Way Back Home

by Clickgeniera

This story is more dramatic than the ones I usually write. An improvised plan has quite disastrous consequences. The main characters are not as perfect as in the series, which was aimed at a family audience, here they are more human and sometimes things go wrong for them.

17. October 4th

October 4th

Felipe walked through the cave, almost in darkness because he had only taken down one candle and had not lit the others. The lighters from Diego's experiments were also out. Like every dawn he advanced through the tunnel leaving behind the saddle and the horse's harnesses, which were in the stable.

Opening the back door he found Toronado waiting. The horse looked toward the door, waiting to see if anyone else would come out, then snorted in what seemed like a reproach to Diego for not being there. Felipe petted Toronado as he offered him an apple, checked his hooves and brushed him methodically, staring blankly. When he finished, the horse did something unexpected: he brought his head close to Felipe's shoulder, giving him a light slap on the cheek and leaned the top of his powerful neck against the boy. Felipe hugged him and after a few moments began to cry silently, while Tornado remained still. When Felipe calmed down the horse rubbed his cheek against him and stepped back. Felipe walked over and rested his forehead on the horse's nose, sighed and pulled away from him. Tornado turned and galloped off into the hills.

Felipe re-entered the hacienda after making sure no one was in the library. He went to the kitchen, where Maria had prepared breakfast for the men, and took the ration she offered him, then went out the back door to join the other men.

"Good morning. Let's get going." Alberto, the foreman said. "You guys will go repair the fences on the north side." he said to two of them. "And the rest of us will go over to the hills to move the cattle to the east. If any of you see the black horse again let me know, I want to see for myself before I go back to bothering señor de la Vega with rumors. He has enough to worry about right now."

Turning, the man with the thinning, graying hair saw Felipe standing next to one of the men. It made him a little uncomfortable that he was there, because he didn't know whether to treat him like one of the vaqueros or one of the de la Vega.

"Felipe," he said slowly looking toward him, knowing he could understand. "You can come with us to run the cattle. You have a good hand with the animals."

Felipe nodded and headed for the stables to saddle his pinto horse.