The Great Game (A Captain Gringo Western Book 10)

by Lou Cameron

  He called back to Gaston, “Give her hard right rudder, now!” and the little Frenchman called back, “Merde alors! You will put us broadside to them, with our bows headed for dry land, you maniac!”

  But then, since he’d worked with his younger comrade before, and the rounds from the other craft were getting the range too close for comfort in any case, Gaston did as he was told.

  Aboard the other boat, a cheer rang out as they saw the fugitive launch yaw and head for the bank. Gaston ducked below the bulwarks to avoid their fire and, if possible, to encourage their idea that he’d been hit by a lucky shot. It was well he did so, for the launch in pursuit came in for the kill, a bone in its teeth and machine guns chattering as Gaston, face down on the duckboards, muttered, “Species of idiots! You will blow your own ammunition sky high, any moment, with your wild fire!”

  A couple of rounds tore through the rail above Gaston, spattering him with slivers as he wondered how far he might just be below the water line, and if there were any cayman near enough to matter when the boat sank under him. Then the duckboards tingled as Captain Gringo in the bow opened up with their own machine gun!

  The two craft were less than three hundred yards apart, now, so he blew the gun crew in the other bow to hash with plunging fire before elevating still further to rake the other launch from stem to stern. He couldn’t tell, as the other boat yawed broadside, whether he’d hit the helmsman or if they’d decided to turn upstream where things were quieter. A couple of his rounds had holed the steam boiler over there and the enemy craft vanished in its own cloud of hissing white steam and screams. He lowered his elevation and proceeded to hose 30-30 slugs into the cloud at what he hoped was a belt buckle level. A man dove over the side, swam a few yards, and went under in a sinister swirl of brown as a cayman’s tail stirred the surface like a wooden spoon in a soup bowl. Nobody else went over the side. Nobody else got the chance. One of Captain Gringo’s rounds hit something right, and the interior of the steam cloud blossomed into a big orange fireball as the ammo aboard the other launch exploded!

  Captain Gringo glimpsed planking, rag doll bodies, and other debris scattered like confetti against the sky above the steam and flame before he ducked below the bulwarks to let the Shockwave sweep over and through the place he’d just been. Things thunked into the boat he and Gaston were in. When he felt something wet, he looked up to see a human leg outlined by the sunlight as it lay on the canvas awning over them. The blood was oozing through a vent in the canvas.

  Gingerly, he rose, punched the leg from the bottom of the canvas and sent it flying to the cayman and other meat-eaters in the water all around. He called back, “Let’s get out of here!” and that’s when he noticed Gaston had already thrown the screw in reverse and they were moving out to mid-channel again. By the time he rejoined Gaston at the stern, they were rounding a bend downstream and the widening pool of bloody foam behind them was settling down to a feeding frenzy under thinning clouds. Captain Gringo sighed and said, “I’ll bet they heard that back at the mission. But with the wire cut, what the hell. We’ll put a few miles between ourselves and those weird sisters before we look for another landing.”

  Gaston frowned and asked, “Eh, bien, why do you insist on doing everything the hard way, my overactive youth? This east-bound river channel obviously intends to take us to the Atlantic, hein?”

  “I don’t want to go to any fucking Atlantic. I want to head for the Caribbean. This country is starting to blow apart under us and the damned fool war is starting on the Atlantic side, right?”

  Gaston nodded, but said, “You are not thinking, my glandulour friend. Consider a moment, hein? We tried to make a discreet exit across the llano. As you saw, the troubles have brought all species of insects out into the light. It is no safer, and a lot farther, across the open grasslands to any safe port we can find, if such a thing be possible in a country at war. We would have been in Tucupita and possibly aboard a tramp steamer by this time, had not you insisted on being so trés fatigue!”

  “Bullshit. We might have made it to Tucupita if we’d stayed aboard that river boat, but I doubt like hell we’d have found a tramp to take us out. That dame on the riverboat was probably going to turn us in to her side, whichever side that was, and any cops ask questions of strangers in a war zone. Tucupita might be close, but it’s too big a boat, Gaston!”

