Renegade 29

by Lou Cameron

  He moved over to the pile, saw everything was nailed tightly and that the Maxim crate was oozing heavy grease. He grimaced and said, “Hell with it. I’ve plenty of time and maybe La Señora has a crow bar in her tool shed. I don’t feel up to it right now, and how much more can it rust in one afternoon?”

  He’d been speaking mostly to himself, of course. So he was mildly surprised, when he turned away, to see Lucrecia was still there and that she’d shut and barred the door. He was more surprised that she was on the bed, silently weeping with her little brown hands to her face. He moved over to the bed, sat down beside her, and put an arm around her shoulders to comfort her as she started bawling louder and he said, “Hey, hey, what’s with the waterworks? You seem to be scared skinny, querida!”

  She sobbed, “Si, I am. I have never done this before and you are so big, even though you are nice looking.”

  He frowned and asked, “What have I got to do with whatever you’re so upset about? What is it you’re supposed to do that you’ve never done before and obviously don’t want to?”

  She sniffled and explained, “La Señora says I am pretty. So it is only a question of time before one of you soldados wishes for to fuck me. She says it would be smarter for me to give myself to one officer and save myself from being passed around from soldado to soldado. So when we heard two officers were to be staying here, she said I was to pick one and … you know. But now that I have picked you, I am still, as you say, scared skinny!”

  He nodded soberly and said, “Look, it happens. Some girls just manage somehow to stay virgins. But stop bawling about it, damn it.”

  She flinched at the slight annoyance in his tone and pleaded, “Do not beat me. por favor! I will do anything you say, if only you will be … gentle. But you shall have to show me what it is you want of me. For alas, I know nothing of such matters.”

  He smiled wistfully and said, “I never would have guessed. Look, Lucrecia, it’s all right. You have nothing to worry about. I’m not going to trifle with you, see?”

  “¿Es verdad? You do not wish for me to take my clothes off now?”

  “Not hardly. I’m not that much of a gentleman. I like my olives green, but I don’t like climbing trees to get at them. So dry your tears and go wash some dishes or something. I’d say I was sorry I scared you, if it had been my idea. But the war is over, so let’s just forget about it.”

  She peered up at him curiously between her forked tear-soaked fingers and asked, “What am I to tell La Señora? That you simply found me too ugly?”

  He laughed and told her, “Tell her anything you like. But let’s not play games, kitten. I said I wouldn’t mess with you if you didn’t want me to. I never said I was a sissy!”

  “I do not understand, señor.”

  “I know. Sometimes I have trouble understanding me, too. If you don’t want to get laid, get lost. Is that plain enough for you?”

  She sobbed. “I know I should be practical, as La Señora calls it, but I am just too frightened. Are you angry with me?”

  “Not yet. But I’ll never forgive myself, either way, if you don’t get out of here, poco tiempo.”

  So she rose and ran sobbing to unbar the door, dash out, and slam it shut behind her. Captain Gringo swore softly and muttered, “All right, so we do feel up to inspecting that fucking Maxim after all. Right now I could probably pry the crate open with this hard-on and it’s better, at times like this, for a man to have something less silly to do with his hands!”

  He rose and then, knowing how most guns were shipped in the tropics, peeled off his clothes before even thinking about opening the top crate. He placed his .38 on a nearby dresser, unfolded the screwdriver blade of his pocket knife, and got to work on the nails. He pried a board off, muttered, “Aw, shit,” and paused to light a claro while his hands were still greaseless. Then he dug into the packing and started hauling shit out. He tried to make sure most of the greasy sawdust fell back in the crate, but a lot of it wound up on the floor anyway. There was no carpeting to worry about and sweeping the shit up would probably do the unpainted floor planks some good, too, so what the hell.

  He got the tool kit out first, wiped the waterproofed canvas as clean as he could with his now greasy hands, and spread the tools out on the dresser by his .38. The fucking tripod could stay where it was for now. What could go wrong in transit with a tripod, even if he ever meant to use the silly thing?

