by Lou Cameron
“Merde alors, you just noticed? I told you that before we left Costa Rica! But who could the species of rat be?”
“How do you like your rats, alphabetical or numerical? The Mexican government wants us for everything but spreading the common cold. I don’t think the U.S. Navy knows we’re here. We’d never have bluffed the SP more than once if they had orders to look for a guy answering my description. The Rurales know we were turned down by the Red Cross. Let’s go with that for now. Anyone who can read could have seen one of the reward posters out on us when and if they went to the local telegraph office to wire home that they’d made it this far. It wouldn’t have cost them as much to wire Mexico City while they were at it.”
“True. But how would a species of Red Cross rat have been able to sabotage our machine gun, Dick?”
“I’m still working on that. I’m sure I cleaned the barrel a couple of times aboard the boat. I came back to the house right after I met those Red Cross guys and gals. I should have noticed if anyone crept in in the wee small hours, but the gun was right by the back door and said door was supposed to be locked.”
Gaston looked sheepish and said, “Speaking for myself, there were times during the night when I would not have noticed a herd of elephants down the hall.”
Captain Gringo looked at Pilar, who was grinning, as he said, “Yeah, that works. Any knock-around guy worth his salt could open a simple latch like that with a knife, and damned near everyone down here packs a knife. Have you girls had trouble with burglars in the past, Pilar?”
She said, “No, Deek. But this is rather frightening! What if the intruder had not stopped in the back room? What if he had come in on us while we were—”
“He didn’t have the balls,” Captain Gringo cut in with a shrug, adding, “They sent a sneak, not a killer. Probably wired a local police informer who wasn’t about to take us on himself. It was a pretty neat trick, now that I think about it. If he’d taken the mules, we’d never have left town, and even Los Rurales avoid breaking windows they don’t have to. They sent someone to make sure we were with two known guides, had him mess up the gun to shave the odds in their favor without tipping us off, and then, meanwhile, rode to meet us on the trail. Having met nobody on said trail by now, Los Rurales must be a little confused, too.”
Gaston opened the breech of his Winchester and held the rifle to his eye like a telescope before he gasped and swore in French, Spanish, and Arabic. Captain Gringo nodded and said, “Don’t just cuss about it, pal. Cut yourself a stick and clean the fucking mud out of your own bore!”
As Gaston did so, Captain Gringo checked all the other guns, and, sure enough, the girl’s saddle guns as well as the repeaters he’d picked up the night before at the market had all been gummed up with clay.
He showed Pilar and Concepción how to get the crad out as he checked the supplies. Nothing had been stolen, and since most of the food was in cans he didn’t see how they could have been poisoned. He threw away a sack of flour, telling Pilar, when she bitched, how easy it was to piss most anything through thin cloth. She blanched and said, “I do not think we wish for to go any farther with the two of you, Deek! Concepción and me were hired as guides, not as moving targets!”
He shrugged and said, “Okay, doll box. It’s not far from here to your village and it’s sure been nice knowing you. You can take your silver with you. You can take your plaster Madonna, too. But the guns and mules stay with us.”
“That is not just, Deek! Why would you wish for to rob poor women who have been so good to you, eh?”
“It’s not robbery, Pilar, it’s simply survival. You don’t need trail supplies to make it back to the village. We do, to get to Guatemala.”
He didn’t press the matter either way as the two female guides went out of earshot to have a chat about it. He just went on cleaning guns. When there was time, he would break out the gun-cleaning kit and do it right. Meanwhile, it was more important that they just shoot, if need be.
As long as he was at it, he cleaned Pilar and Concepción’s carbines, too. He’d finished and was lashing everything back in place when they rejoined him. Pilar said, “We have been thinking. If you try to get through to Guatemala without us, you will never make it, and we will never get the final payment from the insurance company, no?”
“I was hoping you’d see it that way, doll box. Old Gaston’s a lousy lay.”
Concepción giggled and murmured that he was wrong. Pilar laughed too and said, “Bueno. We’ll go on with you for now. But only if we do not brush with any more Rurales again, eh? It is said Los Rurales make a habit of raping women they catch.”
