Citadel of Death (A Captain Gringo Western Book 11)

by Lou Cameron

  Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “I don’t speak German anyway. Do you?”

  Van Horn frowned thoughtfully and asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing, Boss. I don’t care where you get the ammo we need, as long as it’s any good.”

  Van Horn shook his head and said, “You guessed wrong. I don’t trust the Germans any more than anyone else with a brain ought to. We don’t need them to pull our chestnuts from the fire and I’m not about to exchange French colonial rule for German. As a Hollander, I don’t like the Germans any more than the French do. My guns and ammunition are bought and paid for on the international black market. Are you satisfied?”

  Captain Gringo said he was, although he privately wondered why Van Horn had to be so adamant. For a guy planning to overthrow the government he sure was busting a gut to sound like a French patriot.

  Van Horn went back to serious eating and the two soldiers of fortune saw he was more interested in that than them. So they started eating to catch up in silent pursuit. But as the dessert was being served, Gaston cocked his head and murmured, “Listen!”

  Captain Gringo nodded and said, “I hear it. Sounds like drums. A long way off.”

  Van Horn belched and said, “It’s the niggers. That’s a talking drum.”

  “Do you know what it’s talking about?”

  “Of course not. Do I look like a nigger? It’s something they brought from Africa with them. Don’t worry about it. The only time the Ashanti attack is when their drums are silent.”

  Gaston laughed and said, “Beat on, my jungle friends. But does it not concern you that your sister may be alone some night when and if those drums fall ominously silent?”

  Van Horn said, “I’m not away that often. Besides, she has you and my convicts to guard her should M’Chuma start something.”

  The two soldiers of fortune exchanged glances. Gaston said, “I thank you for your confidence in Dick and me, M’sieur. But if I had a little sister I don’t think I would want her guarded by inmates of Devil’s Island.”

  Van Horn said, “They have women to service them. Those who still remember what a woman is for, at any rate. Most of the long-termers are homosexuals.”

  “Ah, oui, one must be practique in prison.”

  Captain Gringo didn’t want Gaston to talk the fat man out of leaving, so he said, “There’s nothing to worry about with us here tonight, Gaston. I’m sure the boss knows what he’s doing.”

  Van Horn nodded, downed his coffee, and said he’d be late for his meeting with the colonel. As he walked him out to his carriage, Captain Gringo said, “I thought you were going to wait until Captain Chambrun went into the bush before you went over his head, Boss.”

  Van Horn nodded and said, “I intend to. I’m on a buttering up and fact finding mission. I’ll tell you at breakfast if I find out anything about the local garrison’s heavy weapons.”

  “You want us to wait up for you?”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll be spending the night in town. But for God’s sake don’t tell my sister. She’s jealous about a certain French widow I’ve been ah, cultivating.”

  He got in his carriage and drove off as Captain Gringo went back inside, bemused. He knew some sisters could tend to be possessive of a big brother, but that was another angle to think about. Neither of them looked like they had much control of their appetites and he hadn’t noticed any young men calling on Wilma with flowers, books, and candy.

  He found Gaston chatting in Creole with the scar-faced lady from the night before. When he asked the little Frenchman how he felt about an after dinner smoke on the veranda Gaston yawned elaborately and said he was suddenly trés fatigue for some reason. So Captain Gringo watched him goose the Black girl up the stairs and strolled out alone to enjoy a private smoke in the cool of evening. He found a rattan chair near a window and lit up. The light over his shoulder outlined him, so he moved the chair to one side. He could still see pretty well as he sat back to enjoy a quiet Claro. He took out the forbidden pamphlet he’d brought from town to brush up on his French. The bastard version they spoke down here was already part Spanish and in the past few days he’d been picking it up pretty good. Most of the French words that weren’t Latin based seemed related to English.

  He opened Zola’s J’Accuse! and started looking for the dirty parts. What Zola was accusing was the French Military, and he sure made them look shitty.

  Most of it was stuff Captain Gringo had already heard, although Zola put it better. Aside from insisting Captain Dreyfus was an innocent Jewish officer framed by anti-Semitic superiors, he came right out and pointed the finger at both the spies in the French high command and the assholes trying to cover up their own mistakes with a whitewash.

