Macumba Killer

by Lou Cameron

  Willie May simpered and said, “If I know that sassy Lilly Belle he was just talking to, he’s likely in her quarters doing things I’d blush to mention. But I’ll see to the dead gal, Captain.”

  He started to follow. Then he let her go and helped himself to a couple of books from the shelf above the late Lloyd’s desk. The old boy had gone in for heroic medicine indeed if he took strychnine for a pick-me-up. Could he have died of something like that instead of a mysterious snake bite? He hadn’t died attended by a physician.

  Captain Gringo sat down and leafed through a book until he got to strychnine sulfate. It said the stuff was a strong stimulant in small doses, but warned that it was toxic as hell in moderate amounts. The poisonous effects of strychnine were from overstimulation of the central nervous system. Every muscle started working at once and the victim could snap his own spine during the resultant convulsions. The forensic symptoms of strychnine poisoning didn’t fit the way they’d found Prue, or the description of Lloyd’s death. So that was that, what else had the silly bastard been dosing himself and the staff?

  He got up and looked at the bottles and pill boxes haphazardly scattered around the small untidy office. He found lots of things he didn’t know about. He found atropine, foxglove, and … wolfsbane?

  Back to the books. Wolfsbane was a poisonous weed and doctors weren’t supposed to give it to anyone. So what the hell was it doing here? The effects of the crude herbal extract weren’t well understood, but wolfsbane had been used in the Middle Ages by devil worshippers. In large doses it killed. In smaller dosages it produced a dangerous stupor in which the victim felt he was floating or flying and invincible. Witches on their way to be burned had used it to face the flames with satanic glee. It sounded pretty sick. He wondered if a guy full of wolf-bane could keep floating along with a face full of shotgun pellets.

  He browsed some more, and then another nurse came in to say they had Prue boxed and ready to be delivered. So he put the book he’d been reading down and followed her. Gaston was waiting in Prue’s room with a sheepish look. Captain Gringo saw that the pine coffin had been nailed shut and said, “Right. Let’s get some guards for a burial detail and get this show on the road. I want you to stop screwing around, Gaston. We’ve got work to do.”

  “You accuse me of dereliction, Dick? You are most unjust. You know I always put duty ahead of my pleasures, hein?”

  “Sure. It’s still broad daylight and everybody but me seems to be screwing themselves silly while there’s work, to be done.”

  “Merde, you are just in a bad mood because you were left out. But who has been getting it besides me?”

  “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe it.”

  “Ah-ha, you have been snooping, hein? What have I missed? Was it pretty?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see his face.”

  Captain Gringo and Gaston walked on ahead to the local churchyard while six guards and the weeping black girls from the infirmary slowly carried Prue’s coffin into the Spanish quarter. They attracted attention, naturally, and others drifted in to see who was dead. There was a modest crowd around the young mestizo priest Gaston introduced to Captain Gringo as a Padre Hernando. The stucco church was a ways off, outlined by the setting sun. Captain Gringo noticed stone markers closer to the church. The ones nearby were wood and many had weathered until one couldn’t read any names that might have once been written on them. They were little more than pickets driven into the ground. He commented on this and Padre Hernando said, “This is hallowed ground, but you are right about signs of neglect. The pobrecitos buried here are strangers who left no relations to tend their graves. We try to keep the grounds neat, but you must understand this is a poor parish and I have little help.”

  “You mean this is a potter’s field, Padre?”

  “Yes and no, my son. As you see, we are still within the church grounds. But until Pantropic Limited came we had no need of graves so far out from the church. Most of these pobrecitos were imported laborers from other parts of the world, I assure you each was given a proper burial but, well, one must understand that the local Creoles prefer a modest distance be set from the graves of their own family members.”

  Captain Gringo stared across the slightly rolling greensward. There was no cruel fence, but he could see a twenty foot strip had been left between these newer graves and the older, crowded tombstones closer to the spartan stucco walls of the church and rectory.

  A couple of the Padre’s sextons had already dug a grave in the red soil, and he knew it would make for a pointless fuss if he suggested Prue would rest easier in the * shadows of the bell tower. What the hell, she’d been a Protestant before she took up Voodoo and the Padre was trying to be decent all things considered.

