by Lou Cameron
He rose, saying, “Heat stroke. Not that you can swallow, we get some aspirin and water into you before we do anything else.”
As he poured a tumbler of water and tore open a wax paper envelope of Bayer’s new and surprisingly good fever powder, the girl on the bed behind him suddenly gasped, “Oh, dear, I seem to be naked! Who took my clothes off?”
He said, “Me,” as he stirred the powder in the water and turned to take it over to her. She was propped up on one elbow now, her open soggy shirt off said shoulder, but the soggy sheet held up over her bare breasts by her free hand. He told her, “Drink this. Then lie back and stay that way.”
“I have to get dressed! We’re alone and you seem to be half naked, too!”
He growled, “Drink your medicine like a good girl or I’ll spank your bare bottom. If I was going to rape you I wouldn’t have waited until you woke up. You’ve got a great little body there, but right now, sex would probably kill you.”
She let him hold the glass to her lips, sipping eagerly and letting some of it run down her chin until she swallowed it all. Then she said, “That tasted ghastly. Could I have some more, please?”
He said, “Not just yet. We don’t want you puking. Lie back down, dammit. You may think you’re awake right now. But you’re not.”
She didn’t do as he said. So he pushed her flat. She gasped and said, “Oh, you brute! First you tear my clothes off and pour water all over me. Now you seem to want to wrestle! They told me you were a dangerous animal. I should have listened!”
He groped for another smoke as he asked her quietly, “Who said I was anything, and who are you?”
As he got another claro from the shirt pocket hanging over a bedside chair she said, “You know what they say about you, Captain Gringo. I’m Phyllis Blanchard and, oh, I’m all wet down, ah, here. Are you sure you didn’t ...?”
“Hair absorbs water. Feel a little deeper if you really think I’m such a shit. I would have given you a cold douche for that heat stroke if I’d had a douche bag handy, but I’ve never felt the need to carry one around with me for some reason.”
“My God, is that any way to talk to a lady?”
“How do I know you’re a lady? I just found you in my bed, Goldilocks. So let’s start with how you got there, and what a Phyllis Blanchard might be when it’s not having heat strokes.”
She tried to sit up, gave that up as a dumb idea, and replied, “I was waiting for you here, of course. I didn’t know I was about to have a heat stroke. I remember now thinking those stairs outside seemed awfully steep and I did feel a little dizzy when I let myself in with the pass key, but—”
“Back up! Who gave you a key to this room, and why?”
“Oh, I got the maid to give it to me when I learned you were checked in just down the hall. You weren’t here the first time I came calling. So I went down to the street to look for you. I couldn’t find you, and it was getting so hot, I decided to just come back up and wait for you, see?”
“Not really. Do you always let yourself in so freely? Haven’t you ever learned to just knock?”
“I wanted our meeting to be more discreet. I did knock the first time. But then people kept opening doors up and down the hall and staring at me, and I didn’t want them to think I was, you know, a girl who goes to strange men’s rooms unescorted.”
He grinned crookedly and said, “Your secrets are safe with me. So let’s get down to them, for Pete’s sake. From what you just said about my manners, you have me down as a thug for hire, right?”
“Well, aren't you a thug for hire, Captain Gringo?”
“Call me Dick. The rest depends on who’s trying to hire me and I still don’t know who you are.”
“Oh, have you ever heard of Nelly Bligh?”
“The famous she-male reporter? Sure, but you ain’t her.”
“Pooh, I’m a better roving reporter than Nelly Bligh. I take photographs as well as notes. I’m just not as famous yet!”
He chuckled and said, “At the rate you’re going you may be. But if you’re talking about an interview with the notorious Captain Gringo, forget it. I’ve told lots of people including reporters what a swell guy I am, but they still have me down as a murderous renegade and I’m tired of being misquoted.”
