by Lou Cameron
Captain Gringo reached for his own smoke as he nodded and said, “Hakim does that a lot but never without a good reason. I want to know the reason. Aside from that, I have some dames to deliver just the other side of the pass. Unlike Hakim, I’m a man of my word.”
Lopez swore, led his mule to a clump of dwarf juniper, and tied it up as he muttered, “Whitehall would no doubt like to know some answers too. But even if we can get the advantage on those killers waiting for you up in the pass, they won’t have the true story for you. I hired them, as I said. They were told next to nothing, and it would seem that Hakim has been lying to me from the very beginning.”
Lopez found another rock to sit on and filled them in on all he did know as the sun turned ruby and winked off with a greenish flash to the west. As the darkness closed in, Captain Gringo said, “Run that sneaky Nurse Page by us again.” So Lopez said, “All I know for certain is that she leads a very disgusting life and makes lots of telephone calls. Hakim told me that she was a British agent. I was told otherwise. So he has to be mistaken about who she’s working for, eh what?”
Gaston said, “Mais non, not if Hakim was fibbing about her as well. She struck me as a species of Swede or perhaps a Boche.”
Lopez said, “She’s not working for German Intelligence. We have all their remaining agents in El Salvador under surveillance, and the Yanks are working with us to keep the situation there stable.”
“Perhaps,” said Gaston, “mais der Kaiser was fishing in muddy waters during that attempted power play. They say he was a poor loser as a child, as well.”
Lopez insisted, “Nurse Page can’t be German. Her English accent is Yank. Her Spanish is fluent enough to hint at her being born and raised down here. I know there are German-Americans, and I know there are true Germans scattered all around Central America. But I also know that our lads are very good at tapping telephone lines and that she’s never made a call to anyone working for Kaiser Bill.”
Captain Gringo asked, “Who has she been calling, then?”
Lopez explained: “We tried to tap Hakim’s wire. He has his own electricians to make that impossible. The girl makes short, terse calls to someone we don’t know about. Hakim must have found this as easy to notice as I did. He may or may not have her down as one of our agents. Now that I look back on our last conversation, he may have been trying to make me angry enough to give more away than I meant to. I must say he damned near managed to get his own head blown off.”
Gaston chuckled and said, “The old rogue is used to skating on ice of a certain thin variety. I find it très fatigue to attempt to understand the convoluted workings of his warped mind. Now that we know that he was out to screw us and that the paper he gave us is no doubt worthless, I vote that we simply drop the matter.”
Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “It’s not that simple. We still have to get the girls over the pass, whether we ever figure out Hakim’s play or not.”
Lopez said, “Count me out, then. I warned you about the ambush. That was more than I’d been ordered to do. I may as well say—frankly—that I did it more to shove it to Sir Basil than out of duty to you chaps. So don’t expect me to get my arse blown off for you.”
He rose, adding, “You could always take those women around the southeast end of these hills, you know. The Great Rift’s not that far out of your way.”
Captain Gringo said, “It’s a hell of a lot farther than that pass just ahead, and we’d have to backtrack to the mission just on the other side. Thanks for the tip, Lopez. But we’re going to do it my way.”
As Lopez nodded, moved over to his mule, and remounted in the dark, Gaston said, “I wish you would speak for yourself, Dick. How do you intend to enter that death trap ahead without getting your adorable blond curls parted with machine-gun fire, hein?”
Captain Gringo stood up, saying, “Easy. When a guy’s laying for you in a dark alley, you go in the back way.”
Gaston swore, got to his own feet, but demanded, “What back way, you maniac? El Paso Ruido is the only route through the ridge for miles in either direction, non?”
“Yes and no. A pass is only a low gap through a ridge. Is there any law saying that we can’t just go over the ridge to either side?”
As he started to move up the slope Gaston shifted his carbine to the other hand and muttered, “Oui, the law of gravity, for one.”
As he climbed higher over jet-black jagged rock as sharp as broken glass, Captain Gringo had to admit that Gaston had a point. It would have been a bit of a climb in broad daylight. But when Gaston bitched about that, Captain Gringo said, “Look on the bright side. If we could see how far we could fall, it would probably scare the shit out of us.” He hooked an elbow over a ledge and reached down to help Gaston higher as the Frenchman protested. “I cannot shit now. I evacuated my bowels in my pants some time ago, when this adorable cliff began to lean out instead of the other way above me!”
