Chapter 11

BOLO WAS NOWHERE IN SIGHT when Yaquita burst downstairs into the cantina. She paused only a moment to preen in front of the numerous mirrors on the wall while the practicing musicians hid from her, then she raced into the alley. Her eyes blazed, her coppery skin flushed with simmering anger. Even the feral chickens squawked and scuttled out of her way, ducking to safety under rusty gutters.

By one of the outbuildings with the corrugated metal roofs, Yaquita tore away a stained tarpaulin to reveal a beat-up black Volkswagen beetle. She tossed the tarp into the gutter, adding more stains, then leaped into the car. Even before she managed to swing the door shut, she twisted the key as if wringing the neck of one of the chickens.

Yaquita sped away at a suicidal pace. Leaving Santa Isabel behind, the VW scrambled up a steep Andes mountain road, careening over potholes, grinding gears and belching blue-white exhaust. She did not look over the crumbling edge to where a graveyard of crashed vehicles lay far below, glinting in the sun.

The black VW hurtled toward a shallow stream in a gorge. Gritting her teeth and clenching the steering wheel, Yaquita plunged the puttering car into the water. She managed to roll up her window an instant before a fury of spray and mud made a rooster tail on either side of her car, but she drove straight across. No mountain and no river was going to slow her down, not today. If Pedrito was back, and if Colonel Enrique and Colonel Ivan expected her to cooperate with their schemes, she would give them a piece of her mind . . . or preferably a piece of her fists. She could always make it back in time to castrate Pedrito, if she still felt like it.

Finally reaching a grassy plateau, Yaquita saw several military vehicles hidden under nets and pyramidal tents painted in camouflage colors. Brightly dressed Indian farmers tended their sheep and cows, completely oblivious to the military presence.

The mud-covered Volkswagen streaked up and braked in a cloud of dust thirty feet from the central headquarters tent. Guerrilla soldiers took one look at Yaquita’s eyes, then rushed from her path. She marched toward the open tent flap with murder in her eyes.

Inside the main structure two cluttered cots sat against the near canvas wall, stacked with odds and ends of military equipment. Across from the entrance flap a field desk supported a crude radio setup.

The Russian and Cuban colonels reclined on frayed camp chairs, their backs foolishly turned toward the tent opening. Ivan puffed on a huge, fragrant Cuban cigar. Casually, he tilted the bottle of vodka in his hand to pour into a pair of glasses on a tray between them.

“What a day,” Colonel Ivan said, exhaling a long curl of thick cigar smoke. “What a glorious day!”

Enrique slouched in his chair, decidedly drunk. “Tell me what you said before, Ivan,” the Cuban said, his eyes fixed on the vodka bottle, as if he wanted another drink but was too tired to pick it up. “You know, about the revolution . . . and the rabbits.”

“You want to hear it again?” Ivan asked. “But I’ve told you, so many times before.”

“Again,” Enrique demanded. “And don’t forget the rabbits.”

“Ah, you tell it,” Ivan said. “You’ve heard it so often, you know how it goes.”

“No, I want to hear it from you, Ivan,” Enrique begged.

Ivan took a puff from his cigar, and after a long, satisfied sigh, he said, “Men like you and me, Enrique, we are not like other men.”

“That’s how it goes,” Enrique said. “Don’t forget the rabbits. . . .”

Ivan grinned patiently. “Of course I won’t forget, Comrade. . . .” Ivan said. “You see, other men are lonely creatures, men who toil from day to day, seeking lowly creature comforts, ground beneath the thumbs of tyrants and capitalist oppressors. But we aren’t like that, are we?”

“No,” Enrique said. “We aren’t like that . . .”

“Because?” Ivan prodded.

“Because we have each other!” Enrique shouted triumphantly.

“That’s right, we have each other. We are comrades, yes?”

“Yes,” Enrique said.

