Tasìa followed along. Her boots stomped upon loose hard stones where the ground had been salted. When they reached a walkway between two hills of manicured brambles, she spotted a set of row houses.

On a porch, inset at the entrance of the first bungalow, a light flashed before disappearing in the wispy night.

Annebél turned to Tasìa with a broad smile on her face. She gasped in an adoring tone, "ah, he's awake."

"Raúl, Raùl," Annebél called out several times in a sing-song that made a playful game of the stressed accent in his name.

Then she teased.

"What are you doing up at this hour? You work tomorrow, right?"

Tasìa heard a gentle laugh. She could see the arms of a man as he leaned over a patio rail. She could make out a white tank top.

A cigar glowed orange and it obscured his face.

From inside the dwelling came a steady moan.

The man pointed to the door behind him with his thumb.

"I just changed out Jún-Jún's bandages. He's not happy about it. The medicine hasn't kicked in yet."

"Is he staying with you?"

Raúl sighed. "Just a few days. You could have called and I would have come to you, instead."

Annebél laughed like a giddy parakeet.

"Tried. Reception is bad here in the pits as you well know. Besides, this is not that kind of visit."

"I suppose you called because you were going to give me a warning about that haircut. No worries, doll, It looks very nice on you."

Raúl sounded no more convincing than any other man in his proclamation of approval of such a drastic change, thought Tasìa. She glanced at Annebél. He was right though. The near shoulder-length hair made her mouth and chin appear more prominent. Strikingly so.

He slapped his hands together to precipitate a change in the subject matter.

"I see you brought company. Avellana, you look as sweetly as ever. It's been a while since you said bye to me and Villa Marrón. I thought I would have heard from you sooner."

Tasìa flinched and then she squinted to get a better look. Another mystery to add to all the others?

To her relief, no. She just didn't recognize his voice now that Raúl had taken up smoking.

"Oh, hey, Raúl. I didn't realize you were that Raúl when Annebél told me about you, or I would have given her fair warning. What happened to the dance studio?"

"Dance is dead. Especially folk trots from the Old Country. Unfashionable once again."

Tasìa frowned and shook her head in disbelief.

"The contest was the highlight of my week."

Annebél called out in a smooth, feminine grunt.

"Hold on. The two of you have a history?"

Raúl confirmed.

"We dated. It is not what you are thinking though."

With her eyes lit up, Annebél grinned, "I don't see how it could be."

As Raúl's voice raised in pitch, it conformed more to Tasìa's memory.

"It was all quite chaste, my love. Though that doesn't mean Avellana didn't make me go through all the formal motions like an eighteenth-century parlor game."

Now, Tasìa giggled. She had misunderstood his intentions at the time.

Raúl continued. "In motion, there was no one more elegant than Avellana, so I demanded that she should be my dance partner. She refused unless I went through certain formalities."

Tasìa covered her mouth and giggled once more. She had never told Raúl the real reason she played so coy.

Given, he was such a handsome man, he owned a dance studio, he had belladonnas fawning over him, yet he somehow managed to stay single, Tasìa assumed certain things about Raúl that turned out not to be true. She thought he wanted her company to keep up appearances with his family and his many female admirers.

It did not occur to her that he was truly smitten with her and her natural talent.

Annebél shook her head as she towered over Tasìa. She brushed back Tasìa's hair in a broad sweep.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

When Tasìa eyed her in turn, Annebél gave a suggestive wink.

"Just when you think you know someone, right? Some night, Avellana, we will have to get together and do a little dancing, ourselves." Annebél raised her chin as if in taunt back towards Raúl. "Two can play at this game."

Raúl shrugged his shoulders and he grinned sheepishly. He was a man used to deflecting and enchanting women with suavely delivered gestures.

"Then I will watch and critique. The two of you come in. We are spoiling the mosquitoes. They are sloshed drunk off of our blood."

As the women entered with their hands held together, Tasìa thought about their earlier conversation on what Bajamutté asked of Annebél. She realized the brawler was only thinking ahead and not just playing with her man's affections.

Getting comfortable with one another's bodies by dancing together would indeed be a useful step in Tasìa's quest to achieve greater intimacy.

Tasìa never had trouble with simple affection and touch. But dance could enhance that even further. It could stir something deeper inside her.

"Would either of you care for a beer," Raúl offered as they stood in a small living room.

Another soft moan came from behind a wooden door of faux-chestnut. It appeared delicate as if it were made of balsa wood.

"I'll take one. What's wrong with your brother," Tasìa asked.

