by Lou Cameron
Chapter Eleven
“So, you’ve captured Mamma Macumba and put a crimp in the blighters’ style, eh what?” said Colonel Gage at tea that afternoon. Captain Gringo hadn’t wanted to come to tea, but what the hell, the old fart was the governor.
Prudence Lee was in the infirmary, balled up in bed with a blanket over her head to block out the sounds of drums that she alone could hear. The dumb question gave Captain Gringo a place to look at without blushing. The colonel’s oversexed wife was simpering across the table at him. Their nymphomaniac daughter was seated next to him, with her husband, Burton, next to his nutty mother-in-law. Captain Gringo wondered if Burton had laid Mrs. Gage, too, but saw no polite way to ask. Dama Luisa wasn’t there, damn it. She’d been tea and crumpetted the day before while he was out getting killed in the jungle.
He told the governor, “Miss Lee’s not exactly what we thought she was, sir. They’ve been holding her captive, too.”
“Burton here, explained that while we were waiting for you, dear boy. The point is that they’ve lost their Momma and that you chaps gave them a good spanking.”
Captain Gringo knew Gaston had been invited, but the Frenchman had been too smart to worry about appearing rude. He was nursing his grievous snake bite over at the cantina, the bastard.
Mrs. Gage said, “I understand you have the colored girl under guard, Dickie-bird. Why are you guarding her if she’s as innocent as you say?”
Her daughter, Alice, nudged him under the table with her own knee as she purred, “Is she innocent as you say, Dick? I must say, a lot of people were startled when you drove out of the bush with a six-foot, bald Negress, naked as a jay.”
Captain Gringo ignored the thrust and answered Mrs. Gage, “We’re not guarding her to keep her from running away, ma’am. We want to make sure nobody takes her back. Your husband is right about her being sort of valuable to Pappa Blanco, and poor Prue is sure they’re trying to get her.”
Burton said, “I know. The other colored girls over there are having a time with her, even under sedation. That damned Mab O’Shay sure picked a bad time to leave us without notice. Do you realize we don’t have a single qualified medical advisor on Nuevo Verdugo now?”
Captain Gringo said, “I know. And I haven’t been able to pin down anyone who actually saw Mab board the steamer.”
“Good Lord, are you suggesting she never left of her own free will?”
“I don’t know. There’s no way to make sure until the steamer puts in at its next port of call. I sent a cable ahead, but Mab won’t be able to answer for almost a week, even if she’s safe. So I’m being a pessimist and we’re looking for her.”
Alice nudged him again and said, “But, Dick, if she’s still on the island, don’t you see what that must mean?”
“Sure, it means she’s been captured or killed by somebody. Meanwhile the only nurse we have is Miss Willie May, and while I’m sure she’s a nice girl, she isn’t a doctor or even a registered nurse. So let’s not anyone get hurt or sick, huh?”
“I don’t like it,” huffed the colonel, as if the others at the table were delighted. He saw nobody was going to argue about that, and said, “Strike while the iron is hot, I say. Now that you know where this Pappa Blanco’s hideout is, you’ll just nip back and machine gun the buggers, right?”
Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “No sir. For one thing I’m not sure I could find the camp they took me to. For another, Pappa Blanco wouldn’t be there. He meets the witch doctors somewhere out in the jungle and not even a common Carib could lead us there.”
Burton asked, “Do you still think he’s a white renegade, Walker?”
“Well, there are a lot of those going around. Pappa Blanco doesn’t have to be white. He could be a mestizo or Negro, but the point is that he’s not a real primitive. He’s not playing the game right for a simple savage.”
Colonel Gage said, “I say, I’d hardly call the way the blighters have been acting civilized. They’re rebuffed every attempt on our part to show good will. They’ve simply killed and slashed and burned since we arrived. I’d say that was pretty savage, wouldn’t you?”
“No sir. I’ve met some savages, if we’re talking about the old-fashioned kind. The guys I just tangled with may have started out as simple natives, but somebody’s put some bugs in their ears and taught them basic infantry tactics.”
