by Lou Cameron
The wagonwright only had to be told that a Gatling that wouldn’t elevate worth a damn was no use against a gas bag. He knew, better than Captain Gringo, how to rework the gun carriage, and got right on it.
Others assigned to work more skilled than digging or chopping down trees were allowed to do what had to be done their own way, once they’d agreed what had to be done. So Captain Gringo and Gaston were seated on the front steps of their quarters, enjoying a breather and some of Yoyo’s bitter but bracing hot chocolate, when Jean MacTavish joined them.
The brunette got right to the point. She said, ‘Lads, the tide at the river’s mouth would be right for crossing the bars by the time we get there if we leave within the hour.’
‘You were going someplace?’ asked Captain Gringo with a puzzled frown.
She nodded grimly and said, ‘Ay, and this time I’ll nae be coming back. I dinna ken why Flora and me stayed on after our auld ones passed on, for we’d both seen much of the great world ootside and ken what’s here, noo. It was a wee bit more while we were growing up. But sae many of the younger hae already left and, och, why dee for a cluster of shanties in a swamp?’
Captain Gringo finished his cup and put it down before he told her, soberly, ‘I wish you’d thought of that before you dragged us down here, doll. I thought the idea was to save this colony.’
She sighed and said, ‘Ay, but I’ve been thinking indeed since that terrible flying machine scared me sae! Thistlegorm is all I hae left in this world, noo that Flora’s dead and the boogies hae eaten the hoose we were born in half away. One bomb like the one they dropped yonder on the Campbell’s hoose could finish auld Thistlegorm forever and then what would I do?’
‘Well, I noticed how hard it would be to break into show business or marry a millionaire in this neck of the woods. But hell, Don Federico gave us twenty-four hours, and we’re already getting set for him and his wonder of the century.’
‘Och, Dick, dinna talk daft! Ye ken ye have nae a chance. Even if ye can hauld oot a few days or even months, it’s nae use. The auld country’s forgotten these people. This country is filling wi’ another breed and it’s only a question of time before this soggy wee bit of Scotland vanishes as a footnote of history.’
He shrugged and said, ‘I’ve noticed they’re already starting to intermarry, and what the hell, Spanish isn’t hard to learn and may even be an improvement. At least people trading with you will have some idea what you’re talking about. But don’t you think the folks here deserve the right to move away or assimilate as they choose? I’d help them resist a naked land grab if they were Indians or Hispanics, you know. As a matter of fact, I have – in other places. Don Federico doesn’t deserve to take away the little they have by simple brute force, damnit!’
Jean shook her head and insisted, ‘He’s nae that simple and his brutal methods seem oop to date indeed! Ye had yer chance against his great flying machine. I was watching from the deck of Thistlegorm, and och, Dick, the results were nae what I hoped for when I told ye we had automatic weapons doon here!’
He grimaced and said, ‘Yeah, I was sort of disappointed too. The wise-ass flew over just too high to hit from the ground.’
‘Ay, but nae too high to drop papers, bombs, or anything he wishes to on anyone or anything doon here! What if he hae given us until tomorrow morn to accept his terms or dee? What can ye do aboot that flying machine when the time is oop?’
‘We’re still working on that. We don’t even know what his terms are.’
‘Och, is it nae obvious, Dick? The people here must gae away or submit to him as tenants. But the great ocean is still free, and that’s where I mind to take Thistlegorm. Ay, and ye, if ye’ll but come along! Ye ken how I feel aboot ye, Dick.’
He did indeed. So his tone was a bit wistful as he answered, ‘I see your point. Maybe if I had anything as valuable as your schooner to worry about, I’d be pretty nervous too. But we can’t turn our backs on these settlers now that they’ve placed their trust in us.’
At his side, Gaston muttered darkly, ‘Merde alors, I wish this compulsive hero would learn to speak for himself!’
Jean ignored him. She said, ‘I’m off, Dick. Ye can stay or nae, as ye choose.’
‘I’ve already chosen. So, well, maybe I’ll see you around the campus some time, Jean.’
She started to say something, choked, and turned away to run down the bomb-pocked road toward her schooner around the bend.
Captain Gringo watched her until she was out of sight. Then he told Gaston, ‘I think she means it. You can still catch up before she casts off, you know.’
