by Lou Cameron
The older one disobeyed him. She made the sign of the cross. But Captain Gringo figured that was fair, so he didn’t shoot her. He moved in closer, lowering the muzzle of his .38 as he saw they were alone, unarmed and obviously scared skinny. He said, “Bueno. What’s going on here?”
The older woman sobbed. “Please don’t do it to my daughter! Take me, if you must have a woman. But have mercy on my Rosalita. She is still a virgin. She would not know for how to give you a good time anyway, see?”
The younger girl said, “Oh, Mother,” as Captain Gringo smiled down at them both and said, “Let’s all calm down. We may be on the same side, even if this used to be an English address. Why are the two of you hiding here?”
The girl called Rosalita, who seemed able to size men up more quickly than her mother, considering, said, “We have been trying for to get south, behind the British lines. But El Chino has hombres, muy malo hombres, blocking the only way across to safety!”
He put his gun back under his jacket as he moved to join them at the window. He stayed upright but out of line of the dusty glass as he risked a peek around the edge and grunted, “When you’re right, you’re right, damn it!”
From this vantage, he could see into the green archway. He didn’t like what he saw at all. There was more than one pisser on guard. There were four of the pissers. Two of them lounged behind the breech of a Maxim machine gun aimed the other way, across the muddy, sluggish shallows of the ford. He couldn’t see, from here, what the Brits on the other shore were doing about all this, if anything. He told the two mestizas, “I think they’re there to make sure nobody crosses from the south. But that’s still not doing us much good.”
Rosalita asked brightly, “Could you shoot them for us so we could go south to join the Anglo family we used to work for? You have a gun, and you look muy macho, Señor …?”
“I am called Dick,” he replied, “and taking on four guys armed with four carbines and a machine gun wouldn’t be macho, it would be just plain dumb. There has to be a better way. I’ve got to sneak back and pick up my own friends. Do you muchachas really want to get to Zion that much? Don’t you have anyone on your side left on this side of the river?”
The older woman said simply, “Who can say who one’s friends are at times like these, Señor Deek? My daughter, as you see, is most beautiful; men are men, whether they marched in with those guerrillas or have simply admired her in the past, eh? There are no policia left in Gilead. The only police left are across the river in Zion. Los Anglos do not rape virgins. We do not intend to find out, the hard way, how our so-called liberator, El Chino, feels about such matters.”
He shrugged and said, “I’m not sure I trust a Nicaraguan liberator who calls himself a Chinaman, either. Bueno. If you two want to tag along, let’s go. This place can’t be as safe as the place my other friends hang out in these days.”
He started for the back door. Behind him, he heard the mother whisper, “Pero no! How do we know we can trust him?” But her daughter whispered back, “Oh Mother, he has a gun and I’m still a virgin, damn it. Let’s chance it. We can’t stay here!”
So Captain Gringo wasn’t surprised when they followed him out the back way, chattering like magpies until he warned them to keep it down, adding, “Let’s not tell them where we are or where we’re going. Let’s make them guess.”
Knowing now what the setup was and where he was going, it took Captain Gringo only a few minutes to lead the two native women to the house where Gaston and Olivia were holed up. As he introduced everyone, Gaston kissed the older mestiza’s hand, told her he was enchanted and added in English to Captain Gringo, “Eh bien, it’s about time you showed some consideration of your elders.”
The older woman, whose name turned out to be Filipa, made the sign of the cross again and told her daughter, “Now I know we’re going to be raped, you stubborn child!” So Captain Gringo knew they’d picked up some English while working for British employers, and there went any chance to tell Gaston to for Chrissake calm down a bit. He filled the Frenchman in on the outpost at the ford, and Gaston said, “It sounds like a Mexican standoff, then. The British constabulary, having circled the wagons while they wait for their government to evacuate them, no doubt have the far side of our adorable crossing zeroed in as well. But they’ve given up on this side of the river.”
“How do you know?”
“Merde alors, do you really think a band of guerrillas moving in to take advantage of the confusion could stand up to an all-out attack by a determined British constabulary, Dick?”
Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “Depends on how many there might be on either side. The Brits learned in the Zulu Wars that trained soldiers can only stand off so many determined screamers at a time, and the constabulary aren’t real soldiers. They’re just colonial police trained to handle street fighters in sensible numbers. I’ve no idea of the numbers involved, here and now, but El Chino has at least one no-kidding machine gun.”
Gaston wrinkled his nose and said, “Oui, so now we have a better idea what was in those crates our adorable skipper unloaded Tor El Chino earlier today. I wonder how on earth the guerrilla paid for them.”
It was a good question. Captain Gringo didn’t have the answer. So her turned to Olivia Perkins to ask her, “Could your friends and neighbors have neglected to move a bank or two across the river in the sudden rush?”
She shook her head and replied, “Coo, not bloody likely. Hardly anyone took the evacuation seriously until the colonial blokes moved the branch bank and post office down to Zion!”
He frowned and said, “Hmm, I take it, then, that Zion is the bigger, more important half of the colony?”
She said, “Zion’s more than half. It’s where the government house and most of the business firms are, or were. It’s hard to say what we’ll find there, now that Her Bloody Majesty’s giving it all back to the niggers like a chump!”
He shot her a warning glance and said, “I think they’d rather be called Nicaraguans. Hardly anyone around here has obvious African blood, Doll.”
“If you say so.” She shrugged, adding, “I was brought up to call anyone who wasn’t white a nigger.”
He didn’t doubt that, and it was probably a little late to suggest better race relations to a lady who thought God was an Englishman. He turned back to Gaston and said, “You may be right. It doesn’t make much sense, but it could be the usual standoff. The question before the house is, How do we get over to the side that sounds more civilized?”
Gaston said, “By broad daylight, two thirty-eights against four carbines and a machine gun?”
“The machine gun’s mounted on a tripod, facing the other way.”
“Merde alors, a British machine gun is no doubt facing this way from the other side, as well! I know good soldiers are trained to consider what they may be shooting at before they open fire, my eternal optimist, but I would not wish to risk my poor old derriere on the goodwill of a no doubt trés tense British machine gun crew as I charged out of the smoke of a gunfight at them. So I do not intend to!”
Captain Gringo nodded soberly and said, “It would be safer to swim, at that.” Then he turned to the three women to ask if any of them felt up to a moonlight swim across the Mission River.
Olivia Perkins said she didn’t know how to swim. Rosalita said she could swim a little. But her mother said, “No you can’t. Not across that river, in the dark! Have you forgotten the time the shark took Pedro Holquin, in the shallows as he spear-fished by moonlight?”
This time it was Rosalita’s turn to make the sign of the cross. Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “I didn’t want to get my hair wet so soon after setting it anyway. Gaston, has it occurred to you all these deserted houses are made of wood, and that wood floats?”
“Too noisy,” Gaston objected, adding: “It would of course be soup of the duck to improvise a raft of house timbers. But would you not wonder, if you were on guard in a part of town you were told was deserted, why
you heard hammering in the neighborhood?”
“Okay, so we move to another neighborhood. The riverside street runs a couple of blocks seaward. They won’t have it guarded down that way, because it’s a dead end. If we sort of tear apart the last house down that way, working in the backyard, tapping like brownies with our gun butts or, hell, maybe we can find some rope—”
Then he and everyone else in the house froze, because a not too friendly voice was calling from outside the house, “Hey, Captain Gringo, are you in there? Sure, we know you’re in there!”
The words were in Spanish. The intent was less clear. So Captain Gringo put a finger to his lips for silence as he moved to the nearest rear window, softly hissing, “Gaston?” And Gaston headed for the front windows to check that angle out without having any pictures drawn on the blackboard for him.