“That means I take care of you, and you take care of me. And while other men toil for worldly gain, struggling just to keep their heads above the ever-rising deluge of greed and degradation that their taskmasters heap upon them, you and I do not do that, eh, Comrade. We do not do that. Instead of toiling for money, we toil for what?”

“For the revolution!” Enrique shouted triumphantly.

“That’s right, for the revolution. We toil for revolution.” They lifted their glasses for a toast. Ivan tossed the vodka into his mouth, sloshing it around his cheeks.

“Don’t forget the part about the rabbits!” Enrique said and gulped his own vodka.

Yaquita appeared in the tent door, smoldering and speechless. “You droppings of a syphilitic vulture!” she shouted with venom. “How dare you do this to me?”

The colonels sprayed out their vodka, then both fell out of their camp chairs.

Yaquita advanced two steps into the tent, pausing beside the cots loaded with surplus equipment. “You did not say Pedrito was the agent I was supposed to meet!” She seized upon the nearest throwing-size object, a leather case that contained a pair of field glasses.

The colonels wheeled away from their fallen chairs; Ivan dropped the bottle of vodka. The field-glass case swooshed between them and struck the billowing tent wall even as they ducked.

Next Yaquita threw a military compass. “You hoodwinked me!”

The Russian ducked the compass and turned to the Cuban. “Why does she always throw things, Comrade?”

A metal first-aid box hit Enrique in the chest just below his billowing beard and knocked him back down. “Ouch! I’ve tried to get her to put down her feelings in a letter, express herself in prose. I think it would be safer for all of us — but she won’t listen!”

“You betrayed me,” Yaquita said, “both of you! You know how I despise Pedrito!”

A canteen hit Ivan in the head and knocked him down as well.

“You tried to con me!” She swung a glittering ammunition belt around her head like a heavy sling, then she let it fly.

Enrique’s reedy Cuban aide scuttled up behind her with a drawn pistol. He ducked beneath the swinging bandolier and jammed the pistol into her back.

Yaquita dodged sideways like a cobra on a hot rock just as she threw the belt. She grabbed the reedy man’s wrist and hurled him across the tent at the colonels, just another object to throw. He struck the center pole, which buckled under his weight. The entire headquarters tent collapsed, dumping folds of canvas on all the occupants.

Outside, as bored guerrillas stood around, lumpy forms moved about under the collapsed canvas, searching for a way out.

“Yaquita! Be sensible!” Colonel Enrique said, muffled under the tent.

“Da! The pay is good,” Colonel Ivan said.

“Yaquita,” Enrique said, “you do not realize how important this is.”

“Your mission will deliver all of South America into our hands!” Ivan said. “And when South America rises up — the whole world will follow! We must be successful. You are not cleared for all the details, of course, but believe me — Pedrito Miraflores is the only man who can accomplish this.”

Yaquita lifted the corner of the tent and emerged unruffled, like a princess. She paced back and forth, her face stormy but contemplative. The guerrillas took one look at her and immediately found other important duties.

“Yaquita,” Enrique wailed from under the canvas, “think of the cause! Remember . . . remember the part about the rabbits!”

She stopped in her tracks as a hurricane of emotions passed across her face. Finally she tossed her flowing black hair over her shoulder, set her jaw, then raised her fist in a stern revolutionary salute. “All right, then. Long live the revolution!” She muttered under her breath, “Even if it means I have to kiss and make up with Pedrito for now! But I warn you: when the revolution comes, he will be first against the wall!”

As the two colonels clawed free of the collapsed tent, Yaquita strode back to the battered black beetle, still dissatisfied, but resigned to do what was necessary.

The Volkswagen tore back through the rocky stream, where splashed water washed off the first coating of mud. She streaked back down the steep mountain road, whipping around hairpin curves and dodging packed buses. Yaquita managed to keep the majority of wheels on the road at any one time.

She drove so well that her tire tracks lined up with her previous marks on the dirt road, but all the time she was preoccupied with extravagant visions of everything she would do to Pedrito when all this was over.

She had quite a vivid imagination.