by Lou Cameron
“How many mouths are we talking about feeding, doc?”
“Four hundred and forty-eight, assuming the last fever victims recover. Why?”
“We didn’t bring enough food. A week’s rations at most. We’re going to have to get everyone out.”
“But the road is blocked and—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know about the sluggish sewer drains, doc. But I just brought a mess of people in where the map said there was no road.”
“Good! You can lead us all out that way, right?”
“Wrong. Aside from bandits, there’s no telling what Los Rurales would do to a mess of Guatemalans too poor to bribe them. There’s got to be another way. What happens if we just sort of ease around that volcano, low on the slopes? We’re not that far from the west coast and it should be mostly downhill, past Boca Bruja.”
The doctor shook his head and said, “We can’t. We’re cut off that way, too.”
“By what, lava?”
“Worse. Bandits. A guerrilla band led by some idiot in a white hat has taken up positions in the next valley over. So far our alcalde and our military escort have kept them from raiding us through the one pass. But they say they won’t let us through unless we give them a hundred thousand dollars, U.S., and we just don’t have it!”
Captain Gringo grimaced and said, “They’d double-cross you once they had it, if you did. The ghouls want the women and supplies we have between us as well.”
“That’s what the alcalde says. He says medical supplies are worth their weight in gold to any rebel force and—”
“I just said that,” Captain Gringo cut in, turning away to see where Gaston might be. He didn’t see Gaston. A tall redheaded woman who was either about forty or very very tired had been listening to their conversation. As she came over, the Red Cross man introduced her as a Mrs. Parkhurst and added that she was not with his expedition. The redhead said to call her Ruth and added, “I’m a geologist, or the widow of one at any rate. My late husband and I were up here studying the volcano when it started teaching us some tricks that are not in the books. I couldn’t help noticing you seem to have a machine gun on your mule, Captain Walker.”
He nodded and said, “Yeah, but it won’t work, if those bandits are dug in behind a razor back. I’m sorry to hear about your husband, though. What happened?”
She pointed at the church wall, albeit really in the direction of the volcanic slope to the west, and said, “Boca Bruja happened. I told him it was time to get out of there. But he thought he knew better. We were camped in the crater. He said he was sure it was extinct.”
Captain Gringo whistled softly and said, “You sure must run pretty good, Miss Ruth!”
She smiled wanly and said, “I do. But not that good. Actually we had a tiff the night before the volcano blew. So I was staying here in the village when it happened. Hopefully, the first explosion killed him and our workers before they knew what hit them. I’ve been stuck here ever since. I certainly would like to get out of here.”
“That sounds reasonable. Any ideas, Miss Ruth?”
“One. It may seem a little wild. If you’re interested, I’d be glad to show you my plan on the map in my quarters.”
He nodded and she led him out of the mission and up the street through ankle-deep loose ash with a yard of solidified crud under it.
Ruth Parkhurst’s rented rooms were on the second story of the village posada. It was just as well. The cantina below had gone out of business after the ash drifting in had covered everything with what looked like gray cement. The roof beams above bowed ominously, and as he glanced thoughtfully at them she said, “I know. Some of the less substantial roofs have already caved in. Sit down. I’ll get the map. I’d offer you refreshments if I could. But I can’t. We’re rationed one canteen and three tortillas a day. I hate tortillas. Don’t you?”
He sat at the table in the center of the room and said, “They’re okay if you have something to go with ’em. Living on tortillas alone can get to be like eating old blotters.”
“You have been down here awhile,” she said, as she spread a very well detailed topographical map on the table before him. She put a once-manicured and now grimy nail to the map, saying, “This is where we are, of course. The lake of acid water doesn’t show, since it’s not supposed to be there. But it’s about here and, as you can see, blocks the only practical way out. The bandits are holding this valley to the south. As you see, there’s only one easy way over into it, and they have it guarded by at least a dozen riflemen. So it’s one of your typical Mexican standoffs.”
