Renegade 25

by Lou Cameron

  “All right. I’ll send you a woman.”

  “What’s the matter with the present company, Fisi?”

  She looked startled, would have blushed had she been able, and said, “Don’t joke with me, White Boy. I’m obeah as well as big and ugly. Aren’t you afraid of waking up witched?’’

  “What can I tell you? You may be tall, but you sure ain’t ugly, and if you turn me into a frog it’ll serve me right.”

  She laughed, proceeded to put out the fire with a big bare foot, and said, “I’ll turn you into worse than a frog if you’re just funning me!”

  She decided he wasn’t when he found her in the dark after shucking his duds and groping his way along the thatch to where she lay, stiffly expectant, on her sleeping mat. As he took her in his arms she sighed and asked, “Are you sure I’m not too big for you?”

  Then, when she felt what he was putting into her, she moaned and said, “Oh, I think you may be too big for me! But don’t you dare stop now! I told you, I’m not popular with many men and, oh, yessss! You sure do know how to make friends, Dick! That feels friendly as anything and, oh, faster, faster, I just love it!”

  It was nice to meet a lady so easy to please. So he hooked an elbow under each of her naked knees, lifted her long dark legs high and wide, and started hitting bottom with every stroke, which was a new and delightful experience to her, it would seem, from the way she sobbed with joy. He couldn’t tell if she was really as inexperienced as she let on. Women lied as bad as men in bed. But while her smooth moist vagina ran deep enough up into her muscular dark torso to take him as deep as he might want to go, she was as tight as that little native girl they’d saved could have been. So he was glad he’d behaved himself on the schooner, too. For this was reward for virtue indeed.

  After they’d climaxed together twice, she pleaded for mercy, so he dismounted for a smoke. By the light of the match flare Fisi stared up adoringly at him and whispered, “Oh, Dick, you’re so pretty.”

  He lit the claro and told her she was pretty, too, as he shook out the light. She snuggled closer, all six feet of her, and fished for more compliments by remarking on her size again. He said she was little enough where it mattered, and then, to change the subject, said, “You told me those Spanish-speaking guys your people killed were shipwrecked. Would that have been in the last big hurricane? I’ve a reason for asking.”

  She said, “Yes. They put in for shelter in a dumb place. The storm tides made what looked like an anchorage out of what’s usually a fresh-water pond not far from here. So when the water went down they were stuck.”

  “I get the picture. What did their vessel look like?”

  “Funny. Like that cigar you’re smoking, only made out of iron. It had a little cannon mounted on a post on its deck with a bigger gun turret or something behind it. I don’t know much about ships, Dick. On Jamaica they were trying to make a house nigger out of me. Till I ran off to the cockpit country where some free maroons sheltered me until I could steal a rowboat.”

  The idea of even a strong girl rowing all the way here from Jamaica sounded interesting as hell. But not as interesting as her description of the vessel stranded closer. He said, “Okay, they knew they couldn’t get out to sea again over the bar. So they came ashore, walked into an ambush, and, hold it. They’d surely have left a skeleton crew on board.”

  Fisi said, “I don’t know if they’re skeletons yet, but they sure smell awful from shore. Nobody can go out to look, of course. It’s obeah.”

  “What do you mean, something like taboo, Fisi?”

  “I don’t know what ‘taboo’ means. But ‘obeah’ means the wreck’s been witched. So nobody can board it now. Not even you.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of the story, Doll. Who put this curse on it, you?”

  “No. Can’t you feel I’m still alive, you loving man? It’s obeah because some men of my tribe did go aboard, to see if those dead Spaniards had left any guns they could use against Montez. But they never came back. They just climbed into that tall part and nobody ever saw them again. Obeah got them, see?”

  “Yeah, it would look like that from safe on shore. I don’t think they were killed by a curse, Fisi. It fits with that one Spaniard throwing himself in the sea to swim for it. He must have been one of the skeleton crew and, yeah, I’d want to get out of a gas-filled hull in a hurry, too!”

  She reached down to fondle him as she asked if he wasn’t ever going to finish that fool cigar and added, “Don’t worry about that obeah wreck, Lover Man. I’m not going to let you get anywhere near it now.”

