by Lou Cameron
He heard someone moving over the rocks and stood up, holding the rifle trained that way, under his poncho. He called out quietly, “¿Quien es?” and a soft female voice replied, “It is I, Diablilla.”
The girl came over to join him by the big boulder, shivering as the cold hit her. She said, “I wished for to speak with you about Pancho.”
“Is he giving you trouble?”
“Yes and no. Brrr, it is freezing up here away from the fire, no?”
He put down the rifle and said, “Here, get inside this poncho with me. There’s plenty of room.”
Diablilla hesitated. Then she laughed and moved over to him. He raised the poncho and dropped it over her, pulling her close as he got the center opening around both their necks. Naturally, this put her smack against him, face to face, and he could feel that the nipples of her otherwise soft breasts were turgid, probably from the cold. She murmured, “Oh, this feels much warmer, but is it proper? What if someone were to see us like this?”
“They’d think we were friends. What’s going on with Pancho? Do you want me to speak with him, Diablilla?”
She said, “I don’t know. It is a delicate matter. You see, he thinks it wrong that I am not any man’s adelita. He says every woman in a rebel band should be someone’s adelita. He says it is an old guerrilla custom.”
Captain Gringo smiled thinly, putting an arm around her more or less automatically to make a warmer bundle of them. He said, “Well, in most of the bands I’ve fought with, the leaders at least had adelitas. When your father led the brigade, I guess it never came up. But Pancho has a point. Girls are sort of useless to a guerrilla band unless they’re carrying some man’s ammo and attending his needs. I take it Pancho has volunteered to be your soldado if you will be his adelita?”
She shuddered-against him and said, “Yes, and I don’t want to carry his ammo and cook his food. I think I did a bad thing. You may be cross with me if I tell you what I told Pancho.”
“Let’s find out. What did you tell him?”
“Well, you see, the other girls have all said they would be adelitas for the new men they now find themselves marching with. When our old brigade was shot up, they lost their men and …”
“Get to the point, Diablilla.”
“I told Pancho you had already asked me to be your adelita.”
“Oboy! How did Pancho take that?”
She shrugged, and it felt sort of interesting to both of them, as she replied, “He said it was a good idea but that in that case I should not tell you he had approached me. He said you might be angry if you thought another man had trifled with your woman. I am not sure what Pancho meant when he said you Americanos are surprisingly discreet about such matters.”
Captain Gringo sighed. He knew that most Latins claimed their bedroom privileges rather dramatically with a lot of “He who touches my woman shall die!” bullshit. He told the girl, “Okay, I’ll act possessive in the future. None of the other men are likely to trifle with the boss’ adelita.”
Then, since they were pressed face to face anyway, he pulled her even closer and kissed her. She started to respond, then drew back as far as the hole in the poncho would let her, and gasped, “Señor! What is the meaning of this unseemly behavior?”
They were still plastered together and if she couldn’t feel his erection against her soft warm belly she was dead from the waist down. He said, “I thought you wanted to be my adelita.”
“I do. I will tend your fire, carry your ammunition, and clean your guns. If you are wounded, I will nurse you. But does an adelita have to behave like a wicked woman for her soldado, too?”
He closed his eyes and muttered, “Swell. I get the pick of the litter, and she’s a schoolgirl!”
He realized Diablilla was the victim of a false romantic impression. “Adelita” was a generic term for the camp followers of the rebel trade south of Laredo. It was sort of a girl’s name and sort of a pun, since in Spanish slang the untranslatable term meant something like “Small female with ambitions to improve her station in life.” The tough little hard-eyed girls who trudged in the wake of rebel armies had been glorified in song and legend. But in real life, Señorita Adelita was more a tramp than a Joan of Arc. It was time someone explained the facts of life to Diablilla.
