Freedom Fighters

13. Weakness

Accommodation was simple. Like the other revolutionaries, Dario, Camilo and the Almeida twins had to set up a small tent for themselves. They moved to the edge of a sprawling mass of tentages a small distance away from the farmhouse with the materials and started setting up. Huber offered to help.

"You are not staying?" Dario asked Huber as he rammed the wooden pole into the soil, twisting it in. The kerosene lamps around them bathed the area in a mellow orange light, as if they were in some sort of religious ritual.

"No, my friend," he replied simply. "I oversee logistical matters. Tomorrow morning, I have to head to another place to meet with a dealer."

"A dealer?" Camilo chirped in, perking up at those words in curiosity.

"A gun dealer," Huber answered flatly, wiping off the sweat on his forehead, before breaking into a smile. "A revolution must have its weapons, no?"

Dario nodded. He lifted his head up, gazing upon a lone Juanita seated by a fire a short distance away. Her arms were draped around her tucked in legs, using a long branch to tend to the growing fire. "Do you think this revolution can still continue? With our leaders in some Mexican prison?"

"Don't worry about it, Dario. All we can do is do our part and trust in them," Huber said. His thin smile offered little reassurance and his tone contained a hint of shakiness that suggested he did not quite believe in his own words.

The group settled into a comfortable working rhythm, setting up the olive-green tent in good time, complete with side flaps to shield them from the night breeze. After clearing up the lamps and returning them, they joined Juanita by the fire, which was contained in a small hole dug in the ground. As Dario got seated opposite her, he could not help but feel glum too as he looked at her drooping vacant features. She seemed so... subdued. So different from the commanding and cool-headed person in Veracruz. The crackling sounds of the fire consuming the twigs resonated against the hollow stillness in the air like a stone dropping into a stagnant pond.

"Here's the food," she said blankly. An imperceptible tilt of her head drew attention to a brown paper bag beside her. A few mess tins lay beside it, their bottoms evidently blackened from use. She broke her shrunken posture to retrieve a few small logs from behind her, placing them in a cross formation on the fire, forming a makeshift grill. Huber emptied the contents of the brown paper bag evenly into the mess tins and handed them around.

"Thank you," Dario said as he took his. A can of beans. Salted beef. Onions. Green peppers. Simple fare but sufficient. He opened the can, letting the viscous mixture of beans coat the sides of the mess tin, submerging the other ingredients in its dark liquid. He placed his mess tin alongside the others on the logs above the fire. It did not take long before the first bubbles started to appear.

"Huber," a barely audible word echoed out from Juanita.

"Yes?"

"Where will you be heading?"

"I have to collect the next shipment at the warehouse down at Sahagun in a few days. Probably going to bring a few extra hands along for backup this time," Huber replied.

She stared vacantly into the flames which had risen to lick the sides of the mess tins, making a half-hearted attempt at suppressing the fire with a few prods of her branch. Without a word, Marco took the branch from her hands and began shifting some twigs, even kneeling forward to blow at the fire. Sparks of embers burst into the air like a thousand fireflies before disappearing into the darkness.

"Do you mind helping me with something then, Huber?" she said in a hoarse whisper which brought a chill to the warm air.

"Certainly. What is it?"