  Zola’s main thrust was that the framing of an innocent man wasn’t the greatest crime. He said it was against the interests of France. Half the decent officers in the French army were demoralized by the clumsy whitewash and more than one had resigned in protest, to their credit, as good Catholics and good officers. The pamphlet made a lot of sense to Captain Gringo and he wasn’t even a Frenchman. He knew he’d hate to serve in battle under the jerkoff’s who’d sent an innocent man to Devil’s Island rather than admit they’d made what was really an unimportant error in judgment.

  But the Dreyfus Affair wasn’t his problem, so he folded the pamphlet and put it away. He’d been court martialed by assholes, too, and he’d had the sense to run. It was up to Dreyfus to escape from Devil’s Island. Nobody else could get him off the rock. Not even Zola, since the muckraking journalist himself, was hiding out from the government these days.

  Captain Gringo caught himself wondering where he could get a map of the main prison out there and warned himself to forget it. It was a very interesting challenge, but he had enough to worry about. He had no intention of fighting in another doomed revolution, but sooner or later they were going to expect him to if he didn’t get himself and Gaston out of here before the egg hit the fan!

  He sat back and took a long drag on his cigar as he weighed the odds on an early date for Van Horn’s uprising. The fat man didn’t look crazy and seemed to be planning ahead with considerable patience. Yet the whole idea was doomed from the beginning. There was just no way that an untrained rabble was going to take a colony away from one of the biggest armies on earth; and now it seemed that even the Bush Negroes Van Horn had been cultivating were against him!

  He cocked an ear to listen to the distant drums. He heard something else, closer. It sounded like someone was crying. He frowned and rose, looking about, and spotted a blur of white down at the far end of the veranda.

  He wasn’t sure he was making the right move as he drifted down that way, but Wilma Van Horn looked like she wanted company. She could have cried just as loudly in her own room if it were a private matter.

  As he could see her better, she was sitting on the end rail of the veranda, crying real tears. He took the cigar from his mouth and said, “I couldn’t help overhearing, ma’am. Is there anything I can do?”

  She sniffed and said, “You could take me to a nice party, if they ever had nice parties in this awful hole! Look at me! I’m all dressed up with no place to go!”

  He nodded and said, “That outfit is very charming.” It wasn’t really a lie. The dress was expensive and Wilma wouldn’t be bad if she could lose maybe twenty pounds. Make it thirty, as long as a guy was dreaming.

  She stood and twirled in her high heels, holding the skirts out to the side and ending in a mock curtsy, as she sighed and said, “This came all the way from Paris. Paul’s not stingy with money. I can have all the material things I want. But I’m bored, bored, bored. He never lets me go to town unescorted.”

  Captain Gringo nodded sympathetically and said, “The rules are sort of strict down here. Nice girls aren’t allowed out without-an escort in any South American country, and this is a prison colony, Miss Wilma. I’m sure your brother is only concerned with your safety and reputation.”r />
  She said, “Pooh, he’s possessive, you mean. Don’t you think a brother who treats his sister as a, well, wife, is a little strange?”

  Van Horn had said his sister was the jealous one. Captain Gringo was aware he was skating on thin ice, so he took a silent drag on his cigar.

  Wilma said, “It’s true. Having a strict brother leaves a girl with all the restrictions of a wife with none of the advantages. I think he’s afraid I’d get in trouble if I got out more. On the rare occasions I meet a decent-looking man Paul always accuses me of flirting.”

  “Do you flirt, Wilma?”

  “Of course. Don’t all girls? What’s the point of going to a ball in a Paris gown if one’s not supposed to flirt? I’ve met several very dashing French officers in Sinnamary and I know they liked me. But when they asked Paul’s permission to call on me, he refused them, saying I was spoken for. I ask you, was that just?”

  “Maybe not just but it could be practical. You, uh, know something about your brother’s plans, don’t you, Miss Wilma?”

