Renegade 23

by Lou Cameron

  “Could one of you guide us, if we paid well?”

  “No. Do not press your luck with us, señor. We are desperate people leading desperate lives. We would have had to kill you, had you come this far as total strangers. But we owe you for the lives of three of our friends. So you are free to go in peace. But that is all we owe you. Besides, even if one of us wished for to go on with you to the border, the border is not there anymore. Everything is covered with hot ash and lava down that way. We are, how you say, out of business until Boca Bruja goes back to sleep for a while.”

  Captain Gringo agreed to the terms of the smugglers’ rough-and-ready hospitality, directed his followers to corral their stock and share some coffee with the somewhat surly band, and hunkered down to eat, himself, as both the unreconstructed Maya and their ancient gods frowned down at him from every side. He ate because he didn’t know when he’d get another crack at a warm meal, not because he was really hungry. The situation was still a little tense. But by the time some of the Indians had joined them around the fire to accept coffee and smokes, he figured it was going to be okay. He’d seldom met an Indian anywhere who didn’t consider smoking with a stranger a friendly act. Some of the nursing sisters helped even more by breaking out some chocolate for the kids.

  But Captain Gringo wasn’t about to go to sleep in such unfamiliar surroundings, and in any case the night was more than half shot. So as things settled down he got up and went for a walk alone. Nobody seemed interested in following him as he left the firelit courtyard and mounted the slope of what had once been an imposing flight of steps. At the top, he found himself on an elevated ceremonial platform of some kind. It was pretty dark up here, now that the moon had set, and the blocky weathered statues of forgotten Maya gods and goddesses all around looked sort of spooky. But not as spooky as the glow he spotted on the southeast horizon.

  He moved across to a waist-high parapet and leaned on the weathered blocks for a better look. The skyline down that way was etched black against the orange sky glow. He didn’t see anything that looked like a volcanic cone. So the peak of Boca Bruja itself was still far to the south. But from the way it was illuminating the sky above it, the volcano was still erupting pretty good. That smuggler Gaston had knifed had said the ash was falling as far north as the border, and the disaster area was said to be almost a full day’s march beyond!

  He heard a soft footstep and turned to see a dimly visible white-clad figure approaching. It was little Fabiola. She said, “I saw you going up here. I wished for to be alone with you. We have not had time to speak alone together, señor.”

  “Call me Dick, Fabiola. What’s on your mind?”

  She joined him at the parapet, looking down as she murmured, “I do not know much about talking to men, Señor Deek.”

  “Is there anything I can do for you? Are you feeling better now?”

  “Si, much better, but confused. That nurse was most simpatico about what happened to me. She did things for to keep me from having a baby and told me how to do things for myself until such time as I might wish one. You Anglos are so wise about such matters.”

  “I wish we were as wise as you about your country. You, ah, wouldn’t want to show us the way south, would you?”

  “Alas, I do not know the trail, even if my people would let me. We shall never see each other again, after this night ends, Señor Deek.”

  “That’s what I thought. So what else are we talking about, Fabiola?”

  She wiped her nose and said, “That most simpatico nurse told me many things about men and women as she treated me. She was very wise. When I told her I had never lain with an hombre before those men ravaged me, she said she understood how I felt and why it was natural for me to be most confused.”

  “I understand. As a woman who’d once been married, old Pam would be up on such girl talk. But I’m not a girl, Fabiola. So what do you want from me?”

  “I want for you to fuck me, I think.”

  He laughed incredulously and asked, “Did Señorita Pam put you up to that?”

  “No.” Fabiola sighed. “She just told me it was only natural that, toward the end, as the last and most gentle bandit did bad things to me, I was not sure about my feeling when he … stopped.”

  Captain Gringo nodded and said, “I see. Our bodies are like that, I guess. But don’t you think it’s a little early to find out if you were, ah, missing something?”

  “Señorita Pam asked me if I knew what an orgasm was. She was so simpatico I could not lie to her. I confessed how even a virgin’s natural curiosity can lead her to sin, with her hand and things. She said she thought the best way for to get over my confused feelings about that one handsome bandit would be to do it some more, with someone I liked better.”

  “That makes sense. Sort of. I never would have thought old Pam held such advanced views, though. But I’m afraid you came to the wrong guy, nina. Don’t you have an Indio boyfriend who’d be willing to help you out with your, ah, problem?”

  “Si, many of our young men have serenaded me in the past, before my papacito chased them away. But you are very pretty, and I wish for to thank you properly as well, Señor Deek. Can we fuck now? Nobody ever comes up here this late at night.”

  He laughed gently and said, “Thanks, but no thanks, Fabiola. No offense, but I don’t think it would be a good idea.”

  “Don’t you think I’m pretty?”

  “Very pretty. And very confused. I know a little bit about the way a woman’s head works, too, and I’m afraid we’d both regret it in the cold gray dawn. I’m leaving at sunrise. You’re just too young and, well, confused, for a one-night stand with a passing stranger.”

  She sobbed as she said, “Oh, I hate you! You think I am not worthy of you because I am an Indian!”

