End of Women: Part Four

Armonia

Alex drank deeply from a canteen full of days-old water. The liquid slid down his gullet and left a taste of rank bitterness behind before he passed the thing back to DeMontoya.

'Corros has not moved his position for three days.' He thought out loud as they stood opposite sides of a planning-bench in the town hall at Tulas, one of the larger villages that had so recently come around to Alex and his mission. There was daylight outside, a windless and blue mid-morning, and there were noises in the square that were mostly men driving buggies out to the fields or smoking at the well. Inside the hall there were only two others, high-ranking members of the village council who, between them, owned more land than the rest of the men combined. Alex knew them both by name, and the names of their sons, but allowed them entry to his war-room only on condition that they never tried to interfere with tactics. It irritated him how, whenever he mentioned Corros' name, they would flinch or shudder as if Alex had uttered some disgusting curse word.

'He likes the spot, I think.' DeMontoya replied, placing his earthy boots up on the desk and idly picking at his flowery-coloured guitar. 'It is only laziness.'

'More than that. He knows he is surrounded.' Alex drew an imaginary line around the encampment, such as it was, on his map. It stretched a full five acres, surrounded by auto-rebuilding mag-walls that would reappear the moment they were torn down, benefits of the nano-construction technology that someone had apparently sold to Corros. 'We know his men carry pulse rifles. We know he has heavy guns and is laying traps.'

'Si, the drone tells us so.' DeMontoya pursed his lips and shrugged as the half-melody he played turned slow and thoughtful. 'But I do not trust these things. You see dark shapes and you think big guns, another man sees them and thinks elephants. Who is to know?'

Alex chose not to answer that. He stood back from the map and took a breath. It was obvious, really, but until he said it, none of them would dare to say it themselves.

'We cannot take his army by attacking that position.'

DeMontoya's last pluck hit the string off-key. A note of discord rang through the room, and Lucas and Reno, the two town council members, poked their heads up from a game of cards.

'You all know it as well as I do.' Alex folded his arms and paced around the room, chewing the inside of his mouth. 'He is too well-armed. If we attack, hundreds of men will die before we can make Corros' army change hands.'

'Will they change?' DeMontoya said in a half-whisper. 

'None of them are loyal to Corros.' Alex pointed at the door that led to the square. 'Out there are five of them who left him this morning to join us. They come to visit these old jailhouses we have made into Mexico's first Compounds. No, they will change when they know we can offer better odds than Corros can. He is a vain and idiotic leader who keeps his men's loyalty by bribing them with sharper weapons and fuller stomachs.'

'And we bribe them with putas.' DeMontoya added. Lucas and Reno shot him dark looks.

'Careful how you speak of their wives.' Alex patted DeMontoya on the shoulder. 'Its true, we bribe them as well, but with a sustainable future. Those who stick with Corros now do so because they believe he is on the winning side. When that changes, they will be only too happy to follow a new leader.'

'This is true, I think.' DeMontoya started to strum. 'But you say it yourself, we cannot beat the man. More likely the men who follow you now will see the bloodshed and think you a madman for even trying.'

'Which is why we must find a different way to attack him. He may be strong, but he carries weakness with him.'

Before DeMontoya could ask any follow-up, a young boy came running through the door, face reddened with heat and pace and short of breath. He had in one hand the miniature drone Alex had been using to spy on Corros' encampment. 

'Thank-you, Tuco.' Alex took the drone from the boy's hand and slid out the pilot stick, inserting this into his HandTab. After a few seconds' processing the display sprang to life, showing Alex a real-time image of what the drone had just seen. DeMontoya slid his boots off the table and came around to look at the screen. Lucas and Reno craned their necks awkwardly to see, but did not get up.

'What the hell is that?' DeMontoya asked Alex.

Alex happened to be thinking exactly the same thing. In the middle of the encampment, surrounded by tents, a great round white circle had been purposefully sprayed onto the ground, so large that it must have been intended for Alex to see it. It was a message, but Alex had no idea what it meant.

'A circle...' Alex furrowed his brow, feeling the heat of the day building on him. 'Why?'

'The white circle?' Lucas answered up, unable to hold his words in. Alex turned to him with a quizzical look.

'You know about this?'

'Si. The circle represents a truce, and talking. It is an agreement that you two will meet and discuss things as men, and not try to kill one another.'

Lucas said it as though he were describing a recipe he had used a thousand times before going back to the card-game. Alex stared at him, and then the circle again.

'He wants to talk?'

'It could be some kind of a trap.' DeMontoya's voice was all warnings but his eyes were lit up with feverish excitement. 

'How do I agree?' Alex asked Lucas. Reno answered.

'You mark the square out there with the same. He will then come here the next day.'

'How do you know about this?' Alex wondered if they were kidding.

'It is how farmers used to deal with cartel-men in the days of El Colapso. Instead of guns and killing, you meet with the leader and agree terms, if you can. The white circle meant peace. It was known as the armonia.'

'Senor, you cannot do this.' DeMontoya said, again a different man in face than in voice.

'We said already, there is no way for us to beat them by force.' Alex called the boy back in and crouched down to talk to him. 'Gather up as many men as you can and tell them that we must make an armonia circle in the square so that Corros can see it.' 

The boy ran off with a frantic nod, still out of breath. 'And stay in the shade!' Alex called after him, concerned. 

'Senor, you know he will try to kill you.' Said DeMontoya.

'Then I'll have my answer, and you will have your great ballad. The song about a man who stood up to the tyrants, fought for good and right, and was betrayed and gunned down. When his men saw his body they rose up in numbers and tore down the tyrant, and afterward there was peace in the valley.'

DeMontoya grinned from ear to ear.

'It sounds like a good story, Senor.'