The Marchand Woman

Then he ran to the front of the cave and peered out. She stumbled along behind him, afraid to be separated from him by more than an arm’s length.

The camp was in flames and the smoke had turned black; there wasn’t much to be seen through it. “God knows what they’re up to,” Harry grumbled. He turned then; his big hands slid around her. “You looked like the bloody cavalry, ducks. Christ, I’d given it up. Mostly they didn’t particularly want to kill me but we were getting to the point where it was the only thing they could do with me. Old Harry was dead—and then you dropped in. The last bloomin’ thing I ever—”

“Did you think,” she said softly, “I wouldn’t come for you?”

Around the perimeter of the camp the angry rifles stirred. Cielo kept wiping at his eyes and coughing in spasms; the rolling smoke didn’t help.

Emil loomed in the smoke, outlined against the burning hut; somewhere he’d found a weapon—one of the Uzzi automatic rifles. “It was the woman. A couple of Molotovs and Crobey threw tear gas—that’s all it was. I just spotted them going into the cave.”

Cielo gasped stupidly at him. He kept doubling over, coughing, and couldn’t focus on what Emil was saying.

“You’re all through,” Emil said with grating scorn. “You’re used up. I’m taking command here—you want to dispute it?” The Uzzi stirred toward Cielo.

He only coughed and rubbed at his eyes. Emil was walking away bellowing orders and he saw some of the men go trotting along after him.

They went away through the smoke and Cielo didn’t move. To hell with it all.

After a little while he heard them start shooting.

Far back in the cave they lay behind crates of rifles. Bullets crashed around, caroming, whining, smashing things up. Crobey pulled the pin from a grenade and hurled it out of the cave and she felt him drop on top of her, shielding her; the racket drove her half crazy and shrapnel pelted off the walls and ceiling. Something cracked the heel of her boot, hard. Crobey said, “Probably didn’t hit anything but at least it’ll keep them back.” Then he resumed prying at the stubborn lid of the crate beside him. By the stenciled label it contained mortar rockets.

She said, “Sooner or later the ricochets will get us or their bullets will set off something explosive in here. We haven’t got a chance, have we, Harry?”

“Might cool them off if I can get to that mortar and lob a couple into them. There aren’t but eight or ten blokes out there.”

He tossed another grenade and they ducked again and the noise seemed to explode inside her. Sudden tears rushed from her eyes and she clutched at him. “Harry, oh Harry.…”

“Come on, ducks, we ain’t licked yet.” He kissed the top of her head and then he dived away, cradling two of the mortar rockets in his arms, skittering across the stone floor toward the uptilted mortar out front. Bullets began to spang around the place again but she followed him forward, yanking the pin from a grenade and throwing it with all her strength and watching it soar out of the cave before she threw herself flat and heard its devastating bellow.

Harry, she thought. Reckless indomitable Harry. She crawled behind boxes to reach him. He’d dragged the mortar back to cover and somehow hadn’t been hit but the Cubans were invisible out there in the trees and their bullets were crashing all over the cave, bouncing around like stones in a tin can, and it was only a matter of time.

“I’m scared, Harry, but I’m not sorry.”

“Right, ducks. Never apologize. Here, hold this a minute.”

Weak in all his fibers, Cielo leaned against the Jeep listening to the noise of battle. Julio came in sight, then Vargas; the two of them trudged forward batting smoke away from their faces.

Cielo said drily, “He’ll shoot both of you for desertion.”

It made Julio grunt. “Let him try.”

Something blew up—louder than a grenade this time and Cielo’s head rocked back as he tried to identify the sound. Vargas murmured, “Harry’s got one of the mortars working.”

“Christ he’ll kill all of us,” Julio complained, and glowered petulantly toward the cliff.

Cielo drew himself upright. “Let me have that.” He reached for Julio’s submachine gun.

Julio relinquished it without objection. “What are you going to do?”

“What I should have done at the very begi

Vargas and Julio began to follow him but he waved them back. He took a deep breath and held it in his lungs while he walked between the burning huts. When he came out of the smoke he started to breathe again.

The mortar whumped again and the explosion chewed up some timber. He headed that way, assuming Crobey wasn’t shooting entirely blind.

He made his way with care the last hundred feet or so. He could tell where the men were easily enough—their guns made a steady racket for him to guide by—but he didn’t want to get nailed by one of Crobey’s mortar bursts. He heard one of them coming in, dropped flat behind a tree and felt the earth shudder when it impacted. Leaves and twigs rained on him. Then he got up and went forward again. Presently he found Emil, squatting behind a tree fitting a fresh-loaded magazine into his Uzzi.

Emil looked up and found Cielo there, and Cielo watched him for a moment, trying to think of the right words. They didn’t come to mind, and after a brief moment he simply pulled the trigger and killed Emil without fuss.

Crobey had a wicked-looking bullet burn across the back of his hand. Carole had a new bruise on top of an old one on her thigh. Pretty soon, she thought, they’d both be picked apart to splinters this way. But she handed another mortar round to him and put her hands over her ears waiting for him to drop it down the spout.

Crobey began to lift it toward the muzzle but then he paused.

The shooting had stopped. She heard somebody yelling in Spanish. Crobey slowly lowered the shell to the ground and reached for the submachine gun on the stone beside him. He was scowling, listening to the voice.

“What’s he saying?”

“I can’t make it out.”

“Harry Crobey! Hold your goddamn fire a minute. Want to talk!”

She reached for a grenade and put her finger through the pin ring. “Don’t trust the bastard, Harry.”

“Nothing to lose,” he replied. Then he let his call sing out: “Come ahead and talk!”

She saw the man emerge from the smoke dragging something heavy along the ground. The man had a weapon in his free hand but it was down at his side and not aimed anywhere in particular. He had a wild hard face, very primitive, huge cheekbones, a look of savagery.

“Is that him?” she whispered. “Rodriguez?”

“Yeah.” Crobey didn’t lift his weapon. He only watched Rodriguez struggle upslope, dragging whatever it was.

“Maybe they want to make a deal,” Crobey said sotto voce.

“Don’t listen to him, Harry.”

Rodriguez was halfway between the trees and the cave—perhaps forty feet away from them. He stopped there, out in the open. With powerful effort he lifted the object he’d been dragging. She saw it was a man—then she recognized Emil Draga. Rodriguez propped Emil Draga more or less upright, holding him in both arms, the submachine gun loose on its sling over his elbow.

Rodriguez shouted, “We’ve got Gle

Crobey gave her a long look. She had nothing to say; she felt helpless. Crobey looked at the heaped ordnance and then lifted his voice: “No trades, Rodrigo.”

“The hell with trades. This is the one who killed the Lundquist boy.” Rodriguez dropped Emil and Emil fell like a stone, quite obviously dead by the way he collapsed. “I guess we’ve had enough of this, Harry,” Rodriguez shouted. He flung his submachine gun away into the mud and shoved both hands in his pockets. His stance was defiant. He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the smoke that poured up from the camp. “That’s my goddamn fishing boat you just burned up, you know that, Harry?”