  “Call me Wilma—I’m flirting with you. I know Paul has some mad scheme to change things here in Guiana. All sorts of mysterous-looking people come and go at midnight around here. But Paul won’t even let me explore those possibilities. He says I talk too much.”

  Captain Gringo had to admit Van Horn had a point. Wilma was a spoiled and not too bright brat, it would seem. He took another drag on his cigar, wondering what he was supposed to do about it. She held out a hand and said, “Let me try that. I’ve never smoked. Paul won’t let me. But while the cat’s away, you’d be surprised what the mice can play with, eh?’

  He handed her the Claro, but warned, “Don’t inhale if you’re not used to smoking, Wilma.”

  She ignored him and took a long deep drag. Then her eyes got big, she dropped the cigar and wheezed, trying to say something but only managing distressed gasps as she swayed off her perch. He grabbed her to steady her, saying, “I told you not to inhale” as she wrapped her plump arms around him to hang on, eyes watering and rosebud lips gulping air like a surfacing gold fish. She made quite a bundle in his arms. He could tell she owed the trim waistline to whalebone and Charles Goodyear, but the parts that bulged above and below the corset felt like nicely molded marshmallow. It was the part below that bothered him. In her high heels the big blond’s soft tummy came right to the level of his groin and his damned fool shaft was rising to the occasion. He moved his hips back as Wilma got her breath again and wheezed, “Oh, dear, I don’t see how you men do it.”

  He said, “Yeah, smoking is an acquired taste and you’re not supposed to start with Havana Claro cigars. They’re a bit strong, even for a heavy smoker.”

  She said, “Oh, were we talking about smoking?” as she moved her pelvis closer, hooked a forearm around the nape of his neck, and kissed him hungrily.

  He kissed back, as any man would have, since Wilma kissed great. But as he caught one hand cupping her big left breast he wondered what he was getting himself into. The last thing he needed right now was a big silly virgin, even if she wasn’t related to the boss!

  He decided he could forget the virgin part as Wilma tongued him expertly and drew him forward off balance with her considerable body weight. As her big rump perched again on the rail she parted her heroic thighs under the lace skirts and hauled him in until his erection was tucked between the lower rim of her corset and the soft bulge of her belly. She seemed to be trying to screw him with her naval, and as they come up for air, he said, “For God’s sake, we’re on the front porch!”

  “I know,” she laughed. “The servants watch my room when Paul is away. But who’s to dispute my right to a little fresh air before bedtime? Do you like flirting with me, Captain Gringo?”

  “If you call this flirting, Wilma. You know what you’re doing, don’t you?”

  She licked his lips with a teasing tongue and said, “I know exactly what I’m doing, unless you’re holding a gun on me. I’ll show that damned Paul. He wouldn’t take me to town because he’s afraid I’ll flirt with his gentlemen friends in high places. He’d have a fit if he knew I was having even more fun with a gun-tramp like you, and you know where my low places are.”

  “Gee,” he said, “thanks for the compliment, Doll.” As Wilma began to raise her skirts with a free hand. He had one hand gripping the rail beside her hip as he bent his knees and moved his booted feet back to lower his center of gravity. As she got her skirt up around her own waist he unbuttoned his pants and hauled out balls and all. As he’d suspected, Wilma had no underpants on and as she tilted her pelvis to welcome him, it slid into her wide and enthusiastic love nest like it knew the way. She gasped in pleasure, locked her fingers behind his neck, and leaned back like a little girl in a swing as she raised her knees and gripped him by the waist with surprising strength. He kept one hand on the rail and grabbed the edge of her corset for purchase as she clamped down inside and he began to move. He laughed as he thought about that crazy afternoon with the sailors and the sea turtle.

  Wilma asked, “What’s so funny? I know I have a big behind, but...”

  “Hey, I like your big behind. But this is kind of awkward, Wilma. I could do this a lot better if we could get out of these clothes in a horizontal position for God’s sake!”

  “I’m bashful. Move it faster. I think I’m coming, too!”