  The machine gun itself was the matter before the house. The water jacket was empty, of course, but the heavy weapon still thunked pretty solid across the crate edges. He took the water jacket off first and leaned it against the wall. Then he cranked open the action, stared morosely down at the buttery goo filling the breech, and muttered, “What am I doing? I need rags, lots of rags, just to see what the fuck I’m doing!”

  He wiped some of the grease from his palms to his chest, took a towel from the rack above the corner washstand, and wrapped it around his middle. Then he picked up the .38 and went outside to call for Lucrecia. She came up the stairwell, took one look at him, and sobbed, “Oh my God! You do not need a gun, señor! I said I would not fight back!”

  He laughed and said, “I need rags, a lot of rags. Cotton, if you can manage. The gear they gave me to clean is messier than I expected.”

  She looked and vanished after saying she’d be right back. He returned to his chore, knotting the towel around his middle as he placed the .38 back on the dresser, took a deep drag on his cigar, and gingerly stuck a finger in foe goo to feel if anything was broken enough to notice the easy way. The bolt seemed okay and, yeah, the firing pin was in place, but … where in the hell was the arming rod?

  When Lucrecia came in with an armful of cotton rags Captain Gringo was cursing like a pirate’s parrot as he disassembled the damned gun and covered himself with grease at the same time. The young peon girl was more upset by the fact the towel had slipped from around his waist and lay on the floor at his feet. He was too steamed to have an erection, but that part of him was covered with thick brown goo, too. He snapped, “Get over here with those rags. Pile them on the windowsill here, and hand me a big one, pronto!”

  She did as she was told, starting to cry again. He was too worried about more important matters to notice or to care if he had. He got to work with the rag, wiping parts clean as he stripped them and put them aside. Lucrecia didn’t know what else he wanted, so she sat on the bed again to wait and see. She knew she shouldn’t be looking where she was looking, but she’d never seen anything like that before. It was much bigger than she’d been led to expect and … was it possible some women not only managed to accommodate such a monstrous male organ but even, in fact, enjoy it, as some boasted? As the big man turned to place the bolt on the dresser he saw she was looking at him and she quickly asked, “Is there anything I can do for to help?”

  He started to say no. Then he said, “Yes, if you hold one end of the barrel steady it night be easier to unscrew from the block. My hands are slippery and I can’t get a purchase on this damned stripped screw head!”

  She didn’t know what he was talking about. But she was willing to learn. As she gingerly took hold of the muzzle for him Lucrecia wrinkled her pert little nose and said, “Oh, it’s so messy, señor!”

  He said, “I know. Why don’t you slip out of your skirt and blouse? That way you won’t get them grease stained.” He’d assumed she had a slip on under her outer garments.

  She just assumed she was supposed to do as she was told. So when she did as he asked and wound up shyly holding the other end of the gun barrel stark naked, he nodded and said, “Right. I think you’d better call me Dick from here on, Lucrecia. señor sounds a little formal, considering. Can’t you hold that any tighter? I can’t unscrew it if you let it twist in your hands like that.”

  The petite brown-skinned peon frowned with determination, bent her knees, and gripped the barrel as tightly as she could by locking it between her upper arm and torso as well as her tight little fists. Her le
ft tit sure looked cute, perched on the gun barrel like that. And, better yet, it worked. The reluctant screw yielded with a sudden pop and he said, “Bueno. You can let go now.”

  She did, wiping at her greasy torso with greasy hands and of course only getting herself greasier. She said, “Oh, how am I to ever put my blouse back on now?” and he said, “Don’t worry. We’ve still got plenty of clean cotton rags and there’s soap and water as well up here. Let’s see if some idiot put the rod I’m looking for up the goddamn barrel. It has to be someplace, right?”

  She swore she didn’t have whatever he was looking for. He said he could see that. Then he held the barrel like a spy glass, sighed, and said, “Oh, the stupid motherfucking sons of bitches!”

  Lucrecia cowered away, covering her greasy little breasts with her hands as she pleaded, “Please don’t be angry, Deek!”

  He put the barrel down, saying, “Hey, hey, sorry. I wasn’t fussing at you. I was fussing at whoever assembled this Maxim without an arming rod.”

  “Is that a wicked thing for to do, Deek?”

