Blood Runner Page 3

  “You’re very observant, Padre.”

  “We live in interesting times. Since you obviously have a rifle hidden in those leaves for reasons that are not my business, I take it you know about Los Indios?”

  “I did hear something about Indians,” he lied.

  The priest nodded and said, “The San Bias are roving on the mainland again. One never knows what they may be up to. Sometimes I fear the San Bias don’t know, either. They are a most truculent tribe. We have never been able to convert them from their savage ways.”

  Captain Gringo remembered the young couple he’d shared a meal with and wondered if they were these San Bias the older man was speaking of. They’d seemed reasonable enough back there in the jungle, but maybe that was because he hadn’t tried to convert them from their savage ways. He’d heard some odd stories about the way the early Spanish had gone about civilizing Indians.

  The priest said, “That young lady over there is on her way to Panama City. As you see, she is traveling alone.”

  “Right, and these Indians of yours are on the warpath.”

  “Alas, the San Bias are not my Indians. They follow strange jungle gods of their own. The Indians might not be the greater danger to a woman traveling alone. The train may be carrying ruffians from the coast. As you see, she is most attractive. I feel it would be better if she boarded the train with an escort.”

  “Yeah? How come you picked me, Padre? I need a shave and for all you know I’m a crazy bandito or worse.”

  The priest smiled gently and said, “One gets to know about people in my vocation, my son. I know nothing about your past and I care not a fig what you are doing here in Panama. I saw at once you were a gentleman. May I introduce you to the lady and tell her you will see her safely to the end of the line?”

  The wanted man hesitated as he ran the new development through his mind for flaws. He didn’t want to be saddled with some weeping widow in a firefight. On the other hand, if they were looking for a single man on the run ... He nodded and said, “Why not?”

  The priest led him over to the girl, who he now saw was a stunning beauty under her veil, and introduced her as Madame Marie Chambrun. Captain Gringo gave his name as Dick Richards, hoping he’d remember the name if it came up again. The widow was French, of course, and her Spanish was worse than Captain Gringo’s. He spoke little French, but she fortunately spoke English in a cute little voice with a Breton lilt.

  As they waited for the train, the tall American said as little as possible. So the girl, a bit nervous, started telling him the story of her life. It wasn’t a long or complicated story. She’d come from France as the bride of a young French engineer, working on the canal for the Suez Society. He’d died a few months ago of yellow jack. When the American nodded and mentioned he knew about yellow jack, Marie nodded and said, wistfully, “I noticed the fading bruises on m’sieu’s skin. Isn’t it most bizarre how the fever chooses its victims? My own case was most mild, they tell me. My late husband was strong and almost as big as m’sieu, but the doctors could do nothing to save him. What did m’sieu take for it? Quinine or the gin the English swear by?”

  “I, ah, just toughed it through. I was out in the jungle without a doctor when it hit me. I guess I was just lucky.”

  The priest murmured, “The peones say the fever is caused by the bite of some insect. In God’s truth, no civilized doctor seems to know what causes it or how to cure it. Sooner or later, all of us get it if we stay more than a few months; vomito negro was the cause of the French failure to complete the canal project.”

  Marie Chambrun frowned bitterly and said, “Mais non! It was not a failure on the part of my poor Jacques and the other young engineers. It was mismanagement of funds in France. That is why I must go to the city. I have never received my late husband’s bonus. He was to have been given extra pay for completing his section ahead of time. Now they tell me there is no money left. We shall see, in court, non?”

  Captain Gringo frowned and asked, “Do you mean you’re broke and stranded in this country, ma’am?”

  “Heavens, non! My family is most wealthy and they send me money. But I shall not return to France as .they keep begging me until I have had justice! My husband earned his bonus. He died for their thrice-accursed canal. It is not just that they write him off as wasted effort!”

