Renegade 35

by Lou Cameron

  Gaston chuckled but said, “I have been wondering about that ambush ever since we shot it up, Dick. I know what Lopez told us. He in turn was told by Hakim, and we know what a fibber Hakim is. That Maxim and those land mines were still set up to make the hash out of someone coming through the pass the other way. It would make no sense for it to have been others working for Hakim, and El Condor, as you proved, was très league of the bush despite his awesome reputation. Mais who is left?”

  Captain Gringo hissed, “Pig!” and, as they both froze, raised his carbine and fired. The pig like javelina he’d spotted in a clump of wild plantana off to his right dropped without even screaming, shot clean through its upper spine. As Captain Gringo levered another round in the chamber Gaston warned, “Take care, Dick. That species of tasty beast tends to run in ugly mobs!”

  Captain Gringo growled, “Tell me about it,” and eased forward, keeping his eyes peeled for charging tuskers. But the javelina he’d downed had apparently been foraging alone. Gaston observed that it seemed to have been a female in heat and added, “It seems a shame. I have not had any for days, and I might have been able to help her get over her shyness.”

  Captain Gringo hoped he was kidding. He said, “Let’s gather some firewood. You can eat her pussy after we cook it. I didn’t know how hungry I really was until just now!”

  They hung the javelina, gutted, to cool and drain while they gathered wood and built a fire. It was early in the day to consider a night camp. So they left their packs intact and sat on a log side by side as they waited for the hardwood to die down to coals. Then Captain Gringo got up and brushed the blanket of bluebottle flies away to cut some thick chops for them both. It seemed a shame to let the rest go to waste, but what they didn’t cook and eat at once would spoil in no time in this humid heat. He rejoined Gaston, and they held the juicy red pork over the coals on greenwood sticks until they’d at least killed all the worms in the meat. Then they ate rare, rather gamey pork until they were greasy and belching comfortably. Captain Gringo said, “That’s enough for me. Want more?”

  Gaston shook his head and said, “Merci, a little of such rustic cookery goes a long way. Oddly I feel like some fruit now.”

  He bent over to wipe his hands on the rough, mossy bark they were sitting on and stood up to gaze around for dessert. Then he sighed and said, “Merde, you told me not to wake up the neighbors avec gunfire?”

  Captain Gringo rose to follow Gaston’s gaze. The guys coming through the trees at them from two sides were wearing the khaki field dress of the Honduran Army. They had their rifles at port arms, and come to think of it, they were coming from three directions now. There wasn’t much real cover around here as the javelina had just learned the hard way. But Captain Gringo looked casually behind them in any case and saw that they were cut off that way too. He shrugged fatalistically and said, “Pretty good patrol work. The main party has to be big and serious if they have a whole platoon out ahead of them.”

  The two soldiers of fortune had, of course, left their own carbines leaning against the log with their packs. It seemed a good idea to let them just lay there as a tough-looking bozo wearing sergeant’s stripes strode their way as if he owned this jungle. He no doubt thought he did. He stopped just within pistol range and said, “Well? I am waiting.”

  Captain Gringo kept his hands slow and polite as he pointed to the nearby hanging pork and said, “You and your men are just in time for la cena, Sargento. Would you like to see our papers as well?”

  “I did not bring my reading glasses with me, and in any case, anyone can say anything on paper. I am waiting to hear what you have to say for yourselves, señores.”

  Captain Gringo shrugged and replied, “There’s little to tell. We are on our way to Comayagua. As you can see, we just shot our supper. Are you sure you hombres don’t want any? We can’t eat it all ourselves.”

  The sergeant said, “Never mind what you have been hunting without permission in my country, extrano. Tell me who you are and what else you have been up to, unless you wish for to discuss your business with El Coronel Gonzalez himself. It is only fair to warn you that our commanding officer does not eat wild men or beasts. He just shoots them, pronto. El Coronel lacks my sweet disposition and you are, in truth, beginning to annoy me.”

  Captain Gringo frowned and asked, “Hold it. Are we talking about old Caballo Gonzalez, Field Artillery?”

