Night of the Jaguar Read Free Page A

soldier.
    â€œSorry about the smell.” He bent down to blow on the embers of incense. “Did you see any crows outside?”
    â€œNo.”
    The soldier trudged on leaden legs to one of the cots and sat heavily, knocking over an empty bottle of rum. There was a pile of them at his feet. He laid the AK across his lap and raised the bottle as though to drink. Instead, he poured rum over his head and shoulders. Massaged it thoroughly into his arms. He bathed himself again. He didn’t even flinch when it cascaded into his eyes.
    â€œSorry about the smell. The priest said the incense would help. But it does no good. That’s how they find me, see? The crows. By the smell. That carrion smell.” He opened another bottle of rum, doused himself. “I can’t get that smell out.”
    Ajax got up, drifted to the cot, squatted on his haunches in front of the soldier, inches from the rifle. “I can’t smell anything but the incense. A friend says it’s making the whole barrio smell like a priest’s whorehouse.”
    The soldier smiled, almost chuckled. “You better watch that. God will get mad.” He rubbed his eyes, but only one hand at a time, the other resting on the rifle. “I need to sleep. But that’s when they come. My friends. The crows.” His head drooped then snapped up. “Do you think God sees everything? Everything everyone does? I mean there must be millions of people in the world, right?”
    â€œNo. He doesn’t see. He’s too busy.”
    â€œThat’s what I told my novia. My girl. That’s why He sends the crows!” The soldier dropped his head to his chest. He seemed asleep, but his thumbs made small circles on the stock of the AK. “Can ghosts hurt you? I mean can they get mad at you? Even if maybe it’s not your fault?” He raised his eyes to Ajax’s. “I mean, they were already dead. It was the only way to get them in the same hole. I was gonna bury them. I wanted to, but I lost them in the river. My friends understand that, right?”
    Ajax understood the soldier was reliving the torture he’d been put through; he’d read the boy’s file. There had been dismemberment, body parts carried on the soldier’s back. He touched the soldier for the first time, patting his knee. “Your friends understand everything. And they forgive you. Besides, the dead don’t have the same worries as us. Once they’re dead, their concerns from life disappear.”
    â€œYeah. Yeah. I hope so.”
    Fortunado’s head dropped, then snapped up again, a look of alarm overcoming his tortured features.
    â€œShhh.” He raised fingers to his lips. The AK was finally free of his grip, Ajax’s hand still on his knee. “Listen. Do you hear?” His eyes roved over the soot-dark ceiling. “Did you see any crows outside?”
    â€œNo. Nothing.”
    His hands dropped to the AK again. “When I escaped the Contra—you heard of Comandante Krill? Real shit-eater. But it was the crows that helped me escape. They led me to the river. I would never have found it. That’s how I got back.”
    â€œGod and Nature are with the Revo, hombre.”
    â€œNo! Then they turned on me. Shouting, ‘He’s here! He’s here!’ That’s how the ghosts found me. Them fucking crows reported to God and God said, ‘Punish Him! Punish the coward! Punish the traitor!’” The soldier beat his head with his fists, the moan of an animal in agony rising out of him until Ajax feared it would spook Gladys into rushing the barricaded door. The soldier scratched at his scalp, leaving long red welts. Ajax grabbed his wrists, wrestled his hands down, the rifle no longer his main worry.
    â€œStop it! Stop it! Look at me!”
    But the soldier tore his hands away, attacked his scalp again as if he would rip open his head and tear out his mind. “Leave me alone!