The trucks came just after noon. Nanay Maestra heard them before she saw them, engines grinding somewhere below the schoolhouse where no engine belonged. The sound climbed through the trees, broke against the mountain, then came again with the hard crack of gears. Twenty-three children stopped over their slates and copybooks. Nanay stood at the blackboard with chalk between her fingers and listened until the metallic rattle of a truck bed joined the noise.
Molina Magonsay rose halfway from her bench. “Nanay Maestra?”
“Sit down, please.” Nanay set the chalk on the sill and crossed to the doorway.
The first truck pushed between the trees below the church, its hood powdered with red mud. Soldiers sat in the back beneath steel helmets, rifles upright between their knees. A second truck followed, then a third. No one in Pigsag-an owned a truck. In the rains, water buffalo sank to their knees on that road; after storms, men rebuilt pieces of it with stone and bamboo. Three army vehicles forcing their way up the final grade silenced the children more completely than Nanay ever could.
A boy near the window whispered, “Japanese.”
Nanay did not correct him. The white flag with the red sun behind the first cab made correction unnecessary. Pastor Charles Elliot came quickly from the church. He did not run. One hand lifted toward the men drifting in from the river and nearby houses. “Stay where you are,” he called. “Let them come to us.”
The villagers obeyed. Nanay saw her mother leave the shade of a breadfruit tree and look toward the trucks. Jasmine’s face barely changed, but Nanay knew the change. Her mother turned toward the school.
“Regina.”
Pastor Charles was already coming across the yard. “Take the girls.”
Nanay met him at the doorway. “Father?”
“Into the trees. North side, past the stream. Use the old hunting path.” He kept his voice low enough that the Japanese could not hear, but the children did. Benches shifted behind Nanay.
“What about the boys?”
“They stay with me.”
Her father did not repeat himself. She turned back to the room. “Girls, bring only what you are carrying. Quietly.”
Molina stood first. The younger girls followed, some clutching books, one still holding her slate. Pedro rose with them. Nanay touched his shoulder before he reached the rear door. “You stay with Pastor.”
“But Nanay Maestra—”
“Please.”
Pedro swallowed and returned to the boys. Charles stepped aside while Nanay led the girls out. “Do not come back until I send for you,” he said.
“Yes, Father.”
“If you hear shooting, go farther into the trees. If I cannot come for you, take them to the coffee hut.”
Nanay stopped long enough to look at him. Her father had buried parishioners, crossed flooded rivers, faced armed men, and once walked half a day with a broken wrist because a child needed medicine. She had seen him angry and exhausted. She had almost never seen him afraid. “Go,” he said, and this time she obeyed without another question.
The girls followed single file through coffee plants and bamboo until the school roof vanished behind leaves. Behind them an engine stopped, then another. Doors slammed. Molina moved closer to Nanay. “Why are we hiding?”
“Because Pastor told us to.”
“Are they Japanese?”
“Yes.” Nanay caught Molina’s hand when she looked back. “Eyes forward.”
They crossed the stream and climbed toward thicker jungle. Elena, the youngest, began to cry without making a sound. Nanay kept one hand against the child’s back until they reached a low ridge above the village, where broad leaves and tangled vines hid them from the clearing below. From there Nanay could see the church, part of the schoolhouse, and the road where the three trucks had stopped.
She settled the girls beneath the cover. “Stay together. No talking unless I speak to you first.”
Molina crouched beside her. “You said all of us.”
“I know.”
“You are going to look.”
“I am going to make sure they do not come this way.”
Molina glanced toward the edge of the ridge. “That means looking.”
Nanay gave her a warning look. Molina lowered her eyes, but only for a moment. The Japanese had already begun gathering the village. Soldiers pushed men from houses and ordered women toward the church steps. Charles stood near the school with the boys behind him. Jasmine was with the older women. Then an officer walked into the clearing. He was lean rather than imposing, immaculate above mud-stained boots, with a sword at his side. The soldiers around him moved faster when he looked at them. He said something to a man beside him, and the man called out in rough Visayan.
“Gold. Where gold?”