She said, “Pooh, I’m not interested in writing up the outlaws down here in Central America. Everyone knows there’s a bandit under every other big sombrero and the readers are getting tired of that angle. I’m covering quaint native customs, before all the natives get too civilized to be quaint. They tell me you speak some of the Indian dialects as well as Spanish, and I need guides who can shoot good if they have to, also. We’ll be going through some bandit country and while bandits make for boring copy they can be a bother to a woman traveling alone. I’m on a limited budget, Dick. But I can pay you and your French side-kick a dollar a day, each.”
He laughed and said, “No you can’t. We already have a job that pays better. But, for the record, who told you we were in town? It was supposed to be our own little secret, Phyl.”
She shrugged and said, “I don’t know what gave you that idea, Dick. Your picture was on the front page of the local paper the day before yesterday. So naturally, when you arrived here, no matter what you signed downstairs—”
“Forget how I check into posadas!” he cut in. “What in the hell was I doing on the front page of the local paper before I even got here?”
She replied, “It was an old file photo, of course, off one of your reward posters. But now that I see you in the flesh, it’s not a bad likeness. They ran a cable service story about that rescue work down in San José. You seem to have saved a young boy from a caved-in house or something, right?”
“Yeah, and the guy who said virtue was its own reward must not have gotten around much. Okay, so by now everyone knows we’re coming and they may not be baking us a cake. As soon as we can get you back in shape to run, you’d better run, not walk, for the nearest exit, doll. Right now, being around me could be injurious to your health and we’re not going with you anyway. As soon as we can figure some way to do it, Gaston and me have to get up to Ciudad Segovia, see?”
She brightened and said, “But that’s the direction I’ll be headed, Dick. I wasn’t planning on going all the way upriver, but I suppose I could.”
“How? Do you walk on water in those spiffy new mosquito boots?”
“Of course not. I’ve a steam launch moored just a few blocks down the quay. I had it towed down from British Honduras by a sweet old schooner skipper. But when we got here I couldn’t get a native crew to man it for me. I’ve been trying and trying to recruit a boat crew a girl could count on when the going gets rough, but until you and your friend showed up, it looked like the Segovia might be just too rough for any man in town.”
Before he could answer, he heard Gaston’s knock and got up to answer the door. Gaston stared past him to say, “Never mind. What I had to say was less important than what I see in your bed and... Sacre goddamn, how do you do it, Dick? Do you pull them out of hats or do you possess a magic lamp you’ve never told me about?” Captain Gringo laughed and said, “Come in and meet Phyl Blanchard. It’s not that kind of a visit.”
“Non? In that case, may a dirty old man inquire what the lady is doing under that sheet, avec her skirts draped elsewhere, as one can’t help noticing?”
“Behave yourself. The lady and I were just discussing how we’ll all be steaming up the Segovia together, see?”
Every time she slapped another mosquito Phyllis asked why they’d waited until after dark to steam up the Segovia. Captain Gringo had suspected from the beginning she was new to the Mosquito Coast and it would have been worse if he and Gaston hadn’t made some last-minute purchases in Gracias a Dios before shoving off with her.
Her twenty-foot steam launch had the usual canopy running from stern to stern, but the American girl hadn’t thought to bring along any mosquito netting. As long as they were shopping for basic survival gear
he’d picked up two thirty-thirty carbines, another .38 double action, and given the .32 to Phyllis. Up to now she’d apparently thought a girl could get by down here with a winning smile. How she’d lasted this long was up for grabs. She was seated with him in the stern as he manned the tiller. Gaston was up in the bows with a round in the chamber of his new carbine. Most of the mostly useless photographic and camping gear she’d brought along was up ahead of the midships steam boiler and engine. The soldiers of fortune had thought to buy lots of cordwood as well as netting to drape all around, and this early it just about filled the rear half of the launch.
The moon was up and the water ahead lay silvery and flat, save for where the eyes and snouts of cruising crocodiles etched sinister but silent V-shaped wakes across the surface of the sluggish stream. The girl slapped herself again and protested, “That netting isn’t doing any good at all! We should have waited until sunrise, when the bugs aren’t biting, dammit!”
