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  Captain Gringo’s voice was brutal as he said, “What do you think war is—a game of checkers? You and your long-haired Committee have been keeping the government on the prod for years as part of your so-called strategy. What do you think these soldiers would have done had they taken Vegas Salinas? What do you think they do to every village they hit as part of your grand design?”

  “Oh Jesus, does it have to be so uncivilized?”

  “Yes, Professor, it does. Civilized warfare is a myth made up in headquarters. Out in the field it’s a rougher trade. If you don’t want people butchered, don’t start a war.”

  “My God, you are a butcher!”

  “That’s what they called General Grant, and he took it as a professional compliment. I’ve never raped a woman or slaughtered a child personally, but I’ve seen enough of war not to point a finger at those who have. If you give a lot of young men guns, tell them the other side is fair game, then leave them for months in the field, hungry, dirty, tired, and half crazed with fear, you’ve no right to judge them by civilized standards. Not one of those men out there, alive or dead, is responsible for what happened here this morning. It’s you old farts who run this world!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Rosalita yawned against his chest and murmured, “That was very nice, my toro. But I keep wondering if there is anything we have not tried,”

  He took a drag on his cigarette and said, “Be damned if I can think of it. What’s the matter? Didn’t you come?”

  “Oh, many times, my toro. It’s just that I’m afraid we’ve missed some way more, well, naughty.”

  “Listen, I know a few states where a man could go to jail for doing some of what we’ve tried to his own wife. I’m sorry if it’s getting dull, but I don’t know how to turn into a woman or a dog.”

  “You have much experience in these matters, no? Tell me: Do other women have the same organs, or am I lacking in anything?”

  He laughed and put a finger to her forehead, saying, “The sex organ that counts is right inside your pretty skull, querida. Acrobatics are fun, but when you get right down to it, what matters is not what you’re doing but how you feel about it.”

  “I don’t understand. Don’t you like to do it dog style to me?”

  “To you? Sure. Dog style, horse style, any style, because I like you and you’re pretty. If I didn’t like you and you were ugly it would be no good no matter what we tried. I think that’s why people invented so many ways to make love. If you settle for someone you don’t really find exciting you have to stand her on her head or something.”

  “You find me exciting?”

  “Very,” he lied. She really was a beautiful little animal, but the bloom was off the rose for him and Rosalita. She had a tight little box and moved it like a saloon door on payday, but her endless experiments were getting tiresome and he couldn’t help remembering that girl in Fort Sill who’d had a brain.

  “I want to play you are my cigarette,” said Rosalita, proping herself up on one arm to switch positions again. He lay there smoking as she moved her lips down his body, trailing her long black hair teasingly over his warm, moist flesh. What had been that other girl’s name? Oh yeah, Martha. Post librarian at Sill. She’d been a widow for some time and had read a lot of books. Mousy little thing about thirty-eight or so, and sort of flat-chested, once they’d gotten down to business. Thinking back on it, Martha hadn’t been that great a lay if one wanted to get technical, but Jesus, the nights they’d had!

  Rosalita began to suck him and he helped her get it up by thinking of that crazy night when he and Martha had lasted for hours. It had been an oddly piquant experience. Martha had been an old-fashioned girl about sex, so he’d simply been in the saddle, making old-fashioned love, and for some reason, as they screwed, they’d started talking. She’d read an interesting book about socialism and he’d started to argue politics with her, right in the middle of laying her, and they’d both gotten so interested he’d sort of stopped and just stayed there inside her, arguing the pros and cons and enjoying a good intelligent conversation between adults until Martha had suddenly laughed wildly and said, with her lips on his, “My God, do you realize we’re still fucking?”

