Renegade 32

by Lou Cameron

  Captain Gringo grabbed the girl’s wrist in his free hand and hauled her after them as they charged out through the gunsmoke with Wee Angus in the lead. The big Scot only knew one way in, so that was the way he headed out, blasting away the two startled hall guards they met along the way.

  As he started to open the front door, Captain Gringo snapped, ‘Wait! Let’s douse the hall lights, and go easy on that ammo!’

  But Wee Angus already had the door wrenched open and there was nothing to do but follow as the big Scot dropped another guard on the veranda and charged into the darkness beyond with maybe two rounds left in his smoking pissoliver!

  Captain Gringo still had five, since he didn’t like to carry a live round under the hammer in his travels. He would have kept things that way had not he spotted someone coming their way with an overhead machete and has to blow him out from under his straw hat.

  By now the house they’d left behind was ablaze with light and echoing with confused shouts.

  Wee Angus ran into a tree, cursed in the Gaelic, and shouted, ‘Och, I canna see where I’m ga’ng!’

  ‘You just noticed? Rosa, you must know your own neighborhood better. Take the lead.’

  ‘Pero to where, Captain Gringo?’

  ‘Elsewhere, damnit! We want to go southeast, without running into anybody ruder than a cacao tree, see?’

  She sobbed that they were crazy and that Papacito would no doubt disown her now. But as Captain Gringo hung on to her wrist, she led them into the darkness until, sure enough, they couldn’t see the house lights anymore, though the witchlike screams of Doña Inez seemed to carry across the fields amazingly well. The stupid bitch seemed to be yelling something about dogs. So how stupid was she?

  He asked Rosa, and the girl sobbed, ‘Si, Papacito does keep hunting hounds. We use them for to keep los Indios in their place!’

  ‘Oh, swell. Okay, Wee Angus, you’re the old swamp runner here. So how do we find that dugout before those hounds find us?’

  ‘I dinna ken. I canna see my ain hand before my face. But it hae to be more or less this way.’

  Captain Gringo glanced up at the clear starry sky and said, ‘More or less won’t do. I can steer us on any compass course you set, but the rest is up to you, Scotty!’

  ‘I can navigate by the stars, ye loon. But wha takes a reading of the skies by brad daylicht? I hadna idea the damn auld papists would capture us and lead us sae far from the boat!’

  They moved on through the night. There was nothing else for them to do. They’d gone farther, they felt sure, than they’d ever come from the landing when, in the distance behind them, they heard the deep baying of hounds on the scent!

  Captain Gringo said, ‘It’s no use. We’ll have to find a place to make a stand, Wee Angus.’

  ‘Wi’ half a dozen pistol rounds between us?’ sighed the big Scot. Then he bumped into another tree in the dark, wrenched a branch off to use as a massive club, and added, ‘Ay, that's better.’

  Captain Gringo doubted that very much. But as long as they were there, he tore off a club too. It didn’t make much sense to offer one to little Rosa. As a matter of fact, it made little sense no matter how you sliced it. He told the girl, ‘Okay, run back toward them and tell them we brought you along against your will. It might work.’ She sobbed, ‘It’s too late. They’re sure to question me and I’ve never been a good liar.’

  ‘You’d better learn fast, honey. Your wicked step-mother’s sure to punish you pretty good if she even guesses you helped us!’

  ‘That is what I just said, Captain Gringo. I prefer for to take my chances with you!’

  ‘We have a chance? Hold the thought. Angus, do you hear what I hear?’

  Wee Angus cocked his head and replied, ‘Ay, it soonds like a bagpipe, played by a loon! That mad Rusty Lemmon’s practicing on his pipes again. But what can he think he’s playing? Och, that’s nae proper piping at aw! Rusty canna carry any tune, ye ken.’

  Captain Gringo said, ‘I’m glad our musical tastes agree, but that’s not the point. That pipe music has to be coming from New Dunmore!’

  ‘Och, ye call that music!’ snorted Wee Angus. Then he nodded and added, ‘Ay, let’s gae. I’ll forgive Rusty after aw if his awful piping leads us hame!’

  It did. But they still cut it close as hell. The hounds were baying a lot closer than any bagpipe when, crossing a familiar field by the first faint rays of the tardy tropic moon, they heard a voice ahead of them shouting, ‘Hold your fire, mes amis! Is that you, my mooselike child in the moonlight?’

