by Lou Cameron
“What the hell for? Oh, right, first Cuban rebels shoot up a Mexican army unit and then they shoot up a Mexican town and if Mexico’s still shouting Cuba Libre after that, Diaz sure must need Yankee money bad! Did you guys figure we’d turn the tables on those Secret Service guys you were working with, as Cuban rebels, they thought?”
“Sure. That was Royce’s notion. He was betting on you. I’ll tell you true the rest of us didn’t really give a shit. But you’re still alive, I’ve want you to get goin’ afore the Spanish fleet steams in, and you gave me your word. So I sure could use a doc about now!”
Captain Gringo nodded and told Turk Malone to take care of him. Turk shrugged, aimed his rifle, and blew the bastard’s brains out, saying, “I never gave the motherfucker my word, and old Ace was a good kid, kid.”
“I noticed. Okay, we’d better put our heads together with Gaston, now that we’ve some idea what’s going on.” Back atop the dune, Gaston’s first suggestion, of course, was that they all run like hell for the cove La Nombre Nada would be waiting for them in for at least a little while.
Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “No, for a lot of reasons, Royce is between us and the schooner with a lot more fire power than we can carry. Those heavy guns can’t follow us through jungle like pups. The schooner’s in danger, too, if a Spanish fleet with its gloves off is coming this way. The pricks are even flying Cuban colors. So Esperanza’s crew could wind up dead before they knew what hit ’em! There’s only one answer. You’re not going to like it. I don’t like it much, either. We send Esperanza around through the jungle, mounted, with a mounted escort, to tip off her crew if the rest of the plan won’t work.”
Esperanza said flatly, “I’m staying here. What’s the plan, lover?”
He said, “The Spanish fleet’s coming in with the next tide. They want the locals to remember them fondly as the Cuban rebels they’re already pissed at. So they’ll move in close enough for their false colors to show by the rocket’s red glare and all that shit. They won’t expect any heavy fire in return. They know those 75s over there are the only ordinance on shore and, and who’s going to tell them their own side doesn’t own it anymore?”
Gaston cackled with glee and said, “I will! There is plenty of time to swing them about and dig them in again! Leave it to me!”
“I’m going to have to. I have to cover your ass with the one machine gun we’ve got and hope that jury-rigged action holds up a little longer. Turk, I’ve got a detail for you, too. We know where Scroggs and his bunch are. We know where Royce and company is supposed to be. That leaves Ramos and the general staff. Can do?”
“Sure. Can I lay that dame before we shoot her? She’s some dish.”
“I want her and the General taken alive. I mean it, Turk. You can screw or shoot the rest of his GHQ staff if you like, but I want to turn Ramos and his hopefully hysterical muchacha over to the alcalde or, better yet, the local priest, as political refugees. Can you guess why?”
Turk grinned and said, “Jesus, you play chess as good as Weyler, don’t you? If Ramos and the dame ever expect go get back to Spain, they’ll have to tell the Mexican government they’re Spanish, right?”
“Why do you tell me how my own cards read, Turk? Get going, and watch out for Welshmen with machine guns. He’s still the wild card in the deck.”
Turk barked out eight names, told them they’d just volunteered, and led them away in the darkness. Captain Gringo asked Gaston what he was waiting for, picked up the Maxim, and told Esperanza she got to carry the spare ammo for being so stubborn. So five minutes later they were up on the flat roof of a waterfront shop, closed for the night, with a nice field of fire, and Esperanza was taking off her clothes for some reason.
He laughed and said, “Gee, bare tits look grand in the moonlight, doll. But, no kidding, this is neither the time nor the place. This gravel roof would tear hell out of my knees, if not your tough ass, and I can’t shoot for shit while I’m tearing off a piece. I tried it once. So I know.
Esperanza said, “Pooh, if those others were coming back, they’d have gotten here by now, no?”
He frowned thoughtfully and said, “Yeah, I wonder what Royce is up to. Even if he didn’t hear another machine gun in the distance he must have noticed by now that nobody’s shelling the positions we deserted just in time. Welshmen sure can act spooky. So leave my damned fly alone, damn it!”
“I just wish for to kiss it, to see if it still likes me, querido.”
“I know what you’re trying to do. So cut it out. I’m not going to lay you until I make sure you’ll live long enough to enjoy it. I mean it, Esperanza!”