  The priest looked down at his feet and murmured, “The French are most practique where money is involved, I fear. Madame refuses to believe me when I tell her there is no justice in a Colombian court of law. Not down here in the lowlands, at any rate. Bogota sends only its most worthless officials to Panama to get rid of them. What they call government, in Panama City, is a farce. Everyone knows this part of Colombia is administered by thugs and controlled by rich outsiders. Madame would do better pleading with the Vanderbilt Trust or Lloyds of London for her late husband’s bonus. The international cartels at least rob widows and orphans with a certain style. The so-called judges in Panama City are unwashed boors.”

  Before they could go into it farther, the ground began to tingle and the train rolled around the bend to slow, hissing, to a halt.

  Captain Gringo bent and picked up the small carpet bag the widow had at her feet. The priest walked them to the nearest passenger car of the passenger-freight combine and as the American asked if he knew what the fare was, Marie said, “Don’t be silly, m’sieu. We are traveling on my husband’s railroad pass. It still seems to be good and one must take every advantage of the money changers, non?”

  He suddenly decided he liked her a lot better.

  It was awkward, but he helped her up the steps, juggling the carpet bag and bundled shotgun as they made their way through a cluttered vestibule to a corridor with separate compartments along one side. The railroad might be American-owned and the locomotive was a Baldwin, but the first-class coach was English.

  He elbowed a sliding door open for her. The compartment was nearly empty, but a voice called out, “We have no room in here.”

  Captain Gringo stared morosely down at the dapper little white-haired man who’d spoken and said, “You’ll have to make room, friend. The lady needs a seat and I’m bigger than you.”

  The couple who’d been there first consisted of the annoyed little man and a voluptuous red-headed woman in a linen traveling duster and mosquito-veiled picture hat. The man stared unwinkingly at the tall American as Marie Chambrun ignored the man and took a seat across from the redhead. Captain Gringo placed her carpet bag on the rack above them and sat down beside her, the bundled shotgun across his knees as he waited to see what the little man was going to say or do about it.

  The other man was wearing a rumpled white suit, but his shirt was fresh and you could smell his bay rum across the compartment. His goatlike face was made of Vs. His white hair came to a sharp V above a wrinkled, oily forehead. The bushy black brows formed another V above the V of his hooked nose and the double V of his white mustache and Louis Napoleon beard. He smiled thinly at Captain Gringo and said, “American, eh? I thought you were one of these unwashed peasants at first sight.”

  “We’d have sat down anyway, friend.”

  “No doubt. I notice the leaves you have around that Browning are drying out a bit. Do you always carry your guns wrapped up like that?”

  Captain Gringo started peeling away the leaves and tossing them out the window to his left as the train tooted and started moving again. The V-shaped man waited for an explanation, saw he wasn’t going to get one, and said, “Permit me to introduce myself. I am Sir Basil Hakim. The lady to my right is called Jenny. She is my, ah, secretary.”

  Captain Gringo didn’t answer. He didn’t like gents who had to let you know right off who they were screwing. The redhead looked hard as nails and was probably used to being treated like a good expensive cigar. He felt a little sorry for her anyway. She was a bit over thirty and the bitterness was starting to show at the corners of her lush lips. Her price would be coming down in a few short years and. she looked like sh
e knew it.

  Sir Basil waited again and finally shook his head to remark, “This promises to be a rather awkward journey through the jungle, young man. Would it help if I apologized for my earlier rudeness? I really spoke before I noticed you were gentlefolk.”

  Captain Gringo said, “I’m Dick Richards. This is Madame Chambrun. She’s not my secretary. She’s a lady. So watch it.”

  Hakim laughed, quite pleasantly, considering the cobra expression in his amber eyes, and said, “You know about the Indians being back on the mainland, I see. Browning makes a good riot gun. What’s it loaded with, No. 9 buck?”

  “Yeah. Are you interested in guns, Mr. Hakim?”

  Hakim laughed and replied, “You obviously don’t know who I am. That does explain a lot.”

  He reached down between his feet and opened a valise as he continued, “I’ve made my own arrangements in case this train is hit by the San Bias. Have you ever seen such lovely machinery?”

