TWENTY-FIVE
The next hour passed in a blur for Diego. They arrived at the small pass they called the east gate into the valley, and Felipe hand-signaled a halt while he and several others searched for their own missing lookout, who should have been there. They found him hidden in the trees, shot and left for dead. From the looks of it, he died in his Capitán's arms after a few words. Felipe laid him back down and returned to remount Diablo, his face hard as granite. Two pointer fingers thrown outward signaled the split, and the two squads turned to follow their leaders single file.
A short time later, one of the men in Felipe's – Diego's – squad broke the silence. "Capitán!" he called in a piercing whisper. "The smoke!" It was rising from below, apparently from several fireplaces.
"I see it!" Felipe snapped. "Silence!"
"What's wrong with the smoke?" Diego whispered to the nearest man, as quietly as he could.
"It's a signal," came the equally low reply. "We always use the driest wood possible – no smoke."
Diego was riding well back in the squad, so he was not called on to take out either of the lookouts they encountered. After meeting up with Costa's squad, (sharing a strained look with Jaime), they returned along the south rim, turning off the path near the center and dismounting, hitching each horse to a tree behind the skyline from the valley. Then Felipe and Costa led them through a very narrow arroyo – one Diego had jumped Rojo over without even noticing it the first time – through the rim and down into the trees below. Diego decided to keep close to Felipe then, ending up a few feet away inside the trees. Costa was on Felipe's other side, and Jaime beyond.
All seemed quiet and still in the little pueblo scattered across the valley floor, except for the black smoke still rising from a few chimneys. Then it wasn't, as a soldier walked out from one building, and Felipe's hawk's scream whistle split the air, followed by several shots. A woman's piercing scream and other screams and shouting sounded from the largest building a moment later. More soldiers in uniform burst out of various houses to be cut down. The partisans remained in the trees, taking their shots. Diego held his rifle, but didn't shoot. He felt he was in this fight, but still detached from it. He couldn't bring himself to fire.
Suddenly the door of one house across the way burst open, and a large, sloppy man with corporal's insignia on his stained uniform sleeves lurched out, dragging a petite woman along with an arm around her neck. She looked tiny, almost childlike, compared to him. Her hands were tied behind her back, and her blouse had been ripped open, exposing her breasts. The corporal held a pistol to her head as he shouted challenges into the air, daring El Halcón to come out.
Diego saw her mouth move, saying something to the Corporal, and he replied before moving the hand around her neck to one of her breasts. Felipe, a few feet to his right, snarled, "Take him out!" in the lowest, deadliest voice Diego had ever heard, and he realized that she had to be Felipe's young wife. Costa knelt down and sighted his rifle on the corporal, propping it on a tree limb. Diego realized suddenly that he had never taken a good look at Costa's weapon: it was longer than standard by nearly a foot – one of the newer, far more accurate models.
Felipe's whistle suddenly sounded again – and the woman instantly folded her knees, dropping to the ground out of the corporal's grasp. Costa's rifle roared a beat later, and the corporal went down, his head blossoming blood.
But his finger had tightened on his pistol's trigger, too, sending a bullet across her head. Blood splattered against her tumbled black hair, as well.
"ANNA!" Felipe screamed, launching himself across the clearing. Diego found himself pounding after his brother without forming the conscious intention. He dropped to his knees beside the two, helping Felipe shove the beefy corporal off her still form. As Felipe scooped her up, clutching her close, Diego grabbed her legs.
"Felipe! Get her to safety!" he yelled. Felipe came to himself in an instant, surging up with her and lurching back towards the house the corporal had dragged her out of, Diego following on his heels with his half of the light burden. They went around to the side away from the others – away from the sounds of continued gunfire Diego now registered – and set her gently on the ground. Diego told Felipe to hold her upright while he pulled out his knife and slashed her bonds, then they propped her still-unconscious form against the wall.
"Anna!" Felipe was crying, his hands on either side of her still face. Diego knocked those hands away and took hold of her head, examining the wound in a trice.
"It's just a crease. Scalp wounds always bleed like mad. She'll be fine." He already knew she had no other wounds. Felipe was miles away, not absorbing the information, however, so Diego suddenly saw red. He whirled around, grabbing Felipe's collar. "Felipe!" he yelled into the younger man's face, finally getting his full attention. "She's fine! I've got her! You have work to do! Now GO!" And he shoved his brother backwards into the dirt.
