A Horse Called El Dorado (3 page)

I checked the tin strapped to my back one more time, then turned to face the dark shadows of the jungle. It was in total silence, as though all of the night creatures were holding their breath. I half expected the quiet to be
suddenly
shattered by the jeeps and loud music of the AGRA guerrillas, and as I thought back to the horrible murder of Gonzales a knot of fear settled in my stomach.

‘Okay, Pepe,’ I told myself, ‘you must march into the jungle now. El Dorado is here to help.’ According to the rhyme, the treasure must be hung safely up a tree that was three times thirty-three paces away from the giant knuckle stone. Of course, they would have to be large paces for me, because the rhyme was written for an adult.

I clenched my fists by my sides and began measuring the ninety-nine paces to the secret tree, always looking straight ahead and ignoring the strange hoots and shrieks from the forest’s depths. I could hear El Dorado
following
, always a few paces behind me. When I got to ninety-nine I felt something magical must happen, but I found myself face to face with a clump of leafy vines. I had to return to the rock and start again. On my third attempt, counting my steps slowly and keeping each
measured with the last, I was in front of a great, silent tree, silver and black in the moonlight. This was the
commune
’s secret tree, and a grin spread over my face as I gazed up into its branches.

The climb would not be easy. The tree’s first branch was well above my head – I could barely touch it, even standing on tiptoes. Suddenly I felt weak at the thought of getting up to the top of this tree. I willed myself to be a bird but, of course, I could not fly up. Instead I took a few deep breaths and leaped up at the branch. After much huffing and puffing, on one of my better leaps, I got both hands on it, and managed to hook one arm over it. I hauled myself up and hung over the branch. El Dorado was staring up at me with a confused look.

I cursed Paul, Hank and the other adults – this was a climb for a man, not a mere boy. My knees were
wobbling
as I carefully grappled up to the second branch. ‘Don’t fall, Pepe,’ I told myself over and over. But the branches were closer together now, and it was easier to climb. When I judged that I was high enough, I sat on a branch with my back resting against the trunk. I felt like the king of the jungle, looking down on the dark forest floor.

I chose a good, strong branch to tie the treasure tin to. The tin had rings of metal at both ends and, after
checking
that the lid was screwed on tight, I laced the chain through these. I wound the chain around the branch a few times, then climbed carefully down for the lock that
was in my food belt. I could hear Paul Rooke’s voice in my mind. In his big American voice, he seemed to be saying, ‘You are responsible for over ten thousand in banknotes, kid!’

I jumped down off the last branch, then stared up into the darkness to see if the tin and the chain were visible. I couldn’t see them, but it was hard to tell in the black shadows of the great tree. Next, I rummaged through my gear for the lock, a heavy brass one, and put it my pocket. What food was left I emptied out of the
bandana
and spread on the ground. I scraped down into the mud by the river’s edge and got out handfuls of damp stuff, making a little pile on the cloth. Then I folded the
bandana
, and tied it again around my shoulder.

This time the climb was not as difficult, once I had scrambled onto the first branch. The tin and chain
dangled
safely from their branch, and I sat above them
balancing
against the tree trunk. My hands shook a little as I snapped the lock shut on the chain. I caked mud all over the tin and chain to disguise them, then sat looking at my handiwork. I had done it! Our treasure was safe from the guerrillas.

I descended slowly once more. Then I found a branch with a wide fan of long leaves. I broke it off and dusted the lanes of footprints we had made. I was exhausted now, and I noticed that El Dorado’s head was flopping, but we couldn’t rest here. I led him away from the
treasure
tree and back along the bank of the river. A little way
on, two over-towering trees made a natural gap into a mound of ferns and we came to a halt amongst them. El Dorado went down onto his knees and then keeled over, resting his thick neck on the ground. It would not be long until deep snores came from him. This I knew would keep small animals away and make bigger ones wary. I snuggled in near his head, putting my arms around his neck to share the warmth from his body, and rested one cheek against his head.