  Captain Gringo sighed with relief and replied, ‘Yeah, but we’re not alone out here, Gaston. Did you bring one of the Maxims, I hope?’

  ‘Oui, I never leave home without heavy weapons when searching for lost children behind enemy lines. Who is that pretty enemy you and Wee Angus would seem to have captured, hein?’

  As the fugitives joined Gaston and his eight-man combat patrol, Captain Gringo said, ‘Her name’s Rosa Gomez and she’s on our side. Tell you about her later. Let’s get set up poco tiempo!’

  They did. Gaston herded the settlers he’d brought along into a well-spaced skirmish line to either side of the machine gun he’d already set up. They put Rosa behind them, closer to the boat landing, and told her to keep her ass down too as they flattened in the tall grass.

  It was always hurry up and wait at times like these. The moon was high enough now to paint the wide grassy field molten pewter. But although they had a nice field of fire, nobody seemed to want to play target. At Captain Gringo’s left, acting as his loader, Gaston suggested, ‘Perhaps they have given up? I know I would hesitate to follow either you or Wee Angus too far up a dark alley!’

  ‘It’s not that dark now, and those hounds are still coming our way. What tipped you off we needed help getting home?’

  ‘Merde alors, it is long past your bedtime. I told you before you left that few bandits down here respect flags of truce, non?’

  ‘You were oh-so right. They’re not exactly bandits. The sonofabitch in command seems more like, a lunatic. I’ll fill you in on the situation later. Here they come!’

  He swung the muzzle of the Maxim to his left as the long ragged line of white-clad skirmishers moved closer in the moonlight. He grunted, ‘Everyone hold your fire and take your lead from me,’ just loud enough to be heard, he hoped. But the hunting dogs had keener ears and they stopped and pointed, so the human leader raised a hand to freeze his men in place.

  Before they could do anything more sensible, Captain Gringo opened up with the Maxim, traversing left to right in a typewriter message of death! It was hard to tell just how many he was mowing down or how many were just ducking. From the screams, he knew he and the riflemen blazing now from either side of him had to be hitting someone a lot.

  He ceased fire and snapped, ‘Back to the dugouts!’ as he saw nothing out there now but silvery waving grass.

  Wee Angus roared, ‘Och, dinna be daft! Why dinna we hit ’em wi’ a grand charge, noo that we’ve rattled them?’

  Before anyone could stop him, the big highlander leaped up and charged out across the field alone in the moonlight, shouting a Gaelic war cry as he waved his club aloft. Then a rifle squibbed in the distance, and Wee Angus went down with a rifle round in his head.

  As he vanished in the tall grass, Captain Gringo sighed, ‘That’s why. Get the girl to the boats, Gaston. I’ll cover you all with this Maxim as we back off.’

  He did, abandoning the tripod and moving backward in a low crouch with the machine gun belt dragging after him. Nobody on the other side was dumb enough for moonlit charges either, so they were soon paddling away in the darker but safer swamp between New Dunmore and the Gomez holdings.

  Rosa, seated between Captain Gringo and Gaston in one canoe, wasn’t so sure it was safe. As something blew bubbles at them in the stagnant channel, she crossed herself and said, ‘Oh, I do not wish for to be eaten by crocodiles. These waters are filled with them, you know, and they feed at ni
ght!’

  ‘Don’t dangle your feet over the side, then. Let’s hope those other guys are afraid to wade through crocodile water in the dark. I think we’ve about made it, if that guy in the lead canoe knows what he’s doing.’

  Gaston chuckled and paddled on, saying, ‘He must, since he got us to you in the first place, non? He is a species of Carib with the droll Indian name of MacAuley. He said he’d hunted with Wee Angus in the past and could make an educated guess where the two of you had landed on the far side of this ooze. It is too bad about Wee Angus, mais looking on the bright side, how long a life could a boisterous youth like Wee Angus have planned on living anyway?’

  ‘Don’t speak ill of the dead. He was okay, just a little hot-headed.’

  ‘Oui, that’s what I just said. Tell me what else you’ve been up to since Yoyo left a light in the window for you.’

  ‘Ixnay on Oyoway, erkjay.’

