Mexican Marauder (A Captain Gringo Adventure #16)

by Lou Cameron

  “Not really. When you listen in on a line, “‘you have to guess from the context who’s sending from each end.

  “Why?”

  “Someone in Mexico could be advising either side in Cuba that they’ll get a better deal from John Brown on armor plate than they would from Hakim. Or, someone in Cuba wants to order plate and … hmm …”

  “Hmm what, dear?”

  “The Cuba Libre movement is well financed, but I can’t see Cuban rebels buying battleship plates. It takes four years to build a battleship. On the other hand, Spain already has a navy.”

  “Wouldn’t it take them four years to build new ships, too?”

  “They don’t have to. They already have ’em. They can’t be worried about guerrillas shooting up even an antique battle wagon. But the Spanish navy is getting a little long in the tooth, and they may be worried about folks with more modem warships.”

  “Like the U.S.?”

  “That’d be my first choice. The Monroe Doctrine reserves the right of serious warfare in this neck of the woods to Uncle Sam. So, if Spain is beefing up its old battle wagons, Spain is worried about more’ than guerrillas shouting Cuba Libre! Damn, to think I spent four years at the Point and now I’ll be left out of the first decent war my generation will ever see!”

  “You might see another in your time if that nasty young Kaiser has his way. But let’s stick to here and now, dear. Obviously there isn’t going to be a Spanish-American War , for a few years, at the rate things are going. Do you think we can assume the cable under us is Spanish operated?”

  “It’s starting to look like it. How many Cuban guerrillas could be playing the international stock market or ordering armor plate?”

  “If it’s not all in code we’ve yet to break, you mean. Why would the Spanish military government want to set up clandestine communications with the mainland, Dick?”

  “To keep them clandestine, of course. Greystoke and the U.S. Secret Service are monitoring the obvious cable from Cuba to Florida. Give Butcher Weyler credit for knowing that. El Presidente Diaz would double-cross his own father, if he knew who his father was. If I were Weyler and wanted to wire secret messages, I think we’re tapped in to how I’d go about it. He can send anything he likes on this private line to agents in Mexico. They in turn can relay them to Spain or whatever.”

  “That makes sense. But what does all this mean to British Intelligence, Dick? Even if that business about armor plate is true and not a code for something else, why should Whitehall care? The British navy isn’t about to get into a brawl with either Spain or the U.S. in the near future.”

  He shrugged and said, “I guess London just likes to keep posted. Any battleship war, anywhere, would be of interest to the R.N., I guess. Are you about through here?” She smiled up at him and said, “I was hoping you’d suggest that, dear.” So, he pulled her to her feet and kissed her. But as they headed for his stateroom the Nombre Nada rolled sickeningly, and Flora asked, “Do you expect this storm to get worse, Dick?”

  He said, “It’s not a storm yet. The deck watch will let us know if we can’t guess by the way she’s rocking. Meanwhile, we won’t notice the roll as much in bed, right?”

  They got to his quarters. He frowned as he saw light under the door. He opened the door to see blond bubbly Phoebe reclining on the bunk, on top of the covers, stark naked. He shoved Flora inside and hastily shut the door and bolted it before he asked the blonde, “What happened? Did you lose your way, Phoebe?”

  Phoebe roguishly smiled up at them and said, “Gaston’s busy. I abso-bloody-lutely refuse to go three in a bed with that unwashed Tia Juana. She smells like codfish.”

  Flora laughed and said, “Oh, dear,” as she reached for her own buttons.

  But Captain Gringo didn’t think it was funny. He scowled and said, “My God! Gaston’s in bed with one of that Mexican’s wives? Gaston must have gone nuts! I’d better throw cold water over them before Tio Pepe finds out!”

  Phoebe said, “Not to worry. Tio Pepe knows. He and Gaston worked out one of those pratique arrangements dirty old men go in for. It seems Tio Pepe feels too old to service three women every night, and—”

  “Gotcha.” Captain Gringo laughed, adding, “Tia Juana’s the youngest of the three, too. Though that’s not saying much.”

  By this time Flora had slipped out of her tropic linens and joined Phoebe, naked, on the bunk. The contrast of their two completely different bodies was interesting indeed, but Captain Gringo felt a little confused as to the ground rules.

