by Lou Cameron
As they followed the dirt path past the first railroad bridge across a dry wash a voice called out, “What have we here?” and two uniformed men stepped out of the shadows. Captain Gringo wasn’t sure if they were soldiers or police. Since both packed pistols on their hips, it hardly mattered.
Gaston stopped and lowered his sack wearily to the ground as he replied in his perfect Spanish, “You have us cold, caballeros. We are rich Yankee tourists, smuggling emeralds to our mansion up the hill.”
“Don’t get fresh with me, peones! Why are you carrying charcoal out to the woods instead of the right way, into town?”
“Because we can’t get the fucking charcoal to carry us! They tried to cheat us on the price. They said they needed little charcoal at this time of the year. Maybe we’ll take it home and wait until the price is better, eh?”
“And maybe you are ladrones. Open up the sacks. I want to see what the two of you have stolen this time.”
Gaston shrugged and bent as if to open his sack. Then he dove forward and rammed his head into the nearest cop’s middle, drawing a knife as the two of them went down.
At the same time Captain Gringo swung his own sack from his shoulder like a club and caught the second uniformed enemy on the ear with a skull-cracking blow. The cop never knew he’d been killed until it was too late to complain.
The American stomped the man he’d downed but saw there was no need for further violence. Gaston rose, knife in hand, and said, “We’d better drag them through the trestle and hide them in some brush, hein?”
Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “No. We’ll haul them down the wash around the bend. The next rain will wash them away. Bodies hang up in bushes above the flood level.”
“I stand corrected. But let’s move them fast. There’s no telling who’ll come up or down this traveled path!”
They left the sacks where they were, as each grabbed a cadaver by the booted ankles and hauled them out of sight from the railroad and path. Gaston helped himself to both guns and the contents of their pockets before they left them to the mercies of climate and crows.
As they resumed their walk up the slope, Gaston said, “Not bad for a few moments’ work, hein?”
“Some of the others can use the extra guns. I don’t know what you wanted with another watch.”
“Ah, perhaps I shall meet a señorita who wants a present.”
“Sure, in the middle of the jungle. Watches can be traced, Gaston.”
“Guns have serial numbers, too. If you mean to steal, take everything”
They trudged on in silence until a female voice hissed out, “¿Quien es?” and Gaston called, “It’s us, Sor Pantera. You are early, non?”
As they joined the woman under the second railroad trestle, Sor Pantera said, “The police have Jose Spinoza. I told him not to say good-bye to his parents, but … well, at least they failed to take him alive.”
Gaston put his sack down and sighed, “If they didn’t take him alive he didn’t talk. But if they’re moving in this early, they might have picked up some of the others. All in all, I think it is time to sprout wings.”
Captain Gringo put his own sack down and said, “It’s early. We won’t set up the gun, but we’ll wait a few minutes here. Others might be on their way, running, if they’ve heard about Spinoza.”
He looked soberly at the stone-faced Sor Pantera and added, “I’m sorry about Jose. I liked him.”
“I liked him, too. I tend to agree with Gaston. We have been betrayed and it must be everyone for himself, now.”
Captain Gringo squatted down and began to roll a smoke as he asked, “Do you know why armies have cavalry, Sor Pantera?”
“Of course I know why they have cavalry. For to ride the horses, no?”
“No. For to ride down panic-stricken enemies. Aside from a little scout work, the cavalry is held back until the enemy has been routed by the infantry and big guns. When soldiers lose their nerve, they run, every man for himself. That’s when the cavalry .troopers ride them down with lance or saber. They call this mopping up. Sometimes a smart corporal, or even a wise old private, rallies a few men to make a stand. The cavalry rides around people like that. It’s no fun trying to stick a man who’s facing you with a gun.”
She stared quietly at him for a time. Then she nodded and said, “You must forgive me. I am not used to being defeated, and I wasn’t thinking. When my husband was killed I was a child bride and had no part in the fighting. Since then I fear I have been a mighty amazon around a candle stub in some cellar. My first taste of the real thing made me forget my friends. I am all right, now.”
He nodded and said, “I know what Spinoza meant to you.”
“I said I was all right, damn it.”
Gaston murmured, “If you two are finished, I hear someone coming.”
The three of them listened silently as the sound of footsteps on gravel came up the wash the railroad crossed there. The moon was rising and they could see four men in white cotton with crossed bandoliers of ammunition and big straw hats.