  And then he’d laughed, and they’d both gone kind of crazy for a while and after one of the best orgasms he’d ever had, she’d said, “I still think your wrong about Karl Marx,” and they’d just stayed that way, melted into one another, and laughing into one another’s eyes for … How long? How long did anything good ever last? He wondered what ever happened to old Martha. She’d been too old for a new second John, he’d thought, and he’d been a little ashamed of her in public. But if he’d had any sense he’d have asked her to marry him. He’d lost count of how many women he’d had since then, but he’d never forgotten that one magic moment in time.

  Rosalita was getting excited, which she tended to do with monotonous regularity, and he knew she expected him to perform. He said, “It’s up. Let me put it in you.”

  “Eat me! Eat me!” she gasped, returning to her fervid oral stimulation. As she cocked a thigh over him and snuggled her buttocks down against his face he wondered if it would thrill her to have a lit smoke shoved into that moist, pink slit, but resisted the impulse. He reached out and stuffed the smoke out on the dirt floor before taking a cheek in each hand to position her for a skilled but lackluster repetition of what was a really silly way to come, when you thought about it.

  He’d never been able to talk Martha into it. She’d been a bit mid-Victorian about sex. He’d never really gotten a view like this of Old Martha, but he wished … and then, to Rosalita’s delight, he began to do what she wanted. As the little sex maniac went wild with him he wondered who she was daydreaming about at the moment. Eating Martha was exciting.

  Captain Gringo sat behind the improvised desk in the cantina with the professor and other guerrilla leaders, explaining, “We’re low on ammunition, even with the rounds we salvaged from the soldiers. Their carbine rounds fit the belt of my machine gun, but it chews up a lot of brass in even a short fight, and we’ve lost the element of surprise. By now they know we have the Maxim.”

  A sergeant asked, “How is this possible, Captain Gringo? There were no survivors and—”

  “There are always survivors. Even if we did mop up every one, we have to assume one or more lay doggo and crawled away in the brush. Counting bodies is no help. We have no way of knowing just how many there were.”

  “The new men say we got them all.”

  “The new men may be lying. Don’t bank on all of them really wanting to liberate Mexico. Some of the older and wiser hands may have known what was coming and snatched at the straw we offered. They could switch back just as easy, once the army hits this area in force.”

  “Then maybe we should shoot them, too?”

  “No. It’s good policy not to shoot men who offer to surrender. It’s not just sentiment. I don’t want it to get around to give no quarter. Many a man who might otherwise give up will fight to the death if he has no other choice. Just keep an eye on the new recruits and let me know, at once, if any turn up missing for meals.”

  The professor said, “I never thought Colonel Gaston would desert us like that. Do you have any idea where he’s headed, Captain Gringo?”

  “No,” the American lied. He didn’t give a damn where Gaston had gone and he didn’t want his men wasting time looking for the little soldier of fortune.

  He said, “We have to move our people out of here. Whether they have us pinpointed or not, they’ve been sending troops into this part of the country to back the Rurales and sooner or later they’ll secure this strategic water hole. So the sooner we leave the better, and tonight is better than tomorrow night.”

  There was a murmur of displeased surprise and the professor gasped, “That’s ridiculous! This is the best hideout we’ve ever had!”

  “You mean it was. I’m not asking you, Professor, I’m telling you. If I’m still charged with defending t
hese people I’m going to start by getting them out of here. If you want to fire me, I’ll just be on my way. It’d be a hell of a lot easier just to save my own ass.”

  “I forbid you to desert. You know we need your skills. But where would you have us go? The mountains are infested with Yaqui. The last time we were chased north your American Army arrested us. The government controls all the other water on this desert.”

  “I know. We’re going south, out of the desert.”

  “Are you mad? The farmlands to the south are crawling with Rurales, and the frightened villagers will have no choice but to report our every movement once we’re that close to the capital!”

  “We’re not going to hide out in the Valley of Mexico. We’re going through it to the wilder country south of it. They tell me the mountains of Oaxaca are sparsely inhabited and covered with rain forest. It sounds like natural guerrilla country and—”

  “Now I know you are mad, Captain Gringo! Even if over a hundred men and their families could somehow sneak through the Federal District, it’s too far! We are nearly fifteen hundred kilometers north of Oaxaca and we only have seventy-six horses.”