Captain Gringo blew cigar smoke at her in a probably futile attempt to help and said, “The sun doesn’t just come up down here. It gets hotter every inch it climbs and, if you think this is bad, you ought to try cruising up a tropic stream, day or night, with no netting at all. Relax. A few always get through. I think they carry burglar tools. But think of all the bats we’re keeping out of your hair.”
She shuddered and said, “That’s not funny. How come those awful mosquitos don’t seem to be bothering you, Dick?”
He shrugged and said, “One just bit me. I’ve learned not to let it bother me. They go with the territory and it’s worse if you scratch. Look at the bright side. Once the bugs under the netting fill up on blood they’ll stop biting, and this will be the worse night on the river. By morning we’ll be above the salt line. It’s the saltwater mosquitos that not even netting can more than slow down. Once we’re out of this brackish stretch we’ll only have freshwater mosquitos to worry about, and they’re not as good at working through the mesh, even though they’re smaller.”
She slapped herself again and said, “I don’t see how I’ll live that long. They’re eating me alive, and you still haven’t told me why it wouldn’t be safer to travel by daylight. I mean, sure, I know how hot it gets down here, but we have that awning above us and the motion of this boat provides a little breeze under it.”
He looked back at their wake and grunted, “We’re not moving that fast. But the main reason we’d better travel at night is that it’s harder to hit a moving target in the dark. I told you about the bandits between here and Ciudad Segovia and I told you somebody doesn’t seem to want Gaston and me to get there, bandits or not. Half the town saw us push off just now. But there doesn’t seem to be a telegraph line up the river and so with luck we may be able to arrive unexpected. Here. Stuff this cigar in your pretty mouth and quit your bitching.”
She protested. “Do I look like a girl who smokes cigars, for God’s sake?”
But he handed it to her anyway and reached for a fresh one for himself, saying, “I don’t have any sissy cigarettes. It doesn’t matter if you enjoy a good claro or not. Just keep a lot of smoke under the brim of that otherwise useless helmet and, oh yeah, don’t inhale.”
She coughed, gasped, and wheezed, “Now he tells me! This tastes terrible, Dick! I think I’d rather be bitten.”
But he noticed she kept the claro clenched in her teeth as he lit another and by the time they were both puffing like dragons she admitted, “It does seem to keep the bugs away from my face at least and ... Dammit to hell! One just bit me through my shirt, and you’ll never guess where!”
He chuckled and looked away as she modestly scratched her right nipple. He wondered what her pretty tits would look like covered with mosquito bumps. He told himself not to wonder. Even if they hadn’t had an extra man along, up forward, getting more mixed up with this dumb little dame than he already was could be, well, dumb.
They’d already agreed the show was over between them once they got up to Ciudad Segovia. But some dames could be hard to get rid of, once you’d examined them for bumps. It was too bad he already knew what he was missing. Behaving oneself with a pretty girl could be a pain in the ass even when one had never seen her with her duds off.
She must have been thinking ahead, too. She blew more smoke and asked him to tell her about the quaint Indians they’d be meeting along the river.
He didn’t intend to meet any, if he could help it. But he knew she didn’t want to hear that. So he said, “There shouldn’t be many Mosquito Indians above the salt line. Too bad. Mosquitos are good kids, if you treat ’em right. The unreconstructed tribes farther inland tend to be Paya, Lencas, or Jicaques. The Paya are okay. They act like their Maya relatives to the north and don’t get unpleasant unless you mess with their women or, worse yet, their corn patches. The Lencas and Jicaques are wilder and less known. A while back the Spanish murdered an important chief called Lempira during a truce meeting, and it’s been sort of hard to get them to talk to white people since then.”
She said, “Oh, good, I’m anxious to get some really primitive customs down on film. Do you speak their dialects, Dick?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, they don’t seem to want to talk to anyone wearing pants these days. I may be able to get any Paya we meet to pose for you. What kind of customs are we talking about, giggling girls weaving baskets or noble savages spearing fish?”
“Heavens, pictures like that are a glut on the market these days. I’m out to record really primitive customs, Dick.”
“Spearing a fish is too civilized?”
