find at its fruit-laden branches. With stones that returned to earth to be used again, heavy wooden clubs, and rusty tools they attacked the old tree, violated its branches and brought down the unripe, green fruit still attached to the young outer branches of the cruelly assaulted tree, mangos that had to be eaten immediately or would soon rot in the heat after they split their skins when they hit the ground. Some of the more enterprising boys climbed the tree to its higher branches where from their perches they shook the outer limbs and dozens of green mangos would fall, delivering them to the giggles of the men below. At least once a year, one of the hooligans would accidentally fall along with his harvest, breaking a bone falling from such a height, and there was rumor of a death some years past. The young men ate the unripe harvest on the spot, before the farmer could chase them away. The boys thought it was great sport to get free fruit and to outwit the old farmer.
The farmer and his lame wife lived directly across the street from Thorntonâs house, at the end of a two-acre cornfield, in a shack against the hollow block wall the farmer was gradually constructing around hiscornfield and his mango tree to keep the young men out. His wife sold their crop of sweet corn, roasted one ear at a time to passersby from the window of their shack. The farmer rotated crops, one year corn and the next year peanuts, which his wife would fry slowly with garlic in a pan, add some salt, and sell, one small paper bag half full for five pesos. They would have sold mangos from their tree also, if they had any. At one time they had considered the old tree to be their retirement fund, since the harvests of the golden crops would be greatest when the aging farmer would no longer be able to work the cornfield. But the gangs of shabu-addicted thieves always beat them to the crop. To secure his future and his mango tree, the farmer would invest any pesos left in his wifeâs cash box after they purchased necessities to buy a few more hollow concrete blocks, which he cemented into the extending wall. For the last ten years the war was waged between the farmer and the marauding bands of mango thieves. With the farmer now nearing retirement and looking forward to securing his pension, the wall was nearing completion, but rather than stopping the marauders, it just made them more inventive. They hid behind the wall, and when the farmer was in one corner of the field hoeing corn, they struck at the tree from the opposite corner, trampling the corn seedlings from every direction until the farmerâs basic existence was threatened. He gave up the idea of ever having a retirement funded by the mango tree.
With that Thornton paused. After sitting in silence, Elaiza said, âMaybe we can do something to help change that.â The story made Elaiza think. âLetâs get moving, Kapitan Tomas.â
Thornton liked the way Elaiza said his name, not Thornton or Thomas like everyone else, but a name she conjured, with a flourish of old Spanish music. âSo be it. Weâre on our way to Agusan.â
11
The Dam on the Agusan
T he group of Elaizaâs young cousins from Davao City made their trip look harmless, but Thornton worried about them being in the line of fire should the group be attacked or stopped and examined for ransom potential. Occupying the low-horsepower, brashly painted jeepney-an open-air public transport adapted from old American jeeps that legally carries twelve or illegally as many as can fit in it-they slowly rode up the long, winding incline out of the Compostela Valley and into the province of Agusan del Sur. Travel became hazardous as the oncoming traffic careening in downhill spirals toward them had trouble maintaining control of their vehicles. The saddle they eventually crossed over was the watershed where streams first flow north into the valley of the Agusan instead of south to the Gulf of
The farmer and his lame wife lived directly across the street from Thorntonâs house, at the end of a two-acre cornfield, in a shack against the hollow block wall the farmer was gradually constructing around hiscornfield and his mango tree to keep the young men out. His wife sold their crop of sweet corn, roasted one ear at a time to passersby from the window of their shack. The farmer rotated crops, one year corn and the next year peanuts, which his wife would fry slowly with garlic in a pan, add some salt, and sell, one small paper bag half full for five pesos. They would have sold mangos from their tree also, if they had any. At one time they had considered the old tree to be their retirement fund, since the harvests of the golden crops would be greatest when the aging farmer would no longer be able to work the cornfield. But the gangs of shabu-addicted thieves always beat them to the crop. To secure his future and his mango tree, the farmer would invest any pesos left in his wifeâs cash box after they purchased necessities to buy a few more hollow concrete blocks, which he cemented into the extending wall. For the last ten years the war was waged between the farmer and the marauding bands of mango thieves. With the farmer now nearing retirement and looking forward to securing his pension, the wall was nearing completion, but rather than stopping the marauders, it just made them more inventive. They hid behind the wall, and when the farmer was in one corner of the field hoeing corn, they struck at the tree from the opposite corner, trampling the corn seedlings from every direction until the farmerâs basic existence was threatened. He gave up the idea of ever having a retirement funded by the mango tree.
With that Thornton paused. After sitting in silence, Elaiza said, âMaybe we can do something to help change that.â The story made Elaiza think. âLetâs get moving, Kapitan Tomas.â
Thornton liked the way Elaiza said his name, not Thornton or Thomas like everyone else, but a name she conjured, with a flourish of old Spanish music. âSo be it. Weâre on our way to Agusan.â
11
The Dam on the Agusan
T he group of Elaizaâs young cousins from Davao City made their trip look harmless, but Thornton worried about them being in the line of fire should the group be attacked or stopped and examined for ransom potential. Occupying the low-horsepower, brashly painted jeepney-an open-air public transport adapted from old American jeeps that legally carries twelve or illegally as many as can fit in it-they slowly rode up the long, winding incline out of the Compostela Valley and into the province of Agusan del Sur. Travel became hazardous as the oncoming traffic careening in downhill spirals toward them had trouble maintaining control of their vehicles. The saddle they eventually crossed over was the watershed where streams first flow north into the valley of the Agusan instead of south to the Gulf of
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