“Oh, hell, it’s not even a vertical climb. It’s just sort of steep in places, old buddy.”
“You are right. It is too dark to see what we are doing. How far to the top, you species of human fly?”
“I don’t know. But it has to be up there someplace, and we’ve been climbing at least an hour.”
“Merde alors, it feels more like twelve. Mais I’ll take your word for it. The sun would be up, had we been clinging to this rock face as long as it feels we have!”
Captain Gringo reached blindly above his head in the dark and found another handhold. It felt wet, as well as too smooth to be safe. But there was nothing better to grab. So he hauled himself up and gasped, “Whoosh!” as the full force of the trade winds hit him in the face. He unslung his carbine and shoved it atop the rocks as he called down, “This is it. Make sure you don’t blow away when this wind grabs you. It’s pretty strong and, shit, there went my hat.”
He helped Gaston up into the fierce winds. They couldn’t see each other, let alone their surroundings. Gaston wheezed. “We are breathing pure pea soup. I am already soaked to the skin. Which way now, my Mac of Duff?”
It was a good question. Captain Gringo reslung his carbine and began to crawl into the wind, feeling his way in total blackness. The ridge southeast of the pass was only wind-flattened for a few yards before it began to drop off the other way, not as steeply, thank God, since the mist-wet rocks were covered with moss as well as running rivulets to windward. They’d been listening to what sounded like the moaning of a million tormented souls for some time now. As it got louder his feet bumped noses with a boulder, he stopped to study and told Gaston, “I think we’re in a crevice that runs down into the pass itself. Let’s see, yeah, there’s a hell of a lot of water running that way, too, and water runs downhill, so—”
“That is only me pissing,” Gaston cut in, adding, “How can we be sure that we’re not still on the wrong side of that ambush?”
Captain Gringo swung his feet around ahead of them to move down the crack braced against his boot heels as he replied, “Only one way to find out—unless you want to stay up here in the clouds some more. It wouldn’t make sense to set up an ambush too deep in the pass. They’d have too narrow a field of fire. God damn, my ass is damming the water. If you really piss, I’ll know, and I’ll never forgive you!” He moved ever lower, slipping now and again but catching himself. When Gaston slipped, he caught him as well but growled, “That was my kidney, you bastard.”
Gaston said, “Better yours than mine. Unless this water is getting colder, I now have no seat to my poor pants. Can you see anything at all ahead? I am beginning to dislike this dark sewer drain intensely!”
Captain Gringo started to say no. Then he saw a sliver of less black darkness ahead and, sliding down a few more yards, began to get a grip on reality. He kept his voice low as he said, “Some asshole’s built a fire to the west, just out of sight. We are coming down behind them and … What the hell?”
Gaston peered over his shoulder as they both sat in the cleft, staring do
wn at the trail through the pass. A machine gun sat on its tripod, covered with a tarp to protect it from the constant drizzle. It was pointed the wrong way, toward the windward end of the pass.
Gaston murmured, “Lopez had it wrong. If that is an ambush, it was not intended for us, hein?”
“Could be they want to be covered from both sides,” said Captain Gringo, adding, “Knowing Hakim, he could have set those other guys up too. Judging from the shadows, the fire has to be closer to the side we were expected from. From the way I’m getting wet, the guys who own that gun have to be closer to said fire. They probably don’t expect visitors after dark.”
He unslung his carbine again and held it at port as he slid down the rest of the way. When his heels hit gritty volcanic sand, he was still shielded by the walls of the cleft. He peered around the edge. He saw three guys hunkered around a roaring fire, wearing big hats and ponchos and still looking miserable. As Gaston slid down the last few feet of wet rock, Captain Gringo said, “Lopez said there were four of ’em. So one’s out in the dark as lookout. Which way is up for grabs. Cover me to windward.”
“Gladly, mais where do you think you are going, Dick?”
“First things first. I’d rather have that machine gun pointed at them than us. Just make sure nobody shoots me in the back and I’ll be ever so grateful.”
