Harold Robbins Thriller Collection

by Harold Robbins

  Almost immediately the chickens set up a racket that could be heard forty miles away. One big red hen ran at me, and I flat-edged her with my knife. I slashed at another but missed, then caught a white pullet as she went by. Quickly I sheathed my knife, grabbed the chickens by their legs, and ran back across the field with their bodies still jerking in my hand. I dove down beside Amparo just as the farmer came out of the house, his nightshirt flapping. He was carrying a rifle and when he saw the open coop he ran to shut it. Then he came running over to the edge of the field near us.

  “What is it?” a woman’s voice called from inside the house.

  “That damn weasel’s been at the chickens again! Some night I’m gonna get him!”

  He stood there a moment longer, and then went angrily stamping back to the chicken coop. He unlatched the door and went in.

  I touched Amparo’s arm and gestured for us to leave. The minute he found two hen heads in the coop he’d know that it was no weasel that had raided his flock. We ran all the way back to our hideout, and suddenly we weren’t tired anymore. Even Amparo was laughing and happy as the chickens dangled over the fire, the lice jumping crazily from their feathers to keep from being incinerated.

  71

  The days became nights and the nights turned into days and we had lost all track of time when finally we came down the last of the range of hills into the desert. Vaguely I thought it had been about three weeks since we had left the hideout but I could not be sure.

  It was about two in the afternoon as we stood there looking across the desert to the next range of hills beyond which lies the green and fertile valley around Estanza. I could see a few wagons on the road, so I knew that we dared not cross by daylight. We would be too easily seen, since there was no place to hide in all that flat hot sand.

  I tried to calculate the distance with my eyes. It had taken Fat Cat and me three hours to cross it with the wagon. That would mean about twenty miles. By walking all night we should be able to make it. I turned to Amparo.

  Her face was deeply tanned by the sun and her blond hair bleached almost white; her brows and lashes were pale and practically invisible against her dark skin. Her cheeks were thin and drawn and I could see the fine ridges of her bones beneath the flesh and the weariness that pulled down the corners of her mouth. I pulled a chicken bone from my pocket. She put it in her mouth and sucked it gently, letting her saliva soften and moisten it before she chewed. Amparo, too, had learned a lot in these last few weeks.

  Several times a day we had had to leave the road and hide. More than once we had nearly bumped into patrols of soldiers but we had developed a sixth sense that warned us when danger was near. I looked out across the desert again. “We’ll have to cross it at night. We’ll find a place to rest until dark.”

  Amparo nodded. She knew why without my having to explain. “Have we anything left to eat?” she asked, still sucking on the bone.

  “No.”

  I looked around. This wasn’t game country. There were few trees, only scrub brush that seemed to grow only in the desert. That meant there probably wasn’t much water either. “But we’re not far from Estanza,” I said. “There’ll be plenty to eat and drink there.”

  She nodded silently. I watched her look down at the moving wagons along the road. “Do they all hate us? Do they all want to kill us?”

  I was surprised by her question. “I don’t know.”

  “Then why do we have to hide all the time?”

  “Because we don’t know how they feel about us.”

  She was silent for a moment. “Mamá is dead,” she said suddenly, “and so are the others. Roberto and Eduardo, too. That’s why we can’t go back, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “You can tell me,” she said quietly. “I won’t cry.”

  I nodded.

  She stared into my eyes. “Is Papá dead too?”

  “No.”

  She turned away and looked out at the desert. For a long time she stood there silently. Then she turned back to me. “If Papá is dead,” she asked, “will you marry me and take care of me?”

  I stared at her. She looked so skinny and helpless standing there. Like Perro used to look when he wasn’t quite sure I would give him a bone. I reached for her hand. It felt warm and trusting in mine. “You know I will. We settled that a long time ago.”

  She smiled. “Do you have another bone?”

  I took the last one and gave it to her. She stuck it in her mouth and began to chew on it. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s find some shade and try to sleep.”

