The Marchand Woman

“You never wanted anything out of this except the money, did you?”

“I’m a realist. It’s all I’ve ever expected to come of this.” Cielo looked around. All the men had disappeared but now he saw two of them making their way back upstream along the far bank: They must have clambered down past the waterfall and crossed the stream on the rocks below. They went along with their noses to the ground, seeking tracks.

Julio said, “I’m a realist, too, you know. I recognize we could never bring it off by ourselves, not this handful of us. But we’ve got the weapons now, the money. With those we have power. There will always be people to fight the Communists—from San Juan to Santo Domingo. We can be a nucleus—barter our services throughout the Caribbean.”

“You’re dreaming, Julio, my ears are deaf to it. You remind me of Emil. Well let me tell you—I don’t want to be a general in your crusade. I want to go out in my new boat and catch fish, that’s all. You and Emil can fight it out between you.”

The man across the pond stood on the bank and lifted both arms wide with an expressive shrug of his shoulders, signifying that he’d found nothing. Julio acknowledged it by pointing up toward the head of the pond. “Keep looking,” he shouted.

Cielo turned away from the pond. “Better get back to camp. Maybe she’s out there dying in the jungle somewhere but we can’t take the chance. Let’s get things packed up. We’ll have to evacuate.”

Julio came along after him, puffing with the circuitous climb. Off to the right Cielo could see the toboggan slide trough of the woman’s fall. He marveled that she could have walked away from that. It was the mud, he thought, this damnable muck.

He felt sorrow for the woman. Crobey’s woman. Well, he felt sorrow for them both. The woman would get lost out there and the jungle would kill her. If she hadn’t drowned already.

“Let’s hurry. I don’t trust Emil up there with Crobey.”

“Vargas will keep them separated,” Julio said.

“Emil would slit Vargas’ throat if it seemed useful.” Cielo scrambled over the lip onto the road and hurried toward the camp.

Through the trees he had a glimpse of the mouth of the cave above the camp. How ludicrous, he thought. All that ordnance—the heavy weapons, the vehicles, the tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition. All that and they couldn’t even wage effective war against Crobey’s unarmed woman. Oh, we’re the terrors of the Caribbean, all right.

She crawled wincing to the edge of the high trees and looked out, panting in the thick steamy air. The rain was letting up. Pains stabbed through her and she had to wait for her vision to clear.

The flat was open to her left. Farther along the cliff she saw a fresh scar, white jagged bits of rock like exposed bone and a couple of poles that looked as if they’d fallen down. A length of cable lay curled sinuously, its end frayed like Medusan hair, and not far from her squatted a little gasoline engine with a winch drum. Someone had spent some time beside it because there were half a dozen empty beer bottles and soda pop cans.

She lay with her chin on the back of her hand, soaked through, hair matted, tattered as a barrio urchin. She was studying the camp below the cliff. Four or five rudimentary huts—thatched conical roofs, African-style. Two Jeeps were parked haphazardly between the two largest huts. While she watched, she saw two men come up into the camp from the path beyond. She didn’t recognize them, though she could see neither of them was Emil Draga. They both wore green combat fatigues and military caps and she wondered if they were aware of the irony of that: Castro and his men wore the same uniforms.

The two men went past the Jeeps calling out ahead of them. In response a man appeared in the door of the largest hut: a huge man, too bulky to be Emil Draga. There was a brief exchange of words down there; then the two men went inside the hut and the huge man crossed the campground to another hut, went inside briefly and then emerged, backing out, his submachine gun leveled. Another man followed him out and, obeying the gestures of the huge man, walked around ahead of him toward the big hut. The prisoner limped a bit. She saw nothing but the back of him but it was Harry all right, and her heart soared.

Emil was pacing back and forth, rubbing the cloth bandages they’d wrapped around his wrists after Vargas had sawed off the manacles. Julio was rummaging in his duffel bag under one of the cots, looking for dry clothes to change into. Cielo stood near the door and watched while Harry Crobey stooped to enter the hut, followed by Vargas who went straight across to the radio and sat down with the Kalashnikov across his knees to fiddle with the tuner knob. The radio sputtered and hissed but there was nothing on that band. Harry Crobey looked from face to face with sardonic amusement. When no one spoke to him he sat down at the camp table and began to play solitaire.

Vargas looked up. “Emil wanted to kill him so I kept them separated.”

Crobey glanced at Emil. “I invited him to try with his bare hands, since Vargas wouldn’t give him a weapon, but he’s a chicken-shit bastard.” He leered. Emil was a head taller and forty pounds heavier than Crobey, and could spot him nearly thirty years, but Emil wasn’t a fool. Not in that way. Crobey knew a hundred ways to kill a man bare-handed.

Emil declined to rise to Crobey’s bait. He only said to Cielo, in an offhand way, “He knows our faces and of course he must be killed.”

Cielo said, “That might be futile. There are others. We can’t kill every last one of them. To you, Emil, the answer to every question is a bullet, isn’t it. The fact is it probably won’t matter to our security whether Harry goes free or not.”

He saw Crobey’s eyes flash but Crobey was too wise to ask questions.

“Then again,” Julio said, “she may be dead in the jungle. That was a hell of a fall she took when you kicked her over the cliff.”

Cielo addressed Crobey: “Who else have you and Anders told about this?”

“I can’t speak for Anders. He’s probably telling the whole world about it by now. Me, I only told three or four friends.” Crobey gri

Julio said, “Of course he’d say that anyway, whether it’s true or not.”

“It’s more likely true than not true,” Cielo said. “When the others return we’ll pack our personal belongings and take enough small arms to defend ourselves—in case. We’ll go down the back side of El Yunque and fade into the country to the south.”

Emil was looking at Vargas’ Kalashnikov, possibly gauging his chances. Cielo said, “Emil, we’re not taking you with us. You’ll have to make your own way.”

“I always knew you were a traitor.” Emil said it without heat and without looking at him; he was still facing Vargas, who returned his gaze evenly, with bovine indifference. Vargas had a thick skin and a gentle soul but Emil knew better than to attack him head-on.

Emil said, “You people have bungled everything, right from the start. You’ve been humoring my grandfather, isn’t that it? You’ve never had any intention of carrying through with his wishes.”

“Neither have you,” Cielo replied. “Your grandfather’s dream is a free Cuba. Your dream is a dictatorship—your own.”

Julio said, “We’re going to have to kill Emil, too, aren’t we.”

It made Cielo look at him. Julio’s eyes were sad. “You were right, you know. Once the killing starts it never stops. Emil’s the one who started it. It can only stop when he’s dead.”

Emil swiveled—now he was facing not only Vargas’ but Julio’s as well.

Crobey slapped one card down on top of another. He said, “If all you blokes kill each other I can just walk out of here. Right? It’s a splendid idea, chaps. Go to it.”