“Now,” I said quietly, and with as much reassurance as I could force into my voice, “we’ll walk a little while. We’ll rest when the sun comes up to warm us.”
69
We were no more than a quarter of the way down the mountain when I heard the faint sound of men’s voices behind us. I grabbed Amparo’s arm, and we scrambled through the bushes until I found a spot where the underbrush was thickest. We crawled into the very middle. We weren’t a moment too soon.
I heard the heavy tread of boots, and four soldiers appeared almost directly in front of us, their rifles carried at the ready.
“Hola!” one said, throwing himself on the ground not more than a dozen feet away. “I’ve had enough. I can go no farther.”
The others stood around looking down at him.
“Sit down,” he urged. “You are as tired as I.”
“But el coronel said to check the path all the way down,” one of the others answered doubtfully.
The man on the ground looked up. “Is el coronel with us? No, he is down there boozing it up while we exhaust ourselves in these cursed mountains. Fuck el coronel.”
Another dropped down beside him. “A moment’s rest,” he said. “Who is to know?”
The others sprawled to the ground. After a moment one of them propped himself up against a tree trunk. “Which one did you have?”
The first soldier rolled over on his side. “I fucked all of them,” he bragged. “As soon as I unloaded in one, I got up and joined another line.”
The second soldier shook his head. “No wonder you’re so pooped.”
“Which one did you screw?”
“The hysterical one. I don’t see why she made such a fuss. She had a cunt big enough to accommodate a stallion. I couldn’t even feel the sides.”
“She wasn’t very good,” one of the others agreed.
The first soldier grinned broadly. “The blonde was the best. You could tell she was getting it regularly. She pressed down the moment you put it in and—pop—you had it. If there hadn’t been so many behind me I’d have slipped it to her again. The next time she wouldn’t have got off so easy.” He reached for his canteen. “I need a drink. All the liquid has been drained out of me.”
He held the canteen to his lips, and water trickled out of the corners of his mouth and down his cheeks.
“I’m thirsty, too,” Amparo whispered.
“Shh!”
She wriggled and brushed at her face. “There are mosquitoes.”
I became aware of them on my back. Before I had been too busy concentrating on the soldiers. Moving very slowly so I would not disturb the underbrush, I pulled her nightdress up from inside my shirt and covered her face. “Lie there and don’t move,” I whispered. “They can’t get at your face now.”
But they could get to me; I was bare to my waist. Every few seconds I would feel one sting me, but there was nothing I could do about it. Not while the soldiers were there.
Presently one of them got to his feet. “I guess we’d better get moving.”
“What for?” the first soldier asked. “There’s nobody down there.”
“But el coronel ordered us to check the path thoroughly.”
The first soldier laughed. “That means we’d wind up at the bottom of the mountain and only have to climb right back up again.” He glanced up at the sun. “We can rest here until noon, then report back. Who will ever know?”
“I don’t know.”
“O.K., go ahead if you insist. We’ll rest here until you come back.”
The one standing looked at the others, but they made no move to join him. After a moment, he dropped to the ground again. “What you say is true. Who will ever know?”
I turned my head. Amparo’s face was hidden by the nightshirt. I could sense her breathing, quietly and evenly. Cautiously I lifted the nightdress. She was fast asleep.
I covered her face again and turned back to the soldiers. One was already on his back, his arms outstretched and snoring with his mouth open. The others had scrunched themselves down into more comfortable positions and were beginning to close their eyes.
It would be good if I could rest too. But I didn’t dare. I fought to keep my eyes open. The sun kept climbing into the sky, the day became warmer. I could feel my back burning with insect stings but I didn’t dare brush them away.
I tried to keep my eyes open but every few minutes my head would fall forward. I kept lifting it up but after a while even I must have dozed. But when I heard a noise suddenly I came awake.
The soldiers were all standing now. As I watched they went off to the other side of the road to relieve themselves. A moment later one of them called to the others, “It’s late enough now. We can start back.”
I watched them move back up the path until they were out of sight beyond the bend. Soon I could no longer hear the sounds of their voices. Amparo was still sleeping. I shook her gently.
She raised her head and pushed the nightdress away from her face. Her eyes were still filled with sleep. “I’m hungry,” she said, rubbing them.
“We’ll eat soon.”
“Let’s go home. Mamá promised me we would have the turkey you killed yesterday for dinner.”
“We can’t. The soldiers are still there.”
Sleep vanished from her eyes as memory flooded through her. Suddenly she began to cry. “Mamá! Mamá! Mamá!”
“Cut that out!” I said roughly.
“I will see Mamá later?”
“Sure.” How could I tell her that she would never see her mother again? “How did you escape from the house?”
“When the soldiers took Mamá I was hiding under the bed. As soon as they left I jumped out of the window and began to run.” Tears came to her eyes again. “I ran and ran and ran.”
“That was a very clever thing to do.”
Her eyes brightened. “It was?”
The one thing that Amparo loved was flattery. She could never get enough of it. “I am clever, aren’t I?”
“Very.”
She nodded, pleased with herself, and looked out at the path. “Are they gone?”
