Mondragón spun back into the mine. The rocks around him exploded in fragmenting lines as a steady stream of bullets followed him in. The rounds ricocheted off the walls, and the roar of the gunfire from outside sounded like Armageddon had arrived. It was automatic rifle fire, and I had no way of telling how many shooters there might be.
“Behind there!” I shouted at Rainy, pointing toward the doghouse rock where we’d found the bloodstain.
Mondragón grabbed the Weatherby he’d brought, and I pressed myself into the questionable protection of a slight indentation in the wall with the Winchester in my hands. I could see most of the thirty yards of open ground in front of the mine and spotted one of the shooters in a tier of rocks on the far side. He was laying down a steady lacing of bullets into the floor near where Mondragón had flattened himself against the wall opposite me.
“You okay?” I called in a momentary lull in the gunfire.
“Not hit. Where’s Rainy?”
“Here,” she called from behind us. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Any suggestions?”
“Just sit tight,” Mondragón offered.
“And then what?”
If he gave an answer, I didn’t hear it. The storm of bullets came again, chewing up the rock all around us. I thought that if they kept that up long enough, they’d run out of ammunition eventually. They must have thought so, too, because in the next moment the gunfire died away.
From the rocks came a voice with a Hispanic accent: “You in the cave. We want Peter Bisonette. Tell us where he is and we’ll leave you in peace.”
“Chinga tu madre!” Mondragón shouted.
A few shots came in return, but not the hail of bullets that had been fired before.
“We can blow you up, if that’s what you want,” the voice informed us.
Mondragón responded in Spanish. I couldn’t understand the words, but the tone needed no translation.
I could still see the man who’d laced the floor with fire from his automatic. I was deep in the shadow of the mine and pretty certain he couldn’t see me. I cradled the butt of the Winchester stock to my shoulder and sighted carefully. If he behaved as he had before, in the moment in advance of his firing, he would rise just a bit above the rock, exposing half his chest. I prepared myself mentally to take him out.
Rainy said, “Negotiate.”
“What?” Mondragón said.
Rainy came up behind me, into the negligible protection of the rock indentation. She called to the men outside in Spanish. In all that she said, I understood only Peter’s name and the name Rodriguez.
In the long quiet that followed while our assailants considered her words, Mondragón said, “They’ll never buy it, querida. They think they’re holding all the cards.”
“What did you tell them?” I asked.
“That Peter’s not here. That we don’t know where he is. That killing us gets them nothing.”
“Not much of a negotiation, Rainy,” I said.
“That’s not all,” Mondragón said. “She told them to tell their patrón Rodriguez that she will meet with him to discuss her son. That will never happen, not as long as I’m alive.”
Which, in the next moment, seemed to be not long, because an explosion shook the mountain face outside the mine, and the wall I’d pushed myself against shivered. Dust and grit rained down on us.
“RPG,” Mondragón said.
“Rocket-propelled grenade,” I told Rainy. “They want us to know they’re not bluffing.”
From outside, the voice spoke again in Spanish.
Rainy translated for me. “He says in one minute, they’ll seal our tomb.”
I tried to think, to come up with a rational plan. We could move farther into the mine, where the explosive might not harm us, but that might simply end in us dying slowly in a sealed-up tomb. We could make a dash for it outside, splitting up so that they might not get us all. But they’d get some of us.
The seconds were ticking away, and nothing reasonable came to mind. The only real concern I had was for Rainy. Whatever else, I wanted Rainy safe.
I said to Mondragón, “When I sprint out there, you cover me. I’ll make for that first big rock on the right.”
“No,” Rainy said.
“There’s no time to argue. When I get set there, I’ll cover you both.”
“I’ll go,” Mondragón said. “You cover me.”
I was about to argue, but he pushed himself away from the wall to make his run.
He didn’t go any farther, because outside the mine it suddenly became the Fourth of July. We could hear the pop and rattle of gunfire, but no rounds came into the drift.
“What’s going on?” Rainy called out.
“The cavalry has arrived,” Mondragón said.
I remembered the calls he’d made on his satellite phone and understood why, when the attack first came, he’d advised us to just sit tight. He knew help was on the way. If it hadn’t been for the RPG, he’d have been content to do nothing.
The gunfire died out. Mondragón waited. Rainy and I waited.
“Amigo” came the call from outside. Then more in Spanish.
“It’s safe now,” Mondragón said. He took Rainy’s hand and led her into the light.
* * *
There were a half dozen of them, men dressed all in camouflage, looking very military. The one who’d called to Mondragón saluted him when we emerged. They spoke to each other in that language I was beginning to wish to God I’d studied in high school.
“What are they saying?” I asked Rainy.
“He’s explaining to Berto what happened. They killed four men in the rocks.”
“Who are these guys?”
Rainy shrugged. “He keeps calling Berto ‘Jefe.’ ”
One of the few words I knew. It meant “boss.”
Two men in camouflage came from the rocks shoving before them another man, who wore jeans, scuffed boots, and a western shirt with snaps. They forced him to his knees at Mondragón’s feet.
“Mírame,” Mondragón said.
The man looked up. Man? He was just a kid, not even twenty. Fear whitened his eyes, shortened his breath, poured off him as if a foul scent. He bled from a nasty cut where the skin lay open on his cheek, the result, I could imagine, of a blow from a rifle butt.