  ‘Ah sorry, but again looking on the bright side, Yoyo may like older men once these new developments are explained to her. So, merde alors, explain them to me!’

  Captain Gringo did. There was plenty of time as they followed MacAuley around in what they hoped were not circles through the soggy darkness. Gaston agreed that left to their own devices, the original Hispanic settlers would probably go back to being good neighbors. The true danger was the deluded Doña Inez and her lover’s dangerous toys.

  Rosa pouted and said, ‘Si, you should have killed them back there while you had the chance! I can handle poor Papacito when he is himself. But you let that terrible woman live!’

  Captain Gringo shrugged and said, ‘What can I tell you? We were lucky to get out alive ourselves. Besides, I don’t like to gun dames.’

  ‘Do you think Inez would hesitate to kill you, you fool? Don’t you know that as soon as it is light, she and Marcel plan to blow us all off the face of this earth with their flying machine?’

  ‘Call me Dick, querida. I don’t like to get blown off the face of the earth either. So I’ve been planning ahead too. If the settlers I put to work haven’t stopped to admire Rusty’s bagpipe music, they may have a nice surprise ready for Marcel come morning.’

  Rusty Lemmon wasn’t skirling his pipes when at last they made it back to New Dunmore. But the little trader was part of the welcoming delegation as they tottered ashore, wet and weary. As they all stood near the water’s edge, Captain Gringo ordered everyone else to shut up. Then he tersely explained the situation, or at least told them as much as they needed to know just yet. Once they’d agreed they seemed to be in a hell of a mess and that Captain Gringo was still in charge, he asked who was in charge of such local law as they might have.

  A heavyset Scot came forward to declare, ‘I’m Malcolm MacNab and I act as brehon, or judge as ye might hae it, when matters of justice come up. But why de ye ask? Our feud wi’ yon Spaniards is nae a matter of brehon law. It’s a simple matter of buaidh no bas or, och, forgive me, victory or death!’

  There was a growl of approval from the assembled household heads. Captain Gringo nodded and asked, ‘What are the brehon laws on murder and espionage, MacNab?’

  The burly Celt scowled and answered, ‘Och, what would even a Sassenach expect? Do ye take us for primitives, mon? We put killers and spies to death like any civilized race!’

  Captain Gringo pointed at Rusty Lemmon and said, ‘Good. I charge that sneaky bastard with the murder of Flora MacTavish and acting as a spy among you for Inez Gomez!’

  The trader didn’t even try to deny it. He simply started to make a break for it. Before Captain Gringo could move, a highlander almost as big as the late Wee Angus grabbed Lemmon by the nape of his neck and the seat of his pants to swing him up and out over the still inky waters of the bayou. They didn’t stay still as the traitor hit with a mighty splash and came up, wailing, ‘Nae! Nae! Hae ye forgotten the beasties in here wi’ me, for the love of God!’

  Then the first crocodile hit and dragged him under. As bubbles and muffled screams rose from the dark water, the man who’d thrown Lemmon to the reptiles growled, ‘I didna forget. I’m a MacTavish on my mathair’s side. I saw what was left of Flora MacTavish before they laid her to rest!’

  Everyone else seemed to think it had been a hell of a swell idea, and even Captain Gringo had to admit there was a point to rough justice when a murder victim had been such a great little lay. So he said, ‘As I was about to say before we were so rudely interrupted, Rusty Lemmon had a good thing going for himself, trading with inland tribes for Pacific pearls they get somewhere to the west. The MacTavish sisters of course only dove for Caribbean pearls and shell. When Flora got curious about the more valuable pink and black jobs they occasionally traded in for the landbound trader, she decided to poke about upstream in her power-driven Thistlegorm. Rusty couldn’t have that. So he had some of the Indians he’s been exploiting kill her and her crew.’

  ‘Why would he want to do that, and can ye prove it?’ asked the brehon.

  Captain Gringo stared soberly out at the now once more quiet water as he replied, ‘I don’t have to prove it now. But it seems obvious the MacTavish sisters would have cut into his trade and then some. I sailed one time aboard Thistlegorm, so I can tell you Flora treated Indians fairly.’

  ‘Then why did they kill her for Lemmon, mon?’

