Panama Gold (A Neal Fargo Adventure #2)

by John Benteen

  The girl stood on a sort of raised platform made of ammunition boxes, while a brown skinned man strummed a guitar behind her. She was tall, redheaded, white of skin, full of breast, and her green eyes lit as they caught sight of Buckner. Although she was not truly beautiful, she was voluptuous, and, as the only white woman in this hellhole, she could have looked like a dog and still had all attention riveted to her.

  As Buckner and Fargo sat down, and an old man, obviously her father, brought whiskey, she changed songs. The minstrel boy to the war has gone; in the ranks of death you’ll find him ... His father’s sword he has belted on, and his wild harp trails behind him ...

  “Hello, Pierre,” Buckner said. “How’s everything?”

  Cardon’s drink-blasted face twitched. “A little trouble, General.”

  “Who with?”

  “Hockaday. That one. He will not let my daughter alone.”

  Fargo’s eyes shuttled in the direction Cardon pointed. Seated alone at a nearby table, a giant of a man with carrot-red hair, freckled skin, narrow blue eyes, and buck teeth stared at Jeannine Cardon with utter fascination, his huge freckled hands turning his whiskey bottle around and around absently. It was obvious that he was half-drunk already. Suddenly he slammed the table. “By God!” he roared thickly, “thass my favorite song. Sure, nobody ever sung it sweeter than you, birdie.” He rammed his hands in his pants, brought out a handful of gold, drunkenly let it dribble through his fingers. “A hundred dollars to go to bed with me, t’night, lass! And come mornin, it’ll be you that’ll wanta pay Tom Hockaday.” His chair fell over as he stood up. Then he lunged for the platform. Before the girl could dodge, his big hand hooked itself in the low-cut bodice of the dress. “C’mere, baby!”

  Jeannine screamed and tried to pull away. The dress ripped and her breasts swung free, large and white. Hockaday pawed at them. Then he was jerked around and Cleve Buckner drove a big hard fist straight into his face. “You bastard!” Buckner snarled. His eyes glittered with the insanity of jealousy. His right followed his left, and Hockaday went backward. Buckner bored in, hitting him again and again, each time in the face, driving him across the bar, out into the dusty street. A final blow from Buckner and the man sprawled in the dust, his features a bloody wreck.

  Buckner stood over him, panting. And now Fargo understood how Buckner had killed the Colonel. Anybody who came between him and a woman would get the same treatment. Buckner drew back a booted foot to kick the man in the head.

  “General Buckner,” Fargo said softly at his side. Buckner whirled at the words, his hand came up, lashed out. Fargo blocked it easily and the blow slid away. Some of the insanity faded from Buckner’s eyes. He dropped his hands. He knew as well as Fargo that it had been a mistake, fighting with one of his own men before the others over a woman. If he were going to run an army, it should have been handled another way.

  “All right,” Buckner whispered. He looked down at the unconscious man in the dirt. “Throw him in the stockade,” he snapped. “Two weeks on bread and water. Maybe it’ll take some of the starch out of him.” He turned, to walk back to the bar, rubbing his hands.

  Fargo walked over to the bar across the street, where other soldiers had sat watching. “A couple of you men—” he said, and then he saw their eyes, looking past him, change.

  He whirled. Hockaday had sat up. And Hockaday, fumbling in his shirt, took out a Colt .45 automatic. Sitting there, he raised the weapon, pointed it at Buckner’s broad back, and his finger tightened on the trigger.

  Buckner was a fraction of a second from eternity. Fargo had no time to draw and fire. He flipped the shotgun, slung muzzle down on his back, so that its barrels came up under his armpit. His other hand blurred across his body, tripped the triggers, and the roar of the gun was tremendous as both barrels fired from beneath Fargo’s arm. Eighteen buckshot sprayed down the street, and Hockaday was in their pattern. Perhaps a dozen of them kicked up dust; the other six slammed into Hockaday’s body and lifted it and sprawled it again, chopping him brutally, and the Colt spilled from his outstretched hand.

  Buckner whirled, one of his ivory-handled six-guns already out, cocked, in a lightning draw. He stood poised, frozen, staring at the body and at the smoke that curled out of the shotgun’s breech, as Fargo broke it and crammed in two fresh rounds. Then, slowly, he holstered his gun.

