by Lou Cameron
“You mean he was. I sincerely hope he’s still alive. But, dead or alive, he sure picked the wrong side a few days ago.”
She sighed and said, “Es verdad, and he assured me that the plan was foolproof too. Do you know what went wrong, señor?”
He said, “Call me Dick. If you’re asking how many guys on either side I shot in that short, sharp affair, you have my word that I didn’t fire a shot at either the rebel or government troops.”
That was the simple fact when one thought about it. He and Gaston had taken a part in putting down the revolt for the ruling junta. But they’d only taken part in a ruse for outsiders who’d wanted to preserve the status quo. They hadn’t fired a shot for the junta, and the junta probably knew nothing of their modest efforts in its behalf. So if any Salvadoran avengers caught up with him and a bunch of avengees, he could be in a hell of a mess. Letting ladies left in his care learn that he and Gaston had helped defeat their menfolk could no doubt cause more trouble than he wanted to. So when the girl dropped back to relay the grim news about rest stops, Captain Gringo turned to Gaston, who’d been walking and listening on his other side, to say, “I hope you feel the same way about ancient history, old buddy.”
Gaston shot a warning look at the sweaty back of their Indian guide and said, “Oui, mais since only whores delight in completely truthful tales of their pasts, I, for one, intend to discuss nothing but future plans. Speaking of futures, that redhead has a très shapely derriere, and she admits to being a woman of some sexual experience. Do you wish to flip for her, or is it every man for himself this evening?”
Captain Gringo laughed and said, “For God’s sake, there are ten of ’em and it’s early morning. Don’t you ever think about anything but sex, you old goat?”
Gaston shrugged and said, “Oui, mais we have plenty of food and ammo. So what’s left? Perhaps you are right, though. It may not pay to be hasty, since we have ten to choose from and, as you say, a long day ahead of us before we have to decide.”
They heard screaming behind them. They stopped and turned to see one dame on the pine needles behind the last burro. Worse yet, all the others were gathered around her making most of the noise. Captain Gringo called ahead for Jesus to stop. The Indian already had. The American said, “Okay, it’s been almost an hour, anyway. You two unload the burros. I’ll help rub them down after I see what the fuck’s going on back there.”
He moved back and elbowed his way through the girls huddled around the one on the ground. She was fat as well as pretty. So he thought that was it until she sobbed between clenched teeth, “I have been bitten by a snake, I think.”
He dropped to his knees beside her, pulling her plump hands away from her plump ankle as he asked, “What do you mean, you think? Don’t you know?”
She went into a confused tale of a sudden, sharp pain but had no further light to shed on the subject. Captain Gringo didn’t need any. He whistled softly as he stared at the now swollen puncture wounds and called out, loudly, “ ’Sus! Get back here on the double and tell me I’m wrong!”
The Indian didn’t. He took one look at the girl’s ankle and said, “Vibora. What you call bushmaster en ingles, señor. A big one from the spacing of its fangs.”
Then he pushed the fat girl flat on her back and got out a pocketknife. But Captain Gringo told him, “No. The convent’s not that far downhill, and the nuns will have medical supplies as well as the warm bed she ought to spend the next week or more in.” He looked up to add bleakly, “The rest of you, look around for that snake if you want to be useful. Don’t look for it far. If it’s gone, we don’t have to worry about it.”
The girl who’d been hit by the bushmaster was trying to sit up and cry at the same time. He took her in his arms and soothed, “Easy now, muchacha. You’re going to be all right.”
“It hurts. My whole leg is throbbing, and it feels like hot needles where the creature bit me. I was told poisonous reptiles did not haunt the high country. This seems most unjust.”
He patted her shoulder and said, “I don’t think it was fair, either. Do any of you others see snakes around here?” There was a murmur of denial. He told the girl in his arms, “Okay, we’re going to have to send you back to the convent. ’Sus can trot you downhill on one of the burros and then catch up with us some more. You got that, ’Sus?”
“Si, I can ride the burro coming back. It should take me less than two hours, and the day is still young.”
