"Come out with your hands up!" shouted Sargento Guzman, while the bayonet-fitted rifles of the escolta aimed at the closed door.
A few soldiers were hugging the walls near the edges of the yard, occasionally risking a peek around the corners to check for enemy movements. Everyone was tense.
Just about twenty meters ahead stood the cluster of houses that formed a perimeter around the presidencia. These were the homes of Buenavista's small elite—families that had held onto government posts in the far-flung town for decades. For them, it had been practical to live around the seat of power.
This was also the site of a massacre. When the pulajanes overran the town weeks ago, the gobernadorcillo and several principales had been caught in their homes instead of at their haciendas. According to our scouts, the cultists had dragged them out and executed them publicly—some hacked down, others shot, some beaten with farming tools in front of their servants.