So he did, putting it as gently as possible that when it got down to the bare bones, a guy could always carry his own ammo if that was all he wanted. He said, “A soldado has enough on his plate without two mouths to feed and two targets to worry about, querida. Most modern armies frown on the idea of female camp followers. The only real advantage, for a guerrilla leader, is that it cuts down on desertion in his ranks and avoids a lot of rape if your guys have their own women along.”
“But, Dick, none of the adelitas I know are married to their soldados!”
“What can I tell you, kitten? It’s a rough business. Look, we’ll drop you off somewhere and, what the hell, nobody’s looking for you in particular. Wait until the dust of this last revolution settles a bit and you can go back to school or whatever.”
She started to cry.
He said, “Oh, for God’s sake,” and patted her under the poncho to comfort her. She said, “I have no home anymore. I want for to be a rebel. I have dedicated my life to the cause!”
“Yeah, it is sort of fun to play soldier. But that’s all you’ve been doing, Diablilla. Sure, I saw you hit that trooper with a rock and I know you have a ferocious nickname, but you’re too soft and, well, too nice to make a real guerrilla, kid.”
“How dare you accuse me of being an amateur! Are you saying that to be a real rebel, a girl has to be vile?”
“Not vile. What Gaston calls practiqué. This game is for keeps, and the only thing a real soldier worries about is staying alive. You can’t be too delicate about what you eat or how often you take a bath. A female fighter who’s more worried about her virtue than survival has no place in such rough company. Many an adelita has helped her cause by seducing an enemy. I’ve never heard of anyone winning by yelling rape.”
Diablilla considered as she remembered a song about a brave girl. Then she shuddered and said, “Would I have to be vile with everyone on my side?”
“No. Of course not. No adelita gives herself to anyone but her soldado, unless it’s to help him.”
“Very well, but you will have to teach me how. I have never been vile before.”
“Are you saying you’re a virgin, for God’s sake? I mean, I knew you were a good girl, but this is ridiculous!”
“I do not understand you, Dick. How could I be a good girl if I was not a virgin? But you have convinced me that I must be a complete adelita. So how do we start?”
That was a good question. He wasn’t sure he wanted the responsibility. She was cute as a button and he was horny as hell, but, Jesus, a virgin?
On the other hand, if she went on talking this way he’d wind up having trouble with Pancho or some other guy with less delicate feelings. He knew Hispanics respected a friend’s woman more than many Anglo-Saxons. A Spanish-speaking enemy would rape your mother and delight in taunting you with it. But unlike certain church-going New Englanders he could mention, they never even winked at a companero’s girl behind his back.
He rolled them toward the boulder until her back was against it with him leaning on her as he kissed her again. He tongued her this time, and she was breathing fast when they came up for air. She said, “Oh, that was very vile, but I think I liked it.”
So he did it again, running his left hand down her trembling flank to gather a handful of cotton skirting and hitch it up as he rubbed his body against hers. When he got her skirts up around her hips, he found, as he’d suspected, that she wore nothing under them. She flinched and hissed but didn’t turn away from his kiss as he moved his hand between her legs and cupped her warm furry mons on his palm. He let her get used to it for a moment. Then, as he felt her trembling less, he slid two fingers into her wet warmth and began to stroke her off. She star
ted moving from side to side as if to avoid what he was doing, but he had her pinned pretty well, albeit not hard enough to frighten her, and she began to respond to his petting. But she turned her head to one side and, as he kissed her earlobe, she gasped, “Oh, that feels so strange. But I don’t think you are really being vile. Those are your fingers, no?”
He whispered, “Easy does it, we’ve got all night,” and then began to tongue her ear.
She giggled and said, “You are tickling me all over, and, Madre de Dios! Are you trying to drive me mad?”
He was, but he didn’t say so. She was moving her hips to meet his manual dexterity now, and for a virgin she moved pretty well. Her legs stiffened as she stood on tiptoe, aiming her pelvis to receive him. A less experienced lover would have broken the spell by a clumsy move about now, but the tall American had met up with virgins before, albeit not as often as Queen Victoria would have one believe, so he knew enough to make her come at least once before he got down to serious business.
