9 Tales Told in the Dark 18 Read online

  The only answers were another shot—and a distant, but not too distant, cry of pain.

  “I don’t understand,” Esteban murmured softly to the twin beams of light and the dust dancing in them. “God, can’t you let me UNDERSTAND?”

  Then . . . nothing.

  It was a sudden, abrupt and total nothing. No gunfire. No breathless shouting—and no pained mutterings from Diego. Esteban looked down.

  But no, it wasn’t over—not exactly.

  Diego was motionless and uncomplaining, his eyes slits of concentrated, frozen pain. Yes, that was the key word, Esteban realized as his eyes stopped misting over and went wide instead.

  FROZEN.

  His brother was like a statue. Even his wound was static—the blood-flow suspended, frozen in mid-pulse.

  Uncertainly, meekly, Esteban touched the wound. It was still fresh, the blood still warm and sticky. But the gore did not move, no more than Diego himself.

  Esteban stumbled backwards, onto his feet and his worn-out boots. He shook his head and backed through one beam of light to the wall. Then he noticed the dust, the shaft of light itself. Nothing moved within it! The dust was frozen, too. And the sun—the beam of light did not vary, though he waited for some minutes to be sure.

  Frozen—everything, completely FROZEN.

  Suddenly, he heard the absolute and unfamiliar silence.

  Esteban picked up his Enfield rifle, his shot and powder and cartridge bags. He moved slowly, cautiously to the shack’s edge. He eased out after a long look and shuffled gingerly into a murky corridor. He turned several corners, wandering semi-aimlessly.

  Esteban arrived at a point near the central courtyard.

  He saw a man, a Paraguayan Regular, down in the dirt a few paces further on. Esteban advanced those paces. He stood over the body, which was face down in a large pool of its own blood. The man’s arms were crossed over his head, preventing immediate identification. But Esteban could not bring himself to turn the body over. He merely touched an out-turned elbow and sighed.

  When he looked up, Esteban noted more figures. Some of them were men he knew. But frozen like everything else—almost as if they mere tintype photographs that had somehow captured their images in motion.

  Esteban moved forward.

  Cesar knelt behind the near wall, ramming a ball into his weapon. A meter on—where the wall was down—Mario and Joaquin crouched behind a pile of rubble. One was taking aim and Esteban turned slowly, raised upright with new-found calm. He followed his Corporal’s line-of-sight.

  One of the Argentines was caught in a futile sideways run from one knot of his comrades to another. In some fraction of a second, Mario’s finger would squeeze the trigger and a musket ball would send another Gaucho to hell.

  Where they all belonged, Esteban would have said earlier.

  But now he merely shook his head and continued on. Esteban followed the twists and turns of the shattered village with confidence. Near one of the exploded buildings where the unit had stored its meager reserves of gunpowder, he stepped around and over two Home Guards and a headless woman one was crying over. As always, some of the wives and sweethearts and family of the local fighters had remained to share their fate.

  Esteban shook his head again and hefted his musket to himself as if it were his only friend. The other Home Guard was past grief, judging from the jagged bits of stone and metal lodged in his body.

  On the other side of the exploded cache, Sgt. Moringo’s arm was mangled; another finger was missing—adding to the pair he’d lost to a Brazilian mortar in ’67. Esteban moved closer, examined the strange angular body painting and the several fresh tattoos on the man’s grimacing face—Mbaya battle dress.

  Like Esteban—like nearly everyone in Paraguay—Moringo was a Mestizo, a mix of Spanish and Native heritages. But while individual tribes had all intermarried with the oldtime Conquistadors, some remained aloof from one another. Local traditions, variations persisted.

  The warrior Mbaya of the north, a Guarani farmer of the south and the Toba of the western Gran Chaco all retained some measure of ethnic individuality. Esteban was Ache and there were still others, too.

  Esteban moved carefully around Moringo and proceeded to the hastily dug rifle pits that guarded the dirt road east. He had a notion forming in his head and the sight of the wounded—of his Guarani friend Higinio and the others sternly manning that last line of defense, their heads and arms bandaged haphazardly, bound with whatever happened to be available—all this confirmed his intentions, set them in iron.

