Renegade 33 Read online

  Captain Gringo got out his next-to-last claro and lit up before he insisted, ‘You’d better, unless you want to wait here until those guys El Jefe sent into town come back to tell him we could be fibbing. I don’t know where our guns are now, and I hope El Jefe’s got some wine, women, or whatever, to keep him busy for the next few hours. But how many times can we hope to bullshit him?’

  ‘I didn’t think it would work the last time. Eh bien, here is my plan. We abscond as soon as it is dark enough. Then we hole up, well off in the spinache, to await the rising of the moon. If we can find some trail, other than the ones these unwashed types will surely cover, there is only a fifty-fifty chance we’ll be going down it the wrong way. Even getting lost in the jungle has to be safer than being here when El Jefe starts pouting again, hein?’

  Captain Gringo nodded and said, ‘Okay. I’d better alert Teresa that we’ll be leaving soon.’

  But as he started to rise Gaston grabbed him and hissed, ‘Are you out of your adorable mind, Dick? We can’t risk taking a soft, spoiled Spanish girl with us!’

  Captain Gringo frowned and replied, ‘We can’t risk leaving her here, either, damn it. That fucking El Jefe was talking about cutting her nipples off before we got him really pissed!’

  ‘True. But while we may be risking her life if we leave her here, we are sure to get all three of us killed if we try to carry her with us. Our only chance calls for moving tout de suite and far, long before we are missed. They check their more valuable prisoner often. We could not hope to get an hour’s lead on them if we tried to take her along.’

  Captain Gringo shook his head and said, ‘Okay, so we get to run like hell for an hour. We’ll watch her doorway and sneak her out right after they check her ropes. Come on. Let’s let her in on the plan before she tries to go to sleep. She’s going to have to be wide-awake, indeed, if she hopes to move worth a damn right after we untie her.’

  Gaston followed Captain Gringo to his feet, muttering under his breath as the taller American moved toward Teresa’s hut in the gathering darkness. Not wanted to be spotted from the campfire, and knowing how flimsy the thatched walls were, Captain Gringo moved in along the line of trees to enter by the back door he meant to tear open. So, inside the hut, the segundo had no way of guessing that he was being overheard as he told the struggling captive, ‘Be nice, querida. For why do you keep trying to kick me in the cajones, eh? You know you want it. All women want it. It is the nature of the beasts.’

  Teresa was trying to scream and not having much luck with the big Indio’s palm clamped over her mouth like that. So when Captain Gringo burst through the thatch and landed on the segundo like a ton of pissed-off bricks, the Indio naturally let go of her face, and she screamed loud enough to wake the dead. Or, at any rate, any dead less dead than the Segundo crushed under Captain Gringo’s enraged and still-hitting weight. Gaston grabbed the big Yank from behind and hissed, ‘Enough! Can’t you see he’s spilled his bladder and bowels, Dick? How many times do you have to break the same spine and ... will you please shut up, señora?’

  She did, once she figured out what was going on. But as Captain Gringo rolled the dead bandito away from her and proceeded to take off his gun rig, a voice from outside called, ‘Hey, Indio. You need help in there? I like cherry, too, hombre!’

  Neither soldier of fortune had an answer for that. But Teresa turned out to be a fast thinker when she wasn’t screaming. Her voice was low and dirty as she called back, ‘Go away, muchacho. Cannot a lady have some privacy around here?’

  ‘Oh, you Indio!’ laughed the other outlaw, turning away with a very lewd suggestion indeed. Captain Gringo handed one of the dead man’s guns to Gaston, stuck the other in the waistband of his own pants, and started to untie the girl as he whispered, ‘Nice going. That ought to give us an even better lead. Who checks prisoners when they know they’re being, ah, watched?’

  ‘He tried for to rape me, Dick.’ She sobbed. So he said, ‘We noticed. Don’t blubber up on us again, God damn it! Here, I’ll help you up. We have to get out of here now!’

  ‘Pero, Dick, I have no shoes! They took my shoes away! I don’t think I can run barefoot through the jungle!’

  ‘Sure you can. First you lift your right foot, then your left. Or would you rather stay here and wait to see who shows up for sloppy seconds?’

  ‘Must you be so brutal, damn you?’