  One of the others swore and said, “I will not leave my woman behind! She is with child!” and there was a grumble of agreement.

  Captain Gringo said, “I don’t leave my wounded or women and children behind. The pigs and chickens are out of luck, but we’re taking everyone else with us.”

  “On foot, Captain Gringo? You expect the children and expectant mothers to walk fifteen hundred kilometers?”

  “No. We’re going to have to steal a train.”

  There was a long silence. Then someone muttered, “Cabrone! The heat has fried his brains!”

  The American shrugged and said, “We’ll load all our supplies and the weaker women and children on the ponies we have. The rest of us will have to walk to the rail line. I’ll explain the details as we go. We have a long hike ahead of us at best. So we’d better get a move on.”

  One of the men stood up and said, “I vote we stay here and defend this place. It is a good place and I am desert-bred. I spit on the jungles to the south. I prefer the devil I know!”

  Captain Gringo said, “Sit down and shut up or you’ll meet the devil sooner than you might expect. You’re in an army, not a debating society. As long as I’m in command, you’ll do exactly as I say or I’ll feed you to the vultures.”

  The professor sighed and said, “He is insane, of course, comrades, but he has been right about everything else so far.”

  “But Professor, even if we can steal a train, how can we hope to go anywhere with it? The federales control the tracks and every switch point!”

  “What about that, Captain Gringo?”

  “Damn it, I said I’d explain as we moved out. Let’s gather all our gear and people together and start breaking camp. You noncoms had better have your followers load up on all the water they can carry. Then I want a work detail to start filling in the well.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The engineer of the southbound freight cursed as his locomotive’s headlight picked up the waving figures on the track ahead. The fireman asked, “What’s up?” and the engineer said, “Damned soldiers. Always bumming a ride and we’re running late as it is!”

  As he eased off on the steam throttle the fireman asked, “Do you think it’s wise to stop for them? We have orders to highball through this bandit-infested desert and—”

  “You highball past federales and let me console your widow, kid! Those bastards are armed, and used to having their own way!” As the train slowed he added, “Besides, it might not be a bad thing to have federales aboard. We know the fucking train’s running light. Goddamned bandits think every empty reefer’s filled with gold!”

  As the train slowly braked to a stop the engineer leaned out of his cabin window and called out to the trio of uniformed figures who’d waved him down, “What’s going on, boys? Lose your ponies?” Then he spied the large crowd of darker figures moving toward the track and added, unhappily, “What the hell? Who are all these people?”

  Captain Gringo, wearing the uniform of the highest-ranking turncoat who’d come over to them, waved a sheaf of papers and called back, “Orders from headquarters. We’re moving these peones south to Durango. The general wants the whole area cleared. What are you carrying back there?”

  “String of empties from Nuevo Laredo, but we’re not going as far as Durango. Besides, the cars are full of cow shit and we have no water barrels or other facilities. Maybe—”

  “Look, my orders are to move these fucking peones, not to make them comfortable. You just take us as far as your dispatches run and we’ll be out of your hair. You have any guards tonight?”

  “For a cattle train running dead head? Couple of the brakemen back in the caboose have pistols. You expecting trouble with bandits?”

  Captain Gringo shook his head and, turning to the two noncoms he’d dressed in federal uniforms, said, “You boys go back to the caboose and get the brakemen to help you load these detainees, understand me?”

  They grinned knowingly and moved off down the track with rifles at port. Captain Gringo motioned and the professor moved away from the trackside crowd, looking most uneasy in his own borrowed uniform. The American said, “We’ll ride up here in the locomotive cabin, sir. They say the cars are full of cow shit.”

  As Captain Gringo started to board, the engineer said, “Unauthorized personnel are not allowed up here, soldier.”

