by Lou Cameron
“A thousand extra? My, aren’t we greedy? I told you I’d give you poor Miguelito’s finder’s fee.”
“That goes to some Mexicans I rescued from Miguelito. He stripped them of their few belongings. Greystoke can pay off the Brits. He may pay us off, and then, again, you know Greystoke. Gaston and I get a grand, U.S.”
Hakim didn’t answer as his cash-register eyes went click click click. Captain Gringo took out Phoebe’s short hand notes and said, “You get these, too. I told you the cable’s gone dead. These are messages we intercepted. I’d say they were worth a grand, to a businessman.”
“What do they say?”
“Beats me. They’re probably in code. We haven’t decoded them.”
“I have your word on that?”
“You do. None of us have any idea who laid that cable or what the messages we intercepted really meant. If I give these notes to you, we’ll never know. We can’t decode them if you have them, right?”
Strictly speaking, all this was true. He saw no reason to tell the sonofabitch that Flora still had her notebook transcribed into longhand, and seven or eight times more complete, nor that the discarded shorthand scraps contained nothing about John Brown Limited.
Hakim reached in his jacket, took out a huge wad of bank notes, and peeled off a thousand dollars. He held them out to Captain Gringo and said, “Agreed.”
So Captain Gringo gave him Phoebe’s notes and asked, “When do we leave?”
*
The tiny port of Vigia Chico, Quintana Roo Territory, was exactly as the Merchant of Death had promised. Nothing much. Hakim’s steam launch deposited them on the quay after sunset and headed back with no further ceremony. The populace was of course wide-awake and would be so until at least 3:00 a.m. So, the few streetlights were burning, the waterfront fondas and cantinas were open for business, and business looked slow.
As the castaways sat on their piled belongings, pondering their next move, a delegation headed by the alcalde and a local padre approached them cautiously. The alcalde removed his sombrero and said, “Welcome, good people. I hope you have been sent by the central government. It is many days since we sent runners through the jungle to get help. We were afraid they had not gotten through.”
Captain Gringo kept his face blank as he replied, “Really? Who might have stopped them and why were they running?”
“El señor does not know about Bocanegro and his army?”
“No. Tell me about them.”
The alcalde looked confused and crestfallen. The padre said, “Bocanegro calls himself a generate. He says he has risen against Diaz to liberate us. He says he has freed us from Mexico forever. In God’s truth, that would not be such a bad idea. But Bocanegro is no liberator. He is a ladrón!”
“There’s a lot of that going around in Mexico, padre.”
“Alas, that is true. But Bocanegro is here, and those other ladrónes in the city of Mexico are so far away they seldom bother us. Bocanegro makes us pay tribute to him. Impossible tribute. Not even the Spanish in the old days took everything from their subjects. We are peaceful villagers, señor. We have tried to meet Bocanegro’s demands. But no matter how much we give him, he always asks for more. Now we have nothing left to give him. He even has the silver from my poor church. We are desperate. That is why we sent runners for help. Even los rurales would be an improvement over Bocanegro and his ruffians.”
Captain Gringo glanced at Gaston, who said, “Oui, it is an old familiar tale. Are there no local rurales, padre?”
“There used to be some police here. Bocanegro’s men shot them all. Some they killed in battle. Those who surrendered were shot against a wall, and we were forced to bury them. We have no guns. We have nobody to defend us. Bocanegro has given us twelve hours to raise another tax payment. That is what he calls the money he takes from us—tax payments. He says if we do not have mucho dinero for him by dawn, he intends to make an example of us. He made an example of a village up the railroad tracks a week ago. The men were killed, the women were ravaged and then killed. They even shot the dogs and pigs. Then they burned the village to the ground.”
Captain Gringo said, “Sweet guys. Do you know where your liberator hides out between raids, padre?”
“Hides out? He does not hide out, senor. Bocanegro holds court on a plantation he seized in the interior. He and his ladrónes have seized the railroad trains as well. They move muy pronto up and down the line, collecting tribute and selecting pretty women from those who do not oppose them, and butchering anyone who does.”