Gaston said, ‘I know. I must be a compulsive hero too.’
Yoyo came back out to gather the cups and ask if there were any other goodies she might serve them. Captain Gringo said it was too early and asked her where she’d gotten the copper wire she now had wrapped around her chunky right thigh. The naked Carib girl pointed at the ruins across the way and said she and her fatter, shyer sister had been salvaging. Captain Gringo told her not to do that anymore. Looting was naughty enough. He had enough to worry about without having to dig naked ladies out from under collapsed houses.
She insisted she knew what she was doing and ran up the steps into the house, the late sun gleaming on her new copper garter.
Gaston stared after her fondly and asked, ‘Now that you seem to have broken your engagement with M’selle MacTavish, does your offer on that rustic maiden still apply, Dick?’
Captain Gringo didn’t answer. He sat still for another second with his ear cocked the same way, then leaped to his feet and ran into the house himself. He wasn’t after Yoyo’s all too available brown ass. He got to the machine gun in his bedroom and had it out on the porch just as that same powered gas bag came in sight again!
He held his fire until the dirigible balloon was above the bayou, then opened up with the Maxim braced against one hip at a forty-five-degree angle. He elevated his fire higher as the pilot up there climbed slowly higher with lofty disdain. Gaston had his pistol out and was pegging shots at it too. Captain Gringo started to tell him not to be silly. But in truth he didn’t seem to be doing a better job lobbing six hundred rounds a minute! The son of a bitch was simply out of range up there and, shit, there went some more confetti.
Captain Gringo ceased fire, seeing he was only wasting ammo and that the gas bag wasn’t dropping bombs. He said so and Gaston asked, ‘What would you do if he was bombing this settlement again? Mon Dieu, if we’d only had one of those things in ’75, France would have won the Battle of Sedan! I find this all très unjust, Dick. We French invented lighter than air flight before the turn of this century!’
‘I know. You told me France and Germany both used observation balloons during the siege of Paris. But that’s more than a balloon. The pricks up there have control of the way they’re going! You’re right. It’s just not fair. Let’s see what they have to say to us this time.’
They didn’t have to search for any paper scraps. Wee Angus and some other tribal leaders came tearing up the road, waving some.
The big Scot shouted, ‘They want to ken whether we accept their terms or nae, the mad loons. How can we accept terms we’ve yet to hear!’
Captain Gringo put his hot and bothered machine gun down and said, ‘I guess we’ll just have to go across the bayou and ask ’em.’
‘Ay, but wha’s dumb enoo’ to tell yon cat?’
Captain Gringo didn’t answer. He knew who they expected to try.
Someone with military experience had to stay behind and mind the store. Gaston said he’d be glad to volunteer and suggested Captain Gringo wait until dark if he absolutely had to behave like an idiot. The tall American said it was even dumber to cross the enemy’s lines waving a parley flag nobody could see. Wee Angus said he knew the other side of the bayou, sort of, from hunting and fishing when he wasn’t beating people up. So pushing off with the giant in his dugout made at least more sense than the wail of Rusty Lemmon’s bagpipes a
s everyone wished them luck and shoved them off.
Captain Gringo sat in the bow with a pillowcase tied to a stick as Wee Angus paddled. They’d of course brought pistols along, if only to deal with creepy crawlies. It hadn’t seemed polite to bring heavier weapons along. If the other side meant to ambush them instead of stating Don Federico’s terms, they were in trouble anyway. There were a mess of trees to hide behind between them and the vaguely located hacienda of the land grabber. Wee Angus said he’d never been that far to the west and that they’d just have to ‘poke aboot’ for it.
He poked the nose of the dugout into what Captain Gringo had thought was a far bank and just kept going. As they broke through reeds to another patch of open water, Captain Gringo forgave the settlers for being so vague about the far side of their bayou. The whole delta was a maze of unmapped water channels.
When he commented on it, Wee Angus grunted, ‘Ay, and muckle an island ye saw yesterday’s nae here today. The dago has nae dry land to call his ain for a mile or more. Why do ye suppose he’s after our wee patch of dry muck?’
‘You probably just answered that, Angus. How much sugar can a guy grow in water deep enough to float a boat? Are you sure you know where you’re going?’
