by Lou Cameron
Luisa tugged Captain Gringo’s sleeve and said, “This is all most confusing, Dick. What is going on? Why are you digging up the dead?”
He said, “Somebody’s playing musical graves. Let’s see if there’s a way up to the roof and I’ll tell you all about it.”
“I certainly hope so. Nothing I’ve heard so far makes any sense.”
Captain Gringo sighed and said, “Welcome to the club.”
Captain Gringo and Dama Luisa had been on the roof about an hour, when one of the other Creoles stuck his head up through the trap door to say, “Our people are getting tired of this waiting, Captain. Have you any suggestions?”
The American said, “Yeah, get back to your post. You’re supposed to get tired of waiting. Nobody ever attacks when you’re expecting them to. Tell the others to hold out as long as they can. Then hold out fifteen minutes longer. That’s how Wellington won at Waterloo.”
The man went back down the ladder, muttering. Captain Gringo stared out across the gardens at the bonfires burning low along the tree line. He was pretty sure there’d be no attack too. The drums had fallen silent and the trade wind had rain on its breath. The barbed wire entanglement midway to the fire line looked hasty and sloppy, but nobody was going to walk through it half asleep. He was half talking to himself when he muttered, “It doesn’t add up. Pappa Blanco has more of those whatevers than the empty graves can account for.”
Luisa had been brought up to date on the weird happenings, although she didn’t seem to buy much of it. She said, “I think those so-called zombies must be beachcombers and drunks they recruited on the mainland. There are many coves where a schooner could unload in secret.”
He said, “You’re right. That ties in with outsiders being in on the deal. I’ve been trying to figure out a nice way to ask you a rather delicate question, Luisa.”
She asked, “Is it a question having anything to do with all this Macumba business, or are you just curious about local color?”
“It’s important. It’s not very delicate, but…”
“Ask anyway then. I’m old enough to tie my own laces, Dick.”
“Okay. Have you been sleeping around with anyone important?”
Luisa blinked, recovered, and said, “My, you do get right to the point, don’t you? To answer you as bluntly, anyone I was sleeping with would have to be important, at least to me.”
“Don’t spar around, doll. I have to know.”
“All right. Since my husband died I’ve had one affair and I didn’t like it. It made me feel cheap. Since then I’ve been trying to control my natural desires until the right man comes along.”
“That sounds reasonable. I’m not asking you to play kiss and tell, but answer me this. Was the guy connected in any way with Pantropic Limited?”
Luisa laughed incredulously and said, “Of course not. If you must know, he was a Creole. First officer on an island freighter. My foolish mistake was over a year ago and he hasn’t been back since.”
She looked away and added, “I was trying to forget, damn it. Now I suppose it will be all over the Anglo-American community.”
He said, “Not unless you tell them, Luisa, I didn’t mean to pry. I had a reason for asking. I thought at least one other guy had made a play for you.”
She looked back at him with a puzzled smile and said, “A play? You mean flirtation? Heavens, everybody flirts, Dick. We don’t have an opera house or other entertainment on Nuevo Verdugo.”
He said, “I noticed. So somebody has been rubbing knees with you at Mrs. Gage’s tiffin’s?”
“Of course. I’m not deformed, you know. Poor Charles Burton has been almost slavering at me since we met. But I assure you I’ve never even been alone with him.”
Captain Gringo nodded thoughtfully and said, “I believe you. But that could answer for the attack on your carriage. Hell hath no fury, and the gossip has Burton playing footsie with a local belle.”
“Well, I assure you this local belle wants no part of Charles Burton, even if he was single and from a good Creole family! Who could he be involved with among my people?”
“I don’t think he is. I could tell you who he has been fooling with, but you’d laugh yourself silly and us gents have to stick together. Just one more question and we’ll, drop it. Has Burton acted like he had honorable intentions, or is he just out for sex on the side?”
“Good Lord, nobody’s ever talked to me that way! What do you take me for, Dick Walker?”