I must have fallen asleep instantly, and when I woke it was still night time. The moon had moved to the other side of the sky. I was cold and stiff, but I felt proud when I thought of what I had done that night. We both stood up and El Dorado shifted restlessly, sniffing at the dark trees in all directions.

I mounted, feeling like a great Muisca warrior who had completed his mission. El Dorado soon broke into a gallop and I held on tightly. I felt that I had grown up that night. I was no longer a small child, playing foolish games.

But the night was not over. As we galloped along I began to wonder if I would recognise the village in the dead of night. I had never been this way before and I worried that I might ride straight past the commune in the darkness. Surely El Dorado would recognise his home, I told myself, but what if he did not?

These thoughts occupied me as we rode alongside the vast sweep of the river. We rode for a long time, my impatience growing steadily as I saw no sign of the
village
. The horizon was turning brown as the sun got ready to rise for another day. Then my eye was drawn to a red
glow in the distance, too narrow to be the sun below the horizon. It looked like the illumination that you see at night when approaching El Encanto, the town near us with electric streetlights. Was it a small town ahead? How could we be so lost when we were following the river? I was beginning to panic, but El Dorado kept galloping along. At least he seemed to know where we were going.

As we drew nearer I realised that what I saw was a fire. The commune was on fire, enormous orange and red flames leaping into the sky. My first urge was to thud my feet into El Dorado’s sides to goad him on with greater speed. I had only one thing in mind, to get to the village quickly. El Dorado had other ideas though. When we were close to the commune, he took us in a curve off the trail, away from the river and up through the jungle. We came out behind and above the village, so that we were looking down onto the disaster. I don’t know whether El Dorado was fleeing from the flames or whether he sensed danger that I couldn’t see, but either way it was fortunate that he took over.

I saw the huts in flames, a circle of burning stacks, the larger communal huts making bigger cauldrons of flame, crackling, spitting fire and belching smoke. The sharp, acrid smell of burning added to my fear. Of course our huts, so fondly built, easily made blazing fires – this I saw for the first time in my life.

The AGRA thugs were down by the river bank,
taunting
the men from the commune with guns and passing
around bottles. I couldn’t see Mama or the other women or children. At least they had got away! They must be in hiding across the river. The men were standing very still, not saying anything for fear of angering the guerrillas. Each guerrilla swayed as he gulped from a bottle or swung a gun around. The jeeps were there, their glaring lights making the scene even brighter. There were fires on both sides of the river – they had set our wooden bridge alight. It had broken in two, and hung down into the water, but the scaffolds that supported each end were blazing brightly.

I was siezed with a fierce anger, but what could I do? I patted El Dorado with a limp hand, staring unmoving at the flames. We stayed like that for a long time, until I saw that some of the guerrillas, those angry apes, were
stumbling
over to their jeeps. They were obviously very drunk, and soon they were all asleep, sprawled in the seats or across the backs of their vehicles, except one who sat under a tree near the river with a rifle laid across his lap. The guerrilla who was keeping watch lifted his rifle now and then and fired a single shot. I thought this would wake the others, but they didn’t move a muscle – they must have been very badly drunk.

El Dorado was becoming agitated and snorted as if to say, ‘Well? What are we going to do?’ Suddenly I had a daring idea. I could see that El Dorado was angry with the lookout who held the rifle.

Looking back, I can see that courage is a thing of the
moment. If thought about for too long, fear and
hesitation
return and nothing can be achieved. I whispered to the horse, ‘Okay, El Dorado, we are going to catch that ape.’

We moved carefully down in the dark shadows of the trees and began walking silently to where the scaffold of the bridge still crackled with fire and flame, giving off that sharp smell that makes horses restless and alert. I heard the men making bird noises to catch my attention – they had caught sight of us and were warning us to stay back. But we had to take a chance on it.

