Renegade 32

by Lou Cameron

  When he opened his eyes hours later, the darkness seemed more natural. He was naked under the sheeting of someone’s bed, and a dark form was looming over him in the almost total gloom. He shook his head to clear it. It made his neck feel awful. He asked, ‘Is the kid okay?’ and a voice he recognized as Jean MacTavish’s answered, ‘Ay, and Angus MacDugall said to tell ye that the MacDugalls of New Dunmore are wi’ ye to the end of time. Wee Annie MacDugall was in a fair way to being killed by the flying machine had nae ye saved her!’

  ‘Shucks, ma’am, twarn’t nothing. Wait a minute. What was that nonsense about a flying machine?’

  ‘Och, did ye nae ken Don Federico just bombarded us from the sky? May the Laird strike the black papist dead.’

  ‘Aw come on, I’ve been under artillery fire before. Did anyone actually see this flying machine of yours?’

  ‘Nae exactly, it all happened too fast. But they say it’s Don Federico, nae us, wha has the diwel’s ain unfair invention!’

  He started to sit up, thought better of it, and contented himself to mutter, ‘It’s a lot easier to say you have a flying machine than it is to invent one. I read the papers. All sorts of fruitcakes in Europe and the States have been trying to fly lately. So far they’ve managed to fall down a lot.’

  ‘We read the papers too. A Brazilian called Santos Dumas has been soaring above the rooftops of Paris of late in his ain great flying machine, ye ken, and Don Federico just came back from Paris!’

  He shook his head – it felt better now – and insisted, ‘That’s different. Dumas and those English guys with the gasoline engine have been experimenting with dirigible ballons or lighter than air craft they can steer, sort of, against the wind. But hell, not even Dumas has been able to get his airship to go far enough or fast enough to matter!’

  ‘Ay, but hoo fast and hoo far does Don Federico have to gae? His great hoose is nae fifteen miles from here, and even at walking speed, wi’ nae opposition oop there—’

  ‘I get the picture. I’ll still believe it when I see it,’ he cut in, adding, ‘Getting back to more possible problems, where am I and, more important, where’s Gaston and everyone else?’

  She said, ‘It’s in yer ain bed in yer ain quarters they put ye before asking me to watch over ye during the meeting. Gaston and the other men are debating the dire events of today and wha’s to be in command noo.’

  ‘I thought Sandy Campbell already had that job sewn up.’

  ‘Och, did ye nae ken the Campbell and his family were slaughtered from the air by that black-hearted Don Federico? His hoose was just across the lane from this one. Did ye nae see it bombed?’

  He grimaced and replied, ‘Bombed or shelled, you guys are in trouble either way. What do they have to do now, elect a new chief?’

  ‘Och, there ye gae wi’ that Sassenach nonsense aboot Scots custom again, Dick. The Campbell was our tigherna and ye canna elect a ceanard by a simple vote!’

  ‘Would you mind repeating that in plain English, damnit?’

  She tried. He stopped her before she could give him a whole crash course in Scottish history. He just let her verify that what the late Sandy Campbell had said about outsiders taking the Walter Scott version of Celtic society too seriously was probably true. Even before the misguided attempts to turn Celts into Englishmen had confused the shit out of them, they’d had a confusing enough view of life. Most of the feuding and fussing that made Scots and Irish history more romantic than sensible had been caused by their own rulers’ attempts to impose the standard feudal system of the Middle Ages on top of an older tribal tradition with different rules. A stronger continental peerage had simply disarmed its peasantry and taught them that the landlord’s word was law. The official kings of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales had been forced to bend a little where a tribal leader was just too powerful to turn into a serf and not ‘civilized’ enough to swallow feudalism whole. Hence a Celtic landlord might or might not have legal title to his position under the central government. When local tradition said another man was ceann, or head of the prevailing neighborhood clan, or kindred, all bets were off. When torn between loyalty to his kissing kin or lawful landlord, the armed Celtic peasant turned to the local sennachies – or elders-who-kept-the-traditions-of-race – for advice, and then either followed it or not, depending on who he most liked or feared. Jean insisted her people were simple enough to understand, once one knew the way they thought. Captain Gringo thought he’d rather take bagpipe lessons. The important matter of the moment was that they all seemed to be in the same boat together, not who was related to whom.