  He looked the other way and saw the little funeral procession arriving. A familiar figure in white linen was beating it to the grave site. It was Colonel Gage. He puffed up to Captain Gringo and said, “I just heard. I hate to sound stuffy, but one would think I’d have been informed. I mean, dash it all, I am supposed to be in charge of things around here, Walker!”

  “I was going to tell you, sir. But they said you were, ah, busy, just now.”

  Gage reddened and said, “Quite. That was you they said popped in to see me, eh? I was wondering why you didn’t knock.”

  Captain Gringo didn’t answer as he met the older man’s gaze, poker-faced. Gage looked away first and muttered, “Well, if you must know, I was attempting to recapture my lost youth.”

  “That’s between you and your lost youth, Colonel. I see he couldn’t make it to the funeral, but we’ll say no more about it.”

  Gage gasped, saw the priest was talking to Gaston at a safe distance, and said, “Don’t be impertinent, Captain Walker. I heard about what goes on in Yankee military schools, too.”

  “I said it was your business, sir.”

  “You don’t understand. My wife is getting old and cold and, well, variety is the spice, and all that rot. I wouldn’t want you to get the impression I was, uh, strange.”

  Bisexual was the word he was groping for, but Captain Gringo really didn’t give a damn. The guards carrying Prue’s coffin were by the grave and one of them was having trouble with his corner. The man across from him gasped, “Don’t drop it, for God’s sake!” and the big American moved swiftly over to lend a hand. He grabbed the corner of the box and said, “Easy does it. I’ll take this corner. Let’s just work it over those ropes across the grave and… what the hell?”

  The coffin was heavy. Too heavy. Prue had been a big woman, but he’d carried her and knew how much she weighed. He ordered them to put the pine box down and reached for his pocket knife while Gaston and Padre Hernando joined him, looking puzzled. He opened the screwdriver blade of his knife and started to pry open the lid as the priest demurred, “Is that really necessary, my son?”

  Captain Gringo said, “Just checking, Padre,” and opened the pine lid. There was a mutual gasp from everyone and a scream from Willie May. The box was half-filled with dirt. Period. There was no body in it!

  Padre Hernando crossed himself and asked soberly, “Is this some kind of joke, my son?”

  Captain Gringo said, “I don’t think it’s funny either.” Then he stared thoughtfully at the guards and added, “All right, who’s the wise guy? What happened to the dead woman in this coffin?”

  None of the guards had an answer. Willie May was running away, screaming. Another nurse wailed, “Oh Lord, that gal was a haunt!” and followed Willie May.

  Grimly, Captain Gringo explained to the priest and others who hadn’t seen the late Prudence Lee prepared for burial. Padre Hernando sighed and said, “You know what my simple people are going to make of this, of course.”

  “Yeah. Don’t tell me you believe in zombies, Padre?”

  “Of course not. But we are civilized men. The native children already think this part of the grounds are haunted. This is terrible.”

  Captain Gringo frowned and said, “Back
up and run that past me again, Padre. What do the kids say about these neglected graves?”

  “Oh, you know. The usual nonsense about ghostly figures wandering at midnight. Zombies are supposed to rise from their graves and walk off to meet their masters and so forth. It’s a ridiculous but all too prevalent superstition on these islands.”

  Captain Gringo saw one of the grave diggers had left a spade standing in the spoil heap of Prue’s intended grave. He stepped over to it, picked it up, and looked around. The priest asked him what he intended and he said, “I’m looking for a fresh marker.”

  The priest crossed himself again and said, “You can’t mean that! You can’t open a grave!”

  “Sure you can. You just stick the shovel in and dig ‘til you hit bottom. I think we’d better clear the area though. This marker here, says a guy named Ferraro was buried a month ago. This might turn out to be a little stinky.”

  He started digging while the others edged back, save for Gaston, who stood by offering the observation that his big friend was being tres. foolish.

  Captain Gringo said, “The soil’s moist and I noticed that other grave was only about four feet deep, so what the hell.”