It was easy. She suddenly turned her head to kiss him full on the lips, and this time she tongued him as he slid his fingers to the knuckles up inside her, massaging her clit with the web of his thumb. He felt her clamp down as she sobbed, kissing him wildly. He left his hand in place as she slowly came down from a long teasing orgasm and then, before she could cool off, he unbuckled everything with his other hand and let his gun belt and trousers fall anywhere they wanted to. He got his bent naked knees between her bare legs and used the fingers he already had in her as a sort of shoehorn to guide his quivering erection in place. As he withdrew his hand and thrust seriously into her she hissed again and said, “Oh, no, not that!” But it was that and it only took a few good thrusts before she was bumping and grinding against him, while saying she felt so ashamed.
They were leaning against the boulder at an angle, but standing sex has certain limitations. So he reached down and pulled one of her knees up until he had it at the level of her breasts, hooked over one wrist as he braced his palm against the rough granite. She gasped, “Oh, it’s so deep!” and he said, “Yeah,” and did the same to the other leg, holding her higher and spread wide against the rock as he came, touching bottom.
She was rolling her head from side to side against the rock as she moaned mingled protests and demands for more. So he kept moving until his own desires returned. This didn’t take long with a beautiful girl having repeated orgasms while she rode him like a witch on a broomstick. But the position was tiring. So, now that he had her convinced, he pulled her from the boulder and peeled the poncho off them to spread it on the flat surface they’d been standing on. As she asked him what they were doing, he lowered her to the poncho and began to undress them both completely. She said, “Dick, it’s freezing up here!” but he said, ‘I’ll be your blanket,” and mounted her again in the usual and more romantic position. She laughed and wrapped her arms and legs around him as she said, “Oh, I like this blanket. But tell me, am I really your vile adelita, now?”
He didn’t answer. He was enjoying her too much for one thing, and for another he had no idea how he was going to end this thing he’d most obviously started.
Meanwhile, far up the slope, Gaston’s own experiment was going better than he’d expected. The friendly llama smelled a bit more like a camel than any lady he’d ever done this with before, but her warm contractions were fantastic as he clung to her rump hairs, humping with enthusiasm. The randy little Frenchman had started this as a lark, more to satisfy his curiosity than from any real desire. He hadn’t expected the llama to be so cooperative, and had been quite prepared to give it up as a poor idea. But when she’d responded to his first casual petting by presenting her rump to him, it had seemed common courtesy to help the poor thing out with a finger and, once he’d delved her surprisingly human interior, what had followed had seemed inevitable.
Chapter Fourteen
They ditched the incriminating military uniforms the next day.
The llamas had to be abandoned when they descended to the elfin fog forests on the far slope. So Gaston’s sweetheart and the other four were left to fend for themselves on the higher pastures, and the packing got more serious. But they were moving downhill as they took turns packing the Maxim and ammo. Pancho suggested leaving behind the canteens, but Captain Gringo vetoed the idea. It was true they’d find water everywhere in the rain forests, but how much of it would be fit to drink was up for grabs. He said, “Nobody drinks water they haven’t boiled at least twenty minutes. We’ve got enough to worry about without the jungle trots.”
Despite the lower altitude, the upper reaches of the fog forest were cold as hell. Everyone was chilled to the bone by the constant gray mist all around. For, in truth, they were still high and descending through the cloud ceiling that hung over the vast jungle basin of Amazonia. The growth along the trail was spooky. The trees that grew this high were gnarled and stunted visitors from some other planet, reaching claw-like limbs out to snatch at hats and skirts when you weren’t looking. Everything from slimy boulders to twisted trunks was covered with fuzzy green moss. Long gray beards hung dripping from the leafless trees killed by lightning. It was sobering to note how many trees up here in the cloud had caught a bolt of Jove’s fire. Yet even dead wood shared the same spinach green of the mist-nourished moss.