“They’re gone.” I got to my feet. “And it’s time for us to go, too.”
“Where are we going?”
I thought for a moment. We could never catch up to Fat Cat now, but I knew where he was going. “To Estanza.”
“Estanza?” she asked. “Where’s that?”
“A long way from here. We’ll have to walk.”
“I like to walk.”
“But we’ll have to be very careful. We can’t let anyone see us. If we hear anybody coming we’ll have to hide.”
“It might be the soldiers,” she said brightly.
“Even if it’s not, we’ll have to hide. Whoever it was might tell the soldiers they saw us.”
“I’ll be careful,” she promised. “I’m hungry and thirsty.”
“There’s a brook a little farther on.”
“I also have to pee.”
That was one thing she didn’t have to wait for. “Over there in the bushes.”
Amparo went over to the bushes and squatted. Delicately she hiked up her clothes. “I can’t pee if you stand there watching me!”
I turned away, smiling to myself. Girls were funny. What difference did it make if I watched her or not?
We reached the brook in about half an hour. I remembered what Fat Cat had told me and cautioned her about drinking too rapidly. I stretched out on the bank and lowered my face into the water. My back began to itch; the hot sun had aggravated the mosquito bites. I reached behind me and scratched. I could feel welts on my skin. I splashed some water over my shoulder.
Amparo stood there watching. “Your back is all bitten. Mamá always put bay leaves on my mosquito bites.”
“What do they look like?”
“There’s a whole clump over there.” She pointed to a group of bushes.
I picked off a handful and tried to put them on my back, but t
hey kept falling off. Amparo held out her hand. “You don’t know very much, do you?” she asked in an exasperated voice. “Better let me do it.”
I stared at her, then silently handed her the leaves. She dipped them in the water for a moment. “Turn around.”
I turned my back. I could feel the wet leaves and water running down my back. She was right; after a few minutes the stinging did go away. I sat staring into the brook. Suddenly movement caught my eye, and a small school of fish swam by.
I remembered that the younger Santiago used to spear fish using an arrow. I looked around for a straight branch about as thick. When I found one I quickly stripped it of its leaves with my knife, then made a sharp point and barb at one end. I got to my knees and crouched at the stream’s edge.
The fish came by again. I lunged but they were too quick for me; all I succeeded in doing was almost tumbling into the water. I set myself again. After the third try I began to get the feel of it. The fish would break, all going in opposite directions, and the thing was to guess which one would be coming toward you.
I decided it would be the one in the back. I let them swim by the first time because I didn’t think the one in the back would come close enough. The second time, however, he was just right. I lunged and felt the spear bite into him.
I turned triumphantly, holding up the stick with the wriggling fish impaled on it. “We eat!”
An expression of distaste crossed Amparo’s face. “Raw?” she asked. “How are you going to cook it?”
I could feel my triumph fade. Slowly I sank down on a large flat rock. I yelled as my bottom hit it. The rock was as hot as a griddle from the heat of the sun. I stood there staring down at the rock. If it was hot enough to burn my ass, it was hot enough to fry a fish.
70
The fish was good, even if it was a little raw. I caught two more before our hunger was satisfied and each time I had to scrape them from the rock with my knife. It was just as well we ate so much then, because for the next two days all we could find were nuts and berries. The third morning we came across a mango tree and we gorged ourselves so greedily that we both had stomach cramps and had to stay there for the balance of that day.
Amparo began to cry when night came. “I want to go home.”
I looked at her silently. There was nothing I could say. I sat there awkwardly, as helpless as any man when confronted by a woman’s tears. Her usually pretty face was thin and drawn by the ravages of diarrhea.
“My tush hurts,” she said.
Mine was sore too. I’d know better than to gobble mangoes next time. “Sleep. It will be better in the morning.”
She stamped her foot angrily. “I don’t want to! I’m tired of sleeping on the ground, half freezing and having bugs crawling over me. I want to go home and sleep in my own bed!”
“Well, you can’t.”
“I am going to!” She began to stamp both feet angrily.
I knew what that meant. She was about to throw one of her famous tantrums. I didn’t feel like having any of it. I lashed out with my hand, catching her on the cheek, and for a moment she was frozen in surprise. Then the tears really welled up into her eyes. “You hit me!”
“And I’ll do it again if you don’t shut up!” I said savagely.
“I hate you!”
I didn’t answer.
“I really mean it! I’m not going to marry you!”
I lay back in the grass and closed my eyes.
For a moment there was silence. I heard nothing, then I felt her move closer to me. She snuggled against my side. “I’m cold, Dax.”
I looked at her. Her lips were pale with chill. I realized that we should not be sleeping out in the open. I’d have to find a place more sheltered from the winds that swept down from the mountains across the prairie.
“Get up,” I said, pulling her to her feet.
“But it’s dark and I’m tired. I can’t walk anymore.”
“You have to,” I said. “We’ve got to find a warmer place to sleep.”
We began to walk. I looked up at the sky. I didn’t like the looks of it. The clouds hung low and threatening, obscuring the moon and the stars. A chill damp wind had come up, and I knew that rain could not be far away.
