The Great Game (A Captain Gringo Western Book 10)

by Lou Cameron

  The older whatever got to her feet and said, “It’s settled, then. I’ll show you to your quarters if you’ll walk this way.”

  He followed as she led him out another doorway and deeper into the building. For an older woman in a nun’s habit she walked sort of sexy. He knew she was putting it on, too. What he couldn’t figure was why.

  She opened the door to a small room with a big brass bedstead and said, “Here’s where you can stay as long as you like. Why don’t you take your clothes off and get some sleep, dear boy? You must be tired after all that riding, no?”

  He frowned at the jalousied window’s sunny slats and said, “It’s way too early to go to bed, for Pete’s sake.”

  Mother Juana Maria sat on the mattress and sighed, “Oh, dear, that naughty Dominica has been fibbing to me again. She says you rode all night while you were lost.”

  He looked at the window slats some more and chose his words as he replied, “Yeah, you could say we rode a lot. But I’m not tired and it’s early. Why don’t you ladies go on missioning or something and Gaston and me will find some way to amuse ourselves, huh?”

  She reached out, took his hand, and said, “Will you tell me something, Dick? Do I have your word you were not wicked with poor little Niqui when you had her alone in your power?”

  He muttered, “Oh, Hell, ask the girl, and whatever she says is all right with me.”

  “She swears you were a gentleman, but I know she’s wavered from the path in the past, Dick. I wish I could be sure she wasn’t sinning again.”

  The dame was stalling him with all this garbage. If they were lesbian lovers as well as partners in whatever, they’d compared notes by now and who did she think she was kidding? But any number can play the same game, so he shrugged and said, “Well, I don’t see how I could convince you, if you want to have a wicked mind, uh, Juana.”

  She moved his hand to the front of her habit and said, “There is one way. I’m not sure the church would approve, but we have to make sacrifices in the cause of the truth, I fear.”

  She had bigger knockers than her younger companion in whatever and the nipple against his wrist was already turgid. He sat down beside her and said, “I’ll go along with any test that doesn’t hurt.”

  So she laughed and reached for his fly as he proceeded to feel her up. She felt his growing erection and said, “My, you don’t feel like you’ve been wicked with any woman recently. There certainly is a lot of you, isn’t there, dear boy?”

  He muttered, “Oh, bullshit!” and rolled her on her back to hoist her long skirts as she unbuttoned his pants. She wasn’t wearing anything under the skirts. So he let his pants drop half way down his own thighs as he rolled aboard her and settled into the saddle. She was laughing dirty and it looked dirty as hell with her still dressed in her nun’s habit as he proceeded to give her what she was asking for. Her legs were more padded than Niqui’s and her face was middle-aged as she smiled up at him, eyes closed and lips parted sensuously, but her love box was as tight as Niqui’s rectum and she groaned with mingled delight and discomfort when he entered her and hit bottom. As he started to work she moaned, “Please start more gently, dearest. I’m not used to this sort of sacrifice, you know.”

  “Yeah, I understand you nuns don’t get much of this.”

  “Don’t talk dirty. Just do it! I’m only allowing you to abuse me like this as a test of Niqui’s faith.”

  The game she was playing sounded stupid as hell, and he’d played some stupid games in his time, but the way she moved her body made up for the dumb things coming out of her mouth. So he let himself go, bracing his feet against the floor boards as he pounded her. He didn’t care if she enjoyed it or not. He figured she was just trying to keep him lulled and unwary until somebody she’d called on that office phone arrived. But she must have enjoyed it, some, for after he’d come in her she sighed and said, “Oh, that was almost perfect. But let’s take our clothes off and do it right.”

  He hesitated, decided there was time, and shucked his own clothes as she beat him to it by slipping out of her habit and tossing it to the foot of the bed. She had a surprisingly nice body as he took her in his arms again. She said she wanted to get on top, so he let her. The sunlight through the window slats painted tiger stripes on her passion-warmed flesh as she moved up and down on him, saying dumb things about not telling Sister Dominica. He promised he’d never tell as he wondered how Gaston was enjoying the change in partners. The crazy dames were out to screw them both to sleep, were they? Okay, that meant they didn’t expect anyone to get here for a while, and he could think of a lot of lousier ways to spend an afternoon.

