The Adventurers

by Harold Robbins

  Suddenly I felt Fat Cat push me aside. “Excelencia!” he cried. “I beg of you! Have mercy! Do not take my only son! Mercy, excelencia, mercy, for God’s sake!”

  The coronel turned his gun from me and pointed it at Fat Cat. His voice was flat and cold. “Would you die in his stead?”

  Fat Cat threw himself on his belly. “Mercy, excelencia! Mercy por Dios!”

  My grandfather turned and spat down at Fat Cat. “Kill them both and have done with it!” he said in a contemptuous voice. “Put an end to their miserable craven groveling. It sickens me!”

  The coronel stared at him, then slowly released the cocked hammer and put the pistol back in its holster.

  Fat Cat scrambled to his feet quickly. “Mil gracias! A thousand blessings on you!”

  The coronel waved his hand. “Move on.”

  Fat Cat pulled me back into the line. Slowly we shuffled away, as the line moved behind us. At last we had passed the galería. We stood there silently. I looked at Fat Cat. “He does not know me!” I whispered.

  “He knows you!”

  “But—”

  Fat Cat’s hand squeezed my shoulder. The coronel was walking down the line toward us. He came to a stop in front of me. “Cómo se llama?”

  “Juan,” I answered.

  “Come with me.” He turned, and Fat Cat fell into step beside me as we followed him back toward the galería.

  The coronel called up to one of the soldiers. “Bring the old man down, and send the others away.”

  The soldier locked an arm against the side of my grandfather and began to walk him down the steps. There was a faint sound from the road behind us. I looked back over my shoulder at the people in the road. An angry murmur arose when they saw Papá Grande being led down from the galería.

  “Tell them to leave!” the coronel shouted. “Open fire on them if necessary.”

  “Vaya! Vaya!” The lieutenant had his pistol out. “Vaya!”

  The crowd stared at him. He fired a shot into the air, and slowly they began to move on.

  When the road had emptied, the coronel turned to me. “The old man does not care whether you live or die,” he said in a quiet voice. “Now we shall see if you feel the same about him!”

  11

  By now it was almost three o’clock, and the sun was pouring fire down on the earth. The sweat dried on our bodies and the saliva evaporated in our mouths, leaving the faint sickly taste of salt. Despite the heat I felt a shivering inside me, a trembling I could not control as they brought Papá Grande down the steps.

  “Take him to the wagon,” the coronel commanded.

  The old man shook himself free. “I can walk,” he said proudly.

  The soldier looked questioningly at the coronel, who nodded his head, and we followed the old man as he walked to the center of the blazing courtyard. When he had reached the wagon, he turned and faced them. There were lines of weariness etched into his cheeks but his eyes were calm and clear. He did not speak.

  “Strip him,” the coronel ordered.

  Quickly the soldiers stepped forward. The old man held up a hand as if to stop them but they had already begun ripping the clothing from him. His thin body was almost as white as the clothing he had worn. Without it he seemed small, shrunken, shriveled, his ribs standing out against his flesh. His buttocks and flanks were loose and flabby with the failures of time.

  “Lash him to the wheel!”

  Roughly two soldados spread-eagled him to the wheel, his arms and legs outstretched to the rim. The hub of the wheel protruded into the center of his back, forcing the old man to arch outward in an awkwardly obscene position. His face grimaced with pain as his stiff joints rebelled. He closed his eyes and turned his head to avoid staring into the sun.

  The coronel gestured. He didn’t have to order the soldiers to their duty. One of them snapped the old man’s head back against the rim of the wheel and secured a leather strap around his forehead to keep his head from moving.

  “Don Rafael.” The coronel’s voice was so low that at first I wasn’t aware it was he who had spoken. “Don Rafael.”

  My grandfather looked into his eyes.

  “There is no need for this, Don Rafael,” the coronel said, almost respectfully.

  Papá Grande didn’t answer.

  “You know where the boy has been hidden.”

  My grandfather’s eyes didn’t waver. “I have already told you I do not know. He was taken away by Diablo Rojo.”

