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paper, that doesn’t make the land theirs. They cannot force us to move.”
    Like a family, everyone in the cantón decided toremain. We didn’t have guns, but everyone kept their machetes close to their sides. We had someone standing watch at all times on a hill above the cantón. If the soldiers came again, we would be ready to fight. What other choice did we have? This country was our home long before the Latinos came from a different land to claim what wasn’t theirs to claim.
    When the soldiers returned several weeks later, our lookout warned us before they arrived. We gathered and stood as a group, preparing to fight, knowing that our machetes were useless against guns. But instead of demanding that we leave, the soldiers came smiling. “We’ve decided to let you stay as long as you tell us when you’ve seen the enemy,” they said. “Remember, if you don’t tell us when the guerrillas appear, you’ll lose this land.”
    I think the soldiers knew that pushing us from our land would only unite us. “What have you done with my son Jorge?” Papí pleaded with them.
    “We didn’t take your son,” the soldiers insisted. “It was the guerrillas. They are animals capable of anything.”
    This denial only hardened our resolve. We would not cooperate. The military knew we feared them, and for the next couple of weeks they pretended to be concerned about us. They tried to play with the children of the cantón, and they said nice things to the elders, hoping to gather information on the guerrillas. “How are you doing, Don Rafael?” they asked one elder they recognized. “How is your sore knee? Maybe we can find you medicine if you help us to find the guerrillas.”
    Each child was handed marbles and candy and then asked, “Have you seen any bad guerrillas come here this week?”
    We all shook our head no to these questions, even the children. A whipped dog has a long memory. We knew the soldiers only wanted information, and nothing would change our feelings about them until they returned Jorge.
    Another tactic the soldiers tried once was dressing up as priests. Several men showed up at our church one Sunday in robes. At first we thought they were real priests holding a real mass, but soon even the children recognized that they were imposters. During baptismthey forgot to put water on the baby, and they forgot the words to the prayers they were supposed to recite. Little Alicia chided them, saying, “You didn’t put water on this baby, and you didn’t say that right.”
    The fake priests grew very upset. “Shut up! It’s none of your business,” they whispered angrily.
    Alicia turned to me and giggled.
    After the priests’ visit, we kept more vigilant. We had heard rumors that the soldiers were abducting young men and forcing them to become recruits. Now guards from the cantón kept watch every hour of the day and night, and whenever soldiers were spotted, our young men fled to the forests. The soldiers asked during each visit, “Does anybody here speak Spanish?” I always shook my head in denial, but Alicia and the other children would turn and sneak looks at me. It was no longer safe for me to remain in the cantón, so when the soldiers came, I, too, ran with the young men to the forest.
    Not all cantóns posted guards as we did, and in many villages the soldiers captured men and older boys working in nearby fields, and forced them to become soldiers to replace those killed in the fighting. I heardthey also took away those who were caught speaking Spanish, along with those who sympathized with the guerrillas. Those people were never seen again.
    Rumors and distrust moved through the cantóns like a plague. A person could simply say that someone they disliked had helped the soldiers or the guerrillas, and often that someone would soon be taken away in the middle of the night. Before long, Papí’s prediction came true. Even villagers from our cantón who had lived all of their lives together now