  This time Mother Juana Maria came, herself, and it seemed to knock some of the starch out of her. She rolled off, weakly, and marveled, “Oh, God, that was fantastic!” as he rolled over to remount her, growling, “Yeah, I’m getting my second wind, too!”

  “Wait, can’t we rest a bit, dear?”

  “No. I’m mad with desire. What’s the matter, baby? Why’d you start this if you didn’t want to screw?”

  “Oh, I do, you know I do, you naughty boy! But, heavens, let me get my breath between times.”

  He laughed, pulled her knees up and hooked one over each of his elbows as he started hitting bottom on every stroke and she gasped with awe and protested, “Not so deep! Not so hard! You’re killing me, you brute!”

  But her rollicking rump made a liar out of her as she started rising to meet his thrusts, moaning and rolling her head from side to side as he chewed her collar bone and joined her in a primitive orgasm. She went limp and sighed, “Oh, yes, I needed that. But let’s rest a bit, now.”

  He shook his head, withdrew, and rolled her over to mount her dog style while he still had it up. She realized what he was doing as her head began to clear again and protested, “Not that way, you maniac! You’re trying to put it in the wrong hole!”

  “Whaddayah mean trying?” he laughed as he felt it enter her quivering rectum, to the roots. She sobbed, “Stop! You’re splitting me! It’s too big that way!” And then, as he’d expected, she arched her spine to take it that way. Dames who went in for unusual sex usually did. He’d already figured that a woman who took the dominant role with other women enjoyed being submissive with a man, if they went for men at all. And Mother Juana Maria proved he was right as she wrung his shaft out with her anal muscles, protesting like hell all the while that he was hurting her. He wanted to hurt her, not just because he was sure, now, she’d set them up to be taken, but to wear her out so thoroughly that she wouldn’t be in shape to try and stop him when he and Gaston lit out.

  Women tended to think they had a monopoly when it came to using sex as a weapon. Most of the time they were right. Few men ever thought about faking an orgasm or pretended passion they didn’t feel. But Captain Gringo had been on the run long enough to use every weapon there was, and he was a whalebone and whipcord young giant in his prime. So he managed to keep it up just by moving it while he managed not to exhaust his ammo by thinking of something else every time he started to come. It wasn’t hard to distract himself. The two fake nuns were pulling something more naughty than simple fornication, so wondering about it as he pounded her lent an almost mechanical detachment to his lovemaking, although, in all fairness to Mother Juana Maria, it sure beat chopping wood as a pastime.

  She rolled her face from side to side on the mattress as he cornholed her. She moaned and groaned that he was killing her. Then she put both hands down between her braced thighs and began to play with his balls as she masturbated. He didn’t think she could do what she was obviously out to try, but he moved closer, leaving it deep with her spread buttocks pressed to his hip bones while her one hand massaged her own clit and the other attempted to stick his dangling scrotum up her open gushing vagina. He was intrigued by the idea, too, and found himself rising to new heights in her rear entrance as she popped one ball after another in and out of her larger opening. It was obvious they wouldn’t both fit at once and p
ainful to contemplate if she ever made it, since she was contracting pretty good down there. He decided he’d better quit while he was ahead. So he withdrew and rolled her over without warning and dropped on her heavily to finish old-fashioned albeit tall-in-the-saddle. Her breath wooshed out of her as his shaft entered her and she gasped for air as she came with a wide-eyed look of little-girl surprise on her forty-year-old face.

  He could tell from her contractions and the pink flush of her breasts that he had her on a plateau, so he announced he was coming, too, and proceeded to pound her harder. She closed her eyes and groaned, “Stop it! You’ll kill us both! Nobody can keep going like this without having a stroke and ... oh, yes, stroke me some more, I’m coming again!”

