Unholy Allied Mountains

By RDLiporada

To communists, religion is an opiate where Christians are lulled to accept their oppressed fate and never raise arms against oppressors. To Muslim extremists, however, religion is not an opiate but a high-inducing drug that spiritually arms one to wage jihad on the infidels. In Unholy Allied Mountains, Ding, a Filipino American journalist, in a story quest on the Philippine insurgency, is confronted by ghosts of his past in the midst of an unholy alliance between the Communist New Peoples Army (NPA) and Muslims in their quest to defeat lackeys of American imperialists in the Cordillera Mountains in Northern Luzon, Philippines.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 20, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450095303

RDLiporada

Before immigrating to the United States, Rudy D. Liporada served as a Feature Writing, Photojournalism, and Advertising instructor in Zambia Africa from 1983 to 1986. He used to string for Baguio City, Philippines newspapers. In the United States, he contributes to the Ventura County Star and the San Diego Asian Journal in California. He graduated from the University of the Philippines with a major in Economics, minor in Sociology, and cognate in Political Science. Blessed with four boys and a girl with nee Aurea Olosan, Rudy resides in Oxnard, California.

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Unholy Allied Mountains

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RDLiporada

Copyright © 2010 by RDLiporada.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

80872

For Au,

Paul Astru

Jose Yreco,

Karl Remnin,

Rudy Julius,

Maria, my daughter,

Maria, the Philippines,

Maria, Jennifer’s nom-de-guerre.

Death in the service of the people

is heavier than a mountain.

Death in the service of the oppressors

is lighter than a feather.

Contents

Prologue I

Prologue II

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Prologue I

AT THE AMBUSH line, his wife flashed into his mind.

How will she know if I die?

He tightened his grip on the M16 issued to him.

The rifle was aimed towards the river whose ripples flowed in a rhythm of sounds dominating the stillness of the afternoon. The chirps of birds, darting from twig to twig, harmonized with the brass of ripples of the river and the rustle of the branches above as commanded by swishing mellow winds.

The ripples, chirping, and the rustles hid any of the careful sounds guarded by those on the mound patiently waiting with their line of fire for those who are about to die.

He controlled his breathing. He did not want to add to the gentle breeze brushing on the bushes. His eyes waded through the blades of grass which would also help shield him, no matter how flimsy, from those who are about to die.

But what if I die, too?

It was not so long ago when he was not reluctant about death. To him then, death had a deeper sense of offering oneself for a collective endeavor to paint what heaven should be like on earth—no oppressors, no oppressed. Blood would be the paint on the brushstrokes of war that would bring forth the beauty of freedom in the canvass of life—even if his blood, too, be spilled. For then, one’s death is heavier than a mountain when offered in martyrdom for the service of the people and lighter than a feather when spilt in the service of the enemy.

But that was long ago.

Now, close to the death of those who are about to die and with him possibly dying, too, he thought, why did I really even come back here?

A rustle made him glance at the woman on his right. She was adjusting herself on the mound. Like him, she was flat on her belly. Twenty more were on the mound in varying positions behind boulders, bushes and flimsy grass; all taut in anticipation of springing death to those who are about to die.

It was she who positioned herself next to him at the ambush line as she appeared to have always tried to be close to him since she learned that he was back in the mountains.

She was part, no matter how fleeting, of his distant past. She was never really part of his life although she was almost part of his life. Nonetheless, in the overall schemes of the revolution, she was really part of his life no matter how distant in the past.

He tried hard to banish the thought that she could be teasing him by how she flicked her long thick lashes at him and how the mole on her left upper lip rolled when she smiled at him. She is just good natured and her joviality applied to everyone, he told himself. Yet, whenever their eyes locked, beneath the flickers of her eyes, there seems to be a wanting, a longing, an invitation beyond friendship, beyond comradeship—a wish of consummating what had not been consummated in the distant past.

No, it could not be, he tried to convince himself. She knows the iron discipline. One cannot take advantage of the weakness of a woman. It could mean death. Yet, could she be teasing him, taking advantage of a loneliness that he could have, of a loneliness that she assumes he should have?

Lonely or not, he said to himself, I should not even be here.