Felipe gulped, snapping back to himself. He ripped off his jacket and laid it across his wife's exposed chest, leaned over and kissed her unresponsive lips, grabbed the pistol out of Diego's belt (he had forgotten he carried it – where was his rifle? He must have dropped it back in the trees), surged up, and ran around to the back of the house. Diego let him go, blocking out sounds of battle near and far, as he tore off his own jacket and then ripped off a shirt sleeve, rolling it up and pressing it to the wound on Marianna's scalp to absorb the sluggishly pumping blood, realizing a beat later he had remembered her full name.
She really was tiny, he realized now, looking like a porcelain doll. Standing, she'd barely fetch her husband's nose with the top of her head – and he was not quite six feet tall. He mentally brushed that aside and concentrated on the gash leaking blood into her glossy black hair.
A moment later, another woman ran back around the same corner and screeched to a stop at the sight of him there. He threw up a hand – the one not holding the sleeve pad. "It's all right! I'm with the Capitán – I'm new! Help me with this!" The woman gulped, not sure what to believe. "Hold this bandage tight!" he snapped, and that prodded her into action. Dropping to her knees beside him, she reached out to hold the pad, and he removed his hand and ripped off his other sleeve.
"Will she be all right?"
"She'll be fine. It's just a scalp wound. She'll be coming around in a minute." Diego wrapped his other sleeve around her head and tied it as best he could, holding the pad in place against the wound. "Keep holding it, put pressure on it to stop the bleeding." He noticed out of the corner of his eyes that the other woman's blouse had likewise been ripped open, but ignored it.
"Marianna! Marianna! Please wake up!" The woman began patting her face with her other hand. After a moment, moaning, Marianna's eyes fluttered open.
"Sofia?" she murmured, dazed. Then she registered this strange man bending over her and gasped, eyes flying open wide, and tried to shrink back.
As he had a moment earlier, Diego threw up his hands, saying rapidly, "It's all right! I'm with the Capitán – with Felipe! I've joined the company!" With this, his sister-in-law, he added, voice a little calmer, "In fact, I'm his brother. I'm Diego de la Vega."
That didn't seem to help. "He said his brother is dead," Marianna shook her head, her eyes still full of fear.
"He was mistaken," Diego told her, as reassuringly as he could manage. "His mind was playing tricks on him." Then he gave up. "It's a long story."
"Aren't they all?" she asked, seemingly rhetorically. Diego blinked at her using the same phrase Felipe had, then recognized it a beat later for what it was: proof they were a couple. What pair didn't have their shared code words and phrases? Before he could react, Marianna's eyes had fallen on herself. "This is his jacket? Where is – never mind," she cut herself off as a burst of gunfire sounded from the other side of the house. Diego had to admire her calm presence of mind. He slipped his jacket back on over his now sleeveless shirt.
The other woman – Sofia – silent through this exchange, broke in. "The children! Señor! Our children – they are missing!"
"They're fine!" he jumped to reassure them both, as Marianna's face also panicked. "Sara got them all out – they're in the east village. We just came from there!"
"Oh thank God!" both women seemed to breathe together, clutching at each other for support.
"Here, let's get you up and back inside under cover," Diego said, reaching for Marianna's hand and arm to help her stand. Sofia held her other arm, as Marianna held Felipe's jacket across her chest to assist her modesty. As soon as she was on her feet, Marianna firmly withdrew her hand from Diego's.
"Thank you, Señor. I am fine," she said with quiet dignity. "There will be others who need you more. Please go and help them."
Diego recognized a polite dismissal when he heard it. He tipped his head with a little smile, feeling as though they'd been transported to a fine parlor. "Señora." Nodding at Sofia as well, he stepped past them to the corner of the house.
"Now there's a fine gentleman," he heard Sofia murmur, and Marianna replied, "Now we know where Felipe got his manners," and smiled, then turned his attention to assessing the situation at large.
The partisans had come out of the trees, and were methodically scouring the village for each of the invaders. One such burst out of hiding and was cut down by several guns at once. Each of the men lying sprawled on the ground wore soldier's uniforms, and weren't moving. Diego shook his head to forcibly clear it and looked closer, searching for wounded. This is why I'm here, he thought. As medic, I can help.
