Renegade 21

by Lou Cameron

  The fog burned off around noon. So Captain Gringo loaded them up and moved them out. The improved visibility was purchased at the cost of hot-as-hell, naturally. But they were behind schedule and he knew that when it was cool enough to breathe in this swamp, you couldn’t see where you were going.

  They swung south, well clear of the quicksand trap, of course, so they couldn’t check to see if Morales or any visible parts of him lay in the muck up that way. It was about three in the afternoon when they hit the wall of tangled underbrush marking the edge between mud flats and higher ground. It took an hour’s machete work, taking turns in the lead, before they’d hacked their way into more open rain forest. The going was much easier after that. The shaded surface between the mossy buttress roots of the jungle giants was covered with a carpet of rotten leaves and mushrooms, which made for easier walking, if you allowed for what felt like slipping on a banana peel from time to time.

  Vallejo wanted to stop and rest as soon as they were out of the swamp. Captain Gringo said his balls were sweating too, and added that they would stop when they couldn’t see anymore. Whatever the moon would be up to after sundown, it would be too dark to move under the heavy rain-forest canopy. Even in broad daylight they were marching through a cathedral like gloom. The temperature was still way to warm for comfort, but they could already feel an improvement as they marched farther from the sticky swamp in the still damp but much drier shade of the gently rising jungle.

  Captain Gringo was packing the Maxim on one shoulder. So, although he was stronger than most men, he could judge when it was getting tedious to pack supplies. He allowed short trail breaks once an hour. Nobody but the self-indulgent young officer, who’d yet to carry much more than his side arms and that silly tasseled hat, bitched much when he whistled everybody upward and onward. Vallejo made up for it by bitching like a spoiled debutante with a stone in her glass slipper. Gaston, bringing up the rear guard, got to miss most of it, the lucky bastard.

  Vallejo was complaining that the slope was getting steeper when Captain Gringo hissed, “Shut up and hit the dirt!” As the lieutenant just stood there looking dumb, the tall American kicked his feet out from under him and, as the lieutenant fell on his ass, waved at the men behind him to take cover. They did so, silently, bless them, as Captain Gringo moved forward, leaned the machine gun over a fallen log, then vaulted the log to move on, drawing his .38 as he strained his ears.

  He heard the familiar whip crack again. He zeroed in on the direction. It was coming from his left. He moved that way in a running crouch. He could hear the bawl of cattle and an occasional shout now. He spotted a wall of underbrush on a rise ahead. He nodded and ran up to it. Then he stopped and dropped to his knees to burrow cautiously through.

  As he’d expected, he found himself gazing down at a cattle drive. The vaqueros were using a sunken but open trail that wasn’t supposed to be around here, according to the map. He watched long enough to see that the riders with the popping drovers’ whips were obviously driving the herd to the coast to the east. Then, as he spotted a yellow mongrel trotting beside a rider on a pinto, Captain Gringo crawfished back through the brush, sprang to his feet, and made tracks. He leaped back over the log he’d leaned the Maxim against, hoisted the machine gun into position atop the log, and armed it as Vallejo asked what the hell was going on.

  The tall American said, “Nothing, if their dogs don’t pick out the smell of my socks. Hopefully there’s enough cow in the air to keep their noses busy. There’s a herd on its way to market. Maybe to Grey town by way of the crossing to the south we couldn’t use. Less hopefully, they could be driving the beef to a guerrilla army over that way. It all depends on whether that bunch we shot up the other day was part of a small band or a big one.”

  Florita crawled up to them, dragging the extra ammo. She asked if there was anything else she could do. He smiled at her and said, “Yeah, get your pretty ass back the way it came. Get behind the biggest tree you can find. Tell anyone you run into to do the same.”

  “I shall stay and fight beside my soldado. That is the duty of a good adelita, no?”

  “Florita, will you haul ass? Adelitas are supposed to do as they’re told, too, goddammit!”