The snake bitten girl protested, “I do not wish for to be left behind! My man was in command of a rebel death squad. Take me with you, I beg of you!”
He shook his head and insisted, “You wouldn’t make it through the day without medical attention.” He was too polite to add that her chances were less than fifty-fifty with it. Bushmasters were nasty sons of bitches. More toxic as well as bigger than the timber rattlers back in the States. She started to cry. A pretty brunette with high cheekbones hinting at more Indian ancestry than she probably liked to admit to knelt beside them, took one of the fat girl’s wrists, and soothed her. “I shall go back with you, Ynez. Do not be afraid. I won’t let anyone hurt you.” '
The injured girl sobbed, “Pero no, that would simply give them two to capture. Your man has not made as many enemies as mine, Anita. Pero should they find you in my company—”
The girl called Anita shushed her, saying, “Do not speak of such things. Attend me, Ynez. They are looking for a large group. If the nuns allow us to dress as they do, and you are in bed in any case, how are they to single us out for revenge, eh?’
The fat girl still looked dubious. The brunette looked up at Captain Gringo and asked, “Will you not assure her that I am right?”
He nodded but said in English, “You got a lot of guts, lady.”
She dimpled and said; “Thank you,” in the same language. He’d thought she looked well educated. By this time Jesus had brought one of the burros back. Together they loaded the snakebite victim aboard. Her leg was really swollen now. So Captain Gringo didn’t argue when Anita snapped, “Hurry, peon,” and the three of them took off down the slope. Anita never looked back. So she never saw the West Point salute Captain Gringo gave her.
He turned wearily to Gaston and the others and said, “Bueno. We’ll all move up to the next flat space and take an early siesta. You muchachas may as well spread your rolls and catch a few winks of beauty sleep. We won’t be taking the usual noon-to-three siesta you may be expecting. We’re already running late.”
He expected more argument than he got. The emergency had sobered them faster than mere hiking might have. Anyone could see that this business was getting serious now.
As his charges made camp cold, since smoke could be seen for miles in broad daylight, Captain Gringo rubbed down the remaining pack animals and tethered them in a clump of yummy brush. They were still too close to the convent for comfort. So Gaston took his carbine down slope and out of sight. Captain Gringo called for attention and told the others, “Listen sharp. I’m moving up a quarter of a kilometer. My friend will be dug in as far down the other way. Should you hear gunshots from his direction, run uphill. If you hear shots from my direction, run downhill. Leave everything behind and just get your behinds to safety. Any questions before I move out?”
The copper-headed Consuela sat up on her ground cloth to call out, “Si, what about the burros?”
He said, “They’re on their own. It’s easier to get a new burro than it is to get a new head. That goes for anything else you own. So you’d better not take off your sandals, let alone your clothes. It’s cool and shady here. Try to get some rest and don’t be scared. We’re just playing it safe. If we thought there was any real danger, we’d be running by now.”
Some of them had the grace to laugh as he moved on up the slope. It was tough about the fat girl, but he’d noticed in the past that nothing shaped an outfit up faster than its first casualty.
He’d gone less than a quarter of a kilometer when the slope ended and the rou
te ahead dropped off into a gentle saddle. Better yet, a clump of squishy stuff that couldn’t make up its mind whether it was spineless cactus or fat spinach offered cover as well as a nice field of fire to the northeast. He muttered, “This must be the place,” and flopped down in the clump. It was soft under him as well as a handy screen.
He braced the carbine over a fork in the jade-green whatever and fished out a claro. He lit up before he checked the time. He started to tell himself that he’d give ’Sus no more than an hour and a half. Then he remembered that they needed the guide more than they needed that one burro. He sighed and said, putting away his watch, “Okay, when you’re stuck, you’re stuck. But this is still a hell of a way to run a railroad.”
He’d smoked the claro down pretty good, and a black robin was now so used to him it felt free to yell in his ear. The nutty birds were called black robins because they looked like blackbirds and sang like robins. A big brown fruit bat flew over, even though it was broad daylight and most of the trees around here were oak and pine. Nothing worked the way it was supposed to down here. But at least the active wildlife around him meant that he had to be alone up here, and that could be a comforting thought.