He nodded and traced the valley they were in west until it turned into a ravine running up the slope of the volcano. All the other local drainage seemed to work the same way. He asked, “What if we just worked up to about here, moved along the side of the mountain well above the bandits, and took this other ravine down behind them to this valley?”
“You can’t. At the moment it’s full of lava. The flow is slow but sure. Lava moves like that, when a wind blows steadily across it to cool the crust. But at the rate it’s going, in no more than a day or so it will have filled the valley beyond the bandits. Then they’ll be cut off too.”
“Ouch! Once Caballero Blanco figures there’s no way out but through us, he’s bound to try a little harder, right?”
“Exactly. I told the alcalde that, but apparently Mexican men don’t listen to women, either.”
“I think they’re Guatemalan. But I get the picture. I’m listening to you, Miss Ruth. What’s your plan?”
“Heavens, can’t you see it? If we were simply to divert that lava flow into the valley the bandits are holding, they’d have two choices, and they’d have to make their minds up fast!”
“If I was Caballero Blanco I’d rather run like hell to the southwest than through a lot of rifle fire, too. But how do you go about diverting a lava flow, Miss Ruth?”
“I’ve got dynamite. Need I say more?”
“I wish you would. I’m a soldier of fortune, not a geologist, and you just told me Boca Bruja eats geologists for breakfast!”
She put her finger in a spot two-thirds of the way up the cone and said, “If we dynamited this knife-edged ridge, right here, the lava might find it easier going down this ravine instead of the other, since it’s sheltered from the cooling effects of the prevailing wind, see?”
“Not really. You’re talking about blowing a hole in the side of the flow way the hell above its moving front.”
“Exactly. Where the lava is thousands of degrees hotter and a lot more fluid, Dick. The cooler foot of the flow is moving, but it’s also acting as a dam ahead of the hotter and more fluid flow from above. Break a new conduit out for it, and it should spurt like puss and flow like the devil!”
“Oh, swell. And we’re supposed to stand in front of it like big birds without wings?”
“Don’t be silly. We’ll light a very very long fuse and be well up the far slope before it blows, see?”
He fished out a cigar to give himself time to think it over as he studied her map. She asked if he could spare a cigar and he said, “Sorry. Wasn’t expecting to meet a lady who smoked cigars so soon. Here. Let me light it for you.”
He did and she inhaled as if it were a cigarette as she sat beside him, sighing as she said, “God, that tastes marvelous. I haven’t had a smoke for weeks. My damned husband had all the tobacco with him up in the crater.”
He didn’t comment on her unusual views on widowhood. The map was more important. Like most West Point graduates, Captain Gringo had a good grasp of terrain, and even Washington had known you were supposed to take the high ground. He said, “Now I can see why those bandits didn’t just work up and over. It won’t work. The ridge between us and Caballero Blanco stays razorback, all the way to the top.”
She nodded and said, “It’s a basalt dike. Sheer-walled and slippery black rock, where the mountain filled a crack with lava ages ago and then let the rains erode it into a sort of Chinese Wall. So wha
t?”
“So how do you get through it to cross the head of the bandit-held valley to your pet lava flow?”
“Easy. I told you I was here before the mountain went crazy. So I got to explore some on my own.” She stabbed the map with her nail and said, “The bandits don’t know it. My husband didn’t even know it. But one day as I was picking flowers I found a lava tube running under and through the dike.”
“You were picking flowers up there?”
“The mountain and surrounding countryside are quite pretty, between eruptions. Give the new ash a couple of years to weather and the villagers will actually have more fertile milpas to plant.”
“Swell. But meanwhile we have to keep ’em alive that long. Okay. You’re on. I’ll carry the machine gun and some of the dynamite. How much can you carry?”
“Enough. But are you talking about leaving right now?”
“Why not? Let’s get out of here before your roof caves in!”