  So he screwed her into the ground, giving her orgasm after orgasm as he paced himself by counting silently. He’d slam her hard for a hundred, and then take a break, moving slowly and sensuously as he smothered her with kisses and love-lies, then, recovering his wind, he’d say something like, “Oh, Jesus, you’re driving me nuts!” and methodically banged her a hundred more good bumps and grinds. He was starting to go soft, despite his best efforts, when she suddenly went limp in his arms and he saw she’d fainted or simply passed out from exhaustion. The helpless condition of the treacherous bitch intrigued him, and, since he no longer found what he was doing a chore, he allowed himself to enjoy it. His abused organ responded by gushing withheld-back vigor as soon as he allowed it to. He almost passed out in the saddle and it would have been the perfect ending for a lovely ride if he’d been in safer company. But he shook his head to clear it and gently withdrew, whispering, “Are you all right, Honey?”

  Mother Juana Maria didn’t answer as she lay legs apart with a gentle smile on her face, absently fondling her own crotch in her sleep.

  Later, when she awoke, she was coming again and for a moment she thought they were still at it. Then, as she stared up at the blank ceiling, running her passion-wet fingers in and out, she blinked in dismay, finished her orgasm, and sat up, cursing.

  Still nude, Mother Juana Maria rolled stiffly out of bed and tottered out to her office. She spotted the note and some Brazilian money on her desk. She was reading the note, red-faced, when Sister Dominica came in from another room, wearing a bemused expression and nothing else as she marveled, “Jesus, that Frenchman had a long tongue for such a little man! Where are the boys? What’s that you’re reading, Juanita?”

  The older woman crumpled the note Captain Gringo had left her and said, “They’ve left in one of our dugouts! The big one left me this money to pay for it, the sneaky son-of-a-bitch!”

  She stepped over to the wall phone and began to crank it. Her younger companion asked who she was calling and Mother Juana Maria snapped, “Our confederates down the river, of course. How far can they get in an Indian dugout? I don’t think they have more than an hour’s lead and if our launches are signaled from the shore a few miles down ...”

  Niqui frowned and said, “That seems sort of mean, Juanita. Those boys did save our lives and they were both very nice in bed, don’t you think?”

  The older woman said, “All’s fair in Love and War, Niqui. The loving is over and we have to get back to the war. I don’t think they figured out who we really were, but I’m pretty sure who they were!” She gave the crank another twist and sighed, “Damn, the line is dead. They must have cut it before they left in one of the canoes under the house. That settles it. They were the British agents Hakim warned us about. We’d better get dressed. The launches are due any minute and I’m really not up to servicing any more soldiers of fortune for a while!”

  The two women barely had time to shower and dress before a peon came up on the veranda to announce steamboat plumes down the river. Mother Juana Maria said, “We’re expecting some, ah, medical supplies, Antonio. By the way, would you look under the building and see which canoe our recent, ah, visitors took?”

  As the peon left them alone for a moment, Sister Dominica giggled and said, “I’m glad they got away. My God, my poor little twat is still tingling! Between the way Dick sensitized it and the way Gaston licked it...” But Mother Juana Maria snapped, “Shut up. We’re supposed to be nuns. Try and look holy, you little slut!”

  They were standing primly when the peon came out from under the house to announce the larger of the dugouts had been dragged out and down to the water’s edge. He added, “Nobody saw them leave because it was La Siesta, Madre Santa. I would have been watching, had anyone told me to.”

  Mother Juana Maria pasted a saintly smile across her face and murmured, “It’s all right, Antonio. I confess I was in bed during La Siesta, too.”

  This struck Niqui’s funny bone and she started to giggle. Mother Juana Maria muttered, “Stop it, you little idiot. The launches are putting in. Most of those gun runners think we’re really nuns.”

  “How come they don’t question our reasons for having so many weapons on hand, Juanita?”

  “I told you. These are unsettled times. It’s only logical a Catholic mission might feel the need for certain precautions with Protestant ruffians about to invade the country, right?”

  Sister Dominica saw the launches had put in at the river landing and a tall well-dressed man was leading others up the bank toward the mission. She nudged her older sister in sin and said, “He’s cute. Is that General Castro?”