  He swung his musket over his shoulder, trusting the rotted strap to hold a while yet. He started for the Capitol. Lopez’s insane War had gone on long enough!

  Esteban stumbled along for perhaps twenty minutes, though the unchanging sun made that at best a rough guess. He passed a dead mule, its thin body stripped of what meat it could provide and ants swarming over the sad carcass. He saw a discarded canteen, a few empty tins of food or tobacco. How long since he’d had a smoke?

  Esteban crested a hill, saw a ragged line of men pointed the opposite direction and captured in mid-step. He counted as he passed: eighteen men and boys, their uniforms as patched and worn as his own, moving single-file, muskets on stooped shoulders.

  These were the REINFORCEMENTS poor young Gaspar had been told to count on—no more than half a full-strength platoon and led by a one-eyed Corporal!

  Esteban laughed bitterly then went on.

  At the top of another hill, an earthwork of sorts was going up. Men were digging, grimacing in effort—and their women, even local children struggled to assist. Even the impossibly young-looking Major who seemed to be in charge was working a shovel—though in the moment they were frozen he had been glancing back, boot on the flat of his spade, to issue some command or other.

  Esteban stopped, looked at this Major—but only for a moment.

  On he went.

  He avoided several other villages. The scenes would be too familiar, too predictable to bother with. But at last, he came to the edge of the River Paraguay. Even the flowing water was stopped dead.

  On this side, shanties were coming down and a battery of artillery was half-deployed. They were light horse-pieces, outdated brass Napoleons. But there were no horses to draw them, not even mules. Four were set up, a fifth being wheeled across the bridge bodily by assorted Home Guards and Marines. A sixth was on the far side of the river, its crew about to bring it forward.

  Between the guns, triple rows of rifle pits were manned unevenly by men of every description. They had one thing in common: Despair.

  Esteban stepped over feeble barbed wire, around a couple grinning Marines who refused to show their fear anywhere but in their eyes and got across the bridge into Asunion.

  The City Square, the National Cathedral looked spare and Spartan. The few people in sight were ill-fed and all had their heads down.

  A few blocks on, Esteban stopped again and stared.

  The scaffolding was rickety, thrown together from whatever scraps of wood could be found. But it served its function well enough. The hanged men had their hands tied behind their backs; their hooded faces bent sideways in the expected manner. No breeze caused them to move, no creaking sound came from the straining ropes or the muddled platform.

  According to the crude placards about their necks, two were common criminals. But Esteban stared at the middle corpse, thinking of the grim Christmas so recently passed.

  “Army Deserter,” that tag read.

  “Lopez,” Esteban sneered aloud with freshened outrage. “Is this what you have done; where you have led us—too short on bullets to give a soldier a soldier’s death?”

  But then he turned and almost fell over the children. The pair of them were thin and dull-looking, certainly no more than seven or eight. Both were scabby, clothed in rags and even filthier than Esteban himself. Yet there, at the very foot of that ugly scene, they knelt together—playing at some private game.

  Able to forget,
to ignore the horror just above them?

  Or perhaps to . . . grow accustomed to it?

  Esteban screamed. He beat his breast. And he ran the rest of the way to the Presidential Palace.

  More blind human statues guarded the broad steps and the heavy doors that led to the President-General. A National Policeman of at least 70 stood with crossed arms, a wide scar down the side of his face. Striding past was an Infantry Captain, orders crumpled in his hand and bitter resolve on his face. A pair of glum Cavalrymen stood at the doors—their swords were out and polished, as this was Honor Duty. Yet Esteban noted their smudged boots and how the man on his left was sneaking a glance across the way at a passing prostitute.

  Esteban let himself in.

  He found the President-General in a meeting with his Command Staff, as one might expect. Francisco Solano Lopez sat at the head of the table he inherited from his father. Frozen there in full uniform and with lips pursed, one hand slightly raised and caught in the midst of some sweeping gesture. Even now the man was the embodiment of perfect, blind arrogance—and the willful, horrid pride that had led him to provoke a three-sided, multi-front War to the Finish.