  Captain Gringo said, “Yeah,” and helped the older man up the steel ladder. As the engineer repeated his objection, the sound of gunfire came from down the track and, since the other crewmen had apparently been taken care of, the American drew his revolver and said, in a flat, calm tone, “Now listen to me carefully and you both just may come out of this alive. I know how to run this engine without you and if I wasn’t such a friendly person you’d both be in the firebox by now. It’s up to you to convince us you’re more useful to us alive. I’d start by standing over there by the tender wall and keeping your hands well out to the sides. Professor, why don’t you pat them down for dangerous toys?”

  As the professor proceeded to frisk them, the fireman gasped, “They are not federales! We have been tricked!”

  The engineer sighed and said, “The thought had occurred to me, and the man said to be quiet.” Then he smiled sheepishly at Captain Gringo and said, “We don’t have much water in the tender, señor. They will be expecting us to stop at the water tower just down the line, in Agua Moreno.”

  “And, of course, they know your face in Agua Moreno?”

  “Yes. You asked me to give you a reason to keep us alive. The boy, here, shovels coal well, too.”

  Captain Gringo laughed and said, “Professor, see how they’re coming with loading aboard back there.”

  As the old man leaned out of the cabin the American said, “I can bluff pretty well, as you just learned, and, in a pinch, we can simply take on water at gunpoint. A prudent guerrilla would consider you having some half-baked plan to signal the yard men at Agua Moreno and, all in all, it might be best to chance a strange face versus possible treachery.”

  The engineer shrugged hopelessly and said, “This is true. I am trying to think of a way to convince you I am not given to heroics, but the method eludes me. I have never been able to think clearly with a gun pointed at me, señor.”

  The professor turned to say, “The last horse is aboard, Captain Gringo. Why don’t we just put these two off and, that way, nobody gets hurt?”

  The American stared thoughtfully at the two frightened crewmen and said, “We’re in the middle of the desert. With the well at Vegas Salinas filled in, these boys would get mighty thirsty.”

  The firemen grinned and said, “We don’t mind! Another train is sure to come along!” But the American smiled thinly and shook his head, saying, “Not if we can help it, boys. The men I sent to the rear have mined the track behind us and I have other plans for the r
oadway ahead. You still want to get off?”

  The engineer sighed and said, “We are at your mercy, señor. It is obvious you have our full co-operation in whatever your mad plans may be!”

  Captain Gringo said, “You can start by taking your place at the throttle. Sound the whistle once and move out gently. We have horses back there.”

  As the engineer changed places with him, Captain Gringo nodded at the fireman and added, “You just keep a full head of steam up and be very careful with that fucking shovel. Professor, I want you to sit above him on the coal pile and keep an eye on him. I have to watch the track. If he even looks like he’s losing interest in his work, blow his fucking brains out.”

  Then, as the engineer tooted the whistle and eased the throttle open, Captain Gringo said, “That’s fine. How far down the line is this jerkwater stop?”

  “About thirty kilometers, señor. We are overdue there, now. I don’t wish you to think it was our doing, but by now there will have been telegraph inquiries up the line to our last scheduled stop.”

  “That’s no problem. We cut the wires before flagging you down. Is there a Rurale station in Agua Moreno? I want you to think carefully before you answer, friend.”

  “There is a station. Agua Moreno is a small desert siding with only a few railroad workers and their families, but there is a Rurale squad posted there because of the water. I think there are about eight of them, under a corporal. I could be wrong. A prudent man does not concern himself unduly in government matters.”

  The tall American nodded. He knew the engineer was buttering him up, but the man seemed too bright to be lying. Knowing he’d be caught in any crossfire, it was safe to assume he’d be as anxious as they to avoid a confrontation with the often trigger-happy Rurales.

  Captain Gringo heard a commotion behind him and whirled, raising his revolver. But he saw the fireman was bent over by the firebox door and that what he’d heard had been the arrival of one of the other guerrillas, a youth named Verdugo, dressed like himself and the professor in borrowed Army uniforms.