Orchid House (39 page)

Emman directed Julia outside of town and along a curving road into the wooded mountains not far from the rough road of Barangay Mahinahon. This road, paved years ago, was pocked with potholes and washedout edges. Julia drove carefully, mindful of the lack of seat belts. She also didn't want Mang Berto to have a heart attack over one of his damaged babies.

The boy pointed to a smooth pull-off area, and Julia turned, seeing a small road cut into the jungle. They drove down the secluded road for some time until it ended in a small clearing. Emman was sitting on the window frame watching for Amang Tenio when a surprised expression came over his face.

Around the corner they encountered a half-ruined house and a group of men with weapons in their hands.

“Turn around, Miss Julia,” Emman said under his breath. “Boys, get your weapons.”

The children sprang into action.

Before Julia could turn the wheel, she saw two armed men step into the narrow road fifty yards behind them.

“Wait a minute,” Emman said.

And then she saw Amang Tenio.

He put his cane in the air. “What are you doing here?” he said angrily, first to Julia and then to Emman.

“You said you were gathering herbs.”

“You had instructions. They were not to be questioned. Emman, you've brought Julia into the exact danger we're trying to avoid.”

Emman held his gun protectively at his chest and stood up further in the car as if to protect her.

Julia realized this was some kind of summit between warring leaders. She saw a man standing where Amang Tenio had been, his guerrilla fighters a dozen feet behind him. An equal number of Barangay Mahinahon men faced them. But the two men on the road were not their allies; she knew this in a moment.

Even as she saw young Bok jump from the car with his rifle in hand, Julia didn't fully register danger.

“Boys, stay around the car,” Amang Tenio said in a firm tone. The old man moved steadily back to the meeting of men.

W
HAT KIND OF A PLOY WAS THIS? MANALO WONDERED. IT MADE
no sense for Amang Tenio to request this gathering and then bring the American woman straight into the midst of negotiations. The old sage was regarded with respect and honor, but Manalo had seen enough corruption in men of integrity to know not to trust anyone. The American woman and a carload of armed children arriving just when the old man had said he wanted to negotiate a peaceful solution for her to remain at the hacienda.

Manalo wanted Comrade Pilo to be taken down, and the Barangay Mahinahon could do this. So why the woman, here, now?

Manalo's thoughts ran the gamut of possibilities. Perhaps Amang Tenio wanted to blame the Red Bolos—but why, when they actually had orders to eliminate her if no other solution could be found? What if this was some kind of test from higher up—did they really distrust him that much? Or had they been lied to and brought to this meeting to be ambushed? The code between guerrilla fighters had been broken before, though he could hardly believe it of the famous fighters of the Barangay Mahinahon.

Manalo motioned for Timeteo, and his old friend came forward. Manalo glanced beyond the American's car to where Paco and his son blocked her vehicle. This could be bad. And for now, no one was leaving.

But something was definitely not right.

And the sky looked like blood.

E
MMAN STARED WITH THE FIERCEST GAZE HE COULD MUSTER AT THE
leader of the Red Bolos. His hands wouldn't stop shaking, and his ears were ringing or pounding like a heartbeat or both; he wasn't sure.

He'd put them all in danger. He should have listened; it was the most basic rule of a soldier—follow your superior's order. But he'd thought Miss Julia was safer with them, especially going to where Amang Tenio would be.

Then Emman remembered his cousins talking about Ka Manalo. He was the man responsible for Artur's death. They wished to avenge him, and now Emman was here. Perhaps this was his great opportunity to show his worth.

Little Kiko was climbing out of the truck. Emman put his hand out to stop him, but the boy got off balance with his wooden gun in hand. Kiko grabbed at the gun and Bok tried to grab him, while from the corner of his eye Emman saw the guerrillas react, both theirs and the Red Bolos.

He lifted his rifle and pointed it directly toward the chest of Ka Manalo.

J
ULIA SAW AMANG TENIO, AND THE FOUR CHILDREN REMAINED
planted in front of the white Packard. Then Kiko started to slide off the side of the car. She tried to grab him as the others responded.

The old man's face was contorted in alarm as he hurriedly tried to gesture the children to lower their guns. The bandits were fast and well trained. The moment they saw the children aim their guns, they immediately drew their own firearms.

Julia sank lower in her seat as Amang Tenio shouted for her to get down. The gunfire began. Strangely, a gun sounded like the pop from
Pop! Ba-ba-bum-bum
in the song they'd just been singing. Her heart felt cold with fear. She could see Kiko standing with a stunned expression; she wanted to move, but she couldn't make herself get to him.

Then she was moving, just more slowly than her brain wanted to go. Grabbing the back of his shirt, Julia pulled the little boy over the side of the car and into the front seat, where she pushed him down into the floorboard.

Suddenly the driver's side door opened, opposite the side where the gunfire had started and abruptly stopped. Bok peered in and said, “Miss Julia, come on.”

She hesitated, and he motioned again. “Emman said to get you.”

Julia no longer saw the men down the road; not seeing them was more terrifying than seeing them. As she left the car and followed Bok into the thicket, she was afraid they'd reappear at any second.

“Where are Kiko and the other boys?” she asked. “I thought they'd follow.”

“I'll go see,” Bok said, but Julia grabbed his arm.

“Not without me.”

“Just for a minute, Miss Julia. Two are louder than one.”

More gunfire dropped them to the ground, and Julia crawled beneath the fans of a large stand of ferns. Bok had disappeared. Birds were flying in the air and cawing in anger at the disturbance, and if not for their reaction she might have wondered if it had all actually occurred. The jungle settled into an eerie silence.