Gaston switched to English as he murmured, “Take it easy, Dick. I know that look in your eye. But it’s not our fight. We came here to get a boat to Belize, remember?”
Captain Gringo nodded, glancing down the quay at the few masts in sight.
Then Tio Pepe stood up and said, “By the breasts of the Virgin, I am with you, countrymen! We have guns and explosives. This big Yanqui is the famous Captain Gringo! Viva Mexico! Let Bocanegro come! We shall show him how men should fight!”
Another Mexican in the crowd from town gasped and said, “I have heard of the great Captain Gringo! He is said to fight for the pobrecitos! We are saved!”
Someone else yelled, “Viva Captain Gringo! Show us how to fight, and our grandchildren will sing songs about you!”
Captain Gringo muttered, “Oh, shit,” and Gaston said, “Let it go, Dick. Sacre God damn, not only is it not our problem, but if those runners got through federate troops should be arriving any minute, and I promise you they won’t sing your praises!”
Bubbly blond Phoebe said, “Gee, we can’t just leave these poor people at the mercy of bandits. It wouldn’t be British!” and Flora nodded in agreement.
But swishy Chadwick stamped his foot and snapped, “Nonsense! We’ve no orders to muck about in Mexican affairs!”
That did it.
Captain Gringo sighed and climbed up on the dynamite box so everyone could hear as he announced, “All right. The first thing everyone has to understand is that if I take command, I don’t mess around. When I yell froggy, I expect everyone to hop! If we screw up, Bocanegro will give you just what screw-ups deserve. Anyone who disobeys a direct order from me or the leaders I appoint won’t die against a wall. He’ll die on the spot. If this is getting too rich for anyone’s blood, he’d better speak up now or forever hold his peace. If I lead you, I lead you right. If you can’t accept me as absolute boss, we’ll just be on our way and say no more about it!”
He waited until they shouted a lot among themselves. Then the alcalde held up his hand for silence and said, “We are with you to a man, Captain Gringo. What are your first orders?”
*
Generale Bocanegro was feeling good as he rode toward Vigia Chica in the cool morning trades aboard the last flatcar of his six-car train. He was relaxed and rested after plenty of sleep between two frightened peon girls who’d done to the letter everything he’d demanded. A hero needed to reserve his strength, so it didn’t matter if a recently widowed pretty woman and her virgin daughter wept as they serviced one, just so they did all the work. Bocanegro had eaten a good breakfast, prepared by another weeping woman, whom he hadn’t gotten around to ravaging yet. He relaxed in the gilt chair looted from a wealthy planter as he smoked a Havana Perfecto and admired the shine on his booted toes. It was surprising how well a proud hidalgo planter could shine boots with a gun pointed at him, no?
Bocanegro was a big man for this part of Mexico. He couldn’t read or write. His mother had been a waterfront whore and his father had been some sailor passing through. But Bocanegro didn’t worry about being an ignorant bastard. He’d learned as a boy that when you hit people who are smaller than you, they tended to cry and let you have your way. By the time he’d killed his first man at the age of eleven, Bocanegro had learned that it’s even easier to bully people if one has a weapon in one’s hands.
The followers riding the train with him were men of similar background and views. There were close to a
hundred of them in Bocanegro’s strike force. Their adelitas and other women captured along the way had been left behind at headquarters. Bocanegro considered himself a military genius who did things right. He was ‘ looking forward to the coming fray. He knew the people in the little seaport had no way of meeting his tribute demands. He’d already squeezed the lemon dry. Now he meant to chew up the rind. There would still be a little loot and many pretty girls to be taken. But, mostly, it would be fun. Men who didn’t have the balls to butcher human beings just didn’t know the sport they were missing. What was a hunt or a bull fight to a man who’d seen human blood spill, eh?
A burly lieutenant made his way back to Bocanegro, saluted, and said, “We are almost there, my generale. Do you wish to take command up front?”