There were at least a half dozen guys, dressed buscadero flashy, leaning over the rear fence of the house. A couple had their carbine barrels poking Captains Gringo’s way through the tops of the pickets, but not aimed at anything in particular. The guy doing the talking had painted his straw sombrero park bench green with shiny deck enamel and wore a brighter green shirt under his crossed bandoleers. So Captain Gringo wasn’t too surprised to hear him shout, “I am called El Repello, I am segundo to El Chino and I only wish for to be your amigo, see?”
Captain Gringo didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure he wanted to make friends with a guy who said he was a cabbage working for a Chinaman.
Rosalita moved close enough to nudge the tall American’s elbow as she murmured, “Your friend the Frenchman says to tell you they are out front, as well. He says he has the front door covered, but that he wishes you would hurry up and think of something most clever, Deek!”
He couldn’t. He cracked the window open. Flying glass in the face was always annoying, anyway, and the bastards knew they had the address right, so what the hell. He called out, “Who is this Captain Gringo you speak of, my little cabbage?”
“Hey, that is no way for to talk. I am one big cabbage, so that is why they call me El Repollo, not Uno Repollo, see?”
“I stand corrected. Who’s this Captain Gringo supposed to be?”
“Don’t be modest, Captain Gringo. Everybody know who you are. You and your amigo, Gaston Verrier from the Mexican Army of Juarez, fought the lousy bastard Nicaraguan Liberal Party not long ago. That makes us comrades in arms, since we have fought the same lousy bastards many times, see?”
“Are you guys with the Grenada side?”
“Hey, bite your tongue, the Conservatives are lousy bastards, too. Besides, we know you have fought them too! Like ourselves, you fight bastards where you find them, eh?”
“Well, it does seem a little hard to avoid running into bastards in Nicaragua these days.”
El Repollo didn’t get it. He called back, “Es verdad, amigo. Those stuck-up sissies with their blue Spanish blood and book-learning use the rest of us for target practice no matter what party they say they belong to. But, look, for why are we shouting back and forth like fishwives, eh? Come on out. El Chino has been wishing for to have a word with you ever since he heard you were in town.”
“Really? Who told him we’d arrived?”
“A little bird, of course. How many blond giants jump a ship with a little gray cat of a Frenchman on any given day, eh?”
By this time Gaston had joined him at the window, saying, “Ten or more out front, and what was that about my looking feline?”
“That mate who spotted us must have mentioned us to the guys they were running guns to, damn it. They’ve put two and two together pretty good. What do you think we ought to do about it?”
Outside, El Repollo was insisting, “Hey, no shit, it’s hot out here, hombres!”
So Gaston shrugged and said, “They know they have us outgunned in a frame structure never meant for stopping bullets.”
Captain Gringo glanced back at the three nervous-looking women who seemed to be depending on him and muttered, “Yeah, one good fusillade would make one hell of a mess on the linoleum. It’s time to salvage what we can, I guess. See if you can find a place for them to hide while I stall.”
Outside, the guerrilla leader fired his pistol, fortunately straight up, and yelled, “What’s the matter with you, Yanqui? This is no time for to act coy with us! El Chino told me his wished for to see you, and I have to take you to him one way or the other, eh?”
Captain Gringo called out, “We have to consider your terms, first. So let’s hear them.”
El Repollo looked confused, then bellowed, “Terms, what the fuck are you talking about? Did I say anything about terms? Did I ask for you to surrender? I only said El Chino wants to talk to you, and by the balls of Christ, that is where I mean to take you!”
Gaston rejoined Captain Gringo at the window, saying, “Crawl space under the low pitched roof. Hotter than a whore’s pillow up there, of course, but there is no cellar, so—”
“Good thinking. Most of these guys never heard of an attic,” Captain Gringo cut in, adding: “Did they pull the ladder up after them?”
Gaston shook his head and said, “There was no ladder. Simply a trapdoor in a hall closet one sincerely hopes no less cultivated criminal will notice. The native women know what to do as soon as it’s dark. I have their address in the native quarter and—”
“Now who’s being an optimist?” Captain Gringo cut in, opening the door to call out, “Don’t get your shit hot. We’re coming out.” Then he murmured to Gaston in a softer tone, “They may be on the level. We’ll know in a minute. I don’t intend to give my gun up without a fight. Do you?”