He raised an eyebrow. Pilar looked down and said, “All right, that part might not be so bad. But after they gang rape female prisoners, they shoot them. That is one thrill we are not looking forward to!”
Things started looking up, in every way, as they worked their way east the rest of the day through brush that the Rurale NCO had been right about. The slope kept getting steeper and the girls kept bitching about having to wade through overgrown thorny spinach without the usual siesta when the sun stopped fooling around and really heated things up. Pilar protested that she and Concepción never headed into the Sierra Madres by this route, since there didn’t seem to be any route, goddammit. Captain Gringo just kept them all moving as he explained soothingly, “I know you girls are used to moving at night, when the roads are safer. But it’s not dark out now, and those Rurales will be tearing up and down every goat path around here until they get tired of looking for us.”
“Si, Deek. But meanwhile the heat is killing us, and what if we get lost?”
“How can we get lost, querida? We’re looking for a mountain range running north and south from Alaska to Patagonia and we’re going from west to east, uphill.”
“Si, but we do not know every inch of the Sierra, Deek. We only know the trails of a very modest part of it. If we wind up in some box canyon none of us have ever seen before—”
“We’ll be in a hell of a mess,” he cut in, adding, “Meanwhile, nobody’s shooting at us and we have to be heading into some damned part of the Sierra Madres. So pick ’em up and lay ’em down, querida.”
“Can’t we stop for at least a short siesta, Deek? It is after noon and oh so hot!”
“I thought you were afraid of getting lost? We’re under shade most of the time, we don’t want to hit the high country after dark, and I want you up on a ridge for some educated looks around when we hit the serious Sierra Madres and—”
“You are talking like an idioto!” she cut in, adding, “We shall never make it to the open scablands in one day, no matter how fast we walk. The coast is more than a day’s march from the true spine of the Sierra Madres.”
He frowned and asked, “No shit? Then what’s this slope we’re pushing up, doll box?”
“The coastal range, of course. We have many hills and dales for to cross before we shall be in the real mountains.”
He walked on a few paces, shrugged, and said, “Okay. So what are we trying to prove? I like siestas too.”
As he tethered the mule to a sapling, Gaston did the same with the other and joined them, along with Concepción. The fat girl didn’t ask questions. She simply flopped to the ground with a groan of sheer relief. But Gaston asked why they’d stopped, so Captain Gringo explained, “We’re not going to make it anywhere important today. So we’ll fort up here until it cools off some. Then we’ll forge on until dark and make camp for the night. Any complaints?”
“Mais non. This seems a most pleasant picnic ground, save for the insects.” He looked up through a gap in the tree canopy to add, “I had better break out a machete and play Robinson Crusoe, though. It looks like rain.”
Captain Gringo didn’t think it did, but Gaston had been down here longer, so he didn’t argue as they made camp. He did argue, however, when Concepción proceeded to pile a mess of sticks together for a fire. He shook his head and said, “Don’t do that, Concepción. It’s hot
enough in this clearing already.”
She looked confused and asked, “But how am I to boil water for our coffee, Deek?”
He said, “You’re not. It’s broad daylight. So let’s let Los Rurales guess where we are. Let’s not send them any smoke signals.”
Pilar yelled, “Concepción, you are such a big fat fool I can’t stand it! Do you wish for to get us all killed?”
“No, I only wish I could have some coffee.”
Captain Gringo left Pilar to explain the facts of life in enemy country as he found a tree that looked reasonably easy to climb, and climbed it. The discussion about campfire smoke had reminded him that they were not alone in these shrubby hills. He was a big man and the tree was swaying as if it had noticed this by the time he’d worked high enough to see out across the tops of the less imposing growth all around. He saw that Gaston was right about the rain clouds coming in from the southwest. When the wind was from that quarter along this coast, it was talking about a gully-washing storm. To the east he could see the distant purple peaks of the Sierra Madres. They didn’t look too far away. But mountains were like that.