She sat pouting with her naked spine against the roof parapet and told him he was either a sissy or that he’d been cheating on her a lot of late. Esperanza was like that. They ran into one another every six months or so and every time they did she acted like they were going steady. He knew better than to ask the big Basque broad who’d been in her pants since the last time they’d slept together. Women fibbed enough to him as it was. But as the moon rose ever higher and nothing much else seemed to be going on, it was getting harder and harder. Harder to resist Esperanza’s literally open invitation, too. The way she was sitting there stark naked in the moonlight with her knees not at all close together was doing awful things to his glands. But a soldier on guard wasn’t even supposed to read. So he hung tough and waited, and waited, while nothing around them moved in the moonlight except Esperanza’s hand. He asked, “Do you have to do that, doll?” and she replied demurely, “Somebody has to, if you won’t. I told you the last time I am forced to masturbate at sea because it is not seemly for the skipper to screw her crew, no?”
Actually, it would have been safe for Captain Gringo to help his old pal out, had he known what was going on on the far side of his old positions. Royce and his own machine gun sections had naturally been puzzled when the barrage had lasted such a short time. So Royce had sent a runner to ask Scroggs why. The runner hadn’t come back. So Royce had sent another, then another. When all three failed to come back with any answer at all, Royce had seen the light. He’d warned his men to keep a sharp lookout as he led them cautiously back toward town. So once they were single file on the moonlit path, guns over shoulders, ’Bama had shouted, “Now! Hit ’em in the cajones, muchachos!” and Paco and his gang, now armed with Mexican Army rifles, had done just that.
Unlike Scroggs, Royce had been shot dead in the short “‘furious fusillade of flanking fire. So when one of the Mexicans whose sister had been raped found the Welshman’s body, he had to content himself with just cutting its cock and balls off.
It took ’Bama a while longer to reform the disorganized guerrillas. They were ladrónes first and guerrillas second, and a guy who shoots a guy with boots on deserves new boots, no? But in less than an hour ’Bama had them coming ’round the mountain and almost got them shot when he shouted “Take cover!” instead of answering Captain Gringo’s rooftop challenge sensibly.
Fortunately they recognized each other’s voices. Captain Gringo shouted, “Report!” and the big black shouted back, “Ain’t nobody left but us chickens, Cap’n! For raw recruits these boys did right well. We got you some more machine guns, could you use ’em!”
“Just leave one down there for me and I’ll come down and get it. Any prisoners, ’Bama?”
“Now why would a man as smart as you ask a question like that, Cap’n? These old Mex boys was at family feud, not war, if you follows my drift. I’ll bring this gun up to you, right?”
“Wrong. I’m not the only guy around here asking dumb questions. Get over to Gaston and the others at the end of the quay. He’ll fill you in on what’s up.”
As they left, Esperanza asked how he felt about getting it up now. He chuckled, told her it had been up for some time, but they still had other things to worry about. But then Turk Malone and his gang appeared below. Turk stiffened when Captain Gringo called down to him. Then said, “Oh, it’s you, kid. How come
you left your Maxim down here leaning against the wall?”
“Never mind. How did it go at the general’s, Turk?”
Malone laughed and said, “They was going sixty-nine when we busted in on ’em. The gal covered her tits and started screaming right off she was a Spanish citizen. We let ’em plead sanctuary at the church across, the way. I don’t think the Mex padre wanted to give it to ’em much. But he did. So about now they should be blabbing to some mighty interested Mexican priests. The General got sort of hysterical, too, once he seen the bodies downstairs.”
“They were going at it hot and heavy and never heard the shots?”
“What shots, kid? Knives are better for work in the dark. Where do you want us to hit next?”
Captain Gringo sent Turk and his men to join Gaston, too. Then he turned to Esperanza and said, “Okay, doll, you’ve been begging for it and now you’re gonna get it!”
“Wait, let me put my canvas pants under my bare rump, first.”
“Bullshit. I need ’em for my knees. Nothing else we’ve got up here is heavy enough to stand up to the wear and tear.”
Actually, he was just kidding and it wasn’t bad, screwing in the moonlight atop all their clothes. He’d forgotten how tight Esperanza was, despite her size. She said she’d forgotten how big he was, too. They always bullshitted one another at times like these. But they both enjoyed their first mutual orgasm immensely, after having to wait so long, and when Esperanza begged to get on top he let her. But they were just getting it right that way, when all hell started breaking loose. Captain Gringo stared up at Esperanza, outlined against an orange sky, and said, “Hold the thought for later, doll! Nobody comes that hard. Gaston’s got both 75s going, and somebody’s firing back!”
