by Lou Cameron
“You admire it, hein? The late Dom Luis’s company store charged most outrageous prices, but what are prices to a man with a gun? I got a bargain on a new wardrobe for Susan, too. At the moment she seems intrigued with the festivities, but she asked me to find out when it would be possible for her to get back to civilization. One gathers the missionary life no longer holds her undivided attention.”
Captain Gringo said, “That’s the monster. The steamboat won’t be back for a while and I don’t think I can keep myself in the catbird seat much longer.”
“Sacre! More muttering in the ranks? Point out the ringleaders and I, Gaston, will nip the mutiny in the bud. I am feeling, how you say, keyed up? For all the anticipation, we won trés easily today, non?”
“Yeah, too easy. The scared rebel kids we rescued think they’re the Golden Horde of the Great Khan, now. It’s the first time they ever won big. So it’s gone to their heads. We didn’t lose a man and we took a whole private empire for them to call their own. The slaves and peons keep telling them they’re heroic liberators. A mess of them want to join up with the so-called Blue Brigade.”
“Eh bien, there are plenty of weapons for the new recruits. Aside from cases of machetes there are boxes and boxes of ammo in the warehouse and company store. I thought you a trifle generous in allowing those gunmen who surrendered to keep one shotgun to a canoe, but they left more than enough behind. Assuming half the new recruits are worth the damn, we would seem to have the makings of a small army here. So what is the problem, my old and rare?”
“The here part. Diablilla, Pancho, and the others have started talking silly about liberating the whole upper Putumayo. The peons we freed say there are other shits like Dom Luis in the area. Diablilla wants to use this place as a base and fight a guerra por libertad. She’s gotten cocky as hell.”
“Ah, that is the trouble with cocking women. It gives them delusions of intelligence to share pillow conversation with a man who knows what he is doing. As the daughter of one general and the adelita of another, the child now thinks she knows all the answers.”
Gaston lit a smoke with a sardonic smile before he added, “By the way, does Diablilla know about you and that astonishingly nubile Negress?”
“Varginha? Who the hell told you about that?”
“Ah, when one has eyes, who has to tell him what he sees in the eyes of any woman, hein? Your little slave girl has also found a most attractive dress and the last time I saw her she was trying to be discreet. But every time your name is mentioned, Varginha glows rather smugly, if you know what I mean.”
“Oh, shit, I thought all I had to worry about was a civil war I can’t hope to control.”
“Merde, why try? Le bon Dieu knows the rubber barons in these parts need a good lesson. Let our Blue Brigade loot and burn at will. They’ll no doubt recruit more men each time they hit a layout like this one. I agree you’ve unleashed a monster, but it may be a benign growth, hein?”
Captain Gringo said, “I’m all for libertad, in moderation. But I can’t lead an army that won’t listen to me. I just told Diablilla I thought our next move should be down the river before some real army comes here to find out what all the noise is about. She said her boys can handle any fucking army and suggested we put it to a vote.”
Gaston whistled and said, “Ah, you have lost control then. Democracy in action has no place on the battlefield. But look on the bright side, Dick. If they no longer feel they need us, we owe them even less. I may have forgotten to mention this, but when the ruins of the late Dom Luis’s house cooled down I took the liberty of searching for mementos of our social call. He had a wall safe and, despite the fact that the wall was no longer there, the money inside was untouched by the fire.”
Gaston took a thick wad of bills from his pants pocket as he added, “I have not counted it yet. One must be discreet among one’s fellow looters. But I feel sure we have the wherewithal for an interesting weekend in Manaus even after we book passage on a steamer out.”
Captain Gringo didn’t answer. Gaston waited a moment before he sighed and said, “Am I going to have to hit you on the head and drag you off again, you thirteen species of idiot? It was trés thoughtful of you to rescue those ungrateful rebels. It was downright quixotic of you to save these other people from slavery or worse. Now it is time for us to look out for our own precious derrieres, damnit! Why are you hesitating? Don’t you like your derrière?”
“I’m not hesitating. I’m thinking. I’m not dumb enough to fight for leadership. If they want to go on fighting on their own, fuck ’em. I wish them well, but it’s their revolution and their problem. But we’ve got a couple of other derrieres to think of besides our own. We can’t abandon Susan Reynolds and that other girl, Varginha, could be in danger if we leave her behind. Diablilla has a temper, and she’s going to be mad as hell when we skip out on her. If she found out poor little Varginha and I had been, well, pals …”
“Ah, true. We shall have to take the big blonde and the pretty Negress with us. It should make for an interesting trip avec salt and pepper for seasoning, hein? We know Susan does not mind changing partners. So if your more recent conquest…”
“For God’s sake, you old goat, who screws whom is the least of our problems? I figure the four of us, the machine gun, and a month’s supply of provisions will fit in a dugout. I’m not worried about slipping away from here unobserved. I don’t think the local Jivaro will attack us. But Manaus is a hell of a ways off and there’s no telling who or what we might run in to between here and there.”
Gaston chuckled fondly and said, “Eh bien, why worry? Knowing you, you will either shoot or fuck anybody interesting that we meet along the way.”
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