  “It’s worse than wicked. Without an arming rod a machine gun won’t work. A machine gun that won’t work can be an awful thing to fight with and they say Los Rurales may pay us a visit before we can get to pay the Bay of Pigs a visit.”

  She gasped, “Los Rurales? Oh, no! Save me! Save me! I know what Los Rurales do, even to ugly women and, if they can’t get an ugly woman, pretty boys!”

  Every pretty girl in Mexico knew about Los Rurales and Lucrecia was prettier than most. So without thinking she’d dashed over to throw her greasy naked body in Captain Gringo’s greasy arms. His greasy dong, upon finding itself pressed against naked female flesh, began to act as greasy dongs often do on such occasions, whether anyone asks them to or not. As he held Lucrecia against him to comfort her trembling little trembling parts he raised his eyes heavenward and muttered, “Look, God, I tried, but enough is enough!”

  He picked her up and carried her over to the bed. They were going to make an awful mess, but the old dame downstairs had told the girl to seduce him and was it her fault he wasn’t neat?

  As he lowered her to the counterpane, Lucrecia said, “Oh you are so strong, Deek. But I do not think I am big enough for you, even if I knew how!”

  He reclined beside her, close, and began to spread the grease evenly over her brown flesh as he soothed, “Let me be the judge of that. Take it easy, I won’t hurt you. We’ll make all the stops on the way there and, hmm, this stuff sure is slippery, isn’t it?”

  “It feels … stimulating. Nobody ever told me men rub axle grease all over women, Deek.”

  “They don’t, all over, as a rule. Let me show you where a little lubrication might be just the ticket for a sweet little thing like you.”

  He bent to kiss her as he slid her free hand from her axle-greased left nipple down her belly and beyond, to where it would do them both more good. She couldn’t say anything with him kissing her, which was the general idea, but she flinched and tried to cross her thighs on his grease-slicked hand as he cupped her mons and began to grease her love engine with two fingers, rocking her aroused clit in the boat as he did so. When she suddenly moaned and began to move her hips in time with his petting he lifted his lips from hers and said, “See? Nothing to it. Does that hurt, querida?”

  “Oh, no, it feels glorioso! But please don’t rape me, Deek. I am still afraid, a little, I think.”

  He said, “They don’t call this rape, It’s called seduction, see?”

  “Si? What is the difference between rape and seduction, Deek?”

  “Salesmanship. Could you move your thighs apart a little farther?”

  “Like this? Oh, what are you doing to me, Deek?”

  He didn’t recall the Spanish for finger fucking, so he just kept doing it as he soothed, “Just getting you greased right, where it matters. Hey, look, I can get three fingers in now. Does it hurt?”

  “Not really, but it feels so strange, now. Maybe you had better stop. Oh, oh, if you do not take your hand away from there I fear I am about to pee pee on it! I am trying not to, but I have no control now and, oh, oh, ohhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

  He went on petting her gently as her post orgasmic contractions subsided. He said nothing. There were times when a guy could blow it by saying the wrong thing to a bewildered woman and this one had to be mixed up as hell about now. She was. She heaved a vast sigh and asked, “What happened, just now? That most certainly did not feel at all like pissing, even if it was with the same muscles.”

  He kissed her again and murmured, “I think you just came. Did you like it?”

  “I don’t know. I think so. But it felt so strange I was frightened at the same time. Maybe if we tried it again …”

  He rolled atop her before she could change her mind. She tried to as she felt him positioning himself to enter her properly, or, as she might have still thought, most improperly. She said, “Wait, not that way! With your fingers some more! I don’t want that awful thing in me! It’s too big! It’s all covered with axle grease! It’s … Oh, my God, it’s inside me and if you don’t take it out, deeper, deeper, yesssss!”

  So that was how Lucrecia lost her virginity, although, as she later coyly put it, virginity was nothing to lose if it meant gaining such a nice friend. They spent the whole siesta furthering her education and by the time she said, with a sigh, she had to go downstairs and began to prepare supper, she’d become an enthusiastic as well as experienced lover. For though some guys were too shy to advance beyond the missionary position through an entire honeymoon, Captain Gringo didn’t see fit to fool around. When a man lived on the run and might never see a pretty girl again, he got all he could out of experience he could. The grease helped a lot. But as she bathed and dressed he told her they’d try something cleaner, or at least neater, later that night. Lucrecia said she could hardly wait.

