A soldier approached him.
“Yes,” he mumbled, “I am rested now.”
In a while, another soldier came with a cup. It was hot coffee sweetened with cane sugar, and it warmed his insides quickly. Then another came with a plate; he could see the pieces of dried meat, the white chunks of rice. He ate gladly, thankfully.
The air smelled so clean, spiced with the scent of grass. The crickets came alive again and they filled the night with their music. Thoughts of his boys crowded his mind. And Dalin most of all, the sound of her voice calling him Old Man. What was he doing up here, on this lonely roof of the Ilokos?
A soldier jarred him from his reverie. The general wanted to see him. He rose and followed him to the dark turn of the trail, and there the general sat, reclining against a boulder.
“Good evening, Apo,” Istak said.
“You came back to tell us the news, Eustaquio,” the general said quietly. “Have you rested?”
“Yes, Apo,” he said. “I am grateful.”
“Do you know how many they are? Surely a thousand.”
“I did not count, Señor General. I couldn’t go near — I was afraid—” He paused. That was the truth, he had been afraid. “They were in a very long line. With many horses. More than a hundred. Maybe three.”
“Sleep now,” the general said after a while. “We have plenty of work when it is light.”
The stone upon which he rested his head was hard, and the grass pierced the blanket in places and pricked his arms, his legs, but sleep did come again, this time fitfully.
He woke up long before daybreak, birdcalls echoing from the forested slopes below them. In the first flush of light he viewed the sweep of mountain and sky, the summit grassy in places. He knew the turns of the pass very well; every year he and Padre Jose, old, portly — beads of sweat on his ruddy face and even on the smooth dome of his bald head — had taken this route on the way to the village of Angaki and the other Igorot settlements beyond.
All around, these young Tagalogs barely out of puberty, the milk of their mothers not yet dry on their lips, pausing in their labor, appraising the earthwork they had made on sections of the pass. Among them, he felt old and tattered in spirit. He was not equal to them in strength, but he knew this land better than any of them, the secret crevices of these mountains, the labyrinthine ways to the valley — and the Igorot villagers that might attack them. He could lead them to wherever they wanted to go. This was, after all, what he was here for. And if it was their decision to make a stand here, they could do it better with ambushes farther down. They should also secure the mountainside at the right, for there was a steep trail there which overlooked the pass.
He turned again to the young men around him, sardonic indifference on their faces. It was not only their youth which saddened him — it was the casualness with which they waited in their trenches. Would these also be their graves? How many funerals had he attended, how many open graves had he seen, watched the coffins cased down, or sometimes just a frayed mat in which the corpse was bundled, the feet sticking out, the soles white and sometimes still specked with dirt if the man had been a farmer and could not afford slippers, let alone shoes. He wanted to strangle the thought but he saw with horror that, indeed, many of the soldiers were barefoot like him. They were farmers, too, but they were all Tagalogs; they would not trust him, they would not want him by their side when the hour came.
The wind swooped down bringing with it again the scent of grass and earth. It was harvesttime in the plains below, in Cabugawan as well. In his mind’s eye, his boys were romping around, trying to help although they could do but little, trailing behind their mother to see if she had missed any stalk with her hand sickle. There would be nothing missed, of course, and in a week the field would be bare and the sheaves would be laid out, spread like flowers to dry in the sun before they were neatly piled in the granary behind their house. How wonderful it was — the smell, the taste of new rice, the steam rising from it, even with just a dash of salted fish and lemon.
Istak did not speak with the soldiers. He doubted if any could speak Spanish. In fact, they could be wondering how it was possible for a farmer like him to know the language of their former rulers. He was much older, too, and he realized with some discomfort that he was not young anymore.
Morning rode over the hills, gleaming on the narrow valleys below, shimmering on the trees, its song of praise reflected on the shale and on the smooth surfaces of red rock. It came to him with a sudden twinge of remembrance that it was Saturday and if he were in Cabugaw now, he would be about through with the offertory of the morning Mass. He must not think about that, he was here in the splendor of morning, the hillsides burnished with light. If only this would last!
From around the curve of the pass above, the general appeared on his white horse. He came down at a slow canter, his spurs reflecting bits of sun. He was handsome — Istak saw that; no wonder then that the women in Pangasinan and wherever he went had swooned over him. He had a yellow scarf about his neck, and though they had climbed trails and muddy gullies, his rayadillo uniform was clean and his boots neatly polished. He was examining the earthworks, pointing out here and there what needed to be done. Their positions gave them a clear sweep of the terrain below.
The general rode to where Istak sat on a shoulder of the narrow pass. His gold epaulets shone. He had been viewing the surrounding flanks with his field glasses and he seemed satisfied with what he saw. “Do you think they marched in the night, Eustaquio?”
“I do not know, Señor General,” Istak said. “I am not sure. It seems they are afraid to fight at night.”
Istak could see better now; the trenches were rimmed with earthworks. On both sides of the pass, soldiers were stationed behind boulders, but instinct told him at once — although he was no soldier — that there should have been trenches way up to his left, up to the peak of Tirad itself. It would be a difficult climb for the enemy to make, to crawl up that cliff and cross the ravine now covered with grass, but anyone who persevered could do it.
Would it do to tell the general, this imperious young man, what he had missed? He had had so much experience, he had lived through battles, and he, Istak, had never been in one.
Still, there was time to do it. He went to the solitary figure at the crest of the pass. The general was seated on a boulder, looking down in the direction of Angaki on the opposite side. What were the thoughts rankling him? He had but a handful of men to block the oncoming horde.
“My general,” Istak said. “Please do not be angry with me — but I know this pass. I have crossed it several times.”
Del Pilar looked up from his perch and there was a brief flash of kindness in the young eyes.
“Yes, Ilokano,” he said. “What do you want to tell me?”
“That side to your left, there is a trail there — maybe you think it cannot be scaled, but it can—”
The general smiled. “I have thought of that,” he said coolly. “But the Americans — they are not all that persevering. They don’t have the patience. There are so many of them, and so well-equipped — they will not do it the difficult way. They will do it the easy way — like it has always been …”
Istak bowed. Why was this boy so sure of himself? What bravado was this? Or courage?
A shout erupted from below; the air tensed quickly. A soldier raced up to the general. “They are here, my general. We wait no more!”
The general turned to where the soldier had pointed. A line of blue ants was clambering up the slope, dodging behind boulders disappearing in the tall grass, perhaps two hundred of them, five hundred even — and more farther down.