Renegade 22 Page 9

  He shot a look at Numero whatever seated between Captain Gringo and Gaston, and the officer, juror, or whatever the hell he thought he was, smiled across the table at Martha and said, “At the moment we control an area of several hundred square kilometers, señorita. We have pushed our lines over ten kilometers into the jungles to the southeast without encountering any enemy resistance.”

  Gaston muttered, “At least we might be out of artillery range,” and Captain Gringo kicked him under the table to shut him up. He kept his own mouth shut to listen with some interest as the man who knew a lot more than he did continued, “We of course have scouting patrols even farther out. Apparently the Colombian armed forces are afraid to attack us.”

  Captain Gringo went back to concentrating on his meal, which made a lot more sense. Gaston opened his mouth to say something about their old pal Colonel Maidonddo but decided not to. He and Captain Gringo didn’t need to be told that Maldonado was a tough pro who would attack in his own good time and didn’t scare easy. Probably nobody else at the table wanted to hear that.

  Bowman said something about the local natives under rebel control, and El Criado Publico assured him, “You may tell your friends up north that we have the full support of the local populace. I have already instituted certain reforms and the results have been most encouraging. All these local peones needed was a firm hand on the reins and even justice, for a change.”

  Someone in the back of Captain Gringo’s brain said, “Oh boy!” and he couldn’t help asking just what the erstwhile law professor meant by a firm hand on the reins.

  The silver-haired man at the head of the table smiled in a fatherly way as he explained, “You know how unfairly this isthmus has been governed up to now by the junta in the distant Andes to the south. When they are not seizing the poor Panamanians’ few centavos for so-called back taxes, they neglect them entirely.”

  “That’s bad? No offense, but most of the poor people I meet down here tell me they just wish everyone would leave them alone.”

  El Criado Publico sighed and said, “Of that I have no doubt. In a world of angels, neither laws nor government of any kind would be needed. Alas, we do not live in a world of angels, and unwashed half-breed illiterates need to be governed indeed. When we first took over here, we found the local natives living little better than savages in a dog-eat-dog society of blood-feud, banditry, and, forgive me, señoritas, sexual depravity.”

  What the two soldiers of fortune were thinking must have shown, because their host quickly added, “Do not take me for a prude, por favor. I know boys will be boys, as you Yanquis say, and while my own morality may seem old-fashioned to some, I know better than to impose it on others. But surely any reasonably person must admit there must be some limits.”

  His daughter, Inocencia, said demurely, “What my father is trying to say is that some of the niggers were living in sin with their sisters, daughters, or little boys. One village bully made a practice of raping six-year-old girls. He doesn’t do that anymore.”

  Her father protested, “Inocencia, you are speaking in mixed company!”

  She shrugged and stuffed her mouth with a roll. Across the table, Bowman was looking uncomfortable. But his redheaded intended just looked interested as she asked brightly, “How do you feel about consenting adults just, well, living in sin, sir?”

  The old man pursed his lips and said primly, “That is a matter one must, alas, leave for them and their God to decide, provided of course we are speaking of normal relationships between members of the opposite sex.”

  “The Church used to burn queers at the stake,” said Inocencia, adding, “Tell them what you do to them, father.”

  Her father said firmly, “That is enough, by the Virgin’s blush! It is time to change the subject, señores y señoritas. This is after all a Christian household and we are at the table!”

  So the redhead, to change the subject to something less controversial, said, “I notice lots of crosses around here. Are you people all Roman Catholics? I’m a Methodist myself.” Captain Gringo would have kicked off her kneecap under the table if he’d been able to reach it. But it didn’t seem to bother their host, who looked relieved, in fact, as he smiled down the table at Martha and told her, “Naturally most of my followers are of the faith. But I assure you our symbol merely means we stand for the Christian values all good Christians and, indeed, good Jews and Moslems should accept. My proposed constitution for all Panama grants complete religious freedom to all. Within reason, of course. I doubt if even your great American Constitution allows human sacrifice or other criminal acts in the name of religious freedom, eh?”