  Flora laughed and said, “Everyone seems to be fixed up for the night except that poor little Veronica. She must feel terribly left out.”

  Phoebe said, “I say, why don’t we invite her to join our orgy?”

  Captain Gringo said, “Oh, right, we’re having an orgy. I was starting to wonder what the hell was going on. I think we’d better leave Veronica to her own devices. I’m not sure I can handle the bounty I’m about to receive!”

  He snuffed out the lamp. He felt silly undressing in front of both of them, for some reason. He’d had them both. But they were still making him feel shy as they exchanged clinical comments about his body, like naughty school chums rapping about sex in the dorm.

  He climbed in with them, gathered female curves in each arm, and muttered, “Decisions, decisions! You sure have gotten over your shyness, Flora.”

  Flora grasped his shaft and toyed with it as she purred, “I don’t have to worry about becoming a lesbian if I’m in bed with a man, do I?”

  “That’s one way of looking at it. Who goes first?”

  “Oh, why don’t you fuck Phoebe first? We want to try something new.”

  That sounded reasonable. He’d had Flora most recently. Phoebe laughed and rolled on her hands and knees to present her upthrust rump. There was just enough light coming through the door cracks from the companionway for him to see what he was doing as he rose to the occasion, both ways, and entered her from the rear, standing barefoot on the floor. As he, felt himself in her softer blond body he growled, “Oh, yeah!” and started humping. He assumed Flora would heat up nicely as she watched. But the girls had been talking together indeed. As he rutted with Phoebe dog style, Flora slid her naked spine along the bulkhead until she was in line with Phoebe’s blond head, thighs wide. Phoebe dropped her face in Flora’s lap and proceeded to eat her as she was being stimulated more properly at her other end. Captain Gringo blinked in surprise but kept servicing the blonde. He couldn’t have stopped, and it did seem to add a certain spice to the proceedings. Flora liked it, too. She leaned her brunette head back against the bulkhead, eyes closed, and gasped as she said, “Oh, my God, that does feel marvelous!”

  As long as they were being clinical, Captain Gringo chuckled and said, “I thought you didn’t go in for that sort of thing, Flora.”

  The girl being eaten replied, “I don’t. I’m not the one being queer. I’m not sure dear Phoebe’s really being queer, when one considers what a man is doing to her at the moment. I’d ask her, but I don’t want her to stop!”

  The combination of perverse and old-fashioned sex seemed to be driving Phoebe wild, too, to judge from her internal contractions. She suddenly stiffened her legs, ejecting him like a wet watermelon seed as she rolled over on her back, gasping. “I can’t stand any more! I’ve come twice and I’m too excited to live! I have to take time out to get hold of myself!”

  That left both the man she’d been screwing and the girl she’d been eating up in the air, literally. So Captain Gringo grabbed Flora’s legs, puffed her closer, and dropped into her saddle. She was panting with passion and gushing with desire, and her love maw felt so different around his shaft that he came almost at once. She did, too, screaming aloud in pure animal pleasure.

  He whispered, “Hey, keep it down to a roar!”

  Flora said, “I’m so excited! Turn me over and shove it in my bum!”

  “Are you sure you want that, doll?”

  “Yes, I want t
o be low and dirty and wild, now that I’ve begun to learn how nice it can be!”

  He grimaced, but it was her ass they were talking about, and he wanted to be a sport. So, he got to his feet again, pulled her into position, and gingerly worked his moist love tool into her pulsing anal opening as she beat on the mattress with her fists and hissed, “Oh, Jesus, that feels so strange! Are you sure a girl can come this way, Phoebe?”

  Phoebe rolled under her, apparently recovered, and said, “Anyone can come anytime, with a little help from a friend!”

