The Power of the Dog

HOLA, CHUPAR.

The other guards try to lead Guero to the sofa but he snatches the note, reads it, turns, if possible, even paler and then yells, “?Dios mio, mis nenes!??Donde estan mis nenes?!”

Oh, my God, my children!

Where are my children?!

“?Donde esta mi madre??Yo quiero mi madre!”

“Where is my mommy? I want my mommy!” Claudia howls because she doesn’t see her mother on the bridge, just a bunch of strange men staring at them. Guerito sees her panic and picks up her cry. And Claudia doesn’t want to be held now. She twists and fights in Fabian’s arms and cries, “?Mi madre!?Mi madre!”

But Fabian keeps walking toward the center of the bridge.

Adan sees him coming.

Like a nightmare, a vision from hell.

Adan feels paralyzed, his feet nailed to the wood of the bridge, and he just stands there as Fabian smiles at the Orejuela brothers and says, “Don Miguel Angel Barrera assures you that his blood flows through the veins of his nephew.”

Adan believes in numbers, in science, in physics. It is at this precise moment that he understands the nature of evil, that evil has a momentum of its own, which, once started, is impossible to stop. It’s the law of physics-a body at rest tends to stay at rest; a body set in motion tends to stay in motion.

Unless something stops it.

And Tio’s plan is, as usual, brilliant. Even in its total, crack-inspired depravity it is deadly accurate in its perception of individual human nature. This is Tio’s genius-he knows that a man who would never have the weakness to set a great evil into motion doesn’t have the strength to stop it once it’s moving. That the hardest thing in the world isn’t to refrain from committing an evil, it’s to stand up and stop one.

To put one’s life in the way of a tidal wave.

Because that is what it is, Adan thinks, his mind whirling. If I put a stop to this now it will show weakness to the Orejuelas-a weakness that will immediately or eventually prove fatal. If I show the slightest disunity with Fabian, that, too, will guarantee our demise.

Tio’s genius-putting me in exactly this position, knowing that I have no real choice.

“I want Mama!” Claudia screams.

“Shh,” Fabian whispers, “I am taking you to her.”

Fabian looks to Adan for a signal.

And Adan knows that he’s going to give it to him.

Because I have a family to protect, Adan thinks, and there is no other choice. It’s Mendez’s family or mine.

Had Parada been there he would have phrased it differently. He would have said that in the absence of God there’s only nature, and nature has its cruel laws. That the first thing the new leaders do is kill the offspring of the old. Without God, that’s all there is: survival.

Well, there is no God, Adan thinks.

He nods.

Fabian throws the girl off the bridge. Her hair lofts up like futile wings and she plummets as Fabian grabs the little boy and in one easy swing tosses him over the railing.

Adan forces himself to look.

The children’s bodies plunge seven hundred feet, then smash onto the rocks below.

Then he looks at the Orejuela brothers, whose faces are white with shock. Gilberto’s hand shakes as he shuts the suitcase, picks it up and walks shakily back across the bridge.

Below, the Rio Magdalena washes away the bodies and the blood.