*
Captain Gringo said Gaston couldn’t come along and told him to get over to the alcalde and his boys with as many guns as he could get to follow him. Then Captain Gringo followed Ruth Parkhurst up the side of Boca Bruja. For a lady packing thirty pounds of high explosives, wearing an ankle-length cotton smock, she moved pretty good. As he struggled after her with the Maxim on one shoulder, extra ammo belts around his hips, and another case of dynamite under one arm, he complimented her on her likeness to a mountain goat. She said her late husband had commented, not as nicely, on her restless nature. Captain Gringo could see how it might have been tough concentrating on geology and old Ruth at the same time. Aside from being tall and apparently tireless, she filled out that smock pretty nicely. The sun was high and as it shone down through her thin cotton skirts at him he couldn’t help noticing how muscular the redhead’s long legs were.
She suddenly crabbed sideways across the dusty gray slope and led him into the mouth of what looked like a railroad tunnel blasted through the wall of basalt columns otherwise blocking their further progress. She put down her own load in the welcome shade inside and said, “We’d better rest a moment, if you’re tired.”
“I’m not tired. I’m anxious to see if this works.”
“I’m glad you’re as strong as you look. It has to work. But I wish we had more dynamite. Why did you insist on dragging along that heavy weapon, Dick?”
“I’m not dragging it. I’m carrying it. To get the rest of the way we have to expose ourselves to the bandits in the valley below. I don’t like to do that, even when I’m packing a machine gun. But what the hell.”
She laughed, picked her own load up from the sandy floor of the lava tube, and they went on. It wasn’t easy, and the ravine between them and the lava flow was steep and slippery. Worse, they heard a distant shout and, looking down, saw someone below in a white hat and once white charro outfit, pointing up at them and yelling a lot. Captain Gringo said, “Keep moving. We’re out of range.”
The bandits didn’t know this, or perhaps they just liked noise. For guns started popping down below and gouts of dust flew from the sides of their ravine, fortunately far too short to worry about.
Ruth dropped to her knees and began picking away at the wall of solidified ash in front of her with a geologist’s hammer. He offered to help and she said she knew best. So he sat on a dynamite case with the Maxim across his knees and let her. Down below, the bandits couldn’t have known what they were up to. But whatever it was, Caballero Blanco must not have approved. A skirmish line was moving upslope at them, blazing away and cursing at impossible range. As Captain Gringo watched bullets hit far down the slope, he grimaced and muttered, “Stupid bastards.”
But it got less sillier as the sombreros down the slope kept moving closer, perhaps encouraged by the lack of return fire. Captain Gringo had found in other similar situations that people down here who had guns tended to fire them a lot. The guy in the big white sombrero yelled, loud enough to be heard all the way up the mountain, “What are you waiting for, estupidos? Anyone can see they have no guns, and one of them is a woman!”
Ruth chopped away a big chunk and asked, “Did he mean that the way I think he meant that, Dick?”
Captain Gringo said, “Yeah. How’s it coming?”
“Hot, dammit. The lava on the other side can’t be far now. I can’t dig much deeper without burning myself. Help me charge and pack this hole, will you?”
“Can’t. I’m going to have to open fire in a minute if they don’t wise up.”
She looked downslope, gasped as she saw how close the bandits were now, and broke open her first dynamite box, asking, “Why don’t you shoot, dammit?”
“You do your tricks and I’ll do mine. I could probably hit ’em with plunging fire now, but we’re still out of their range. So why waste good ammo?”
She charged the hole with her own dynamite and told him to move his big ass so she could get at the other. So, as long as he was standing up anyway, Captain Gringo braced the Maxim on his hip and opened fire down the slope.
The results were gratifying. When a guy got hit with a machine-gun round on a steep dusty slope, he seemed to roll forever, ass over teakettle like he was on fire. He sent the skirmish line back down to Caballero Blanco with his compliments. But when he tried to lay some lead on the white-clad bandit leader in person, the son of a bitch was just out of range and getting more out of range by the frantic leap.
As he ceased fire, Ruth was cursing like a sailor getting tattooed with a rusty can opener. He thought she was unsettled by the noise of gunfire and said it couldn’t be helped. She snapped, “Fuck the gunfire! How am I to detonate this fucking dynamite now?”
“Jesus, didn’t you bring fuses and caps?”