Mondragón barked at him. The kid shook his head. One of the men who’d dragged him from the rocks kicked him in the spine. Mondragón spoke again, even more harshly.
The kid began to babble, his words mixed with saliva and tears. He shook his head again and again, and although I couldn’t understand a word, he was plainly pleading for his life.
Mondragón knelt, took the kid’s chin roughly in his hand, and forced him to look directly into Jefe’s eyes. Mondragón said something low and quiet. The kid began to cry in earnest, deep sobs.
“What did he say?” I asked Rainy.
“Berto says he’s going to gut the kid and leave him for the vultures to feed on.”
Mondragón stood up and nodded toward a camouflaged man, who reached to his belt and pulled out a long military blade.
“No,” Rainy said.
She stepped between Mondragón and the kid. She addressed her ex-husband, her words, whatever they were, spoken fiercely. Mondragón snapped at her, and she gave it right back at him. They stood eyeing each other, Rainy smaller, her face upturned and as hard as any rock in those mountains. I saw Mondragón’s eyes shift from her to the men who surrounded us. This wasn’t just about Rainy and him. This was also about El Jefe now.
I said, my voice as reasonable as I could make it, “If you value your relationship with Rainy and you want to work with us to find Peter, you’ll do what she asks. Otherwise she will shut you out completely. You know this. Peter is what’s important here.”
Mondragón considered my words. Finally he said to Rainy, “Sí.”
She turned and knelt before the kid. His head was down, his eyes on the ground where his tears were turning the dust to little spots of mud. She took his face in her hands and lifted it, so that he could see her. She spoke to him gently.
“Cómo se llama?”
“Pedro,” he replied.
She talked to him quietly for a while. The only word I heard and understood was madre. Mother. The kid listened and nodded and then began to respond to her. They conversed for some time. Mondragón listened, and it was clear from his face that he was learning much from the conversation.
At last, Rainy stood.
Mondragón spoke in English, probably for my benefit. “We have everything we need.” He nodded to the man who’d kicked the kid in the spine. “Shoot him.”
Rainy said, “You will release him.”
“He tried to kill us.”
“Because those were his orders. He’s barely more than a child, Berto. And his name is Pedro. Peter. He goes free.”
“Then he goes back to Rodriguez, and we face him again someday.”
“He’s from a small village. He swears he will return home.”
“He’s lying.”
“Maybe. I want to give him the chance I promised him. Do this thing, Berto. For me, for Peter, for the good of your own soul.”
The sun was above the mountains, and Mondragón’s shadow fell across the young man and Rainy. At his nod, Pedro would be dead. But I knew what Mondragón was weighing. On one side of the balance was this present moment, and on the other the rest of his life and quite possibly the deep-seated hope that somehow, someday he might win Rainy back. Because the one thing I understood absolutely in all of this was that he still loved her.
“All right, querida,” he said. “But he goes with nothing and he goes barefoot.”
“Berto, that’s so cruel.”
“If he’s truly a man, he has a chance. It’s the same chance those people Peter helps are willing to take.”
He spoke to Pedro, who said not a word but began removing his boots and socks. When he’d bared his feet, he stood. He said to Rainy, “Gracias, señora.”
Rainy took his hands in hers. “Vaya con Dios, Pedro.”
He looked at me, and I saw what Rainy saw, a kid way over his head in something that he regretted now because of the present consequences but that, if he survived and grew wise, he might regret later for all the right reasons.
“You understand English?” I asked.
He gave a nod.
“An old friend once told me the place we walk, wherever we lay our feet, each step of the journey is one we have always been meant to take. From the moment you were born, Pedro, this is a journey that has always been before you. Do you believe in God?”
“Yes, señor.”
“Put yourself in those hands. And keep your feet pointed south.”
“Gracias, señor.”
“Desaparece,” Mondragón commanded.
Pedro turned and walked away, disappearing among the rocks. Mondragón gave a gesture to one of his men, who followed.
“Berto,” Rainy began.
“Just to make sure that he goes,” Mondragón said, then called out, “Muchachos,” and delivered his orders in Spanish.
They carried the bodies of the dead men deep into the mine and, while there, searched for more signs of Peter. They found nothing. While this was going on, Rainy removed herself and sat high on the rocks. I finally joined her there.
She didn’t look at me. Her dark eyes were taking in the desert far below. “So many deaths. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”
“Everybody here calls it a war, Rainy,” I said. “And you didn’t start it.”
“I haven’t done anything to stop it. We haven’t done anything to stop it.”
“We? You and me?”
“All of us, Cork. We erect fences. We build walls. And what does that invite? Hostility breeds hostility. Fear breeds fear.”
“And love breeds love,” I said, because I knew where she was going. “If you’d stepped outside that mine and offered those men love, do you know what would have happened?”
“How many of them were just like Pedro, do you suppose?”
“That’s not a question I ask myself when someone’s shooting at me.”
I looked back toward the Lulabelle. Near the entrance, Mondragón was counseling with the man who seemed to be in charge of the others. The man gave a sharp whistle, and all those in camouflage followed him into the rocks in the same direction Pedro had gone.
Mondragón climbed to where we sat. “We’re done here. Get your pack, Rainy. It’s time to go.”
She left the water, just in case Peter or someone else came and needed it. Then we started down out of the mountains, putting the Lulabelle behind us. Riches had come from the mine once upon a time. Now, for a while, all that would be coming out was the stench of rotting flesh.