doodle doo," another crowed. "Your rooster is here."

There was a kick at the door. "Abre la puerta!"

I could feel the girls shrinking back against the wall. I felt my sister shiver. "They're only looking for chickens," I whispered. "Tell them they're in the coop back of the house."

No one answered. They didn't seem to mind any more if I spoke. La Perla pushed past me in the darkness and stood at the foot of the steps waiting. A heavy blow against the door reverberated through the cellar.

One of the maids fell to her knees and began to pray hysterically as there was another crash from above. A panel of the door gave way and then it sprang open, as a stream of light came tumbling down the steps to reveal La Perla standing there, resolute as a rock, the cleaver reflecting the light like a silvered mirror.

Some men came down the stairs. There were three that I could see. The others were behind, so all I could see were their legs.

The first one stopped when he saw La Perla. "An old fat hen. Not worth the bother." He knelt slightly and peered under the overhang. "But there are others. Young and juicy ones. The old hen stands guard on her flock."

"Bastardos!" La Perla said through her teeth.

The man straightened up almost negligently and the short-barreled musket in his hand exploded with a blinding flash.

The acrid smell of gunpowder was strong in my nostrils and as my eyes cleared I could see La Perla stagger back against the wall opposite the steps. She seemed to hang there suspended for a moment, then began slowly to slide down the wall. The side of her face and neck was completely gone. There was nothing but a raw red mass of flesh and bone.

"La Perla!"

My mother screamed and ran toward her. Almost without effort the man seemed to reverse the musket in his hand and club my mother across the head as she ran past him. She collapsed suddenly, falling across La Perla's body with a curiously crumpled look on her face.

"Mama!" I started to run toward her but my sister's fingers were like vises and I couldn't move. "Mama!" I screamed again.

The servant girl who had been praying fainted, sprawling grotesquely out on the floor. The man came down off the last step, stepping over La Perla and my mother. He looked down for a moment at the servant, then rolled her casually out of the way with his foot. The others pushed down the steps behind him. There were eleven of them.

He noticed the candle on the barrel. "La candela," he said, gesturing.

One of the men struck a match. Its yellow light danced eerily in the cellar. The leader looked around at us. "Ah, four pullets and a young cock."

My sister's voice came from behind me. It suddenly sounded older and more full bodied than I had ever heard it. "What do you want?" she asked. "Take what you will and go."

The man stared at her for a moment. His eyes were black and they shone like coals. "This one is mine," he said casually. "You are welcome to the others."

The girl who had fainted came to her senses just in time to hear. She screamed and scrambled to her feet. She tried to run past the others toward the stairs but one of them caught her by her long loose black hair. He jerked her back, and she stumbled backward to her knees. He turned her toward him, holding her head back until her face was almost turned completely up to him, her mouth open, gasping for air. With his free hand he ripped at the front of her dress but the coarse cotton was too strong. It wouldn't tear.

With an angry curse he let her go, then his hand came up with a knife. It slashed quickly down the front of the dress. The coarse shift fell away like the husk from an ear of corn. A thin pencil-like streak, starting at her throat and running down between her breasts and across her brown Indian belly into the heavy matting of pubic hair, suddenly began to well crimson. She screamed and tried to get away, scrambling on her hands and knees, but he laughed aloud and pulled her back by her hair.

She tried to get away again. Quickly he reversed the knife in his hand and hooked the butt end viciously upward between her legs, and this time she screamed in pure agony.

She crumpled to the floor at his feet, writhing in pain. The sharp blade end of the knife reflected the crazy yellow lights from the candle as it stuck upright from between her legs. He put his heavily booted foot on her belly to hold her still and started to pull at the rope belt that held up his pantalones.

By now the others were at the other servant girls. Niella, who was my mother's personal maid, was already stripped naked and bent backward across a wine barrel, held on either side by a bandolero as a third began to mount her. Sarah, the Indian girl La Perla had brought down from the hills to help in the kitchen, was sprawled on the floor on the other side of the cellar behind a row of wooden crates.

The leader turned. His broad body blocked the rest of the room. "Get rid of the boy," he said quietly, "or I will kill him."

My sister began to push me away.

I turned to look up at her face. It was dull and glazed. Her eyes seemed to have no life in them. "No! No!" I screamed.

"Go behind the boxes in the corner and do not look," she said. It wasn't her voice. It was a stranger's voice, cold and distant. One I had never heard before.

"No!"

The sharp sting of her slap ran down my cheek. "Vaya! Do as I say!"

It wasn't the pain. It was the note of authority in her voice. I began to cry.

"Go!"

Rubbing my eyes, I turned away and huddled down behind the boxes. I was still crying. Suddenly I started to wet my pants. How quickly we learn the meaning of fear.