  The wind came up later that night as we started down the road to cross the desert. We shivered as its chill struck us. I looked at Amparo. “You all right?”

  She nodded and pulled the shirt closer around her and lowered her head into the wind.

  “Wait,” I said, and unrolled the blanket and cut it down the middle with my knife. After tonight we wouldn’t need it anymore. We would be at Señor Moncada’s farm. “Here, use it like a ruana.”

  She wrapped her half around her and I did the same. The wind seemed to be getting stronger. Occasionally it would lift the sand and fling it up in our faces and soon our eyes were stinging. The skin on our faces became raw and chafed, and after we had been walking a few hours even the hard-packed surface of the road was covered with a fine layer of sand.

  Several times we stumbled off the road and sank in sand to our ankles. The wind was so fierce now it was hard to see where we were going. I tried to look up at the stars to get my bearings, but even they were obscured. More than once we found ourselves floundering and had to fight our way back to the road.

  “I can’t see,” Amparo cried. “The sand is blowing in my eyes.”

  “Make a hood.” I pulled the blanket up over her head and made a peak with just a narrow opening in the front to see out of it. “Better?”

  “Yes.”

  I did the same and it worked. We moved off again but before we knew it we were off the road again. It seemed like an hour before we stumbled onto it once more.

  “I can’t walk anymore, Dax,” Amparo sobbed. “My shoes are filled with sand.”

  I made her sit down, and I emptied her shoes. Then I pulled her to her feet. “It’s only a little way farther.”

  We struggled on. My throat felt raw and dry. I could feel a rattling in my chest. Suddenly the sky seemed to lighten. One moment it was a faint gray, then the sun popped over the mountains behind us. I stared at it incredulously. It was coming up in the west.

  Suddenly I realized what had happened. Sometime in the night we had turned around and begun to backtrack. Now we were caught in the middle of the desert in broad daylight. I turned and looked down the road toward Estanza. There was a wagon coming in the distance.

  I took Amparo’s hand and we ran off the road. Everything was flat; there was no real cover. I told her to lie down and I stretched out beside her. I pulled our ruanas up over our heads. Perhaps they would look enough like the sand to fool anyone passing by.

  I heard the creaking rumble of the wheels of the wagon. I raised a tip of the blanket and peeked out. The wagon had gone by. I was already up on one knee when I saw another down the road. Quickly I fell to the ground again.

  “What is it?”

  “Another one.”

  The sun was beginning to bake the sand. The heat rose up all around us. “There’s nothing we can do,” I said. “We’ll just have to wait for the night. There are too many people on the road.”

  “I’m thirsty,” Amparo said.

  “Lie still; try not to think about it.”

  I could feel the sweat running down my back and between my legs. I licked my lips. They were dry and salty. I lifted the blanket. The road seemed clear in both directions as far as my eye could see.

  “All right,” I said, “let’s walk for a while. Put your ruana up again. It will keep off the sun.”

  The heat shimmering off the road formed wavy patterns before our eyes.
My feet began to burn.

  “I’m thirsty, Dax.”

  “We’ll walk a little more,” I said, “then we’ll stop and rest.”

  We managed to go on for another half-hour. The sand was so hot now that when we stretched out on it we could scarcely bear it. My tongue felt dry and swollen. I made the saliva run in my mouth for a moment but as quickly it seemed to dry up.

  “It hurts, Dax.” Amparo began to cry. “My mouth hurts.”

  She was sobbing quietly. Her shoulders were shaking. I knew she would have to wet her lips somehow. I took out my knife and cut the edge of my finger. The blood suddenly welled up.

  “Damn!”

  “What did you do?” Amparo asked.

  I held up my finger. “I cut myself.” I pushed my finger toward her. “Suck it.”

  She put my finger in her mouth and sucked. After a moment she looked up. “There, is it all right?”

  I looked at my finger. I squeezed it, forcing the blood to well up again. “Better do it once more to make sure.”