Everything had happened so quickly. She waited, feeling the impact of their sudden peril. The cool earth brought a shiver through her perspiring body as she huddled beside a hollow tree trunk. Julia listened intently, but the loudest sound she heard was her own heartbeat. Then a bird chirped, the familiar call she'd heard often from the hacienda porch. As the sound drew closer, she suddenly heard a very low whisper, so close she jumped and nearly screamed.

“Miss Julia?”

A small hand reached through the bright green leaves, and she took it.

“Come on,” Bok said in a hushed but fearful voice. They moved rapidly through the brush. Julia had no idea which way they were headed, back toward the car or deeper into the jungle, but then Bok stopped and lifted back a makeshift lid. Together they slid into an old underground bunker, virtually invisible in the jungle. They crouched inside and closed the hatch above. Light filtered through the bamboo slats and foliage growing over the top. Bok wiped his face, and then she saw blood.

“You're injured,” Julia exclaimed, leaning close to examine him.

He shook his head and turned to show he was okay. He sat very still as Julia stared at him in concern until suddenly round tears came spilling from his eyes. His lips shook and he sniffed.

Julia took his small body in her arms, setting his gun awkwardly away from them. He shook silently against her shoulder for a long time with his fingers rubbing one of the shells of her necklace between his thumb and fingers. When he finally pulled back, his cheeks and the shoulder of her blouse were smeared with dirt, tears, and blood. Bok looked embarrassed, but Julia took him into another embrace.

“It's okay,” she said over and over again.

Finally his empty sobs fell still, and he remained against her until Julia thought he'd fallen asleep.

“People were shot,” Bok finally whispered, his shoulders shaking anew.

“Who?” She pulled the boy away from her, trying to see his face in the low light.

“The leader of the other group and some others. Emman got shot in the leg, but I think he's okay. And—”

“Emman!” Julia wanted to rush out of there and help, not cower in a hole in the ground. “Who else?”

“My godfather,” he said, and large tears once again fell from the boy's eyes, and he buried his face against her shoulder.

“Amang Tenio? Are you sure?”

The boy nodded his head. “They killed him.”

I
T CAME TO HIM AS HE STARED UP AT GREEN LEAVES THAT MOVED
in the breeze. The sky was an odd color. And then a knowledge came over him that he was made of earth and becoming earth again.

Manalo didn't wish to die. He longed for mountain roads and to be an old man with a pipe telling stories to his grandchildren, going fishing with his oldest friend. And yet now, as his life bled into the earth around him and he heard the gunfire and shouts of Timeteo and others he didn't know, he knew it was right, that he must die. His family was not free with him alive. And though Malaya would long for him always as he would her if she'd left him first, his wife would understand that it was their joint sacrifice for their children to be free.

There was something he and Timeteo planned. Ah yes, not quite this, but the same effect. His friend would take care of his family. With him dead, the chain would break now—his son would not seek revenge, for Timeteo would give him the letter. His son would not follow in footsteps that dripped in blood.

What have you done with these years that I've given to you?

Someone was talking to him. And he saw who it was. And he remembered, knowing who spoke as he knew no one else in all the world.

“I'm not going to live.”

“What, what did you say?”

Take care of them. You must be the one to tell her. Tell my sons the stories, but tell them I want them to be fishermen or farmers. Tell them to have many children. Let them love. . . .

Manalo thought he was speaking, but he realized his lips would not form those words. Timeteo stared into his eyes and gathered it from him, this he believed.

“When did he get here?” Manalo asked, gazing beyond Timeteo. “Who?” Timeteo said. Ah, so his friend heard that time. The gunfire had stopped. A car sped away.

“You must go,” he told Timeteo.

“No. I will not.”

He wanted to say that if he didn't go he would be arrested, or the men of the Barangay Mahinahon would take revenge and who would tell Malaya and they may not be assured of her safety or that she'd be taken care of.

The only word that came out was “Go.” Manalo then asked, “Where are we going?”

Timeteo thought he was speaking to him.

I've failed at everything and always while trying to choose what was right. And so it ends.
Manalo thought or heard it said that it wasn't the end, but only a beginning; in spite of his failures, there was still time to redeem, though much had been lost.

What did it mean? Manalo could not tell. But he would go there, he knew, and find out.

And as he went away, to walk awhile, he whispered good-bye to a girl with the silkiest black hair—and he couldn't for the life of him remember if it was his wife or one of his daughters. And in the end, it didn't matter. He loved them both and someday would find them again.

TWENTY-FOUR

N
ightfall came, and from a great distance Julia and Bok heard more gunfire, the sound of automatic rifles in a barrage that lasted only a few minutes. Then some scattered shots and again, silence. Julia prayed silently, hidden in a dirt hole with a young boy in a country far from all she'd ever known. She thought of her mother, and of Nathan, and of the concerns she'd filled her life with while living in the States. And then she thought of the people here she'd come to love so quickly.

Bok made the birdcall a few times with his head outside the hatch. Finally there came an answer. The next moment Emman appeared and, once he'd joined them in the underground bunker, turned on a flashlight. He took Julia's hand and helped her outside.

“What happened, Emman?”

“It is over now, Miss Julia. I am sorry I was so rough with you.” He brushed off dirt from her shoulders.

She couldn't see his face. “Is Amang Tenio dead?” she asked.

Emman didn't answer. He turned the flashlight off again. “Take my hand and come quickly. Markus has a car at the road.”

They shuffled through the jungle to a road that wasn't far from the hatch. Emman signaled with his light, and a truck rumbled to life.

As they approached the truck, Julia saw Markus standing at the open passenger door. He ran to them and took her into his arms.