Renegade 23

by Lou Cameron

  She sobbed. “Oh, Deek! You do not find me loathsome, now that you have had your way with me?”

  He chuckled and said, “As a matter of fact, I think you’re kind of pretty.” What else was a guy supposed to say on top of a lady?

  Concepción must have been used to rougher gentlemen. She gasped and asked, “¿Es verdad? You do not use me as a fat cow when you can get nothing better?”

  “Don’t talk dumb, Concepción. I’ve never laid a cow in my life.”

  She giggled and said, “Your thing is twitching inside me, Deek. For why is it doing that? Are you making it do that?”

  “No, I guess it has a mind of its own. You’re twitching pretty good too. We’d better do something about that.”

  As he started moving again she gasped and said, “I can’t believe it! You wish more, without even changing positions?”

  He just kept laying her without comment. He couldn’t think of any other position that would work with a dame this size, and the one they were in was already unusual as hell. He supposed it could be said that they were doing it old-fashioned. But it was still quite a novelty to be on his knees, almost dog-style, with the dame face up on the bottom. She was much shorter than he was, standing up, but there was so much of her to cover, lying down, that he felt like a little boy making it with a grown woman and had to crane his neck to kiss her. He settled for kissing her under the chins, all three of them, as he started moving seriously again.

  She climaxed twice, awesomely, before he did again. So he felt it wouldn’t be considered impolite if he rolled off after doing his duty to her. He’d been pleasantly surprised at how nice it had been, but while he was usually up to more than twice with a really attractive partner, there was no sense being silly about old Concepción.

  He lay flat on his back, glad to be once more on terra firma, as Concepción sat up to stare down adoringly at him in the starlight. It was cooler and drier at this higher altitude. But not cool enough to get under the blankets. He smiled back, wondering if he wanted to. smoke first or just go to sleep. Concepción said, “Oh, you make me feel so passionate, Deek.”

  He said, “That’s nice. You make me feel passionate, too.”

  He didn’t mean it. He was naturally still semi-erect after being treated so nicely. But he’d had a hard day and two women, so what the hell. Concepción said, “Bueno,” and proceeded to get on top.

  He gasped and said, “Hold it! I’m not sure we’re going about this right, querida!” But she’d already forked a huge thigh over him and was lowering her awesome mass on him. So he braced himself for a steamroller attack as she reached down, grabbed him by the root, and lowered herself onto it.

  She said, “Oh, it goes even farther up inside me this way, no?”

  That was for damned sure. With her own weight on her thighs, they spread farther and, to his pleasant surprise, held most of her weight as she arched her spine, threw back her head, and rested some more of it on her locked elbows with her hands on the ground behind her. She didn’t look nearly as fat in that position. The arch of her torso pulled her soft belly up and flattened it some as she thrust her big nipples up at the Milky Way and tried to scrape stars from the sky with them as she bounced up and down the full length of his shaft.

  He reached down and started working on her clit with his thumb to help her, and it helped her a lot, since she was already hot as a two-dollar pistol. She contracted almost painfully on him in orgasm and fell off backward, just as he was starting to get interested. So he rolled to his hands and knees to finish in her right, making her come yet again and, this time, with him.

  That did it. So as they lay together, sharing a smoke before going to sleep, Concepción said she had never been so happy before. But Captain Gringo was beginning to feel like a shit. Fun was fun, but he doubted that he could sustain a romance like this very long.

  *

  The next morning they worked upslope through the chaparral to a much higher ridge. Beyond, to the east, loomed the jagged sawteeth of the Sierra Madres. Behind them, to the west, rose a column of white smoke. Gaston said, “Merde alors! They didn’t fall for our ruse, Dick!”

  Captain Gringo said, “Tell me something I didn’t know. They’re using green wood in that soggy valley we cut across in the dark after dropping down off the rimrock. So tell me how they trailed us in total darkness?”

