Renegade 25

by Lou Cameron

  Forsythe warned, “They could be wreckers or worse, Mon. If that island ain’t on the map, we know they ain’t paying taxes to no government!”

  “Hell, would you pay taxes to anybody if you didn’t have to? Run up to the bows and tell Gaston not to fire that forward Maxim unless he hears me popping off back there. I like to keep things friendly if I can.”

  The people on shore apparently had the same idea as the Peirene putted in, dead slow, making for the timber wharf running out from the gravel beach. A couple of locals grabbed the lines the Greek crewmen cast them, and when the schooner snubbed its bumpers against the wharf a portly man in a white linen suit and a panama hat called out, “Welcome, amigos! I am called Don Diego Montez. May I ask who you are, and to what I owe the honor of this visit to my humble plantation?”

  Captain Gringo muttered, “Everyone else had better stay aboard until Gaston and I check him out. If he eats us, back off, shooting.”

  Don Diego didn’t seem that hungry when Captain Gringo went forward to gather Gaston on the fly and leap to the wharf. As he shook hands with the heavyset Spanish bianco, Captain Gringo explained that they were sponge fishermen, looking for sponge, of course. Don Diego smiled as if he believed them and said, “You are welcome to fish all you like off my island, señores. But I shall be most surprised if you encounter any sponges. My rocky domain stands with its roots in deep rough water, most of the time. The seas are quiet tonight, but even so, your divers will find the currents most treacherous and the rocks below most bare.”

  “We, ah noticed the surf on the weather side, Don Diego. Tell us, has anyone else been diving in these waters lately?”

  “Not that I have noticed, señores. As you just discovered, this is the only harbor on my island. So anyone else interested in it would have put in here, no?”

  “You’d know best, Don Diego. No offense, but I can’t help noticing you keep referring to this as your island. How do you go about buying an island that’s not on any map?”

  Don Diego smiled, put a finger to a flabby cheek to pull his lower lid down in the Latin sigh for hanky-panky, and explained, “Squatter’s rights. Honduras may claim the Bahías they have on the map, even if they don’t govern them much. But I see no need to bother them with petty details, eh? They leave me alone and I leave them alone. But why are we standing here discussing it? Come up to my house, all of you. We shall try to make you welcome, and your friends aboard that, forgive me, smelly boat, would no doubt enjoy stretching their legs on land again.”

  Captain Gringo smiled thinly and said, “They’re just fine where they are, for now, Don Diego.”

  The Spaniard looked hurt and made a sweeping gesture around at the handful of peones in view as he said, “I see no reason for you to act so suspicious, Señor… ah?”

  “Walker. This is Señor Verrier. We mean no offense either, but, forgive me, how come you’re so trusting? For all you know, we could be pirates, right?”

  Don Diego laughed and said, “True, things are not always what they seem, although I must say your disguise is ingenious, if you are pirates instead of spongers. Let us lay your suspicions to rest at once. Come, I shall be only too happy to show you around, and, as you shall see, there is not much here to be suspicious of.”

  He did, and he was right, in a way. The Montez plantation was modest in size albeit a bit luxurious for the acreage he, or rather his workers, had cleared. It was hard to tell by moonlight -what they were growing here. But when asked, Don Diego made no bones about its being opium, adding, “Opium is still legal in all but a few fussy countries, as you know. But since it is a luxury crop, the export duties on opium can be so unreasonable on the mainland. Let us go into the house and have some cold cerveza, no?”

  They did. The main house was wired for electricity, and the beer a frightened-looking Black Carib girl in a Mother Hubbard served them was ice cold. As they sat on the veranda swigging it, Don Diego explained that he made his own ice, adding, “If you listen carefully, you will hear a dull roar in the distance. That is my internal-combustion generating plant. I’d have it even further from the house if it were not for unreasonable neighbors. But it’s not too noisy to bear from here.” Gaston said it must have cost him a bundle. Captain Gringo asked about the neighbors. Don Diego said he could afford the luxuries of life, thanks to the current opium market, and dismissed his neighbors as “ignorant savages of the Black Carib variety.”