She had met his brother, whose nickname was Jún-Jún, several times while accompanying Sachmilli to El Hoyo even before she had met Raúl. He was an on-site foreman.

The brothers were born merely a few years apart and could have been mistaken for twins.

"He was out surveying the far valley. We are still retrieving our inventory of equipment from the old office. Spit beetles attacked him."

Tasìa gave a sympathetic curse. "Spat in his eyes, did they blind him?"

Raúl raised his voice as he answered from the kitchen.

"The good news for him is there is no permanent damage. The spit isn't very acidic, but it is a strong paralytic that clings to the neurons. It's going to take several days for it to dissolve out of his system. The dissolution is torturous."

Raúl returned with a brown bottle of Sajonia. He handed it to Tasìa as he continued speaking.

"So, I have to look after my big brother. Keep him drunk and medicated so he doesn't scream."

"I'm glad he'll be okay," Tasia said.

She wondered why Raúl was tending to his brother. Where was Jún-Jún's wife Nande? When it crossed her mind, the answer was like a stab in her gut as she inferred the reason.

Nande had been killed by the guerillas.

She ran the day to day operations in that back valley office Jún-Jún went out to survey. She would have been cornered.

As these sad thoughts preoccupied her mind, Raúl turned his head around to face Annebél with a smile.

"If this is not that kind of visit, then what kind of visit is this, praytell?"

Annebél relaxed her profile. She put her hands in the pockets of her washed-out jeans and thrust her bosom upward.

"I need to ask a big favor of you."

Raúl chuckled. "I can see that. What do you need?"

"Four sticks of dynamite."

Raúl studied her face without speaking for a good long moment.

"Rat problem?"

"Most definitely a rat problem," Annebél answered in turn.

"With the several accidents we have had of late, sticks of dynamite are strictly counted and logged now."

"So, that's a no?"

Raúl suspired. His hands clenched at the backside of a sofa. His head tilted low. He obviously hated disappointing his big boozy redhead.

"There is another way to obtain it, but you are not going to like that solution. Especially, if your needs are immediate."

"Yes... .," Annebél pried. She cracked her knuckles waiting for an answer. "Go ahead and tell me. I promise that if I don't like the answer, I won't hit you, again. You know, baby, I only do it because I love you so much."

Raúl nodded and laughed, nervously, as he rubbed at a bruise on his shoulder.

"In the back valley office, there still exist some explosives out there. If you need it now though, traveling there at night is out of the question. It is too spooky for my blood, at least."

Annebél cursed, "shit. Shit. Shit. I need the dynamite at least an hour before daybreak."

Tasìa checked the time. Her mobile readout pulsed five minutes past two am. She had a meeting with León in sixteen hours. One hour of rest was not nearly enough.

Neither had she given him coordinates where she wanted to meet, nor had she done recon to scout the area she had in mind.

She suspected that even if she asked him to come alone, with the nasty, unknown spook (she designated him in her mind as F-150) running things, León would not have any choice in the matter.

She wanted to recon to ensure that anyone who followed along without her permission would regret it.

Then it occurred to Tasìa. The back valley of El Hoyo was an even better site than the one she had planned.

That site was a well spread-out country park in another town a half hours drive away from Villa Marrón.

Instead of waiting for the afternoon after a good, long sleep, she could do her reconnaissance now.

"I'll go," Tasìa exclaimed loudly enough to get their attention.

Raúl eyes widened in alarm.

"You can't," he pleaded. "It is too dangerous a place back there to be tromping around in the middle of the night. Rabid things crawl around and the ghosts creep about."

Annebél's brow crinkled as she studied Tasìa's petite figure. Her lips twitched for a moment in indecision. But she finally nodded.

"Avellana knows what she is doing. Trust her Raúl."

Tasìa straightened up and peered down the length of her body to do a mental inventory.

"I'm going to need a decent electric torch. Besides that, I'm prepared."

Raúl acquiesced with a nod before taking off down a short hallway to a tool room.

Tasìa turned to Annebél.

"Do you mind if I go alone? It's likely to require some stealth. I'm best at that alone."

Annebél looked quizzically at her.

"Are you certain, Avellana? If things get nasty out there I'm best at punching things the fuck out. Especially ghosts."

She smiled at Annebél's joking delivery. She was merely showing her trust in Tasìa.

"I'll be okay. Stay here. Make love to that foxy man of yours. I'll be gone a good little while."

"Try to be back by five," Annebél whispered as she leaned in. "Three hours of lovemaking, and he is completely out of it."