  His black brows drew together. “He was gonna chop me down from behind?”

  “With that automatic.”

  Again Buckner’s eyes went to the dead man. “Jesus! That riot gun’s some weapon.”

  “Close range,” Fargo said, “it doesn’t take much aiming.”

  Buckner drew the back of his hand across his mouth. “You saved my life. The son would have made a sieve out of me.” Then his mouth twisted, suddenly, unexpectedly, he gave a nervous laugh. “That proves one thing, huh, Fargo? You didn’t come here to get me. Or you coulda let him do the job for you.”

  Fargo looked at the dead man and snapped shut the double-barreled Fox. “That’s right,” he said.

  Buckner came to him, suddenly threw an arm about his shoulders. “I’ll remember that, Fargo,” he said. “Don’t think I won’t. I don’t forget favors. We coulda worked together for a year and I wouldn’t trust you the way I trust you now.”

  Fargo slung the shotgun. He was thinking that Hockaday could have saved him a lot of trouble—except that first he had to find out who’d hired this army, who the inside man at the Zone was, and where those charges were located on Gold Hill behind Culebra Cut. And that he could have done none of that with Buckner dead. Maybe it would be easier to worm that vital information out of the black-haired man now.

  Then Buckner withdrew his arm, slapped Fargo on the back. “You’re in charge for the time being.” His eyes lanced to Jeannine, trying to cover her naked bosom, and they glittered again. “I got a little business to tend to.” He strode away from Fargo, and she smiled at him as he came.

  The flies were already crawling on the body in the street.

  Chapter Seven

  Naked, hands folded behind his head, Fargo lay under a mosquito bar and stared up into darkness. Physically, he was tired; but the screaming out there in the night went on and on, and sleep was impossible.

  They had brought the deserter back at sundown. The man had been unable to take it any longer: the harsh discipline, the brutal training, the terrible heat, the lack of women. He’d quietly pulled out, missed reveille, headed back toward the Zone on a stolen horse, preferring to take his chances with the law there rather than endure Buckner’s hell here. Buckner had immediately dispatched a detail after him, to run him down, bring him in. They had caught up with him just this side of the edge of San Bias country. And Buckner had called a special formation.

  Handcuffed, the prisoner had stood there—a tall, thin man with a bushy black beard—and his eyes had widened in horror as Buckner’s voice rang out across the parade.

  “All right!” Buckner had yelled. “I’m gonna show the rest of you what you can expect if you try to dog it! You signed on with me, I’ve paid you good money, I expect you to earn it when the time comes. Anybody that tries what Youngblood here did will get the same thing Youngblood’s gonna get—the anthill!”

  Even Fargo had gone cold at that pronouncement. In his week here, he’d seen the anthill. It had been used more times than one, as was attested by the scatter of bones in the underbrush around it. It was a huge mound of trash and duff inhabited by the savage army ants native to this part of the tropics, located in the jungle at the very edge of the encampment.

  That was where the screaming was coming from now. But surely, Fargo thought, Youngblood couldn’t keep it up much longer.

  But that terrible cry went on and on. At last Fargo muttered a curse. He swung out from under the mosquito bar, reached for his clothes. As he buckled his belt, he thumbed the railroad watch from his pocket; it was nearly four in the morning.

  He had the tiny tin-roofed shack to himself. Bu
ckner slept in a larger one nearby. Fargo cinched on the .38, slung the shotgun. Then he went out into the night.

  Over the parade, the sky was powdered with stars. It was a beautiful night to be shattered by such a horrible sound. Fargo walked swiftly, smoothly, across the encampment to the source of that screaming.

  At the perimeter, he was challenged by a guard. The man was ex-Regular Army and military, correct. “Beggin’ the General’s pardon, but General Buckner said nobody was to go near Youngblood.”

  “I’ll take responsibility,” Fargo said.

  “No, sir. Can’t let you. I don’t wanta wind up on that anthill myself.”

  “All right,” Fargo said. The chop his hand made was quick, nearly invisible in the darkness. The guard, not expecting a blow, went down silently, like a sack of meal.

