Chapter 103: Rebellion
A sitio near barrio Banot had been the site of the incident. Isidro and Sargento Tolentino’s platoon had taken refuge there for the night, seeking shelter inside three small huts situated just off the shore, where the trees gave way to the open beach.
The huts were simple structures, hastily built from bamboo, nipa palm, and driftwood, the kind often found along the coasts—cool in the daytime, and just dry enough during light rains. Nipa was an excellent material for shade and ventilation, but it was fragile—susceptible to fire, knives, and the elements.
All three huts had sustained significant damage. One of them was on the verge of collapse, its roof slanting dangerously and its supports weakened by deep gashes. The doors had been broken down, likely kicked in or struck with brute force, and the walls were riddled with holes and long, jagged slashes.
The survivors told us the attackers were armed with bolo knives and machetes. This was not hard to confirm. The bloodstains smeared and spattered across the floors and walls were consistent with slash wounds—wide arcs, violent strokes. Bamboo planks bore dozens of sharp notches, and the supporting wooden posts looked as if they’d been hacked repeatedly.
I might have suspected pirates, if not for two things: the attackers did not come from the sea, and their targets were exclusively the soldiers. Just beyond the huts, a dense wall of rainforest began, with ferns and undergrowth creeping out from the tree line. The foliage looked undisturbed now, but it would have offered the attackers easy cover before and after the strike.
"Trying to pursue them without knowing their destination would be a fool’s errand," Gasan’s gobernadorcillo, Señor Ramon Ornate, said as he stood beside me, staring into the treeline. "It rained yesterday morning, so whatever tracks they left behind have likely been washed away."
I turned to look at him. Ornate, a balding man in his thirties, still looked disheveled from being roused before sunrise. Last night, he had greeted me wearing only a thin camisa and slippers, offering me a cot in his home. I’d awoken him at first light and asked to be led here, and he had agreed without protest.
I did not suspect him of involvement. The Pulajanes had no friends among the principalia. Their cult—this strange mix of folk magic, distorted Catholicism, and peasant rage—was virulently anti-elite. They saw the principalia as another face of oppression, no different from the Spaniards, while the principalia, in turn, saw them as dangerous heretics and anarchists.
The former Martin had heard of them before—how they rose during the twilight of Spanish rule, conducting their own brand of violent revolution. They attacked both the Spaniards and fellow Filipinos, often leaving carnage in their wake.
Looking at Ornate’s round, pockmarked face and untidy mustache, I remembered something. "Do you know a... Gabriela, I think her name was? Isidro had been courting her for some time."
"Yes, I do, Heneral," the gobernadorcillo replied with a nod, his face lighting up with recognition. "In fact, that hut there—" he pointed at the most heavily damaged one, "—was her house. The villagers say he was alone with her that night, when the attack happened."