Bocanegro took a drag on his fine smoke and said, “It is not important. I do not wish to get locomotive soot on my new linen shirt. You know the plan, Hernan. When we pull into the dockside terminal, you muchachos fan out and cover everyone. I will be facing the main plaza as I stand on this flatcar. Naturally, the pobrecitos will approach hat in hand to tell me they have no presents for us. Naturally, I will be very cross with than. I shall shoot the alcalde and the priest, as usual. That will be the signal for a general slaughter. Make sure you don’t shoot any of the better looking women if it can be avoided, eh?”
Hernan nodded, saluted again, and made his way forward. He didn’t relay any messages to the armed desperados he passed aboard the other cars. They all knew what to do.
Hernan climbed over the wood-filled tender and joined the outlaws driving the engine. They were already slowing down. The outskirts of Vigia Chico were just ahead. But what was this? A big tree was down across the tracks!
The man at the throttle swore and said, “That storm must have uprooted that old bastard, dammit!”
As the engineer hit the brakes, Hernan leaned out the side, frowning. If those stupid peasants thought they could save themselves by placing a barricade across the tracks, they were really going to get it now!
Hernan said, “Look! That tree never fell. It was chopped down! Stop while we settle accounts with the bastards!”
The locomotive ground to a halt, its cowcatcher fifty feet from die tree across the tracks. But Hernan didn’t get to settle much. Captain Gringo opened up with his Maxim from behind said tree, raking the train with hot lead as others with him opened up with small arms!
Hernan gasped and said, “Throw her in reverse!” just before a slug blew him off the ride of the locomotive, screaming, gut shot. Another machine-gun round smashed into the engineer’s forehead, spattering the fireman with blood and brains. The fireman reversed the gears and opened the throttle wide. Then a bullet went in one ear and out the other, leaving nobody at the controls as the ladrón train backed off, picking up speed with every thrust of its drivers.
Aboard, all was chaos. Men lay dead and dying aboard all six flatcars. Others hugged the deck, gibbering with fear. One of them was Bocanegro. What had gone wrong? What could have gone wrong? That had been a machine gun back there! Had federates been sent to clean him out?
Bocanegro gingerly raised his head as the train moved backward faster and the sounds of gunfire faded away in the distance. From the spacing of those last shots, Bocanegro knew someone was picking off the few men on his side who’d jumped or fallen from the train back there. That was not his problem. His problem was to save himself and the hell with everyone else!
He began to recover his poise as he considered his options. Things could be worse. No matter how many federate troops had landed, they could hardly have a railroad train. This one was making good time. It was going much faster than any mounted federate could possibly hope to ride. So, he’d have a couple of hours on them when he got back to his own headquarters.
After that, of course, he and his muchachos could simply rid themselves of their prisoners, load up the mules, and escape back into the lowland countryside, which they knew so much better than did those sissies from Mexico City.
He rose and surveyed the passing scenery with one hand in his shirt like Napoleon. He knew where he was and felt he had control of his destiny once more. They were backing toward a trestle over a barranca cut by running water through the limestone. When they crossed it, they would stop and destroy the bridge behind them. The natural moat was infested with alligators. Maneaters. Bocanegro had tested this by tossing a screaming captive girl down the barranca walls after she’d acted silly about a little fun.
But where was Hernan? The damned train was going too fast. The outlaw leader kicked a man sprawled at his feet and said, “Go tell them in the engine that I wish to stop on the other side of the bridge.”
“Por favor, Bocanegro. I am wounded.”
“I spit in your wounds and your mother’s milk! Do as I say, you whimpering cur!”
The wounded man drew himself to his hands and knees, sobbing and started to crawl. Bocanegro watched the track ahead. He swore. They were coming to the trestle and moving fast. Perhaps he should reconsider?
Bocanegro shrugged. At this rate they would be back at headquarters in a few minutes. So screw it. By the time los federates crossed the trestle, he and his men would be long gone, leaving nothing behind but a burning plantation and dead bodies to bury.
The train rolled out across the trestle. As it got to the middle, Gaston pushed the plunger to detonate the dynamite he and his guides had spent a good part of the night placing under the timber trestle. The dynamite went off with a thunderous roar, lifting trestle and train and then dropping the wreckage and screaming ladrónes into the sluggish deep waters below!