  Captain Gringo watched as the older man began to assemble an odd-looking little weapon he’d carried stripped down in the valise. Hakim snapped a thin wooden stock to the bulky, rather awkward-looking action, and said, “It’s not on the general market, yet. But I keep abreast of the latest developments. Mauser of Germany will be coming out with this in a year or so.”

  “I thought Mauser made bolt-action rifles.”

  “Oh, they do. The best military rifle in the world, despite the advertisements of Kragg or Martini. As I said this new toy is an advance model. Few bugs to work out before they can produce it economically.”

  “I can see there’s some hand tooling on the action. What the deuce is it? It looks like a miniature machine gun.”

  Hakim brightened and agreed, “That’s just what it is, dear boy—9mm full of semi-automatic, with only seven moving parts. Any San Bias attacking this train would be well advised to stay clear of this car, what ho?”

  “If that gadget works; What’s this business I keep hearing about the Indians being on the mainland? Where are Indians supposed to be?”

  Marie Chambrun spoke up to explain, “My late husband told me about the San Bias. They are sea-roving canoe Indians, like the Caribs. They live on small islands off the north coast of Panama—at least, that is where they are supposed to be. When they are at peace they hunt the mangrove swamps for game, or fish the lagoons for mullet and pearls. As long as they stay out there, the Colombian Army leaves them alone.”

  “I see. And if they wander ashore, that’s considered a declaration of war?”

  “But it is a declaration of war. The Indians know they have no business on the mainland.”

  “I get the picture. The early Spanish settlers gave up on a few pockets of Indians they couldn’t get to wear pants and it’s too much trouble to chase them through a mangrove swamp or coral keys. If they come back to the country they used to own, all bets are off.”

  Marie shook her head and said, “Mais non, they really can be most savage. When my late husband and his friends were working in the jungle they had many, how you say, run-ins with the San Bias. They are tres savage. Jacques said they shot a Negro at his side with a poisoned arrow one afternoon. The poor black man had done nothing to offend anyone. Les San Bias are most uncivilized and unpredictable.”

  Captain Gringo shrugged and turned his gaze out the window to hide his thoughts as well as to be ready for an unexpected arrow from the passing wall of green.

  He thought back to the Indians he’d met back there in the swamp. That boy had been packing a mean-looking bow and could have put an arrow in his back. But he hadn’t. What the hell did it mean, and how could he use it?

  If you just say “jungle” without seeing Central America it doesn’t mean that much. Word games like “green hell” are getting there, but even seeing wasn’t believing and the train seemed to be boring its way like a worm through some big half-rotted green apple. Trees leaned at crazy angles, being strangled by elephant-trunk vines that were in turn being attacked by what looked like spinach-green barbed wire. There were palms that crawled on their bellies like reptiles, sprouting big red thorns.

  They passed a lake of puke-green water and he spotted a big rusty machine surrounded by water-lily pads big enough to walk on. He muttered, “Hey, that looked like a steam shovel!” and Marie said, “Yes. The Suez Society abandoned tons of equipment in here when they gave up.”

  “Was that lake back there part- of the canal?”

  “Who knows? They dammed rivers and dredged the mouth of the Gatun deep enough for oceangoing vessels. Jacques told me they kept changing the plans, if indeed they had plans to start with. Old Ferdinand De Lesseps tried to supervise from Paris and as fast as he sent engineers into these malarial swamps, they died. My husband said the best possible route was this one the railroad follows. The American company who owns the tracks did not seem inclined to move them out of Jacques’ way.”

  Sir Basil snapped the clip in his machine pistol and said, “In the end, I’m betting on the Yanks to finish the canal. As a British subject, I’d prefer Whitehall to control the route. Rule Britannia and all that, but while we fiddle, Rome burns. I’m afraid the coming century goes to the Americans by default. I had a few shares in the Suez Society, but, fortunately, I owned a block of railway shares, too. I sold short when I caught onto the Yankee manner.”