  Gaston shrugged and suggested, “Perhaps they assumed it was a ruse because you were so obviously bent on setting up an ambush in plain view. If they were closer in than we assumed, they might have simply moved in as we were moving out, heard us crashing through the brush below us, and—”

  “That still makes them damned good, as well as mighty determined,” Captain Gringo cut in, scanning the rest of the skyline as he added, “If Los Rurales are following smoke signals, they’re not sending any of their own.”

  “But of course not, Dick. They only have to ride in the direction of the smoke their triple-titted scout or scouts keep sending skyward. But look at the bright side. If Los Rurales had caught up, there would be no smoke, hein?”

  The girls of course had been listening, and since Pilar was the smarter as well as the dirtier of the two, she asked, “Is it not possible that what we see is the Red Cross people having breakfast, Deek?”

  He shook his head and said, “Not unless their own guides like to go out of the way. They were following the regular trail to our north, last time we spotted their smoke. We’ve been working our way up here for quite a while. So by now the Red Cross expedition should have been moving pretty good for a while, too. They sure as hell wouldn’t have cut in back of us across our trail. Thanks to the easier going on the road, they should be, hell, way over that way. We’d better do some moving too, if we expect to catch up with ’em.”

  He started to lead them down the eastern slope of the ridge. Gaston handed the lead of his own mule to Concepción and fell in beside the other soldier of fortune as he asked, “Just how much catching up do we intend, my long-legged youth? I thought the idea was to tag along behind them at a trés discreet distance, non?”

  “It still is. I want them to catch any heat ahead.”

  “Oui, but there seems to be more heat behind us at the moment, if I am any judge of smoke. Once we cut over to the main trail, won’t that make us easier for our followers to track?”

  “Hell, Gaston, they’ve been tracking us just fine ever since we left the village! So let’s at least have those Red Cross greenhorns between us and anyone coming the other way. I don’t intend to follow in their footsteps blindly, of course. As it gets more open and easier to see from ridge to ridge, we’ll shadow the Red Cross expedition bandito-style, see?”

  “That part makes sense. Meanwhile, what are we to do about the people shadowing us bandito-style?”

  “I don’t know yet. First we have to figure out how in the hell they’re doing it! We might make it a little tougher for them if our trail cut across another party’s now and again, right?”

  “Oui, that makes sense. A mule track is a mule track and the Red Cross people &re leading a droll number of mules. If we dropped onto the road behind them, followed it as far as some hard pan or solid rock, and simply faded into the bushes for a peep-peep—”

  “That’s what I just said. Go back and make sure we don’t lose that other mule. Ah, you and Concepción are still on good terms, right?”

  Gaston chuckled and said, “We are old friends, even if she does not enjoy French loving as much as Pilar. Why do you ask? Do you want the skinny one back already?”

  “You and the mules can have her. Just wanted to clarify the current sleeping arrangements. Let’s move it out.”

  They did. The next slope was even steeper and the cover was lousy. So when Concepción begged him to stop halfway up so they could rest, Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “I told you to get some sleep last night, querida. We’re pretty little moving dots to anyone who’s watching from that ridge behind us, and somebody probably is. We�
�ll take a break in that saddle up ahead. I want to see if any pretty little dots are dumb enough to follow us up this open slope in broad-ass daylight!”

  By the time they reached the saddle, even Captain Gringo’s legs were feeling it. So they pushed into the denser chaparral along the ridge and flopped down wearily. Captain Gringo was covering their back trail. So it was Gaston who spotted what was in the valley beyond and crawled back to tell him about it.

  Gaston said, “The Red Cross expedition has left the road over the Sierra to follow an adorable streambed south, over in the next valley.”

  Captain Gringo whistled Pilar over, told her to watch and give a holler if she spotted anything moving up the bare slope at them from the west, and moved across the saddle with Gaston for a look-see.