  The sergeant scowled and said, “We are, but only his friends dare to call him a horse, and not too often. How is it that you know of our leader, extrano? El Coronel does not usually operate in this area.”

  Captain Gringo said, “I know. We rounded up slave raiders closer to the coast, and he owes us. So you’d better be nice to us. Old Caballo and me are old war buddies.”

  The sergeant didn’t see how that could be possible. But he told them to pick up their packs and come with him and his men. When they asked about the carbines, he said not to be silly. But he didn’t frisk them and ordered two of his men to carry their guns for them. Nobody seemed to want any pork.

  The patrol led them a couple of miles through the jungle and out into a clearing left by slash-and-burn farmers. No tents had been pitched, and while the artillery teams had been turned loose to graze, there were no night tarps over the dozen odd field guns and thrice as many ammo caissons, despite the late hour in the day. So it seemed obvious that the outfit was in a hurry as well as loaded for bear.

  The C.O. spotted them as they were frog-marched into the center of his trail break. He stood up, scowling, then smiled as he saw who they were. Caballo Gonzalez had earned his nickname by looking something like a big old war horse as well as acting like one and leading horse infantry and artillery where the experts said no horse could go.

  As they joined him Gonzalez said, “So we meet again, Captain Gringo and the patron saint of the French Foreign Legion. What in the devil are you doing in this part of Honduras? You told me after you turned those slave raiders over to me, for to bury, that you would be leaving soon for Costa Rica, no?”

  Captain Gringo nodded his thanks as the sergeant hastily handed back his carbine and told the officer, “That was a long time ago. It’s a long story, and to tell the truth, sir, I don’t know just what the ending is supposed to be.”

  Gonzalez led them to a nearby fire, introduced them to his junior staff, and sat them down for the first good coffee and dry tobacco they’d had in days. As they filled the friendly Hondurans in on their recent adventures, the colonel’s horse like face got longer and more puzzled. When Captain Gringo had no more to say and stopped to inhale more coffee and smoke, Gonzalez said, “For the sake of past favors done, I thank God you are no longer working for that gun-running imp of the devil, Hakim. We know all about his plans for to arm the hill bandits in the Sierra Neblina. That is where we are headed for and why, as you see, I brought along artillery as well as dragoons. We know all about this Crawford person you were to meet. A patriotic Honduran woman has been sending us regular messages about the fiendish plot of Woodbine Arms Limited.”

  Gaston raised an eyebrow to ask, “Would this secret agent of your own be a très statuesque blonde who says she is a nurse, Coronel?”

  Gonzalez nodded and said, “Si, a woman of Americano descent, pero now a citizen of El Salvador. She has worked for some time as a paid informant of Honduran Intelligence. Are you suggesting that she has not been dealing with us in good faith?”

  Gaston smiled and replied, “Mais non, I feel sure Nurse Page gives good service indeed. Mais Hakim has been stringing her along as well as servicing her back. He was spoon-feeding British Intelligence a tale of tallness too. Before you shoot your adorable blonde spy as a double agent, consider that Hakim even had us fooled about his true intentions.”

  Captain Gringo took a thoughtful drag on one of the good cigars Gonzalez had given him and said, “Up until now, you mean. The penny just dropped. I think I got it.”

  Everyone looked blankly at him. He said, “Look, he tol
d your spy one story, fed Lopez another story, and then sent us on a wild-goose chase with another wild story. It was meant to confuse everyone as to his true intentions, and it did. The only thing all his bullshit has in common is that apparently something big is about to happen up in the Sierra Neblina. The sly old fox didn’t give a damn how we doped it out, as long as we all kept looking the same way.”

  Gonzalez nodded grimly and said, “Si, I do not have to know just what this mysterious Crawford is planning to do with all the guns and ammunition as long as I have more when at last we meet!”

  Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “You’re not about to meet anyone Hakim sent into the Sierra Neblina now. Lopez dropped out, we blew away the ambush party, and now our hearts ain’t in the highlands, either. So who could be left?”

