A Horse Called El Dorado by Kevin Kiely Read Free Book Online

in the opposite direction in which we were travelling.
    I do not remember getting into Araracuara. I must have been asleep, because it was the middle of the night. An old man lifted me down onto the floor, away from his chickens that were in a suitcase with air holes. He was afraid I would fall asleep and keel over on top of them.
    The next morning as I woke up, the bus was even more full of passengers. The noise of the people was awful as the sun rose again. Many were drinking wine, eating and singing to greet the sun. There was a guitar player. He was good, but I thought of my papa and felt glum. The driver was out of sight in his bay. The bus sometimes made sharp turns and some of the drunken passengers bumped over and back, bursting into loud laughter as their singing voices changed to weird tones.
    After much twisting and turning, up and down hillsides , the driver stopped the bus and stood up to address the passengers. One of the men went up to him, putting his arm over the driver’s shoulder and poking him, asking him drunkenly to join in with the singing. The driver was bleary eyed from steering us along the narrow road. He raised his hands and the women called for silence. He said that he would curl up in his bay and get a few hours’ sleep, because it was too hot for driving. He promised to get us to the next town – I did not hear the name clearly – by nightfall.
    ‘That will give us a good view of the mountains,’ one of the men joked.
    ‘The hungry mountains,’ shouted a woman from the back of the bus.
    The windows were all open, but the air in the bus was stifling as we took our siesta . There was silence except for people stumbling in and out to relieve themselves under the trees. The driver slept for hours. He woke, went to relieve himself and then started the engine again. As he shifted the bus noisily into gear, some passengers moaned and snuggled up as comfortably as possible to keep snoozing. Hens and chickens crooned and clucked. I looked up at those who faced me, who were happily tucking into their picnic lunch.
    We chugged steadily along the road until the bus came to a sudden halt. The driver shouted back to us not to move or say a word. There was a thudding on the door of the bus, and then some glass broke and fell onto the floor. What kind of passenger was this? Some adults started standing up but the driver bellowed at them to sit down on their fat bums and shut up!
    In seconds, everyone knew what was happening. Nobody looked very afraid, just annoyed, as three armed guerrillas came on board. At first their faces were stern, but seeing us grow tense they began to smile.
    ‘Greetings, friends and supporters of LOR,’ shouted one with a black beard, dark eyes and a wide-brimmed hat.
    ‘Ah, to be among our amigos is pleasant,’ said another, who wore a red scarf around his forehead.
    LOR (Las Okupas Revolucionarias) were a guerrilla group with less supporters than AGRA, as Mama told me later, but this only made them more dangerous – because they were a small group, they had to work harder to instil fear in people. We were certainly growing afraid on the bus, as they waved their battered-looking guns around. The driver was made to introduce the passengers to one of the thugs, and told to call him ‘Captain’. Passengers had to give their names, and the ‘captain’ would greet them as if with respect and then look back to his comrades with an evil grin.
    ‘Have you a small donation for LOR today, my fellow Colombians?’ asked the ‘captain’. ‘We are working for your freedom,’ he grinned, showing off his yellow teeth.
    I had half-believed that they were actually friendly, but now I knew that they were not really working for us. Las Okupas , those blackguards, took so much from us poor people. Mama was frightened. They tore through the clothes in the carpet bag, grabbing a comb and a denim shirt. They forced two passengers to help them unload what they took from us all.
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