  The redhead smiled and said, “Oh, that sounds fair. Don’t you think it sounds fair, Jim?”

  Her escort, to his dubious credit, murmured, “Martha, will you just shut up?”

  “Pooh,” she pouted, “What did I say?”

  Another course was served. Then another, and another. Hispanics who could afford it liked to dine late and just keep dining until the food ran out or somebody burst. As the meal wore on, and on, even Martha was getting too heavy in her seat to chatter. Like many Americans, she didn’t know the kitchen help would get the leftovers for their own late meal and so she ate every platter clean like the good little girl she thought she was being. Captain Gringo left half of his on the plates and still felt like he needed a new belt before dessert, thank God, was finally served.

  He braced himself for the usual retirement to the drawing room for brandy and cigars. But their host said, “I know you must all be most tired from your long sea journey, while I, forgive me, have work on my desk that will keep me there past midnight. So would I be rude if I suggested we call it an evening?”

  Nobody saw fit to argue with that. As that started getting to their feet, Numero something or other told Captain Gringo he’d show him around in the morning and offered to escort him back to his quarters. The taller American said he could manage and got out of there before the redhead could say something uncomfortable or the chestnut-haired Inocencia could drag that big cat out from under the table by its tail.

  Gaston agreed it felt like they’d been stuffed as the two of them made it back to their quarters, split up, and hit the sack.

  It had been a long day. So Captain Gringo fell asleep within minutes. But it had been a long dinner and it wasn’t sitting well. So he woke up, he didn’t know when, and sat up to belch. He started to lie back down. Then he heard the same funny sound he’d thought he’d been dreaming, whatever the hell it was.

  It sounded like an animal growling. A big animal growling, deep in its throat, and someone was whispering to it.

  He belched again and got up in the dark, nude, to move over to the wall and pop the soap plug out of the pinhole for a look-see.

  What he saw convinced him he was still asleep and dreaming.

  On the bed next door, the well-stacked Inocencia had taken her clothes off again and was naked on her back atop the red satin bedcovers. The big black jaguar was on top of her, screwing her like a man as it pawed her naked breaths with sheathed paws and growled, or purred awfully loud, in time with the lashes of its tail and thrusting black velvet rump.

  The girl’s eyes were closed and she wore a dreamy Mona Lisa smile as she ran her nails up and down the big cat’s spine, whispering, “Ay, mas, mas Diablo mio!”

  It was enough to give a man as well as a jaguar an erection, but old Diablo had seen her first, and Captain Gringo didn’t think he’d want to go sloppy seconds to a cat in any case. So he just watched, trying not to laugh, as the innocently named Inocencia acted in a way he found it hard to believe her father would have approved of.

  She must have found it less disgusting than Captain Gringo did, because the next thing he knew she’d wrapped her long shapely legs around her feline lover and was kissing the big cat on its open mouth, running her tongue over the jaguar’s big ivory fangs as it panted in passion. He muttered to himself, “She’s either got that damned thing trained pretty g
ood, or she’s nutty as a fruitcake!”

  It was hard to resist the impulse to rush next door, not to screw her but to rescue her. A lady animal trainer had told him once that even smaller wild cats made unreliable pets. Though, come to think of it, she hadn’t been screwing that tiger who’d left those scars on her thigh, to hear her tell it. Maybe sex had a calming effect on big cats. It was starting to have a calming effect on him, watching. For though the perverse Inocencia was pretty as a picture and built like a Greek goddess, there was something repellent going on in there under those chestnut ringlets. It was more than the bestiality. Anyone could get hard up, and her father was obviously too strict for her to get many shots at the real thing. But she wasn’t using her dangerous pet as a substitute for normal sex. As she kissed the brute’s mouth and crooned endearments to it as she thrust her body in response, he sensed she was actually accepting Diablo as her lover!

