“I cannot face anyone.”
“Look at me, Orang,” An-no told her. “Look at me or I will hold your face and force you to look at mc.”
She turned to him slowly, sorrow in her eyes.
“You are a woman now,” An-no said. “If I ask that you live with me when we reach the valley, will you do that? I will protect you and pray that no evil will happen to you again.”
“You will not take a soiled rag,” she said. “You will want something clean.”
“You are not soiled.”
“I am now.”
“Not to me. Not to me. You are pure and you are going to be my wife …”
She turned away again, but this time she was no longer crying.
They camped that night in a shallow field flanked by bald hills. Not long ago the field was planted to rice — they could see that in the strands that stubbled the land, in the broken dikes that bordered each plot. Close by, madre de cacao trees had started to bloom and there was even a sprout of banana trees without fruit. Istak wondered what had happened to the village nearby, why the people had gone. In the lead cart, he approached the hamlet, intoning loudly, ¡Bari-bari! — the ritual incantation with which an intruder sought permission to pass unknown precincts guarded perhaps by inhospitable spirits. The houses were falling apart and weeds clambered over the bamboo fences and up the walls right onto the thinning roofs. The windows were wide open, gaping at them like sightless eyes. There was nothing inside but rotting bamboo and disheveled walls with the sun streaming in. The people did not leave anything, not even a broken pot. The houses had been abandoned for more than a year and houses with no people in them die like humans.
Ba-ac did not want to sleep in the abandoned village; it smelled of disaster, of hoary gloom, and so they moved on, farther up the valley before they would ascend the mountain.
The narrow road that slit through the jungle was slippery; grass and saplings grew wild on both sides and big trees arched above them and shut off the sun, so that although it was morning it seemed as if in this face of the mountain it was early evening. There were sudden breaks of sunlight among the trees, and birds flitted through the small frame of sky. Orchids dangled from branches, some of them in bloom, bouquets of purple and white, but they were high up and only monkeys could climb after them.
One of the children walking out front screamed in horror; he had felt an itch on his calf and when he looked, there was this black abominable thing as big as his thumb, slimy and fat, and he could not remove it.
“Leeches!” Ba-ac said. He went to the child and scraped it off with his bolo. The leech was bloody and full.
Although it had not rained that afternoon, water dripped from the trees. Around their trunks, up to the lofty branches, vines coiled like huge snakes.
It would take more than a day before they would break out into the open country again and know the sun. Istak pointed out to Dalin what they could cat, the tops of ferns which could be cleaned like bamboo shoots and cooked. No one need starve in the forest, he told her.
She asked him how he came to know so much and he said he had been in the forest beyond Tirad. Padre Jose had pointed these out to him and all the other plants that could sustain life. He showed her the fruit of the rattan vine which they could cat and that she already knew. There were other wild fruits and berries — they could all be eaten.
They stopped for their meal in a white patch of sunlight, but did not tarry. They moved on. Bit-tik and An-no were now in the front and Ba-ac was in the rear immediately behind Dalin’s cart. The last cart carried their seed rice and was heavy, so no one rode in it except Ba-ac.
The big solid wheels of wood were creaking noisily, for they had not been oiled for days. It was no longer necessary — they were not going to hide anymore or travel in the night. They had passed the Guardia Civil. Ba-ac felt safer now. A few more miles, then they would break out from the low saddle of the mountain into the plains of eastern Pangasinan.
It was Dalin who first noticed it when she looked back; the cart was following them, but Ba-ac was not in the driver’s seat. Istak called for all of them to stop. He peered inside the cart but the old man was not there either.
“Tatang! Tataaang!” he shouted. The forest echoed his voice.
“Maybe,” Dalin said, “he stopped to defecate.”
“He would have told us,” Istak said. “And he would not let the cart go ahead without him.”
He retraced the trail, shouting his father’s name. Maybe Ba-ac had slipped, or had fallen asleep and toppled off the cart. But he would have awakened and called.
The forest seemed to close inexorably on Istak; he was far from the carts and could no longer see them nor could they hear him, for he had run part of the way.
Birdcalls shrilled from his right. There would be wild boar and deer here — if only he had a chance to hunt, but he could do that only with a gun. “Tatang!” he continued screaming. Still no reply.
He should work out a system by which every man would have to look back occasionally to find out if the carts behind him were secure. He must tell them that at the next stop.
At the turn of the trail, he saw it — this python dangling from a tree, as thick as his own thigh, and it was coiled around the old man, who was no longer moving, his eyes closed as if in sleep. The reptile was tightening its coil, squeezing the life, the blood, out of Ba-ac. For a moment, Istak stood transfixed with fear. Like his brothers and all the menfolk in the caravan, he always had a bolo slung on his waist. He knew what had happened; the reptile had swung down from its coil around one of the low-hanging branches where it had waited, struck his father, then quickly strangled him. As soon as all the bones were crushed, it would swallow its victim slowly.
The python had seen him, but it did not move or relax its tenacious grip. With all the force in his weakened body and praying that he would not miss — God give this wounded arm strength! — Istak struck at the python’s body with his two hands. Immediately the coil loosened but the reptile was not dead; now it lashed around and again Istak struck at it. The shiny skin was now gashed with a deep wound, the white flesh opened, the blood started to spurt. The reptile fell on the ground in a heap, helpless, its great, slick body twisting, weaving. Again and again, with two hands Istak lashed at it, not caring where he hit it. Again and again, from each new and open wound blood spurted out. The reptile was now quivering, a dozen cuts on its long body, its head almost severed. Istak did not stop until it was still. Then he went to his father.
Ba-ac’s body was completely crushed. His bones sticking out of the shapeless shirt wet with blood. Istak sank on his knees and cried. A massive wave of weariness swept over him, drowning him.
An-no and the others found him staring blankly, the python dismembered at his feet, its innards spilled on the wet ground. They carried Ba-ac back to the cart, his body wrapped with the leaves of the anahau palm, which grew along the trail, and tied carefully with twine. They also brought back one of the carts and loaded the python onto it. Its meat was good — like chicken, the Ilokanos always said — and the women cut it up and salted it, for it would not do to dry it; the sun no longer shone regularly as in the season past. The rains were really upon them.
They buried Ba-ac at the edge of the forest. Ahead — perhaps a day or so, past the cogon-covered hills — were the plains of eastern Pangasinan at last. That night, after the prayer which he led, Istak asked his mother if they should go back to Cabugaw. “Father is gone, we need not flee from the Guardia anymore.”