As the quartet spotted the trio under the tracks, one of them removed his hat and said, “Buenas noches. One would hope we have encountered civilized people. They say these hills are infested at night with bandits.”
Sor Pantera appointed herself spokesperson by answering, “We know about bandits, caballero. I am called La Sor Pantera. Does the name mean anything to you?”
“Ah, la senora is a fellow revolutionary? How patriotic of you all to bring presents to us in the hills.”
“We have no presents for children. If you are men, the Balboa Brigade could use you.”
The bandits drifted closer, as if trying to get a better look at the odds. The leader put his hat back on and said, mildly, “Three people make a small brigade, no?”
“Others will be joining us here any minute. I see you have machetes. I agree we are close to town for gunshots. If you don’t want to join us, go away.”
“Go away, Sor Pantera? What is this go-away nonsense? These are my hills! I am called El Aquilar, and it is for me to say who comes and goes here!”
“If you join us, you and your men will take orders from our captain here. El Aquilar is a grand name for a man with no shoes, but I shall make allowances for your youth. Are you with us or against us?”
El Aquilar studied them from under the dark rim of his sombrero as he made up his mind. Then he laughed and said, “Hey, I like brave women. Let us share a smoke and talk.”
The four bandits came under the trestle and squatted down among the three of them. El Aquilar struck a match with his thumb and they could see as he lit a cigar that he was a handsome man of about forty. He winked at Sor Pantera and started to say something. But his words were gargled in his throat as the woman slashed his throat with the blade she’d been holding down at her knee.
At the same moment, Gaston drove his own blade to the hilt and twisted in the rib cage of a second bandit. Captain Gringo had the last two by the throats and smashed their surprised heads together with a grisly thunk. One of them was still twitching as he dropped him to the sand, so he stepped on his windpipe and crushed it like a beetle.
Sor Pantera’s voice was conversational as she said, “I took a chance on you two knowing the futility of dealing with hill-roving bandits.”
Gaston chuckled and said, “Forgive me, but you took no chance at all. We all know the breed and how they must be dealt with. May I say you played your part well? Your Spanish bandit is always so willing to play cat and mouse. It’s a wonder they stay in business at all.”
“Our people are predictable, too. Let us hope the soldiers after us will play out the usual patterns of conversation before a fight.”
Captain Gringo muttered, “More company,” and this time the five men coming in were fellow members of the Balboa Brigade. Their leader was a youth called Chino. He said, “The city is crawling with troops. They just came ashore from a steamer. They got a couple of our people, alive. Who are these
hombres? They look dead.”
Captain Gringo said, “They are, and so will we be if we hang out here much longer. Eight people don’t make much of a brigade, but the next recruits figure to be Colombian troopers. We’d better move it out.”
As he led the way uphill, Sor Pantera fell in beside him and asked,
“Do you think so few of us have a chance, Captain Gringo?”
“Of winning your revolution? No. Of getting away? Fifty-fifty.”
Chapter Ten
The prevailing trade winds dropped most of their moisture on the Atlantic side of the Culebras, so once they were over the crest the night air was clammy and the brush around them began to take off for the stars. All of them, including the woman, were well legged up, so they made the far side with plenty of darkness to spare.
Captain Gringo called a halt a hundred yards down the slope where a charcoal clearing gave way to a wall of quinine trees and timber bamboo. He hunkered down and began to assemble the machine gun as Sor Pantera asked, “Why are we stopping here? We’re barely to the jungle and it will be daylight soon.”
He said, “I know. The bugs will chew hell out of us if we plunge in before daylight. I’ll show you later how to keep them off.”
He called to Chino and said, “You have a machete. I want you to hack out a clearly visible break in the bamboo, over to my left a hundred meters. Chop through until you reach the clear space under the shade of the main canopy. Then come back.”
Chino nodded and said, “I understand, Captain Gringo. You wish for them to waste time chasing down a path we do not intend to take, eh?”
“Sor Pantera said you were smart. Get to it. Gaston, I’ll want you to lead the main party into the trees at an angle to my right. Get a good mile in, sit tight, and for God’s sake wait for me this time.”
“I see your plan. You’ll want us moving just before sunrise, hein?”
“Yeah. I’m going to leave the tripod here. Goddamn legs keep hanging up on things and I’ll always be able to find a log to brace it over.”
“You’ll need a loader, won’t you?”
“No. Take the extra ammo belts with you. I’m just going to feed ‘em one and move out sudden.”