  The valley to their west was wide and flat-bottomed with a winding mountain stream running north against the Red Cross expedition’s line of march to the south. They made an imposing sight, strung out like that. The ten nursing sisters were mounted sidesaddle aboard as many Spanish mules. The khaki-uniformed men were on foot, leading the others, loaded with supplies. Two white-clad Mexicans led at the head of the long column, each leading a more modestly laden burro. They looked like they knew where they were going. A narrow path ran alongside the stream, cutting across most of the oxbows through the wild mustard and cactus clumps down there. Captain Gringo turned to wave Concepción over to them. When she joined them, he said, “There they are. So where are they going?”

  Concepción frowned thoughtfully and said, “¿En verdad? I do not know, Deek. I know that rio. We have often watered there. But that is not the way for to get to Guatemala.”

  He asked, “Are you sure?”

  She said, “Si. At the south end of the valley the rio comes out of a box canyon. That path they are on is merely a deer trail. It leads nowhere important. They must be most estupido, no?”

  Captain Gringo said, “Son of a bitch!” and ran for the tethered mules, yelling at Gaston to stay with the other and the girls as he started to lead the mule with the machine gun riding on it along the ridge to the south.

  Gaston did no such thing. He caught up, panting, and asked, “Where are we going in such a hurry? I agree our European and Yankee friends have been sold out. But what is that to us? They said they did not need our services, remember?”

  “They were wrong. I told you to guard the girls, dammit.”

  “Against what? The ambush is most obviously the way you are going. Nobody is seriously after the girls, and Concepción for one is not about to run away. You should be ashamed of yourself, Dick. I told her to tell you she was a delicate child.”

  “Shut up and drag this fucking mule if you want to help. I’ll take the point.”

  He handed the lead to Gaston and moved up the next rise in a running crouch, dropping to his knees behind some brush for another look-see. Nothing. He ran down into the next saddle and up the next rise. He was even with the head of the column to his left now. That wasn’t good enough. So when he didn’t spot anything from that rise either, he moved on.

  They’d outdistanced the slower-moving column by a quarter of a mile when Captain Gringo spotted what he was looking for, turned on one knee, and called back to Gaston, “Leave the mule there. But break out the Maxim and get it up here on the double!”

  There were a good two dozen men down the slope below him to the east. But they were not the Rurales he’d seen before. Rurales didn’t dress like Mexican bandits, even though they acted just as nasty at times.

  The guys lying in wait for the Red Cross expedition had chosen pretty good cover behind rocks and bushes, as far as anyone looking up from the valley floor went. They were wide open to Captain Gringo, with their backs to him. So that part wasn’t the problem. The problem was that the damned Red Cross column was coming around the bend right now and a jerk-off in a big black sombrero was getting to his feet, waving it. The egg was about to hit the fan, and where was his damned machine gun?

  He turned to curse Gaston as the Frenchman staggered up the slope to him with the Maxim on one shoulder and an ammo box in his free hand.

  Captain Gringo grabbed it, armed it, and turned to move down the slope with it just as the bandits opened fire on the Red Cross column!

  The treacherous guides, of course, had lit out cross-country to get out of the line of fire the moment they spotted the signal. So the first thing the bandits hit was the poor khaki-clad sucker leading the first supply mule. Another Red Cross worker folded like a jackknife to hit the dust beside him, while the rest of the column scattered in every direction, abandoning their supply mules just as they were supposed to.

  It was a swell little ambush, until Captain Gringo opened up with the machine gun as he charged down the slope behind them.

  It wasn’t scientific. The book said the new weapon was supposed to be mounted on a tripod and adjusted for elevation and traverse with cute little knobs. But for a guy firing a machine gun from the hip, Captain Gringo did a pretty good job on the bandits. He swept from right to left, sending big hats and little gobs of bloody flesh flying, then dug in his left heel and traversed right at lower elevation to make sure of any possible survivors. He managed two full sweeps and a half before the belt ran dry. Gaston ran down to him with another and he put it in. There was only one slob trying to rise from the dust and busted-up chaparral now. So Gaston said, “Allow me,” and blew the side of the bandit’s head off with his .38.

  Captain Gringo nodded in satisfaction and moved down through the grim results of his machine-gun fire, saying, “Reload and cover me. They might not know we’re on their side.”