  When she’d left, he wiped himself as clean as he could on dry cotton, then took a whore bath to get the rest off. He pulled the soiled counterpane off the bed and lay naked on the cleaner linen below. He’d just had a great lay, he had plenty of smokes, and it soon would be time to eat. If Lucrecia cooked half as well as she screwed he was looking forward to it. So why was he still muttering curses? He was trying to figure out how one got a machine gun to fire full automatic without an arming rod.

  There wasn’t any. Without the missing part to rearm the chamber automatically after each shot, a Maxim could only be fired like a repeating rifle by pulling the arming lever back by hand for each shot, and who wanted a gun that fired like a bolt-action Krag but weighed as much as a dozen of the same?

  He knew what the missing part looked like. He knew how to make one, given the right tools and materials. There was probably a machine shop somewhere in this dinky seaport. A turret lathe would be too much to ask for, but with steamers putting in here fairly regularly some boat yard ought to have at least a screw-cutting lathe and Inshallah, a steel-cutting power saw. The steel was going to be the problem. Old Hiram Maxim hadn’t designed his machine gun with mild steel in mind. The vital part missing took one hell of a beating. He’d broken rods made by the factory firing a little more frantic than the Maxim was designed to take. Nothing he was going to find in the stock of a local herrera figured to be good for making anything but fancy wrought-iron grille-work. Machine steel some ship’s chandler might have on tap figured to be too heavy gauge. One needed no-kidding hunks of alloy steel to put steamship gear back together and the Maxim was hardly a steam engine. But maybe a local clocksmith … Forget it, a heavy machine gun wasn’t a grandfather clock, either! The missing part required stock somewhere between the delicate innards of a clock and the massive machinery of a steamboat. There was nothing he could do about it this late in the day. So he told himself to forget it for now. It was easy, like trying to forget about a mosquito in one’s bedroom at night, except that bullets stung somewhat harder and, damn it, they were going to need that goddamn Maxim before this show was over!


  *

  Meanwhile, not having Lucrecia in his own room as a lovely distraction, Gaston had gotten bored and gone exploring on his own. He’d been about to knock on Captain Gringo’s door for company when he heard the younger couple talking inside and discreetly chuckled away without disturbing them, Downstairs, he’d found nobody about. So he poured himself a healthy snort at the corner bar their missing hostess surely intended to be used and strolled out to the kitchen with it, to see what they were having for supper.

  But since the only cook on the premises was upstairs, about to have Captain Gringo any time now, there was nothing interesting going on in the kitchen. Gaston helped himself to some red peppers hanging by the stove and wandered out the back door, drink in one hand as he nibbled peppers from the other. Unlike the pateo out front, Prunella Parsons had indeed turned her rear enclosure into a combination of kitchen garth and ….zoo? Cages lined the stucco walls around three sides of the enclosure. The prim Doctor Parsons was at the moment standing before one of them with her back to Gaston as he strolled toward her. She’d changed to a shapeless smock of light tan whipcord and was holding a riding crop in her hands behind her as she crooned, “That’s it, Tigre. Good Tigre, nice Tigre, be nice to die pretty goat, Tigre.”

  Gaston moved closer, looked beyond her, and saw that in the cage a large male jaguar was fornicating with a smaller black nanny goat. The jaguar seemed to be enjoying it. The goat had nothing to say about it. She’d been tied between two stakes with her no-doubt in heat as well as confused rear end exposed to the big cat’s lust. The jaguar was apparently a little confused about its unusual sex partner, too. For it suddenly dismounted and moved over to sit in a corner of the cage, licking its big pink erection. Prunella stamped her foot and snapped, “Damn, you men are all alike!”

  Gaston decided to back away quietly. But before he could ease back to the kitchen door Prunella had lowered a barred slide between the jaguar and its bleating lover, victim, or whatever, and turned around. She gasped when she saw Gaston standing there. The dapper little Frenchman nodded pleasantly and said, “Bon après-midi, m’selle. A lovely afternoon for a stroll in the garden, non?”