by Lou Cameron
Captain Gringo muttered, “Jesus, I don’t want them taking pictures of my quaint face, either!”
“Oui, those reward-poster portraits culled from your old West Point yearbook already look enough like you. That is why I dashed madly to meet you.”
“You dashed right. Did you bring our payoff as well?”
“Mais non. As I said, the princess is so excited by the rescue I have not been able to sit her down long enough to discuss business. I confess I was trés overjoyed, myself, when the news came in ahead of you. But there are limits to how long a man my age can dash about kissing people, and when one reconsiders, it was no big thing, as Kuruhai keeps saying. I must say that for once you did things neatly and avec less of the usual noise, hein?”
“It was noisy enough.” Captain Gringo sighed, putting a comforting arm around Beatriz’s shoulders as he added, “We still have to settle up with this lady and the other Costa Rican survivors for losing them their boat. So go back to the schooner and tell Manukai she owes extra. You can work the exact amount out with her. She owes us for the lugger itself, and some compensation for the families of, let’s see … four guys. We didn’t manage to get any women on our side killed, thank God.”
Gaston nodded and said, “Eh bien, Manukai is trés lousy with money, and I’ll point out how much we saved her. Where will I find you two when the tedious finances are settled, at the posada?”
Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “There could still be some sore losers left over from Halle und Feldmacher. But the suite Manukai booked at the Casa Real was paid for a week in advance and, what the hell, she won’t be using it anymore.”
Gaston laughed and said, “Eh bien, I admire your thrift, and it’s not a bad four-poster. Plenty of room for normal sized people. What about the machine guns?”
“The Germans wouldn’t give me back the Maxim for some reason. Had a hell of a time hanging on to my thirty-eight. Did you ever get that Browning back in shape?”
“Oui, and I am still trés cross at you about that, Dick. After all the trouble I had cleaning it and setting it up on the poop, I never got to use it. My question was: is the remaining machine gun ours or theirs?”
“Let ’em keep it. We’d look silly checking machine guns into hotels, and they could still run into trouble getting all those natives safely home. Be sure you knock when you catch up with us at the Hotel Casa Real.”
Gaston chuckled fondly and left them to their own devices. Beatriz seemed thrilled at the thought of checking into a grand hotel with a handsome Americano. He felt less excited. But he owed the poor little mutt a few days of luxurious slap and tickle before they left her behind and, what the hell, it wasn’t as if the pretty little mestiza figured to be a tedious bed partner. He could tell her boilers were building up a head of steam even before they got to the hotel.
Getting through the lobby of a posh hotel with a lady of dark complexion and ragged-ass peon costume was a little complicated, however. Captain Gringo placed a generous tip on the marble counter as he explained to the room clerk that they both worked for the Princess Manukai and that she’d said it was okay. The clerk started to tell them to go to hell, took a second look at the banknotes by the hotel register, and spun the big book around, saying, “I suppose it will be all right, provided you sign in under the name of your employer, señor.”
As Captain Gringo did so, the clerk handed him the key. The tall American took it. Then he took a second look at Manukai’s childish signature, snapped his fingers, and said, “Oh hell, of course!”
He moved Beatriz out of earshot, handed her the key, and said, “Go up and wait for me, querida. I gotta get Gaston off that tub poco tiempo!”
Then he headed for the door without explaining further. He was moving as fast as one could in a hotel lobby without causing a panic, so Beatriz, smart girl, simply headed for the stairs to do what she’d been told.
Outside, though broad day, a guy could move faster. So he did. He was jogging toward the waterfront when he saw Atanua, wearing a mumu for a change, running all-out toward him. He kept going as they met. The vahine fell in beside him and gasped, “Whattafuckee going on? Gaston whisper on me to go gettem you just before skipper order everybody but ship’s officers and some new crew just come aboard below. Me slippem ashore instead. Why Princess Manukai want everybody, even Gaston, down in hold, Dick?”
He grunted, “To kill them, of course. Manukai’s not Manukai. God knows where the rival faction found her, but everything just fell in place when I saw her handwriting doesn’t match the official signature of the real princess! You say all the people we saved and all the people you know personally from back home are locked below decks out of the way?”
“Sure, even Makomotu. Whuffo they wanna lockem even ship’s mate in hold with crew, Dick?”
“Because he’s honest as well as dumb. Don’t you get it yet? Your king sent his daughter, the crown princess, on a mission that makes her kid brother, the sissy crown prince, look like, well, a sissy. So his pals at court plan a double-cross. They’ve already, no doubt, murdered the real Manukai and buried her someplace. That Chinese cook should bob to the surface of the harbor any day now. All their odd moves, from hiring two known wild men like Gaston and me, to mysterious and only apparent attempts on that substitute-Manukai’s life have been razzle-dazzle bullshit they wanted the court back on Konakona to hear about. Because at some point in the proceedings, they’ve intended all along to fake the more public murder of the princess by the blackbirders!”
“Tangaroa’s toenails! Blackbirders not bad enough, they gottem killem princess!”