“Of course I brought fuses and caps, God damn this country and its acid rain! The stupid caps are corroded green as an Irishman’s shamrock and this fucking fuse is moldy, too!”
He said, “Okay. Run back up to that lava tube and hit the dirt. Be with you in a minute, I hope.”
“I can light the fuses as well as you, dammit. I just don’t know if they’ll bum, or if the caps are any good if they do!”
He snapped, “Do as you’re told and do it now! Don’t argue with me, woman. Move your ass!”
She gasped and said, “That’s not fair! I’m not packing a gun!” But then she saw something in his eyes that made her decide to move away, and once old Ruth moved, she moved good.
Captain Gringo looked down the slope, saw nobody moving down there, and reloaded his Maxim. Then he moved back to about pistol-fighting range with the muzzle trained on the unpacked hole filled with dynamite and fired a whole belt’s worth into it. Or almost. He still had a couple of rounds left when a lucky round hit a lucky cap and the whole mess exploded in his face, knocking him on his ass to roll down the steep slope!
He spread his arms and legs to stop himself and caught the Maxim as it almost slid past him. He staggered back to his feet, ears ringing so hard he couldn’t make out what Ruth was yelling about from the lava tube above. He moved up the slope to see that it had almost worked. A big black bubble of what looked like steaming tar was oozing out of the big hole he’d blasted. But he could see it was too crusted really to flow. He reloaded with the last belt, leveled the muzzle on the big boil of lava, and lanced it with another full burst.
Then he was running as if his life depended on it, because it obviously did. With the scabby crust blown away, white-hot lava was shooting out of the hole like the Devil’s firehose, and this was no time to hang on to an empty machine gun. He dropped it and scrambled up the slope toward the lava tube as the ravine he was vacating filled with a sloshing flash flood of newer liquid lava. It picked up his abandoned machine gun, exploded the ammo still belted to it like a string of firecrackers, and carried it down the mountain glowing white hot as Captain Gringo made it to the entrance, turned, and saw he’d just missed getting his boot heels burned off. The whole ravine was filled with lava as liquid as molten steel
and moving down into the bandit-held valley at express-train speed!
Below, they could hear the distant crackle of small arms, and Ruth asked if the bandits really thought they could stop a lava flow with guns. He shook his head and said, “No. The ones trapped on Gaston’s side are trying to get over the ridge in a hurry. That’s not an easy thing to do, with Gaston manning the fireline. Uh-oh, I see a white hat on a white horse, and, talk about dumb, he’s trying to run down the valley away from the flow!”
“There’s no way out farther down. The valley’s blocked by that same acid lake!”
“That’s what I just said. Let’s move back to the other side of this dike. It’s getting soft of hot in here.”
She said, “I know,” and wrapped her arms around him to kiss him, with considerable appetite. He kissed back. Any man would have. But when they came up for air, he said, “You sure pick a funny time and place for romance, honey.”
She said, “I haven’t had enough romance to matter since I married a damned geologist. Do we really have to go right back down to the village, Dick? You know they’ll want to talk and talk about what we just did, and it won’t be dark for hours, outside.”
He grinned, carried her deeper into the tunnel, and lowered her to the sand. As he’d expected, she wasn’t wearing anything under her thin smock, and they used that under her to keep her back from getting gritty as he shucked his own clothes and mounted her. She wrapped her long muscular legs around his waist and sobbed as she said, “Oh, Jesus, I’ve been wanting that big cigar since you offered me the other one a million years ago! I’m never going to let you stop unless you promise to take me out with you!”
He suggested they come before they go anywhere, and she thought that was a great idea. By the time he’d climaxed in her twice he would have promised to take her anywhere. She was younger and prettier than he’d thought, under the dusty clothes and hair. So he wanted to try her at least once in a bed after they’d both had a bath. She said that was a swell idea, too, and said she was looking forward to taking a shower with him. They rested in each other’s arms, shared a smoke, and tore off another piece before she agreed, reluctantly, that they really ought to have a look at the current situation.