  “Merde alors, what difference does it make, since they were stupid enough to come out here without guns of their own?”

  “They’ve got guns now. If they’ve seen the light yet. We just bought ’em two dozen here, to go with the Spencers I picked up for the dumb bastards.”

  By the time they’d crossed the valley floor, the shaken survivors were starting to make sense out of all the noise, and a couple of Red Cross men were coming to meet them. One called out in very bad Spanish and Captain Gringo replied, “We’d do better in English or French, pal. I don’t see your guides anywhere. So they’re probably on their way to rat on you to some other bandits they know! In case you haven’t figured it out yet, this primrose path they led you down doesn’t go anywhere. Where’s Dr. Fitzke?”

  One of them turned to point at two women kneeling over a still figure on the ground near the stream as he said, “He’s dead. The bastards killed him, and we came here to help these people!”

  “Welcome to Mexico. If you still want to go to Guatemala, this ain’t the way to get there. I’m Dick Walker. This is Gaston Verrier. We do know the way to Guatemala. If you want to get there our way. Who’s in charge now, with Doc Fitzke dead?”

  They looked at each other blankly. Captain Gringo said, “That’s what I thought. Oh, well, you’re a new outfit. We can probably whip you into shape before you all manage to get yourselves killed.”

  *

  He could see soon enough that it wasn’t going to be easy. He sent Gaston to bring the girls and their mules down from the ridge as the scattered survivors of the Red Cross expedition either chased other mules or gathered around him like lost sheep, which they were, in a way.

  One stupid American girl in the party must have been reading the papers a lot, since she was the one who said, “There’s a notorious American renegade and soldier of fortune named Richard Walker. They call him Captain Gringo. I surely hope you’re not another Dick Walker!”

  He shrugged and said, “What can I tell you, it was a bum rap? I didn’t just smoke up those bandits for you to win a popularity contest. If you don’t like my company, find someone else to lead you through the Sierra Madres. You kiddies must have noticed by now that the rules of polite society ain’t as polite down here.”

  Another girl, who looked like the little brunette he’d saved in the marketplace the other night, said, �
�We’re Red Cross workers, not a judge and jury. I vote we settle the matter here and now with a show of hands. All in favor of following this gentleman and his friends, raise their right hands like so!”

  Most of them did. But a red-faced guy with a clipped British accent said, “Not so fast, you lot. We don’t know a thing about this man, and Gloria says he’s an outlaw! How do we know he’s telling us the truth? How do we know he won’t lead us into something sticky?”

  Before Captain Gringo could hit him, the little brunette stamped her foot and said, “Oh, don’t be such an ass, Cecil! The guides poor Dr. Fitzke hired just led us into something sticky, and Dick here was kind enough to get us out of it with that nice machine gun! He saved Trixie and me from another sticky wicket in the marketplace the other night as well, now that I’ve had a closer look at him.”

  Another British male accent, to the credit of the empire, said, “Here here, Pam’s right, you know. Wouldn’t make sense to shoot bandits if one was a bandit, what?”

  Cecil muttered, “Not unless he was with another gang. But I see I’m outvoted. So I suppose we’ll just have to see who’s right, in the end.”

  The other Britisher said, “I’m Lauder, ah, captain. Since you seem to know the form here, what do you suggest we do next?”

  Captain Gringo glanced at the sun and said, “There’s plenty of daylight left. You can begin by breaking out some shovels and burying your own dead. Don’t bother with the bandits. That’s why buzzards was born. But we’d better send a detail upslope to gather their guns and ammo.”

  “I say, the Red Cross doesn’t carry weapons, captain.”

  “That’s what those bandits just noticed. Any other outlaws in these hills have you down as sissies too. But two dozen rifles and at least that many pistols ought to make it tougher for the next bunch we run into. I’ve got some Spencer repeaters for you, too, if my pal ever gets here with ’em.”

  The one named Cecil shook his head and said, “Impossible. The charter is quite clear on the matter. We are simply not allowed to wear these armbands and carry guns at the same time!”