Renegade 30

by Lou Cameron

  A pair of shapely female legs moved along the side of the school until he had a better view of them than he really wanted, trim as her ankles might be. What the hell was some dame doing there? She was standing out of sight of the school entrance and yard, he could see. If it had been a man, he’d have worried about him taking a leak right in his face. But that couldn’t be what a dame had in mind, could it?

  It wasn’t. Estralita suddenly dropped to all fours and whipped under the schoolhouse as if to join him. But, from the way she gasped when she spotted him—and might have screamed if he hadn’t clapped a palm across her mouth and rolled her onto her back—she was more surprised than he was. He growled, “I have a gun. Do you think I might have to use it?”

  She stared wide-eyed up at him and tried to shake her head. He removed his hand from her mouth but left it on her chest, just in case. It seemed no matter how casually a guy put his hand to a bare chested female these days, he wound up with a handful of tit. Hers were a lot bigger and softer than Fionna’s, but not at all bad.

  He whispered, “Bueno. I’ll tell you what I’m doing under the house if you’ll tell me, Estralita. You go first.”

  She sighed and said, “It is too hot for to work; and even if it was not, I do not like the sight of blood. El Chino has everyone cleaning the floors upstairs, and I did not think they would miss me if I slipped away.”

  “Let’s hope not! Are all those Englishmen dead?”

  “Si, I do not know for why. I came when I heard gunshots. My curiosity is always getting me in trouble. When I saw work was involved, I decided I had seen enough. Are you going to kill me?”

  “Now why would I want to do that, Estralita?”

  “They say you are muy malo, Captain Gringo. Some say you are even meaner than El Repollo, and he is so mean the Devil fears for his soul around him! But do not kill me, por favor! I would much rather be your adelita than a corpse!”

  He noticed she’d moved one dainty hand up to help him massage her naked breast as she guided his wrist. He said, “I thought you already had a soldado. Aren’t you the adelita of El Chino?”

  She sighed and said, “Si, alas. He chose me because I am the most beautiful woman in the band. But I had nothing to say about the matter, and in God’s truth, had it been up to me, I would have chosen someone younger and better looking, like you!”

  “Don’t you really love El Chino?”

  “How could I know? He has never even touched me when we are alone. As you know, he feels me up all the time when other men are watching, for to look like a real hombre himself, I think. It feels good to be felt up. But, alas, he never even does that enough for to satisfy me! Would you like to feel me up, por favor?”

  He grinned down at her and said, “May as well. We don’t have any books to read down here while we wait.”

  He meant to kind of keep her distracted as they let things sort of settle down outside. Even if she hadn’t been passed around among the guerrillas—at least recently—the big, sluttish brunette was so stupid she seemed a bit repellent to a man of his tastes. But as he ran his free hand down her lush curves—taking his time, since he was in no hurry—she somehow started looking better by the minute; and by the time she’d lifted her skirts out of the way and guided his hand into her damp black welcoming mat, she looked so pretty he was tempted to kiss her. So he did, if only to keep her quiet, of course, as she moaned in pleasure with her turgid clit throbbing between his questing fingers. She kissed with her tongue like Fionna, and though it didn’t feel at all the same, it felt great and served to remind him of the erection he’d left Fionna with, unsatisfied.

  So though he knew he’d hate himself in the morning, and that Fionna would be mad as hell if she ever found out, it seemed silly to say no when Estralita pleaded “Oh, do not tease me, querido! Do it! I want to come right, with a real man, after all this time!”

  Besides, he thought, as he tore his pants open and rolled on top of her, how the hell was Fionna ever going to find out? He sure wasn’t ever going to tell her, even if he got out of this mess alive!

  So the mess he was in proceeded to screw hell out of him; and though her brains didn’t seem to improve with passion, he saw she was at least smart enough to bite her lush lower lip and come silently with her eyes closed while he pounded her to glory.

  Naturally, once wasn’t enough for the hard-up pretty moron. So, since he couldn’t go anywhere else anyway right now, they stripped all the way and he went back in her, stark, atop their spread-out clothing. They still wound up with lots of red dust on his knees and in her hair as they made barnyard love under the schoolhouse in the dirt. He wasn’t going to look any sillier, or wind up any deader, if anyone caught him laying the official leader’s adelita, so what the hell.