‘Ay, as lang as I can see a wee bit of sunlight through the canopy above. Ye were right aboot this being a wee bit daft in the dark, though. When nicht catches me oot in the swampie, I just tie up to a root and wait for a new dawn. A mon can get lost oot here in the dark, ye ken.’
He swung them around a clump of thick gumbo limbo, punched through what looked like another solid wall of greenery, and swung them into another bayou as Captain Gringo muttered, ‘I’m lost already. How deep is this water, in case we wind up wading a lot?’
Wee Angus shrugged and replied, ‘Och, it’s hard to say. Most of it’s nae higher than a mon’s chest, away from the main channels. But ye never can ken for sure when ye’re aboot to step into a deep pit. Some say the crocodiles dig ’em as traps. But I’ve yet to be eaten by one.’
‘How often do you have to be eaten by a croc, for God’s sake?’
Wee Angus answered, ‘Duck. Low branches ahead.’ That was putting it mildly, as the swamp-running Scot ran them under madly clawing shrubbery covered with thorns.
On the far side, in what looked like a dark green cave, Captain Gringo said, ‘I hope that was just thorns you shoved up my ass. I didn’t think to bring along my snakebite kit!’
‘Och, dinna frush about snakes, Yank. If one of the bushmasters growing in here ever bites ye, ye’ll be dead before ye ken ye’ve been bitten! This tunnel leads to some dry ground ahead. At least it did the last time I was this far from hame.’
He paddled on for what probably seemed a lot further than it was as the crow would fly. Then, sure enough, after poling through an acre or more of saw grass, the bow grounded on muck too solid to call swamp water. So they got out and hauled the dugout aground.
‘Where to, now?’ asked Captain Gringo as Wee Angus stared about not too certainly.
The big Scot said, ‘This way, I think,’ and led them toward the now setting sun. Grass rose waist high as they half walked and half waded toward another tree line outlined by the sunset.
Then a wary voice called out to them in Spanish, ‘¿Quien es? What do you hombres want? I warn you, we have you covered!’
Captain Gringo waved the parley flag and shouted, ‘Don Federico says he wants to talk to us. The message was delivered by air mail.’
There was a long silence. Then a skirmish line of white-clad men with carbines popped up out of the grass at them, and their leader said, ‘In that case we do not have to kill you just yet. Don Federico sent us for to meet you. Are you alone?’
‘How the hell would anyone else find this sand spit? Show us the way to dry land, for Chrissake.’
The heavy set mestizo leader laughed and said, ‘Bueno. Come with us. I warn you, no tricks. We are most ferocious soldados!’
That was probably bullshit, Captain Gringo decided as their welcoming committee led them further west. Nobody had even asked whether he and Wee Angus were armed or not. They were probably just simple peons who did as they were told. They didn’t act nasty or officious and were no doubt simple, good-natured slobs when left to their own devices. But since they were acting under orders from a real son of a bitch, they still made Captain Gringo nervous. A guy knew where he stood with trained soldiers. Half-ass guerrillas were twice as likely to blow you away for any number of stupid reasons.
He warned Wee Angus not to act tough and thought better of having enlisted him as a guide when the giant snorted, ‘Och, I’m not afraid of ye, so why should I fear wee greasers, mon?’
But he said it in his version of English and didn’t get them in trouble for now. As they moved further from the water, the land rose and, sure enough, the fields beyond the tree line had been planted. Expecting sugar cane, Captain Gringo was mildly surprised to see widely spaced cacao trees. Then he remembered what Yoyo had said about chocolate being a lot cheaper than tea or coffee around New Dunmore. The delta was too low and hot for coffee.
He asked Wee Angus casually if his people had any cacao under cultivation. The Scot said, ‘Nae, we’re fisherfolk. Some grow a few staples in their garths, ye ken. But we’ve ever traded wi’ the Indian for truck. It’s nae work for a white man in this heat.’
‘So who the hell do you sell all your fish to, the Indians?’
‘Ay, some. The real profit’s in pearl shell, sponge, hides and all. We dinna hae to export much to satisfy our few needs, ye ken. Och, it’s just as well, for fishing is hard work too!’
There was sugar growing beyond the cacao, and far across the waving cane a lamp flickered on under a red tile roof. It was just in time. It was starting to get darker by the minute as the; sun dropped out of sight without the fanfare of more northerly skies.