  “Querida, I want you so bad I can taste it. But someday you’ll thank me for passing on your generous offer.”

  She didn’t thank him. She called him a stuck-up gringo son of a bitch and turned to flounce away, sobbing. He sighed and muttered to himself, aloud, “Now why in the hell did I do that?”

  A nearby feminine voice replied in English, “Perhaps because you’re a gentleman after all?”

  He blinked in surprise and almost went for his gun as he whirled, spotted a more rounded “statue” sitting nearby with her back against a rose in the parapet, and asked, “Is that you, Pam? I thought you were a gargoyle or something.”

  She chuckled and said, “I know. I beat you up here and I don’t know why I didn’t say something before I saw you had company and decided to just keep quiet.”

  “I’m sure glad the two of you didn’t make a sap out of me, then. Did Fabiola know you were so sneaky?”

  “No. I never expected her to take my motherly advice so literally, so soon. You were right, you know. A love-’em-and-leave-’em quickie was not what I prescribed for such a young rape victim.”

  He moved closer, saw she was sitting with her knees up and barefooted under her whipcord skirt and asked casually, “Have you ever prescribed anything like that for older women, Pam?”

  She shrugged and said, “I didn’t really enjoy the rather wild fling I had after my divorce. It got me through some otherwise lonely nights. But I’m a Red Cross girl now, so down, boy!”

  “Aren’t you being a little presumptuous, Pam? I generally get to make a pass before the lady says no.”

  “Don’t make one, then, and I won’t have to say no. I know what they say about gay divorcees, but I’ve outgrown that nonsense.”

  He didn’t answer. So she said, “Naturally, you don’t believe me. You think I’m a tease, right?”

  He shrugged and said, “Let’s not worry about it. I just turned down something younger and prettier.”

  “Why, you insulting unwashed gun thug!” she said with a gasp, as he turned away, having seen the light in every way up here. He made it halfway across the platform before Pam called after him, “Come back here, damn you!”

  He shrugged again, returned
to her, and asked her what the hell she wanted. She sighed and said, “I give up. Aren’t you even going to try, you brute?”

  He laughed dryly, took her in his arms, and kissed her, leaning her back against the weathered but smooth basalt. She kissed back passionately until he ran a hand up under her whipcords and discovered to his mild surprise that she wasn’t wearing anything under her skirts. But as he parted her pubic thatch with his exploring fingers Pam stiffened and said, “No! I don’t want to go that far!”

  He kissed her some more and began to rock the man in the boat as she struggled weakly and tried to cross her naked thighs, as she sobbed and said, “Dammit, I don’t want to be raped, you animal!”

  He said, “Sure you do,” and rolled her over on her belly with her breasts and everything else at that end hanging over the sheer drop into darkness as she spread her knees against the inside of the parapet to brace herself from going over the side head first, gasping in fear. So all he had to do was unbutton his fly, hoist her skirts, and shove it in, deep and hard, before she knew what was happening.

  Pam moaned and said, “Oh, Jesus, you are raping me!”

  He said, “I sure am. How do you like it so far?”

  She giggled and asked, “Well, aren’t you even going to move it, you terrible man?” So he did, and in no time at all they were old friends. He assured her he really thought she had a nicer ass than Fabiola, and she admitted that getting laid in such an odd position was a totally new experience for her. But after they’d come together that way and he hauled her back to do it right, she protested that lying down on solid rock was a bit much. So he leaned her against a flat-faced Maya god and wall-jobbed her, standing up. That was a new position for even a gay divorcee, too. She was so short that he had to hook an elbow under each of Pam’s knees to brace her shapely little rear high enough against the carved stone, and she said it felt like a washboard rubbing her fanny as she clung to him, returning his thrusts with interesting gyrations she’d obviously practiced before. She’d been going without sex far longer than he had, so she found it easy to climax in any position and complimented him on his ingenuity. But she added, after climaxing again in such an odd one, that she really thought they should do it in her pup tent in the future. He said, “We’ll be pushing on at daybreak, so this is the last chance we’ll get for a while, doll box.”

  So she said, “Oh, in that case push me up a little higher so you can push it to me good.”

  *

  They left as the eastern sky was just pearling gray, and it was broad daylight by the time the trail south started getting complicated. This was just as well, since the trail led over razorbacked sierras and along some ravines not even a Spanish mule would have wanted to meet in the dark. Nobody in the expedition had gotten much rest the night before. So when they found themselves high in a saddle cooled by the trades, Captain Gringo ordered a siesta break and they all caught a few hours’ sleep. All but Captain Gringo and Pam did, at any rate. She’d been right about it being much nicer with their clothes off in her tent.

  Gaston got into Trixie’s tent, and Trixie, at the next campsite. Other couples had made similar arrangements by this time, if they hadn’t before. But most of the men and at least three or four of the girls were starting to look a little jealous around the campfires. So Captain Gringo pushed hard for the border to get rid of his greenhorns before someone started a fight.