  “Don’t be silly, Niqui. Cipriano Castro’s not about to show his hand before the time is ripe. He’s sitting out the invasion in Caracas, as a member of the Loyal Opposition. When the Brits start to beat the current government the Castroistas will save the day with the modern weapons from Hakim’s combine and, of course, wind up running the country they’ve just saved, see?”

  Niqui sighed and said, “It’s all so complicated. Men do everything but sex the complicated way. I don’t see why Cipriano Castro doesn’t just stage a revolt and—”

  “Just keep your mouth shut and your legs crossed, damn it,” the older woman cut in. “It’s not all that complicated. Castro can’t take over until the popular Crespo government is shattered by outside forces. Let me do the talking when those men approaching ask about storage and so forth. I’ll bet you told Dick and Gaston everything you knew, eh?”

  “I did not! I only told them I was a naughty nun.” She giggled and added, “As a matter of fact, neither one of them seemed interested in anything but my body. How did you make out, dear?”

  The older woman permitted herself a smug smile as she returned the wave of the approaching gunrunner. And then all hell broke loose.

  Captain Gringo and Gaston hadn’t left in the dugout they’d dragged from under the mission. They’d hauled it down to the river and then, seeing nobody was watching, they’d simply cast it adrift on the water and taken cover under the stilts of a storage shed near the landing. The two whaleboat-sized steam launches had been left with their fires going, bows against the bank. One crew member had remained aboard each launch as the others disembarked, of course, but that was their problem, not Captain Gringo’s.

  As he and Gaston popped out from under the shed and leaped in the nearest launch, he shot the man at the tiller and then, for good measure, put a round in the startled man in the other launch alongside while Gaston threw the engine in reverse and cracked open the throttle to churn them backward off the bank!

  As the members of the gang on shore turned, swearing, to slap leather and make other rude gestures, Captain Gringo made his way forward over the crates piled in the launch. He’d noticed the machine gun mounted in the bows of the launch he’d chosen. As he armed it the men on shore saw what he had in mind and proceeded to scatter like quail. So Captain Gringo muttered, “Spoilsports” and held his fire until Gaston had them out in midstream and swung around to tear down the river as fast as the little steam craft would go.

  The view to the east, where they seemed to be heading, consisted of little more than reed-grown banks and a gently winding channel of tea-brown water. So Captain Gringo headed back to j
oin Gaston in the stern, where the action seemed to be. As he climbed over a crate marked “Smith Brothers Cough Drops” he found himself wondering if it were possible the people in the tropics caught that many colds. He took out his jack knife, pried up a board, and noticed the Brothers Smith seemed to make 30-30 ammo, too. As he joined Gaston in the stern he saw the other steam launch had put out from the fake mission to give chase. He commented on this to Gaston, who shrugged and said, “I noticed. Some species of idiots just never know enough to quit while they are ahead. Where are we going, my old and rare? You were not very conversational as we crouched under that shed back there a million years, hein?”

  Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “The first things first. We have to get out of sight before we find a side channel and ditch this launch. We might blow it up. It’s loaded with ammo and other goodies, so...”

  “Merde alors, all those crates are filled with arms, Dick?”

  “Yeah, I suspect our old friend, Hakim of Woodbine Arms, has a finger in this pie. A couple of nymphomaniacs posing as nuns sure sounds like old Basil’s style.”

  Gaston started to object that Sir Basil was a British subject who could get in trouble supplying arms to people opposed to the March of Empire. But then he remembered a couple of other times they’d tangled with the tiny Turk and decided not to say something stupid after all.

  Up the channel behind them a machine gun cleared its steel throat with a woodpecker’s gargle, and as spouts of white water began to tap dance on the brown surface between the boats, Gaston said, “I hope this is only my imagination, Dick. But those camel suckers seem to be gaining on us, non?”

  Captain Gringo nodded and moved forward to get their own machine gun. As he tried to lift it from its bow mount, he saw why the others were so confident. The gunrunner’s Maxims were jury rigged to Spandau mounts. Some silly son of a bitch had drilled new holes and used rivets instead of nuts and bolts to hold the mess together. He figured he could remove the machine gun from its mount, given tools and a little time. But he had no tools but his knife, and time was running out!