Some of the ladrónes were killed outright by the explosion. Others died as timbers or rolling stock crushed them like beetles against the muddy bottom of the barranca. Others, stunned, lived a few moments longer. One of them was Bocanegro himself. As the murderous bully fought his way to the surface, ears ringing and coughing muddy water from his windpipe, he glanced wildly around, saw little but blue smoke and utter chaos, and started swimming as bullets spanged the water all around. Tio Pepe, up on the bank, spotted Bocanegro and raised his rifle. Gaston stopped him, saying, “Merde alors, don’t be so hasty. It’s not as if you owed the chameau a favor, hein?”
“But, Señor Gaston, what if he gets away?”
“He won’t. Regard what is swimming to meet him.”
Bocanegro saw the alligator, too. He gibbered in terror and tried to get away by swimming to the sheer limestone wall and clambering up out of the water. But the limestone was slimy and offered no handholds. Bocanegro was still clawing at it, tearing his fingernails out by the roots, when the gator lazily opened its jaws and began to munch him for breakfast, a bite at a time.
Other gators were doing the same favors for other screaming ladrónes down there. “So,” Gaston said, “Let us go, my friends. This is no longer amusing. We have a long hike back to town, and our Captain Gringo will no doubt have something better for us to do than feeding animals, hein?”
One of the Mexicans from town laughed and said, “I’d say we fed the animals very nicely, thanks to you and Captain Gringo. God knows how we’ll ever thank you.” Gaston said, “Don’t worry. We’ll think of something.”
*
Naturally, the reward Captain Gringo expected from the people of Vigia Chica was safe passage south for all but his Mexican friends, Tio Pepe and his girls. Veronica said she wanted to go with him to be his adelita forever. But he told her not to be silly.
The alcalde and his friends agreed to furnish the party a seaworthy vessel and added that they saw no reason to concern their central government with certain details. But the seaworthy part was a little tricky.
There were a few beat-up fishing boats left Most of the townsmen who’d had decent vessels had loaded aboard their kith and kin and lit out for safer parts when Bocanegro and his thugs first appeared in the neighborhood. Captain Gringo and Gaston inspected what was left. What was left was awful. They were over two hundred
sea miles from Belize, and most of that would be open-sea miles. If they stayed much longer, they could be in even more trouble. So, Captain Gringo chose the biggest open trawler he could find and had it hauled out for repairs and refitting. The local ship’s carpenters, none of them builders, said they could probably finish the job in twelve hours if they got right to work. So, Captain Gringo asked them to get cracking and offered to pay for the pulque.
Inspired, they agreed to work through la siesta. They were grateful indeed. But as the sun rose higher, Captain Gringo and his companions had no reason to be fried alive. So, they adjourned to the nearest waterfront posada to siesta up.
Like most native inns, the posada offered spartan accommodations. Mexican peons were used to sleeping on floor mats. But the coral block walls were thick, and the small individual rooms were cool as well as pretty dark. The tiny windows were covered with jalousie shutters. Captain Gringo hung his duds on a wooden peg, tucked his gun rig between the floor mat and plastered wall, and lay down, nude, with smoking material and a jug of not bad Cerveza. He wasn’t too surprised when Flora and Phoebe joined him. But he saw they’d brought little Veronica along.
As all three of them proceed to shuck, Phoebe, who seemed to be the ring master, said, “We explained the rules to Veronica and she says it sounds like fun.”
He said, “Fun for who? I’m only one guy, gals! Are you sure you know what they’re talking about, Veronica?”
The little Mexican girl said, “Si. I would rather say adios to you all by myself. But Señorita Phoebe has been kind enough to explain your gringo customs.”
“I’ll bet she has. Where’s Gaston? I may need reinforcements.”
Veronica dropped naked to her knees beside him as she giggled and said, “Tia Maria and Tia Lolita are saying goodbye to him. Tia Juana told them he is muy toro and—”
“Right, it’s Tia Juana’s turn with Tio Pepe,” Captain Gringo cut in.
Veronica was closest, so he took her in his arms first. But as he kissed her, Flora tapped his naked back and said, “My turn, I believe.”