  He grimaced and plugged the hole again to light a smoke. He was wide awake now, and, as he’d warned himself earlier, he was hurting for old Esperanza again. He sat on the edge of the bed with a wry chuckle, wondering what Esperanza would say to a roll in the hay with a real beast. He’d known a blonde one time who’d let her police dog have some once in a while, as a practical way to keep it from annoying guests, she’d said. He hadn’t liked the idea much. A hotel dick back home had also assured him it was a known fact that any lady checking in alone with a large male dog was surely a loving mistress indeed. The dick hadn’t said how he knew. Probably there were lots of peepholes nobody knew about. Hotel dicks led disgusting lives.

  He got up, muttering to himself, “Come on, you idiot, what do you expect to see? Once you’ve seen a lady screw a jaguar, you’ve seen a lady screw a jaguar, right?”

  He held his lit cigar down at his side and unplugged the pinhole for another peek. He almost dropped the cigar on his bare feet when he saw what Inocencia was doing now.

  She had the big cat on its back, purring, as she crouched over it, fingering herself between those wasted creamy thighs as she gave it oral sex. The sight of those lush human lips sliding up and down the vividly pink bestial shaft definitely cooled off any desire he might have had ever to kiss Inocencia, even in a brotherly fashion.

  He plugged the hole again, vomited in the washbasin, and went back to bed resolved never to peek in on her again. He knew, of course, that he would. But now he was certain that whatever El Criado Publico might be, his daughter was nuts for sure.

  *

  He began to feel better about the nutty Inocencia’s father after he’d had breakfast. Breakfast had been a bitch, with Inocencia sitting across from him looking like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. He just didn’t want to think about what cat come might taste like.

  The Numero who took them out to show them around was Numero Cuatro. It was hard to keep track. They all looked like El Criado Publico had recruited them from the same military school. He probably had. His young officers were all eager and devoted to him and his theories, whatever they were. Captain Gringo was a little cynical about utopias. The poor slob who’d made up the name had wound up getting his head chopped off.

  The spiffy uniforms were reserved for the officers and personal guard of the Presidente-to-be. When they went to inspect the regular rebels, they found them dressed like any other guerrillas, or bandits, south of the Texas line. At least their Krag rifles were new, and someone had shown them how to keep them clean and carry them without dropping them in the dust. Numero Cuatro said they’d had some practice on the range but that everyone was depending on him and the machine guns when and if.

  Captain Gringo told the young zealot, “Back up and run that past me again. In the first place, I can only fire one, okay; two machine guns at a time. In the second place, I was told we were coming down here to teach people, not to fight em!

  Numero Cuatro nodded brightly and said, “Si, you will teach us how to make war until we have to make war, and then you will show us how to kill the enemy, no?”

  “No, I hope. But let’s get the show on the road, at least.”

  He turned to Gaston and said, “Pending the arrival of at least one fucking field gun, how do you feel about acting as drill officer while I instruct at least some damned body on automatic weapons? We have a dozen machine guns, Allah be praised. If we can set up a dozen machine gun squads that know which way to aim, we’ll be that much ahead.”

  Gaston shrugged and replied, “I see they already know how to dress to the right and cover down. I take it we are talking about teaching them more advanced infantry tactics?”

  “Right. Try to pick some likely noncoms as you bully them, this time. There’s no way the two of us are gonna lead ’em all, even if we get dumb.”

  He turned to Numero Cuatro and asked how many troops they had, all told. The pretty young officer said, “About eight hundred. Forgive me, I know you are experienced in such matters, but we already have our officers and noncoms picked.”

  “No shit? Okay. What’s the first order an assistant squad leader gives when a shell whizzes in and blows the squad leader and a couple of other riflemen to hash?”

  “I beg your pardon, Captain Gringo?”

  “That’s what I thought. For the record, when in doubt, always advance on the guns shelling you. Why do we always try to take the high ground?”

  “Uh, do we, Captain Gringo?”

  “Great. Are you listening, Gaston?”