“A lady, Dama Luisa. I’m trying to eliminate Burton, but I can’t if you keep acting coy. I have to know if he’s just a rotter with a roving eye, or a guy trying to marry into the local aristocracy.”
Luisa grimaced and said, “As I understand it from the few words he offered as an excuse to peer down my dress, Charles and his wife, Alice, have an understanding about his, uh, needs. One gathers Alice is frigid or something. I shut him up before he could elaborate.”
He nodded and said, “I’ll have a chat with Alice about her suspicious nature. She’s not nearly as understanding as her husband says.”
“You mean she sent that young man to attack me? How could she have gotten any man to act so foolishly?”
“Oh, she has her own methods, and the guy was a drug addict anyway.”
“What do you mean she has her own methods, Dick? Is there something I don’t know about sweet little Alice?”
“No. I don’t intend to tell her about your sailor either. Let’s get back to this machine gun belt. I’ve shown you how to load for me, as long as you insist on hanging around. But we’d better go over it again.”
“I know how to feed you ammunition, Dick. What on earth does all this nonsense about the Burtons have to do with me?”
He shrugged and said, “I don’t think it has anything to do with you now. Somebody is trying to run Pantropic Limited off the island. I’ve cabled a guy I know on the New York stock exchange to see if outside interests are bidding on the property. So far I keep drawing blanks. A company man trying to work his way into the Creole community would add up, if I could catch one doing it. You just poured water on my prime suspect.”
“I see. You don’t think Charles married Alice for herself alone, eh?”
“Not unless he was a glutton for punishment. Burton married a job. A better job than he’d have ever gotten on his own.”
“Do you suppose he could be working with this Pappa Blanco to eliminate his father-in-law so that he could be the big boss?”
“No. He’s too useless for Pantropic’s board of directors to consider for top spot. Besides, if he only wanted to get rid of the colonel, he’d have done it by now. Why mess around with dozens of murders when one would have done the job? The minute the old boy dies, Alice plans to divorce him.”
He realized he’d said too much even before Luisa smiled and said, “You do know Alice pretty well, don’t you? I take it Charles fibbed when he said she was frigid?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve been sleeping with her mother.”
It worked. Luisa laughed at the outrageous picture he’d thrown as a quick curve. He knew it was time to change the subject. But as he was about to ask an innocent question about the local economy they heard a thunderous boom coming from behind them. Luisa gasped and said, “My God, what was that?” He said, “I don’t know,” then yelled out down the line, “Heads up, muchachos! Forget that noise to the rear and watch your front!”
Luisa shouted, “Look! They’re coming!”
Captain Gringo said, “I see them.” Then he yelled out again, “Hold your fire, everybody! Let those guys out front hit the wire and don’t fire until I cut loose!”
The ragged line of tattered men was outlined by the fires behind them as they half stumbled toward the town. Luisa gasped, “There must be hundreds of them! Why don’t we shoot?”
He said, “I make it about three dozen. Stay cool. The real rush is planned to hit us after we waste a lot of ammo on those poor clowns.”
One of the vi
llagers fired without orders and a zombie staggered but kept coming. Captain Gringo yelled, “Hold your fire, damn it! Can’t you see they don’t have firearms? Watch the tree line!”
The first zombies had reached the wire. They kept walking numbly in place, and piled up stupidly, waving their machetes and clubs. Captain Gringo saw the glint of firelight on steel, in the shadows of the trees, and said, “Here comes the real show.”
The Caribs waited until their zombie screen was windrowed on the sagging wire before they broke cover, bounding gracefully forward while others opened up with small arms from the trees. Captain Gringo knew better than to traverse wildly with a single machine gun. He started at one end, slowly swung the barrel and opened up with short-aimed bursts. The villagers started firing their rifles and shotguns. The Caribs started going down like any other human being with a bullet in him.
Their leaders didn’t like it much. A bullet spanged off the bricks near Captain Gringo and the girl. He’d seen the rifle flash. So he elevated the muzzle and lobbed a burst of thirty rounds into the treetop where the sniper had been perched. Then he depressed his aim to blow a clump of men near the wire to hash.
