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.
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 amounted 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, Senora 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.”
“The trucks can’t navigate the narrow trail up the mountain,” said Sam.
“But a hundred men with deadly arms can’t be stopped with a few old shotguns,” Remi argued.
Sam shrugged. “I see no other way out.”
Remi stepped over to Sam and stared with anguish into his eyes. “Who are you?” she gasped. “You’re not the man I’ve known and loved.”
He gave her a look of indifference she’d never seen before.
As Remi turned to speak, Sam had walked from the vestry without looking back at his lovely wife.
Chapter 30
The next day, the mothers, children, and the elderly were led by Remi to the ruined stronghold on the plateau. There they would gather hundreds of stones to throw down at the attackers if they tried to climb the narrow path up. Remi determined where the best locations were behind a rock-stack barrier to fire at any attacker who reached the top.