  Again the Frenchman shook his head as he insisted, “Mais non, you have the idée fixe about a little river port you have never seen, Dick. I agree it may be dangerous to go there. But when have we recently visited a place that was not dangerous, hein? Consider that nobody knows us in the delta country. Consider that if your suspicions regarding Bubbles were true, she will by now have reported you leaving the boat and heading off across the llano, non?”

  Captain Gringo started to say something, but Gaston snapped, “Wait, I have not finished! It gets more interesting, if anyone at all is really interested in us! We left the river over to the south. We shot up a gang of somebody. We have left a noisy trail as far as that trés strange mission up the river. We told those crazy nuns we were heading for the north, remember?”

  Captain Gringo sighed and said, “When you’re right you’re right. I guess we’re as likely to have people laying for us on the open llanos as anywhere, and the delta swamps are easier to hide in on short notice. But, Jesus, we’ll never be able to board a ship out with both the British and American fleets patrolling just off shore!”

  Gaston said, “I know. We’d better try and make friends when we get to the delta, hein?”

  Captain Gringo swore softly and said, “Call me sentimental, but the side I’m rooting for is the U.S. backed Venezuelan army and navy. We can’t join them! Aside from Uncle Sam having a hard-on for me, Venezuela might be a little sore about that time we sided with those Brazilians in a border brush you may have forgotten.”

  Gaston shrugged and said, “I doubt it would be wise to volunteer for that side, too. But one must be practique. There are many sides and we do have this boatload of arms to trade with the natives, hein?”

  “You asshole! I’d never help Queen Victoria out with one bullet, if I thought she might use it on a U.S. Marine!”

  “Merde alors, you know the Brits do not buy smuggled arms, Dick. Did I say anything about joining the British Navy? Sacré Goddamn! They serve terrible food and piss in the bilges besides!”

  Mollified but puzzled, Captain Gringo asked, “Okay, if we can’t join the U.S.-backed Venezuelan regulars and don’t want to join the invading Brits, who’d be left?”

  “The Venezuelan irregulars, of course. These guns we just hijacked must have been going to some rebel faction. There is always a rebel faction in these odd countries, hein? I think I told you about Cipriano Castro and those men trying to stop the so-called nuns could not have been on their side, whichever one it may be. So, when we hide this boatload of presents near Tucupita and stroll into town, I, Gaston, shall ask some trés discreet questions and find out who might be the highest bidder.”

  Captain Gringo took a claro from his shirt pocket and lit up as he gathered his thoughts. Then he said, “Well, it’s going to take a lot of money to bribe our way out of this mess, and it would be sort of wasteful to just ditch all this stuff. You realize, of course, that anyone who buys arms on the black market has to be a treacherous sneaky son-of-a-bitch?”

  “But of course, Dick. Who else in Venezuela could we deal with, hein?”

  Captain Gringo grinned, despite his mixed emotions, and moved forward, cigar gripped between his teeth, to have a look at the “medical supplies.” He doubted it could all be small arms ammo, after seeing the way that other launch had blown up. But the first box he opened was also filled with 30-30 rounds, albeit in machine-gun belting and labeled cough syrup. He pried open another box. It seemed to be filled with wooden shavings. He took the cigar out of his mouth and placed it on a thwart at a discreet distance before plunging an arm into the packing. He felt steel and gave a heave. It
heaved hard. So he put his back into it and pulled out the plum. Then he whistled softly and lowered the shark-nosed artillery round gently back into its nest. He picked up the smoldering cigar and tossed it overboard, saying, “The smoking lamp just went out, Gaston. We seem to be carrying 155 Howitzer shells, too. There has to be some cordite powder bags among this stuff That’s what I hit in the other boat! This isn’t ammo for a guerrilla band. It was meant for a heavy weapons outfit.”

  Gaston shrugged and said, “Eh bien, now all we need to find is some plucky lad who owns a cannon, hein?”

