Clementina Fonseca was the most precocious and the most promiscuous of Eduardo and Nilda Fonseca's three daughters. If she hadn't been precocious she wouldn't have been interested in boys at all. If she hadn't been promiscuous she wouldn't have been lying out there on the bare ground with her panties off and with one hand wrapped around Rolando Pereira's cock.
Clementina was only two months past her twelfth birthday, narrow-hipped, small breasted and possessed of a flat posterior. If her charms had ended there, Rolando might not have given her a second look, but God had given Clementina other attributes to make up for what she lacked in voluptuousness. She had high cheekbones, cafe au lait skin, bee-stung lips, a small but exquisite nose, and the largest and most lustrous brown eyes that Rolando had ever seen.
Her charms saved his life.
They were lying in a field, some one hundred meters from the nearest tent, when Rolando heard the engine noises. Seconds later, there was a screech of tires followed by a spatter of gravel.
He disengaged himself from Clementina and looked anxiously toward his father's tent. Someone inside lit a lantern. Car doors slammed. Voices shouted obscenities. Armed and hooded men were spilling out of a van.
"My dress," Clementina said, in a whine Rolando hadn't heard before and didn't particularly like. "Where is it?"
He felt around in the dark, located the dress, and handed it to her. Then he started pulling up his pants. If the men had arrived just a minute later he would have had an easier time fitting into them.
The men had powerful flashlights. They were walking from tent to tent, using machetes to cut the plastic sheeting, shining the beams inside, obviously looking for someone.
There was a shot and a woman's scream. Clementina got up to run, but he grabbed her by the ankle and pulled her down.
"Let me go," she said in a loud whisper. "I have to get home before my father finds out."
"Too late. Everyone's up, but they've all got their hands full. Let's just hope nobody notices we're gone."
Another shot. More screams.
"What is it?" she said. "Who are they?"
"The rancher's capangas," Rolando said, "come to run us off."
"Ai, meu Deus!" She wasn't whispering anymore.
Clementina's father had only recently joined the league, but Rolando, despite his tender years, was an old hand at this. His father, Roberto, was the head of the whole encampment, the leader of the league in all of Cascatas, the best friend of the now-legendary Aurelio Azevedo.
Clementina lifted her head to look. He pushed her nose back down into the dirt. "Don't move," he said, but he snuck a look himself. He was just in time to see his father come out of their tent. One of the attackers shone a light in his face and, recognizing him, called out to the others.
They gathered around him like a pack of mad dogs. He tried to throw a punch, but they overpowered him and forced him to his knees. Two men held him fast by the arms while others went into the tent and returned with Rolando's mother and his little sister, Lourdes.
"Where's the boy?" he heard one of them say.
Boy? That was him! They were looking for him!
"He's not in the tent, Senhor," one of the hooded figures said.
"Merda. All right, let's get it over with." The man who'd been called senhor had a voice hoarse from shouting. He was obviously the leader.
"Right," the figure holding Roland's sister said. He pulled out a knife and drew it across Lourdes's throat. She was so surprised she didn't even scream.
But his mother did: A long drawn-out wail of anguish, cut short by the blast of a shotgun.
They shot his father last, first in each kneecap, then in the abdomen and finally in the head, using a pistol for all four shots. His father didn't say a word, didn't beg them for mercy, didn't even cry out.
And yet all the time it was happening, Rolando heard his father's voice, coming to him from somewhere within his own head. Keep quiet, Rolando. Too late for me, boy. Don't give them a chance at you. Don't die for nothing. Come back when you're older. Avenge me.
The man who'd shot his father was wearing gloves. He bent over the body, pressed something shiny into his father's hand and took it away again.
The other people in the encampment were scattering in all directions, some of them toward the road, others dispersing into the neighboring fields. One group was coming directly toward Clementina and him.
She recognized her parents and both of her sisters. Before he could stop her, Clementina was on her feet and running to meet them.
A second later the hooded figures opened up with automatic weapons, spraying bullets into the dark. Rolando heard shots fly over his head like angry bees, heard one of them strike Clementina with a sound like the one his mother used to make when she beat a rug. Clementina staggered, turned, and looked back toward him. Her eyes were wide, the front of her pink dress dark with blood. Her saw her lips move and thought she spoke his name. But he couldn't be sure. He couldn't be sure of anything except the chattering of the guns.