Hence he caught on sooner than a greenhorn might have when the black robin flew away and the leaves all around seemed to be holding their breath in expectation. He stared soberly across the saddle. The dip was mostly occupied by pine, the straight trunks offering little cover though shading out serious undergrowth. Nothing was moving in on him from that direction. Leaving the carbine in its natural loophole, he drew his .38 and rolled over to see who could be coming upslope at him from behind.
It was Consuela. She couldn’t see him. That had been the general idea. So as she started to move past him he called out, “Over here. What’s up?”
She looked startled, recovered, and came to join him in the soft greenery. As she hooked a leg over the rubbery branches he couldn’t help noticing that she had copper hair all over. She flopped down beside him, smoothed her peasant skirts more modestly, and said, “I was worried about you. It has been so long. What if our guide has been caught as well, Deek?”
He said, “ ’Sus isn’t in the business of being caught, and with any luck, those nuns can hide two girls. If I’m right about that snakebite, they’ll only have one to worry about by sunset.”
“Oh, poor Ynez. Pero can we not wait for Anita in that case?”
He shook his head and said, “No. Even if we did, she’d have no way of knowing we were. So she’d have no reason to try to catch up. What sort of a reason does the winning side have for catching up with her, by the way?”
Consuela said, “Her man was not important. He only went along with the others because his older brothers did. He was not a high-ranking rebel, and in any case, they had not been married long. For why do you ask?”
He said, “Her odds on making it just went up. The winning side’s tough. That’s how they won. But I don’t think they’re homicidal maniacs, and I wouldn’t argue with those tough old nuns if I wasn’t sure I had to. She was nuts to take such a chance. But at least she still has a chance. So let’s worry about our own.”
She snuggled closer and said, “Si, I am sure my own Pedro is no longer among the living. Perhaps I should be thinking of my own future, no?”
He got rid of the cigar butt and hauled her closer. But he said, “First some ground rules. Is it understood we say adios—and that’s it—once we get you muchachas over El Paso Ruido?”
She lay her head back and closed her eyes sensuously as she sighed and replied, “Si, and alas, from there on, for some time we shall be in the care of celibate monks.”
He grinned and asked, “How long were you locked up at night in a convent, querida?”
She said, “Too long,” and took his wrist to place his free hand on her heaving marshmallow breast. As they kissed, her teasing tongue and the turgid nipple between his fingers told him that everything else she had was ready for action. But when he ran his hand down to explore the copper wire between her plump thighs, she gasped and demanded, “Oh, what do you think you are doing, señor!”
He snorted in disgust and said, “Okay, forget it. ’Sus ought to be back with that burro anytime now, anyway.”
She stared up at him incredulously and gasped, “Just like that? You have the strength to stop after touching me?”
He touched her a little deeper, rocking her clit in its moist slit with two fingers as he explained, “I can do anything you want me to. So make up your mind.”
“You brute! Could you not at least tell me how much you loved me, now that you have me helpless in your arms?”
He said, “I’d be fibbing if I said I hated you. I’m a normal man and you’re a beautiful woman. But I haven’t time for kid games. If your old man’s still alive, this is shaping up to be adultery, not infancy. So do you want to or don’t you?”
She sobbed. “You know what I want, and what I have to have, you cruel thing. Pero your approach is most insulting to a woman of my social standing.”
He unbuckled his pants and rolled aboard, saying, “Nobody said anything about standing,” as she swallowed him alive with her love maw and laughed like hell. She came well ahead of him. As he kept pounding she laughed again and said, “I may forgive your crude ways after all, now that I see the advantages of … what do you call this approach to lovemaking, Deek?”
He said, “Good clean fun. It would feel dirtier if we got out of these dumb clothes.”
