ever climbed before. I crawled frantically from branch to branch, looking back over my shoulders. The loud shouting and the pounding of boots on the ground echoed through the forest and soon passed below me.
I sat in the tree, breathing hard and fast. Maybe the soldiers hadn’t aimed at me because I was an older girl and they had worse plans for me than bullets. That thought made me even more frightened as I waited in the tree. If even one soldier looked up, they would find me and kill me. But their minds still chased a young woman they thought ran ahead of them. They were wild men, waving their rifles like sticks and shouting asthey ran deeper into the forest. Their wicked laughter rang wildly through the trees.
I remained in the machichi tree until the shouting faded a little more, then I climbed down the tree even faster than I had climbed up. When I reached the ground, I ran back out of the forest toward the river and to the fallen bodies of Pablo, Victoria, Ruben, Lisa, and Federico. I rolled each body over, but no life remained in any of them. I didn’t stop beside Manuel’s body. I knew for sure he had joined the clouds. Instead I ran hard downstream. The dull
thud
of bullets hitting small bodies echoed in my memory as I ran and ran.
CHAPTER SIX
M anuel had often asked his students what thoughts we had when we looked up at the sky. Always since that day beside the river, I have thought only of Manuel when I look up. I see his face in the clouds and I feel his gentleness in the breeze. I feel him dancing in my arms. Whenever raindrops fall, they come as tears from a better place.
After the deaths of Manuel and the schoolchildren, word of the massacre spread like wind through the cantóns, fields, and countryside. Men from each cantón were sent to return the bodies for burial.
Of course, the Army denied the killing and blamedeverything on the guerrillas. They asked to talk to the student who would accuse them of such barbaric things. But we weren’t that stupid. Whenever the soldiers came to our cantón, Papí sent me to the forest to hide in the trees.
No longer able to attend school, and with Mamí and Jorge gone, my younger brothers and sisters became my full-time responsibility. Because Alicia was the youngest and the most helpless, I let her sleep with me. I hugged and comforted her whenever thunder rumbled across the sky. She kept calling me Mamí, and I didn’t correct her. All children need a mother.
Papí spent his days in the fields harvesting the corn and coffee; he had no time to leave the cantón to go to the pueblo for market. So, although I was only fifteen, it also became my job to go to market each week. The only market for selling our coffee was ten kilometers away, so each weekend during harvest, I arose two hours before sunrise and walked for three hours to market. Always I kept to the mountain paths, avoiding the military patrols on the roads.
When I arrived at market, I spread the coffee ontoan old blanket on the ground and used a tin can for measuring. I didn’t have a weight scale like some vendors. This made it easier for the Latinos to accuse me of shorting them. When the coffee sold, I bought chili powder, soap, or spices to take back to the cantón. Sometimes enough change remained for me to buy hair ties for Julia, Lidia, and Alicia, and a piece of candy for Lester and Antonio.
But sometimes the coffee didn’t sell and I had to carry it back to our cantón along with a much heavier burden, the news for Papí that we couldn’t even buy salt until the following week when I would travel to market again.
In the market, the Indios whispered to each other in hushed tones. Some believed the guerrillas were trying to help the Indios, and they spoke of young men from different cantóns enlisting to join the fight. The military, unable to enlist many Indios, kept coming to the cantóns and taking away men and older boys at gunpoint to fight for them. Still, nobody from our cantón
I sat in the tree, breathing hard and fast. Maybe the soldiers hadn’t aimed at me because I was an older girl and they had worse plans for me than bullets. That thought made me even more frightened as I waited in the tree. If even one soldier looked up, they would find me and kill me. But their minds still chased a young woman they thought ran ahead of them. They were wild men, waving their rifles like sticks and shouting asthey ran deeper into the forest. Their wicked laughter rang wildly through the trees.
I remained in the machichi tree until the shouting faded a little more, then I climbed down the tree even faster than I had climbed up. When I reached the ground, I ran back out of the forest toward the river and to the fallen bodies of Pablo, Victoria, Ruben, Lisa, and Federico. I rolled each body over, but no life remained in any of them. I didn’t stop beside Manuel’s body. I knew for sure he had joined the clouds. Instead I ran hard downstream. The dull
thud
of bullets hitting small bodies echoed in my memory as I ran and ran.
CHAPTER SIX
M anuel had often asked his students what thoughts we had when we looked up at the sky. Always since that day beside the river, I have thought only of Manuel when I look up. I see his face in the clouds and I feel his gentleness in the breeze. I feel him dancing in my arms. Whenever raindrops fall, they come as tears from a better place.
After the deaths of Manuel and the schoolchildren, word of the massacre spread like wind through the cantóns, fields, and countryside. Men from each cantón were sent to return the bodies for burial.
Of course, the Army denied the killing and blamedeverything on the guerrillas. They asked to talk to the student who would accuse them of such barbaric things. But we weren’t that stupid. Whenever the soldiers came to our cantón, Papí sent me to the forest to hide in the trees.
No longer able to attend school, and with Mamí and Jorge gone, my younger brothers and sisters became my full-time responsibility. Because Alicia was the youngest and the most helpless, I let her sleep with me. I hugged and comforted her whenever thunder rumbled across the sky. She kept calling me Mamí, and I didn’t correct her. All children need a mother.
Papí spent his days in the fields harvesting the corn and coffee; he had no time to leave the cantón to go to the pueblo for market. So, although I was only fifteen, it also became my job to go to market each week. The only market for selling our coffee was ten kilometers away, so each weekend during harvest, I arose two hours before sunrise and walked for three hours to market. Always I kept to the mountain paths, avoiding the military patrols on the roads.
When I arrived at market, I spread the coffee ontoan old blanket on the ground and used a tin can for measuring. I didn’t have a weight scale like some vendors. This made it easier for the Latinos to accuse me of shorting them. When the coffee sold, I bought chili powder, soap, or spices to take back to the cantón. Sometimes enough change remained for me to buy hair ties for Julia, Lidia, and Alicia, and a piece of candy for Lester and Antonio.
But sometimes the coffee didn’t sell and I had to carry it back to our cantón along with a much heavier burden, the news for Papí that we couldn’t even buy salt until the following week when I would travel to market again.
In the market, the Indios whispered to each other in hushed tones. Some believed the guerrillas were trying to help the Indios, and they spoke of young men from different cantóns enlisting to join the fight. The military, unable to enlist many Indios, kept coming to the cantóns and taking away men and older boys at gunpoint to fight for them. Still, nobody from our cantón
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