Betrayed (37 page)

Too many.

And too many had died because of that.

Well, this time something would be done. He had them now at last. This time they wouldn’t get away with it. He wouldn’t let them get away with it.

Twenty-four hours.

It was a vow.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Vicki was up before sunrise the next morning. It took only minutes to restore her few belongings to her duffel bag. All but palm-size binoculars and the cardboard box, which she settled carefully into a knapsack she’d come across in the women’s barracks when she cleaned it. She stripped the bedding from her bunk, then detached Holly’s photo lineup, sliding it into the knapsack, before running dust cloth and broom over the room. It was now ready for whichever WRC staffer was bringing up the team that should be arriving in time for supper and the evening animal rounds, which Vicki would no longer be available to carry out.

Leaving her bag on the stripped bunk, Vicki took the knapsack with her. Cesar hadn’t yet returned when she began preparing the animals’ breakfast, and it was Rosario who did the morning rounds with Vicki and Beatriz who prepared their breakfast in the kitchen shelter. Her expression as she slapped a mug in front of Vicki shouted,
This is beneath me
.

Well, it couldn’t be pleasant to have a nonstop parade of foreigners through one’s home. Though Rosario and Beatriz had been unfriendly and possibly dishonest, Vicki hoped they would soon move back to the capital. For the center as much as their own sakes.

Cleaning up breakfast, Vicki added a canteen, rolls, oranges, and the small, tough-skinned “finger” bananas to the knapsack. As she wheeled the mountain bike from the shed, an excited animal babble turned her head. Cesar was threading toward her through the animal cages. Vicki caught a whiff of wood smoke as he came near. Maria’s cook fire? It was unlike Cesar to linger over morning coffee and tortillas when he had duties waiting, but after last night it was certainly understandable.

Vicki looked past him. “Is Maria here yet? How are Alicia and—?”

Cesar cut in sharply, “Where are you going? Are you not still departing today?”

Vicki sighed. She’d have preferred to slip away without anyone knowing she was taking this excursion. On the other hand, it might be prudent to leave notice as to which direction she was heading.
It’s what I’d insist on if it were Holly
. Vicki tugged Holly’s photos from the knapsack. “I
am
leaving today. But first I’m going to take a memorial ride along this trail Holly shows here.”

Cesar shook his head.

How could she make him understand? Or at least not interfere? Opening the knapsack again, she lifted out the cardboard box with its mortuary logo. “My sister loved these mountains. From these pictures, this trail was a special favorite of hers. So I want to follow it today on a pilgrimage to say good-bye to Holly. And . . . lay her to rest.

“The animals are all fed. The rooms are ready for the team. So there’s no reason I can’t take off for a few hours. I know exactly where I’m going, and with the bike it’s not so far. I’ll be back in plenty of time to leave tonight as I told you.”

“No, it is too dangerous. You cannot go into the mountains alone.” Cesar stepped in front of the mountain bike. “Not even Ho-lee followed that trail alone.”

“How is it dangerous? We went that way yesterday and didn’t see an animal bigger than a monkey. If it’s the soldiers you’re worried about, don’t forget the biosphere is supposed to be off-limits to them too, except for their war games, and I happen to know those have finished.” Vicki repacked the knapsack as she argued. “Besides, this time I’ve no intentions of announcing myself or being seen. And if I do run into some lingering patrol, so what? So they throw me out again. I’m leaving these mountains tonight anyway, and I’ll have already finished what I came to do.”
All of it, I hope
.

Then what he’d just said registered. “Wait—alone? You said Holly hadn’t followed that trail
alone
.” Vicki let knapsack and bike drop to the path. “So she
did
go up there. With who? With you? Can you show me exactly where she went? If you don’t want me to go alone, come with me.”

The reek of smoke and burning grew stronger as Vicki moved closer to Cesar. Only when she tilted her chin up challengingly did she realize that it was all wrong for Maria’s cook fire. Taking in a smudge of soot against bronze skin, a dusty sifting across shirt and pants she could now see to be ash and cinders, Vicki demanded, “What is it, Cesar? What’s wrong?”

Cesar glanced down to brush at his shirtfront, leaving an even bigger smudge. He shrugged. “It is nothing to concern you. The church burned down in the night.”

“What happened?” Vicki gasped. “Was it an accident?”

His expression closed, and Vicki knew with dismay that the tenuous connection she’d worked so hard to develop was gone. Cesar had retreated behind that defensive wall of stolidity and silence where he’d barricaded himself since she’d arrived.

Laying a hand on one sooty sleeve, Vicki looked at him pleadingly. “Please, Cesar, you were a friend to Holly, and I thought you were my friend too. Can you at least tell me if Alicia and Gabriela and Maria are safe?”