“They might not have gotten to, if her co-heir’s sneaks hadn’t simply murdered her and made the switch, to keep a sissy’s she-male rival from looking good! They may have had other reasons for wanting the mission to fail. The German company played rough, but they did insist they had valid labor contracts for those pearl divers they were holding; and I know at least one German who tells the truth once in a while. So if I can get any of you good guys back to Konakona alive, it might be interesting to have the king look into just who betrayed some of his people into slavery!”
“Hot shit, s’pose King Kamamamoku find out Prince Tinirau big shit alongside big sissy, Tinirau gonna wind up cooked! Why we runnem up this side street, Dick? Schooner that way, no?”
“I know where the Orotiki is. You keep going at the next corner, and don’t stop until you reach the police station two blocks farther. Get Police Captain Herrerra. He’s okay. Tell him I need a mess of cops on the double, and not to worry about any noise he hears on the way to the docks!”
Again, not waiting to see if the lady was carrying out his instructions, Captain Gringo cut south along an alley to hit the waterfront from the dark slit lined up with the gangplank of the Orotiki. As Atanua had said, there were only a dozen-odd guys on deck, and they were making ready to shove off. But mercifully, as he’d hoped, they were still waiting for the turn of the tide.
There was no way for a visible man to cross the quay without being spotted. So as he ran for the gangplank, the fake princess, standing on the poop, saw, him coming and screamed an order in Kanaka.
But by the time the two guys amidships were grabbing the other end of the gangplank, Captain Gringo was halfway up it, shooting .38 slugs to discourage them from acting so inhospitable. He nailed one in the head and spun the other to the deck too badly wounded to argue about who might or might not come aboard.
But as the tall American ran aft, others started shooting at him from every direction. He made it up the ladder to the poop anyway, and dove over a skylight to land rolling and crab sideways behind the wheel box as the skylight glass evaporated in a hail of wild gunfire.
He reloaded his pistol as he got his bearings, bullets thunking into the wheel box between him and the rest of the vessel. He saw the tarp-covered Browning Gaston had set up atop a nearby hatchway; but not that nearby, damn it.
As he started crawling toward it, keeping below
the level of the shot-up skylight, he saw Manukai, or whoever she was, sprawled on the deck ahead, oozing a lot. As he reached his free hand out to touch hers, she opened one eye and gasped weakly, “What happened? Who put out the sun?”
He said, “Never yell ‘Fire’ without getting the hell out of the way, Doll. Where are you hit?”
“All over, I think. Why the hell did they shoot me? That wasn’t the way Kuruhai said it was supposed to turn out, damn it.”
“Never mind what he promised you. Was he the ringleader?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. He pulled her in by her dead wrist, sliding her along the deck on her own blood, and with some effort rolled her up atop the skylight frame. A bullet thunked into her big corpse. Then someone on the other side recognized her mumu and they stopped shooting her for now. Captain Gringo took a deep breath as he gathered his knees under him. Then he jumped up, grabbed the Browning from its mount, and took cover behind his improvised fort of dead female flesh before they could shoot him as well.
He hastily unwrapped the Browning to find that Gaston, bless him, had armed the machine gun with three full belts linked together. Better yet, he heard a police whistle in the distance, ashore. So bless Atanua and Captain Herrerra, too.
Now the traitors had at least one flank as well as him to worry about. So enough of this pussyfooting. He cranked a round into the chamber with the arming lever, got to his feet with the Browning braced on his right hip, and proceeded to spray everyone in sight aboard the schooner with full-automatic fire!
He only blew away two-thirds of them as panic-stricken Kanakas armed only with Krags or, worse, pistols, wasted time pegging wild shots back at him instead of taking cover poco tiempo. Those smart enough to get a mast or solid hunk of superstructure between them and the chattering death machine blasting down from the poop didn’t really do that much better. For Herrerra of the Puntarenas P.D. was an old pal of Captain Gringo’s who was smart enough to assume, correctly, that anyone Captain Gringo was shooting at had to be a bad guy. So he ordered his squad of carbine-packing cops to lay down a withering flanking fire from shore, and in no time everyone in the gang who wasn’t grabbing for some sky and screaming for mercy was flat on the deck making messy red puddles of blood mixed with piss.
Captain Gringo dropped the hot Browning and met the cops on the main deck as they came warily aboard. Herrerra said, “I know Costa Rica has no extradition treaty with any of the countries that want you. But I still hope you have an explanation for all this. What did we just do?”
The American said, “You just saved this vessel from sinking offshore with a mess of innocents locked in the hold! You and your men figure to get a mess of citations and probably a reward from the king of Konakona if you’ll only be kind enough to do all the paperwork. I’m just not up to it.”
He saw Kuruhai among the prisoners the local cops were herding toward him and their superior. It figured. He said, “Okay, Skipper. You were just about to unlock that padlock and lift the hatch for us, right?”
Kuruhai shrugged and said, “Ain’t no big thing, Blalah. This whole deal was Princess Manukai’s idea. I just work here, see?”
“Bullshit! She was too stupid to plot her next meal, and if she ever got through Vassar I’m a graduate of Peking University! You just found a big dumb broad who looked enough like the real princess to fool commoners who’d never gotten close enough to the tapu real thing to matter. You and the prince you were working for planned to make it look as if the real princess had been killed on a mission the sissy said would never succeed. And now you’re about to unlock that hold for us, aren’t you?”