He took a sip of his tea, repressed a grimace, and added, “I owe you and Pantropic Limited an apology. The island is bigger than I thought and there’s still plenty of untouched jungle that ordinary natives would probably be satisfied with for now. So somebody has to be telling the Caribs that you plan to plough it all up, and so on. Somebody had to show them the old Napoleonic trick of sending a screen of useless cannon fodder out ahead of your trained troops, and somebody had to train the riflemen we ran into. Any Indian can pick up a gun and fire it. But a guy I blew out of a tree knew what he was doing. You don’t hit that close at that range without instruction.”
Burton said, “I’m not the expert you are, Walker, but I agree somebody with military training has been training those Caribs. But try it this way: Pappa Blanco used that negress, Prudence Lee, as propaganda. Some of our men are missing and presumed dead. What if they captured one of our trained guards and made him give instructions?”
Captain Gringo said flatly, “Your company guards aren’t that good. Gordo is shaping up. Poor Sergeant Montalban was a nice guy, but a lousy soldier who walked right into a machete with a loaded gun in his hand. Whoever trained those Caribs we ran into did a better job than you guys did with your guards. No offense.”
Colonel Gage shrugged and said, “That’s why we sent for you. But let’s consider motive. If some soldier of fortune is out there whipping up a cannibal army, what in the devil does he want? I mean, we call them rebels or guerrillas, but in God’s truth, they’ve never contacted us to make a single demand. Isn’t that the whole point of having a war?”
Captain Gringo nodded and said, “Yes sir. War is a strenuous form of diplomacy when you get to the small print. Even our Indians back in the States had some demands to make, if only to move back and leave them alone. Real Carib chiefs should have set a deadline by now. We know they tolerated Hispanic settlers before you people got here. So they’d obviously conceded at least part of the island. But you say they just attacked you right off. They didn’t try to powwow. They ignored your gifts and overtures. In other words, they’d declared an all-out war before they could have known who you were.”
Gage frowned and said, “By Jove, that’s true! Someone had to tell them we were coming and who we were. Someone who knew.”
His wife said, “But my dear, everyone knew. It was in the London Times.”
Gage looked disgusted and said, “Of course it was. In the financial section. How, many bloody newsstands do you imagine there are in the bloody jungle, eh?”
Burton said, “All right, let’s assume some adventurer is leading the Indians for some murky reason of his own. The point is, what are we going to do about it, Walker?”
Captain Gringo said, “I’ve already started to do something about it. Gordo is welding some chain from the warehouses into a drag, and we know tractors can move through the jungle. Our next step is to clear that cordon as we originally planned. Then we’ll make a sweep through the half of the island we’ve secured, to make sure it’s secured. That’ll put your plantings on a paying basis.”
“I see. Once that’s taken care of, there’ll be time enough to track down Pappa Blanco and all, and finish m them off, eh?”
Captain Gringo smiled thinly and said, “I don’t think we’ll have to. He’s going to order an all-out attack on us. But I think we can stop him, zombies and all.”
There was a puzzled murmur around the table. Gage asked, “What makes you think a trained soldier of fortune would risk a frontal attack against barbed wire and machine gunfire, Walker?”
“He has no choice, sir. He was sent here to put you
out of business. He can’t do that if you’re shipping sugar, can he?”
“I suppose not, but what do you mean he was sent here? How do you know someone sent Pappa Blanco to put us in the ruddy red?”
“That’s easier than some of the other questions, Colonel. Ask yourself a simple question. Would you be out there scratching mosquito bites with a bunch of uncouth cannibals unless somebody was making it worth your while?”
They told him Prue was dead when he arrived at the infirmary after tea to check on her condition. The ugly Willie May was acting pretty hysterical about it, and the guards swore on their mother’s honor that nobody had gone near the late Miss Lee. Willie May led him into the private room where Prue lay spread-eagled on her sweat-soaked sheets, staring wide-eyed up at the light bulb in the ceiling. Another colored nurse was standing over her, crying. Willie May said, “That’s how we found her, Captain. Nobody touched a thing.”