  She looked hurt and started crawling away. Lieutenant Vallejo followed her. Captain Gringo shrugged. He wasn’t surprised, and what the hell did he need with a pretty hat right now anyway?

  Captain Gringo was sighting upslope, covering them, when Gaston flopped down beside him and said, “You seem in a pensive mood, my child. Vallejo just passed me, at considerable speed for a man moving on hands and knees. He said something about cowboys, or was it Indians?”

  “Light me a smoke and break open that ammo, just in case,” said Captain Gringo, going on to fill Gaston in on the situation as they set up for action.

  There didn’t seem to be any action. It got very quiet. That didn’t always mean anything. Captain Gringo moved in on people he’d spotted as quietly as he could, too. After a while a howler monkey commented from the trees ahead and a parrot answered, not sounding too excited. Captain Gringo said, “Man this weapon. I’m moving up for another look-see.”

  He did. When he came back he was smiling. He said, “The trail’s clear. They must have been simple vaqueros after all. Better yet, the cattle trail leads due east and west. It’s broad, hard-packed, and has plenty of cover on either side. Need one say more?”

  Gaston sighed and said, “I knew you’d run my poor derriere off before sunset.” And got to his feet.

  Captain Gringo said, “Hold it. You’re right about how late it is. I want to make sure no chuck-wagon crew is following that herd well behind the dust. We’ll camp right here for the night and hit the trail at dawn. No fires after dark, of course. So let’s get supper and some shelters built poco tiempo.”

  The night passed uneventfully except for Florita trying to screw him to death. The next day went well for a change, too. As Captain Gringo had hoped, the cattle trail led to cattle country. They followed it up to windswept savanna, dissected by jungle-choked canyons that the packed red earth of the cattle trail avoided in a series of ever-climbing clever hairpin turns. The sky was overcast, but the trade winds were dry and cool. It was easy to keep the expedition moving and out of trouble. Gaston had a couple of promising would-be soldados who enjoyed playing scout, and, as it was not good ambush country, he and Captain Gringo let them play at scouting the draws ahead while they checked them out for obvious idiocy.

  Captain Gringo called short trail breaks from time to time and let them break long enough to enjoy a cold noon meal. But when Lieutenant Vallejo asked when they were going to siesta, Captain Gringo said they weren’t, explaining, “There’s not much point in napping through the hottest time of the day when it’s not really hot. I want to take advantage of this open high ground to make up for the time we’ve lost. The map says we’ll probably run into rougher going mañana.”

  Vallejo said, “I’m not used to hiking so far without my afternoon nap, dammit.”

  Captain Gringo shifted the heavy machine gun to his other shoulder and said, “My heart bleeds for you. How did you ever get that soldier suit you were wearing when we first met? Did your mommy buy it for you?”

  He turned away and moved on before Vallejo could come up with the answer. Florita scampered along beside him, lugging her pack and the ammo. Considering how much of the night her legs had been spread apart, she was still legged up better than the so-called infantry officer staggering and bitching behind her.

  From time to time as the trail hair pinned higher Captain Gringo had a good look at the others, with Gaston bringing up the rear. They were all soldiering well, despite the heavy loads some of them were packing. By the time the darkening overcast above them warned that the sun was setting, wherever the hell it was, they’d crested the long slope. Captain Gringo saw miles of much the same kind of country ahead, leading downward out of sight in the dark mists. He stepped off the trail, braced the Maxim in the for
k of a wind-twisted thorn tree, and called out, “This is where we camp for the night, muchachas y muchachos.”

  They didn’t have to be told twice. But he noted with approval that his porters gathered all the supplies close in before the men flopped to the grass and the women started setting up camp.

  Gaston joined Captain Gringo, muttering, “Merde alors, my legs are getting old for this sort of business.” He looked around and added, “Eh bien. There’s no water, running or otherwise. There’s firewood, but not enough thatch for lean-tos. If we spread our bedding on the grass and it decides to rain again.

  Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “We’ll get wet. But what the hell, the trades are sweeping across this ridge pretty good, so we’ll dry out.”

