Casca 52- the Rough Rider

by Tony Roberts

  The smoking man grunted and eyed Casey briefly. “Don’t be too long, or messy. This is not your house, remember? We wouldn’t like our home being made a mess, after all. And bodies smell and spread infections.”

  Jaime snarled through clenched teeth. “So be it. I’ll kill him here and have Benito carry him out to the dump outside the village.”

  Smoker nodded. “Use the trapdoor. I don’t want my family distressed by you dragging him through the house.” With that he stubbed out his cigar and left.

  Casey looked around and saw, over in the far corner, a trapdoor. There was a short ladder leading up to it. He’d missed it before. No doubt used to supply the house with supplies. He twisted his head around and saw a few boxes, crates and barrels resting against the far wall. There was also a mass of wood which looked like a press or something. Some kind of machinery he couldn’t make out.

  The door closed. Now Casey was left with Jaime and Benito. Benito he still couldn’t make out properly; he was a vague blur in the background. Jaime came up to Casey, the bayonet Casey had been carrying in his hand. “So, pig, I think it fitting you die by your own filthy American weapon.”

  “German.” Casey decided to annoy the hell out of the man. There was nothing else to do. Might as well. He might make a mistake, although there seemed little that he could do to change this situation.

  “What? German?”

  “Yes; it’s a Mauser rifle I was carrying with its bayonet. German made. Imported here by your government. Taken by my army at Las Guasimas.”

  “Who the hell cares?” Jaime raged.

  “I do. I don’t want to die by some German weapon, I want a true American weapon to kill me.”

  “What? You die whatever way I feel is right!”

  “You don’t decide shit. You’re a stupid little boy playing with grown-up things you don’t understand. Freak. Lunatic.”

  Jaime screamed in fury and plunged the bayonet into Casey’s unprotected stomach. He lost control, snapping, and stabbed Casey repeatedly until Casey’s vision failed. Jaime stood there, sucking in breath and exhaling noisily, staring at the bloodied figure before him, dangling from the rope fixed to the ceiling.

  He began to giggle. “Ahh, ha ha, killed you, gringo! You’re not as good as me! I’m better than you!” he raised the blood-soaked bayonet to eye level, studying the slick liquid oozing down the metal. How beautiful. “I am better than you,” he breathed, “I shall take your blood as proof of this!”

  He licked the blood of Casey from the blade and took it in, swallowing. He grimaced. Funny tasting blood. He frowned and smacked his lips. Maybe he shouldn’t have licked the bl-

  He screamed, clutching his throat and stomach. Agony. Such deep, searing ripping agony. He fell to the floor, rolling about the dirt, his eyes wide and fixed, his mouth open in a rictus of torment.

  Benito stared in horror as Jaime’s face turned deep red, then black as he shook. The simple man made the sign of the cross and dropped his rifle, backing away in fear. Jaime arched his back so he was touching the ground with the back of his head and his heels, shook one more time before collapsing into an inert heap, breathing no more.

  Benito had seen and witnessed enough. He turned and fled up the ladder, forcing open the trapdoor and fleeing. This was the work of the devil and he wanted none of it.

  ____

  For Casey the return to consciousness was painful, very painful. He was in such agony from his stomach. He was aware he was being carried in the open air, but he couldn’t see much. His head was lolling down the back of someone very sweaty. Blue cotton, brown canvas trousers. They were walking through the fields away from the road, from what he could see.

  “Not much further,” came a voice he recognized, Smoking Man’s.

  The one carrying him grunted. He was clearly struggling with Casey’s weight and was cursing under his breath. The jolting walk hurt more and more as Casey regained consciousness. He clenched his teeth to stop himself making sounds.

  He wondered where they were taking him. Away from Vasquez. The question was, where was Jaime? He wanted to get his claws on the bastard. Another jolt and Casey couldn’t help but groan.

  The man stopped and swung around, Casey swinging with him, of course. “He is alive!” a stranger’s voice came to him. “Senor Lopes, this man is alive!”

  “What?” Lopes, Smoking Man, came over and lifted Casey’s head by his hair and stared into the light blue eyes of the man he thought dead.