  He laughed and said, “Hell, the gas must have cleared by now.”

  “What’s gas?” she asked. So he made the mistake of trying to explain it. No matter how he tried, her semi-educated and superstitious mind added it up the same way. Obeah was a mysterious, invisible force that could kill people. This chlorine gas the white folks knew how to make killed people. Ergo it was obeah, and she was just too fond of him to let it get him. So no matter what he said or did, and he even did it dog style before morning, Fisi flatly refused to tell him where the wrecked submarine was. It got worse. She said if anyone in her tribe told, she’d obeah them. So none of the other Black Caribs figured to tell him, even if he could find one to talk to!

  *

  Fisi was just as adamant in the cold gray light of dawn and, worse yet, was starting to cool off. Like him, she’d just been enjoying sex with a proper stranger, and the trouble with recreational sex was that it left everyone so damned clear-headed once it was over. When he pointed out it didn’t matter if the curse killed a white man just passing through, after all, Fisi said, “Don’t press your luck too far, Dick. My people understand my letting you and Gaston live because you helped that girl. They’d never understand if I lifted my own obeah. I told them anyone who boarded that wreck would die. Do you want to make a liar out of me?”

  “No. But if we don’t investigate that wreck, someone else is sure to, and they might not be as friendly.”

  She shrugged and said, “We’ll deal with them as we deal with other unfriendly strangers, Dick. Your guides are ready to lead you to the schooner. I won’t be going with you. Don’t look for the wreck on your own. My men have orders to kill you if you try to lose them in the jungle.”

  He said, “Wait. Maybe we can still make a deal. Wouldn’t it make you a pretty good witch if you could do something about those opium planters who’ve been bothering you?”

  “Of course. But they have so many guns.”

  “What do you think we have, fly swatters? Look, if you’ll show us where the Spanish submarine was trapped, we’ll take out Montez and his thugs. I’ll even throw in a skeleton suit and mask that ought to fit you just about right. Come on, Honey, don’t be so stubborn.”

  She thought, then said, “I can’t lift my own obeah before I prove I have even greater powers. First you kill everyone on the plantation. Then we’ll talk about the wreck.”

  “I don’t want to kill everybody on the plantation. Just the ones with guns, and you agree to spare the peones and captives, right?”

  “Well, we may be able to turn the captive children back into Black Caribs. All right, they can live.”

  “The innocent workers, too, or no deal. Agreed?”

  “You certainly drive a hard bargain.” She sighed. But then she giggled and said, “You drive lots of things hard. All right. You rid us of Montez and his guards and we won’t bother the others if they leave us alone.”

  “And then you show us the wreck and lift the obeah, right?”

  “I’ll show you the wreck. If the obeah kills you it won’t be my fault.”

  So they shook, kissed, and would have screwed on it if it hadn’t been getting so late.

  As Captain Gringo and Gaston left the village with their silent scouts a few minutes later, the Frenchman sighed and said, “Eh bien, I don’t know how you got us out of that, Dick. But forget all the bad things I’ve ever called you in the past. Mon Dieu, I neve
r want to spend a night like that again! Where were you when I needed you? I was wedged between two prick-teasing savages and it was all I could do not to weaken!”

  Captain Gringo laughed and said, “You can’t be serious! Are you saying you didn’t get any tail last night?”

  “Mais non. The trés sneaky girls tried to trick me into exposing my hidden weapons, and my glands seemed bent on getting us all killed, too. But you’d have been proud of me, Dick. I was and am a man of steel. Do we have to walk so fast? I still have a raging erection and these pants are tight.”

  Captain Gringo couldn’t slow down their non-English-speaking guides. But to spare Gaston further discomfort he refrained from telling him how he’d spent the night.

  Thanks to the size of the island and the pace set by the Black Caribs, it took less than an hour to reach the cove where the Peirene lay at anchor. Their guides deserted them with grunts, and when Captain Gringo hailed the schooner from the tree-covered shore Venezis sent a longboat in for them.