  Gathered around the long, fine table were other, less familiar Officers.

  Esteban centered his attention, his fury on Lopez.

  “You bastard!” he cried out, grabbing the arm of the dictator’s chair and wrenching it around. Like a life-sized doll, Lopez went with the leather chair. He wobbled in place, nearly falling before Esteban gave him a rough, unhelpful shove back into place.

  The Private glared down at the General.

  “I was raised to honor your father—a strong, great leader. Tough, yet fair. For twenty years he built up this country—made us strong. And before him: Rodriguez Francie—he shaped us in his image, even longer. But you! In a mere eight years you’ve brought us to THIS!” Esteban’s face twisted; he threw his arms out and gestured floridly in all directions. “Fool! Bastard! We trusted, followed you. The President-General—the Great Man!”

  Esteban straightened to attention, quartered his Enfield smartly and snapped a viciously sarcastic salute. He held it a moment then bent forward and spat in the motionless man’s face.

  It gave little satisfaction. So he turned, his eyes taking in the other seated Officers—the Generals and Colonels, the elite of Paraguay’s once-proud Armies.

  “You let him.” Esteban stepped past the General of Artillery, the Provost Marshall and the General of Internal Security. He moved around the table, surveying more faces. The Chief of Cavalry, the General of the Presidential Guard and the stiff old men in charge of Logistics, Training, Supply and Ordinance. He stopped between the Chiefs of Strategy and Tactics, angled himself forward between them. “A TOTAL War? One with no quarter given and none asked? By God and His Virgin Mother, we trusted you! We trusted HIM!”

  Esteban returned to Lopez’s side. “We were simple people. We knew nothing but to follow. You were RESPONSIBLE for us—for my mother, my father, my uncle Julio—for Ana and both my brothers—for . . . the NATION, you proud fool!” He raised his Enfield suddenly, ready to use the butt of it as a club.

  And he thought, he flashed back to the death of his elder brother in ’66. Esteban had seen Antonio go down and he dragged the Brazilian Captain responsible from his fine palomino horse. He clubbed the man to death then—still enraged—turned and shot the horse between the eyes.

  Now, four years later, Esteban shuddered.

  He shook his head, lowered his rifled musket.

  ‘No,’ he thought. ‘That won’t do—not at all.’

  He lunged instead, clawed at the polished leather of the President-General’s holster. Esteban pulled out a gleaming, seven-shot revolver. The barrel might very well have been pure silver and the handle true ivory, for all that he knew—or cared.

  Slowly, carefully, he cocked the splendid weapon. He brought it forward, to rest against Lopez’s temple.

  Another flash of memory came—this time, a Uruguayan soldier. He’d been no more than a boy, really, with a profoundly blemished face and the wispy beginnings of a mustache. But his bayonet was fixed and Esteban was almost a full step too slow reloading.

  Fortunately, the lad was inexpert in close combat and Esteban sidestepped his thrust.

  An instant later, Esteban’s point-blank shot ruined the Uruguayan boy’s face and destroyed half of that wispy joke of a mustache. But he wouldn’t let that memory save the man who, in the end, caused all this!

  Esteban’s hand trembled. He looked into Lopez’s glassy, unfocused eyes. If only the man would come back to life! If only the bastard would see and hear and KNOW he was about to die!

  “Swine,” Esteban snarled. He nudged the dictator with the long-barreled revolver. There was no response. He bit his lip, cursed. “You filthy bastard PIG!”

  Yet in another moment he lowered the pistol, uncocked and slid it under the rope-tied waistband of his colorless pants. Esteban found that he couldn’t kill a helpless man like that—not even this one. He turned, gave the other Ranking Officers a parting grimace of contempt.

  “You should’ve done it for us,” he muttered, “for the nation—long ago.”

  But as he trudged back to the nameless village, to the suspended battle and to his dying brother, Esteban gradually knew better. Of course this War was the President-General’s fault—and his advisors’, his staff’s.

  Yet part of the blame had to rest with the common people, as well. The ordinary men and women, the CITIZENS of Paraguay! Twice they rose up, fought the Spanish and the second time they won a lasting freedom—or had they?