  ‘I just explained he was exploiting them, damnit! Who knows or cares what lies he told them about Flora and her crew? As the only white trader they knew, they had to take his word until or unless more honest whites like poor Flora got to them, see?’

  ‘Ay, I do now. But ye say he was a spy as well?’

  ‘Yeah. He was sending messages across the swamp with his bagpipes. I just thought it sounded awful, but didn’t any of you guys notice he wasn’t playing familiar tunes?’

  ‘Och, Jasus, was it dots and dashes we took for a daft loon practicing and never getting it richt?’

  ‘Close enough. I caught on tonight, coming through the swamp. Wee Angus tipped me that he wasn’t playing any particular dirge. I notice myself how far the sound of pipes carries. And I couldn’t help wondering why on earth he was blowing so hard after bedtime. It fell into place as soon as we met Gaston and these other guys. The son of a bitch was trying to warn his friends a patrol was heading their way! I guess with all the other noise, they missed his message. Or maybe they were too mad to care. This is Rosa Gomez. She was the one who gave me my first solid clue when she told me her father’s never had any wild Indians working for him, see?’

  ‘We see indeed, and of course we’ll treat your hostage well.’

  ‘She’s not a hostage. She’s with me. Her old man’s the real prisoner, as I see it now. But getting back to Rusty Lemmon—’

  ‘Ay, ye didna tell us why he betrayed us to the Spanish in the first place.’

  ‘Didn’t I? I thought it was obvious. Lemmon had a good thing going here. He didn’t want to lose his Indian trade, so he chose what he thought would be the winning side. Doña Inez no doubt told him her eviction notice wouldn’t apply to him if he helped her get rid of the rest of you. She seems very good at convincing men to do her bidding. If you hadn’t tossed him to the crocs before I could ask him, he might have had more dirty stories to tell about the dirty bitch. But what the hell, it’s getting late, and we’d all better get some rest before the next air raid. They’ll probably fly over again about dawn.’

  They did. There was still a chill in the air as Inez stood by in the damp grass, watching Marcel load up his basketwork gondola with dynamite bombs. Above, the big black gas bag swayed in the trades, held down by peons holding the lines all around. As the Frenchman put the last bomb in place and climbed in to check the fuel tank again, Inez hiked her riding skirts and hooked a shapely leg over the gondola rim.

  Marcel said, ‘Mais non, not this time, ma petite! It is simply too dangerous a task for a woman now that Captain Gringo has escaped! Have you forgotten what he said about trying harder with his machine gun next time?’

  Inez la
ughed and said, ‘Si, that is why I’m so anxious to blow him to kingdom come! Besides, you need me. None of these others enjoy the thrill of flying in the sky as much as I do. Bruno was the only one who was not afraid of heights and—’'

  ‘Who is going to keep an eye on your husband back here?’ the Frenchman tried, not wanting to think of Bruno and his big black cock in connection with his thrill-crazy mistress.

  Inez shrugged and replied, ‘Poof, the old fool is completely in my power, even when my pussy in high in the sky.’

  She caught the look of distaste on her young lover’s face and soothed, ‘Do not look so sad, Marcel. I told you long ago an old man’s few demands are modest, even when he is not sucking an opium pipe.’

  ‘Is that why you introduced him to opium, ma petite?’

  ‘But of course. I married the old fool for money and power, not to enjoy his feeble attempts at passion. Let us go bomb the settlement now, and perhaps if we do it right, I shall allow you to really fuck me when we return victorious.’

  Marcel sighed and signaled his ground crew to cast off.

  As the dirigible balloon rose skyward, Inez shouted, ‘Wheeee!’

  Marcel pulled the starter rope and got the engine going as he looked forward to greater thrills than ballooning. Maybe with that Bruno out of the way, he would get more old-fashioned rutting out of his lovely but cruel mistress. At least she’d never again be able to taunt him with remarks about a bigger cock, coming less than an hour before in what he was eating as a bedtime snack!

  As the air screw up front steadied them and began to gain against the prevailing winds up here, Marcel set a course for New Dunmore. They could already see the tin roofing of the squatters’ huts ahead.

  Inez said, ‘Oh, the world looks so small from up here. The swamp lands between seem so vast when one is in them. But at this speed and angle, they seem no more than a patch of wet pubic hair below.’