  Captain Gringo whistled softly and asked, “Doesn’t it make you sort of nervous, squatting on the same small island with Black Caribs?”

  Don Diego shrugged and said, “Not really. My guards have instructions to shoot the beasts on sight. So they stay well back in the trees with the other monkeys.”

  The same girl came out to refill their beer steins when the Spaniard rang for her. Captain Gringo waited until she’d left before he asked wryly, “What about her? Catch her young?”

  Don Diego nodded and said, “It’s impossible to tame them otherwise. I have, let’s see, thirty or so domesticated natives now. All captured as children, of course. You catch them the way you catch any other apes. You shoot the mother and grab the infant before it can get away. Once they get used to sugar, salt, and, ah, discipline, they’re not bad workers. Naturally, most of my peones are mestizos from the mainland.”

  Gaston started to ask if he’d gotten them by shooting their mothers. But Captain Gringo kicked his ankle to shut him up, put down his empty beer stein, and said, “It’s sure been interesting talking to you, Don Diego. But we’d better get back to the schooner.”

  “Not just yet, Captain Gringo,” said Don Diego flatly.

  It got very quiet for a moment. Then Captain Gringo smiled crookedly and said, “Okay, I see you get newspapers from the mainland out here as well. But if you know who I really am, you didn’t really mean I couldn’t leave, did you?”

  It was Gaston’s turn to kick Captain Gringo’s booted ankle as he muttered, “Dick, behind you, Winchester.”

  Captain Gringo said, “Yeah, there’s a bozo covering you from the shadows at the far end of the veranda, too. But I’m sure our host is a reasonable man who wants to go on living. Ain’t that right, Host?”

  Don Diego said, “Don’t be hasty, señores. I am not after the modest rewards posted on your heads. I am already very rich. I pay well, too.”

  “We’re listening.”

  “I have been open with you. So you know my troubles as well as I know yours, señores. The Black Caribs we were just discussing have the odd notion this is their island instead of mine. Can you believe it?”

  “Easy. Some of our Indians back in the States held similar views until just recently. But do we look like the Seventh Cav?”

  Don Diego chuckled fondly and said, “You look like what you are, a couple of killers for hire, and I need some annoying natives killed. You will do this little favor for me, no?”

  Gaston asked, “For how much?”

  The Spaniard shrugged and said, “Oh, I suppose ten dollars a head, U.S., would be fair, no?”

  Captain Gringo growled, “You don’t put too high a value on human heads, Pal.”

  Don Diego sniffed and said, “We are not talking about human heads. Black Caribs are wild animals. My offer is, not as cheap as you seem to feel it is. I estimate you’d clear at least a few thousand dollars, even at ten dollars a head, if you did a thorough job. I want them all wiped out, you see. The creatures breed like flies, and unless one eliminates a whole tribe—”

  “Yeah, that’s what they told us about Apache,” Captain Gringo cut in, adding, “They were right. But how come you and your own gunmen need outside help if you’re so brave, Don Diego?”

  “Did I say I was brave? I am an opium planter, not a professional hunter, and my guards have enough to do here, keeping the workers in line. I knew as soon as I recognized you that you were just what the doctor ordered to rid us of red fleas. Please say you will do it, Captain Gringo. I would much rather be your friend than your enemy.
”

  The two soldiers of fortune looked at each other. Neither had to say anything to know what the other was thinking. This murderous fat slob was obviously a born egomaniac who’d been smoking his own crops a lot!

  Cautiously, Captain Gringo said, “Well, we’d need the machine guns we have aboard the schooner, of course.”

  Don Diego pouted his lower lip and said, “I don’t think so. You might change your minds if I allowed you to return to your friends before you dealt with my enemies.”

  That was a pretty safe assumption on Don Diego’s part. So Captain Gringo tried, “Look, we’re good, but not that good! How the hell are we supposed to take a whole tribe, on their own ground, with just a couple of six-shooters?”

  “Oh, I can let you have some Winchesters or, better yet, shotguns, with all the ammunition you can carry. My men have found shotguns best for close-range work in the jungle. The natives of course are only armed with machetes, poisoned arrows, and such. They usually run from gunfire. But there are just so many trees for them to hide behind out there …”

  Before either soldier of fortune could say what fun that sounded like, they all heard the distant sound of slapping lines, Greek curses, and a couple of gunshots. A moment later one of Don Diego’s guards ran up to them, shotgun in hand, to shout. “Those bastards aboard the schooner are leaving, My Patron!”