  Fargo strode past, into the jungle. There, ten yards into the brush, he halted on a narrow path, and his mouth twisted at the sight that met his eyes.

  Not much was left of the man staked out on the mound. He was invisible under a swarming red mass of insects, except for the occasional flash of raw meat or white bone. But he was still screaming.

  Fargo unslung the shotgun. With his lips compressed, he aimed it and pulled the right trigger. The roar was tremendous in the night, but the screaming stopped.

  By the time he re-entered the encampment, the place was swarming with armed men, awakened by the shotgun blast. Buckner was there, buckling his gun belts outside his hut. When he saw Fargo, a light came into his eyes. “I heard a shotgun. Yours?”

  “Mine.”

  Buckner was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Youngblood’s shut up.”

  “Youngblood’s dead,” Fargo said.

  Buckner was again silent. Then he said: “Yeah. All right. It was damned near dawn. Let’s go over to headquarters.”

  Walking beside Buckner, Fargo was tense. For seven days, now, he’d worked with the commander of this secret army, taking Buckner’s orders, serving as Buckner’s aide and right-hand man. And he had never seen anyone quite like Buckner before. He had called Buckner a rattlesnake who would cut his own mother’s throat for half a dollar when talking to the Colonel, back at Oyster Bay. Now Fargo had learned that he’d understated the case. Buckner was not a rattlesnake; a snake gave warning before it struck. Buckner was a wolf with hydrophobia.

  This was the first time Fargo had seen him put a man on the anthill. But there had been other disciplinary measures that had been tough enough to turn even Fargo’s stomach—the sweatbox, in which a man unable either to stand up or sit down, was confined for days on end; the whipping post where Buckner, judge and executioner, used a cat-o-nine-tails with lashes tipped with bits of tin; some other similar refinements the man had worked out. Buckner was a man without mercy. So was Fargo, for that matter; but fighting, killing, was, for him, a matter of business; with Buckner, it was pleasure, and a sick kind of pleasure at that. Moreover, Buckner was totally unpredictable.

  Nothing would have suited Fargo better than to have had Buckner eliminated by Hockaday’s bullet. Eliminated: he smiled wryly in the darkness at the Colonel’s choice of words. But there was too much to be learned yet; and though he was almost too deeply in Buckner’s confidence after saving the man’s life, he did not yet know what he had to learn.

  In the headquarters, Buckner lit a lamp, then sat on the edge of his desk. He took one of the ivory-handled Colts from his holster, played with it, spinning the cylinder around and around, as he talked.

  “I don’t like what you did, Fargo.”

  “It was taking the man too long to die. I couldn’t sleep.”

  “All the same, you violated my orders.”

  Fargo watched Buckner narrowly. If he had to, he was pretty sure he could fire the shotgun before Buckner could get the .45 around and aimed. “Sorry,” Fargo said. But there was no contrition in his tone.

  The cylinder of the Colt made a dry sound. Then Buckner stood up, and, with a lightning motion, slipped it back in its holster. “Well, it doesn’t matter. He howled long enough for the men to get the message. Just see that it doesn’t happen again. I won’t be so easy, maybe, if you cross me again.”

  “No,” Fargo said.

  Buckner began to pace. “My head hurts,” he said. “You know, it’s hurt like this ever since Samar. It was bad on Samar. Damn bad.” He rubbed his temples. “That Youngblood—if you think he screamed, you should have heard one of our outfit when the Moros got hold of him.” Then he shrugged. “Well, that’s neither here nor there. One way to get so you don’t hear the screaming any more is to get used to screaming, get to the place where you enjoy it. Then, when it’s music to your ears, it doesn’t bother you.”

  Fargo said nothing. Buckner rambled on for a moment more, inconsequentially. Then he stopped, turned. “Well, you’re in the clear, now. You’ve done a good job this past week. I never woulda guessed we could work so well together.” His lip curled in a smile. “It’s the money.”

  “Yes,” Fargo said.

  Then Buckner said, “We’re gonna have company today, from Bogota. I’ve decided to let you sit in on the meeting. At first, I wasn’t going to. But there’s a big advance payment involved, and this is their final inspection of the outfit before we do the job, and I think you’ll impress ’em, give ’em confidence.”

  Fargo carefully suppressed a surge of excitement. “These are the ones you’ve hired out to?”