  He tried to sit up again, made it this time, and said, ‘Campbell only delivered one machine gun. You said we still had a Gatling and some other automatic weapons to work with, right?’

  She said, ‘Ay, the Gatling’s at the smithee, being fitted wi’ a new gun carriage as ordered by the Campbell before he was killed. The other machine guns he ordered are still in their cases, waiting to be unpacked and cleaned by a professional like your ainsel.’

  He nodded and said, ‘Good thinking. Anyone else could rust ’em out in this climate in no time. Do any of your men know how to fire at least the Gatling?’

  ‘Nae, that’s why I was sent to fetch ye. Flora said ye were ever a wonder wi’ modern weapons and bonny in ... och, never mind.’

  He grinned at her in the dark and said, ‘I agree this isn’t the time and place, or at least the time to talk about never minds. But I sure do seem to wind up bare in bed a lot with you, lately.’

  ‘Damnit, I told ye I’d have none of that wicked nonsense out of ye, Dick Walker. Poor Flora may have been weaker than me, as well ye ken. But I’ll have ye ken the people of this colony were chosen from among gude Presbyterian clans! Sae dinna expect to have yer wicked papist ways wi’ this MacTavish!’

  ‘Hey, I’m not a Roman Catholic, Jean, and for the record, I’ve gotten that same speech from more than one Spanish lady in my time.’

  ‘Oh? And did ye respect her wishes in the matter, ye great Yankee brute?’

  ‘When she was as frigid as you? You bet your sweet cherry tree.’

  ‘Wha’s frigid, ye cruel mon? I’ll have ye ken I’m a warm a lass as any and ... och, are ye trying to trick me, Dick Walker?’

  He chuckled and said, ‘Heaven forefend. Why don’t you get out of here so I can get dressed?’

  ‘Are ye daft, mon? Dr. Burnes says ye’re nae to get out of bed until he looks ye over in the morning!’

  ‘Aw hell, I wasn’t hit on the head, so I don’t have to worry about concussion. I’ve got to go that meeting, see?’

  ‘Och, do ye noo? For what grand reason, may I ask? Gaston is there to look after yer ain interests, and besides, they’ll be talking the nicht away wi’oot deciding much.’

  He rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully and muttered, ‘I can’t say I really feel up to a long-winded discussion in Gaelic. What time is it?’

  ‘Ga’ng on nine. Gaston shude be back by midnicht. Take my advice and stay here wi’ me.’

  That sounded fair. So he grabbed her in the dark and hauled her in for a warm ice-breaking kiss. She kissed back with considerable enthusiasm at first and didn’t seem to mind when he cupped a firm breast in his free hand, rolling half atop her as he lowered her to the mattress.

  But when he tried to slide for home plate, she sobbed, ‘Nae, nae, I dinna do such wicked things!’

  So he didn’t fight to hold her as she struggled free, leaped off the bed, and ran screaming off into the night.

  He sighed, pulled the sheet back over his now more wide awake flesh, and muttered to himself aloud, ‘Shit, she might have at least told me where they were holding that other pointless argument!’

  He tried to relax. It was no go. Now that he’d recovered from that numbing blow to the spine, his damn head was clear as a bell and his genitals had never been injured in the first place.

  He heard someone coming into the room. He asked, ‘How did it go, Gaston?’

>   But the Indian girl called Yoyo – sort of – replied, ‘What where, gude sore? Yoyo hear you fussing in here. Yoyo think maybe you wanna jigjiga wi’ she, ay?’

  He laughed and said, ‘It sure has to be a better offer than my fist, and I’ll never get to sleep with this damn hard-on.’

  ‘You got big stiff?’ asked Yoyo, climbing into bed with him to take the matter in hand. She was of course naked, and as she grabbed to grasp in full what might be getting into her, she gulped and added, ‘Och mo mala! Yoyo scared!’

  He pulled her small warm body closer and soothed, ‘Take it easy, honey. Let’s just chat awhile, at first. What does och mo mala mean? I’ve heard girls around here with lighter complexions say the same thing. It’s not Carib, is it?’