  She sucked again. This time when I held up my finger the edge of the cut was white. “It’s all right now.”

  “Good.” She lifted the blanket and looked out. “It’s starting to get dark.”

  She was right. The day had almost gone, and night was coming. I could feel the heat beginning to leave the sand. I got up on my knees. I looked down the road that cut through the pass between the mountains. On the other side lay Estanza. “If we walk all night, we could be there by morning.”

  Amparo looked up at me. “Can’t we get a drink of water?”

  “There’s none between here and Estanza.”

  She went over to the side of the road and sat down. “I’m tired.”

  “I know, Amparo.” I covered her with my ruana. “Try to sleep a little. Tomorrow everything will be all right.”

  She lay back and closed her eyes. In a moment she was asleep. I tried to, too, but there was a peculiar ache in me that wouldn’t let me. No matter how I turned I seemed to hurt. I let Amparo sleep for about two hours.

  It was about an hour after sunup when we finally reached Señor Moncada’s farm. Several horses were tethered out in front but I saw nobody. I gestured to Amparo to be quiet as we went around to the back.

  There was smoke coming from the kitchen chimney. It was so strong in my nostrils that I could feel myself growing dizzy with hunger. We crossed the backyard to the kitchen door. Still holding Amparo’s hand, I opened it.

  It was dark and I couldn’t see until my eyes adjusted, then I heard a woman scream and my vision suddenly cleared. A cook was standing near the stove, and three men were sitting at the kitchen table, two of them facing me. A third had his back to me. The red and blue of their uniforms suddenly registered.

  I turned, pushing Amparo toward the door. “Run!”

  She took off like a rabbit across the yard. I started after her. I heard a yell behind me and when I looked over my shoulder I tripped over a log and fell. As I scrambled up a soldier ran past me.

  “Run, Amparo, run!” I screamed. “Run!”

  Another soldier came up to me. I turned to face him, pulling my knife. I began to feel dizzy. Exhaustion and the long night had taken their toll. Then I saw clearly his face, and suddenly nothing remained in me but a burning rage and hatred. I felt the desire to kill rise in my throat. “Fat Cat!” I screamed, and I launched myself at him, my knife outstretched.

  He had sold us out. That was why the soldiers had been able to raid our hideout. It was because of him that so many had been killed, and all for a lousy black stallion.

  As I slashed upward with the knife I heard Amparo scream. I turned and saw that a soldier had caught her. He was pulling her back toward us, kicking and screaming. I began to feel dizzy again.

  I turned back to Fat Cat. He was staring at me, his face white. “Dax!”

  I screamed hysterically. “Dax! I’m not dead like the others! I’ll kill you! I will cut off your cojones and stuff them down your lying throat!”

  “No, Dax. No!”

  “Traitor!” I took another step toward him but there was something wrong with the ground. It was rolling like the sea at Curatu, where I had once gone with my father. “Traitor!” I screamed again.

  “Dax!”

  But this was another voice. One I had never forgotten, though I hadn’t heard it for more than two years. I looked past Fat Cat toward the kitchen door, where my father was standing. But there was something wrong. I thought I was going out of my mind. My father also was wearing an army uniform.

  “Papá!” I cried. I took a step toward him, then I remembered Fat Cat and rage once more shook me. I turned and screamed, “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”

  I cocked my arm to throw the knife at his throat, but the sun blinded my eyes. I blinked for a moment, and suddenly everything began to fade. The knife slipped through my fingers. I felt myself falling to the ground, and then a pair of arms caught me.

  The darkness started to come again and I remember thinking: how can it be night when it has just become morning? Then out of this darkness came my father’s voice. There was love in it. Pain. And sorrow too.

  “My son,” he said softly. “My son, what have I done to you?”

  And then mercifully the night came and covered me.

  72

  The old man in the black robes leaned back in his chair and placed his fingers together judicially as he waited for my answer. His dark eyes shone behind the lenses of his spectacles.

  “I will try to do better, Monseñor,” I said.

