The rattler was a creature of horror and beauty at the same time. The head was silvery gray, and a row of diamond shaped markings with brown centers outlined in yellow spanned downward from the head to the body. Beyond it, as the grass moved and the snake advanced toward her upper body, its head lifted, Alex could see the tail, lightly striped with brown and yellow.
She gazed at its eyes, elliptical pupils centered by black irises. For a moment it opened its mouth slightly, showing the venomous fangs that could kill her as easily as a jungle fighter’s bullet.
The head was now about eighteen inches away from the nose of her pistol. It seemed to be looking her right in the eye, almost freezing her. The head continued forward. In the back of her mind, she suspected that it was instinctively going for her throat.
Closer.
It was now about a foot from the nose of her gun.
She figured she had one shot. Maybe two if the first one wasn’t a clean hit.
She steadied her wrists as best she could. There would be a kickback to the pistol, enough so that a second shot would be questionable.
The snake moved forward another inch or two, exploring. Then it stopped.
The tongue continued to flick.
She knew. It was ready to strike at her flesh, either her arm or her neck.
Now or never.
The heat pounded her, and the sweat rolled off her so furiously that she felt as if a fat person were lying on top of her.
A final prayer and…
Now! She pulled the trigger.
The weapon erupted with a powerful bang.
The impact upon the snake’s head was instantaneous. The bullet took the snake’s head off with precision, smashing it into oblivion, leaving a writhing decapitated creature spasming and unraveling on her, spilling its reddish yellow guts onto her clothing. The rest of the snake’s upper body, the part that wasn’t coiled around her, flew backward toward the grass, the neck oozing with blood and intestines.
Alex felt the snake’s body go limp around her leg.
She felt a deep sickness in her stomach and wanted to vomit. But she fought back. She reached through the grass and grabbed the remains of the carcass where it was wrapped around her leg. She pulled it off her and flung it away.
She slid forward.
Cautiously, she got to her feet. Both her legs were red and cross hatched from scrapes. She gasped for her breath, breathing hard, the gun still in her hand at her side. She looked in every direction and saw no enemy. Maybe they had departed already. Many people had fled into the jungle, perhaps the attackers had given up and departed. She prayed that was the case.
She guessed the direction of one of the streams. She went five minutes through some heavy foliage, then heard the water. She reasoned that she was about three hundred yards downstream from where the women of Barranco Latoya were used to bathing.
The water there would be safe, she reasoned. And it might be a terrain she knew better than the attackers.
She found the stream. She holstered her gun. She picked a secluded place and removed her shoes and socks. She waded in and drank. Never had water felt so good, satisfied so deeply. She washed the cuts and scrapes on her legs. The abrasions stung but the water soothed. She caught her breath. Then she washed her arms and her face.
She kept up her vigil. She saw no one else. No raiders, no survivors from the village. She wondered if she should creep closer to the village but reasoned that if any gunmen had been left behind, that’s what they would be looking for her to do. So she didn’t. She would maintain her plan to return at the next dawn.
She found some wild roots and berries that she knew to be edible. She had enough nourishment to sustain her. She was still in shock over what had happened, what she had seen, at having been under fire. But she was alive, rallying her spirit and still ready to fight back.
Her hand went to the stone at her neck again, then left.
She moved another hundred yards downstream, measuring the distance with paces, using the position of the sun to verify her direction. She then tailed off into the woods. She found a vantage point and settled in again. She covered herself with leaves and branches and kept her back to a rocky slope.
More time went by. An intense exhaustion began to grip her, then possessed her completely. She closed her eyes, unable to keep them open. Her pistol was in her hand, on her lap. It must have been four in the afternoon when she drifted off.
She opened her eyes again a few hours later. There was still some daylight and some of her camouflage had been pulled away.
She blinked awake, startled, as someone grabbed the pistol from her. The dying sunlight of the day cast severe shadows among the trees. But she did see the large heavy silhouettes of three men, all in military green and brown camouflage-style uniforms, with beige coiled braids on the right side. All three had automatic rifles.
One of the rifles was pointed straight at her face, inches away. A second man poked her in the shoulder with the nose of his rifle. The third one held her Beretta. He tucked it into his belt. The leader appeared to be about thirty. The two younger men were barely out of their teens. They stared at her as if she had arrived from outer space.
“¡Levántese!” the rifleman ordered. Get up.
Slowly, raising her hands in the air in surrender, she stood.
SEVENTY-THREE
¿Quién es?” one of them asked. Who are you?
She assessed quickly. On their chests they wore nameplates, on their lapels and shoulders, they wore ranks. Militias didn’t do that. On their heads, they wore the floppy hats of regular army units assigned to the mountains.
They were soldiers of the Venezuelan army. The leader was a trim comandante named Ramírez, equivalent to a major. His two men appeared to be privates.
The leader held her at gunpoint and one of the others took her knife away. Then they started patting her down, a frisk and a grope at the same time. Across her body, across her breasts, between her legs. She cringed and pushed back. In return, the groper held her arm tightly, shook her and threatened her with worse if she didn’t cooperate.
She refused to answer them.
The indignities continued. One of the men pushed his hand within her T-shirt and continued to explore. She pulled back angrily, throwing an elbow.
“¡Párense!” she snapped. Stop! “Soy norteamericana,” she said. “I was in the village when it was raided. I fled.”
Ramírez looked her in the eye. The other two studied her up and down.
“¿Cuál pueblito?” the comandante asked. What village?
“Barranco Lajoya.”
They looked at each other.
“Barranco Lajoya was destroyed,” he said in Spanish. “There was a massacre.”
She felt her spirits plummet, her heart going with them. Her friends. The missionaries. More than ever she was conscious of the pendant she wore around her neck. But was it doing anything, protecting anyone? Where was God when she needed God?
“How bad was it? The massacre?” she asked.
“If you’re an American, why is your Spanish so good?” Ramírez asked, ignoring the question. “Americans don’t speak Spanish without an accent.”
“My mother was mexicana. What happened to the village? I was with the missionaries. How bad was the attack?”
The soldiers relaxed very slightly. “Prove that you’re American,” the leader said.
She reached slowly to the side pocket of her shorts. She pulled out her passport and handed it to them.
One of the younger soldiers took it and gave it to the major. They kept their guns trained on her. She had no chance to run, she knew. She would have been cut down within a few feet if they chose to kill her.