  ‘Brutal or futal, we’re leaving. Gaston, grab her ankles and take the lead. Let’s go.’

  Gaston didn’t argue. He only talked too much when it didn’t matter. He picked up Teresa’s bare ankles and bulled out the back way as Captain Gringo carried the rest of her and the ammo belts. Carrying her that way wasn’t bad for the first quarter of a mile. Then Gaston stopped, swore, and said, ‘End of the line. We seem to have run into a très large body of water.’

  Captain Gringo sat Teresa on a fallen log and moved around to morosely survey the sorry situation. The moon wasn’t up yet. But even by starlight one could see the broad expanse of still water ahead. He muttered, ‘Maybe if we wade it, sort of slow and easy ...’ But then a fish jumped and something even bigger jumped after it to catch it in midair. So he didn’t answer as Gaston remarked, ‘You were saying ...?’

  Teresa sobbed, ‘My God, we’re trapped,’ and both soldiers of fortune wondered what else was new. Looking back the way they’d just come, they could still see the campfire glow through the tree boles. Captain Gringo started to ask her if she had any idea where Limón might be. Then he remembered that she’d been carried her unconscious and thought it more sensible to suggest, ‘We work our way along the edge to the north. That trail we came in by runs to the south.’

  Gaston said, ‘True. Mais, won’t that mean we are probably going even deeper into the spinache, Dick?’

  ‘Right now we can’t get too deep in it to suit me! The trail could loop all over hell. We know that they know we know it’s the only trail out of this neck of the woods. So that’s what they’ll try first. Let’s go. I’m sorry, honey. But you have to start walking. We’re running out of time.’

  She stood up, took a step, and winced, saying, ‘I’ll try. But I don’t know how far I can walk like this.’

  ‘Hell, look on the bright side, kid. At the rate we’re going how far can we get before they catch us?’

  As it turned out, it wasn’t far. The moon was beginning to pearl the sinister water to their right when, ahead, they spotted more of the same. Another damned jungle stream – a wide one, entered the one barring progress to the east at right angles from the west, to bar further progress to the north. Captain Gringo chewed the end of his unlit cigar as he considered this. He was already pissed enough when Gaston asked, ‘Eh bien, know any other interesting shortcuts?’

  ‘Look, maybe if we can work upstream, around the north end of the camp—’

  ‘To where, sacre God damn? Is it not obvious that our adorable El Jefe sited his disgusting jungle camp with a view to entrances and exits? It sits at the end of that gun runner’s trail to nowhere, guarded on at least two sides by open water, so—’

  ‘So if the dog hadn’t stopped to sniff it’s mama, it might have whatever. Let’s go. We sure as hell can’t stay here. Any minute, admiration for the segundo’s staying power has to turn to wonder, and you can almost see the damned camp from here!’

  Gaston took the lead. The jungle floor this close to water was squishy soft. But Teresa still bitched every time she stepped on a twig. Gaston sat down on another fallen tree and proceeded to take off his mosquito boots, muttering, ‘I feel sure your feet are bigger than mine, you spoiled species of cow, mais we shall have to do something about your constant mooing!’

  It might have worked. They might even have skirted the camp to the north before it came unstuck. But they would never know. For just then, all hell broke loose.

  Captain Gringo grabbed the girl and flattened behind Gaston’s log with her as a bullet wanged into it from the other side. Gaston leapt off it as ye
t another round blew punky splinters from the place he’d just been sitting. More bullets were thudding into more wood above them as the little Frenchman got his stolen gun out and gasped, ‘Sacre God damn, could all that be meant for little old me?’

  Captain Gringo growled, ‘Hold your fire. Those are stray rounds flying out of camp. Let’s not tell anyone there’s a target out here. Make ’em guess!’

  They did as the fusillade continued, and they tried to figure out what was going on. As they heard the death rattle of automatic fire Captain Gringo gasped, ‘I don’t remember seeing a machine gun in that camp! Did either of you?’

  Gaston said, ‘Mais non! Yet there it goes again and you are right. It is a machine gun, firing in deadly earnest at someone I feel glad I am not keeping company with at the moment!’

  The mysterious machine gun began another burst, then stopped in mid-sentence. Captain Gringo observed, ‘Looks like they got him, if his gun didn’t just jam.’