  “That is hard to believe, Don Rafael.” The coronel’s voice was still soft.

  “It is the truth.”

  The coronel shook his head in apparent sadness. “Your son-in-law, Jaime Xenos, allied himself with the bandoleros, the murderers of your daughter. It is known to us that he has political ambitions. What else can we assume but that you are in sympathy with them?”

  “If I were,” the old man asked, “would I be so foolish as to remain here in my hacienda where you could find me?”

  “Perhaps you thought your age would save you.”

  A dignity came into the old man’s voice. “I have never been a traitor.”

  The coronel stared at him silent for a few moments, then turned to me. “Where do you live?”

  “In the mountains, señor.”

  “Why do you come into the valley?”

  I looked at Papá Grande. His eyes were watching me. “To work, señor.”

  “Have you no work at home?”

  Fat Cat answered quickly. “No, excelencia. The drought—”

  “I asked the boy!” the coronel warned sharply.

  “There is nothing to eat,” I said. That much at least was the truth.

  The coronel was thoughtful. He glanced at Papá Grande, then at me. “You know this man?”

  “Sí, señor,” I answered. “He is Don Rafael, the landlord.”

  “He is Don Rafael, the traitor!” the coronel shouted.

  I didn’t answer.

  Suddenly his hand was on my wrist, pulling my arm behind me forcing it upward. I screamed with pain as the fire ran through me.

  “He is your grandfather!” the coronel hissed harshly. “Do you deny it?”

  I screamed again as he applied more pressure. I began to grow dizzy and felt myself beginning to fall. Then there was a blow against the side of my head and I fell to the ground. I lay there too weak to move, sobbing into the dirt.

  As if from a distance I heard the voice of my grandfather. It was cold and empty of feeling. “That alone should convince you, coronel. Nobody with my blood would give you the satisfaction of hearing him cry. It would be beneath us.”

  I heard a muttered curse, then a dull thud. I raised my head and looked up. The coronel was just moving away from my grandfather, the pistol still in his hand. The blood streamed down the side of the old man’s face. His beard was already crimson. But his lips were firmly pressed together.

  The coronel turned to one of the soldiers. “Wet the leather band around his temples,” he said. “Let us see if the sun can persuade the truth to come to his lips.”

  He strode off toward the galería, and I felt Fat Cat’s hands lifting me to my feet. My shoulder ached as I moved my arm. I stood there a moment to catch my breath.

  Papá Grande stared at me silently. After a moment he closed his eyes and I felt the pain in him. Instinctively, I started to reach out my hand. But Fat Cat caught my arm almost as I moved, and forced me to turn away. From the galería I could see the coronel watching.

  A soldado walked past carrying a bucket of water. With a snap of his wrist he dashed the water into the face of my grandfather. The old man choked and sputtered as it ran down his face. He shook his head to free the water from his eyes but the leather thong allowed him to move only a fraction of an inch. I could feel the sun on him. Already the white of his body was turning red under its scorching rays. I could imagine the leather band beginning to tighten across his forehead. Almost before my eyes I could see it drying and contracting. His mouth ope
ned and he began to gasp for air.

  I heard footsteps behind me. I turned and saw the coronel walking toward us. He had a tall glass in his hand. The ice clinked as he walked. He stopped in front of Papá Grande.

  He raised the glass to his lips and took a sip. “Well, Don Rafael,” he said, “would you care to join me in a cool rum punch?”

  My grandfather did not answer. Only his eyes were powerless to avoid looking at the glass. His tongue brushed against the surface of his dry lips.

  “A word,” the coronel said. “Just one word. That’s all it would take.”

  With an effort the old man tore his eyes away from the glass. He looked straight into the coronel’s eyes. There was a contempt in his voice that went far beyond anything I had ever heard. “To think that I might have defended you,” he said. “You are worse than the bandoleros. They, at least, have ignorance as an excuse. But before God what will be yours?”

  The rim of the glass splintered as the coronel smashed it against the wagon wheel. He held the jagged edge against my grandfather’s naked belly. “You will talk, old man. You will talk!”

