Renegade 19

by Lou Cameron

  Captain Gringo said, “No, we don’t. Your guide is lost. I’ll talk to you about that in a minute. Got to get some ammo.”

  “Whatever for? Have you seen or heard something, Walker?”

  “Not yet. I want a belt in the Maxim when and if I do! Hold your horseless carriages till Gaston gets down off that pole. Marlowe’s not the only guy around here who knows his way to Laguna Caratasca.”

  “Oh, I say! That does solve the problem! I’ll put him up in Marlowe’s White Steamer and—”

  “No, you won’t. Gaston and me are a team. Let me get the ammo. Then we’ll take the lead with Pat and Sylvia. As you move up the line, pass the word to light the headlights.”

  “Are you mad? What if someone spots our lights?”

  “I’ll be sitting above Sylvia with a loaded machine gun. Gaston only moves like a cat. He can’t really see in the dark.” He saw that wasn’t going down too well with the self-important Wallace, so he added soothingly, “Look, we’re clear of the town, and the cops don’t seem to be chasing us. They must have figured out how futile it is to chase horseless carriages on foot.”

  “Yes, but if they wired ahead—”

  “That’s why we’d better drive faster and have some idea what the front bumper’s aimed at. I know our headlights will be spotted by anyone setting up a roadblock. But so what? We want to see them, too! These steam cars are pretty quiet, but not that quiet. Guys crouched behind a log across the road would hear us coming and open up before we knew they were there in any case, see?”

  Wallace hesitated, then said, “Well, they say you know your business,” and moved on before Captain Gringo could think of a polite way to ask just who they might be.

  He was still thinking about that as he groped his way to the last vehicle, told the people in it what he wanted, and was handed a bulky square canister. He told the driver about the change in plans, adding, “Don’t turn on your headlights until you hear a beep from the head of the column. Do any of you guys have a gun?”

  One of the men in the back said he was holding a Winchester across his knees. Captain Gringo said, “Don’t hold it across your knees. Prop it over the back of your seat and keep your eyes to the rear. You guys are tail end. So anyone on our tail will nail you first if you don’t spot him first.”

  Having cheered them immensely, Captain Gringo returned to his own steam car to find Gaston already in the rear seat. He handed the ammo to the Frenchman and climbed in behind the two girls before he told Sylvia about the change in plans, adding, “It could get a little rough up at the head of this motorcade. Maybe you girls should ride with the major?”

  “Who would drive?” asked Sylvia, adding, “No. I’ve seen the way you drive.”

  Pat said, “The other vehicles are crowded. Aside from passengers, the gear we were supposed to have strapped to this steamer had to be tossed in the others willy-nilly when we left so suddenly.”

  There went the chance he wanted to consult with Gaston privately. He nodded and said, “Okay, switch on your headlights and see if we can move up between the bananas and the cars ahead.”

  Sylvia did no such thing. She climbed out again, walked around to the front of the Stanley, and lit the headlights with a match. As she got back in, he frowned and asked, “Isn’t there any way to dim those lights from behind the wheel?”

  “How? Only the electric cars have Edison bulb headlights. Ours run on carbide.”

  She fed steam and they lurched out of the ruts to bounce over the weeds until they’d passed Wallace’s and Marlowe’s steamers. As she stopped just ahead of the original lead vehicle, they saw why Marlowe had stopped. The road ahead forked at a thirty-degree angle. Sylvia stopped, too.

  Captain Gringo said, “Beep your beeper. I didn’t know it took so long to light up. Gaston?”

  Gaston waited till Sylvia squeezed the bulb of the horn mounted by her side before he said, “We take the fork to the left, m’mselle.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked, adding, “The road that way is almost overgrown with weeds, and besides, it leads inland. I thought we were trying to follow the coast line.”

  Gaston said, “We are. A very soggy coast line, m’mselle. The fork to the right is heavily traveled and doubtless leads to some plantation on one of the coves the Mosquito Coast is so tediously provided with. We want to go the shorter, hopefully drier way on the higher ground to the west.”