  After he’d come in her a couple of times, he began to wonder why. But Estralita stared up adoringly at him and murmured, “Oh, I am so happy, you wicked muchacho. You certainly know how to make a woman feel like a woman. May we do it some more, querido?”

  He shook his head and said, “Hold the thought. We’re not safe here. Do you think you could help me sneak out of here, Estralita?”

  “Of course. Everyone has to do as I say except the officers. But where do you wish for to take me for to fuck some more?”

  That wasn’t exactly the way he’d have put it. But he said, “I’d like to get over to that warehouse again. I know the way from there.”

  “You speak of food at a time like this?”

  “Take it easy. We could be alone in there, on top of nice soft sacking, see?”

  “Oh, bueno, this dirt under me feels most hard with a man your size on top of me. Let me up. I think it is safe for to duck out now.”

  She was right. They quickly dressed, and he let her go first to make sure the coast was clear. They were a lot less likely to shoot her on sight. She waved him out, and they walked innocently away to duck into the first alley they could get to. Then she led him through the maze to the corrugated metal warehouse. As they got inside she slid the door shut, saying, “It locks from the inside. So we are free for to have more fun. Any adelita who comes looking for more provisions will just think we are closed for now, eh?”

  He said, “Great. But un momento, querida. I have to do something outside, first, see?”

  “Use that little side door. What is it you wish for to do? Oh, never mind. Sometimes it makes me want to piss afterwards, too.”

  He kissed her gallantly and told her to wait for him in the back. Then he moved to the side exit, made sure it was safe and stepped out.

  He made the alley-dash for the rail yards fast, knowing she’d be a yeller if she got suspicious. He climbed up into the unguarded Shay locomotive, checked the water gauges, and when he saw the boiler was filled, popped the firebox open. Someone had been kind enough to leave newspaper and kindling on hand. He tossed it in and lit it, using all the kindling, since he was only going to get to do this once. Then, as the interior of the firebox lit up with flames, he started chunking the driest logwood he could find into the tender built into the back of the Shay. While he waited to see if he’d wind up with more smoke or fire, he got to work on the throttle and safety valve. As always, a coil of bailing wire was hooked to an inside wall of the cab for emergency repairs. Wiring the safety valve shut was hardly what one might call a repair. But he didn’t intend to ride the locomotive anywhere. He checked the firebox again. Things were looking up. Thanks to a couple of days in the hot sun, the wood, though green cut, was drier this afternoon, and a lot of what hadn’t dried out was sunbaked pitch. He used a poker to move the first wood all the way back, then stuffed the firebox as full as it would go with more wood. As he slammed the door shut, the steam gauge was already starting to tremble. It was still going to take at least an hour, but at least he had something more interesting than Estralita’s ass heating up now.

  He leaped down and legged it back to the warehouse in hopes she hadn’t had time to get suspicious. When he saw the front door gapi
ng wide, he saw she had—and they said hell had no fury like a dumb Spanish spitfire scorned.

  He grinned crookedly and muttered, “Shit, I wasn’t gone that long.” Then he dashed to the rear of the warehouse to see if by any chance anyone else around here had been acting dumb.

  They had. Two of the machine guns he’d seen back there before were long gone. But one still lay in its unopened crate. El Chino could only have so many machine gunners, after all.

  He ripped the crate open. The Maxim was covered with a thick coating of grease. Tough shit. This was neither the time to worry about clean clothes or cleaning guns. He found another crate of ammunition, and, better yet, it was machine gun ammo, already belted!

  He wrapped a half-dozen belts around his body, over the shoulder and riding on one hip. Then he started clipping other belts together end-to-end. He’d managed to form one long belt, but still had more to go when he heard shouting voices coming his way. So he hauled the Maxim out of its crate, armed it with one end of the longer belt and started backing for the side entrance with the Maxim on his hip and the ammo belt following them across the floor like a pull toy. He almost made it. Then a quartet of sombreroed guerrillas dashed in the front doorway, waving guns and saying dreadful things about Yanqui spies. So, hoping the greasy, untested Maxim wouldn’t blow up in his hands, Captain Gringo pulled the trigger and mowed all four of them down as he backed out the other door!

  As he headed for the nearest alley entrance, a bullet whipped over his head. He fired a burst into the gun smoke he spotted up at the next corner and kept going without waiting to see the results.