He took a deep breath and stepped out into the open. None of the men around the fire heard his footsteps above the howling of the constant wind on the rocks above. None of them looked his way because nobody wanted rain in the face. He got to the gun, tore away the tarp, and saw that it was a .30-30 Maxim, armed with a full belt. He tossed his carbine aside and hauled the heavy weapon off its awkward mount. Bracing it on his hip, he armed it and started to stroll toward the fire.
He almost made it. He was right on top of them when Gaston’s .44-40 went off behind him. He didn’t look back. Gaston would fire twice if he missed with his first shot. The three men around the fire were more important. They rolled in three directions, going for their side arms. Captain Gringo opened fire, traversing right and left as the surrounding cliffs echoed the roar of deadly gunshots. He ceased fire before he’d used up half the belt. There was no sense hosing a guy with machine-gun fire over and over again. Once he was dead, it was only messy. He called back, “Gaston?”
The Frenchman yelled, “One down here, still alive. Mais if you wish to discuss business with him, you had better hurry.”
Captain Gringo turned from the fire and ran up the pass, the belt of his new weapon lashing behind him like a tiger’s tail. He found Gaston bending over a fourth man blowing bloody bubbles all over his own mist-wet face. Captain Gringo grounded the Maxim, hunkered beside the one Gaston had nailed near the heart, and said, “Don’t shit me unless you want to bleed to death with your balls shot off as well. You were covering the other entrance of the pass. How come?”
The wounded Salvadoran said, “Orders. I do not ask questions as long as I am well paid. What’s it to you in any case, gringo?”
“Didn’t you have orders to blow me away as I came to contact those others working for Hakim?”
The wounded man didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He wasn’t wounded anymore. Gaston spat and said, “Très curious, non? Why should Lopez go to so much trouble to shit our bull?”
Captain Gringo said, “Lopez struck me as sane. He was probably telling it the way he saw it. Obviously these guys were given orders Lopez didn’t hear. Hakim does that a lot.”
“True, mais in that case this becomes even more confusing. If Hakim really meant to stop that arms shipment, using these dupes as well as us—”
“Don’t strain your brain,” Captain Gringo cut in, adding, “We don’t know for a fact that these guys were waiting here for Crawford.”
“Who, then? They had to be waiting to ambush someone from the far side of the sierra, non? Had they been more reasonable about the waving of gun muzzles, we may have discovered we were on the same side after all!”
Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “Let’s not blubber up over them. Nobody working for Hakim is all that nice, and all of ’em are dangerous.”
“Mais Dick, did we not start out, at least, working for Hakim?”
“That’s what I just said. I haven’t been nice since my own army ratted on me, and we just showed these poor slobs how dangerous we are.”
It was too cool up in the windswept pass, day or night, for it to have been the smell of death that spooked the burros. So it was probably the eerie howls from the surrounding peaks that made them so hard to handle. The four bodies had been dragged to one side and covered with their ponchos. But, naturally, a couple of the dames had to scream when they noticed boots sticking out from under the sopping-wet corpse covers. Captain Gringo sent them on ahead with Jesus while he and Gaston loaded two burros with extra goodies. There’d been no point in lugging the dead ambusher’s guns, ammo, and provisions down to camp when they’d be coming back the same way. Gaston had, of course, gone through their pockets while they were still warm. He’d observed that it was only right to collect what they could for expenses, since the deposit slips Hakim had given them were no doubt worthless.
The party had consumed nearly half its food and beverages on the trail by now. But ammo weighed more than beans, and the guys posted up this way had been given enough to hold off an army. Captain Gringo insisted on salvaging it all, despite the objections of Gaston and the overloaded burros. He said, “They were expecting one hell of a target, coming from where we’re going. We got them before they got it. So shut up and hand me that case of Maxim belts.”
Gaston did but insisted, “Four men do not a strong garrison make. As we just proved. I agree that a burst of machine gunfire would slow down the advance of almost anyone. Mais there are still limits to how long a mere four defenders could hope to hold out against a large and ties determined force, non?”
Captain Gringo cinched the pack and tested it as he replied, “I don’t know what Hakim had in mind up here. He never told me. He was playing us for suckers. Is there any law saying that he couldn’t have been using the poor slobs up here as disposable tools?”