  Captain Gringo looked back, saw that the other four cars were lit up, and told Sylvia, “Take the left fork. He only lies about bugs and his sex life.” So Sylvia shrugged, fed steam, and followed the route Gaston had picked. The solid rubber wheels rolled more softly in the weed-filled ruts of the overgrown wagon trace. Captain Gringo didn’t have to suggest speeding up a bit. Sylvia knew what she was doing. He hauled the machine gun into his lap and began to field strip it by feel, putting the parts in the side pocket of his jacket as he made sure they were all there. The castor oil was going to stink him up like a skunk with an overprotective mother, but it couldn’t be helped, and while castor oil was an awful thing to make a kid swallow, it couldn’t be beat as a lubricant in humid heat. Lots of racing drivers used it in their red-hot engines since it burned off without leaving charred carbon on the metal. He checked the bore with a match when Sylvia slowed for a water-filled dip. The gun seemed in good shape. He adjusted the head spacing, since it had apparently been fired hot by the previous owner. There was no water in the jacket, of course. Captain Gringo didn’t water a Maxim unless he meant to fire long serious bursts, and there wasn’t that much ammo to spare, even with the extra rounds he’d asked for. He started putting the gun back together as he told Gaston they were in business, and asked the Frenchman to hand him the end of an ammo belt. Gaston did so, saying, “I find it trés curious about your M’sieur Marlowe getting lost back there, don’t you, Dick?”

  “What can I tell you? He must have needed the job. At least he can drive, even if he fibbed about knowing the way to Laguna Caratasca.”

  “Merde alors, even a beachcomber should have been able to read that fork in the road back there!”

  “So he’s not a good beachcomber. I read it the same way, and I’ve never been anywhere near the lagoon.”

  Pat turned brightly in her seat to say, “Oh, I understand why we went this way! If the pirates and everyone else no longer use this road, it accounts for the weeds, right?”

  One could see her profile under the veil now, with the glow ahead outlining her. Pat didn’t look as dumb as she sounded. She was sort of pretty in a pug-nosed way. Gaston said, “Bless you, my child. Stick with me and I’ll smother you in rhinestones. You have the makings of a beachcomber, but this wagon trace has not been completely abandoned for ten or more years. Unless wheels roll from time to time, what they so amusingly describe as weeds in these parts soon grow up to be trees.”

  Pat just frowned in concentration. Sylvia got it. She said, “Then we still may run into traffic on this effing road?”

  Captain Gringo said, “Not at night. Guys driving an ox cart of bananas to town like to have more light on the subject.” The headlights picked up something black and shiny slithering off the ruts ahead, so he added, “See what I mean?”

  “My God, was that a snake?”

  “Yeah, don’t ask me what kind. They come in all varieties down here and most of them hunt just after sundown. By midnight most of the snakes and people down here call it a night.”

  Gaston slapped the side of his face, swore, and said, “The mosquitoes don’t. I got the monster just as she was about to fly off to her nest with me. Could you drive a little faster, m’mselle? Dick and I are not wearing veils, and the night-flying bloodsuckers will get worse before they get better!”

  *

  Morning found the motorcade surrounded by what they hoped was uninhabited jungle. Mist hugged the ground between the mossy boles of glandular trees on either side. It was even mistier out on the silent sheet of water ahead. The weedy ruts they’d followed through the
night ended in the fetid mud of a riverbank. As Sylvia braked to a stop, she asked, “Is that the Rio Segovia, Gaston?”

  He said, “Oui, and I am feeling rather smug about it. I was beginning to wonder why we didn’t seem to be getting to it. As I said, it was a long time ago.”

  Captain Gringo started to ask how far north they’d come from Puerto Cabezas. Then he remembered that the border was sixty miles as the crow flies. They hadn’t been riding crows. The goddamn road had twisted all over as it followed the high ground. But he had to admit they’d never have made such good time on foot, or even mounted. Anyone chasing them was out of the race. Assuming, of course, they kept moving. Unless steam cars floated, that was going to be a problem.

  He turned to Gaston and asked, “Okay, you’re the world traveler. How does one find a ferry boat around here on such short notice?”

  Gaston said, “You don’t need one. The Segovia is shallow enough to ford here. Why else did you think the trail led here?” The American studied the wide sheet of sluggish tea-colored water as Sylvia asked how deep it was. Gaston said, “It comes up to one’s chest as one wades across, crocodiles permitting.”