  He saw some women building a fire and called out, “Hey, muchachas, make it bigger. After dark I don’t want open flames up here atop this ridge. So let’s get plenty of coals going for bedtime coffee, eh?”

  He stared out across the open slopes all around them, nodded, and said, “We’ll pile the supplies in a circle around us and bed down close together. There’s nobody in sight for a good five miles, and it’ll be dark soon. But why take chances? You want to take the first guard mount, Gaston?”

  Gaston nodded. Then, noticing that Lieutenant Vallejo had wandered off to get his own roll from the porter packing it, Gaston asked, “Doesn’t that species of young squirt get to pull guard at all, Dick?”

  “Would you like to trust him with your ass while both of us were in the sack?”

  “Forget what I just said. I’ll put four reasonably bright-looking pickets out and hold the fort until midnight. Do you think you can get all the screwing you need by then?”

  Captain Gringo chuckled and said, “I may even get an hour’s sleep. Don’t forget to whistle, cough, or something as you approach my trundle bed.”

  “Oh, dear, I wanted to watch. I don’t suppose you’d like to, ah, fix me up with that precocious child you’ll be leaving in that warm bedroll?”

  “I would if I thought she’d go for it, old buddy. I don’t think she would. She’s, ah, sort of romantic.”

  “How droll. But far be it from me to come between happy honeymooners. At least my fist still loves me.”

  By the time they’d seen to setting up camp and had eaten supper, the lights had gone out as if someone had pulled a switch in the sky. Thanks to the overcast, it was black as a bitch away from the ruby glow of the cook-fire coals. Knowing he’d be up from midnight to dawn, Captain Gringo turned in with no further bullshit. Florita beat him into the bedroll and out of her clothes. She pleaded with him to hurry as he made sure the Maxim was comfy in its tarp at the head of the bedroll. He draped his clothes and shoulder rig over it. Then he draped himself over Florita and they went deliciously nuts together for a while. Their bedroll was inside the ring of supplies, but far enough from any other for them to get away with a modest amount of acrobatics in private. He asked her to keep her orgasmic groans down to a roar and she tried. By now the others all knew they were an item anyway.

  They made love for an hour or more and then Captain Gringo actually managed to catch some sleep. It didn’t feel like he’d had much when Gaston approached, singing the Marseillaise in a sardonic tone. Captain Gringo sat up, told him to shove a sock in it, and started dressing as Gaston explained that he’d already rousted out and positioned the four pickets for the last watch. He added, “I did not feel it wise to strain their brains with nonsense about pass words and countersigns, hein? I told them not to shoot at anyone approaching from inside our lines and vice versa. It should be good practice for them. Anyone approaching a barricaded camp across open ground is obviously going to be an idiot, or a cow.”

  The little Frenchman’s prattle had Florita half-awake and begging to be abused some more. So Captain Gringo told Gaston to shut up and told the girl to go back to sleep. They both obeyed him. He got up, stamped his feet solidly in his boots, and checked his .38 as he started his rounds. Gaston didn’t go with him.

  Captain Gringo found the four still-sleepy peones where Gaston had posted them to cover the camp north, south, east, and west. He warned each man to stay awake and listen to the crickets. As long as the crickets sang in the grass all around, nothing important was moving out there. If they heard the crickets switch off, they were to shoot first and ask questions later. The dramatic orders seemed to jar them a bit more awake. That had been the general idea.

  Like all old soldiers, good or bad, Captain Gringo found guard duty second only to K.P. as one big pain in the ass. Officers didn’t have to pull K.P. but they still got to stand guard, so that made guard duty their biggest pain in the ass. But, unlike scrubbing pots and pans, guard duty was not a duty one could safely dope off on. Nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand, standing guard was just boring as hell. But doping off that one time in a thousand could kill you. He tried to remember that as he walked up and down in the clammy darkness, smoking and trying to stay alert. It wasn’t easy, even for a good soldier.