  “I hope so, Diogenes.” But his voice was as lacking in conviction as mine.

  School was just not for me. The routine and monotony of the classroom was too confining. Some things I liked and in those I did well. Languages. English. French. Even German. Latin was a dead language, used only by priests in their mumbo jumbo, and I couldn’t have cared less about it. In the two years I had been there I had yet to pass Latin. That was the reason I stood now before el director de la escuela.

  “Your esteemed father was one of our brightest pupils,” el director continued pontifically. “He was second to none in his grasp of Latin. If you wish to follow in his footsteps in the practice of law, you, too, must be.”

  He seemed to expect an answer. “Sí, Monseñor.”

  “You must also try to improve your grades in the other subjects.” He glanced down at the report on his desk. “There are too many in which you have barely managed to receive passing marks. Grammar, literature, historia, geografía…”

  I looked out the window as his voice droned on. I could see Fat Cat lounging outside the gate at the school entrance waiting for me. He made an imposing figure in his bright red and blue uniform, and as usual he was the center of an admiring group of maids and governesses also awaiting their charges. But somehow I had never grown accustomed to seeing him in uniform. Especially that one. Even though the army was now ours and the general was el Presidente.

  The revolution had been over for almost three weeks by the time Amparo and I had reached Estanza. It had taken us almost five weeks to get there, and in all that time we had not dared talk to another human being.

  I remember when the general came into my room at Señor Moncada’s hacienda several days later. I lay listlessly in the bed, still weak from the fever that had raged through my body. I had heard the sharp click of boots outside my door and turned my head to greet him. He was not a tall man but in the uniform of commander-in-chief of the army he seemed to have taken on added height.

  His face was still lean and sharp, his lips thin and cruel under those strangely pale-gray eyes, as unblinking as ever. He came to the side of the bed and looked down at me. His hand was oddly gentle as he placed it on the white bed sheet over mine. “Soldadito.”

  “Señor General.”

  “I have come to thank you for returning my daughter to me,” he said quietly.

  I didn’t answer. I couldn’t see what he had to thank me for
. There was little else I could have done.

  “You saw…” His voice was oddly hesitant. “You saw what happened to the others?”

  I nodded.

  “Roberto and Eduardo. Could they still be in the mountains? We never found their bodies. All had been thrown into the fire.”

  “They are dead, señor.” I had to turn my face away from the sudden pain in his eyes. “I saw them die.”

  “Was it…” Again the hesitation in his voice. “Was it swift?”

  “Sí, señor. Like men in battle, excelencia, not boys. I myself saw Roberto kill two of them.”

  Suddenly he exploded. “Damn that Guiterrez!”

  I looked at him questioningly. “El coronel?”

  His pale eyes were glittering. “Guiterrez, the butcher of Bandaya! He knew of the armistice before he went into the mountains.”

  “Armistice, excelencia?”

  “A truce, soldadito. There was to be no fighting while the surrender was being arranged.”

  He turned and walked over to the window. His back was toward me as he spoke. “The war was already over when he attacked the hideout.”

  I closed my eyes. The whole thing then was por nada. They had all died for nothing. All of them. My grandfather, he, too. All because of el coronel. I felt a black hatred rise in me.

  I heard someone in the doorway and I opened my eyes. Fat Cat came in carrying my lunch on a tray. The bandage on his dark-brown forearm where my knife had nicked him showed whitely in the darkened room.

  “Well, my little fighting cock, I see you’re awake.”

  The general’s voice exploded. “What happened to the lookout? Why weren’t we warned in time to flee?” He came back to the bed. “What happened?”

  Fat Cat’s face went suddenly white and I could see the beads of sweat standing out on his forehead. There was a look in his eyes I had never seen before. Not even when we had faced death together.

  I closed my eyes again. I knew what had happened and why. Fat Cat had deserted his post. But I wasn’t a child any longer. I knew that one more death could not return life to those already gone. And that even had Fat Cat been there he would only have added another corpse to the others.