  ‘Oui, but someone seems to be making up for the silence with small arms fire! What could all that noise mean, Dick?’

  ‘Shut up and listen,’ Captain Gringo suggested. So they did, and after a while the firefight faded away to occasional single shots. Gaston nodded from experience and said, ‘They’re taking care of the wounded now. I wonder who won. That was too much shooting to have been an internal squabble, hein?’

  ‘No question about that. The gang got jumped by somebody! Teresa, does your grandfather own a machine gun?’

  She said, ‘He could. I told you he was very rich.’

  He nodded, still undecided. Then he saw that the question was academic. Outlined by the orange glow in the distance, a skirmish line of guys in uniform were headed their way, and there was no place to go. So he got rid of his stolen revolver and stood up, hands high, to call out, ‘Don’t shoot! We’re on your side, I hope!’

  The advancing riflemen didn’t shoot, but they didn’t treat anyone too nicely as they marched them back into camp, or what was left of it. Dead bodies lay sprawled all over the campsite. El Jefe’s tent was down, and so was El Jefe, judging by the way someone wearing his boots had soaked the folds of canvas draped across that man-sized lump. The machine gun they’d heard was set up on its tripod by the fire. It was a Maxim. Who the quasi-uniformed bozo standing by it with a quizzical smile might be was still up for grabs.

  One of the men who’d rounded up the soldiers of fortune and the girl called out, ‘We found these out in the trees, Generate. They say they are on our side. I did not know anyone else was on our side, but I thought you might wish for to speak to them before we shot them, eh?’

  El Generate waved the captives in politely enough and suggested that they explain what they might be.

  Captain Gringo pointed at the body under the wrecked tent and said, ‘These hombres were holding us prisoner. I take it you must be the Costa Rican Guard?’

  El Generate snorted in disgust and asked, ‘Do I look like a sissy? Do you not recognize the uniform of Nicaragua when you see it, you tourist?’

  Captain Gringo managed not to gulp before he replied, as lightly as he could, ‘Oh, come to think of it, you do look like Nicaraguan regulars, sort of. I guess we just weren’t expecting to meet up with your army this far south of the border, Generate.’

  The man in the quasi-uniform made up of bits and pieces stolen from at least three armies shrugged and said, ‘Those are the fortunes of war. El Tío Sam, for some reason, seems to favor the enemies of the Nicaraguan people. By the way, I mean no disrespect, but is that not a Yanqui accent you are wearing, señor, ah ...?’

  ‘Walker, Ricardo Walker, and this is Gaston Verrier. You may recall us fighting for your side the last time we were up your way, sir!’

  That was true, no matter which side was winning this season, as the two of them had fought on both sides in the ongoing, Nicaraguan civil war.

  El General muttered, ‘Walker? Walker? The only Yanqui named Walker I recall was a would-be dictator who got shot trying for to meddle in Nicaraguan political matters, and you are too young to be him even if he was ... oh, muchacho mio! You are not by any chance the Walker they call Captain Gringo?’

  The slightly older man sounded happy about it. So Captain Gringo flipped the coin their lives were embossed on and nodded modestly. El Generate grabbed him like a long-lost son and bear-hugged him as he blew garlic and pepper in his ear, explaining, ‘We could not have met at a better time, Captain Gringo! The pobrecito I’d issued our only automatic weapon to was killed only minutes ago! You are just what I need right now! I have heard of your brave compahero, Gaston, and this is your adelita, eh? I must say you know how to pick them, you dog. She is muy linda. How are you called, my pretty muchacha?’

  The Spanish girl was fortunately too scared to say more than, ‘I am called Teresa, señor.’

  ‘Bueno. You must have run off from a good family. Anyone can see you have Spanish blood.’ Said the guerrilla leader, letting go of Captain Gringo to shout, ‘Attend me, you unwashed scum of the earth and the even dirtier whores they sleep with! These new recruits are Captain Gringo and his adelita Teresa, the ugly little man is the Great Gaston you may have heard of, so do not try for to fuck him, either!’

  Someone shouted, ‘Viva Captain Gringo.’ Someone usually did. El Generale smiled approvingly and turned back to his ‘recruits’ to ask, ‘Tell me, Captain Gringo, who were these idiots we just wiped out?’