I remembered that earlier that morning I had seen a little forest across the fields. If only we hadn’t gorged ourselves on the mangoes we would have been there by now. I tried to see through the darkness but it was no use. All we could do was keep on walking and hope that we would be there soon.
The rain began to come down in great slanting sheets, pelting against our backs from the gusts of wind. In a moment we were soaked through. I pulled Amparo along rapidly, feeling the wet pantalones clinging to my legs. The earth turned soft and muddy under my bare feet.
Amparo was crying again. Once she half fell to her knees, and I hauled her up roughly. We began to run again. Suddenly we were there. I pulled her into the forest and stopped under a big tree. It was relatively dry; the rain had not yet penetrated the thick umbrella of leaves. We fought to catch our breaths.
I was suddenly aware that she was shaking from a chill. Her eyes seemed strangely bright and shining. “Dax, I hear voices.”
I drew her close to me, trying to warm her with the heat of my body. “No, I hear voices.” Her voice sounded strained and thin.
I touched her forehead; she was hot. She must be coming down with a fever. “Shh. Now we can rest.”
She pushed me away. “No,” she said angrily, “listen.”
More to humor her than anything else I did. At first I heard nothing, then I became aware of a low buzz of voices. It seemed to be coming from behind us.
“Wait here,” I whispered.
Amparo nodded, and I crept off into the forest. I had gone perhaps fifty yards when I saw them. There were three wagons drawn off from the road under the shelter of the trees, and three men were sitting in one of them. They were hovered around a small lantern playing cards. Three others lay stretched out between the other wagons. They all wore the red and blue uniforms of the army. I could see their rifles stacked along the side of the front wagon.
I wondered if there were more of them. I shinnied up a tree and carefully studied the other wagons. They were empty, but I could see several blankets in one of them. I looked back at the wagon with the card players in it, and wondered if I could get away with one of the blankets.
Then I remembered Amparo’s fever and knew I had no choice. She was my responsibility, just as I had been Fat Cat’s. There was nothing else I could do. I came down out of the tree and slipped silently up into the back wagon. Moving quickly, I scooped up a blanket and rolled it up tightly. I looked around for anything else we could use. I saw a box of matches and stuck them in my pocket. There was a dried-out piece of fatback lying on the wagon floor, so I took that too.
It took me a few minutes to orient myself when I got back into the woods, then it was easy to work my way back to Amparo. She was lying very quietly as I came out of the underbrush.
“Dax!” she whispered. I could hear her teeth chattering.
“Yes. Quick, get out of your wet clothes!”
I spread out the blanket and rolled her up in it, then took out my knife and cut off a thin strip of fatback. “Here, suck on this.”
She nodded and put it into her mouth. I lay down beside her and cut off a little piece for myself. It tasted gritty and salty but the feel of it in my mouth was oddly comforting. I could feel Amparo’s shivering slowly subsiding and after a few moments her even breathing told me she was asleep. I remember smiling to myself as I drifted off. For a girl, Amparo wasn’t so bad.
A bird singing in a tree over my head awakened me. I opened my eyes and stared upward. Through the branches I could see the clear blue sky. I turned my head to look at Amparo. She was rolled up completely in the blanket.
I looked around for her clothes. They were lying in a damp heap by her feet. I picked them up and hung them on a bush where the sun would dry them.
By that time she was sitting up. I held my finger to my lips so that she would not speak.
She nodded.
I cut her another small strip of fatback. “Wait here,” I whispered. “I’ll be back.”
It took me only a few minutes to get to the clearing. The soldiers and wagons were gone. The remains of a small fire were glowing in the center of what had been their camp. I threw a few twigs on to keep it going, and went back for Amparo.
The fire felt good after the cold damp night. I tried to figure out what time it was by the sun. It must have been near nine o’clock. Time to start out again. I rolled up the blanket and threw it over my shoulders, and we moved off toward the road.
Three times that morning we left it to hide in the fields. Once it was several men on foot, another time a man in a wagon, and finally a man and a woman in a wagon. For a moment I was tempted to hail the wagons but I thought better of it. There was no point in taking any chances because from the frequency of the wagons I figured we must be nearing a small town.
When we turned the next curve in the road I could see houses and smoke coming from some of the chimneys, so I pulled Amparo off the road into the field. “We have to go around the town.”
She nodded, and we struck out across the fields. It took longer that way and it was nearly night by the time the village was behind us.
I’m hungry,” Amparo complained. “Fatback doesn’t fill my stomach.”
“We’ll have something to eat tonight.”
I had spotted a couple of chicken coops and as soon as I found a good place to camp for the night I was going back. I found a place soon enough but Amparo refused to stay by herself.
It was black as pitch as we settled down in a field near the chicken coops. They were out back of a house so we had to wait until I was sure everyone had gone to sleep.
“Wait here. Don’t move!” I cautioned Amparo.
I didn’t wait for an answer. I sped across the ground on silent feet, taking out my knife as I lifted the latch on the nearest coop.
Harold Robbins Thriller Collection Page 99