The savage machine gunfire, added to some quite good shooting on the part of the Creoles, broke the back of the attack. The Caribs left their dead and wounded with the hung-up zombies and ran back to the tree line. The Creoles started cheering. Captain Gringo bellowed, “Reload your weapons and get set for another charge, Goddamn your eyes! This isn’t a football game!”
He saw his own belt was about used up. He ripped it out and asked Luisa to hand him the end of a fresh belt. She did, but asked, “Are they really liable to try again, Dick?”
He said, “Not if they have any brains. But always assume the other side is crazy enough to do anything.”
One of the zombies had worked its way through the wire and was wandering in. He yelled down, “Don’t anybody shoot that guy! He’s lost his machete and he’s hit bad. I want to talk to him if anyone down there has the balls to grab him!”
A trio of macho Creoles broke cover to run out and wrestle the zombie to the ground and hogtie him. Things were looking up. The locals were learning not to be afraid of the unknown.
Another machine gun woodpeckered off to their rear. He grinned and told Luisa, “They’ve decided to try from another angle, the poor bastards. That’ll be a kid called Pedro, atop the guardhouse.”
He cocked his head as a nearer Maxim coughed and added, “That’s Gaston. He always fires in Morse code for some reason. Our guys have them in a cross fire, over by the railroad yards.”
Luisa said, “It sounds like they’re taking a dreadful beating. But what was that explosion we heard?”
“A diversion. The Anglo-American side of town is deserted. We pulled everyone in to strong points, so they could be dynamiting empty housing over that way. It’s nothing to worry about. Windows can be replaced.”
Luis said, “But you worked hard to save our native quarter, Dick.”
“That’s different. Pantropic can afford new tin houses. You folks have your life savings tied up here.”
“I see. You put my people above your own!”
“I’d like to take a bow for that, Luisa, but I gave up walking picket fences for pretty girls a long time ago. I put human life, any human life, first. The company people are safe and in Gaston’s good hands. Property comes second, and this part of town west of the green is more valuable than the temporary structures to the east. War is a matter of saving what you can. Nobody can save everything.”
“Just the same, I am grateful, and my people will be too.”
He didn’t know how to answer that. There was only one thing she could offer him that he really wanted. But he wasn’t sure she’d go for that.
Chapter Fourteen
It was a long night. The cold gray dawn brought rain and a little sanity as the survivors surveyed the damage. Utopiaton had gotten off a lot lighter than the Caribs and their zombie allies. The captured zombie died just before dawn, staring blankly and muttering something about its mother while Captain Gringo tried to question it. The ones hung up on the wire had been caught in a lot of cross fire and were all dead by the time the villagers moved gingerly out to gather them. The wet grass was liberally sprinkled with dead Caribs, too. It made for a grisly line of corpses while some peones dug a mass grave across the tracks and under the cover of Pedro’s gun.
Padre Hernando insisted on giving the last rites to the enemy dead, pagan Caribs and whatever the zombies were, alike. It came as no great surprise to Captain Gringo that the priest and villagers failed to identify any of the bodies. He didn’t hang around to see them buried. Gaston had send a messenger from the infirmary.
What was left of it.
He found Gaston and Colonel Gage staring morosely down at the splintered wreckage of one whole wing of the infirmary. Gaston looked up and said, “Willie May and Lilly Belle. They must have been in the doctor’s office. You’re not going to believe who must have simply walked in on them, holding a lit dynamite bomb.”
Captain Gringo stepped around a pile of debris Gaston indicated and swallowed hard. The lower half of Prudence Lee would have simply been that of a tall black woman to anyone who hadn’t known her rather well. The rest had been blown to bits. The grotesquely twisted, still shapely legs attached to the shattered pelvis looked like an obscene parody of giant frog legs, lightly fried. A shoe with a human foot still in it lay in the red mud a few feet beyond. Gaston said, “Willie May wore shoes like that. The rest of her and Lilly Belle are sort of mixed with everything, but there are features here and there one can recognize.”