  ~*~

  Tucupita was the provincial capital of Delta Amacuro. So it tried to look impressive. But like every other town on the lower reaches of the Orinoco, it had to stand on stilts to keep its feet dry. The delta land had a habit of bobbing up and down like a cake of soap in a tepid washtub, depending on rain upcountry and tides from the sea. The “streets” of Tucupita were steaming muddy lanes, or canals, depending, so the wrap around verandas of the buildings doubled as boat landings as the occasion demanded. The poorer classes lived in what looked like grass huts perched on fishing poles. The more imposing framed buildings looked more like steamboats converted to giant bird houses as they stood eight or ten feet off the mucky ground, shallow water, or whatever happened to be under them at the moment. Along the main “streets” the verandas were connected one to the other by a series of catwalks and/ or what looked like Japanese bridges. So once one got to the odd giddy “ground level” of the main drag, one could walk about normally. But it was a bad town for drunks and jaywalkers. Many a stranger, stepping between two drinking spas to take a leak, had broken his neck in the resultant fall.

  The water level was low when Captain Gringo and Gaston walked into town along a jungle pathway they’d come to after hiding their stolen launch in a reedy cove. They couldn’t leave it there, of course. Even camouflaged with branches it was likely to be stumbled over by some kids or fishermen. But they had to get the lay of the land before they found a safer place to hide it. Gaston had been through, once before, and vaguely remembered boat houses along the main channel where ocean going ships put in to anchor offshore.

  As they approached the outskirts of town, they noticed little patches of garden, set higher behind basketwork retaining walls. Gaston pointed with his chin and said, “Milpa agriculture, as around Mexico City, non?”

  “If you say so. We passed through Mexico City in a hail of gunfire as I recall, so I never got into the local farming methods all that much. But I can see how it works. They fence in an acre or so, haul muck inside, and create a little high ground. Must be back-breaking labor, in this heat. I can see why the locals don’t like the idea of giving it to Queen Victoria, now.”

  “Oui,” Gaston said. “There is more dry land around here, now, than there was when I last came through. Give the Venezuelans a few hundred years and they will have created dry land, here, like the Dutch. How curious that the British feel they need to save these people from their own sloth and ignorance, hein?”

  “I thought you didn’t care who won, Gaston.”

  “I confess I have not been losing sleep over this particular land grab, but one does find the Widow of Windsor’s pious greed a bit tedious. I know what it means to be poor, and these delta peasants have nothing that even the most vicious Paris Apache would fatigue himself with stealing. Why do you suppose your own countrymen are interested in this squishy part of the world, Dick?”

  Captain Gringo shrugged as a monkey cursed them from the branches overhead. He said, “Beats me. I guess President Cleveland takes the Monroe Doctrine seriously. Nobody in the States could want this swamp.”

  Gaston said, “Both sides want it. Or, at least, they want to control it. Nobody fights for ideals anymore, if they ever did.”

  Before Captain Gringo could come up with anything new, they saw the main drag ahead and he said, “Let’s pick it up. It’s almost dark and it looks like rain.”

  “That pink wedding cake on stilts, ahead, is the best hotel as I remember. Regard how they have been piling cinders along the streets of late. If they continue like this, the town will soon sit on dry land all the time, non?”

  “I doubt if it’ll be in our time, Gaston. Listen, I’m not sure about a big hotel in the center of town. We’ve both gotten sort of ragged and stinky and—”

  “Merde alors, it is a ragged and stinky country. Who will notice? Everything and everybody is trés wilted in the delta, Dick. We are both wearing hats and boots. We are both white men. It would attract more attention if we put in at some little pasada in the native quarter, comprenez? Come, we are prosperous tourists, a bit soggy from our travels. Once we show them we have money, and force them to disclose the location of the bathing facilities ...”

  So Captain Gringo followed Gaston up the rather alarming stairway to the wide and solidly built veranda wrapped around the pink hotel like a ballerina’s tutu. A sign over the doorway announced in greenish gilt lettering that they were entering the Hotel Flamingo. Offhand, Captain Gringo couldn’t think of a better name for it.