  ‘They were bandits, Generale. Their leader was only called El Jefe. We know little about them, since they just captured us.’

  ‘Ah, no doubt they intended to turn you in for the prices on your heads, no? Bueno, you are safe with us now.’

  Teresa asked, ‘Why did you shoot all these people if you did not know who they were?’ Some dames just had to ask. Gaston kicked her bare ankle to shut her up as El Generale shrugged and replied matter-of-factly, ‘They had guns, food, ammunition. We needed all three. We have a long way to go, in hostile country, my children.’

  ‘We’re going somewhere?’ asked Captain Gringo mildly. So El Generale announced, ‘Sí, back to free our country. We were driven over the border far to the west but now we have more ammunition, and those ladrones will never expect us to return from this far east. I may have forgotten to tell you. I am Generale Verdugo, a well-known military genius. I am always surprising people.’

  Captain Gringo agreed that was for sure, as Gaston grabbed Teresa by one wrist and tried to inform her by mental telepathy that if even one of these guys discovered that she was worth real money, they’d really be in trouble!

  Teresa didn’t spill the beans that night. Captain Gringo didn’t let her. For fastidious reasons, El Generale decided to make camp a mile away, since that was less work than cleaning up his most recent massacre. By the time some lesser guerrillas had thrown together a hut for the great Captain Gringo and his adelita, Teresa had found some shoes and some of her native wit. But she still started talking dumb again as soon as she was alone in a hut, with one bedroll, with Captain Gringo. She gasped. ‘I can’t spend the night with you, Dick! I am not that kind of woman!’

  He said, ‘You don’t even get three guesses what kind of woman you’ll wind up if these guerrillas don’t think you’re with me. Don’t be so egotistical. Did I say I wanted to lay you? The last guy who tried that got kneed in the cajones, if I recall his last words correctly.’

  She laughed despite herself and said, ‘I know I owe you for that, Dick. But women of my class do not repay the knight who saves them from the dragon in such peasant fashions as you may be used to. Why can’t we simply tell this strange generale the truth? He seems like a reasonable man, no?’

  ‘No. You were closer to the mark when you called him strange. He’s either fighting sincerely for the long-lost cause to the north, or, more than likely, he’s just another bush bandit using the trouble up that way as an excuse. He swatted El Jefe like a fly, without bothering to ask his political views. Either way, he needs money, and you, my frigid de
ar, are money on the hoof. So we don’t want to tell him where he might lay his hands on an easy ten grand. That’s more than our General Washington started out with!’

  She sank to her knees on the bedding but asked, ‘How do you mean to get me out of here, then?’

  He said, ‘Not tonight, Joséphine. We’ve had enough running for one night. Our best bet is to go along with the gag until we wind up somewhere a little more civilized. Unlike that first bunch, this bunch won’t be expecting us to make a break for it. I’m a known soldier of fortune, and they don’t know how sneaky I can get. We’ll get you home. Just don’t push it. It’s dumb to take chances before you know you have a chance, see?’

  She reclined on one elbow and replied, ‘I think so. But how are we to go on pretending I am your ... What is an adelita, Dick?’

  ‘About what it sounds like. A fancy word for a camp follower. The real adelita is a girl in an old Spanish marching song. The mujeres prefer the title to ruder ones, see?’

  ‘It does sound much nicer than puta. Are all those other girls out there, ah, you-know-whats?’

  ‘Some may be married to their soldados. These guerrilla bands are sort of informal about legal niceties, as El Jefe just found out. Don’t act snotty with any of the other adelitas and you won’t have any trouble with ’em. Most of them are just simple peon girls who mean well. Real whores would be too smart to follow a guy around until he wound up dead.’

  ‘You are right. They must be stupid. But if I am to pass for one, you will have to show me how, no?’

  He lay down beside her and said, ‘Well, come morning we’ll have to see about more sensible clothes. You look more like a wayward debutante than a military volunteer in that outfit, and some peon girls are likely to be jealous of real silk, even tom and dirty. Let me worry about it. You’ve had a hard day, kid. Try to catch some sleep.’

  ‘In this bedroll, with a strange man?’

  ‘I’m not so strange. Can we knock off the prick teasing now? I said to get some sleep, not to open wide and say ‘ah,’ God damn it!’