The general turned to him and spoke curtly. “I have been generous — perhaps, you can see that. You can save your life now by going down the mountain and joining the Americans. You will carry a white flag so they will not shoot you. This is the only way out for you. And you have my word that you will not have a bullet in your back. So go, Eustaquio — while there is still time.”
Istak listened, his chest tightening, his whole being aflame. A soldier had flung disdainfully before him a bamboo pole and to it was tied a big white kerchief. He looked at it, but he must not be angry, he must suppress all the emotion that sought to erupt in him as it had once, the anger at the Guardia, at what he saw in Baugen, and now, toward this dumb, unfeeling dolt of a boy, so very much like the new priest who had replaced Padre Jose, so full of life and yet so distrustful and vicious. But the general was doing what he thought was right, he was a soldier who commanded the loyalty of all these men, all of them older than himself. He had turned and marched away, he was down the pass, and Istak could hear him exhorting the men, though he did not understand Tagalog too well.
He was rejected, then. But there was no one who could reject what he would do, and he would do it not because he wanted to prove them wrong; he would do it because now, there could be no denial, not after Po-on, not after Baugen.
He looked disdainfully at the white flag and detached it from the pole. Rising, he flung the pole away in the direction of the enemy, then folded the kerchief neatly and laid it on the grass. He would stay, he would care for the wounded, for surely there would be many.
He turned to his left, to the soldier posted there; he was dark, with very grave features, but the man was smiling at him.
“Cover, cover,” the soldier said, thrusting a chin toward the boulders on the shoulder of the rise.
Istak nodded, and said thank you in Tagalog, but did not go to the boulders. He walked, instead, to the trenches down the pass. That was where most of the men were positioned and that was where he would be needed. There was no firing still, just this waiting that tightened the nerves and parched the mouth. He could still run, as the general had said, toward the enemy and live. He had chosen to stay. Alive, he could still follow, convince the president, run errands, aid the wounded, or simply help them through the hostile Igorot lands. But there was a wearying tiredness in his bones, a gasping for breath, a deadening in his flesh — perhaps he should not run anymore.
It was such a beautiful Saturday morning; the sky was pale blue, and clouds white as newly harvested cotton floated along the far horizon. Mountains, mountains all around — it did not seem that he had traveled so far and he would still have so many mountains to cross; he should stop here now, so that his flesh, his blood, could blend inexorably with this land. Rain on parched earth, benediction.
His gaze wandered to the distance below; they were still very far off, but he could see them clearly, shapes moving up the steep curves of the trail, shirts vivid blue against the bright green grass.
Is this then the final flood? And who can escape it when even this mountainside would surely be submerged by it? There came to mind quickly again, Si Dominus custodierit civitatem frustra vigilat qui custodit eam.
I do not watch in vain, and it is not God who is fighting against my city. I am a man of peace, I will not throw a single stone. My words, my thoughts may be hostile, but my deeds will speak of love. I will try to give love and light to those who need them …
But would he do this now? Those were no brutal illusions — the anguish, the death he had seen in Baugen, and in remembering, Istak shuddered. The nightmare would not pass — it was living blood which he had touched, it was a dead girl he had cradled in his arms, and the homes that went up in flames were homes of living people, just like Po-on had been, just like Cabugawan was now.
It is for Dalin, then, for my boys, for my neighbors who do not know of the struggle for this lonely summit. The few of us who are here waiting — we can hold back the flood, and even if it were to immerse us all, it would have to ebb and we could raise our heads again.
All around was stillness, strained breathing. All around was this clearness, not of doom but of life. Men defying steel — they were not like him, they were trained to kill, and he had never held a gun; he did not know how to load one, much less aim one and play God.
The general had dismounted; he marched up the pass, telling his men in Tagalog, and now in Spanish as well, that they should wait till they had those blue shirts clear in their sights. Then and only then, he was telling them, although he himself perhaps was trembling, not to be afraid, that since they would not get out of this alive anyway, they should die like men. “Like men — understand? How many men are left in the world? You there, Kulas, you have no beard and no beard will ever grow on that face. But I know you have testicles. You are a man, are you not, Kulas?”
Laughter.
“Maybe, my general.”
More laughter.
It was eerie, the laughter that welled from them on this early morning.
The general mounted his horse again and rode to the edge of the pass, to the promontory where from down below he could be seen.
Volleys from below, bullets whistling, pinging on rocks, but none touched him.
He was taunting death with a boyish infidelity to life. No, this was not courage — this was madness with no explanation to it, as Istak could easily explain the raw fear which gripped him, made his legs heavy, immobile, as if they had been roots implanted deep in the land itself.
“Oy there, Simeon,” the general was saying now. “You have fought in Calumpit, in Tarlak. They are not good fighters, my brothers. They are cowards and they waste their ammunition. Do you remember how they fired without looking at us, without raising their heads? They are white like milkfish and just as ill-trained.”
Now, the Krags resounded below and the bullets whined above him, thudding against the earthwork and cutting the leaves of grass. In the trench to his right, one had fallen and the blot of red quickly spread on the soldier’s back.
“¡Fuego! Fire!” the general barked and their Mausers thundered as one. “¡Fuego!”
Istak raised his head and saw three men collapse way down the grassy sweep below. They did not rise — the blue distinct on the green.
“First squad,” the general was shouting now in Spanish. “I know you have testicles. But why do you shoot like women? They are coming now to your right — and you are missing them, although you can already smell their baby breath. You must like these barbarians who raped your sisters and your mothers. Arc you my brothers? Or my sisters? ¡Fuego!”
The Mausers roared and the Krags below replied.
The numbness in his legs and the pounding in his breast had subsided. Now, Istak could think clearly, could feel keenly, as if he could trace every gulp of cool air that rushed to his lungs. Every touch of grass upon his skin reminded him that he was alive although death was in the air, in the shrill whistling of bullets above him, around him. He held his palms to the sun — they were as rough as they had always been. He crouched, blood rushing to his legs, then he raced to the trench at his right where the soldier had fallen. He crawled to the prostrate form; the rayadillo uniform was soiled with the green of leaves and branches and the rich brown of the mountain earth. The blot on the man’s back was like a gumamela blossom. Hibiscus rosa sinensis. He got the rifle and knelt by the fallen soldier — his pulse was still.