“Do I look like a man who enjoys death by slow torture? Lead on, my Mac of Duff. If we go down fighting in the next few minutes, you must forgive me for not having had time to leave you in my will, hein?”
*
To call El Repollo pleasant would have been stretching it, but he didn’t even mention their guns, and nobody pointed guns directly at the two soldiers of fortune as they headed back across town with their newfound friends, if that too wasn’t stretching it some.
As they passed by the church and entered the native barrio of Gilead, it began to look, in fact, as if everyone had been overreacting a bit. There weren’t too many people out on the dirt streets laid out more crookedly between less imposing housing, but it was, after all, still siesta time and there were a few pigs and chickens in evidence, still alive and well, so El Chino’s boys were acting well-behaved indeed for Central American guerrillas.
The big man himself was holding court in a frame schoolhouse the colonial authorities had once painted battleship gray instead of red. El Chino was seated behind a desk in the principal’s office, and the first thing they noticed about him was that he wasn’t big at all. He was even smaller than Gaston, and didn’t fit his nickname, either. El Chino had neither the moon face nor chunky build of the Indian type that Hispanics seemed to find oriental in appearance. He was a little dried-up guy with sharp features that hinted at a little pure Spanish, a little Aztec, or even Apache, and a lot of cold cunning. He wore ammo bandoleers across his military shirt, of course. Guys who led guerrilla armies were supposed to look like guerillas. His big black sombrero, at the moment was atop the head of the Junoesque lady perched with one cheek of her shapely ass on one corner of the desk. She had lots of ammunition across her chest, too. So despite the fact she wore no blouse above her flouncy red fandango skirts, one couldn’t see both her nipples at once. She looked less friendly than the little skinny guy who owned her. El Chino smiled up at the soldiers of fortune and told them it was so good of them to drop by. Then he spoiled it all by looking beyond them at El Repollo lounging in the doorway, to ask, “Where is the redheaded Protestant puta?”
El Repollo said, “Before God, I do not know, Jefe. She was not with these two when we caught up with them near the river.”
El Chino stared thoughtfully at Captain Gringo, as if he expected his reluctant visitor to say some
thing. Captain Gringo asked, “Are we talking about La Señora Perkins, from the Congregational Church?”
“We are. I just assured her husband we did not have her. So tell me, Captain Gringo, who has her?”
The American shrugged and said, “Don’t look at us. Ain’t nobody here but us chickens.”
“You left the church with her, no?”
“We sure did. She was carrying a lot of stuff and moved slow as a sick snail. Next thing we knew, your boys caught up with us; and when we looked around for the dame, she just wasn’t there. Maybe she ran off when she saw all those guys with guns, eh?”
El Chino raised an eyebrow at El Repollo, who said, “There was nobody in the house with them, Jefe. I had one of my men look inside before we left. They could be telling the truth. It happens, and you know how some women are when they meet strangers.”
El Chino said, “Send some muchachos back for to comb the whole neighborhood, then. I told its old owner there was no need for to worry about his pig, and I do not wish for to be called a liar, even by a Protestant. Tell the ones you send that if they bring her back raped, or even frightened, I shall shoot them in front of their own people and then shoot their people. This is no time for to make needless enemies, and the old Englishman may still be useful to us.”
El Repollo said he’d get right on it. As he left, his place in the doorway was taken by another guy with a gun, repeat gun, no matter how politely he wore it at the moment.
El Chino smiled up at his guests again and said, “Bueno. As you see, I am a sensible person as well as a great leader. I know what you may have heard about me. My enemies are always saying bad things about me. But it is not true about those nuns, and I was not the one who burned down the pueblo of San Mateo. I was only there for to rob the bank. The fire started by accident as we were riding out. I am gentle as a lamb, to people who know better than to cross me.”
Captain Gringo smiled thinly and replied, “Remind me never to cross you, then, El Chino.”
“I just did. I suppose you are wondering for why I had you brought here?”