  “Do you really expect to find a month-old rotting corpse, Dick?”

  “I sure hope so,” replied Captain Gringo. So Gaston sighed, found another shovel, and started to help. The sun was low and the sky was blood red by the time they’d dug down a good four feet, found nothing and kept going. The bottom of the empty hole was filling with water. Captain Gringo climbed out to find an ashen-faced Colonel Gage next to Padre Hernando. Everyone else had left.

  Padre Hernando crossed himself again and said, “This is not possible. I distinctly remember the late Señor Ferraro. He died a month ago of a fever. I stood right here and read a funeral service over him.”

  Captain Gringo said, “Yeah. We’d better rustle up some workers. I’m not up to opening every grave in this section, but somebody’d better.”

  “Are you suggesting all these graves are empty, my son?”

  “I sure hope not, Padre, but we’d better make sure.”

  Chapter Twelve

  It took some persuasion and a lot of yelling by Sergeant Gordo, but the frightened guards dug by lantern light in the gathering darkness. Captain Gringo waited until six more graves turned out to be empty before he put Gordo in charge and headed for the company headquarters. Gaston, of course, tagged along, asking what was up.

  Captain Gringo said, “Pappa Blanco’s using diversionary tactics. We’re all supposed to be in a flap over his black magic.”

  “We are not in a flap over his black magic, Dick?”

  “Oh, I’m sort of concerned, but I’m not ready to start swimming for the mainland yet. They obviously have confederates here in town. So we’ll let Pappa Blanco think he has us scared shitless, while we make a few moves of our own.”

  Gaston said, “That sounds practique. I, for one, am scared shitless. How did they spirit all those bodies out of all those graves, Dick?”

  “If I knew that I’d have Pappa Blanco half whipped. Meanwhile I just remembered something a stage magician once told me. Do you know why professional magicians hate to perform for children?”

  “Mais non, I went to few shows as a child in France.”

  “If you had, you’d have been a pain in the ass to the nice man pulling rabbits out of his hat. You see, kids don’t look where the magician tells them to. He points his wand and all the adults look to see what he’s pointing at. That’s when some kid with a wandering attention span catches his other hand doing something sneaky.”

  Gaston nodded and said, “I see. Your plan is to ignore the occult dramatics while we search for the other hand, hein? It is dark and there will be no moon tonight. Perhaps if we fit lanterns on the tractor—”

  “Forget it, Gaston. Listen!”

  As they crossed the green the night was filled with the ominous sound of Macumba drums. Captain Gringo nodded and said, “Right on schedule.”

  They found most of the Anglo-American company gathered on the steps of the headquarters building. The women looked frightened. The men looked more frightened than they were letting on, and most of them were packing guns.

  Charles Burton said, “I was just about to send for you. It sounds like the natives are getting set to attack.”

  Captain Gringo nodded and said, “I’m leaving Gaston here, in charge of you and yours. Gaston, you know the form. Get everybody forted up with clear fields of fire all around. Do any of you other guys know how to fire a machine gun?”

  Burton and two men he didn’t know by name said they did. Captain Gringo nodded and said, “Okay, I think the warehouses are your best bet, Gaston. You’ll have stout walls, plenty of food and ammo. Agreed?”

  Gaston said, “We could hold off the Russian Army from there. But where are you going, Dick?”

  “Two places. First, I’m going to take the train out to gather in all the outpost guards.”

  Colonel Gage sputtered, “Egad, are you suggesting we abandon our standing crops to the savages?”

  Captain Gringo looked disgusted and said, “What standing crops? There’s not enough sugar out there to pay for one human life, and the stuff will grow back once we secure this half of the island.”

  Alice Burton pointed and said, “Oh, what’s that over there to the south, above the tree tops?”

  Captain Gringo stared at the red glow in the sky and said, “Burning cane, ma’am. The guards are staggering back along the tracks right now, if they’re still alive. I’ll see you folks later.” As he turned to leave, Gaston asked, “What’s the second place, Dick?”

  Since it was Gaston, Captain Gringo shouted back, “Got to secure the native quarter, of course. We’re not alone on this island, you know.” As he jogged away he heard someone say, “By Jove, he’s right. We forgot the natives might be in danger.”