  Gaston muttered, “Eh bien, that’s what I’d have done by now.”

  Don Diego turned to them, smiling, and said, “I’m so sorry they did not choose to wait for you, Señores. But don’t worry. I’m sure there will be another vessel along by the time you wipe out the Black Caribs for us. Is it not grand that you now have no choice? It saves so much dickering.”

  Captain Gringo stood up, stretched, and said, “Yeah, we may as well get cracking. Come on, Gaston. Let’s go play cowboys and Indians.”

  Gaston didn’t argue. But as he rose to follow, Don Diego said, “Wait. Won’t you need the shotguns?” Captain Gringo growled, “Never mind. Right now I’m so pissed I could likely lick every cocksucker on this island bare-handed!”

  *

  Gaston waited until they were in the dark jungle, away from Don Diego and his thugs, before he asked, “Dick, why are we running around in the dark with -only two little pistols?”

  Captain Gringo said, “I was afraid if I stayed there another minute I’d go for the fat bastard’s throat, and he does have at least a dozen hired guns to back his crazy play. We don’t need guns. We need a map. I don’t think Venezis would rat on us completely. He got suspicious, thank God, and got his vessel and the others safely out to sea while he still could. If he means to pick us up at all, there’s only one place he’d put in. We passed what looked like a deep cove coming around the end of the island. It’s far enough from the plantation as well as sheltered just to the lee of this stupid rock.”

  “But is it sheltered from Black Caribs, and are we? Listen, Dick. Is that my pitty-patting heart I hear, or something even more passionate.”

  “Yeah, it’s a tom-tom all right. But look on the bright side. If the Black Caribs are beating it over that way, it should be reasonably safe to head this way. Let’s go. Pick ’em up and lay ’em down before they notice us trespassing through their woodlot.”

  It was a good idea, but it couldn’t be done. The Black Caribs waited until the two white men had made it a couple of miles from the plantation and sat down on a fallen log to rest and get their bearings. Then they moved in, from all sides, arrows nocked, and wearing neither a stitch of clothing nor any expressions on their dark faces in the moonlight. Gaston sighed and said, “Bonsoir. Could any of you direct us to the nearest good restaurant?”

  They couldn’t. They just pointed and gargled until the soldiers of fortune got the idea they had two choices. They could die right here and now or go with the Black Caribs and maybe die a little later.

  So they went with them. Neither commented when the natives failed to pat them down and find their shoulder-holstered guns, and, better yet, Gaston still had his dagger sheathed at the nape of his neck under his shirt.

  The scouts led them not toward the distant drumbeats but to a firelit clearing ringed with thatched huts. That part looked reasonable. Then Gaston glanced up at what the Black Caribs had mounted on poles above the huts and crossed himself, muttering, “Mon Dieu!” Captain Gringo said nothing as he gazed soberly up at the human heads, lots of human heads, sun dried or smoked. The hair and bone structure gave them away as the heads of white men. At least two dozen. It was small wonder Don Diego and his thugs stayed close to home at night!

  As the soldiers of fortune were marched in, people started popping out of the huts, smiling as if they’d just seen something yummy. The most impressive figure stood almost six feet in its naked, dark red hide. After that it got better. It was a dame, and not bad-looking if one admired necklaces of gleaming white bone. Her beads could have come from any critter. The thigh bone she was using as the handle of her rattle, mace, or whatever, had obviously come from a human leg.

  Gaston muttered, “All that’s missing is the cooking pot. When do we make our move, Dick?”

  The big Black Carib woman said, in perfect English, “Don’t be silly. Are you the ones who rescued that young girl of ours? You answer the description she gave of a tall blond leader.”

  Captain Gringo smiled and said, “I was afraid she hadn’t noticed. I’m Dick Walker. This is Gaston Verrier. Can we take it the kid made it home okay, Miss…?”