  So, as Captain Gringo sodomized Flora, Phoebe began to lick her clit from below. Her blond hair tickled Captain Gringo’s legs as it hung, bobbing, between them. Flora gasped, “Oh, loverly!” as she crouched, with her spine arched, her face above the saucy blonde’s open thighs. It took her a while to get up the nerve. But Captain Gringo wasn’t really surprised when she suddenly giggled, took a deep breath, and began to return Phoebe’s favor with her own questing tongue. He shook his head and marveled, “Boy, talk about orgies!” And then, since everybody had everything important taken care of, all three of them proceeded to come together. They wound up in a tangled pile on the bunk. His dick was in somebody. It didn’t matter who, or where. He just kept moving as they both took turns kissing him. But just as he was almost there again, he heard the deck watch call out. He couldn’t hear the words, but it sounded important. He untangled himself from the two crazy little dames and rolled out of the love pile, saying, “Be right back. Gotta see what’s up.”

  What was up, when he went up on deck with his pants and gun on, was apparently the wind. The sailor said, “I saw a light off to the west, captain. It’s gone now.”

  “That’s the Mexican coast over that way. Did it look like a signal?”

  “I don’t know, captain. It was just a light. It blinked on and off. One time.”

  Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “Probably a Mexican going somewhere with a lantern. People do that at night, you know.”

  “I thought the jungles over there were deserted, sir?”

  “Deserted is a relative term. Chicleros wander through the trees looking for chewing gum for Mr. Wrigley. Others gather Spanish moss, rubber, stuff like that. Some peons even do a little slash-and-burn farming in the Yucatan lowlands. Keep an eye peeled, of course. But let’s not cry wolf unless we really see one, eh? Keep up the good work I’m going back to bed.”

  He went below again. When he got to his quarters, Flora and Phoebe were going sixty-nine and seemed unaware of him as he watched for a time, muttered, “Oh, shit,” and stepped back out in the companionway. He felt pretty well sated for the moment, and, in truth, the two English girls were overdoing things a bit for his taste. Bubbly blond Phoebe was a pretty little amoral moron, and Flora was just weird. He still liked them both. He’d doubtless wind up laying both again. But for some reason, at the moment, the game was getting a bit rich for his romantic nature. He decided to take an inspection tour as long as he was out here. He’d told his crew to secure everything that could come loose in a storm, but you never knew.

  He went into the salon. The lamp was lit and the battery-driven gramophone was hissing quietly as it recorded silence. He picked up Phoebe’s earphones and had a listen. Nothing. Her shorthand notes were on the floor now. As he bent to pick them up, he saw others in the wastebasket under the table. He picked out a dozen sheets of foolscap at random, folded them, and put them in his hip pocket. He wasn’t sure why. But he could read shorthand, and he was beginning to wonder if the girls told him everything. They’d obviously had some discussions in private, earlier, and while some surprises were sure fun, others might not be.

  He went down to the engine room. Nobody was on duty, but the pilot light was on under the boiler. They could get up steam within an hour if need be. So, there was nothing for him to do there.

  He didn’t go to the forecastle or the galley. He didn’t want to ask the crew anything, and he was tired of telling them not to worry. He didn’t want to try brewing coffee with the fucking tub rolling like this, either. His smokes and other pleasures were back in his quarters. So, he headed back to them. Now that he’d recovered his second wind, there seemed to be something to be said for this orgy business after all. He laughed and murmured, “Decisions, decisions!” as he tried to decide whose turn it was.

  He passed Gaston’s door. He listened. He heard exactly what he expected to hear. He grinned and moved on to where Clarke and Chadwick were sharing a bunk. They were still at it, whatever it was. He couldn’t picture what was going on in there, but it sounded like a lot of work.

  He wasn’t expecting to hear anything from Veronica’s cubbyhole. But as he passed her door he heard the sounds of sobbing. Tio Pepe and his two tias were just snoring next door, so that couldn’t be it. He rapped gently. Veronica gasped and went silent as a church mouse.

  Not wanting either to attract attention or to abandon the kid to whatever misery she was obviously feeling, he tried the latch. It was unlocked. He opened the door and murmured, “It is I, Ricardo. What’s the matter, querida?”

  Veronica lay under a sheet, apparently naked. She said, “I am not your querida. I am nobody’s querida. I am almost seventeen and everybody thinks I’m ugly.”

  He stepped inside and sat on the edge of her bunk before he said soothingly, “I don’t think you’re ugly. I find you very beautiful.”