  “Hello gorgeous,” Casey smiled. “Doing anything tonight?”

  “Mother of God!” Lopes exclaimed, releasing Casey’s hair.

  Next moment Casey was dropped to the ground with a blinding flash of pain. “Jesus!” he cried out.

  “How can he be alive?” Lopes asked. “This is impossible! He was – “ he checked himself and stood above the scarred mercenary. “You were dead! I checked you myself in the cellar!”

  “Where’s that bastard Jaime?”

  “You don’t know?” Lopes snapped. “He’s dead. I don’t know how, Benito is out of his mind with terror. What did you do to him?”

  Casey screwed his eyes up as a wave of pain washed over him. “How do I know, I lost consciousness when Jaime stabbed me.” He felt a sense of satisfaction; at least Jaime was dead.

  “This is too much for me.” Lopes leaned away to talk to his comrade. “We will have to kill him for sure. Jaime must have bungled the job. Shoot him.”

  The other man stepped away. “Me? He’s as good as dead, I mean, look at him. Senor Lopes, I don’t want to touch him any more.”

  “Don’t defy me, Fillipo, I own you. You refuse you lose your job? Now do it!”

  Casey had heard enough. He stumbled to his feet, holding his blood-soaked tunic. “Try it, I’ll return from the dead and put you in the grave. Jaime is dead, Benito has lost his mind. What torment shall I inflict upon you two?”

  “Please!” Fillipo pleaded, “I am a good Catholic! I do not wish to be dragged into Hell!”

  Casey understood how to rattle the less educated man. “Then leave me be, for I am lucifer’s agent and cannot die,” he pointed at Fillipo, his eyes burning. “Or your soul will be devoured by me!”

  With a cry of terror Fillipo fled, screaming for mercy.

  Lopes bent down, reaching for the dropped rifle. Casey’s boot crashed into the man’s jaw and knocked him flat. Both men sank to their knees, Lopes with a set of smashed teeth, Casey with his stomach on fire. Each eyed the other from six inches.

  “You cannot kill me,” Casey gasped, “but I can kill you, Lopes. You’re just as bad as that unhinged Jaime. You’re cold-blooded in your approach.”

  Lopes clutched his ruined mouth, blood dribbling out through his fingers. His eyes were wide with pain and shock. With an effort he got to his feet and reached for the rifle once more, thinking that Casey, on his knees and one arm, with his other arm clutching his stomach, would be unable to defend himself again. He was wrong.

  As the Cuban’s hand grabbed the stock, Casey moved. Although his guts were on fire, he could move. One fist blurred through the air. Lopes grunted and landed on his back. Next moment Casey’s foot was on his chest and the rifle pointed at his head. “Alright,” the scarred man wheezed, “that man Fillipo fell for that bullshit about souls being devoured, but you’re too smart for that. No, you’re cold-bloodied and analytical, aren’t you? A thinker. One who comes up with solutions and schemes and get others to carry them out. Who are you, really?”

  “Geraldo Lopes, I own the land around here. Kill me and you’ll have the entire area after you, and your own officers will hang you.” Lopes spoke slowly, spitting blood and slurring.

  “We’ll see about that,” Casey replied. “You didn’t seem wise to Jaime’s instability, did you?”

  Lopes stared up at Casey saying nothing.

  “Or maybe you did but he had something on you or one of your family? Maybe a secret supporter of the Spanish, eh?”

  Lopes bl
inked.

  “Oh so that’s it. You’re a loyalist. Jaime found out and blackmailed you into allowing him to have your daughter. Shit, that type is no good to anyone. Look, he’s dead, right? So I’ve saved your daughter from a terrible fate. He can’t talk anymore. You ought to thank me.”

  Lopes wiped his bleeding mouth, and spat out a hunk of blood and a tooth. “Maybe, but how do I explain your escape?”

  “Easy. Evidence. You were beaten up, its not as if you’d be lying, is it? Anyone looking at you would sympathize. Let’s do a deal. I go, return to my army, and you return to your people. I don’t care what happens now that Jaime is dead. I’ve no real bitch with you or anyone else.”