  He was uncomfortably cool in his tropic linen jacket, this late at night on a windswept ridge. He couldn’t help remembering how cozy and warm it was in that bedroll with Florita. He couldn’t help wondering if anyone would know, and if it would really hurt, if he sort of posted himself under the covers with her. He’d still be awake, after all, and the four pickets on guard would spot anything he was liable to see in this blackness.

  He didn’t give in to temptation. Rank had its privileges. But rank had its responsibilities too. He found a tree, got on the lee side of the trunk, out of the trades, and hunkered down to smoke a little more comfortably before it was time to walk the line again. He was between the south and west pickets, staring out into the darkness of the unknown land ahead of them, should morning ever come. The crickets were serenading him. A mosquito took advantage of the still air behind the tree near the ground to sting his cheek. He slapped it absently. The slap knocked the cigar from his mouth. He blinked in mild surprise at his own sleepy reflexes and leaned over to grope for the smoke glowing in the grass. At that moment a burst of machine-gun fire swept the area, including the area his head had just occupied!

  Captain Gringo rolled away from the chopped-up tree, whipping out his .38 and cursing as all hell broke loose around him in the dark. People were screaming, the machine gun was chattering like an insane metallic woodpecker, and the tall American flat in the grass was disoriented for the moment as he had to adjust his thinking. Enemies were supposed to attack from that way, not that way, dammit!

  Then he located the source of all the automatic fire by the stuttering orange glow and pegged a shot at it. He saw what a lousy notion that had been when the machine gun traversed his way and spewed a humming horde of angry metal bees over him as he hugged the dirt.

  But two or more could play at the same game, and he could tell by the cough of another .38 that Gaston was still alive and hadn’t forgotten to write.

  The machine gun groped for Gaston in the dark as the Frenchman ducked and rolled away from his own muzzle flash. So Captain Gringo rose like a flipper on its fins and pegged another three rounds of rapid pistol fire before rolling over three times and pressing his cheek bone into the dirt as he reloaded by feel. The machine gun, meanwhile, fell silent. The darkness still seemed to tingle to its chatter and the air reeked with the acrid scent of cordite, although, when he really listened, all he heard was someone moaning something dumb about his mother.

  Gaston’s voice called out from the distance, “Dick?” and when Captain Gringo called back, “Yo?” the Frenchman replied, “I think they left by the north door. There’s a picket here who doesn’t seem to be breathing anymore.”

  Captain Gringo leaped to his feet and ran that way in a low crouch. He joined Gaston by the guard, who lay face down and bloody in the grass. Gaston said, “They went thataway as you Yanks put it so crudely. From the dulcet tones of their running footsteps, I make it two men. The question before the house now is whether t
hey brought their own machine gun or used ours, non?”

  Captain Gringo swore and tore for his own bedroll, tripping over someone’s corpse in the dark, but managing to stay on his feet until he dropped to his knees by Florita and reached to shake her to her senses. She didn’t answer. He got a palm slicked with blood. When he struck a match, he saw why. Florita was staring owlishly up at him with three wide eyes. Her own and the big fried egg of blood and brains in the middle of her forehead.

  The Maxim that should have been in its tarp beyond her shattered head was gone. He stared at the flat expanse of canvas tarp, covered with spent shells, and cursed as the match burned down to his fingers. Gaston had joined him just in time to take in the messy scene. Gaston said, “Eh bien, we shall call the roll and see who is dead or missing, non?”

  Captain Gringo had noticed a Krag rifle in the grass nearby before the match went out. He groped for it as he told Gaston, “Haven’t time. You stay here and mind the store. If they headed north they’ll make for that tree-filled canyon over that way.”

  He checked the action of the rifle. There was a full clip of .30-30, and, what the hell, he was only after two guys. He started jogging out into the darkness as, behind him, he heard Gaston wail, “Dick, have you gone mad? It’s two to one, and they have a machine gun!”

  Gaston was like that, thought Captain Gringo as he cleared the tangled confusion of the shot-up camp and began to run faster. The old Frog meant well, but he was always telling a guy something he already knew.