It was dark as hell by the time they were frog-marched to the lamp-lit veranda of a fairly impressive stucco sprawl. Someone had been watching from the house. The door opened and a Negro in a no-kidding butler’s outfit waved them on in, saying, ‘You are just in time, señores. Dinner is about to be served and La Doña has been expecting you.’
The two whites exchanged glances and went in. None of the armed guards followed. As they followed the butler down a hallway, Wee Angus whispered, ‘Noo’s our chance, Yank!’
‘Chance to do what? Button your lip and follow my lead, damnit. The folks back home need all the time we can stall for, see?’
Wee Angus grumbled something in Gaelic and followed Captain Gringo into what turned out to be the dining room – a big one, set impressively with white linen on the table and real sterling silver. Captain Gringo was more interested in the people seated around the table.
A beautiful auburn-haired woman of about thirty presided at the head of the table, explaining why the butler had said Doña instead of don. A little gray guy in a dinner jacket sat at her left, next to a young woman with Hispanic features and less impressive tits, though she wasn’t bad. Across from them sat a taller, younger man with a snooty, sarcastic expression he probably got up in the morning with. The table was big enough to serve twelve or more, but only two other places had been set – across from one another.
Their hostess told them they had to sit in them and added, ‘I am Doha Inez. My other guests are Señorita Rosa Gomez, my stepdaughter, and Señor Marcel Laval, our brave pilot, whom you may have already met.’ Then, almost as an afterthought, she glanced at the old gray guy and added, ‘This, of course, is my husband, Don Federico.’
Captain Gringo muttered something about having dressed had he known it was going to be black tie and sat down across from the Frenchman. Wee Angus remained standing.
When their hostess asked why, he said, ‘I canna break bread wi’ folk I may hae to fight later. It’s against my religious convictions, ye ken.’
The poised woman at the head of the table laughed and trilled, ‘Oh dear, you’re only one of those settl
ers. I so hoped Captain Gringo would bring along his gallant friend Gaston Verrier.’
Captain Gringo told Wee Angus to sit down and behave himself. The Scot took his seat but insisted he’d not touch a bite. The American let it go to ask their hostess how come she knew so much.
She said, ‘Let’s say a little birdy tells me everything.’ Then she rang a silver bell by her plate to warn the servants they were ready to be served.
In the pause that followed, Captain Gringo smiled crookedly at the Frenchman across from him and said, ‘You must have sharp eyes, birdy.’
Laval chuckled and replied, ‘That was you shooting at us from that porch, I see. I recognize the hair. Do you ever hit anything, shooting so wildly, m’sieu?’
‘I haven’t had much practice shooting at dirigible balloons. But give me a little time and we may work something out.’
‘Oh? And how, may I ask, do you mean to get another chance to make the poof-poof at my gallant machine, my amazing marksman?’
Captain Gringo glanced at their hostess as he answered, ‘I guess that all depends on our hosts. We, ah, did come in under a flag of truce, by the way.’
Doña Inez nodded and said, ‘We know. Our scouts were watching you some time before you arrived. But ah, I see the first course has arrived. Do let us dine before we discuss business, eh?’
Captain Gringo shrugged and dug into his soup. It was good, and he was hungry. Wee Angus glared at him from across the table as he sat there like a wooden Indian. But that was his problem. They’d already agreed Captain Gringo was a damn auld Sassenach, and he doubted anyone else around here would be reluctant to get nasty whether they broke bread with one another or not.
By the time the full-course dinner was consumed, Captain Gringo had established by idle table chatter that Doña Inez was the third as well as much younger wife of the old coot up that way. Don Federico tried to talk a few times but shut up when his wife shot daggers at him with her imperious eyes. The younger daughter of the Hispanic second wife didn’t even try to say anything. She looked scared shitless and hardly ate more than Wee Angus, who stubbornly refused to touch anything put in front of him. The Frenchman, Laval, had been picked up in Paris, of course, along with the dirigible balloon. It was only a little more surprising to learn that the auburn-haired Inez was half Austrian, raised in Europe. She seemed eager to boast of the coats of arms both her Spanish father and Austrian mother had been born with, adding, ‘You may not know it, Ricardo, but in the time of Don Carlos, Spain and Austria were one big happy Hapsburg empire.’