  Lopes scowled. “My rifle?”

  “Ha, good try. It ain’t yours. This is Cuban irregular issue,” Casey glanced at the weapon. “My guess is that it was Fillipo’s. Whatever, I’m not giving it to you. I give you your life, and that’s the best I can do. You’d be stupid to turn the offer down.”

  “And you? You were dead, I know it!” Lopes insisted, licking his bleeding lips. “Yet here you are. Those wounds, they were enough to kill. You shouldn’t be on your feet!”

  “I’m tough as nails, Lopes.”

  “No. And there’s something else. Jaime died like he took a poison. I’ve seen people die from poison and he had the same signs. Benito, may God have mercy on him, babbled about Jaime licking your blood off his knife. He made little sense but I think that your blood poisoned him. You’re not human.”

  “Lopes,” Casey wearily replied, “we both know that anyone would laugh at you for saying things like that. Just let it go, alright? Go back to your home, to your family, to your daughter who will now have a better life now that Jaime is dead. What kind of Cuba there’ll be now the war is nearly over I don’t know, but you’ll be needed more than ever for this community. Forget you met me.”

  Casey stepped away, his rifle lowering and he let Lopes get up. “Get your mouth seen to. It’s a mess.”

  “And your wounds?”

  Casey smiled mirthlessly. “That’s for my medical people to see.”

  Lopes shook his head slowly, then turned away and walked back through the fields towards the village. Casey watched him go, then turned himself and made for the distant line of trees that marked the start of the jungle down towards the coast.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Naturally Casey hoped that everything would work out alright and he could rejoin the army and nobody would ask any questions. But when he arrived back at Sevilla, a day later, there was a reception committee. Not a large one, but a couple of soldiers and a sergeant who were based in a temporary shack by the roadside.

  They weren’t specifically there to look out for him, but to make sure the villagers were not taken advantage of, and to look out for deserters and other violators of discipline. It was a sign that the army was tightening its grip on the area now the fighting had died down.

  One of their orders was to watch out for one Corporal Casey Long, suspected deserter and guilty of disobeying orders. It seemed word had gone down from above when Casey hadn’t turned up at the hospital.

  The sergeant was a humorless type who was happy to follow orders and that was it. The two soldiers sympathized but they had their orders, too, so they kept guard on the scarred, stocky corporal, while the sergeant sent a message down the road for a squad to arrive to take Casey off to the army HQ outside Santiago.

  In the meantime Casey was made to sit in the shack, wrists tied together, in a rickety chair that creaked alarmingly each time he wanted to move a muscle. It was hot in the shack and he sat back, his shirt unbuttoned. The state of it, soaked with blood and ripped, had brought a comment from the sergeant but Casey had shrugged and advised him to go find the other guy.

  That didn’t go down well and Casey was left on his own.

  About an hour later one of the guards opened the door and poked his head around the edge. “Visitor, Corporal.”

  Casey looked up. “Oh?”

  To his surprise Maria came in, hesitantly. The guard looked from one to the other. “You sure, Miss? He looks dangerous.”

  “Oh, it will be fine,” she said in a soft, husky voice that had clearly charmed the guard enough to let her in, strictly against orders but the sergeant was taking a nap.

  Left alone with the door shut, Maria smiled wanly. “It seems you are suffering thanks to me.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” Casey said. “How are you?”

  “Better. The pain hasn’t quite gone but its tolerable. The village doctor says I should be up and moving about anyway.”

  “Jaime is dead.”

  “Yes, I thought he would be. Is that his blood?”

  Casey looked down at his ruined tunic. “No, it was someone else’s. I had to deal with a few others he had gathered in Vasquez. He also had a girl there and was planning to marry her.”

  Maria gasped and put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, the pig! After what he said to me! He was an animal.”

  “He was. Did Corrigan make it back with Conchita?”

  “He did, and they told me all that had happened. It was terrible.”

