"The EGP. El Ejercito Guerilla de los Pobres. The Guerilla Army of the Poor. They needed money for the revolution. They demanded taxes. But the farmers are without money. They have only corn and beans. When the farmers would not pay the war taxes, the guerillas took men from every family and killed them.

"When guerillas came again and demanded taxes, the people paid the few coins they had. I knew one woman, an Indian woman. The EGP killed her father and her husband, so she paid the tax to stop them killing her son.

"It was not guerillas she paid. They were agents of the desconocidos. The unknown men. A gang of the desconocidoscame, raped her, then hacked her to death with machetes. They carved a hammer and sickle on her face as a warning to the other Communists.

"It happened everywhere. There are villages of widows and orphans. The new president stopped it. He gave rifles to the men. Now, when the guerillas or the desconocidoscome, they die.

"But not until all the fascists die," Luis insisted, "will there be peace. We must kill them all. When the new president came, I believed all would be good. But the war continues. The rich still have their armies of desconocidos. The EGP hides in the mountains. Unomundo still lives…"

Luis's voice drifted away as he stared at the highway, his face lit green from the dashboard lights. Mechanically he steered through the curves, maintaining an even speed. Lyons sat in thought. He had read of the terrorism in the remote villages, but the North American newspapers always described the attacks as "Army atrocities." He had read endless diatribes against the government, but Lyons had never really read the truth.

After a minute, Luis spoke of his own sorrow.

"I managed a trucker's cooperative. Many trucks, many drivers. Garages and gasoline stations. But we would not work for Unomundo. So his killers came for me. I was not there. I escaped death. But my wife and baby did not. With machetes…"