The other girl sobbed, “She kept saying the Voodoo drums were calling her. Only none of us could hear no sassy drums! I came in to see if she’d take some lemonade and, Oh Lord, I’m scared!”
Captain Gringo stepped over to the bed, closed Prue’s eyes, and bent to smell her open mouth. He asked, “Did she have anything but those sleeping powders, Willie May?”
The nurse shook her head and said, “I never poisoned her, Captain.”
“I didn’t say that, Willie May.”
But the nurse was obviously upset. She stepped to the bed table and picked up a half-filled glass. She said, “This is the medicine I gave her from the dispensary, Captain.” Then, before he could stop her, Willie May upended the glass and swallowed every drop.
She put it down and said, “There, are you satisfied, Captain?”
“I never suggested you put anything in her glass. But we’ll know damned soon if anyone else did! You’d better take an emetic medicine and try to upchuck, Willie May.”
“Pooh, I ’spect I know what sleeping powders taste like, Captain. I’ve taken them myself many a time when I was feeling poorly.”
He was too polite to ask if she meant the nights Charlie Burton couldn’t make it. Jesus she was ugly, but he and Burton had agreed his pretty wife, Alice, was a bitch. Maybe Burton saw something in this black girl that he couldn’t get at home. Willie May seemed pleasant enough and he knew another thing. Burton had been having tea with him and the others and, let’s see, that eliminated bitchy Alice, too. But that was no big deal. None of the people in town had any motive for murdering a woman they’d never seen before.
Or was it murder? He knew Voodoo was supposed to scare folks to death and Prue had acted like she believed in it. She’d lost her survival instincts and common sense back there, just hearing the damned drums. The infirmary was out of range and nobody here had heard any drums. But she might have been listening to her own heart beat and—“Damn!” He swore, “If only I had someone here to perform an autopsy!”
“There’s a book about poisons in Doctor Lloyd’s office,. sir,” said Willie May, trying to be helpful. He smiled at her and said, “It wouldn’t be much help, unless some obvious poison like cyanide had been used. How are you feeling, Willie May?”
“I feels a mite sleepy. I ’spect I’d best go lie down if it’s all right with you, Captain.”
He nodded but told the other nurse, “You stay with her. I’ll take care of things here.”
The younger, prettier nurse took Willie May’s arm and led her out. Captain Gringo picked up the blanket Prue had cast off and covered her nude body with it. Then he went over to the wall and punched a dent in it. It didn’t do a thing for Prue, but it made him feel better.
He went to the door and whistled in a guard. He posted the man at the door and said, “After I give this place a final check, I’m going for a priest. Nobody in or out, right?”
The guard nodded. Captain Gringo checked the window. It was screened and the latch was locked on the inside. He wasn’t surprised. Just for the hell of it he stepped over to a wardrobe in the corner and opened it. Prue hadn’t had any clothes. So he wasn’t surprised to find the wardrobe empty.
Almost.
The little black doll lay on the bottom of the wardrobe like a big spider hiding from the light. He bent and picked it up. It was made of the native asphalt, and was as crude as a gingerbread man, except for two lifelike shell eyes, glaring up at him. A needle of palm frond had been driven through the doll’s chest, where its heart would have been, if the doll, or the person who made it, had had a heart. He glanced at the still figure on the bed and muttered, “Yeah, finding this ugly thing could have been the last straw for a terrified girl with a weak heart. Pappa Blanco would have known if you had a heart condition, too.”
That had to be it. He remembered how Prue had kept collapsing on him in the jungle. Jesus, what if she’d croaked while they were tearing off a piece! What had she said about hearing her own heart pounding after she’d come? Oh boy, he might well have contributed to her condition!
But, hell, she’d been acting pretty wild and spooky when he first saw her and … that figured, too. She’d been hopped up on something. She’d said she couldn’t believe some of the things she’d seen and done while living among the Caribs. If they’d been giving her some sort of stimulants and hypnotics all those years her weak-kneed panic might have been withdrawal symptoms and … Okay, how the fuck had this juju doll gotten in here to frighten her?