  It was hard to say just where the border was. But they must have crossed it somewhere as the hills around them got grayer and grimmer by the mile. The trail was covered with what now looked and drifted like cigar ashes. But when anyone inhaled it, it tasted and felt like ground glass. It helped if one tied a bandana across one’s nose and mouth. So they began to look more like train robbers than a relief expedition as they forged south and, once over a pass, saw the slopes of Boca Bruja looming ahead.

  There was no mistaking Boca Bruja for anything else. The volcano was a big gray bastard with a wide crater that made it look more like a distant butte than a peak. The slopes were eroded into a pleated skirt of deeply cut ravines. A dirty gray mushroom cloud of steam and ash rose impossibly high above the mountain, illuminated from time to time by flashes of hell fire from the seething caldron below.

  As they worked their way closer, the trail vanished completely under drifting dunes of gritty ash with an occasional blackened something sticking out of it. Most of the charred remains they passed were of course burned cactus or chaparral. Some of them weren’t. Dead livestock was bad enough. One of the charred women had a well-baked baby under her when the Italian-Swiss and Dutch doctors were dumb enough to turn her over. After that they just walked past the charred bodies. There was nothing a medic could do for them now.

  As they were working up an ashy slope, closer to the volcano, Gaston joined Captain Gringo in the lead and said, “This is senseless as well as trés fatigué, Dick. We are not going to find anyone alive ahead.”

  Captain Gringo said, “We can’t go back. Besides, the wind seems to be from the southwest. So the ashfall might be worse this way. If the first team’s holed up in the lee of some ridge, they could still be breathing.”

  “Merde alors, breathing what? It stinks like rotten eggs and kitchen matches this far from that species of volcano, and you want to get closer?”

  “Don’t want to. Have to. It doesn’t matter if we find Miss Swann alive or not, now. The only way out is by way of Guatemala, and that fucking mess ahead is between us and the lowlands. So pick ’em up and lay ’em down. The sooner we get past Boca Bruja, the sooner we’ll be enjoying a cool drink in some nice steamship lounge.”

  “That’s the first good suggestion I’ve heard in some time from you. What about these others? How long are we to be saddled with such greenhorns, Dick?”

  “Depends on them, I guess. Are you tired of Trixie already?”

  “Mais non, she uses that big mouth of hers most delightfully in the dark. But last night she said they meant to stay here until the emergency is over.”

  “They figure to be here some time, then. Look at that volcano go!”

  Boca Bruja was clearing her throat now, with a roar that could be heard for miles. House-sized, white-hot boulders were flying up like chimney sparks to arc away from the main plume and bounce down the gray slopes, trailing cinders and smoke. Gaston sighed and asked, “May I be excused for the rest of the afternoon? All in all, I think I’d rather associate with bandits and Rurales.”

  Captain Gringo told him to shut up and struggled to the crest of the slope. Then he paused, nodded, and said, “We made it.”

  Gaston joined him to ask, “Made what?” as they both stared down into the next valley. A village was spread out below. What was left of it anyway. The walls rising above the ash were flamingo pink, with pastel blue doors and window shutters. It would have been a pretty little highland village, had not the tile roofs been covered with a foot or more of gray ash, or had said ash not risen almost as high as the windowsills between the houses. Here and there a tree rose, leafless, in a land where trees didn’t drop their leaves if they felt at all well. As others struggled up to join them, Captain Gringo said, “Welcome to the last days of Pompeii. If that volcano doesn’t shut up. soon, there’ll be nothing but a stretch of gritty-gritty down there in a day or so!”

  Luigi asked if he thought there was a chance anyone was still alive down there. Captain Gringo said they weren’t going to find out unless they went down for a look. So they started down.

  They’d only gotten a third of the way down when people came out of the half-buried houses, yelling a lot. Pam shouted, “I see Red Cross uniforms! We got here in time!”

  Gaston grunted and said, “In time for what?” but everyone else acted cheerful as hell, considering. The villagers and members of the cut-off first team helped them get the supplies down to the old Spanish mission, now serving as a hospital and supply camp. The nave wasn’t very big. But there weren’t a hell of a lot of survivors and the relief expedition had
n’t brought a hell of a lot of supplies, so it tended to even out.

  Captain Gringo let everyone sort things out and settle down a bit before he took a dusty doctor from the first team aside and asked which of his nursing sisters might be Cynthia Swann. The Red Cross man sighed and said, “Poor Cynthia’s dead, I’m afraid.”

  “You’re no more afraid about it than I am, doc! What happened to her?”

  “Yellow jack. She and seven others in our party came down with it, and four, including poor Cindy, didn’t pull through. I’d show you her grave, if I could find it now. But it’s under tons of drifting ash. She and the others were buried in the village graveyard. We don’t have one of those things anymore. As they drop, we just have to bury them wherever the ash is still soft enough. It tends to set like cement after a few days. Moist, you know.”

  Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “That’s that, then. How do you go about getting out of here, doc?”

  “You don’t. I thought you knew we were cut off. The road we took in is covered by water that’s acid enough to eat you alive. It seems to be going down a bit now. Probably leaking under the lava dam down the valley. But at the rate it’s sinking, we’ll be stuck here at least another few weeks. I hope you people brought enough food to last us and the villagers that long.”