  He knew they’d forgotten. Queen Victoria’s Empire wasn’t going to make it through another century if the folks who ran it didn’t shape up.

  He picked up a machine gun and a young guard named Pedro at the guardhouse by the tracks. Pedro said he was afraid of the zombies but Captain Gringo said he didn’t have to look, as long as he kept the engine stoked. He frog-marched Pedro aboard the puffing billy, checked the steam gauge, and opened the throttle. As they headed into the throbbing bush, Pedro asked why they didn’t light the headlamp. Captain Gringo said, “There’s plenty of light.” Pedro looked up at the ruby sky throbbing with drums, and crossed himself.

  They chugged a mile and he saw a trio of guards headed his way as if they were fleeing the hounds of hell. He slowed, yelled for them to jump aboard, and kept on going. One of the guards climbed over the tender to protest, “You are going the wrong way, Captain Gringo!”

  The American said, “Get up on top of that fuel with your rifle. It’s just as spooky where we came from. First we pick up all our people. Then we talk about going back.”

  They rounded a curve and saw a long ragged line of cotton-clad machete men across the track. The guard atop the tender screamed, “Zombies!” and Captain Gringo opened the throttle. He ploughed through them, hashing a couple under the narrow gauge wheels, then he braced the machine gun on the sill, waited until they were past the skirmishers, and raked the dark trackside brush with a steady stream of fire. Pedro asked who he was shooting at as he released the trigger. He said, “Hopefully, the second line of Pappa Blanco’s sneaky advance. I don’t know if I got anybody or not. Do you know how to run this engine, chico?”

  “Poquito, señor. I have switched in around the yards.”

  Captain Gringo said, “Good. Take the throttle.” Then he climbed up on the tender and told the guard, “Go down there and help with the fire. It’ll be your ass if you let the pressure drop.”

  “The pressure shall not drop, Captain Gringo.”

  “I didn’t think so. Leave your rifle and hand me up that machine gun, will you?”

  He had a
better view from atop the tender and once he had the Maxim braced across his knees he saw his field of fire covered a full circle except for the vulnerable boiler just ahead and below his knees. He could hose the track ahead with plunging fire if he had to.

  He had to. They whipped around another curve and he saw a clump of oiled dark flesh trying to drag a log across the track. He fired into the Black Caribs and the clump exploded into screaming shot-up flesh as the train bored on, nudging the end of the log with its cowcatcher to send it boomeranging into those Caribs still on their feet and running. He figured, as they whipped out of sight, that about a third of them had survived, but what the hell.

  They drove another mile and found some desperate uniformed men lugging another machine gun, followed by frightened cane workers who’d been caught in the fields at sundown and holed up with the men who were supposed to protect them. He yelled to Pedro and the boy stopped the train.

  As the survivors piled aboard, he yelled down to ask if the machine gun had any ammo. The noncom in charge yelled back, “No, my Captain. We used it all up getting away.”

  “Right. Everybody keep your heads down and hang on. Let’s go, Pedro.”

  “You wish for to go farther, Captain Gringo?”

  “To the end of the line. Then we cut across to the other terminals via the cross track and head back to town.”

  Pedro shuddered and opened the throttle. Captain Gringo nodded in approval. The kid was scared. He had a right to be scared. But he did as he was told under fire. Kids like Pedro were the real heroes in any battle. Those guys in the rear had held onto their weapons, too. The next twenty-four hours figured to separate the men from the boys.

  And so they chugged, rattled, and fired their way on. They passed cane fields where Pedro’s whistle drew no response. Other times a mess of relieved-looking men ran out to climb aboard. More than one cane field was a mass of fire, and once they stopped, signaled, and saw a long line of zombies staggering through the cane toward them. Captain Gringo yelled, “Aim at their knees!” and suited action to words by chopping through numb shinbones with hot lead as Pedro opened the throttle to haul ass. Some of the others fired. Things were looking up. The men were almost shitting in their pants, but now they had a leader and now they saw the zombies could be stopped.