Diablilla marched rather smugly at Captain Gringo’s side, with a belt of machine-gun ammo proudly draped over one shoulder. The ponchos had all been rolled to carry, since the mist penetrated every fold of cloth and walking in wet wool was asking for pneumonia. Gaston and Captain Gringo knew more about lowland jungle running than most of the highland natives they were leading. So there’d been a little griping about unusual orders.
But the two adventurers had insisted. They knew that as the greatest killer in a desert was the unexpected flash-flood, one of the unexpected dangers of the jungle was the common cold. People expected jungles to be hot, and they were, a lot of the time. That was why pneumonia claimed so many lives among jungle dwellers. It was impossible to tear-ass through the jungle in an overcoat. So people with damp, naked skin tended to get sudden chills when the temperature dropped. It never got really cold in a jungle, but sixty degrees is cold enough to make one shiver like hell under damp cloth.
It took them the better part of a day to descend through the fog belt. But by late afternoon they’d gotten down to what the natives called La Montana. High rolling country covered with quinine arid other trees one associates with the South American jungle, or, to give it its Brazilian name, the selva.
Selva, which means forest in Portuguese, was actually a better description than the East Indian term, jungle. The Amazonian rain forest is not a thick tangle, save near the edges of a river or a clearing. Under the high tree canopy it’s too shaded for thick growth at ground level. So while they had to hack their way through places where a fallen forest giant had exposed the red soil to sunlight and a growth spurt, it was more like walking through a vast pillar-filled cathedral, in this case with a sloping floor. They could only see occasional patches of the gray sky high above, and it was dank and gloomy at ground level all through the day.
But after they’d been slogging down the slope through the selva a few hours it was obviously getting darker. Pancho, who was packing the Maxim, asked Captain Gringo what they were going to do about it.
The tall American had been keeping an eye on Pancho. But the ex-soldier hadn’t seemed particularly upset about his relationship with Diablilla, and the erstwhile virgin had been acting rather obvious about her newfound worldliness. He’d caught her talking to one of the other girls that morning, both of them grinning his way, as Diablilla made a measuring motion with her hands that there was no possible mistake about the meaning.
He told Pancho, “You’re right. We’d better start thinking about a campsite. You’re an old campaigner, Pancho. Where do you think we ought to set up.”
The bearded mestizo looked pleased and said, “Well, near water sounds good in the
high country. Down here it could be dangerous, no?”
“Yeah, caiman and anacondas make me nervous, too. Any open clearing would be choked with brush. On the other hand, a fire in the open under these trees could be seen a long way between the trunks.”
Pancho said, “We passed a place a few minutes ago that I considered. Perhaps we shall come to another soon.”
“Perhaps we won’t. It’ll be dark in another couple of hours. Let’s move back to your choice, Pancho. Give me that gun and take the point.”
Pancho grinned boyishly and said, “Hey, you are the kind of leader I like, Captain Gringo!” as he handed over the Maxim and pointed back up the slope to add, “Remember that wall of second growth a quarter kilometer back? If we built our fires between tree boles and the brush …”
“Good thinking. Nobody chasing us down-slope could slip up on us through the brush without making noise. Nobody farther down knows we’re here, and if they don’t see our fires, they won’t know we’re here some more.”
So Pancho led them back to his chosen campground, strutting a bit, but what the hell, he’d earned it. Unlike many officers, Captain Gringo liked to lead men who didn’t have to be burped. No leader can do all the thinking for everyone. Most soldiers think pretty well for themselves, if they’re encouraged. Captain Gringo owed his life to a Negro private in the old Tenth Cav who’d had a hell of a good idea one night in Apache country.
Some of the others grumbled that they were backtracking, but Gaston had caught on and backed Pancho with a string of curses, adding, “The point of this operation is not to get anywhere in a hurry, my children. It is to get there alive, hein?”