  “Oui, sans astonishment. They spend more time on military courtesy at most military schools. Eh bien, leave the basic infantry tactics to me. Aside from being the greatest artillery man in the world, I am one of the few Legion infantrymen who made it out of Camerone alive.”

  So they got to work.

  It wasn’t easy. But within a few days they began to see some improvement in the rebel army as Gaston whipped the privates into fighting shape without having to fight too many of them, and Captain Gringo instructed the officers and noncoms in the finer points of machine gunning. There was more to it, than learning how to load a Maxim and hose it at the countryside in general without it exploding in your face from, an improper head spacing. The weapon was new, and many people still thought you just had to aim it like a fire hose and everybody on the other side just fell down.

  The Maxima had to be set up right. They fired six hundred rounds a minute. That meant that if one traversed too fast, the bullets swept the front spaced up to six feet apart, and a lot of charging infantry could pour at you through a six-foot gap. It made more sense to aim stationary streams from two guns in a shallow X between one’s position and the enemy advance. Hardly anybody was going to wade through that.

  He pointed out that a machine gunner was only a machine gunner, not God, and that the other guys might have guns too. One rifle bullet was all it took to put out the lights of an overconfident automatic-weapons man. So, aside from setting up to blow the other side away, a well-placed machine gun nest had to be a tough target and hard to get at. He taught them the advantages of at least half a squad of riflemen assigned to each machine gun nest to pick off wild men charging in from outside its field of fire. He insisted that such backup consist of picked sharpshooters, not cast-off fuck-ups volunteered by their old squad leaders.

  The choirboy young officers and older tougher-looking noncoms were willing pupils, wherever Los Jurados had gotten them. Gaston reported that his riflemen caught on fast, too, and that none of them seemed to be local natives. At least a dozen of them had taken part in a losing fight with Diaz in the south of Mexico. A couple had fought in Nicaragua for the losing Granada side. Most seemed to be Cubans, and they said they were tired of losing, too. Gaston said they wouldn’t, again, if only they’d learn to keep their heads up and their asses down.

  The nights were less fun.

  Sometimes there was no light at all in Inocencia’s bedroom. Sometimes when Captain Gringo unplugged the peephole her bed was empty or she was simply reading a book or buffing her nails. Not even a sex maniac spent al
l their time on sex. But when she got the urge, Inocencia made up for lost time in ways that made the American watching wonder if maybe he wasn’t a sex maniac too, for watching. The chestnut-haired Spanish beauty had a hell of an imagination. Her jaguar lover was probably just a horny oversized tom cat who did as he was told. They sure could get in the damnedest positions. He quit for a while when she wound up with her wide-open groin facing his pinhole, unoccupied, as she sucked off her feline lover with its fuzzy black balls and winking pink asshole facing him too. He’d figured out by now why they never went sixty-nine. Even little house cats had sandpaper tongues. As it was, the chestnut-thatched open vagina also winking at him looked a little raw from overwork.

  El Criado Publico had given him a book, privately published in New York, outlining his utopian views on the ideal state. So he plugged the hole, lit his lamp, and decided to read himself to sleep in bed instead of jerking off. There were no female servants up here in the fort, and he didn’t know where the redheaded Martha Pendergast was bedded down, alone or with her intended. She’d asked El Criado Publico if he was a justice of the peace, and he’d told her, nicely, not to be ridiculous.

  Captain Gringo understood this better as he read the old man’s book on what he called “equal justice for all.” As an ex-lawyer of the old Spanish school, Zagal didn’t hold with bending the rules a fraction of an inch for anybody. He held that once you made allowances for one special circumstance, you might as well throw the whole legal code aside and rule by royal whim. The ancient Romans had been right about justice being a blind goddess who simply weighed the evidence on her scales of justice and either swung her sword or didn’t.

  Captain Gringo started humming “Give Me That Old Time Religion” as he turned the pages rapidly, skimming the rather repetitious text, until he came to where El Criado Publico had written: