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  He saw the old man was annoyed, so he reached in his shirt and took out three cigars. He told Robles, “You’d better put some men out on guard. Have a smoke while you’re at it.”

  The peone took the offered cigar and grinned, “My God! What a lovely thing to smoke! It smells good enough to put in a virgin!”

  As he walked away, puffing happily, Captain Gringo muttered, “Maxim No. 3 or 4, Professor. If you can’t pay your troops, the least you can do is feed ’em and keep ’em comfortable. Most of these people have never eaten anything as fancy as the food intended for the first-class passengers we put off this train. Ought to keep ’em happy for a while, at least.”

  “I’m sure you underestimate their patriotism. And what are we to do when the food and cigars run out?”

  “Get some more, of course. We’re going to have to rob a bank, too. The way I hear it, none of these men of yours have been paid anything for months.”

  “That’s insane! Where in the devil would they spend the money if we had any to give them?”

  “Where indeed? They’re not pinned down in a remote desert town any more, Professor. We’re in greener ranching country now. A disgruntled man or two could easily slip away to steal some horses and go into business for themselves. Every time I count noses I seem to come up short a man or two. I make it at least a dozen desertions since we left Vegas Salinas, and we’ve got some distance to go. Right now they’re enjoying luxuries most of them have never had. So I doubt if any will be walking out of here on foot tonight. But you’re right. The goodies on this train won’t last. We need more supplies and cash. Never mind where they think they can spend it. A soldier with coins in his pocket is a contented soldier. He blames the enemy for not being able to buy anything with it. Leave him with his pockets empty and he blames his commanding officers. So let’s study the map and consider funding this revolution properly.”

  “Damn it, we are supposed to be an army of liberation, not the bandits the government says we are.”

  “They’re going to call us bandits in any case. May as well make ’em pay for the privilege. How the hell do you think Napoleon paid his troops for twenty years? He was the biggest bank robber since Alexander of Macedon.”

  The old man put his own cigar away, unlit, and grimaced, “I leave the tactical details to you, as we agreed. When and where are we going tonight?”

  “No place. By now the federales expect us to make another night run. They have our general area plotted and must be sweating bullets at a dozen check points as they wait for us to steam into them. I want to give them a few hours to reconsider. By four a.m. or so they should be wondering how we -got through them and where in hell we went. Meanwhile, we’ll paint new numbers on the locomotive and tender, rest our people, and see if we can slip through to the south as an innocent passenger train. I’ve got the regular timetable and if we run a few minutes ahead of the scheduled morning train from Laredo, with the wires down—”

  “But that’s taking us right for the capital!”

  “Relax. I doubt if we’ll bluff our way all the way into Mexico City. I’ve been looking at the map some more.

  The thing I like about these tracks as you go south is that there are so many more of them. Once we’re south of San Luis Potosi there’s no way for us to reach Tampico. So they won’t expect us to go there. On the other hand, there’s a real spider web of tracks to choose from south of San Luis. There ought to be banks in Queretero or Pachuca, too.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! We can’t just roll into a big town and simply stroll up from the station to the bank! They’ll have those new telephones in any bank worth robbing and—”

  “Sure. As soon as we rob the bank they’ll call the police. The soldiers will block the tracks north and south of any town we hit.”

  “That’s what I just said! It’s impossible to use a train for a quick getaway after robbing any bank worth robbing!”

  Captain Gringo smiled and said, “Not impossible, Professor. Just improbable. I’ll see you later. Got to see about changing some numbers before I find out if my mujer has knifed that blonde yet.”

  Some woman was singing “La Paloma” in the blacked-out passenger cars as Captain Gringo crunched down the siding to board the private car at the rear end of the train. It was black in the interior and very quiet. He struck a match and found the lounge was empty. He called out, “Flo? Rosalita?” and heard a girlish giggle from the bedroom.

  Holding the guttering match, he entered, then stopped in the doorway to mutter, “What the hell?”

  The two women were in bed together, both stark naked, with the sheets balled at the foot of the wide bed. As the match burned his fingers and went out, Rosalita said, “You told me to be friendly. Señorita Flo gave me beautiful soap for to wash with and we’ve been playing a new game.”

  He said, “I noticed. You didn’t tell me you were bisexual, Flo.”

  The blonde’s voice was husky and sensual as she replied, “You didn’t ask me. Your Rosalita is a lovely little thing, isn’t she?”

  He didn’t answer. Even in the darkness he could see them as he’d discovered them in the fluttering glow of the match. The contrast of their bodies as they lay entwined on the bed was piquant, to say the least. He said, “I forgot to ask. Which one of you is the boy?”

  Rosalita giggled and Flo said, “We’ve been taking turns on top. She’s mad to be licked, as you doubtless know.”

  Rosalita said, “Come and join us, querido. I want to kiss her madly with you inside me! I had no idea there were so many ways to come!”

  He muttered, “Hell, when in Rome—” and started peeling off his clothes. He wondered if he should take another bath, then grinned and thought, the hell with it. As both women tittered he climbed in between them. They pressed their naked bodies against his from both sides and he responded by running his hands over both, saying, “Decisions, decisions. Who wants to go first?”

  Rosalita rolled on top of him and climbed aboard his erection as a larger perfumed thigh slid across his chest and his nostrils flared at the scent of Flo’s clean but faintly fishy crotch. As Rosalita gasped, “Wheee!” and started to bounce, the bigger blonde husked, “Eat me!”

  Rosalita protested, “No. I want that, too! I want to make love crazy! Shove that big pink rump of yours my way!”

  Flo laughed and turned around in bed, sinking down with her big breasts against the man’s chest as she raised her derriere with a knee on either side of his waist. He didn’t see how Rosalita was managing it, but she obviously was. He could hear her slurping as Flo gasped, “Oh, yes!” and put her full lips to his. He returned her kiss with enthusiasm as she squirmed sensuously atop him, with his shaft in the other woman. It was wild as hell. In no time at all the three of them were climaxing together. Both women collapsed limply as he just lay there, hoping he’d never wake up. Then the blonde laughed and said, “All right. It’s time for musical pricks!” She shoved the laughing, unprotesting Mexican girl aside and as Rosalita rolled off, Flo moved back to envelop him in her own excited flesh. He responded with enthusiasm, surprised at how tight she was for such a big girl as Rosalita crawled in between them and began to kiss him in turn, her own smaller rear presented for cunnilingus as she kissed him madly.

  Rosalita was overexcited and nearly passed out as she beat them both this time. She climaxed with a shuddering gasp and rolled weakly off to get her breath, leaving Captain Gringo and the blonde to finish. Flo made love like a professional who loved her work. He rolled her over to finish on top and they fell nearly out of bed. But as he braced his weight with a hand on the floor she wrapped her long, smooth legs around him and gasped, “Stay like that! I’ve got my tailbone braced against the edge and … Oh Jesus! It’s so good with a real man!”

  By the time he got his breath back it was Rosalita’s turn and they experimented with positions. It was hard to say which of them was more acrobatic. Each time he was sure he was finished for the night one of them would come up with an
other invention and the contrast between their bodies was enough to keep him aroused long past common sense. In the end, as all men born of mortal women must, he was too exhausted to even move. But as he dozed off they were going at it hot and heavy beside him on the crowded, sweat-soaked mattress. As he lay there, drowsy and content, he murmured, “Thank you, God. For a change you’re behaving very considerately. Now, if you’ll just let me live a few more days to enjoy this, I’ll forgive a few of the shitty things you’ve been doing to me recently.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The nice thing about San Luis Potosi was that it was the biggest and oldest mining town in Mexico. Cortez had dug the first silver there with Aztec slaves. They’d been digging silver ever since, and the lunar landscape was a maze of gutted hills and spoilbanks nearly as high. The town was a rabbit warren of miners’ shacks and towering frame shaft works surrounding the small business district near the railroad station. On the map, rail lines, in use or abandoned, formed a plate of spaghetti running through and around the cratered hills.

  The federales in their wisdom had thought to post a guard detachment surrounding the Potosi yards. They had no way of knowing the guerrillas had moved down from the north with the innocent morning traffic, but wouldn’t have been unduly worried if they had. They had a battery of Hotchkiss guns to deal with any foreseeable emergency.

  Captain Gringo and his bank-robbing team had changed to the simple white cotton of the Mexican peone and had their guns hidden under their serapes, so they drew little attention as they strolled down from the mining area with the men of the noonday shift. They walked into the bank just before it was too close for siesta. There was one uniformed guard in the bank but he was very philosophical when Robles shoved a pistol in his ear and told him to be quiet.

  The tellers were philosophical, too. It wasn’t their money, after all, and they felt rather sorry for the bank robbers. Where did the fools think they were going with the sacks of double eagles? As soon as they left, a phone call to Los Rurales would mean the end of this farce and the prompt return of the money, minus the usual skimming of the police, of course.

  So the robbery went smooth as silk and they were out with the cash and legging it back up the slope when the bank manager walked over to his desk and picked up the phone. He called the nearby Rurale post and said, “Good morning, sergeant. This is Castro, at the bank. I hate to disturb you so close to siesta, but some pobrecitos just held us up.”

  “The bank was robbed? Which way did they go?”

  “Up into the hills, as usual. They doubtless have some ponies waiting for them just outside of town. I know it’s hot, but if you hurry—”

  “I’ll have Montoya’s team cut them off to the east. They’ll never make it to the Sierra Oriental. For a moment you startled me. I thought it might be that bunch with the stolen train. But I can see the main line from my window as we speak. Nothing going on along the tracks. Probably some local boys who should know better. My respects to your lovely family, Señor Castro. I’d better get in touch with the other units within riding distance.”

  As both men hung up, Captain Gringo and his men topped a rise and were running for the train, stopped on an old mine siding. Robles asked, “Are you sure this abandoned track runs anywhere, Captain Gringo?”

  The tall American said, “I told you. It joins up with the main line to Queretaro six or eight kilometers south of here. If we time it right we’ll be rolling through the Queretaro yards about sundown. With any luck, they’ll take us for the evening train to Pachuca.”

  The bank robbery caused no pins to shift at headquarters. There were always bank robberies, and the Army left them to Los Rurales. There seemed no connection between the ragged band who’d held up another local bank and the guerrillas with the stolen train. There seemed to be no reports at all about the goddamned train. It had to be somewhere, but where could that somewhere be? A bored lieutenant sat by the map table as his superiors enjoyed their siestas. Perhaps the rebels were taking a siesta, too. It was the lieutenant’s considered opinion they’d wised up and ditched the train on some siding to fade back into the bandit-infested countryside. Sooner or later someone would find the train and report in. Then it would be a simple matter of drawing a circle one day’s ride or afoot from the last contact and simply mounting the usual cavalry sweep of the whole area. The villagers might try to hide them. Villagers always did. But some peon always talked. A few leaders hanging in the village plaza had a way of loosening tongues. It was all so routine and banal. The dapper young officer was glad he was a headquarters man. This galloping about amid dust and screaming women was most wearing on the soul.

  Aboard the stolen train, many of the guerrillas were enjoying a siesta. Some of the newly paid soldiers of the revolution were gambling their newfound wages while others ate, made love, or simply dozed content. Back in the private car, Rosalita and Flo were experimenting with lesbian love alone. Captain Gringo and the machine gun were needed forward.

  They rolled south through the Valley of Mexico unmolested, stopping only once for water at a small town and passing on, unsuspected. The rail traffic was heavier this far south, and a passing train drew little attention. Switching tactics again, Captain Gringo had cut no wires after pulling back on the main lines. He knew they’d be expecting him to if he was in the area. If anyone thought to report the position of this locomotive, the new numbers they’d painted over the old ones fit the timetable as well as was to be expected on a casually run railroad.

  The day wore down uneventfully as they steamed through fiat farmlands. The fields were huge, but the scattered pueblos lay widely spaced, for most of the land was owned by El Presidente’s barons. The peones who worked the crops of their masters lived clustered together in little mud-brick slums rather than on the land. He knew this, but the professor kept jawing about it, and the need for land reform, as the American tried not to fall rudely asleep. The tense moments at the bank up the line, or the wild, all-night orgy before it, had worn him down more than he’d intended.

  When the professor wasn’t boring him about his Utopian dreams, he bickered about his rank. The old man should have been pleased his men were well fed and had been paid for the first time in months. He seemed worried about it, or, rather, worried about who was in command.

  Captain Gringo let him prattle on. It seemed the less important people were, the more they wanted to insist they were men of destiny. Sooner or later they were going to have to have a showdown about it. But Captain Gringo had more important things to worry about – like staying alive another night between the federales and those two crazy spitfires back there. If only he could give Rosalita to somebody, he’d probably survive Flo. Jesus, Flo had looked marvelous in the morning light and, after the novelty wore off, it was more fun with one beautiful woman, the old-fashioned way. They’d all been showing off more than they’d really enjoyed it. It’s hard to work up genuine passion with a third party watching and commenting lewdly on one’s performance.

  The afternoon sun got tired, too, and was low in the west as they rolled innocently into Queretaro. Captain Gringo was wide awake now. It was the biggest town they’d tried to bluff through, and he hoped he knew what he was doing. Robles was at the throttle, wearing an engineer’s twill cap. The machine gun had been tucked out of sight in the cabin. As they rolled through a signal Robles muttered, “Shit! They seem to be running us off on a fucking siding! They must be on to us!”

  “It may be just routine. I see a yard man up ahead and he doesn’t seem excited. I’ll do the talking. Give me that hat.”

  As they slowed down he leaned out and called, “What’s up? We’re running late for Pachuca as it is.”

  The yard man called back, “Orders. Have to clear the northbound line for another troop train. Something big is going on up North. You’ll be switched back as soon as los federales pass.”

  Captain Gringo moved over to the controls and said, “Robles, go back and make sure everyone stays calm and away from t
he windows. I’ll sound the whistle if it’s time to panic.”

  As Robles left them, the professor said, “You didn’t even look at me when you gave that last order! Would you have my people think I am a mere figurehead?”

  “You want to run after Robles and tell him it’s time to surrender?”

  “Of course not. I was about to suggest the same plan. But you are becoming most arrogant, and I won’t have it.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. Let’s quibble about rank when it’s safe to worry about it, all right? I’m not trying to steal your army, Professor. I’d be better off on my own right now. Just let me get you all to a safe place and you can give them close-order drill and pushups to your heart’s content. If you want, I’ll just be on my way alone the minute it’s safe to leave you.”

  “I didn’t say I wanted you to resign your commission.”

  “What commission? Face it. We’re a ragtag band of frightened people, not an army, not a revolution, not a fucking thing that makes any sense at all! If the stupid government you have down here would just leave those poor peones alone they’d be perfectly content to grow corn or herd cows. As I see it, this so-called revolution is simple self-defense.”

  “On that much we can agree. Karl Marx explained that class struggle was inevitable.”

  “Shit. This isn’t class struggle. That stupid Diaz and his bloody-minded Rurales seem to shoot people as a hobby! Nobody but you gives a fig for Marx or Adam Smith. They just want to eat and sleep and fornicate in peace. I could end this revolution overnight if I was Diaz. I’d just leave the poor bastards and their women alone.”

  “That’s what I just said. What is this funny-looking train we’re drawing up alongside?”

  Captain Gringo hit the brakes as he stared out at the armored train between them and the main line. It was a string of five or six former boxcars, with thick boiler plates riveted to them as if they were small rolling battleships. There was a gun turret atop each armored car, with the muzzles of what looked like Hotchkiss guns thrust wickedly out the slits. He marveled, “Oh, nice. You see how they have the engine in the rear? That son-of-a-bitch could shoot its way through anything. I wonder what it’s doing here, and if there’s any ammo for those little cannon.”