- Chapter 26 - end - Page 247

and the gun waved, too. He walked twice around Lito, still shouting. Lito wouldn't look at him, and his amusement wouldn't go away.

     It seemed to infuriate Correon. He stopped pacing. He shouted even louder. His head bobbed as he spat what had to be curses. Lito wouldn't look at him. Correon pulled the slide of the pistol and snapped it back. That loads the chamber and cocks the trigger. It makes a loud, purposeful noise that will get anybody's attention. Lito didn't flinch.

     I heard Nonoy's breath catch beside me as Correon put the muzzle against Lito's head. Lito's grin was determined. Correon took the gun away and stepped back. I thought he was finished. Abruptly he stepped up again and put the gun to Lito's head and fired. Lito jerked and collapsed.

     Nonoy grunted, like taking a punch in the stomach.

     That's when the shooting started, in the field behind the bungalow. Maybe they were expecting the signal of a single shot, and Luis's seemed right. They opened with the popping of two or three rifles at first, a series of quick reports, automatic fire. This was out in front of us as we watched, not in Lanao but much closer, on the other side of the bungalow. Quickly the two or three guns became eight and ten and more.

     “Armalites,” said Baby. “NPA.”

     We crouched at the window, Dalzell saying shit, shit, shit. I looked over the sill. The two guards had flattened on the ground; one of them steadied his gun on Lito's chest. Correon was walking quickly to the shelter of the cottage. The two riflemen cut loose long strings of fire.

     Beyond where Lito sprawled was a band of landscaped grass and shrubs. Beyond that was a stubble field eighty to a hundred yards wide, a minor patch where an enterprising overseer had shoehorned a few extra rows of cane. At the other side of the stubble was cogon and brush and bamboo and scrubby trees, the riot of growth that explodes on any untended ground in Negros. The guerrillas