It hadn’t walked in. It had been left in the wardrobe for her to find, drop, and collapse across the bed, scared skinny. He knew it was a waste of time to question the nurses. If they’d seen it, they’d have told him. They’d have probably passed out, too.
He put the doll in his jacket pocket, told the guard he’d be right back, and left. He ran into Gaston just outside.
Gaston said, “I heard somebody just died over here.” Captain Gringo said, “You heard right. It was Prue. She was either poisoned or scared to death. Without a doctor on the island it’s up for grabs. I have to notify the governor and round up a priest or something. She was a Protestant, but I can’t see the local Anglicans planting a colored girl in the ever so veddy veddy churchyard.”
Gaston nodded and said, “You march to the governor and I shall go talk with the priest. In the mood you are in you are not fit to discuss delicate religious matters, hein.”
“Right. We’ll save time working as a team. It’ll soon be getting dark and I want to get this detail settled and post a perimeter guard. The bastards are starting to play rough and might try hitting us closer to home.”
They split up; and he strode on to the headquarters building making plans the whole time. Until he drove that sanitary cordon across the island it made sense to pull in the vulnerable field workers and thinly spread guards. The country was dry enough for burning again. But sugar cane could be replanted. It was more important to save lives and guns. He now knew the bush general he was facing knew how to use the guns they’d captured, and some of them were machine guns. He didn’t mean to let them have any more.
Captain Gringo was a good strategist. He tried to put himself in the other leader’s shoes. But Pappa Blanco wasn’t acting like he wore shoes. The American tried to picture what he’d do if he was out in the jungle planning another attack on the advance of civilization. Civilization wasn’t all that great an idea, so he started out all right. But it was hard to figure what he’d do with a zombie army, since he didn’t exactly believe in zombies. He didn’t know what the hell those things were. It made it a bitch to figure out how they could be used in a battle.
He knew the Black Caribs sent them in ahead as a screen and terror weapon. The hard-hitting mop up guys were just normal cannibals armed with guns and led by someone who was either a magician or … what?
The guards presented arms as he went up the steps and entered the headquarters building. He walked down the deserted corridor to Colonel Gage’s office and raised his hand to knock. Then he heard a silly high-pitched titter on the other side of the paneling
. Someone was saying, “Oh, it hurts so good when you ram it deep, sir.”
“Sir?” What the hell was going on in there?
Captain Gringo looked around and saw he was alone. So he did what anyone else would have. He squatted down to peer through the keyhole.
Colonel Gage was standing by his desk with his linen pants around his ankles and his fat rump moving fast. Another bare rump was presented to the colonel’s thrusts by a figure bending over on the desk. The someone was a man. Captain Gringo couldn’t see his face but every time the colonel moved back for another hard thrust you could see the guy’s balls below the colonel’s reaming shaft. The old boy had a big pecker and he was really shoving it to the guy bending over for him. Captain Gringo rose and moved away from the door with a grimace. Mrs. Gage had complained that her husband slept a lot while she was out screwing around. He knew now what made the colonel such a sound sleeper. He didn’t think they wanted to be disturbed.
As he headed back to the infirmary he spotted Gaston crossing the green. They met near the doorway and Gaston said he’d arranged for a decent burial and that the priest had said he’d read a nondenominational service over poor Prue.
They went inside. A black girl, who seemed rather fond of Gaston, said that Willie May was up and around after a few scary minutes with the sleeping powder she’d swallowed. They went and found her in Doctor Lloyd’s office. She said she’d taken a wake-up and felt fine. Captain Gringo said, “Dosing yourself can be dangerous, Willie May. What did you take?”
The girl pointed to a brown bottle and wet glass on the desk and said, “Doctor Lloyd took the same medicine every time he felt tired, Captain.”
He picked up the bottle and read the label. It was strychnine sulfate. He whistled and said, “That’ll wake the dead and poison coyotes. How much did you take?”
“Just a couple of drops, Captain. Doctor Lloyd said it was a strong tonic.”
He said, “I believe him. If you’re not going into convulsions, could you see about a coffin for Miss Prudence? Gaston here, has a priest lined up and … where the hell is Gaston?”
