WHO AM I TO JUDGE?

CHAPTER 54

There was a photo of a cave, a photo of Don Felipe shaking hands with an old man. A photo of an old man together with Don Felipe in a table eating lunch. There was also a picture of a young boy and young girl, playing together in a park. A photo of a crowd eating corn with Don Felipe in the middle. A photo of Don Felipe praying along with a lot of people. A photo of Don Felipe together with a lot of children.

"What is this?." I asked myself out loud.

"Let me see." Meldy came to see what i've been checking in the file.

"It says, Elibuende Gold Project. This was Montreal, if I am not mistaken was the village that we stayed in."

"Yes. Hiroshi told us remember."

With the confusion I had in mind, I approached Hiroshi while showing him the file that I found.

"The hell is this?." Hiroshi asked.

"Elibuende Gold Project, was a project established by Don Felipe. From what I've heard, Don Felipe tried to buy the whole place because of the abundance of gold in the soil." Meldy explained.

"But I don't exactly know what happened why they abandoned the mine. They could have cleaned the whole mountain if they wanted to."

That is when I realized that the mine was not totally and fully utilized. Don Felipe and his men can gain so much gold from the mine if he wanted to. He had the resources, the manpower, the equipments to drill the whole mountain in pursuit of gold. But instead, they abandoned it. It made me wonder why he didn't finish the job, he had the reputation of being greedy, why did he stop? What happened. Questions circled in my mind, as I looked into the photos included in the file.

"I think this were the people of Montreal, together with Don Felipe."

They looked happy with him, I can see from their faces that they were genuinely happy together with him in the photo. It's like he was one of them.
He was supposed to be a an evil man. Why is he friendly from these people.
I was filled with questions, questions that I can never find the answers. I don't know this man's history, I don't know the history of the people nor the place. Maybe there were things that I didn't know. It's not that I care, but I knew that things were better If I knew what really happened. The curiosity pushed me to pursue more. I was so eager to learn and discover, but the records were not sufficient enough to give informations.

"Just these, then no more."

"Why do you care so much about that." Meldy asked.

Even I didn't understand why. Why bother knowing the truth. It doesn't concern me in any way. What do I get from pursuing those informations. Those were the things that marked in my mind. Then I remember the words that my old grandfather once told me.

"You can never know the future, if you never knew the past."

Makes sense. The old  words were right all along. How can you solve an existing problem, if you don't know the problem itself. But documents and photos were not sufficient enough to feed my curiosity. What I need at those moment was witness. Who can tell me the exact things that were happening before.

I fell back, placed the file in the bed. I lied down on the floor, feeling every inch of the shined surface. The cold night ambiance, enveloped with the warm hug of heat from the fireplace. A perfect place to heal. Physically healed, but mentally stirred. Things started to grow in my mind, what if's and other cuckoos jogging down the alley of my mind. Circling non stop making me dizzy from the things that I've been thinking. Then my eyes rolled heavily, fatigue trickled down the veins. One second I was aware, then another second I saw darkness. I fell asleep in the floor while holding my injured arm. Due to the fatigue and the stress that we encountered, my body wanted to rest, and so I did.

***

"Peter wake up." I felt a tap in my face.

As I opened my eyes, I saw Meldy trying to wake me up. Nervous and shaking, sweating like crazy.

"Don Felipe is enraged with the death of his son Don Mattias. Gamma on the move to hunt us."

As I tried to stand on my feet, I felt intense pain in my back and arm, making it difficult to stand upright. Despite hours of standby, there was no recovery for the three of us. The stress and the worry of having our lives timed, made it so difficult.

"Don Felipe is now ordering Gamma to hunt us. We are in danger here, might as well advance. We're sitting ducks here."