  He saw yet more sombreros blocking his way at the far end of the alley and threw curses and a burst of hot lead at them as he realized they knew this maze better than he did. There had to be a better way out of it. The way he chose was crude but effective. The shanties of the barrio were built cheap and flimsy. Captain Gringo wasn’t. So he simply bulled his way through the back wall of the nearest shack.

  He’d expected it to be empty. But an ugly adelita had been frying refritos when the shooting started and was still hunkered down by her camp stove when Captain Gringo exploded through the thin plank wall at her in a cloud of splinters, covered with grease and black with gun smoke, the big gun on his hip and long ammo belt lashing behind him like a dragon’s tail! She shouted, “¡Ay, El Diablo!” and tore out the front as Captain Gringo tripped over the cook stove and kicked it into a corner with a curse. He knew what could happen if he followed a screaming woman out that way. So he went another way, through yet another wall, as bullets started popping through the front wall and the side wall caught on fire, thanks to the spilled stove!

  To call the next forty-five minutes or so a confusing, running gunfight would be gross understatement. The enraged if confused guerrillas had the advantage of numbers and thought they knew every way out of the area. Captain Gringo had the advantage of automatic fire, desperation and the knowledge that since he didn’t know anyone he liked in this part of the barrio, he was free to fire at any hint of movement or set fire to anything he passed that looked inflammable.

  So that’s what he started doing. The first shack he’d sent up in flames after semi-demolishing it had been an accident, but it seemed a swell way to add to the confusion and, better yet, to keep anyone from wondering about the wood smoke rising from the rail yards somewhere around here. It was easy enough. All he had to do after kicking through a mess of sunbaked siding was put a match to the nice dry splinters and push on as the shack filled with smoke. It beat moving through the streets and alleyways and wasn’t a whole lot slower. From time to time he had to dart across a yard or a street at the end of a block, and almost every time he did the results were noisy as hell. But a guy popping through a blank wall firing a hot machine gun at you from the hip tended to unsettle even a well-thought-out ambush, and those guerrillas who didn’t die on the spot tended to stop thinking and just start running. But Captain Gringo knew, as he crouched in the ruins of a deserted shack to thread one of his remaining ammo belts into the smoldering action of the once-too-greasy and now sort of fried machine gun, that he was running out of time as well as low on ammunition. He could have beelined out of the barrio in less than five minutes. But every time he tried that, he seemed to run into guys with other ideas and had to crab sideways spitting lead. He was sort of turned around, after all those side trips through walls and fences. But he could still tell north from south by the slanting rays of the late afternoon sun. So he decided he’d just better blast his way out to the north and the hell with it, as soon as he got his breath back.

  A few miles away near the river crossing, El Repollo stood by the old brass cannon almost as green as his hat and demanded “Well?” as the runner he’d sent staggered back to him. The runner gasped, “El Chino says to get back to him with these other men, poco tiempo! All hell has broken loose around our headquarters. Shacks are going up in smoke, and some maniac is smoking up the whole place with a machine gun! Estralita says she has reason to believe it could be that Captain Gringo, and El Chino says he needs help no matter who it might be!”

  El Repollo shook his head and said, “Run back and tell them to just do the best they can for now. It is most obviously just an attempt at diversion. The real fight is here at the river, and we are ready for to start it. Go, muchacho! Tell my grandfather, if he can’t stand a little noise to just bring the others out this way and let the barrio burn. Who cares if an empty town burns, eh?”

  As the runner took off, the green-hatted leader turned to his reluctant gun crew and said, “Bueno. Let us give them a round or two as we wait for sunset, eh?”

  Someone objected, “But El Repollo, I thought we did not intend to charge across the shallows before dark.”

  “Do as I say, goddamn your mother’s milk! It will be dark soon enough, and it takes a lot of cannonballs for to soften up even a weak position!”

  So they got to it and lobbed the first round of solid shot to the south, over the treetops and across the river. It fell a bit short, but not short enough to cheer Captain Gringo’s comrades guarding the ford. As the heavy cast iron ball hit just at the water’s edge and spattered everyone nearby with mud and water, Forbes moaned, “Oh, no! They do have artillery after all!”