  Captain Gringo shot him a curious look and asked, “The States were behind the failure of the French company, Sir Basil?”

  “Oh, not directly. Morgan, Vanderbilt et at hardly brewed up yellow jack in a witch’s cauldron. But they knew De Lesseps would fail. So they play the waiting game.”

  “You mean they want to delay the building of the Panama Canal because it would cut into their railroad profits. Right?”

  “Wrong. Modern capitalism is hardly that crude. Madame just observed the railroad trust hold the right of way to the only practical route across the isthmus. Whoever builds the perishing ditch will have to pay, and through the nose, for these jolly tracks we’re riding over. No doubt, by now, the wise-money lads are investing in a new canal venture. I’m sure it will be an American company, this time.”

  He armed his Mauser, rested it in his lap, and added, “That’s why we’re going to have a few more revolutions in the near future.”

  “The American bankers want a revolution in Panama?”

  “Oh, they don’t care one way or the other. Once they’re ready to build, they’ll buy out any political hacks in power. Please remember Panama is not a country, yet. It’s a neglected corner of the Republica de Colombia.”

  “I stand corrected, Professor. Since you know so much about the local revolutions, how about telling us what they’re fighting about.”

  “I thought I just did. The name of the game is power. Whoever wants to build anything down here has to cross the gypsy’s palms with silver.”

  “In other words, any bandito who can manage to be El Presidente for the right weekend will be paid off by the bigwigs from outside?”

  “Exactly. I’m sure they’ll offer grander excuses than naked peasant greed. They usually do. Since the California Gold Rush made this part of the world more important than it looks, they’ve had over fifty revolutions. The speeches are usually about Bogota’s misrule and neglect, and the peones can get dreadfully worked up over words like libertad. The Colombian Government at Bogota keeps winning, of course. Their army may be shabby by European standards, but a man with a machete really has no business fighting a soldier with a repeating rifle.”

  “I see. The rebels would no doubt like to buy. all the automatic weapons they could get, eh?”

  Hakim glanced down at the little killing machine in his lap and chuckled. He patted it and said, “You’re right. I am a simple merchant trying to make an honest living. You’ll hear soon enough, in the city, I’m supposed to be a gun runner.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Not if you mean mucking about in swamps with a muleload or two of rusty old Springfields or Lebels. I
deal in quality merchandise, wholesale. I’d give you my card, but, forgive me, you don’t strike me as a man who’d be in the market for a battery of field guns, or perhaps a few Krupp gunboats.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “I hoped you would be. You see, I’m a rather small man, physically. I like to let people know, right off, I can be dangerous when crossed.”

  Captain Gringo chuckled and said, “I didn’t know you sold battleships when we barged in on you.”

  “Of course you didn’t. That’s why I’ve decided to let you live when we get to Panama City. I’m really a rather gentle type. I only kill people who really annoy me.

  He was still smiling, but he sounded like he meant every word.

  Chapter Three

  The trip took all afternoon, not because it was far as the crow might fly, but because the tracks wound around hairpin turns and the engine fought some impossible grades. Marie Chambrun was dozing with her head against Captain Gringo’s shoulder as they crested the Culebra Mountains and began the zigzag descent to the Pacific shore. Now that he’d seen the proposed canal route, he was sure everyone involved in the scheme was either crazy or had never seen the place.

  The Indian attack hadn’t materialized. Captain Gringo knew better than anyone that the San Bias were really on the mainland, but he nodded in agreement when Sir Basil decided it had only been another rumor.

  Captain Gringo asked, “Aren’t you going to put that Mauser away? We’re not in jungle anymore. This slope seems to be mostly waist-high brush and we’ll be coming into civilization soon, if I’m right about the timetable.”

  Hakim smiled thinly and got to his feet with the gun cradled in his hands. He was shorter than Captain Gringo had thought. The old arms merchant was just too tall to call a dwarf and just too short to call a grown man. It was easier, now, to see why he liked guns and acted so openly sinister. The poor little bastard had probably led a rough life until he got hold of his first equalizer.