  Casey couldn’t argue, but this little affair at the end of the campaign was now finished. What was going to happen to him was anyone’s guess, but he thought it wasn’t going to be pleasant. Court Martial, no doubt. But at least he wouldn’t suffer the same fate as he had back around eighty-five years or so ago when he’d been shot by firing squad by the French. He’d be jailed, or something like that. Or sent to some punishment location.

  “I have a letter here, Senor Casey,” Maria handed him a note.

  “Oh?” he took it.

  “From your comrade Corrigan. He told me that if you turned up to give it to you.” She looked around. “I’d best go. I don’t want to be caught here.” She leaned over, kissed him on the lips, then left after knocking on the door to be let out.

  Casey opened the note with difficulty. It was a single sheet, folded over, and contained a few words from Al Corrigan.

  Hey, Casey, hope you made it back. Sorry the army stepped in but they asked where you were and I couldn’t kinda lie. They didn’t see the funny side of it and declared you was a deserter. I’ve been sent to man the line outside Santiago but they reckon they’ll surrender in a week or so. Got news of The Kid. Poor kid died of fever at the hospital here, so he didn’t make it.

  Hope you do, you ugly skunk. See ya.

  Al.

  Casey wryly stared at for a moment before ripping it up. Best nobody knew Corrigan wrote him, as he might be disciplined. He didn’t blame Corrigan; the man had been put in an impossible situation and he sympathized with him telling the facts.

  As to him, well, he’d soon find out.

  They came for him shortly afterwards, a squad of men, and he was marched up the road towards El Pozo. They had built a large camp there in the clearing and fenced it off. Part of it was a detention facility for people like him, and there were a fair few there, ranging from thieves to deserters, to ones who refused to obey orders. There was even one who had been caught trying to rape one of the women in one of the villages. He had been beaten up, and not by the soldiers. Even in prison there was a pecking order.

  Casey was told to wait in a small pen outside the gates of the main prison area. No doubt they were processing him, orders covering what they were doing and so on. He was made to stand in the sun, sweat dripping off him; he guessed it was all a part of the punishment.

  He was sent for after an hour or two and marched into the hacienda that acted as the temporary admin building for the camp. He was shown into a room and ordered to change his shirt. The old one was taken away to be burned and he grimaced at the one he was now wearing. It was a touch tight and stuck to his sweating back. He had no time to make himself comfortable as he was marched to another room. Two soldiers stood guard outside this and one opened the door and he was marched in.

  A lieutenant was there, along with anoth
er man, bespectacled and balding. One of the guards took up position inside the room by the door. “I’m Lieutenant Ritchie,” the officer introduced himself. “I’m going to be your defense at the court martial to be heard today.”

  “I guessed as such, sir,” Casey replied.

  Ritchie gestured to a chair stood on its own. “Sit.”

  Casey shrugged and plumped himself down and waited until Ritchie did the same, but with a little more dignity and precision. Ritchie was smart, and soft-spoken, and looked neat and tidy. He had regular features, a straight nose, slim lips and not one hair out of place, even underneath his army cap, from what Casey could see. Office boy, he thought acidly. I’d love to see him lead a charge up Kettle Hill. Little mom’s boy would shit himself.

  “Now, Long, the charges against you are quite serious. Desertion. You are accused of leaving your post in time of war and disobeying orders to go off on a private quest to avenge some wrong-doing that a civilian took against another. It was not an army matter therefore you should not have gotten mixed up with it. Do you have anything to counter these charges in your defense that I can use at the hearing?”

  “No, sir.”

  Ritchie sighed. “Look, Long, I’m trying to help you.”

  “What’s the point, sir? I went off on a private mission and that’s all there is to it.” Casey was irritated by the whole thing. If he were innocent, then that would be a different matter. But he had gone off on an act of revenge and now he was going to suffer for it.

  Ritchie leaned back in his chair. “I see. You do know don’t you, that they will take a dim view of desertion, especially in time of war in the combat area? An example will have to be made, to show the others that this kind of behavior cannot be tolerated. The Court here is dealing with all kinds of examples of desertion, infractions of discipline and violations of the citizens of Cuba. They are getting tetchy with all what’s going on here.”

  “So they’re going to throw the book at me?”