They did. When he got her naked rump bouncing well on the spineless cactus, Consuela said it made her feel more naked than it did in a bed. He had to admit that she looked naked as hell to him, too, as he braced himself on locked elbows to enjoy her more than ample charms by broad daylight. The jade-green stems pillowing her head went nicely with her coppery hair. He admired the way his own stem looked sliding in and out of her other coppery hair too. But he called a halt once he’d come in her twice. It wasn’t that he’d had enough. Consuela had a lot to give and gave it nicely. But he heard someone coming, in the more literal sense, and rolled off to place a finger to her lips as he raised his .38 in the other hand.
It was Gaston. They were old friends, so Captain Gringo called him right over as Consuela gasped and did her best to cover up with her cast-off skirts.
Gaston nodded down at them, as if he were used to such sights, and said, “Our Indian is back. I might have given you more time had I known what a pleasant view you had up here. Half an hour, then?”
Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “Go back and get everyone started. We’ll wait for you here.”
Gaston nodded and moved off down the hill. Consuela sobbed, “Oh Deek, he knows! Do you think he saw my you-know?”
Captain Gringo reached for his duds as he told her, “If he didn’t, he’s blind. Don’t worry. We’ve plenty of time to dress, and Gaston doesn’t gossip much.”
“But he must think I am a wicked woman now, no?”
“Hell, Consuela, you are a wicked woman. We both had that figured out a long time ago.”
She began to dress, sobbing, “Oh, how shall I ever face him again? He has seen me naked, and no doubt he thinks me easy!”
Captain Gringo pulled on his pants as he soothed her. “Look on the bright side. You won’t have to look him in the face if he goes sixty-nine with you, right?”
She cursed and protested, “¡Pero no! It is your duty as my lover to defend me from such dishonor with your life! How could you even think of me in the arms of another man after what just happened?”
He buttoned his shirt as he soothed her. “Take it easy. I don’t allow my friends to be raped, and I don’t fight friends over easy stuff. If you say no, neither of us will bother you. If you say yes, I’m not about to fight ’Sus over you. It’s lady’s choice, either way.”
“Oh, Deek,” she sobbed, “how can you talk to me like this? Don’t I mean anything to you at all?”
He sighed and said, “Yeah, trouble, most l
ikely. I wasn’t expecting any of you to make a pass at me before we’d at least made night camp. But what can I tell you, I guess we’re both weak-natured.”
Actually nothing much happened when they made night camp at the end of a long, hard day. Most of the girls seemed too tired to finish their rations. He told everyone to turn in, kicked out the cook fire, and sent himself out on picket. They were up in a natural bowl that could have been a volcanic crater once. It was too softly contoured by weathering and too full of grass to be sure. He’d picked the site because the rim afforded a natural picket line of high ground, even as it hid his charges from anyone on the surrounding rises. As it got darker he couldn’t see a thing in the inky pool of darkness on the crater floor. Up here on the rim rock he was surrounded by stars and, of course, bats. They seemed as startled to meet him up here of all places as he was to feel them flutter by. Central America was big on bats. Some of the bats were as big as hell too. But it was safe to ignore the ones pretending to be owls. They were mostly fruit eaters. The pesky vampires were small and more apt to creep along the ground like rats than to fly at one for a nip. There were harmless big bats, little bats, and bats in between out tonight. They got used to one another after a while, and he noticed that he wasn’t getting hit by mosquitoes, so what the hell.
He’d been circling about two hours and was beginning to wonder where the hell his relief might be when he spotted something more worrisome. A light was moving through the trees, over on the next rise. It was too dim to be a torch. It looked like someone carrying a lantern. But it wasn’t headed their way. It didn’t seem to know where it was going, as a matter of fact. He watched it move back and forth on the distant slope, as if someone were searching for something. Then it started moving away. It was gone when he heard the crunch of straw on lava and turned to see Jesus coming up from below. The Indian said, “The Frenchman said I was to take your place and that he would be up here in two hours, señor.”
Captain Gringo said, “That sounds fair, ’Sus. But I’d better stick around awhile. I just spotted a light over that way. It looked like, someone wandering around lost but packing a lantern.”
