Free The Adventurers by Harold Robbins

late!"
    My father shook his head.
    "Go!" the general ordered. "Before I lose patience and rescind the favors your son-in-law obtained for you."
    Papa Grande glared at him. "I need neither your patience nor his favors. I have seen many of your kind across the years. I will live to see your head impaled on a lance as I have the others!"
    He turned and marched down the steps of the galena to his horse, his back stiff and proud, his suit white as the snow on top of the mountains. He mounted and wheeled his horse around. "The army will come, and then we shall see how brave you are!"
    Then he looked at me and his voice softened. "Good-bye, my grandson," he said sadly. "Already I mourn for you."
    He gave the horse its head and galloped away. I looked after him; the horse kicked up small clouds of dust from the hard-packed earth of the road until they were out of sight. I turned to Papa whose eyes had a hint of sadness in them, almost like that I had seen in Papa Grande's. Suddenly he lifted me into his arms and held me tight against him. "My son, my son," he whispered. "I pray to God that I do right for you!"
    The general clapped his hands sharply, and a man came running across the road. He was a big man, the fattest I had ever seen, yet he ran with a peculiar grace and lightness and swiftness that reminded me of the big wild goats I had seen leaping from crag to crag in the mountains. His hat was already in his hand. "Si, excelencia?"
    "Gato Gordo," the general said, "get your gear together and take this boy with you back into the mountains. I charge you with his care. I will hold you alone responsible if anything happens to him."
    "Si, excelencia." The man bowed and turned to look at me. "The boy is ready to travel?" he asked politely.
    My father looked at the general. "Must it be now?"
    The general nodded. "The danger increases each day."
    Slowly my father put me down. "Go inside and have Sarah pack your clothes."
    "Yes, Father," I said dutifully. I started for the door.
    "Make haste, nino," Gato Gordo called after me. "It is best we are in the mountains when night falls."
    I was too shy to speak to him then, but later that night when a keening animal woke me from my sleep, I crawled, shivering, to him across the icy mountain ground. "Tengo miedo, Gato Gordo," I whispered.
    He put his hand over mine. "Hold my hand, child," he said reassuringly, "and I will take you safely through the mountains."
    Secure in the warmth of his touch, I closed my eyes and drifted right back into sleep.
    But that was more than two years ago and now the sun was clear on the valley and I could see almost across it. I stood up in the stirrups, feeling a kind of excitement rise inside me. It had been a long time since I had been home. Papa Grande would be glad that he didn't have to mourn for me after all.

 
     
    CHAPTER 9
     
    We had been traveling the road down the mountain for only a few minutes when Manuelo suddenly held up his hand. We stopped as he leaped from his horse and placed his ear against the hard-packed road. He listened intently for a moment, then raised his head. "Gato Gordo," he called, "come listen."
    Fat Cat joined him on the ground. Suddenly they were both up and back on their horses. "We must get off the road and hide," Manuelo said. "There is the sound of many horses coming up the road."
    Fat Cat looked around. "The mountainside is naked."
    "We must go back up then," Manuelo said quickly, turning his horse.
    I had played in these hills since I had been a little boy. "Down the road just around the bend there is a small clump of trees. Behind it is a cave. We can hide there."
    "Is it big enough for the horses?"
    "I heard Papa say once that it was big enough for an army."
    "Make haste then," Manuelo said. "We follow."
    I let loose the rein on my pony, and we galloped on toward the bend in the road. The clump of trees was there just as I had remembered. I turned my pony off the road and up through the trees to the mouth of the cave.