  ‘Nae, white people talk. It mean ‘oh me eyebrow’ in Scotland. Where Scotland, gude sore? Allem people say they coming from there, but they always been here. That crazy, nae?’

  He assured her it sounded odd to him too as he tried not to laugh at her amusing mixture of tongues. He kissed her little moon face, and when that seemed to relax her enough, rolled into the soft saddle of her nut-brown thighs and entered her like an old friend.

  She hissed in mingled surprise and pleasure. Then she proceeded to treat him like a friend indeed. He had to remind himself she was a dark primitive type as she bumped and ground under him in a perfectly civilized way. Her round little rump required no pillow under it as she clasped his bounding body with her firm, friendly limbs and took him at an angle that simply couldn’t have been improved upon. He wondered why, even as he commenced to come in her, why he was wondering if the white girl who’d just refused him could feel better or worse to his dong at a time like this. He decided, as he ejaculated in her quivering orgasmic vagina, that any real improvement on good old Yoyo would probably kill a man.

  She bit her lower lip and came again and again as his excited shaft delved her sweet insides for more pure animal pleasure. Thanks to the dull sea voyage, he was harder up, and hence harder, than he’d expected to be, even when wrestling with old Jean.

  He laughed, kissed Yoyo some more, and told her, ‘It’s probably just as well. I needed a simple quickie more than romance anyway.’

  The Carib girl pleaded, ‘Yoyo need to stop, please! You too big. How many time ye think girl can come, goddamn?’

  He stopped, half undecided, then said, ‘Okay, maybe we-ought to share a smoke and wait for our second winds.’

  But as he rolled off her and groped for his shirt in the dark, the Indian girl sprang out of bed, talking to herself in Carib. He frowned up at her shadowy outline to growl, ‘Et tu, Brute? You ladies in New Dunmore sure seem goosey tonight! Where do you think you’re going, Yoyo? I’m just getting warmed up.’

  She said, ‘Whassamattah, are ye daft, mon? Yoyo giwem good jigjiga. Now suppose she go to sleep, goddamn.’

  ‘Well sure, you can cuddle up and catch a few winks with me if you like, honey. We’ve got all night.’

  ‘Oh nae, tigherna say suppose Indian sleep in white hoosie she windem up beat on ass next day!’

  ‘Campbell’s in no condition to beat your sweet ass, honey, and I sure want more of it! So get back in this bed, damnit.’

  She did no such thing. She ran out of the room, confused and crying. There seemed to be a lot of that going around lately.

  He chuckled wryly, found his shirt, and fished out a cigar and a light. It probably did make sense to quit while he was ahead. He had taken quite a beating from that bomb or whatever and … so why was he still stiff as a poker?

  ‘Knock it off, you little basser,’ he told his unwelcome erection as he lit the smoke, trying to ignore it. That seemed only fair, since the damn thing ignored him so often. Cocks all seemed to have minds of their own. He told his, ‘I’ll bet if I spent six months and a million bucks getting you in bed with Lillian Russel you’d go limp on me, you independent son of a bitch!’

  It had, by the time he’d finished the cigar, distracted by the other weird happenings of late, like Don Federico and his wonderful flying machine. He snuffed out the butt and was about to turn over and try for some shut-eye when Gaston came grumping in, cursing in French, Spanish, and Arabic.

  Gaston sat down on the edge of the bed and asked, ‘Are you awake?’

  ‘I am now. How did the meeting go?’

  ‘Très insane as well as inane. I could not understand half of what they were saying, but the gist of it would seem to be that nothing can be done until some Druids decide who is in charge of things now. They agreed to discuss it some more, in the cold gray dawn, after someone important sobers up. I most naturally inquired who’d be paying us, and how much. They seemed to feel we owed them our services gratis.’

  ‘I guess in a way we do,’ sighed Captain Gringo, adding, ‘After all, poor Flora MacTavish did save our asses that time, you know.’

  ‘Oui, but the redhead is dead and her relations are all mad. Do you know what they said occasioned all that noise and confusion before?’

  ‘Yeah, they think we were bombed from the air by a flying machine. I didn’t see one, did you?’

  ‘Mais non, I was too interested in digging my way to China at the time. Nobody else saw one either. They believe in fairies and the monster of Loch Ness, too. A mad race, non?’