As the treacherous skipper knelt at their feet, Captain Herrerra asked, “Do we have murder in the first degree on this hombre? I enjoy arresting murderers. But can we prove it?”
Captain Gringo said, “Sure. He’s going to give you a full confession, tell you where the real princess was disposed of, and take his chances with a Costa Rican court. Ain’t that right, Kuruhai?”
The big Kanaka sobbed and cursed in his own language as he unlocked the hold. Captain Gringo chuckled and told Herrerra, “Costa Rica only executes murderers. I understand justice is a little grimmer in some parts of the South Pacific.”
Then he saw Atanua coming aboard, smiling with delight at the carnage all around, and added, “Speaking of the South Pacific …”
As Kuruhai opened the hatch and bewildered natives started climbing out, the vahine clapped her hands and said, “Oh, you savem allee nice and killem allee bad, big sweet cock! How we ever thank you?”
He said, “Easy. You have enough honest able-bodied seamen to get this tub back to Konakona with the king’s captured subjects and what’s left of his money. You’ll tell him what really happened, and I imagine he’ll know what to do about the traitors at his court.”
Gaston had emerged from the hatch, blinking, just in time to hear mention of money. He said, “It’s about time you got here, Dick. Merci, M’selle Atanua. But as to our just reward …”
Captain Gringo drew him aside and muttered, “Let’s get the fuck out of here while everyone’s too happy to wonder about the money we already helped ourselves to! I know we were promised more, and I know we sure as hell earned it. But there are times it’s better to quit while you’re ahead, and Herrerra’s already bending the rules for us!”
Gaston headed for the gangplank with him, but said, “Merde alors, such a rude child. You should learn not to interrupt your elders. I was just about to say that, before they turned on me, I was forced to spend most of the time, you were away in Manukai’s cabin, and my tongue will never recover. But from time to time, the orgasmic monstress slept, and as she did so I got into her sea chest, as a refreshing change from her cunt.”
“You grabbed our dough?”
“I grabbed as much as I could tuck discreetly in my pockets. Who counts gold coins in the dark, hein? If I took too much, we and our friends earned that too, non?”
Captain Gringo laughed and said, “Let’s get the hell away before anyone looks at the books, if there are any books. I’m shacked up at the hotel, as I said I’d be. I, ah, don’t think Beatriz goes for three in a boat.”
Gaston shrugged and replied, “Merde alors, I have too romantique a nature for the sloppiness of seconds when I have something else lined up. So let me give you your share, and when the coast is clear you can look me up at Mamma Rosa’s, hein?”
As they divided the money in a shaded doorway, Captain Gringo said, “I guess the posada should be safe enough now. But don’t you know any dames in town who have their own quarters, Gaston?”
“But of course I do. Rosa owns the whole posada, non?”
“Jesus, you mean to shack up with Mamma Rosa herself?”
“Why not, now that we know she charges nothing for screwing like a mink and that her body bears no relation at all to her somewhat careworn face?”
They shook on it and parted friendly. But Captain Gringo was laughing to himself at the mental picture as he headed back to the hotel and the much younger and prettier Beatriz. Then, since he was only human and he had seen Mamma Rosa in the buff that time, he wound up laughing even harder when he caught himself wondering if he could just possibly be missing out on something good.
RENEGADE 28: THE SLAVE RAIDERS
By Ramsay Thorne
First Published in 1985 by Warner Books
Copyright © 1985, 2017 by Lou Cameron
First Smashwords Edition: October 2017
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book<
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Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Agent.
About the Author
Lou Cameron (June 20, 1924 - November 25, 2010)
Was an American novelist and a comic book creator. The film to book adaptations he wrote include None But the Brave starring Frank Sinatra, California Split, Sky Riders starring James Coburn, Hannibal Brooks starring Oliver Reed and an epic volume based on a number of scripts for the award winning CBS miniseries How the West Was Won (not to be confused with the novelization by Louis L’Amour).
Between 1979 and 1986, using the pseudonym “Ramsay Thorne”, Lou Cameron wrote 36 Renegade adult western novels featuring as protagonist Richard Walker, better known as “Captain Gringo”.
He has received awards such as the Golden Spur for his Western writings. He wrote an estimated 300 novels.
More on Lou Cameron
The Renegade Series by Lou Cameron
Writing as Ramsay Thorne
Renegade
Blood Runner
The Fear Merchant
Death Hunter
Macumba Killer
Panama Gunner
Death in High Places
Over the Andes to Hell
Hell Raider
The Great Game
Citadel of Death
The Badlands Brigade
The Mahogany Pirates
Harvest of Death
Terror Trail
Mexican Marauder
Slaughter in Sinaloa
Cavern of Doom
Hellfire in Honduras
Shots at Sunrise
River of Revenge
Payoff in Panama
Volcano of Violence
Guatemala Gunman
High Seas Showdown
Blood on the Border
Savage Safari
The Slave Raiders
… And more to come every month!
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