  From his own position behind the sunset gun, Gaston called out, “Eh bien, hold your positions, everyone. That was solid shot, not a shell!”

  A nearby nervous constabulary grunted, “Coo, what’s the difference, if you’re under it when it hits! They have the flaming range on us, Frenchy! We have no bloody targets for our rifles, and they have us targeted indeed!”

  Another ball screamed over to smash into a tree behind them and send it crashing as Forbes ran over to Gaston and said, “They have us bracketed, goddamn it! What are we to do?”

  “Hold our positions, of course. I tried to tell people this at Sedan, but would they listen? Mais non, they fell back, just as the Boche hoped they would, and when Bismarck’s infantry charged, there was nothing for even a hero like myself to do but run like a deer! I make it one muzzle-loader, black powder and solid shot. So how much damage can they do, and, regard, I keep hearing small arms fire in the distance when the wind is right. So our friend Dick is up to something interesting, too! Let us not get the wind up until we have to, hein?”

  But, just as he finished, a third big cast iron ball screamed down out of the blue to land right on D. C. Dodd’s machine gun position to crush the rear action of the Maxim and leave Dodd a screaming mess writhing away from it, trailing blood and guts!

  He was silent and, mercifully, dead by the time Forbes and some others reached him. Gaston didn’t leave his post by the sunset gun. He’d been under fire before. He yelled, “Merde alors! Everyone hold his triple-titted place! Can’t you see this harassing fire is intended to make you run about like headless chickens?”

  One of the gun crew he’d dragooned into helping him sobbed, “I’d rather be a bloody chicken with a head than without on
e! If it’s all the same to the rest of you, I’m off!”

  Gaston drew his .38 and said, “No, you’re not. I love you all like my own children, but I’ll shoot the first species of yellow dog who misbehaves before the enemy.”

  “Frenchy, it’s no bloody use! We’ve lost our only real weapon, and at this rate they won’t even have our flaming rifles to worry about by the time they’re ready to charge!”

  There was a murmur of agreement from the others around the big but useless gun. Another cannonball slammed down; and though this one didn’t take anyone out, a constabulary gasped, as it made the earth tremble under them, “See what he means, you dumb little frog?”

  Gaston stared morosely across the river. A haze of white smoke drifted above the treetops over that way, a little to the left of where Gaston had ranged on the sound of the enemy gun. He nodded and said, “Allowing for the trade winds, the couchon is about where my old ears said.”

  Someone else said, “So what? There’s nothing we can do about it!”

  Gaston sighed, picked up one of the grotesque rounds he’d cobbled together that afternoon while they waited and shoved it into the breech of the crudely mounted four-pounder, saying, “Eh bien, the rest of you move off, trés far, and hit the adorable deck. I do not think this is going to work. But you are right. We have to do something before we are swatted like flies in any case, hein?”

  Then he closed his eyes and pulled the lanyard.

  The sunset gun didn’t blow up in his face, after all. A few seconds after it roared on their side of the river, they heard another roar among the trees across the way. Gaston blinked in surprise and said, “Sacre goddamn! I am a genius instead of a suicidal maniac, after all! Let us give them more of the same, hein?”

  They did. What Gaston had doped out was crude as hell but still more effective than solid shot. Having plenty of blank rounds but no shells to work with, Gaston had begun by cutting apart some extra—mostly cardboard—rounds with his knife. Removing the brass base of a round allowed it to fit in the barrel like a shell to begin with. But since even a big wad of cardboard wasn’t likely to travel far or do anything important when it got there, he’d cannibalized more wadding from other blanks to seal the open ends left by the removal of the bases; and as long as he had them open anyway, tossed a handful of gravel into the loose powder for luck. The nitrate-impregnated wadding was meant to burn well to avoid clogging the tube of even a sunset gun, so he used a lot, knowing it would act as a quick fuse when the propellant charge blew it out the far end … he hoped. By taping one of his glorified firecrackers to more businesslike regular blanks, Gaston had devised rounds that would either act as old-fashioned shells of the Napoleonic era or, if all the powder went off at once inside the gun, split the tube and kill him instead. So Gaston was relieved as well as pleased to discover his invention really worked. He’d had no intention of even trying it unless there was no other hope. But now that he had, he made up for lost time by lobbing round after round in El Repollo’s general direction.