  Captain Gringo had been afraid he’d say something like that. The tops of the steam cars would make it. Their low-slung fire boxes wouldn’t.

  The others of course had also stopped. Major Wallace came forward with the shame-faced Marlowe. Wallace said, “I say, you told me there was a bridge, Marlowe!”

  Marlowe looked down and muttered, “I told you last night this wasn’t the trail I remembered. I came down the coast by another.”

  Wallace grimaced and turned to Captain Gringo to observe, “At least there seems to be no military outpost guarding the border, eh what?”

  Captain Gringo repressed a snort of disgust and said, “I admire a man who thinks ahead. I could have told you there’d be no border guards. You only guard roads crossing your border when they lead someplace. According to Gaston here, there’s no road up the coast beyond the lagoon country. So if Nicaragua’s worried about being invaded by Honduras, or vice versa, this ain’t the way either army would come. Smugglers always buy off the cops at both ends, so why bother about that either, see?” He turned to Gaston and said, “You and I had better scout the far side while the major here builds a lot of nice rafts. The sound of falling timber carries and we wouldn’t want to be ambushed in the middle of a river, would we?”

  Wallace asked, “Rafts?” Then, since nobody could really be that stupid, he added, “Oh, right, I’ll have the chaps break out some saws and axes from the supplies.”

  Sylvia had been thinking. She said, “Wait a mo’, you lot. Gaston says the water’s only up to his chest. If I stand behind the wheel I won’t even get my Aunt Fanny Adams wet.”

  Captain Gringo said, “You’ll drown your fire, though.”

  She nodded and said, “I know. Not to worry. If we turn up the flames with the throttles shut and build up pressure till the safety valves are ready to pop, we can make it across with the fires out before the steam’s all gone!”

  Wallace laughed and said, “I say, the lass is on to something there! The river’s not that wide. But tell me, Sylvia, won’t we have to dry our burners a bit after drowning the poor things in that mucky brew?”

  She shrugged and said, “We will. But meanwhile we’ll be on the other side.”

  Captain Gringo climbed down, picked up the machine gun, and said, “You kiddies work it out. Meanwhile, we’ll make sure there’s nothing else to worry about on the far side. Gaston, grab the end of this belt. I don’t want to get the canvas wet.”

  Gaston sighed and followed, holding the end of the ammo belt as he told Wallace, “Wait for our signal before you do anything grotesque. If you get no signal, forget about crossing. You children don’t really wish to meet anything that can take the two of us out!”

  Captain Gringo was already wading into the river, so Gaston had no choice but to follow, holding the ammo belt taut at shoulder height. Captain Gringo rested the Maxim on one shoulder to draw his .38 with the other hand as the bouillon-warm water rose around his thighs. Gaston murmured, “About those crocodiles I mentioned, Dick …”

  But the taller American said, “Screw the crocodiles. There’s nothing we can do about them. Keep your eyes on those fucking trees on the far shore. If you were out to ambush a motorcade you knew was coming your way, could you come up with a better place?”

  “As a matter of fact, there are endless opportunities for ambush between here and the old pirate camp. But your point is well taken. Where did you suppose that telegraph wire I cut last night led to, Dick?”

  “Not this way. I’ve been watching for wires.”

  The water rose higher until Gaston was in to the nipples and Captain Gringo was wet to the floating ribs. Then the slick muddy bottom started getting shallower again. They pressed on and floundered up the far bank. Said bank was low. The problem was the road beyond. There didn’t seem to be any. Captain Gringo found a fallen log to brace the Maxim across as he growled, “Now I see why nobody was waiting for us on this side. Where’s the fucking trail, Gaston?”

  Gaston dropped the end of the ammo belt on the reasonably dry leaves as he looked around to get his bearings. Then he nodded and said, “Ah, there she is, the poor thing. As I observed last night just before the mosquitoes consumed me, when one does not use a jungle trail, it tries to heal itself. Those gumbo limbos are of recent vintage, Dick.”