Closer, about ten miles to the northeast, he spotted a lazy plume of blue wood smoke. He nodded to himself. The road was over that way and the Red Cross expedition had taken that route. Their Mexican guides had probably insisted on stopping for la siesta. By now, if their guides knew as much about the local weather patterns as they should, the other party would be putting up their tents as well.
He didn’t see any other smoke plumes in any direction. Los Rurales were either enjoying their own siesta back in the coastal village or, if really serious about this business, traveling Apache-style, too.
He climbed back down to see that Gaston had already thrown together two lean-tos, facing away from each other, the dirty old thing.
Pilar was under the palmetto thatch open to face the tethered mules. She was sipping from an open can of preserved tomatoes as he saw Gaston and Concepción were already out of sight under the other lean-to. He smiled crookedly and moved out to the mules. Pilar called out to ask what he was doing and he called back, “Going to take the packs off and let ’em graze on long leads.”
She got up to join him, saying, “Bueno. But you do not have to keep them tied, Deek. They never stray far from Concepción and me.”
“Yeah? Well, you must know more about mules than an old army man like me, then. It’s fixing to rain fire and salt with maybe some summer lightning thrown in. Surely you hobble them at night up in the high country, Pilar?”
She shook her head and said, “No. We do not have to. Eduardo and Roberto are in love with us, you see.”
He frowned and stared thoughtfully at the kicker, who’d just let out a yard of dong to take a piss as Pilar patted his muzzle. Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “No. I couldn’t have heard that right.”
Pilar laughed like a dirty little kid and said, “Of course not. You know I’m not that loose between my thighs, querido.” He laughed and said, “I should hope so. I know that while mules are sterile they’re not sissies, but there’s just no way any woman could serve a dong like that. A burro, maybe, but…”
She giggled and said, “Silly, we just jerk them off. Didn’t you know that old trick for to make a mule your lasting friend?”
“Not in this man’s army. We used to just hit ’em a lot. Are you serious, Pilar?”
“Si, it is fun for us, too, in a way. Concepción and me sometimes get most hot, telling each other dirty stories as we make the mules come. Once, Concepción got so excited, she tried to really do it with Eduardo, but of course they could not.”
He grimaced and said, “That’s sure a shame. But it probably saved her life.”
“Si, that is what I told her. But you know how people get when they are really hot and have nobody for to fuck, eh?”
“Yeah, but why worry, in a world full of bananas?”
She grinned lewdly and took his arm to say, “I do not see any banana trees around here, querido. But let us get under the shelter and I am sure we shall find a satisfactory substitute, no?”
He laughed, told her to just start without him if she couldn’t wait, and unsaddled the mules while she moved sensuously back to the lean-to. A warm gob of rain plopped down on his wrist as he secured them on long leads, just in case, anyway. He’d heard circus-animal trainers used masturbation to keep their critters calm and friendly. He chuckled as he considered the work involved in jerking off an elephant. He wondered what else two oversexed girls did alone on the trail in their travels. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He had nothing better to do for the next few hours and he wasn’t really jealous about that green banana, but, hell, a guy didn’t want to shove his personal treasure into anything really disgusting, right?
When he rejoined Pilar under the thatch, she was still sipping from the tomato can, but stark naked as she reclined on the improvised floor mat of fern fronds. She looked cooler than he felt. So he stripped to join her, and, bless Gaston’s thoughtfulness, the ferns under them smelled clean and fresher than she did. He didn’t fault her for her gamy body odors as he took her in his arms again. He’d been sweating like a pig all day too. So it tended to even out.
She drained the can and tossed it away as she lay back on the ferns to welcome him home between her widespread thighs. It was too hot and there was far too much codfish in the air right now to consider anything but old-fashioned missionary stuff. But as he entered her once more he was sure glad she’d suggested it. He’d almost forgotten how tight she was, for such an obviously adventurous little mutt.
They were both sloppy with sweat by the time they’d climaxed again together for the first time. Naturally she wanted more and naturally he didn’t have to have his arm twisted as she twisted skillfully under him. But he heaved a great sigh of relief, just the same, when the sky opened up to dump sheets of silvery tropic rain, cooling the air under the lean-to pleasantly.