  After a few minutes of mutual congratulations on deck, Captain Gringo called a council of war in the ship’s mess to narrow the crowd down to the skipper, fellow passengers, and the adoring Antigone, who kept feeling him up on the sly every time she served another round of coffee.

  Leaving out the dirty parts, Captain Gringo brought everyone up to date on the deal Montez had offered and the even better deal he’d made with the natives. Keller asked suspiciously, “How do you know we can trust those cannibals, Walker?” and he replied, “They didn’t eat us, exactly, and we’d have never made it back here without their help.”

  Venezis frowned and asked, “You mean you didn’t see the flares we sent up for you last night?”

  Captain Gringo looked aghast and said, “Jesus, I hope I didn’t hear you right! How the hell were we supposed to see flares through forest canopy, and doesn’t anybody remember that other schooner tailing us? Who the hell had that bright idea?”

  They all looked sheepish. But it was Horgany, the Hungarian, who said, “I just happened to have a flare gun along with my other emergency gear in the hold. I was only trying to be helpful.”

  “Helpful to whom?” snapped Captain Gringo. Then, noting the hurt look on the Hungarian’s red face, he added, “Okay, you meant well. But don’t ever do that again.”

  He started to go on to explain about the deal he’d made with the Black Caribs. But another thought struck him and he said, “Wait a second. Did anyone but you know about that flare gun in the hold, Horgany?”

  The Hungarian looked puzzled. He didn’t seem to get it yet as he shrugged and replied, “It’s no secret what we’re carrying along on this expedition. Hakim himself provided most of our supplies and salvage gear. Why?”

  The Greek skipper caught on faster. He gasped. “Pantocrator! That must have been what someone was looking for down in the hold the other night, eh?”

  Captain Gringo said, “Could be. Lucky he or she didn’t get to the flares before we investigated. That other schooner would have been just over the horizon at the time!”

  Horgany looked horror-stricken and said, “Oh my God, what have I done?”

  Captain Gringo said, “Hopefully, nothing. We dodged that mystery ship pretty good and it’s probably nowhere near right now. But just in case, we’d better get moving. Here’s my plan.”

  *

  Captain Gringo didn’t think much of his plan, either. But it was the best he could come up with on such short notice. Gaston kept bitching that they should at least have waited until dark as the tall American led him and their picked crew through the jungle toward the plantation. But Captain Gringo told him just to pick ’em up and lay ’em down, adding, “We’ll probably get killed anyway. So why waste a whole day? If we finish off Montez and his thugs by noon, we’ll have all afternoon to examine that wreck, see?”

  Gaston asked to be excused for the rest of the day. Aside from Gaston, Captain Gringo had taken Fitzke, Olsen, Forsythe, and DuVal along. The two married men and the other machine gun had been left aboard the schooner for obvious reasons. Captain Gringo packed his Maxim without its tripod, and the water jacket was drained. It was still heavy, even with Gaston packing the ammo belts for him.

  Nobody was too cheered up about their chances when they stumbled over a couple of white corpses in the jungle, two-thirds of the way to the plantation. One lay bloody and spread-eagled on its back. The other lay face down on the soggy fallen leaves, or would have, had he still had a face. Both of their heads had been lopped off.

  Captain Gringo said, “They haven’t started to bloat yet. Looks like Montez sent them out looking for us. That was sure dumb.”

  Forsythe asked, “How come we’re out here surrounded by bad niggers if we’re so smart, Mon?” But Captain Gringo told him the white guys they were after were badder and led his combat patrol on as, somewhere in the distance, a tom-tom throbbed ominously.

  He led his followers within a quarter of a mile of the cleared plantation and left them with the machine gun while he and Gaston scouted the setup by daylight. The plantation wasn’t set up right, according to Gaston.

  As they peered out from the treeline, the Frenchman observed, “Merde alors. The field of fire is not bad, thanks to the plantation house and outbuildings being surrounded by open fields all around. But regard how the triple-titted gunmen of Don Diego are spread out, Dick!”

  Captain Gringo did. Don Diego was nowhere in sight. So they could assume he was in the house. Why work when one didn’t have to? The morning chores were being performed by scattered ragged mestizo or native work gangs, overseen by armed guards, just as spread out. Gaston said, “Even a machine gun has its limitations, Dick. You can no doubt drop about a quarter of them before the others have made it to cover. But after that, things get complicated, non?”