He had been around here three decades or so ago. He had walked the trails where undulating mountains of varied blue and dark hues swim into the horizons, where clouds pregnant with rain hover below the zeniths of outcropping greens, where the stars blanket the skies giving warmth to feelings even in the coldest nights, where sunrays slice through the peaks and dales in their mighty fashion to rule over the days, and where the sun gently nestles among the undulations at the close of day.

But that was a long time ago. Now, he kept wondering to himself why he really even came back and now, close to the woman, ready to spring death to those who are about to die.

But what if I die, too?

The woman glanced at him, her eyes piercing through blades of grass and bushes so she could glimpse at the side of his face. His presence back to this side of the mountains made her feel buoyant than ever before. She had waited for him, hoping he would come back although she knew he was up there in the echelons. In the hierarchy of their dedication, he had to be going far to do whatever must be done. She had asked about him but no one told her where he could be or where he had been. She took it that in the scheme of things, she was only told what she had to know.

She had waited since he had left from the other side of the mountains. She always felt though that he would come back. Many times, she had given up seeing him again for in the struggle, one could die. Maybe he had been dead for a long time back and no one had told her for in the fluidity of the struggle, not everyone really knows what ever happens for the struggle has so many fronts and he would have been in those fronts where she did not have to know where or what could have happened.

Besides, while she harbored her feelings for him, she was never really sure if he had the same feelings for her. Maybe he had for he appeared to have but before she could know, he had to leave that part of the mountains and he had been gone to somewhere she only knew to be in one of those fronts.

So, where could he have been? Has he met someone else? Would he have still feelings for her? Did he ever have?

Nonetheless, right now, he is here beside her, patiently waiting for those who are about to die.

Over the years she had sprang death to those who must die and have gotten used to it and the last ones seem to be easier than the previous ones. The enemy, blind in the terrain, hunt them but, turn, often, as preys to the hunted. Now, on the mound, this would be another easy kill for those who are about to die. Her part of the mound is a safe sanctuary no matter how flimsy the grassy knoll could be. She would be invisible from the river and would be a ghost those who are about to die would not even see as they ebb from life.

In time, this would be easily over soon and she would have more time to know if he would be back in this side of the mountains. Perhaps, maybe, she will soon know enough if he is back to consummate what she had long forever longed for.

For now, she gripped her M16 and focused on the river and waited for those who are about to die.

The lieutenant’s Polaroid sunglasses shielded his eyes from the mid-afternoon sun. With his holstered 45 pistol flapping on his side, his finger was on the trigger of his M-16. He walked stealthily trying not to disturb the pebbles along the river bank. He coaxed his ears, even the bandaged one, to hear beyond the rhythmic ripples of the river on his left and the breeze that brushed the bushes on the mound to his right. He knew that each man in his squad, following him, was also groping for sounds, any sound, that could signal probable death.

Earlier, right after the rays of the sun had sliced through the skies, he had ordered his men to burn a village.

It is that woman’s fault, he kept telling himself.

He had barged into the Igorot native hut and found her alone. She had refused to answer any of his questions. Scantily clad in a lufed cloth, she just kept on sobbing, smothering her ‘I don’t knows’ muttered in her native tongue. While cowering at the corner of the hut, the nipples of her maturing breasts kept peeping out from the curtains of her long hair.

His impatience with her grew with each of her smothering sobs. With his impatience, a desire swelled from within his loins which led him to grab and rip her lufed, rendering her a naked bundle of flesh. She screamed and screamed but her screams only made him swell some more and with a whip of strokes, unbuckling himself, not even bothering to remove his sunglasses, he plunged unto her. He slurped at her breast like a sucking beast. He rammed into her beyond her flesh into the very sanctuary of her soul. The woman screamed and struggled but with each of his plunge, the woman’s struggle seemed to subside. He thought she stopped resisting his onslaught. She moaned as she wrapped her arms across his back and heaved her loins meeting his every thrust. She kissed his neck, pressed his head down for his cheek to meet her cheek. She turned her head and kissed him by the ear.

Then, he felt a pricking flash that enveloped him and drove him into a daze.

In a fuzzy whirlwind, he seemed to have lost himself and