  Gonzalez scowled and said, “El Condor? Oh, that is right, thanks to you there is now no famous El Condor, either.”

  Captain Gringo snorted in disgust and said, “El Condor’s fame was mostly his own bragging and some stories planted by Hakim’s wide spread organization. I don’t like to brag, and in this case I don’t have to. The notorious El Condor was a half-ass half-witted bullyboy one man was able to take care of with one automatic weapon. He and his men were armed with rusty antiques and not really so good with what they had.”

  “Si, no doubt that is for why they ordered modem weapons from Woodbine Arms, no?”

  “With what? And what would a bunch of illiterate chicken rapers do with modem weapons if they had them? Hakim doesn’t give guns away for free. El Condor never robbed anything more serious than a country church in his short, miserable life. The bullshit about a big gun-running operation in those soggy hills was all a ruse.”

  Gonzalez frowned and asked, “In that case for why did he send you to stop his Crawford and then set up an ambush to … You are right, it is all very confusing.”

  Captain Gringo said, “Hakim likes to play poker, deuces wild. All of us but you, sir, were wild cards in the deck, meant for you to read any way you liked, as long as it got you, your men, and your guns up into the Sierra Neblina. The whole thing was planned as a snipe hunt. Had one of your patrols run into that setup in El Paso Ruido, you’d have surely thought you were at war with some damned body, and am I correct in assuming that you’d dig in and take even more time scratching your head in the clouds?”

  Gonzalez nodded soberly and said, “Of course. When I lose even one man, it is not my custom to retreat until someone pays for it with interest.”

  Captain Gringo said, “Right. But since there was nobody really serious up there to fight, you’d have been up there quite a while, cut off from contact with the lowlands, no danger to anyone Hakim’s really working with, see?”

  “I am beginning to. Pero whom? Are you suggesting that Hakim’s true aim is some sort of power play in the lowlands?”

  Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “I’m not suggesting it. I’m saying it. Hakim deals in more than arms. He deals in industrial explosives for big money, and Tío Sam’s not the only outside interest interested in a canal across this isthmus some damned place. I know your present government’s backed by Washington and that it’s not interested in selling canal rights to someone like, say Der Kaiser. But, no offense, your present government’s not all that stable.”

  Gonzalez scowled and said, “I’ll have you know my men and I are loyal to our own government, God damn it!”

  Captain Gringo said, “I know that. No doubt Hakim knows that. Meanwhile who’s watching the store while you and the best troops in the country are playing babes in the woods up here?”

  Gonzalez had not gotten to be a field-grade officer in a land of vicious political infighting by growing up dumb. He rose to his feet and yelled for his bugler before he announced, “We march at once back to Comayagua! That is the key point controlling the Great Rift, and I’ve never thought much of the commandant there in any case.”

  As bugles blew and everyone started running in circles, the grim-jawed Gonzalez remembered his manners and turned to ask the two soldiers of fortune whether they wanted to come along or whether they had other plans. So Captain Gringo said, “We were on our way to Comayagua, anyway. I wouldn’t miss this for the world, sir.”

  Watching a nicely executed military operation from the sidelines was a lot more fun than taking part in it. Gonzalez suggested, and they had to agree, that with both sides wearing the same uniform and fighting on ground they knew better, an outsider was more apt to get killed, or kill the wrong people, than to perform a useful service.

  So they dropped out of the column near the outskirts of Comayagua, ordered a pitcher of cerveza at a roadside cantina, and took it up on the flat roof to watch. Captain Gringo had heard that civilians from Washington had ridden out in hired carriages to watch the battle of Bull Run. If so, they’d seen a better show. El Coronel was an old pro who already had a line on the officers he could trust or not in his own army, and his men were well disciplined. Once they’d ringed the town with artillery the dragoons moved in and fanned out to pay antisocial calls on officers or public officials on their C.O.’s shit list. So the struggle for the key crossroads of the Great Rift was more a matter of short, sharp, scattered gunfights than a classic battle. Gonzalez and his loyalists were too professional to engage in the usual practice of shooting the pigs and chickens first.

