The Great Game (A Captain Gringo Western Book 10)

by Lou Cameron

  Captain Gringo expected the people hiding in the other cover to put up more fight. He knew he’d have started by blowing holes in that pretty hat if the sons-of-bitches tried that on his hammock. But a little black man in a white suit came out of the trees waving a kerchief, followed by two women dressed in the white tropic habits of some religious order. As the sunlight flashed on the big gold cross one of them wore on the long skirt of her habit, Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “For God’s sake, they’re nuns! We’ve been pinned down sweating bullets over a couple of nuns all afternoon!”

  The dismounted gang seemed amused, too, as they closed in, putting away their guns. From where he watched, Captain Gringo couldn’t tell what the two frightened sisters looked like, but when one of the gang yanked her gold cross off her skirt he growled low in his throat and said, “Well, we know now. Those guys are bandits, and not very nice ones. A Hispanic Catholic who’d rob a nun would eat shit for breakfast.”

  Gaston said, “No doubt they suffered deprived youths. Stay out of it, Dick. I don’t think they’ll hurt those women, seriously.”

  The leader of the gang tossed his hat aside on the grass and reached for one of the nuns with a grin. The frightened nun cowered away and the old black man tried to get between her and the outlaw leader. The bandit backhanded him to the grass and when the spunky Negro gamely tried to rise, shouting something, the outlaw drew his revolver and shot him, like he was swatting a fly!

  The nun he’d been pawing screamed and dropped to her knees by the dead or dying Negro in the grass. That was a tactical error. The outlaw leader jumped on her and proceeded to rip her habit off as they struggled in the grass.

  The one who’d been wearing the gold cross tried running, but that didn’t work much better for two of the bandits grabbed and threw her to the sod. Her naked legs looked strangely obscene as one of them proceeded to lift her skirts for his comrade. Captain Gringo muttered, “Okay, that’s about enough of this shit!” as he rose to his feet, gun in hand, and started forward. Gaston pleaded, “No, Dick! The odds are trés lousy and we owe these women nothing!”

  Then Gaston shrugged and followed, muttering, “Sacré Goddamn, I thought you were a Protestant!”

  There was no sneaky way to do it. So the outlaws spotted the two of them coming long before they were in pistol range. It seemed to take their mind off the women they’d been about to rape and the two nuns huddled on their knees together near the fallen black man as all six of the outlaws lined up to face the two approaching strangers, more surprised than worried. The leader called out, “Hey, who are you hombres?” as Captain Gringo muttered to Gaston, “You start on the left and I’ll start from the right, okay?”

  “Oui, if we fail to meet in the middle, it’s been nice knowing you.” Captain Gringo didn’t answer. He and Gaston both had their guns in hand, so, as be judged the distance about right, he started firing, not looking at the ones Gaston had selected to his left. There were six outlaws and the two soldiers of fortune had twelve rounds in their chambers. They each got off four, since after nailing the three men on either side of the leader in the middle, they each put a bullet in him at the same time. As one of the downed men rolled over and tried to rise, Gaston fired a round into his head and said, “How anticlimactic! Such obvious amateurs had no business taking up a life of crime, hein? Merde alors, not one of them got off a round at us!”

  Captain Gringo ignored Gaston and the bodies, stretched out on the grass in a long ragged line as he walked over to the two sobbing women by the gang’s male victim. The little Negro lay on his back with a puzzled expression on his face. He was dead, anyone could see. Captain Gringo removed his hat and said, “I am called Ricardo Walker, sisters. I’m sorry my friend and me were so far away when you needed help.”

  The older of the two women seemed a bit dazed and remained on her knees, staring mutely down at the dead man. The younger and prettier one rose to throw herself against Captain Gringo as she sobbed, “Oh, we thought you men were outlaws, too. How will we ever thank you? How can anyone repay such heroism?”

  Captain Gringo was uncomfortably aware of firm and ample breasts against his chest as he absently placed his free hand around her to keep from losing his balance. She smelled good, too. Gaston came over, eyes twinkling, and said, “Eh, bien. I see everyone is on a friendly footing at last.”