  Inside, the lobby looked even more like the interior of a Mississippi steamboat, with whorehouse overtones afforded by fake gilt Louis XV furniture and a cut glass chandelier with naked Edison bulbs screwed into it. A mestizo room-clerk, busting a gut trying to look like a Frenchman, stared at them with a snooty attitude until he saw the color of their money, then began to treat them like visiting royalty. They asked for adjoining rooms with perhaps a bath. The clerk said there was a bath on their floor, which was the best he could do, and asked if they wanted any women. When they said they didn’t, he looked them over understandingly and said he preferred boys, too. He dinged a bell and a tall sad Negro in a uniform two sizes too small came to take up their bags. When they said they had no luggage, he said he’d carry their keys. So they let him, and gave him a tip large enough to keep him from bitching and small enough to keep him from bragging.

  Gaston won the toss of a coin and headed for the bath as Captain Gringo cased their quarters. There was a lousy lock on the door between their adjoining rooms. The ones leading out to the hall were little better, but there were barrel bolts on the inside, so what the hell. He went to the window and opened the jalousies. They were on the second floor of the Flamingo, but the nice thing about buildings on stilts was that it put them three stories above the muddy ground below and there were no trees close enough to matter. There was an awning over the wrap-around veranda, so he considered somebody moving along the side of the building from one window to another. But then he poked a finger through the rotten canvas and decided they were safe from anybody heavier than a monkey.

  Burglary was the least of their worries in any case. They had nothing on them they’d be leaving in the rooms when they went out and the local burglars probably had some arrangement with the hotel help in any case. Nobody else was going to waste time pussy-footing in from outside. Anybody with an official interest in them would just kick in the thin mildewed doors, right?

  Gaston returned to report the water was reasonably hot and the soap more suitable for a Chinese laundry. So Captain Gringo picked the towel from the foot of his brass bed and said he’d soak a while. Gaston said to meet him, later, in the hotel bar downstairs. He’d seen all there was to see up here, but he was beginning to remember his way about town and thought he’d check into a better place for their stolen boat.

  Captain Gringo went down the hall to the bathroom. The door was closed. He turned the knob and a feminine voice protested in English, “I’m in the tub. I’ll be out in a few moments, whoever you may be.”

  Captain Gringo shrugged and went back to the room to have a smoke. The sound of English had surprised him. The voice had seemed vaguely familiar. The woman had spoken with a New England accent—that was probably it. He lit a claro and tried not to dwell on how long it had been since he’d spoken to girls who pronounced the letter R like that. He told himself not to wonder who she might be and .what she might b
e doing down here. With the current unrest it seemed obvious enough that other Americans should be in Venezuela. The idea was to avoid them, not to ask questions. He wasn’t about to address any strangers in English. So, if the mystery lady in the bath spoke no Spanish, that was a problem he didn’t have to worry about. He wondered what she looked like, as he pictured a naked lady in a tub. Nobody could look that good! He wondered why his mental picture was so lewd. The woman he’d caught bathing had sounded simply embarrassed and annoyed, not dirty.

  Jesus H. Christ, it wasn’t as if he had any reason to paint dirty pictures of her in his head. He’d just had a couple of women the other day, Goddamn it. He and Gaston hadn’t taken two full nights on the river getting here. He’d been sure, when he climbed off Mother Juana Maria, that he wouldn’t be up to another orgy like that for at least a month, right?

  He paced the room, smoking furiously, as he wondered where Gaston was and if it wouldn’t make more sense to just go down dirty and forget the damned bath. Who’d notice, now? It was almost dark outside and artificial light kept a lot of secrets daylight wouldn’t.

  But as he ran a nail along the stubble of his jaw he knew he’d be more comfortable once he got cleaned up and had a shave. He’d about killed the claro. He snuffed it out in a copper tray and decided to see if the dame was finished down the hall.

  As he approached the door again it opened and a vision of improper beauty came out, wrapped in a red silk kimono with her black hair pinned high. She had cameo features, wearing an attractive blush as she spotted him in the dim lit hallway and tried, without much success, to hide more of her freshly scrubbed flesh inside the flimsy thin silk she shouldn’t have ducked outside her room in. He stopped where he was, putting a hand to the brim of his battered straw hat as he waited for her to move away, pass him, or whatever. He was in luck. Her room had to be on the other side of his. She lowered her long lashes demurely and tried to edge past. Then she stopped, looked up at him, and suddenly laughed, saying “Why, of all people! What are you doing down here in Venezuela, Dick?”