The villagers looked at one another. Nanay did too, though no one could see her. Tomas Abad stepped forward. He was nearly sixty and spent most mornings in the river with a wooden pan. He removed his hat. “We find a little in the water.”
The interpreter translated. The officer glanced toward the river, then asked another question.
“Where do you keep it?”
Tomas blinked. “At home.”
The officer spoke again. “All gold. Bring.”
Several villagers moved at once. Rifles came up and stopped them. Only Tomas was permitted to leave. Nanay watched him hurry to his house and return with a small cloth pouch. The interpreter handed it to the officer, who opened it into his palm. Even from the ridge, Nanay knew how little it held: dark sand, a scattering of fine yellow grains, a few flattened flakes. Weeks of work reduced to something that barely covered the center of a man’s hand. The officer stared at it. His face did not change. He spoke quietly.
The interpreter hesitated. “He asks where the rest is.”
Tomas spread his hands. “That is the rest.”
The question came again. Tomas shook his head. “We do not have more.”
The officer stepped closer. “This village mines gold.”
“We wash gravel,” Tomas said. “Sometimes we find dust. Sometimes nothing.”
The interpreter translated. The officer looked from Tomas to the huts, then back again, as if the answer itself offended him. He struck Tomas across the face. Elena made a small sound. Nanay put a finger to her lips without looking away.
“There is no hidden gold,” Tomas said.
A rifle butt drove into his stomach. He folded to his knees. Two soldiers hauled him upright while another struck him across the mouth. Charles stepped forward.
“Please.”
Rifles rose around him. He stopped but did not retreat. When the officer turned, Charles addressed him in English. “These people are poor. They pan the river because sometimes it gives them enough to buy salt, medicine, or cloth. There is no mine here. There is no store of gold.”
The interpreter began translating, but the officer lifted a hand. He answered in English. “American?”
“Yes.”
“You lead this village?”
“I am the pastor. If you need someone to speak for them, I will.”
The officer studied him. “Lieutenant Colonel Fumio Suzuki. Imperial Japanese Army.”
Charles inclined his head. “Charles Elliot.”
Suzuki looked toward the school. “American school?”
“Filipino school.”
“You teach English.”
“Yes.”
Suzuki pointed toward Tomas. “He lies.”
“He does not.”
The clearing seemed to contract around them. Nanay had seen her father face angry men before. His calm usually gave them somewhere to put their own anger. Suzuki appeared to regard calm as resistance.
“Where is the gold?” Suzuki asked.
“What you saw is what they have.”
Suzuki gave an order. Soldiers spread through Pigsag-an. Doors were kicked open. Bedding, baskets, cooking pots, rice, clothing, tools—anything that could conceal something was dragged into the clearing. One soldier shattered a clay jar against a post. Another overturned a family’s rice and drove both hands through it while its owner watched. No villager resisted. Nanay knew the arithmetic without counting. The Japanese had rifles, bayonets, and a light machine gun. Pigsag-an had two hunting rifles, work machetes, and men with families standing ten paces away.
One of the girls whispered, “My mother.”
Nanay reached behind her until she found the child’s hand. “Stay with me.”
The search produced three more cloth packets. A few flakes. Some dust. One nugget hardly larger than a grain of rice. Suzuki stared at the collection, then at the village. The poverty before him seemed to harden into proof that someone was deceiving him.
He walked back to Tomas. “Where?”
“That is all.”
Suzuki struck him with the scabbard of his sword. Tomas went down. His wife screamed his name, then stopped when Suzuki looked toward her.
Molina’s fingers dug into the earth beside Nanay. “You are looking.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Nanay kept her eyes on the soldiers. “Because I need to know where they are.”
Molina swallowed and stayed beside her. Below, Suzuki ordered the men separated from the women. Jasmine was pushed toward the church steps. Charles tried to remain with the boys until a sergeant shoved him aside.
“Do not touch the children,” Charles said.
The sergeant raised his rifle. Suzuki stopped him with one hand and approached Charles. “You command them?”
“They are schoolboys.”
Some were eight years old. The oldest might have been fifteen. Pedro stood near the end, trying not to shake.
“Gold,” Suzuki said.
“There is no gold.”