  Captain Gringo moved away from the nun with a meaningless comment about reloading. As he did so she followed, not grabbing again but seemingly intent on staying close as possible to him. He introduced Gaston, not meeting the Frenchman’s eyes, and the nun said, “Oh, forgive my manners. I am Sister Dominica and this is my Mother Superior, The Reverend Mother Juana Maria. We shall ever be in your debt, señors.”

  Captain Gringo wasn’t sure how one said, “Shucks, ’twarn’t nothing,” in Spanish, so he didn’t try. He was a Protestant, but everybody knew nuns weren’t supposed to gush like that. It wasn’t the words so much as the man-eating smile that went with them. He could see, despite her severe habit and wimple, that Sister Dominica was pretty as hell, with spitfire Spanish eyes. He supposed they’d put her in the convent before she’d learned what trouble a girl could get into by flashing them like that at a man.

  Gaston was helping the older nun who’d worn the unfortunately visible gold cross. She still looked numb and hadn’t missed the cross yet. Captain Gringo looked around and spotted it gleaming in the grass a few yards out. He tucked his reloaded gun away and headed for it. The young and pretty Sister Dominica joined him, hooking her arm through his as she said, “We were on our way to a new nursing mission when everything went wrong all at once. Poor José, our servant, let our team run off with our wagon when we camped last night. We were blocked on foot by that awful flood stream, there, and so were sheltered in those trees when we saw you and your friend approach. I thought you looked like gentlemen, but Mother Superior was afraid there were banditos about and—”

  “Your mother superior was right.” He cut in, adding, “I understand what’s been going on, now. Aren’t you, uh, ladies supposed to be a bit more shy around strange men, Sister Dominica?”

  “Heavens, you and your brave little comrade are not strange men, you are our saviors! But call me Niqui, Ricardo. That’s what the other girls call me.”

  He bent down, picked up the cross and its broken gold chain and said, “I’ll call you Sis, if formalities bother you. You must have been sort of young when you joined up, eh?”

  “Oh, yes, I was about fourteen when I took my first orders. Before that, I was an orphan at the mission, of course.”

  “You’re starting to make sense. What do you mean, about fourteen? Don’t you know how old you are?”

  “Oh, I think I must be twenty or so. You see, I was a foundling. They say I seemed to be two or three when I was left on the mission steps by someone. But what does it matter, how old I may be?”

  He smiled crookedly down at her and said, “I guess it doesn’t matter, Sis.” Adding, under his breath, “Boy, what a waste!”

  The older Mother Juana Maria had composed herself by the time they rejoined her and Gaston. Captain Gringo handed her the cross and said, “I’m sorry it’s broken, but I’m sure it can be fixed.”

  “Those men will surely roast in Hell,” Mother Juana Maria said grimly, as she took her cross back, saw it was now impossible to wear and put it away in some pocket-like fold of her habit

  Gaston looked up at the sun and said, “It will soon be cool enough to seriously consider moving on. Dick and me are on our way to the north coast. Might one ask where you sisters intend to spend the evening?”

  The nuns looked blankly at one another and Mother Juana Maria said, rather imperiously, “You señores will of course have to see us to the nursing mission, two leagues to the north. I doubt if you would wish for to go much further. As you just learned, the llano is infested with banditos.”

  Sister Dominica added, “To the north of Los Llanos it gets worse between here and the
Caribbean. The hills along the coast are jungle covered.”

  “Infested with banditos, too?” asked Gaston, and the girl said, “No, wild Indians. Nobody goes into the jungle if they can possibly avoid it.”

  Gaston shot a look at Captain Gringo, who shrugged and said, “We can’t possibly avoid it. But we’ll get you ladies to your mission first.”

  Then he turned to Gaston and said, “We’d better round up those horses they left over there by the water, before they run off. Riding beats walking and they may have a shovel or two among their saddle gear.”

  “Shovel, Dick?”

  “Come on, we can’t just leave these guys laying here, can we?”

  Gaston said, “I don’t see why not.” Then he winked at Mother Juana Maria and explained, “He takes his Christian duties trés seriously, for a Protestant. But the ground is soft after all that rain and what harm can it do to say a few words over them, hein?”

  Mother Juana Maria drew herself up and snapped, “I will pray for poor Jose—but that is all. I have no intention of praying for the souls of men who tried to ... never mind.”