Pilar laughed and said, “Oh, thank you, Santa Maria! Even with a handsome man, there are limits to how much sweat one desires to fuck with. Let me up, Deek. I wish for to run out and get clean again!”
That made two of them. So, hand in hand, they stepped out into the downpour and let the warm sweet rainwater run down their naked bodies as they smiled at each other.
Over the wet hair on Pilar’s shoulder he saw that other great minds had been running in the same channels. Gaston and Concepción were running around bare-assed in the rain like a couple of kids, too. They looked pretty silly. Gaston had a pretty lean and muscular body for a man his size and age. Concepción looked more like a circus fat lady taking a shower. There sure was a lot of her. But the falling rain veiled them both a bit and the details were Gaston’s problem in any case. Gaston spotted them and waved. Captain Gringo waved back but called out, “Keep your distance, old buddy,” adding in English, “I like an orgy as well as the next guy, but not when the other guys bring stuff like that to the party!”
Gaston laughed and called back, “Do not knock it until you try it, my fastidious youth. But I can see you have something at least as nice, so I shall not insist.”
Pilar turned too, and waved at Concepción, calling out, “Isn’t this more fun than being alone on the trail, Concepción?” Then she took another look at Gaston and added, with a lewd laugh, “Madre de Dios, I thought he was little!”
It started raining even harder, hiding some of the other couple’s charms and cooling Captain Gringo’s own erection more than he really needed. He was about to suggest getting back under shelter when a lightning bolt hit a tree not far away, and the two mules tried to bolt. They couldn’t, thanks to the way he’d tethered them, but they were fighting the leads like hooked bass now. He said, “I’d better take some slack out of the ropes. I thought you said they never ran away, Pilar.”
She said, “Get Eduardo. I’ll take care of Roberto.” So he ran over and hauled the nearest mule in closer to the tree it was tied to, punching its muzzle when it
tried to bite his bare ass.
He got the mule tethered right, glanced around to see how Pilar was making out, and blinked in surprise. The shapely little mestiza was on her knees beside the mule, playing with its long dong as she cooed lovingly to it. The mule’s eyes were closed in pleasure as the pretty girl jerked its ugly prong with both hands.
He moved closer, observing, “Well, he sure does seem to like what you’re doing, doll box.”
She said, “Si, and it’s making me hot, too! Why do you not take care of me as I take care of this big thing, Deek?”
He said, “That’s just plain silly, Pilar.” But she moved into a new and rather interesting position, with her bare brown rump thrust teasingly up at him as she knelt on both knees and one hand, jerking off the mule with the other. So he laughed, dropped behind her, and shoved it into her dog-style while the mule brayed in what sounded like passion, pain, confusion, or all three. The whole weird scene seemed to drive Pilar crazy, too. She started making hee-haw noises back at him, the mule, or both, as she arched her spine to respond to his thrusts while she went on stroking the full length of the rain-slicked pecker of the mule.
The two humans climaxed almost together, with Captain Gringo’s coming in her triggering the excited Pilar’s orgasm. Any lust he might still have felt was rapidly cooled by the sight of the mule’s awesome ejaculation. He said, “Glugh!” withdrew from her, and added, “Let’s go back to the lean-to and finish right. This is getting a little too rich for my blood, doll box.”
She said, “I’ll be with you in a minute. I have to take care of the other mule. The poor thing loves me.”
He grimaced, got to his feet, and walked naked through the clean rain, feeling sort of dirty. He ducked under the overhang, lit another smoke, and reclined on one elbow, bemused, to watch Pilar jerk off the second mule. It was hard to tell, from here, which of them was enjoying it more. The oversexed little mutt was playing with herself with her free hand while she drove the excited beast nuts with long teasing strokes with the other. Captain Gringo couldn’t have gotten his own dong back up with a block and tackle right now. Like most healthy young men, he liked his sex a little dirty. But enough was enough.