‘El Dorado, you could take that guerrilla like a carrot from the bunch,’ I whispered into his ear. He began to lurch in all directions, making him difficult to hold. I took a deep breath, then put two fingers into my mouth and whistled right into his ear. El Dorado shot off and struck like lightning against the man with the rifle. That guerrilla never saw the horse coming. To my delight, one thud of El Dorado’s head into the man’s side was enough to knock him flying. He fell over and his rifle was flung to the ground. We swung around quickly and ran back into the shadows.

Hank Shepak was quick to act. He recovered the rifle, cocked it and rammed the muzzle into the guerrilla’s neck as he lay on the ground.

‘¡Que burro! Tranquilo, hombre,’
Shepak said to him in his basic Spanish – ‘You ass! Keep quiet.’ The other men grabbed the guerrilla roughly. Someone took off the
bandana
from around his neck and stuck it in his mouth, in case he might shout. I jumped off El Dorado, who must have injured himself in the assault, for he limped and there was a slight bleed from one of his nostrils.

I peered out through the trees at the terrible scene. There was very little left of the commune by now. Our village looked as if it had never existed. But now the tables had been turned. Hank was armed. He looked like a guerrilla himself in the brightening dawn.

I cannot say that I clearly saw the shooting. I know that the men got some more rifles by force from the AGRA thugs. There was use of some machetes also, those sword-like knives. There was a lot of shouting; jeeps revved up and crashed. One was pushed into the river, and it quickly filled with water and sank.

In the end, as with any battle, there was much death. I do not want to describe the horror of it. Three men from our village were killed in all the confusion. I had known them all my life. Five of the guerrillas were killed, three others shooting their way out of the battle and making off in one jeep, swearing revenge. Others ran off into the jungle. The man that El Dorado knocked to the ground was butchered with machetes. That was not a pretty sight.

Then it was over. In the raw morning light, the men stood around surveying the carnage. Five men in the commune now held weapons. The women began to shout from across the river, trying to make themselves
heard. Mama was frantic until she saw me walk out,
leading
El Dorado. I raised my arm in salute to her. It was going to be a very sombre day, and the beginning of a period of grieving for loved ones.

All that morning we launched the raft out across the river and back, bringing the women and children across in twos and threes. When they were all safely over, a communal meal was prepared and everyone who felt up to it ate hungrily. There was very little talking, although some of the men kept telling me that I had been very brave. ‘Crazy, but brave,’ is what Paul Rooke said.

The next day we buried our dead with a display of flowers, incense, chanting and ceremony that had been used for kings in the olden days. There was no ceremony for the bodies of the guerrillas – they were simply shoved into the river. ‘Food for the crocodiles and fishes,’ I heard Hank say. With our new store of weapons there came a sense of security. One of the abandoned AGRA jeeps was found to contain a box of ammunition.

The work on rebuilding the commune was delayed because of arguments among the adults. Some wanted to put the new huts in a different location. Others did not. Mama had a completely different plan.

It took many days to saw wood for the new huts and a new bridge. In the meantime, everyone slept under rough shelters of woven branches and leaves, while a few of the men took turns to keep watch for AGRA. The five guns were our safety, even though the use of violence was against the principles of the commune.

I found the rebuilding of the bridge exciting. The activity helped me to forget the awful events that had happened. One of the men rode on horseback to El Encanto for rope, nails and pulleys. All of this was paid for on credit. The commune had decided not to touch the store of banknotes that I had hidden in the secret tree. They wanted to live on credit in case word got around that the commune had large sums of money. Everyone worked long hours, sawing, measuring and nailing, and soon the bridge was finished.

From now on, I slept in the big hut across the river with the women and other children. The men stayed on the commune side every night and were quite brazen now that they were armed. I was yawning one night as I slouched towards the bridge when I heard the men say that if the guerrillas came they would meet heavy
resistance. If necessary, a retreat would be made across the river for the extra hidden supply of ammunition.

Work began on rebuilding the huts. It was decided after much discussion, and some arguing, among the adults to move further away from the river, up onto higher ground. We had to work hard, because everyone was quickly growing tired of living without a proper roof to shelter under. El Dorado and the other horses helped with the work too, hauling poles and branches.