  Gaston nodded, understandingly, and the two men ambled over to the six horses near the water’s edge. One spooked and ran off nervously, but the other five didn’t seem to care who rode them and, what the hell, they only needed four.

  As they’d hoped, one of the dead bandits had a folding spade tied to his saddle. Gaston gathered the reins of the four best mounts and said, “I don’t know how you do it, my old and rare. We left that steamboat on foot and alone. Now, we face the evening with spirited steeds and a couple of spirited women, if I’m any judge.”

  Captain Gringo muttered, “Don’t talk dirty, you old goat. The dames are nuns, in case you didn’t notice.”

  Gaston laughed and said, “True. But you seem to have the younger one eating out of your hand already and as for mine, well, what is romance if there is no challenge, hein?”

  “You can’t be serious. What kind of an asshole would make a play for a nun?”

  “An asshole who likes women, perhaps? That is what they are, under all that camouflage, you know. Growing up in New England has left you at a certain disadvantage, my old and rare. I grew up close enough to Notre Dame to regard our faith with less awe than you Anglo Saxon types. We have had the church trés domesticated in France for some time, you know.”

  “Screw France! Any man who fights with his feet and fucks with his mouth has to be a little confused about the facts of life. Those girls aren’t French nuns, they’re Spanish nuns, and the Spanish never invented the Grand Inquisition because they take a casual view of religion. For Chrissake, Gaston, you know how dangerous it can be down here to make a pass at a Spanish girl who’s not a nun!”

  “But of course, my old and rare. That is my point regarding these otherwise attractive women. Since it is so terribly easy to get killed down here over any woman at all, why not go after the ones that look attractive? Little Dominica is trés formidable, and I noticed the older one’s legs when those idiots were treating her so impolitely.”

  “Knock it off. We’re getting close enough for them to hear you. And wipe that silly smirk off your face, too. We’ve got enough trouble facing us, and so help me, if you make a grab for either of those nuns I’m going to slap you silly!”

  As they rejoined the nuns, Captain Gringo took the spade from its saddle mount and suggested they go back to the shade of the hammock while he and Gaston disposed of the dead. He didn’t add that the next few minutes figured to be sort of ugly, but he could see by their stricken expressions that they didn’t really want to watch.

  Mother Juana Maria said, “I wish you would bury poor José well distant from those horrid bandits. Frankly, it is all the same to me if you just throw them in the stream and let the water carry them away.”

  She took her younger companion’s arm and led her into the shade as the tall American shrugged and got to work. The sod was tough, but the red soil under the grass roots was soft as mellow cheese. Gaston offered to spell him after he’d worked a while. But the tall American said, “Hell with it. I’m hitting water, just a few inches down. Feeding them to the fish seems a little ornery, but I’m not going to plant ’em all that deep, so what the hell.”

  Gaston started going through the dead men’s pockets as the American worked. As he saw Captain Gringo making short work of his mass shallow grave he hauled the leader over by the heels and said, “Again we would seem to be combining business and pleasure, Dick. Their guns are all old single action and trés rusty, which accounts for a lot. But they would seem to have managed a bit of serious banditry with their quite ordinary weapons. I make it close to a thousand dollars, American, between a pocket here and a leather purse there.”

  “What about their ammo?”

  “All .44s and .45s, alas. We can’t use it.”

  “Somebody might. We’ll drop all the weapons and ammo in the water when we head on out. You start rolling the outlaws in here and I’ll scoop out a better place for the colored guy.”

  “Eh, bien. Rather an odd companion for nuns, non?”

  “What are you talking about? Sister Dominica said he was their coachman.”

  “Oui, trés curious. The late Jose was not a member of any religious order. Yet they were travelling alone with him.”

  “Oh, hell, Gaston, they had to have somebody driving them! Aren’t nuns allowed to take cabs?”

  Gaston shrugged and said, “Perhaps. Customs may not be as strict in this part of the world.”