“Everyone knows what an Indian spearing a fish looks like. Up in British Honduras I was able to get some neat pictures of native sexual practices.”
He gulped and asked, “To publish, for God’s sake?”
She said, “Pooh, a little nudity is all right in a travel story if the people are dark enough. I won’t be able to sell all the pictures I took, of course. I had to get them drunk to pose for me in, ah, intimate embrace. So some of them got a bit carried away and, well, there are limits to what even the National Geographic can get away with.”
“I can imagine. I passed through British Honduras a while ago and some of the natives did seem a little, ah, uninhibited.”
“Oh, have you had personal experience with Indian girls, Dick?”
“There are things a gentleman never discusses about his lady friends, lady.”
“Pooh, you can tell me. My interest is purely scientific. I have some shots of an old man full of pulque doing something to a young boy I feel sure was only showing off. I mean, I can see what the old man was getting out of it. But what could the boy have gotten out of it?”
“His life, if you got a chief to showing off. You’re lucky they didn’t introduce you more directly to native sex practices, Phyl. Most Indians are fairly calm about such matters, sober. But if you got them drunk enough to stage an orgy for you, it’s a wonder they didn’t insist you join in!”
She looked away as she murmured demurely, “They, ah, did, sort of.”
He frowned and demanded, “What do you mean, sort of? Are you trying to tell me you actually took part in a jungle orgy with wild Indians?”
“I had to do something to break the ice, and it’s not as if anyone was there taking pictures of me and that nice young chief and, ah, some of his friends. I assure you I only did it for science.”
He laughed incredulously and said, “I’m sure it was all very proper. Jesus, to think I apologized for undressing you that time, too!”
She pouted and said, “Don’t be beastly. I said I only did it for science, and you’ve as much as admitted having been with Indian girls for less detached reasons. At least my attempts to befriend primitives was in a noble cause!”
Captain Gringo was a fair-minded man. So he laughed and said, “Touché. Let’s not talk about it anymore, at least until we burn some of that cordwood out of the way.”
Suiting actions to his words, he handed her the tiller and crawled forward t
o open the fire box and shove a couple more logs on the fire. Tropic hardwood burned hot, but it burned fast as well and he hoped they’d brought enough.
As he resumed his seat in the stern and took the tiller back Phyl said, “Oh, I see what you mean now. You want to make love to me in the bottom of the boat. I don’t think we’d better, Dick. There’s no scientific reason, and I’d feel awfully awkward doing anything like that with a man who spoke English.”
“I figured you were shy. It’s okay if the guy can only grunt at you, right? Don’t answer. I’m not sure I want to know who broke you in so scientifically.”
But it seemed some dames just wouldn’t listen. So he had to listen to an involved tale about some professor who’d explained to her in college how a woman interested in primitive native customs had to learn to be more sophisticated about sexual matters than your average Victorian miss. That’s what the professor had called screwing coeds, sophisticated. Captain Gringo said he was sorry he hadn’t come up with that line while he was in school. She didn’t seem to get it. He tried to tell himself a prick teaser that stupid didn’t deserve to get laid. But it was still a long rough night as he managed to behave himself while trying to run over crocodiles.
Phyl fell asleep before midnight. Prick teasers did that a lot, he’d noticed in the past. Gaston traded places with him at the tiller a few times. It was just as boring up in the bows with nothing to look at but a winding path of tarnished silver ahead and jet black fuzz on either side. The moon went down, but the tropic stars were so bright it felt like a guy could reach up and scoop them out of the velvet sky with his hat and the Milky Way cast enough light to navigate by.
He was back at the tiller when the girl woke stiffly in the misty dawn to stretch and bitch that she hadn’t gotten enough sleep on her hardwood seat. He told her to go back to sleep then. But of course she didn’t. She looked around, rubbing her eyes, and asked why it was so foggy. He said, “Right now the river water’s warmer than the morning air. The sun will burn the mist off once it comes up. Meanwhile we’d better start looking for a place to camp before this open channel turns into a real steam bath.”
