Dario thumbed the smooth wood on the sides of the rifle, then down to its stock and butt. It felt heavy in his hands, but not in an uncomfortable way. The weight gave him a sense of security and empowerment. He looked at the rifle up close, trying to take in every detail about it.
"Feels heavy, doesn't it?" Marco watched him with a faint smile. "You will get used to it soon enough."
Camilo fiddled with the operating rod for a little, before slinging the rifle around his neck.
He stood up and grinned, putting his hands on his hips. "How do I look, Dario?"
"Oh, stop playing around."
"What! We earned this! That long march was hell, I tell you."
Dario could not help but allow a slight upwards curl at the sides of his lips. He remembered waking up in his tent to find out that he had been out cold for almost a full day. After wolfing down the breakfast prepared for him by Juanita outside their tent, Alberto came over to present their first rifles, a guttural grunt as his form of approval. The Almeidas and many others gave their warm congratulations afterwards. They were now officially a part of the family.
"Yes, it was," Lionel chipped in. "I nearly thought you two wouldn't survive. I can remember your faces when we pulled out the water cans!"
"Oh yes..." Dario shook his head, chuckling. He gingerly moved his bare feet to a more comfortable spot on the grass. Blisters had been formed all over his two feet, and patches of red skin were peeling off. It hurt to even move. When he went to bathe in the stream, he could distinctly remember stifling his cries of pain when his feet touched the cool water, sending sharp courses of pain up his nerves.
"The blisters hurt," he uttered, wincing.
"Well." Lionel shrugged. "Your skin will harden over time, so you won't get it as often. Sad to say, it won't get any less painful though."
Dario shuddered again as he felt another grating pain. That spot underneath his big toe was the worst. It was so sensitive that any small movement would cause a raw pain in the area.
"So," Marco said. "We should get to introducing you two to the rifle."
He grabbed Dario's rifle from his hands and went to a kneeling position. Camilo and Dario leaned forward attentively.
Marco started, "This is a M1 Garand, made in America. Durable and reliable. I will now introduce the parts. Okay?"
"Okay," they responded.
His hands made pointed gestures, complimenting his words. "So this is the trigger guard, with the trigger of course. This button here? It's very important. It's the safety catch. So what it does is that if it is on, no bullets will fly out no matter how much press the trigger. And then, over here, this is..."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dario held the rifle, using his shoulders to hold the butt in place. He looked through the iron sight and aimed it at the bright sky.
So this is how it looks like. Staring down the iron sight.
Slowly, he let his index finger rest on the trigger. With a concerted breath, he pressed it. The rifle made a mechanical clicking sound.
Marco patted him on the back. "Yes. You get it. So that's the process. Remember to always cock it first."
He lowered the rifle. "Thanks, Marco."
Marco nodded. "Lionel, you done with Camilo?"
"Yes."
"Okay, let's go. We have to meet with Pacho."
He turned towards Dario and Camilo. "Remember to send your rifles back to the barn after this. It needs to be locked up every end of the day."
With that, the twins left them sitting in the grass, rifles in hand.
"So, how you feeling?" Camilo started.
"Good, except for the blisters."
His friend beamed and he could feel his warmth from the bottom of his heart. "I'm glad we finished it together, Dario."
Dario chuckled. "Me too. We have come a long way here, haven't we?"
"Yes. But there's still a much longer road ahead."
Thunderous bangs boomed from a distance and they turned to see men in the distance firing their rifles at straw targets.
"Lionel told me we will be firing our first live shots soon,'" Camilo said. "I wonder how it will be like. Imagine! The weight of a person's life in just a gentle squeeze of a finger."
Dario gave an incredulous look. "Not like you to get philosophical."
"Well! No! But look around us." Camilo waved his hands wildly. "We are in a ranch. But there's hardly anything related to a ranch. Instead of animals grazing, I see tents full of revolutionaries. A firing range. The barn's a storage place for rifles. It feels weird."
"Yes." Dario smiled ruefully. "It just hits you that this place is... temporary. It doesn't feel like home. It really reminds you that war is coming, and we are the ones bringing it to Cuba."
"You capture my sentiments exactly!" Camilo exclaimed, as he stood up, wincing a little. "We should get going to the barn."
"Yes, we should."
The duo slung their rifles and put on their slippers. They walked slowly towards the barn, limping like wounded men, grimacing with almost every step. The adrenaline of the long march had long fizzled out, and all was left was raw pain with nothing to mask it.
Finally, they reached the barn and entered it. The comrade in charge of the storage room beckoned them over. They handed their rifles over to him.
"You guys the new recruits?"
"Yes. Dario Ruiz and Camilo Cienfuegos," Camilo replied for them.
"Okay. Noted. You can go, and congrats on passing the rite of passage."
Holding the rifles, he nodded to another comrade sitting behind a table with a thick book in front of him. He picked up a pencil and began scrawling some words on the book's pages. The one holding the rifles vanished into the storage room.
As they made to leave the barn, a honeyed voice greeted them from behind.
"Dario! Camilo!"
Juanita emerged from a walkway. Dario eyed her appreciatively with a wide smile. She had changed out of her fatigues into a comfortable cotton gray shirt and black cargo pants. Locks of hair clung to her sweaty forehead. The faint hint of wrinkles there disappeared with a most captivating smile.