  My grandfather took a deep breath, and spat directly into the coronel’s face. Then an involuntary scream caught in his throat and died there as he turned his eyes downward in horror. The coronel stepped back, and we saw why the old man had screamed. The glass, with part of his genitals trapped within it, hung embedded in his flesh.

  I began to scream, but Fat Cat quickly caught my face to his big belly and smothered it.

  “Let the boy watch!”

  Slowly Fat Cat released me. But he kept a warning hand on my shoulder. I looked at the coronel. His eyes were cold. I turned to look at my grandfather. He sagged weakly against the bindings. The blood dripped slowly from the glass to the ground.

  I blinked my eyes to hold back the tears. The coronel must not see me crying. Somehow I knew that Papá Grande would not want that. A softness came into the old man’s eyes, and I knew that he understood. Then he closed his eyes slowly and sagged against the bindings.

  “He is dead!” one of the soldiers exclaimed.

  Quickly the coronel stepped forward and brutally thumbed one of the old man’s eyelids up. “Not yet,” he said in a satisfied voice. “They don’t die that easily. Not when they get to be as old as this one. They wish to live forever.” He turned and started back toward the house. “Call me when he revives. I have not yet had my lunch.”

  We watched him walk up on the galería and disappear into the house.

  “We are hungry too,” Fat Cat called to the soldados.

  “Be glad you are not with him,” one of them answered, gesturing toward my grandfather.

  Fat Cat looked at me, then back at the soldier. “He is but a child,” he said. “At least be merciful enough to let me move him back into the shade.”

  The two soldados looked at one another, then one of them shrugged. “It is permitted. But try nothing funny.”

  Fat Cat led me toward the house. He threw himself to the ground in the shade of the galería, and I slumped down beside him. We rolled over onto our stomachs so that our heads were toward the house and our back to the soldados.

  “Does your shoulder still hurt?” he whispered.

  “No,” I answered, though it did. But only a little.

  He glanced sideways at the sky. “The sun will be gone in a few hours. Manuelo and the others will leave without us.”

  “What will el coronel do to us?”

  Fat Cat shrugged. “They will either kill us or let us go.” His voice was matter-of-fact. “It all depends on the old one there. If he talks we will die; if not—well, we have a chance.”

  Suddenly I remembered the cold metal against my back when the coronel had called us out of the line. “They wouldn’t have killed me,” I exclaimed. “You would have!”

  “Sí.”

  “But then they would have killed you!”

  He nodded.

  I wasn’t angry. I just didn’t understand.

  “To save you,” he said. He jerked this thumb over his shoulder. “Or would you prefer that?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “They would force you to betray your father, to tell where we hide out. You could not stop them. And in the end they would kill you anyway.”

  Now I began to understand. This was the way it had to be. This was the core of our lives, the only thing that mattered. I glanced back over my shoulder. The old man still hung there quietly, the sun burning his flesh. I whispered, “I wish we could kill him.”

  Fat Cat looked at me. There was a kind of approval in his eyes. “He will die soon,” he said quietly. “Let us pray that he dies in silence.”

  There was a sound behind us. “On your feet! The old one is awake. I go to call el coronel.”

  The coronel’s voice came from behind me. I turned. He was wiping his face daintily with a napkin. “Don Rafael!”

  Papá Grande didn’t look at him.

  “Don Rafael!” the coronel said again. “Do you know me?”

  The old man’s eyes roved wildly. “Bring me my horse!” he shouted suddenly. “I will ride into the hills to kill the bastardos myself!”

  The coronel turned away in disgust. “Cut him down and kill him. He is of no further use to us.”

  He started to walk away, then his eyes fell on me. “Un momento. You still say the old one is not your grandfather?”

  I didn’t answer.

  He took his pistol from its holster. He spun the cylinder and five cartridges fell into his hand. He closed his fist over them and looked at me. “There is one bullet remaining. You will kill him.”

  I looked at Fat Cat. His eyes were dark and impassive. I hesitated.