  “That’s right. They’ll be here at noon. You handle the usual routine this morning, then report in here.” He rubbed his head again. “Jesus, I hurt. Come on, let’s go over to the mess hall and get some coffee.”

  Sweat soaked in the brutal heat of morning, Fargo sat a sturdy jungle horse and waved the men out to the left. From time to time, he yelled commands in a voice that carried, ringing with authority. Oddly enough, though these men were practicing the very maneuvers he had to thwart, he found himself merciless with them when they fouled up. That was the soldier in him, he thought wryly, when it occurred to him what he was doing. Well, it was good cover, anyhow; his efficiency earned Buckner’s confidence.

  Buckner ran this place tautly. Reveille was at five; breakfast was quick; the action in the cool part of the morning was always fierce, as the men trained over and over, each for his specialized part in the raid on the Panama Canal. Using the engineering plans he’d obtained from his inside man, Buckner had built crude board and bamboo mock-ups of part of the locks; time and again the teams responsible for their demolition went through their drill, the fire teams covering them. There was a range, too, and target practice was an everyday affair, for there seemed to be a limitless supply of ammunition, smuggled in on mule back from Colombia. The big clearing at the foot of the hills rang constantly with the crack of rifles, the bark of pistols, the brisk, dry chatter of the French automatic weapons. In the jungle, other teams, cavalry and infantry alike, mock-skirmished.

  They’d knock off at noon, siesta until three; then out again for more training until Retreat at six. Strong guards were posted for the night, patrols sent out to watch every trail in and out, no matter how small; and the guard towers were always manned by men with machine guns. After Retreat, there would be carousing in the village; Lights-out was at nine.

  The more Fargo saw of this operation, the more convinced he was that the Colonel’s fears had been justified, back in Oyster Bay. Buckner might not succeed in every part of his scheme, but he’d do tremendous damage nevertheless. If only the part of his plan to rob the pay cars came off, it would cost the United States nearly a million dollars and raise a stink back home.

  “All right, goddamit, dress up that line!” he shouted. “That’s no line of skirmishers, it’s a bunch of goddam old maids at a dance! Dress it up!” He watched the men change position, then thrust a cigar between his teeth, lit it. Blowing smoke through his nostrils, he thumbed out the watch: twenty minutes more until he was to report back to headquarters.

  Anticipation was keen within him. Twent
y minutes ... then another piece of the jigsaw puzzle would fall into place. Once he knew who was paying Buckner, he’d have all the information he could get here. Then he had to break loose, somehow, elude the heavy patrols on all the trails, make tracks back for the Zone. Corner Goethals, the Commander, spill the scheme to him, and have troops in position when Buckner hit—

  Or if Buckner, frightened by Fargo’s desertion, did not hit, they’d have to mount a military expedition, Panama Government or no, sweep down on this place and destroy it. Fargo’s lips thinned. Hell, the Colonel would already have sent in the Marines if he were still President ... But Taft, that ball of suet ... He was a different breed of man.

  Fargo spurred the horse forward, snapped more orders at the skirmishers who were straggling again. The sun was hot; the twenty minutes passed with agonizing slowness. Then it was time; Fargo dismissed the men, reined around, and galloped across the clearing toward headquarters.

  Sweat soaked, he swung down, tossed the reins to an orderly. There were, he saw, three fine riding mounts already tethered out here, and they looked as if they had come a long, hard way. He tipped back his campaign hat, climbed the steps, entered the building.

  The captain in the front room saluted. “General Buckner’s in his office. Wants you to go on back.”

  “Thanks,” Fargo said and did, without knocking.

  The three men standing with Buckner at the wall map turned. They all wore civilian khakis and tropical helmets. “Gentlemen,” Buckner said, “my second-in-command, General Fargo, a thoroughly experienced soldier. General, let me introduce Colonel Von Cort of the German General Staff, Commander Kobori of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and Captain Valdez of the Colombian Army.”

  Despite himself, Fargo stared. Suddenly he realized that the stakes he had been playing for all along were enormous, as large as they could get—as large as a world war. For one flickering second, he was off balance, then, smoothly, he recovered. “Gentlemen.” He put out his hand and they, in turn, shook it.