  Captain Gringo spotted the ruts leading through the skinny saplings Gaston meant. Some of the young trees grew right in the ruts. He grunted and said, “Okay, when the Royal Navy cleans out a pirate cove it stays cleaned out. I’ll cover the landward approaches with the Maxim just in case while you wave them on across. Okay?”

  “Are you serious? You and I could doubtless follow the overgrown trail on foot, if we had machetes, but …”

  “Wave them over, dammit! You don’t need machetes if you’ve got a steel bumper and plenty of power. It’s broad daylight and Sylvia’s good at following ruts, so what the hell.” He moved back to the machine gun, muttering about having to do all the thinking around here. That was something to think about as he crouched down and fed a round into the chamber, pocketing the unfired round he’d spent to check the action again. There was something fishy as hell about the people they were traveling with these days.

  He was having enough trouble buying the yam about buried treasure. The coastal pirates who’d hung on long after the golden days of guys like Morgan and Rogers had been little more than half-breed scum, putting out to sea in sailing caribs to attack small coastal schooners. People with serious cargoes sent them by steamer these days. Nobody could board a steamship from a low-slung native craft. So how much treasure could the desperate riffraff have collected before the Royal Navy dealt with them as a general nuisance?

  And even if Wallace and the others believed in pirate treasure, why were they going about recovering it in such a wrong-headed way? The steam cars and other expensive gear meant money, lots of money, behind this dumb operation. So why was it so dumb? Who’d ever heard of taking dames and other halfwits along if, as Wallace suspected, there could be an opposing team up at Laguna Caratasca.

  The way most knock-around guys would have done it would have been a lot less complicated. He knew if it had been up to him, and he’d thought there was any point in going, he’d load up a lot of guns and hardcase guys aboard a power launch and just steam in the easy way. If there was an outfit strong enough to hold that big lagoon against a well-armed waterborne gang of pros, he wouldn’t go.

  He heard splashing. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Sylvia driving across, standing like a chariotress behind the wheel as she made like a steamboat with her steam car. He turned back to watch the trees. He’d worry about treachery from those quarters later. Whatever the weird Brits were up to, turning him and Gaston in for the rewards couldn’t be it.

  You don’t drag wanted men across borders into uninhabited count
ry to turn them in to the cops. Sylvia had spotted him at the hotel before he’d known who she was. So far, everything that she’d said was going to happen, had. He’d worry about her lying to him when he caught her in a lie. So far, she and her chums had just been acting terribly odd. Maybe the trouble Yanks had telling Brits a joke cut two ways. He sure didn’t get the point of this joke, but he didn’t see what else to call it!

  Sylvia didn’t think it was funny when she churned up the bank arid saw Gaston waving her into the solid-looking wall of gumbo limbo, but she caught on fast and plowed into them, following the ruts by feel as Pat screamed and saplings went down like wheat, with the Stanley’s bumper acting as the scythe. Sylvia drove a good fifty yards into the new growth before her pressure gave out and she had to stop.

  The others came over in good order, save for Marlowe, who managed to stall in mid-stream. Major Wallace walked over to Captain Gringo, cursing, as the last car in the motorcade hissed to a soggy stop nearby. Wallace said, “Look at the perishing sod! He’s waving at us like a ruddy shipwrecked sailor on a raft!”

  Captain Gringo got to his feet, saying, “There doesn’t seem to be anything to worry about over here. Keep your eyes skinned anyway. Mosquito Indian kids are liable to put an arrow into anything they stumble over just for the hell of it. I take it we’ve lost that White Steamer?”

  “Not bloody likely. We can winch it out as soon as my firebox is dry. I had my steam car fitted with a winch geared to its engine, with just such emergencies in mind.”

  “Yeah, I can see you thought of everything. You sure picked a swell guide, Major.”

  “He picked me, actually. As you know, we tried to recruit you or some chaps like you when we first arrived. You weren’t in San José and we had no luck finding anyone else with your reputation. Marlowe approached us and said he heard we were mounting an expedition, so …”

  “Gotcha. If you can’t hire a pro, find a guy who needs drinking money. He got lost before we were barely clear of town last night. He’s full of shit about having taken another road the last time. Gaston says this is the only one, and Gaston was making a living knowing things like that before you and I were born.”