"Hello there Juanita!" Camilo greeted. "Or should I say Commandante?"
"Oh, don't call me that." She tilted her head a little, narrowing her eyes as she giggled.
"Come with me, you two." She nodded her head towards the walkway from which she had come from before pacing down it.
Camilo and Dario looked at each other, shrugging before following her.
The walkway led to an open space. Tables had been set up, piled high with rolls of maps and stacks of books. A few men sat behind the tables on long benches hunched over papers, paying the newcomers no heed.
In the middle of it all, an enlarged map hung from the ceiling, held by thin steel wires. A familiar elongated yellow shape stared at them from the middle of the map, surrounded by a vast blueness. Four red capital letters stood in its center.
Cuba.
Dario walked up to it and let his fingers run through the coarse paper. Subconsciously, it gravitated towards the largest black dot on the island.
The nation's capital, Havana. Home.
"Feeling sentimental now?" Camilo said beside him. "That's home staring at us."
Dario sighed. "I still remember the day we read in the papers that the Castros were freed. Who could have imagined? One year later, here we are in Mexico, ready to take the fight back home."
Juanita stopped by an open door, beckoning for them to follow her. Just as they made to move, a loud earth shattering thunder rolled overhead. It was definitely not just people practicing live shots. Moments later, they heard rapid pelting of raindrops on the roof. Panicked footsteps could be heard from outside as people scrambled for the shelter.
"Well, I'm glad that we are in here," Camilo commented as they entered the room.
A sturdy looking square wooden table stood in the middle of the sparse room, surrounded by a few chairs. As they took their seats, Dario noticed a person across the other side of the room piling wood into a brick fireplace. Alberto.
The old trainer struck a matchstick and started a fire. Holding his back in a rigid manner, he turned around, noticing the young men and Juanita. He nodded, a thin smile peering out of his thick grey beard.
"Sometimes when the weather gets cold, I need the fire to warm my aching joints. Can't deny that fact that I am getting old."
A reclining chair faced the fire. It creaked as Alberto sat on it.
"Excuse this old man's rumblings. Ignore me and get on with it."
"Anyways." Juanita turned their attention back on her. "I called you two here to discuss a few issues. Since you both are now inducted into our ranks, I will need to put you into a section."
"Oh!" Camilo chuckled. "I thought you just wanted to see Dario's lovely face!"
Her eyes widened and cheeks turned into a rosy red. She tried to reply but bit her tongue before a word escaped. Chewing the sides of her lips, she looked away in embarrassment.
Dario punched Camilo hard in the shoulders. "Shut up, Camilo."
"Just a joke, friend! And it's true."
"Doesn't mean that you have to-"
"Anyways," she strained the word, coughing. "Yes, that too. But the main thing is...Well... I... lost my train of thought."
She put her hands on her red cheeks. Camilo let out a burst of laughter at her flustered expression, not toning it down even when his friend glared at him.
"Okay," she said after a while. Gradually, she re-assumed a dignified pose which reminded Dario of her back in Miami. "I am in the midst of reshuffling the sections. Just so you two know, the section is the primary fighting unit, consisting of seven men. I am of the mind to place you two together with the Almeidas because you already know them. The section leader is Pacho Rivero, who you will meet soon. Any objections?"
They shook their heads.
"Great." She picked up a pencil, scrawling something on a notebook in front of her.
It was then Dario noticed that there was a window behind her, fogged up by the incessant rain. Even from inside, he could feel the air cooling. The hot, humid weather of the afternoon had been washed away.
Through the downpour though, he could make out a vague light that seemed to grow brighter and larger by the second. Suddenly it stopped. Squinting his eyes, Dario could recognise the shape of a pickup truck, and its familiar rusty red colour.
"That looks like Huber's truck," Camilo muttered.
Juanita glanced up from her papers with widened eyes. "Huber?"
The truck's doors opened and closed with an audible slam and quick splashes could be heard over the patter on the windowpane. Another jagged bolt of lightning cracked down through the charcoal sky. An oppressive rumble of thunder soon followed, tumbling down from the dark clouds, promising an increasing brutality to come. Sure enough, the drumming of raindrops on every surface quickened, seemingly engulfing the atmosphere in its thickness.
Footsteps and heightened voices could be heard from the walkway and out came Huber, drenched to the core. He stalked over towards them, stopping at the door. He shivered, taking heavy breaths. His usually slick hair stuck to his cheeks, almost covering his eyes.
He flung his head backwards, and drops of water splayed across the floor. Once he regained his breath, he looked around him. The men in the space outside had risen from their seats to gather around him. Even Alberto too left the comforts of his fireplace.
"What is it, Huber?" Juanita asked.
A smile formed on his face. He opened his chest and from the ends of his black jacket dripped more water, forming a pool around his soaking brown boots. He raised his hands and his shimmering dark eyes scanned through everybody, finally landing on Juanita.
"I have good news, Juanita!" he declared. "Your brothers are free."
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Dearest Readers,
And that concludes the chapter! How did you feel about this one? Do you think the plot is coming along too fast? One important question, what do you think of the balance between character and plot development thus far? Sometimes I feel that I should focus more on Dario.
Once again, feel free to comment and also, don't forget to vote :)
Yours sincerely,
SyllabusPearl