  Surrender, it was said, was simply not part of the Paraguayan character. But what else had they done, how else to describe their mild acceptance of one dictator after another? If men like Francisco Solano Lopez made their people blind and obedient, surely it was those very people who ALLOWED it!

  He reached the row of rifle pits behind the Toba village and stared down at his good friend Higinio with his crudely bandaged head. Higinio—so fierce, so brave—he always said they had no choice but to obey. It was God’s Will and National Honor: Loyalty came before all else.

  Before, Esteban had agreed, albeit grimly. Now, he knew only pity.

  They all had a choice. And Esteban had finally made his. He moved down the shattered streets, between collapsed and partially collapsed buildings. He saw more of the dead, of both sides—and more of the presently living, though frozen in all manner of posture and position. Some of the Gauchos had captured a girl of perhaps 16 years. One was on-top of her, pulling up her loose skirt at the others stood guard and waited for their chance.

  The scene repelled Esteban. Yet he knew it was all part of War, all part of what he and his people had chosen when they allowed the Leadership absolute authority.

  He paused only at the village’s central courtyard. Esteban unswung his musket and held it in both hands as he moved into the open. He was resolved, but could still show caution. He approached the fallen horseman, knelt to study his face. It was the visage of a hard man, even in death. But all the Gauchos seemed like that—he’d never seen an innocent or even a youthful-looking one!

  Esteban stood. He saw the man’s carbine in the nearby dirt. He took a deep breath; put all his anger and loss into his kick.

  The repeating rifle flew, cartwheeled through unmoving air and smashed with shocking loudness against the adobe wall. It did not discharge, but in that absolute silence the sound seemed fit to wake the very dead.

  Accordingly, Esteban was not surprised when everything began HAPPENING again. The shouts and screams, the carbine and musket shots rang out. Fine dust swirled in a suddenly restored breeze.

  Crouched behind a pile of rubble, a Gaucho with his back to Esteban fired. He worked his carbine’s action and fired again. Then he looked around and his eyes widened with fear.

  Esteban fired, but just to the man’s side and only to cover his retreat. He ran for the shack where Diego waited. He ran
blindly, knocking another Argentine over and dropping his empty musket. He dove inside as bullets buzzed past him at assorted angles and chunks of adobe flew about upon impact.

  He crawled forward, retrieving the President-General’s fine pistol from his waistband as he moved. Diego moaned, one last time, just as his brother reached his side and took his hand. The gaping wound in his belly pulsed twice more, even as his eyes rolled back, his mouth opened.

  Quick as that, Diego died.

  Esteban pursed his lips. Not surprised, but still pained. He stroked his last close relative’s face then brought up the revolver. He studied it abstractly, knowing his time was limited. In a moment or two, some Gaucho would get his courage up and burst into view.

  And this time, Esteban Navarro would not shoot. He was tired of killing. He wished no-one dead—no, not even a butchering Tsonecan Gaucho. But these Argentines were never too keen on taking prisoners they couldn’t rape. With the defiant no-quarter orders of the Lopez government known by all, that was doubly so.

  Esteban took a breath and waited.

  With a shout, the Gaucho came at last. The dismounted horseman clutched his carbine tightly, jerked it back and forth—toward Esteban, who merely nodded, then toward Esteban’s dead brother and back again. And Esteban was glad at his decision not to fight, not to kill.

  Here before him was the innocent and boyish Gaucho he’d never seen—young, frightened and confused.

  “I understand now,” he said in uncertain Spanish. Esteban spoke mainly Guarani, like most Paraguayans, plus a smattering of his tribe’s ancient dialect—but the Argentine wouldn’t have comprehended either of those. “It is okay, young man. I know who is to blame, who is truly responsible. I understand, you see?”

  Esteban raised his hand. He offered the uncocked revolver to the boy, handle-first.

  The young Argentine frowned, seemed about to accept the pistol. But then an older Gaucho appeared behind him. The man barked an order and the boy started, fired.

  Esteban fell backward, his throat torn open.