  “Non. I told you we’d get them to bunch up around the main house. Run back and tell Fitzke, Olsen, and DuVal to circle around to the generating plant as planned. Then get back here with Forsythe on the double.”

  Gaston slipped back into the jungle, leaving Captain Gringo with his lonely thoughts for a time. They were pissers. There were so many things that could go wrong that he tried not to think of them. But of course he did.

  Gaston returned with the big Jamaican and said, “Eh bien. Fitzke will fire one pistol shot and run like hell with the others as soon as they get away with it, if they get away with it.”

  Forsythe asked, “How come I couldn’t go along with them, Mon? I run pretty good, too.”

  Captain Gringo said, “I need you and your complexion here, no offense. You’d better move along the treeline, oh, a hundred yards. Then, when I open up, you pop out and wave those innocent workers your way. I sure don’t want ’em in my way, see?”

  Forsythe nodded and said, “Yeah, I can see how a white face might make ’em nervous. Jesus, they got a paleface overseer pointing a gun at every eight or ten workers. Wouldn’t it be just as cheap to pay the poor bitty bastards?”

  “Montez is a bigger bastard, and I don’t think many of them volunteered to grow his opium for him. You’d better get moving, Jamaica. That powerhouse on the far side isn’t that far.”

  Forsythe nodded and moved off through the trees. Meanwhile, the Swiss, Fitzke, spotted the plantation generating plant ahead and told Olsen and DuVal, “I don’t see anyone posted to guard it. But cover me anyway. I’m going in.”

  He did. The Swiss made it from the treeline to the corrugated metal powerhouse without incident. But as he opened the door a shotgun blast blew him backward, dead before he hit the ground!

  DuVal swore and fired his Winchester at the dim figure of the watchman inside the doorway. He said, “I think I hit him! But it’s no good now! Let’s get out of here!”

  But Olsen just growled and broke cover, leaping over Fitzke’s body and dashing inside as, on the other side of the clearing, Captain Gringo and Gaston looked at each other thoughtfully. Gaston said, “What kind of a signal do you call that? Wasn’t Fi
tzke supposed to fire his pistol?”

  “Yeah. That was no pistol. I made it a shotgun blast and a rifle shot. Hold the thought until we see what those guards out there make of it!”

  Work in the fields had stopped, but nobody was moving anywhere as they stared all around, uncertainly. Don Diego came out on his veranda, looked around himself, and then, when nothing else seemed to be happening, yelled at everyone to get back to work, before going back inside.

  Captain Gringo grinned and said, “I’ve heard of overconfidence, But that guy must really think he owns this island and all the guns on it! He probably thinks the guys he sent out in the jungle just met a girl or something.”

  “The gunmen not wearing their heads at the moment?”

  “Sure. Montez doesn’t know Fisi’s boys got the drop on ’em. I wonder who the hell that was just now. None of our guys were packing shotguns.”

  At the powerhouse, Olsen had made sure there was only one watchman on duty, and that one dead, then went to work as planned on the fuse boxes they’d hoped to find there. The Swede removed each fuse in turn and swiftly replaced it with a copper coin, short-circuiting it, as Captain Gringo had directed. Olsen knew enough about electricity to know that the slum dwellers who tried to get around replacing fuses with that trick were taking an awful chance. If Don Diego had any lights burning in his house in broad daylight, hopefully he shouldn’t be too upset by a momentary flicker.

  With the fuses sabotaged, Olsen moved over to the generator. The self-regulating internal-combustion engine was turning the dynamo at about quarter speed. Enough to supply the amount of power needed by such a modest plantation. The plant had been designed to supply a lot more if it was needed. Olsen wanted all the power he could get. So he disconnected the governor, gave the engine full throttle, and ran back outside as the engine roared wide open.

  Olsen drew his pistol and fired it once in the air as he got back to DuVal and snapped, “Let’s go. I’ll race you to the schooner. It’s going to get very noisy around here any minute!”