  “She did, and I am Fisi, obeah of this island. How did you get away from that monster, Montez?”

  “It’s nice to know our fans have been keeping track of us. I hope you won’t take this personal, Miss Fisi, but he sent us out to kill you guys. But I guess you know he’s like that, huh?”

  Fisi nodded grimly and said, “We know the animal all too well. We’d very much like to have his head up there with the others. But as you saw, we can’t get at him. Not with machetes and our bows and arrows. You must be tired. Come inside with me and we’ll discuss what we should do with you.”

  Captain Gringo didn’t argue. But when Gaston started to follow, Fisi pointed at the doorway of the hut next to hers and said, “Not you. Go in there and make yourself comfortable.” So Gaston went. He felt a lot better about it when, inside the other hut, he found himself with two giggling young naked ladies. But he said, “Merde alors, of all times to feel coy about removing one’s shirt!”

  In Fisi’s hut, Captain Gringo found himself alone with the lady chief, witch doctor, or whatever. As she sat cross-legged across the little central fire from him he tried not to stare. But it wasn’t easy, when a naked lady sat like that so close.

  He said, “You speak very good English, Fisi.”

  She shrugged and said, “So do you. I had no choice. I was kidnapped by blackbirders as a child and spent some time in Jamaica before I was able to get away. I wish I spoke Spanish. I have some things to say to Diego Montez if I ever get my hands on him. But I probably won’t. So what does it matter?”

  He asked, in a desperately casual tone, if the heads outside had once belonged to Don Diego’s hired guns. The obeah grimaced and said, “No. I wish they were. But they were just some shipwrecked sailors. My people killed them before I could find out much about them. None of them spoke English. Some begged for their lives in Spanish, of course. Don’t ever ask a Black Carib for anything in Spanish, Dick.”

  “I heard. But surely there can’t be many blackbirders bothering your people these days?”

  “What do you call Montez, a whitebirder? He’s stolen dozens of our children to grow his damned weeds. When his men spot one of us older natives they have orders to shoot on sight, and do. But we know all that. The question now is what’s to be done with you and your little friend.”

  “What do you usually do with white guests, Fisi? Never mind, it was a stupid question, I guess.”

  She smiled thinly and said, “Yes, but not many white men save our children and return
them to us unharmed. The girl said you didn’t even rape her. What’s the matter, white boy, don’t you like dark meat?”

  “Not that young. If you’d like to change your luck, why don’t we just put out the fire, Jamaica Gal?”

  She laughed and said, “You’re not afraid of me. I like that. Between my size and obeah powers, most of our own men are afraid of me. But let’s not be flirting with the dark stuff, White Stuff. Right now I have a constitutional crisis to solve. Under tribal law, your kind and mine are sworn enemies, see?”

  “Hell, I never declared war on you, Fisi.”

  “That doesn’t matter. We declared war on you, shortly after a crewman off the Santa Maria raped the first Carib girl. What you did to the black side of the family tree didn’t make us like you any better!”

  “Oh, bullshit; I’m a Connecticut Yankee, and I’ll be damned if I’ll do penance for any long-dead slave trauci, Fisi.”

  “Some of them aren’t so dead. But I can use that point in your favor, I guess. Tribal law also says that a friend of a Black Carib is a friend for life. So let’s get back to that castaway gal you befriended. You sure you weren’t even tempted to trifle with her?”

  “Sure I was tempted. She was pretty, stark naked, and tied up. I guess some of the others on board were tempted too. But, hell, she was just a frightened kid. What kind of a bastard would take advantage of a tied-up teenager?”

  She smiled softly and said, “Not the kind you seem to be. All right, you’ll stay here tonight where none of the others less understanding can get at you. Come morning we’ll take you to where your friends are waiting for you, anchored in a cove. They’ll be safe, too, unless they’re dumb enough to try to come ashore.”

  “Nobody’s that dumb, even if they don’t read drum talk. Are you sure they’re there, though?”

  “What did you think the drums were discussing, the weather? You want to go right to sleep or would you rather have some food and a woman first?”

  “I get a choice? I must say you folks are more hospitable than I’d been led to believe. But don’t put yourself to any bother. I’m not hungry.”