“Mais non, Hakim follows no laws of man or beast. I still feel that we have to be missing something. They were not posted up here just to get killed before they managed to kill anyone. We know how much Hakim values human life. Mais guns and ammunition are expensive, even when one manufactures them. If Lopez was duped and they were out to do someone else in, that someone may still be expected, here, anytime now, hein?”
Captain Gringo nodded and took one of the leads, saying, “Grab that other critter and let’s get out of here before we find out the hard way. I don’t give a shit what Hakim’s game is now. I just want to drop those girls off at the mission and punch through to the Caribbean poco tiempo.”
Gaston agreed that that was a swell idea. They headed up the pass with the two burros, squinting into the constant fog. They could hear the footsteps and hear the chatter of the others, but they couldn’t see them. The path kept sloping up, too, as the fog poured down it to the west. Gaston was just about to comment on this when the fog ahead turned a brilliant orange and the shock wave of the terrific explosion staggered them.
As the roar echoed back and forth off the wet rock walls, Captain Gringo let go the lead rope and ran toward the moaning and screaming up ahead. He found one of the girls sitting dazed on the dirt, more shook up than hurt. She didn’t know what had happened either. So he pressed on. He almost tripped over Gaston’s skinny Concepcion—what was left of her. A fist-size chunk of shiny black rock was imbedded in her skull. Her skirt had been blown off, and she lay exposed from the waist down. She didn’t look at all sexy.
Anita was in better shape. She staggered toward him, naked from the waist up, one eye swollen and blood running from her nose. He grabbed her to steady her. When she didn’t make much sense, he sat her on a boulder, told her to stay put, and continued.
The next body he made ou
t in the fog wasn’t human. It was one of the burros, missing a hind leg and half its rump. It was still alive. He drew his .38 and took care of that before moving on.
Two more girls staggered his way, sobbing and clinging to one another for support. They were both so tattered and muddy, he couldn’t tell if they were badly hurt or not. When he asked, they just cried. He made out another dim shape on the ground beyond them. He moved closer. It was Jesus. Or half of him. The Indian was missing entirely below the rib cage, and what was left looked pretty grim. The body lay near the rim of a still-smoking crater a nine-by-twelve rug would have failed to cover. He heard someone moaning farther up the path, and it turned out to be one of the teenagers, gamely hanging on to one of the surviving burros even as she sobbed there, naked, with blood running down her legs. He whipped off his jacket and placed it around her quivering shoulders, saying, “Let go the line, muchacha. It won’t stray now. How bad are you hurt and what happened?”
She said, “I am so embarrassed. It is not that time of the month, yet I seem to be gushing. I do not know what happened. Do you?”
Gaston caught up with Captain Gringo in time to help him sit the confused girl on her bare ass on a low, flat, mossy boulder. The Frenchman said, “A species of land mine, non?”
Captain Gringo said, “Yeah, and there could be more. But we have to chance it till we gather everyone together and count noses. You were wondering how those guys back there meant to stop an army with only one machine gun?”
Gaston sighed and said, “It would stop me, were I to lose the head of my column so dramatique and then find myself dusted with automatique fire! Mais it was still meant, at most, as a delaying tactic—”
“Will you knock off the tactical lecture and help me get what’s left of this show back on the road?” Captain Gringo cut in. So Gaston did, and within the hour they had five burros and half a dozen girls gathered in the lee of a big boulder and hence fairly visible for a change. Both Concepcion and Consuela had been killed outright when Jesus and the burrow ahead of him stepped on the land mine’s detonator at the same time. A third girl had bled to death by the time they’d found her in the fog. The way some had obviously walked right over the infernal device without setting it off added up, to Gaston, as a Boche trick he’d encountered during the Franco-Prussian War. He said that Prussian sappers had set mines like that in order to get the French infantry officers, who naturally rode horseback. It demoralized or at least slowed down a column more when one blew up at least one of its leaders. He added, “The très amusant ambushers no doubt had the Maxim zeroed in to send blind plunging fire into the fog as the survivors behaved just as we did, gathered around the crater, hein?”