CHAPTER 127: VISITOR

By midday, I had dispatched both of our ships to their respective missions.

Señor Alcantara and the gunboat were tasked with transporting our dead and the prisoners to Boac. Once there, he was to coordinate with the cathedral for proper burial rites. On his return, he would bring Captain Roque and half of the recruits currently garrisoned in the cabecera to relieve the Buenavista detachment while my main force pushed onward to Torrijos.

Eduardo, meanwhile, took the Garay warship down the coast. A hundred and fifty rifles had been secured in crates aboard, along with Dimalanta himself, bound for Santa Cruz. The plan was to rearm the stripped recruits there—disarmed by Sadiwa weeks prior—and have them converge upon Torrijos from the east under Captain Méndez, with Dimalanta’s guidance.

The maneuver was meant to divert some of the pressure from my battered core force. Despite everything, I had no choice but to rely on them again for the main thrust. And to think—I could only afford them a single day’s rest. Tomorrow we move. Any later, and the momentum we fought so hard to gain would be lost.

My body was still recovering from the fighting. I ached all over, and a dull feverish haze had started to creep over me from exhaustion. So, after giving the officers and platoon leaders their respective assignments, I retired to the room at the convento.

Just as I was beginning to drift off, there came a knock on the door.

A visitor requested for my audience.

I would have refused, had it not been the same old man we encountered during the fighting yesterday—back when we were inching our way to the church.

He was waiting in the sala, near the entrance. The room, bare of furniture or embellishment, had been spared the worst of the destruction. The plain stone floor bore only faint reddish stains now, which stubbornly remained despite the soldiers’ scrubbing. The windows had been opened to air out the lingering scent of blood and smoke.

I felt slightly underdressed in just a white shirt and slacks, my coat discarded in the heat. The old man, by contrast, wore his best Sunday attire. His black suit was pressed, his cane polished, and a top hat rested neatly on the table beside him. He stood up immediately when I entered.

"I hope I’m not disturbing you, Gobernador," he said with a courteous bow.

I shook my head.

"No, no... please, be seated." I gestured to the chair across from him and sat down myself. "I don’t believe I had the chance to ask your name during our first meeting."

"No, you haven’t," the old man said with a small chuckle as he settled into his seat. "It was cut short by a woman’s scream... which, mind you, I recognized. A fisherman’s wife. Dull and loud, already terribly unbearable even before she joined the Pulajan cult. I couldn’t shed a tear when I heard your soldiers had taken care of her."

I smiled grimly at the memory. That accursed shout had cost us the element of surprise. We could have taken the church while the cultists were still asleep, set up a perimeter, entrenched ourselves properly.

Contrary to what I assumed at the time, the woman hadn’t been killed—only knocked unconscious by Roque’s men. I will have the pleasure of seeing her hang by the neck in Boac.

"I am Ernesto Paras," the man finally introduced himself. "Former gobernadorcillo of Buenavista. And no need to introduce yourself, Don Lardizabal. Your fame precedes you. When I heard you dispatched those Moro raiders in Santa Cruz and killed their chief with your own hands, I thought the rumors were exaggerated."

"But now... nearly two hundred Pulajanes killed with minimal losses?" He shook his head in disbelief. "Not so hard to believe anymore."

It was difficult to feel flattered. His last name had already given me pause.

"Paras?" I asked, leveling my gaze. "Any relation to Florentino Paras?"

A flicker of fear passed over his face before he forced a thin, weak smile. "I am his uncle... his father’s younger brother."

Pieces began to fall into place. He was a principal, and yet somehow he and his family had survived when nearly all others had been wiped out. The only surviving principalia family in Buenavista? Convenient.

"How can I help you, Señor?" My tone sharpened. "Have you come to surrender yourself?"

He looked genuinely shocked, even offended.

"No... Heneral... Dios mío.

I have no business with him. Damn that man to hell," he spat, his voice shaking. "Yes, he spared me and my family... but only after I groveled at his feet like a dog, only after enduring the daily humiliation from his Pulajan thugs."

His breathing became labored. His hand gripped the cane tightly as he struggled to maintain composure.

"Well then," I asked carefully, "why are you here, Don Ernesto?"

He exhaled sharply, eyes drifting toward the window and the muddy courtyard beyond. "I lost the seat of gobernadorcillo... after a falling out with my fellow principales."

I raised my eyebrows. I didn’t know where he was going with what he was saying. That detail just adds more suspicion. A disgruntled former official, spared from a purge which conveniently took out the ruling elite? A recipe for a traitor.

But then his voice cracked, and his eyes welled with tears.

"But what... what the Pulajanes did to them that day..." he choked, "I wouldn’t wish it even on my bitterest enemy."

He looked away, then back again, tears now trailing freely down his face. His shoulders began to shake, and when he spoke again, it was a sharp, wounded sound leaping from his throat.

"I heard it... their cries rang out from the compound. They begged for mercy—men, women... even the children." His voice broke. "They were butchered."

I swallowed hard. He wasn’t lying. His grief was raw and unfiltered. As his sobs echoed through the empty sala, I heard footsteps behind me. Guzman and Vicente entered quietly through the door, drawn by the noise.

Don Ernesto tried to compose himself, wiping his cheeks with the back of his hand, but the tears kept coming. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse and nasal.

"I would like permission, Gobernador... to exhume their bodies from the shallow grave where the Pulajanes buried them. I... I want to give them the proper burial they deserve."

I exchanged glances with Guzman and Vicente. Then I leaned forward.

"Where is this shallow grave?"

He looked up, eyes still shining with grief.

"In front of the presidencia, Heneral. They buried them all... in the plaza."