So they both got dressed and stood on the roof to watch the fireworks. By the time it was over half the town was watching from other rooftops all around, so nobody paid any attention to the unusually tall couple above an empty store as the whole harbor glowed orange save for the black outlines of five vessels standing just offshore, winking like big floating fireflies as Gaston lobbed shells at them from shore. Some few of the bright flashes out there were from big guns firing in reply, not too well aimed. Others were the explosions of Gaston’s well-placed shells. He sent up a mighty column of water now and again, of course. But most of his rounds went where Gaston aimed them, and Gaston was only bragging a little when he said he could drop a shell in a barrel from three miles away. The Spanish vessels were more like a quarter mile out. You could see their false Cuban colors from shore when a shell flashed nearby. It must have occurred to at least one Spanish skipper that the Cuban banner was causing him more trouble than it was supposed to. So he lowered it and ran up the red and gold of Imperial Spain, with a spotlight trained on it. That gave Gaston a swell target. The skipper on the bridge must have wondered why Mexico was mad at everyone tonight, when a 75 landed smack on the bridge of his already badly listing vessel.
None of the ships were ironclads, since everyone knew the Cuba Libre Movement had no real navy. So none of them stood a chance when a 75 was pounding them. Another sinking Spaniard raised a white flag. But the townspeople standing around Gaston’s sweating gun crews to cheer them on shouted, “Sink them! Sink them! They just blew up the bakery and this is not time to show quarter!”
So Gaston bowed to the crowd, traversed one gun, and finished it off with another two shells. Everyone applauded, so he drew a bead on the bastard steaming seaward, full speed. His round exploded on the fan deck, but the steamer kept going to either sink out on deep water or report back to Butcher Weyler that something had gone terribly wrong with his clever plans tonight. But four out of five wasn’t bad. As the glow died down, a lot of heads were bobbing out there in the water now. Those who had any sense would swim for Cuba. Because Paco Robles and his muchachos were not the only highly pissed off Mexicans who were waiting on shore with guns, machetes, or anything else they could get their hands on.
On the distant rooftop, Captain Gringo turned to Esperanza and said, “Well, sometimes you gotta win. It’s the law of averages, see?”
She said, “Si, could we find a more comfortable place for to fuck some more, querido?”
He didn’t think Lucrecia or even old Prunella would understand if he took her there. So he said, “If we start now, we can make it to your schooner by morning. We’ll take Gaston, Turk, some of the other guys really wanted bad here in Mexico. The others should be able to stay here long enough to catch another boat out. I imagine they’ll find themselves pretty popular here now, as a matter of fact.”
“Whatever you say, querido mio, as long as you screw me good, at least once, before we start hiking. Once we are on the trail with others, we won’t be able for to make love for hours and, oh, Deek, I wish to make love to you so mucho!”
He kissed her fondly and said, “There’s no hurry now. I’m sure we can work something out, doll box.”
About the Author
Lou Cameron (June 20, 1924 - November 25, 2010)
Was an American novelist and a comic book creator. The film to book adaptations he wrote include None But the Brave starring Frank Sinatra, California Split, Sky Riders starring James Coburn, Hannibal Brooks starring Oliver Reed and an epic volume based on a number of scripts for the award winning CBS miniseries How the West Was Won (not to be confused with the novelization by Louis L’Amour).
Between 1979 and 1986, using the pseudonym “Ramsay Thorne”, Lou Cameron wrote 36 Renegade adult western novels featuring as protagonist Richard Walker, better known as “Captain Gringo”.
He has received awards such as the Golden Spur for his Western writings. He wrote an estimated 300 novels.
More on Lou Cameron
The Renegade Series by Lou Cameron,
Writing as Ramsay Thorne
Renegade
Blood Runner
The Fear Merchant
Death Hunter
Macumba Killer
Panama Gunner
Death in High Places
Over the Andes to Hell
Hell Raider
The Great Game
Citadel of Death
The Badlands Brigade
The Mahogany Pirates
Harvest of Death
Terror Trail
Mexican Marauder
Slaughter in Sinaloa
Cavern of Doom
Hellfire in Honduras
Shots at Sunrise
River of Revenge
Payoff in Panama
Volcano of Violence
Guatemala Gunman
High Seas Showdown
Blood on the Border
Savage Safari
The Slave Raiders
Peril in Progreso
… And more to come every month!
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