Each hut began with a tall central pole, surrounded by a circle of poles about a third as tall. The roofs sloped down from a high point and were packed with layers of leaves, fastened until they were watertight.

One evening Mama told me quietly that she was
waiting
to pluck up the courage to announce at the next meeting that we would leave the commune. We were going to go to live with my grandmother, Mama’s mama, in Cali, a big city on the other side of the country.
Something
had changed in Mama because of what had
happened
, because of all the violence and death.

Then, one night, AGRA came again. I was lying on the floor of the big hut with the women and children, waiting for sleep to come, when I heard the rumble of jeeps coming along the river. None of us moved; none of us even breathed as we listened to the guerrillas
approaching
. We heard shouting and a few shots being fired, and then the noise stopped. The women grabbed at us in case we would make a sound. I was pinched in the arms and
my mouth was grabbed – as if I would blurt out a word! The faces of the women remained as still as stones and anyone who tried to whisper was chopped at with
someone
’s hand. What had happened?

We crept out of the hut and over to the edge of the trees as far as we dared go, for fear of being seen by AGRA. It was a dark and murky night without a moon, the sky backlit with stars. Occasionally I could just about make out the shape of a gun, or one of our armed men changing position. Suddenly we heard a lot of shouting, and then the shouting faded away again.

Then the headlights of one of the guerrillas’ jeeps were switched on. Their leader walked out into the light with his arms raised as though to embrace a friend. One of our men walked out to meet him. It was Hank Shepak. The two men stood talking as if they were having a friendly chat. They talked for a long time. The guerrilla leader produced two cigars and they both smoked. I yawned into my hands and tried to rub the sleep from my eyes as I watched. What they talked about I do not know, but no more shots were fired.

Eventually the guerrillas all returned to their jeeps. They revved up noisily and sped off into the night, the engines becoming no more than a purr of sound in the distance.

After a while Hank crossed the bridge, holding a
lantern
in one hand and a gun in the other. We mobbed him and at first he sniggered, speaking in Spanish in his funny
American accent, ‘
Tranquilo
,’ which means, ‘Take it easy.’ We followed him back across the bridge to the commune side, and everyone listened as he told us about the truce he had made with AGRA. We would have to give a
certain
amount of our produce to them, and help with
harvests
when they hired migrant workers. We could keep the weapons that we had taken and they would generally leave us alone. A lot of the women nodded, looked at each other and began hugging their youngest children. But Mama gave me a look which made me shiver. She looked across at Paul Rooke and he gave her the thumbs-up sign.

‘Not a bad deal, eh, Maria?’ Paul bit his lip as he asked Mama’s opinion. ‘I think Hank has struck a good deal with those guys. Now we can get on with our lives.’

‘You call that a good deal?’ Mama yelled at him. ‘We will be slaves to those AGRA ___’ She used an
unrepeatable
word which made my ears go red.

‘Look, it is only like paying some tax.’ Hank tried to calm her down. ‘Anything for a truce and no more
killing
.’ He looked around for support, and some of the others nodded in agreement.

‘Pepe and I are leaving,’ said Mama flatly. ‘Whatever I am owed from last year’s work can be cancelled, if I can have enough money to travel to Cali.’ I grabbed at Mama’s arm and looked up at her. I wanted to speak but she clamped a hand over my face to keep me silent. I had known for days that she was planning to leave the
commune, but somehow I didn’t think that she really meant it. I could think of nothing but the opposite of what Mama said. This was our home! To leave seemed wrong, horrible, crazy, but because I was twelve years old I had no say in the matter.

The grown-ups argued for a few minutes. My friends looked at me expectantly, hoping that I could somehow change Mama’s mind. Then Hank hushed everyone and promised that she would get the money. He reached out to shake her hand.

‘I will never shake hands with a friend of AGRA,’ Mama shouted at him.