  That made two of them, for despite her direct approach and awkward position, Wilma Van Horn was a sweet-smelling, pure female who’s totally new feel excited him. He came with her, then had to grab wildly as she let go of his neck to fall back, sobbing in satisfaction, and she would have landed ass-over-teakettle in the flower bed below had not he pinned her to the rail with his imbedded shaft while he clutched at her corseted waist. That made for a hell of an interesting angle of attack, too, but he knew they couldn’t keep it up. He hauled her upright and as she buried her head against his chest he gasped and said, “Jesus, I’m not a circus acrobat, Wilma. Birds may do it in midair, but human beings are supposed to have something under them when they get laid.”

  She sighed and said, “I know. The birds probably land someplace. Damn, I wish it were safe to take you to my room ... I know. Come with me.”

  He thought he just had, but as she was leading him by the cock he followed as she stepped off the veranda and dragged him out to the middle of the front lawn. They were apparently in full view of the house, but when he mentioned it, Wilma said, “You were just up there on the veranda. Didn’t it look simply black to you, out here?”

  He said, “I guess so,” as he looked around. He could clearly see the rail they’d just torn off a piece against. But the nearby drive was lost in the gloom and everything away from the house was just a blur. Wilma was taking her dress off over her head, saying, “I wouldn’t want to get this lace grass-stained. You’d better strip, too.”

  “Wilma, right on the front lawn? I know it’s dark, but Jesus Christ!”

  Then, as she dropped her dress on the cool grass and stood there barely visible in nothing but her corset, stockings, and high button shoes, he grinned and said, “Well, when in Rome or other weird places” as he peeled out of his sweaty clothes and dropped them on the grass as well.

  Wilma lay down, looking like a barroom Venus after closing hours. The guys who painted barroom nudes usually left the corsets off, but they gave them the same overblown curves and the impossible waistline added to the attractions above and below it. She possessed an hour glass figure beyond human evolution and he already knew she was a great lay, so he dropped into the saddle of her big pale thighs and this time they did it right. She was so soft it didn’t feel like they were doing it on the ground. Her big, soft breasts felt like plump downy pillows to rest his chest on and he knew he didn’t have to be as careful not to hurt such a big girl, so he let himself go. The contrast between Wilma’s soft, white skin and Tonda’s firmer, dusky curves inspired him. Liza had been less pallid than the big blond and her boyish flat-chested body, stark
naked against him, had felt different, too. Whoever had said variety was the spice of life had obviously, gotten around with women a lot, and he’d been right!

  He wondered if women got as big a kick out of contrasting partners. But he didn’t ask. From the way she was moving, Wilma had done this before with somebody. But he wasn’t one of those assholes who asked such questions. He knew he didn’t like to think about another cock in his currently favorite place. Why some men asked a woman they were with about other partners eluded him. But as Wilma came, subsided, and purred, “Oh, don’t take it out” she broke the spell by adding, “Am I as good at that nigger wench, Tonda?”

  He grimaced, but moved politely as he replied, “Who told you I’d be in a position to know, Doll?”

  “I like it when you call me Doll. It makes me feel little and cuddly. I know you had Tonda last night. I told you the servants gossip. That’s why we’re not doing this in my room.”

  He didn’t answer. Maybe if he just moved a little faster she’d lose interest in this dumb conversation. But, though she began to respond again, she insisted, “Come on, you can tell me. What’s it like to rut with a nigger? I’ve always been curious, but I’ve never had the nerve.”

  He said, “You’re not missing anything in particular. Everybody feels the same in the dark and they do it just like we do. Some good, some not so good.”

  “Isn’t anybody bad?”

  He laughed and said, “To quote Gaston, ‘Nine out of ten people are worth making love to and the tenth is worth trying as a novelty’.”

  She laughed, said she’d have to remember that and added, “Then I’m just as good as Tonda? I thought that was why Paul preferred her to me.”

  He wrinkled his nose and said, “Your brother told me he never messed with Tonda, and as for preferring her, you’re his sister, damn it.”

  She put her palms on his buttocks to take him deeper as she laughed and said, “My, aren’t we ever Puritan all of a sudden? Does incest shock you? I was afraid nothing did.”