“What about the other colored girl?”
“Susan? She was with us in the warehouse. She seems a bit upset, but I can get her, if you think it’s worth talking to her.”
Captain Gringo said, “Forget it. If she wasn’t here, she doesn’t know anything.”
Colonel Gage said, “It’s ghastly. It’s unreal. First that Mamma Macumba vanishes from her coffin. Then she comes back with a bomb and blows everything to smithereens! How on earth do they do it?”
Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “I don’t know. The guys we found on the wire are going to surprise the shit out of me if they get up again. They look like they’ve been drugged to the eyebrows, and some of ’em took a lot of killing. But this time they bled real blood.”
“What about the black girl and the Irish lass in Lloyd’s grave?”
“Yeah, what about ’em? I just looked Mab over. She was just plain dead. I’d say she was poisoned. We re-buried her. As for Prue over there, she might have walked in with that bomb. Somebody might have just tossed her body in, on top of it. She’s in no shape to tell us now.”
“Dash it all, we know she escaped from her coffin, don’t we?”
“No sir, we don’t. She might have been in some kind of trance. She might have really been dead and somebody snatched the body on us.”
“Ridiculous! The others would have seen anyone mucking about with her closed coffin!”
“They’d have seen her open it and climb out, too. And Willie May tended to be excitable. Don’t you suppose she’d have mentioned it?”
Gaston considered and said, “I like the doctor, Lloyd. If one must worry about missing dead people, I can’t think of anyone more likely to be useful to a witch doctor than a real doctor, hein?”
Colonel Gage sputtered, “See here, damn it, I saw Lloyd die. I was at his funeral. I saw him buried.”
Captain Gringo said, “I’ll take your word for that, Colonel. But he sure as hell wasn’t in his grave the last time we looked. He had a lot of drugs at his disposal, too. We’d better keep an open mind about Lloyd.”
“Good God, are you suggesting he’s out there alive in the jungle, plotting more black magic?”
“Somebody sure is. Let’s get a head count and see if anyone else we know is missing.”
He spotted Webster crossing the green with a quartet of guard
s and hailed them over. Webster was pale and looked like he’d had a hard night. Captain Gringo said, “I want a detail here to clean up this mess and bury what’s left of the girls. Do you really need those guys?”
Webster said, “Rather. We’re under siege and I’m not very handy with a gun.”
“Hell, by now the Caribs are halfway home. That rush last night was a last ditch effort to stop us from starting our sanitary cordon, and it didn’t work. Pappa Blanco won’t want any of his people caught on our side of the deadline. Stick with us if you’re nervous.”
Webster said, “Righto, tight as a tick and all that. But what’s next on the agenda, old bean?”
“Head count. Couple of Creoles and some glass were hit by stray shots over in the native quarter, but nobody on our side was killed or seriously hurt. Gaston here, says everyone holed up with him in the warehouse made it, and Pedro’s guys guarding the rail yard only had one guy lightly creased.”
“Then why do we have to call the roll? All present and accounted for, eh what?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t even know half the company men on sight and Padre Hernando is missing a couple of Creoles.”
“Are you suggesting the Caribs slipped in and carried off some of our people?”
Captain Gringo stared soberly at the ruins of the infirmary and said, “No. We shot the piss out of the guys trying to move in from the jungle. Some son of a bitch working inside our lines blew this place up. A Black Carib is just a mixed breed wearing no pants. A Creole is just a native who says he goes to Church. Pappa Blanco has confederates moving back and forth.”
“Good Lord, cannibal intelligence agents?”
“That’s about the size of it. They know about our plan to seal them off. They’ve been moving corpses around like peas under a carnival shell. So let’s line everybody up and start asking questions.”
He turned and ordered the guards to get to work on the ruins. Gaston waited until he was finished before he nudged Captain Gringo and said, “Dick, the colonel and M’sieu Webster can record the details of who was with whom, doing what. I will feel more like playing policeman once I run a perimeter patrol. So, with your permission, my old and rare …”