Suzuki drew his sword. Several girls gasped. Nanay turned just enough to see them. “Quiet.” Her voice came out lower than before. The girls obeyed.
Suzuki held the blade where Charles could see it. “Gold.”
Charles did not step back. “You can kill people who cannot give you what they do not have. It will not create gold.”
For a moment Suzuki said nothing. Then he pointed to Pedro. A soldier dragged the boy forward. Pedro began to cry. Charles moved and three rifles stopped him.
“He is a child.”
Suzuki looked at Pedro, then at Charles. “Tell me where it is.”
“I cannot.”
“Will not.”
“Cannot.”
Nanay moved before she understood that she had moved. One knee came under her. Her hand shook reaching for the small knife in the school bag still hanging from her shoulder.
Molina seized her skirt. “Nanay.”
Nanay turned. Molina was crying, but she held on. Behind her were the girls Charles had ordered Nanay to protect. Elena had folded herself against an older child. Another girl stared at Nanay because Nanay Maestra always knew what to do. She did not know what to do. She could try to defend the girls and herself. She had a small kitchen knife against rifles, bayonets, and twenty armed men. She wanted to run to her father.
Molina tightened her grip. “You told us to stay.”
Nanay sank back into the leaves. Below, Charles said, “If you believe I know, take me. Question me. Leave the children.”
Suzuki watched him for several seconds, then lowered the sword. Soldiers pulled the boys away from Charles and forced them beside the church. For one brief moment Nanay thought her father had reached him. Then Suzuki ordered the village men forward in a line.
“Gold.”
No one answered. There was no answer to give. The first rifle shot cracked through the clearing. The girls flinched as one body dropped. A second shot followed, then another. Nanay pulled the nearest children down into the leaves. “Stay down. Do not run.”
The firing spread. Men shouted. Someone tried to break toward the houses and was shot before reaching them. Women screamed from the church steps. Smoke began lifting from one roof, then another as Japanese fired the village. Molina pressed against Nanay’s side.
“My mother is there.”
Nanay put an arm around her. “I know.”
“My father—”
“I know.”
There was nothing else she could give her. Nanay kept the girls against the earth while the village below came apart in sounds she would remember long after individual words were gone. When the gunfire finally slowed, the smell of kerosene reached the ridge. Nanay lifted her head. A soldier splashed fuel against the church wall. Another carried a can toward the school. Charles stood in front of the church, his face bloodied. Suzuki spoke to him. Nanay could not hear the words. Her father answered once.
“No.”
The soldiers seized him. Nanay turned toward the girls. “Close your eyes.”
Molina shook her head.
“Molina.”
The girl looked at Nanay, then back toward the clearing.
“No.”
Nanay did not force her. Flame rose along the church wall. A moment later the school caught. Dry thatch roofing took the fire quickly, and the room where Nanay had taught letters, sums, hymns, maps, and scripture disappeared behind smoke. Suzuki stood in the clearing and watched the buildings burn. No hidden treasure emerged. No chest of gold was dragged from a floor or wall. The soldiers found only food, tools, a few watches, cooking pots, chickens, cloth, and the tiny packets they had already taken.
Before sunset, they loaded the trucks. Nanay remained on the ridge. Every part of her wanted to go down. Every promise she had made required her to stay with the living children beside her. One truck turned toward the road, then the second. Suzuki climbed into the last. For a moment he looked toward the mountains. Directly towards them. Nanay did not know whether he saw the ridge, her and the children. She knew only that she saw him. The last truck disappeared into the trees. The engines diminished until Pigsag-an was quiet enough for birds to begin calling again.
Nanay waited longer. Only when she was certain the Japanese were gone did she stand. Her knees nearly failed beneath her. Molina rose beside her. The other girls waited for an instruction. Below them, smoke lay over the village. The school was burning down to its frame. The church roof had collapsed. Voices came from the clearing now, but only the wounded and the people trying to find them.
Nanay looked at the girls. “Stay together.”
Molina wiped her face with both hands. “Where are you going?”
Nanay turned toward the path down the ridge. “Home.”
There was almost nothing left to return to, but she started down anyway.