  Captain Gringo snorted in annoyance and moved off a good fifty feet to dig Jose’s lonelier grave. He dug deeper and neater as he wondered what the hell Gaston was getting at, now. The trouble with Gaston was that he never stopped talking and only made sense half the time. Sometimes the old goat was really on to something, though, so you couldn’t simply ignore his chatter. He scooped a spadeful of semi-liquid red muck out, decided that would have to do, and stood the spade on its blade in the sod to rejoin Gaston as the Frenchman rolled the last dead bandit in the larger hole. The hole was a bit snug and the guy’s rump rose above the level of the llano, but what the hell, they’d all settle down under the sod in a day or so, right?

  Gaston stepped over to grab José by the heels and the American said, “Hey, let’s carry him right, damn it. He’s one of our guys!”

  As he bent to pick up José’s shoulders Gaston said, “One doubts Jose would know the difference, but I am also a man of sentiment. Sacré Goddamn, I am glad we are almost through with this silly business, though. Even with the sun at a more reasonable angle, I am sweating like the pig.”

  They got José to the grave and lowered him into the muddy water on the bottom. As Captain Gringo straightened up, Gaston started going through the dead man’s pockets and the American snapped, “Knock it off, you fucking ghoul.”

  Then he saw the snub-nosed Webley revolver Gaston had found on the dead man and added, with a frown, “What the hell... ?”

  Gaston smiled thinly and answered, “What the hell, indeed. A very curious weapon for an innocent coachman to be carrying, non? One does not need to mention, among friends, that this weapon is a favorite among British Intelligence circles, hein?”

  “Oh, shit, you’re not suggesting José was a British spy?”

  “Why not? I don’t think the British have any Jim Crow laws forbidding it. Think what a formidable cover he had if he was working for the Queen! We know the Brits are up to something sneaky in this part of South America, non?”

  “Oh, come on, next you’ll be suggesting that those two nuns are really British spies, too!”

  “Eh, bien, and again why not, Dick? Their cover would be even better! They were unfortunate enough to run into bandits of above average rudeness. But one can see that someone like our old friend, Greystoke, would assume very few men down here would trifle with two sisters of the cloth.”

  “Okay, put the gun away and let me cover this poor slob.”

  “You don’t
think my, how you say, hunch, is possible?”

  “Anything’s possible, but your hunch is wild as hell. What are we supposed to do, shake those two dames down for concealed weapons? If the women had been armed we wouldn’t have had to rescue them, you chump!”

  Gaston put the snub-nosed pistol in his coat pocket as Captain Gringo shoved sods over the corpse. He waited until Captain Gringo said something about getting the nuns before he nodded and said, “Oui, I will be trés interested in the prayers they say over Jose. You know I no longer take much interest in such superstitions, but I was raised a Catholic.”

  “That was before you went nuts, right?”

  “Oui. If José was their bodyguard, they might not have thought to carry weapons. On the other hand, it all happened so fast that Jose never had a chance to draw that weapon I found on him, and we know he was armed!”

  Captain Gringo started to tell Gaston he was full of shit again. But as he thought back to the short savage scene they’d witnessed from a distance he couldn’t honestly say neither of the women had been trying to get to a weapon under her habit. The outlaws had been all over them and, damn it, they had nailed José before the little Black could go for the weapon they knew he’d been packing!

  The two women had been watching from the shade and as they tethered the mounts they’d selected for the night’s journey, the nuns, if they were nuns, came out of the grove to join them.

  Captain Gringo didn’t look at Gaston as he pointed at the grave of José. The two women crossed themselves. Did they make the proper sign of the cross? How the hell was a New England Yankee Calvinist to know?

  He let Gaston pick up the investigation as he switched the good saddle on a poor horse to a better mount. The little Frenchman followed the nuns to where José had been planted. Captain Gringo finished his simple chore and walked over to them as they were finishing whatever they were supposed to be doing.

  Sister Dominica asked her older companion about the other dead men and Mother Juana Maria sniffed and repeated her comment about leaving them to the devil. It struck Captain Gringo as a little uncharitable, but what did that prove? More than one ordained priest had ordered a heretic burned alive, and some respected Protestant ministers had treated the Salem witches a little rough, too. Calvin himself had executed people who argued religion with him, and nobody’d tried to rape him! Being mad at the dead bandits didn’t make Mother Juana Maria a fake nun.