The Eleventh

That day, on that hill, by that bay, a lot of things went wrong. That’s how I ended up here, in this little room with the fan blowing the hot air around. I was lying on the bed, watching the ceiling fan make its lazy circles, it didn’t achieve much. Just wafted the smoke into larger circles, it had been two years since that hill. Willy and I had sat at the top and smoked a cigarette each, silently. Just looking down into that bay, staring at the tents. There was about four of them, arranged in a circle around the still smoking fire. How they had that fire still going was a mystery to me, it had rained pretty heavily not more than an hour ago. At least it meant they had no idea we were here. I took the binoculars from Willy and focused them on the man standing by the fire. He was talking to a couple of the others, his lips moving silently. I knew what he would be saying; I had sat through enough of his pep talks to know what was passing from his lips. Perhaps not word for word, but the ideas at least. This man was a problem, he had almost single handedly plunged this small nation into a vicious civil war. Granted he didn’t do it alone, but this was the man who had started it all. A vicious killer, and he looked it too. With his shaggy beard, rough and unkempt. Always with a cheroot dangling from the corner of his mouth and a harsh word passing those thin lips. This was going to be his last day alive, in some ways it was the last day I lived as well. Miguel Santiago. I had known him since I was a boy. We shared the same birthday, as well as the same room on the dusty streets of Luz de Guìa. A little nowhere town where the road crossed Rio de los Condenados, originally a ferry town it was now a bustling little shit hole. Four taverns and three streets of death. If you were lucky enough to be born there, you generally stayed there. Not Miguel though, nor I. He’d taken me for a rough ride that one.

I was rudely jerked back from those hazy memories by a knock at the door; I lifted Seguridad, my sawn off shotgun, from the bedside table and made my way over to the door. Opening it as far as the chain would allow I found myself staring down the muzzle of a .45 so I put both barrels through the door; shoot first, questions later. There’s something the Americans got right I thought as I dropped Seguridad and dived for Los Luminoso, my .50 cal desert eagle. Part of a pair that had been given to me years ago, her other half was El Sombrìo. El Sombrìo was long gone, lost that day on that hill. With Los Luminoso in my hand I leapt out the second story window, my fall broken by the shadow cloth of the fruit market below. As I struggled to untangle myself from the thick canvas, whoever had been at my door opened fire from above. I was lucky to get out alive. But I managed it, somehow, and was swiftly around the corner to my motorbike. I heard yelling coming from the room I had spent the last couple of nights in. I couldn’t make out what was being said but it was angry. Sitting astride my bike in the alleyway I jumped on the kick-start and she didn’t make a noise. No thundering roar, nothing. That’s when he spoke up ‘going somewhere?’ he said from the shadows. I didn’t recognise the voice at first; it had been so long since I heard it. Then he stepped out from the doorway, the first thing I saw was the pistol. It’s muzzle strong and familiar though the wrong end to be staring at, the shine of the metal had not been lost even though it was now scuffed and scratched. I had seen this weapon before; it matched the one that was in my own hand. We stood like this for perhaps a minute, Los Luminoso facing down El Sombrìo. I couldn’t understand how this had come to be.

Two years earlier on that hill, by that bay, two figures lost in the tangle of bush and jungle finish their cigarettes. One of them raises a rifle to his shoulder, the other a set of binoculars to his face. The one with the binoculars starts mumbling directions, wind speed, distance and the like, to the other; who’s only response is to change his aim slightly. The mumbling changes, it’s now just one word that’s said softly three times. ‘Fire, fire, fire.’ After the third call a single shots booms out over the bay and the man with the beard clutches his shoulder trying to pull the hurt out of him as he falls. Lost in a splash the man disappears from the scope of the rifle. There’s alot more movement from the camp now as the one with the binoculars says ‘hit’ and then the bolt is worked on the rifle and that word repeated again. ‘Fire, fire, fire.’ Followed by another crack as another man falls. Then there’s another shot, from another team on another hill. The rifles keep barking, as if they’re speaking to one another. And soon the small camp in the bay is still, the rifles having finished their macabre work. Then the men stand and start to make their way down the hill, the rain starting to fall again. When they get to the camp bodies are counted, faces examined. Their primary target is not amongst them. The man from Rio de los Condenados is missing, presumed dead.

‘How much did they pay you?’ the man not even hours older than I asked, his eyes showing his disgust with me. ‘It makes no difference, whether you answer or not.’ He spat after I didn’t reply, and then he shot me. A bang followed by the thump of my body as I hit the dirt. Pain leapt from my shoulder, lightning radiated out from where the bullet entered. I grunted as I tried to raise myself up, Los Luminoso heavy in my hand; El Sombrìo biting at my forehead. ‘You betrayed your country for a little gold? a promise of amnesty? what?’ Miguel was still talking. ‘You betrayed me, and look where it took you? You broke my heart’ those were the last words I heard, for El Sombrìo spat once more and took with it the back of my head. The last thing I saw was Miguel’s face, tears running down each cheek. That must have been what I looked like, tears rolling through the dust on my own face as I saw what I had killed, as I realised what exactly went wrong that day, on that hill, by that bay.