His eyes flickered at the mention of the girls. He turned his gaze to the distance, weighing, Vicki guessed, her status as an outsider, a foreigner, one of his people’s light-skinned conquerors, with the help she’d provided last night. She didn’t push him, tamping down her impatience until she was hardly breathing. Then he looked back at her. “Maria and the girls are unhurt. They will be arriving soon to work. And, no, it was not an accident. It was a warning. A punishment.”

“A warning? You mean, because of yesterday? It was the soldiers? The UPN?”

“It is not possible to say. They wore camouflage but no identification. They said nothing when they came out of the night. We thought they would kill us like that other village. But they only came into our homes with their guns and sticks. They took us to the church. Then they made us watch as it was burned. They did not need to say that if they come again, it will be our homes and our lives.”

“This is terrible! Did you report it to Colonel Alpiro? No, I can see that wouldn’t be the best idea if maybe some of his men were involved. But if you could get word to Guatemala City. Get the police or someone up here to investigate.”

“Investigate? Like your sister’s death?” Cesar dropped clenched hands to his sides. “And what are we to say? The church burned. There is only our word as to how. And if they believe our witness, the army will say it was
la guerilla
. Or just common
bandidos
who do not want outsiders in their territory. And who is to say it was not? Since no one died and our homes were spared, the villagers will be grateful for this and keep quiet. And they will not again easily disobey and enter the forbidden
zona
. So all will be well.”

“But they destroyed your church. Surely you don’t think they should be allowed to get away with that.”

The slightest of smiles lightened his face. “No, you are mistaken. They did not destroy our church. A church is people, not the thatch and wood under which they gather. You cannot destroy a church by burning. As to the meeting place, it will be built again. Perhaps with tile or tin that does not burn. But we will also be careful to provoke no more difficulties. So you see why it is best you do not go back into the sierra. And why it is best that you leave as you have planned.”

Why was it everyone knew what was best for her?
I just wish I knew so clearly
. She put all the conviction she could into her tone, “Yes, I certainly do see why you can’t come. I’m sorry I asked, and I’m really sorry about your church. But this is something I have to do. If there’s any trouble, I promise I’ll make sure it falls on me and no one else.”

Cesar made no move to get out of Vicki’s path. “No, I can’t do that.”

“Please, Cesar!” Scooping up the knapsack, Vicki picked up the mountain bike. “I’m not asking that you understand or help me. But if you were Holly’s friend, I’m asking that you not interfere. Or tell anyone where I’m going. At least not unless something happens, and I don’t come back.”

“No, what I mean is that I cannot let you go alone. Not if you truly must go.” Cesar turned to look up into the foothills as he said slowly. “You are right. Ho-lee was my friend. She encouraged me to dream. To believe I could make a difference for my people here. That the future did not need to be like the past. And you are right that it was I who took her into the sierras. Like you, she believed it was her right to enter the biosphere when she chose. And her duty to ensure all was well there. Many times we explored trails with no difficulties until . . . ”

“Until what?” Vicki prompted when he stopped.

Cesar nodded toward the knapsack. “The last time we went, she took those pictures you showed me. It was a trail we had followed once before. But this time we went farther than we had ever been. I did not want to go so far. But she insisted. She had a camera that allows one to see far away.”

“A telephoto lens.” The shards of Holly’s digital camera had been among the personal belongings smashed by Sergeant Alvarez and his pals back at Casa de Esperanza.

“Yes, she spent much time looking through it. I don’t know what she saw, and she would not show me the pictures. But that she was troubled, I could see. The next day she went to the capital, and she never spoke of this again.”

“How long ago was this?”

“I do not know the precise day, but perhaps you do because when she returned, she informed me her sister had come to Guatemala.”

So those pictures had been taken just before Holly’s worried confidences at the airport. Were they connected to that cry for help? Or just pretty pictures of spectacular scenery?

“Do you have any idea what she might have seen there that could have worried her? Maybe something that’s not in the pictures? Is it possible she saw someone poaching? Maybe even someone she knew?”

“Anything is possible. But she would not speak to me about it, though she was my friend. So I did not think it was about the animals we both care for but perhaps some worry from beyond the sierra.”

Or someone Holly hadn’t wanted to worry Cesar about. Was it possible that Michael and Colonel Alpiro were right about those men, family members of Cesar’s, who’d volunteered so quickly to accompany them in the search?

“There is one other thing. I think she may have gone back without me. After she went to the city, she brought back maps. I saw her looking at them. The kind that can be printed from the computer that show the mountains from above.”

“Satellite maps, you mean, with latitude and longitude.”

“Yes. She left one day before morning chores. I thought she’d gone to the city with Señor Taylor. But when he came that afternoon, he assured me the plane had not gone that day. She returned before dark, so it was not necessary to announce she was missing. But she did not say where she had been. The next day she went to the city . . . and she did not come back.”