  Captain Gringo started to agree. Then he frowned thoughtfully and said, ‘The Indians buy the same story, no matter what they think about the Loch Ness monster. A powered balloon is at least possible, say at high altitude, with nobody looking up before the bombs start hitting?’

  ‘Merde alors, anything is possible, but let us discuss common sense, Dick! A rich Brazilian playboy like Santos Dumas may have such a toy to play with over in Paris, mais this Don Federico strikes me as the usual species of unwashed jungle bully. Where would a mere swamp squatter get such advanced ideas?’

  ‘They say he just came back from college in France and we don’t know how often he washes his socks. He could simply be more up to date than these other squatters, here. That doesn’t sound hard.’

  ‘Eh bien, I agree our long lost Caledonians seem très rustique. Mais the land grabber across the way is no more than a bush of the league bandito. The tedious Spanish grant he claims to have has no meaning, under Colombian law, hein?’

  ‘Maybe. There doesn’t seem to be any kind of law in this delta country at the moment. But try it this way. The U.S. government has recognized Spanish land grants in our southwestern states and territories. It’s less expensive to recognize older land titles than it is to evict people once you organize a new territory. Most governments recognize squatter’s rights as well. So once Colombia gets to setting up post offices around here they’ll probably accept the status quo as they find it.’

  ‘Eh bien, mais these Scotch squatters have been here two hundred years, so what is the problem with their claims to this swamp?’

  ‘Not a thing, as of tonight. Common law usually holds anyone who’d lived on unclaimed land seven years is entitled to keep it and of course pay taxes on it. But like I said, Colombia doesn’t have either this lost colony or Don Federico’s rival holding on record, and I doubt they’ll get this way in the next seven years. When they do, if a Spanish-speaking Hidalgo seems to be in control of the entire delta—’

  ‘Ah, oui that would explain a certain amount of surly behavior. Mais what value could this whole mass of soggy spinach hold for either side? The only reason the Colombian central government is not interested in it enough to survey it is that it’s all so ... uninteresting!’

  Captain Gringo shrugged and said, ‘We know these Scots live mostly off the sea, and trading with the Indians for forest products. I don’t know what the hell the other side is up to. I think we’d better have a look, don’t you?’

  ‘Mais non! It does not matter whether the droll Don Federico wishes to grow sugar, bananas, or crocodiles, Dick. In the end he has to win! These primitive lost Celts are too disorganized to hold off a determined band of anything, with or w
ithout advanced weaponry. I suggested at the meeting that they post a night watch along the bayou. They told me nobody had the power and that nobody would take any orders from anyone until their shen-somethings decided on a new leader. May I suggest we steal a boat and get our adorable derrieres out of here before those villainous Hispanics discover just how easy it would be to take this settlement in one good rush?’

  Captain Gringo shook his head and replied, ‘If I was up to prowling in the dark through a big bog I don’t know, I’d already be patrolling on Don Federico’s side of the river.’

  ‘Avec whom, may I ask? There are not enough men on this side willing to follow anyone to mount even a modest I & R!’

  ‘Yeah, and the two of us would play hell finding our way back to the sea with a purloined fishing boat, too. I doubt anything else figures to happen tonight, so let’s sleep on it.’

  ‘Sacre God damn, it is not yet midnight and have you forgotten four a.m. is the usual time for a sneak attack, Dick?’

  ‘I haven’t. But Don Federico’s had plenty of four A.M.’s to work with, long before we got here. I don’t think he has the balls to hit this settlement on foot. I know I’d think twice if I valued my own gun slicks. This settlement’s disorganized as hell, it’s true. But that could make reducing it in one fell swoop sort of complicated. These colonists are tough as individual fighters, and you wouldn’t want to bump into one in the dark by accident. I think he’s still hoping a war of nerves will do it.’

  ‘Merde alors, you call bombarding the town this afternoon a war of nerves?’

  ‘Sure. It made you nervous, didn’t it? If the other side had sent a skirmish line in right after that bombardment, the matter could have been settled one way or the other by now. They didn’t. Ergo, our sinister Hidalgo’s not ready for a final showdown yet. Why don’t you turn in?’