  “You will kill him!” the coronel shouted, handing me the gun.

  I looked down at the pistol in my hand. It was heavy. Much heavier than Fat Cat’s. I looked at the coronel. His eyes were burning, his face flushed. It would only take one bullet. But then they would kill me, and Fat Cat too. I turned away.

  My grandfather remained silent as I moved toward him. The blood was still dripping from his mouth, but his eyes seemed suddenly to clear. “What is it, boy?”

  I didn’t speak.

  “What do you want, boy?” he asked again.

  I felt a knot in my stomach as I brought the pistol up. My grandfather saw it. He didn’t move. I could swear a faint smile came into his eyes just before I pulled the trigger.

  The recoil spun me half around, and the big revolver flew from my hand as I struggled to keep my feet. I looked at the old man. He slumped against the wheel, his eyes staring at us sightlessly.

  The coronel’s voice came from behind me. “Bueno.” He turned and started back toward the house.

  I looked at my grandfather. The tears began to well up in my eyes. I fought them back. Alive or dead, he would not want them. Fat Cat’s hand was on my arm as he half led me, half dragged me toward the road. The soldados stared at us impassively as we walked past. At last we were out of earshot. The tears came to my eyes now.

  “I killed him!” I cried. “I didn’t want to, but I killed him!”

  Fat Cat didn’t slow his rapid pace. “What does it matter?” he asked, without looking at me. “The old one was as good as dead. It matters only that we are alive!”

  12

  It was three hours after nightfall when we got back to the cave. The others had already gone. I was so tired I could scarcely keep my eyes open. I dropped to the ground. “I’m hungry.”

  Fat Cat looked at me. “Get used to it,” he said tersely. He walked around the cave, his eyes searching the ground in the eerie light.

  “I’m thirsty, too.”

  He didn’t answer. After a moment I became curious about what he was searching for. “What are you doing?”

  He glanced at me. “I’m trying to figure out how long they have been gone.”

  “Oh.”

  He gave an exclamation and went down to one knee. He picked up somethi
ng and crushed it in his hand, then flung it away. “Get up!” he said abruptly. “They’ve been gone only an hour. Maybe we can catch up with them.”

  I dragged myself to my feet. “How do you know? What did you find?”

  “A horse turd,” he said, already leaving the cave. “Its center was still warm.”

  I had to trot to keep up with him. I never thought Fat Cat could move so quickly. I could hear his breath coming heavily in his throat as we climbed toward the crest of the mountain. The road was clear as day because of the bright white moon. The night was getting chilly, and I began to feel cold. I ran along, trying to keep my teeth from chattering. “How—how much longer?”

  “They will not stop until they are on the other side of the mountain.”

  I looked up the side of the mountain. It was still a good two miles to where the road crested. I threw myself down at the side of the road. I lay there trying to catch my breath. Fat Cat went a few steps farther, then, not hearing me, stopped and looked back. “What are you doing?”

  “I can’t walk anymore.” I said. I began to cry. “I’m cold. I’m hungry.”

  He stared down at me for a moment. “I thought you were a man,” he said harshly.

  “I’m not a man,” I wailed. “I’m cold and I’m tired.”

  He sat down beside me. “All right,” he said, his voice softening. “We’ll rest.” He stuck his fingers in his pocket and came out with a stub of a cigarrillo. He lit it carefully, cupping his hand against the wind. He wolfed the smoke in deeply.

  I looked at him, shivering.

  “Here,” he said, “take a puff. It will warm you.”

  I did as he suggested and immediately I began to cough and choke. When I finished, oddly enough I did feel warmer. He slipped out of his blouse and threw it around my shoulder. He drew me close to him.

  I snuggled up against the warmth coming from his big body. There was something about the man smell of him that made me feel safe and secure and before I knew it I was asleep.

  I awoke with the first rays of sunlight in my eyes. I rolled over, my hand reaching out for him. It hit the earth and I sat up suddenly. He was gone. I looked around wildly. “Fat Cat!”