  Things got a little hectic around the military garrison on the far side of town, judging by the distant crump of artillery shells. But resistance soon ended when the whole place went up in one big blast that shattered glass and peeled roof tiles all over town. As the soldiers of fortune eyed the resultant monstrous mushroom cloud drifting west with the prevailing trade winds, Gaston said, “Eh bien, that must have been a lucky lob indeed. Speaking professionally, it is très difficult to take out the powder magazine of a well-built fortress.”

  Captain Gringo swallowed some beer and said, “Not if it’s piled on the surface. That was too much H.E. for a peacetime garrison to have on hand. I’d say Hakim’s opium dream just went up in cordite smoke before it was supposed to. He had to divert that arms shipment somewhere, so, yeah, that was where it was really delivered.”

  Gaston said, “Oui, would-be rebels are always in the market. Mais one gets the impression that Hakim’s newfound customers just went out of business too.”

  He was right. Save for that one grand explosion, the fiesta that evening was noisier than the Liberacion had been. Firecrackers made a lot more racket than firing squads, and Gonzalez was smart enough to keep that noise to a minimum as well. Properly chastised enlisted men were spared, and officers who wanted to talk were held over for courts-martial. So by the time he invited the soldiers of fortune to sup with him and congratulate him on the new rank wired from the capital to the south, Gonzalez had the whole story.

  Having lost his rebel customers in El Salvador, and being stuck with unpaid-for arms, Hakim had persuaded a cabal of Honduran junior officers that it was dumb to wait for promotion in a peacetime army when it was so easy to go into business for themselves. He hadn’t sold them the arms for cash. They hadn’t had any. He’d made a deal with them regarding the Great Rift canal rights. Sir Basil liked to think ahead. With the Panama Project stalled at the moment, he knew that more than one international combine was willing to bid on an alternate route. The Hondurans he’d seduced had agreed that they wouldn’t have to take the whole country to bring the government in Tegucigalpa to its knees. Anyone holding the Great Rift had Honduras by the nuts. The inland highland towns were dependent on the seaports at either end of the main north-south freight route. In Honduras all roads led not to Rome but to Comayagua. Anyone wanting to ship out highland coffee or order a grand piano from New Orleans had to be very nice to anyone holding Comayagua, and for a few days, at least, Hakim’s boys had held it. They hadn’t planned on the loyal Gonzalez getting back from his wild-goose chase before they could consolidate their position.

  The same cut-off politicos who’d j
ust promoted Gonzalez to brigadier had been about to agree to a coalition government. That was what they called it when guys who knuckled under would not be shot and could even keep their jobs if they let their new boss run the country his way or, rather, Hakim’s way.

  Naturally, now that Gonzalez had saved their asses, the political hacks who’d been most in favor of sweet reason and perhaps a less pro-American stance, were now howling loudest for blood. They’d wired Gonzalez orders to round up all suspicious foreigners, particularly Germanic-looking blond ones. So as they enjoyed their after-dinner brandy and cigars Old Caballo suggested that it might be a wise move on Captain Gringo’s part to haul ass while the hauling was good. Gonzalez explained, “I know it is most unjust, Dick. Were it up to me, you would both get medals as well as substantial rewards. Alas, I fear an ugly witch-hunt before the excitement dies down, and I can’t be everywhere.” Captain Gringo smiled crookedly and asked, “Can you at least give us passes that might get us to the nearest seaport, sir?” Gonzalez said, “I can do better than that. I can give you travel expenses, at least, from my war chest. You shall ride to Puerto Cortes in my private coach with a military escort. How soon will you be ready to leave?”

  Gaston grinned and said, “Perhaps about this time tomorrow? The fiesta outside looks interesting, and I have yet to kiss a lady from Comayagua.”

  Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “We’ll leave right now. Before the party gets rough.”

  So they did, with Gaston bitching all the way to Puerto Cortes. But once they were there it took them three days to catch a schooner bound for Limon. So they both got to kiss some ladies. But by the time they were safely bound for Costa Rica, even the ladies in Honduras were starting to shoot suspicious looks at German “spies.”