Screams and cries were still coming from the largest building across the way, although they didn't seem to be signaling ongoing attack any more. As he sprinted in that direction, he realized they sounded like pain, not fear. One of the partisans – he recognized Carlos a moment later – ran out the front door and looked around, yelling Diego's name. "Here!" he called back, reaching him a moment later. Carlos grabbed his arm and pulled him inside.
"Selma!" he cried. "My wife! She is badly burned!" He hurried Diego over to a large kitchen area, where they knelt down beside the woman still keening. Large, ugly blisters covered both of her palms, which she held out stiffly in front of her. Diego swore.
"Get a bucket of water!" he ordered Carlos, who surged back up and ran out. Diego turned to another woman kneeling beside Selma, holding her wrists. Kneeling beside Selma, Diego reached around and took her wrists from the woman, holding them apart and away from anything else. "Is there an ice house here? Get some!" She nodded, her face white, and like Carlos lurched up and ran. Moments later, ice added to the water bucket, Diego plunged her hands into the water, and Selma finally fainted into his arms. He doubted the relief was that instant, but any lessening was a goodness. Carlos knelt by her other side and eased her into his own arms, tenderness etched into his hardened, sunburned face.
"What happened?" Diego asked both the others, and finally got the story. Selma had grabbed a boiling pot of stew off the fire with her bare hands when Felipe's initial attack whistle had sounded, and thrown it into the face of the soldier guarding them, blinding him. The others trapped there had then jumped on the soldier and killed him – Diego did not ask how. He ignored the body of the soldier lying several feet away.
"Will she be all right?" Carlos asked in a strangled whisper. When Diego nodded, he nearly fainted himself in relief.
"It will take many weeks, and she – and we – must be very careful, but she should recover. Keep her hands in this bucket, but not touching the ice directly, for a couple of hours, to leech out the fire. Bring them out every few minutes so they don't freeze. And Do. Not. Pop the blisters! We'll wrap them very loosely in bandages this evening. That's about all we can do for now."
Carlos nodded. "Can't you help the pain?"
"Do you have any laudanum?"
"Yes. Ask Gino."
"I'll get it," the woman put in quickly and left, returning a few minutes later with a large brown bottle. Diego hated using the stuff, but it was the only method they had for handling what he knew was going to be Selma's excruciating pain. He got Carlos' permission to keep her dosed for the next several days, to get her past the worst of it, and (after examining the bottle's label closely and hoping it was telling the truth) told him and the woman, whose name, he discovered, was Anita, exactly how much to give and how often. Anita's husband, Miguel, had come back in with her.
The sounds of warfare coming from outside had been slowly fading all this time; now mostly silence descended, until suddenly new ugly, obscene shouts were heard. Diego helped Carlos shift the still-unconscious Selma into a more comfortable position and then left them together to walk outside to investigate.
All the rest of the guerrilleros, it seemed to Diego, were loosely gathered in the open area between the buildings; some four dozen men and more than a dozen women, most of the latter in a man's (their husband's, he vaguely hoped) arms. But all attention was now on a new group of six nasty-looking men on foot, being chivvied along by the four mounted partisans who Felipe had sent to San Pedro, the west village, at the start of the operation.
"Gina! Where is she? What have you done with her?" One of the partisans came flying out of nowhere towards the nasty group. Diego recognized Mario, and realized dimly he'd been hearing him calling for his wife for the past many minutes. Apparently she – and their baby Julio – were still missing.
"We don't know! We haven't seen her!" one of the captives replied. "Mario, I'm telling the truth! We don't know!" They knew each other, Diego realized. What the hell is going on here?
One of the captives, a tall, lean man with a hardened, sneering look, was doing all the shouting, while the other five shuffled rather sheepishly along behind him. The leader was brandishing his long knife, yelling for someone to come out and face him "like a man".
Of course, he was yelling for Felipe. El Halcón. He knew the name.
And here came Felipe from his house, his face icy granite again. Diego couldn't believe what he was about to witness, and started purposely towards his brother. Costa beat him there, whispering in Felipe's ear and getting some reply. Then Felipe saw Diego coming, but waved him sharply off, pulling out his own knife as he turned towards the newcomer. Everyone else backed off and gave them room. It seemed there was about to be a knife fight.