  It was a white lie. Her little moon face was okay, now that she’d washed it. Her figure was better than okay. But she was probably a virgin, so what the hell. He asked, “Why are you crying? Has anyone been cruel to you aboard this vessel?”

  “Of course not. Everyone has been muy simpatico. I am afraid because I think we are going to sink. A hurricane is coming. I can feel it.”

  “You too? The storm won’t hit for hours, even if it’s headed this way. If it really gets bad, we’ll head out to sea where we’ll be safe. Why don’t you try to get some sleep, eh?”

  But as he started to rise, Veronica sat up, exposing her muskmelon-shaped brown breasts as she pleaded, “Don’t go! I do not wish to be alone. I am frightened, Señor Ricardo. Stay here and comfort me. Stay here and perhaps hold me in your strong Yankee arms? I do not think I would feel so frightened if you were here to protect me.”

  He took the little Mestiza in his arms. As soon as he felt her warm brown flesh against his bare chest, he knew he might have made a mistake. But, hell, it wasn’t as if he was hard up. He had plenty of the real thing waiting for him in his own bunk. So, he told his love tool to behave its fool self as he cuddled the frightened girl and said, “I’ll stay with you a little while.”

  “A little while? Can’t you stay the night? There is plenty of room for two in this luxurious grand bed, no?”

  He smiled down at her and said, “It’s a little seaman’s bunk, and I’m not all that noble, either. I’m trying to feel brotherly, Veronica. But it’s not easy. Has anyone ever told you you have great little tits?”

  She snuggled closer and said, “Of course. Lots of boys have wished to feel them. But, alas, nobody has ever asked me to marry them afterwards.”

  He laughed and said, “I can’t get married. I took a vow. But I’d better get out of here pronto, if you don’t want to include me in your list of afterwards, kitten.”

  She answered, innocent as a child, “Oh, do you wish to make love to me? I think I would like that very much, Señor Ricardo.”

  He started to tell her not to be silly. Then he wondered who was being silly in here. The latch was locked, the other girls were busy, this one was rubbing her nipples all over him, so what the hell!

  He laughed and said, “You’re on,” as he slipped off his pants, pulled the sheet out of the way, and simply mounted her like an old pal.

  As he settled into the saddle between her strong brown thighs, he noticed that, like many Indian women, she was hairless down there. That wasn’t the only pleasant contrast he felt as he entered her. She gasped and said, “Oh, you are so muy toro!
But why do you say I am on? It is you who is on me, no?” He didn’t answer. He was busy. As she started to move with strong, natural thrusts of her childlike pubis, she sighed and said he was the biggest man she’d ever had in there. He believed her. She was tighter than hell, and most Indian or part-Indian men in this part of Mexico were hung sort of small, God bless them. He could tell she was part Maya. He’d had Mayan girls before. If the Mayan Empire had crumbled because of a low birth rate, as some said, it had obviously been the fault of the men. Their women were hot as hell.

  She seemed willing, but she refused to be kissed as he made love to heir. So, he didn’t suggest anything acrobatic. There was no need to. Veronica was just a sweet, old-fashioned lay. So, he layed her until she’d come twice to his once. Then they just lay there contented in each other’s arms. It felt good to be with a plain, uncomplicated peon woman again.

  They made love one more time before she fell asleep in his arms. He gently slid out of the bed and hauled his pants back on. Not because he wanted to rejoin the orgy in his own quarters. He didn’t think he could get it up again. He went back topside because the schooner was really starting to fight her anchor now. The surf was getting rougher by the minute.

  He found Gaston and half the crew on deck. The wind was from the west and rising. He nodded at Gaston and said, “Great minds run in the same channels, eh?”

  “Merde alors, this channel is not a place to ride out a hurricane! We have to abandon our cable tap and get some deep water under our keel!”

  Captain Gringo nodded but said, “Yes and no. We can unreel our tap wire as we go ashore.

  “Sacre bleu, we are going ashore?”

  Some of us have to, Gaston. If we set up our listening post over on the north key, the guys aboard can take Nombre Nada out to sea to ride out the storm, then come back to pick us up when it’s over.”

  “North key? Don’t you mean the south key, where we picked up the Mexicans? That key to the north is even more barren, Dick!”