Blood of Paradise by David Corbett

Author:David Corbett
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road

The caserio sat among low hills, the five tiny houses made of bahareque, a mix of cane stalks and wood sticks glued together with mud. As the van pulled up, climbing the last of the rutted path from the nearest road, Malvasio spotted a small figure darting into the forest. Sleeper saw it too. He and Chucho jumped from the van and gave chase, thrashing through the underbrush beneath the dark tree cover.

Ziro, barely able to sit upright or even see much given the damage to his eye, remained behind with Malvasio, still bound but not gagged. Minutes passed. Sleeper and Chucho reappeared finally, alone, drenched in sweat, cursing and swatting at buzzing mosquitoes as they trudged back to the van.

Malvasio drew his pistol, got out of the van and gestured for Sleeper and Chucho to take the back of the hut, he’d take the front. Once he knew the other two were in position, Malvasio stuck his head through the beadwork hanging in the doorway.

A candle burned in a wood holder and quivering shadows stretched across the dirt-floored room. An indígena woman sat on a pepeishte, a woven mat for sleeping. She wore only a light cotton falda and had a homely, square, girlish face belied by her eyes, which seemed to belong to a much older woman. She cradled an infant in her arms. There was nothing else in the tiny house except a log to sit on, a guacal filled with corn, and a metate grinding stone.

Malvasio called the others inside, then asked the woman where her boy had run. She tried to pretend she didn’t understand, but then Chucho tapped her alongside the head a few times with the broad side of his machete. When she still wouldn’t answer, he went to grab the child.

The woman spoke then, in a rush of Spanish tinged with Nahuatl: “My son didn’t see what he thinks he saw. It was all a mistake. I will tell anyone who asks that he admitted to me he was lying. He never saw the woman who was taken away, the woman who complained about the water going bad in the well.” She looked at Malvasio with heartsick eyes, then crossed herself, kissing her infant’s head as she clutched its body tight against her own.

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