Sor Pantera sank to her knees at Captain Gringo’s side and gasped, “I see, now, what you mean to do!”
“Yeah, if they run true to form. They’ll move up the last few yards of slope at dawn, braced for a firefight. Most green troops fire down from ridges. When they get to the crest, unless they have a good officer in command, they’ll stand against the skyline congratulating themselves for taking the high ground and looking around at the view. The Prussians did a real job on some Frenchmen at Sedan that way.”
“But once you start shooting up at them, one man against God knows how many—”
“The survivors should be flat on their faces and trying to get flatter for a while. One man with a machine gun is more than one man. Don’t worry. I’ve done this before, Sor Pantera.”
She stared at him unwinkingly and said, “I believe you have. Gaston told us you were a soldier. I see he was right. You are a brave man, Captain Gringo.”
“I’m not trying to be a hero. A lot of things a soldier does is simple common sense, when you think about it. The job you did on that bandit back there was wilder.”
“Oh, that? I had no choice. They meant to kill us.”
“Right. The troops coming up the far slope about now aren’t out to pick flowers.”
He opened the action, dropped the belt into the bolt feed, and slammed it shut. He threw the arming lever and lowered his eye to the rear sight as he rotated the elevating knob. Sor Pantera asked, “Is it ready to shoot?” and leaned closer as if to peer along the barrel with him. He noticed the almost animal smell of her hair and wondered if she needed a bath or if the peasant clothing she’d changed to belonged to an unwashed maid. He said, “The gun’s armed. I’ve set it to sweep the skyline.”
“Gaston said you would need a loader. What does a loader do?”
“There’s usually a three-man crew on a machine gun. One man runs in fresh ammunition belts. Another feeds them into the gun and keeps the belts from twisting. The gunner’s job is obvious.”
“I understand, and I shall load for you.”
“No you won’t. In a few minutes I want all of you to clear out. This isn’t heroism, either. I’m going to pin them down, if I can, and pull back into the trees before they spot my position. I’ll have enough to worry about just getting my own carcass out of here. I don’t want to have to drag anything but the gun with me.”
“But what if you are wounded? Who will help you get away?”
“Honey, guerrillas who get wounded don’t get away, if they’re wounded enough to matter. If I’m hit and can manage, you can play Florence Nightingale a few miles deeper in the trees.”
“And if you can’t manage?”
“Why give them two for the price of one? Make that three. No one of you could carry me. If you want to play the game, you have to understand the numbers. So far we’ve killed two of them and they’ve whittled us to seven men and a girl. From here on, let’s make them work harder at it. I want you to stick with Gaston and to do as he says. He’s been at this sort of thing since before you were born. If anyone can get you out, it’ll be him.”
She nodded and said, “I will do as you say. You are muy toro, my Captain Gringo.”
She kissed him on the cheek and rose. The kiss had probably been meant in a sisterly way, but, damn, she certainly lingered in the air. He wondered if that was why they called her a panther. He’d assumed it was her catlike way of moving, but she even smelled feline. It was her own odor, he was sure. Nobody who wasn’t used to it would have put that blouse and skirt on if they were where the smell came from. He wondered if she had some glandular condition. It was a cloying sexual scent that repelled and aroused at the same time. He watched her moving down the line toward Gaston and wondered what it would be like with Sor Pantera. She wasn’t bad-looking, but bedding anything that primitive would be close to bestiality. He didn’t know how he knew, but he was sure women had smelled like that when his ancestors were hunting mammoth from some Ice Age cavern. If he lived through the next few hours he’d have to ask her what her own ancestry was. She didn’t feel right for a Spanish or mestiza woman. She belonged to some earlier race everyone had written off as extinct by now. Her features were human enough, but she was hairy as most men, and there was something not quite human in the way her heavy brows met in the middle of her forehead.
A nearby bird suddenly began to complain, and Captain Gringo looked up at the sky to see a pearl-pink cloud cross a star. He waved silently at Gaston and watched as his little band of survivors melted into the tree line. Chino trotted in from the other direction and the American waved him past, saying, “Get going, Chino. Good luck.”
“The same to you, amigo. If we don’t meet again, I said you were a real man.”
Then Chino, too, was gone, and Captain Gringo was left to greet the dawn alone, crouched behind the Maxim.
In one way, it seemed to take forever. In another, the sun bobbed up to his left with indecent haste. The skyline turned light blue and he could see the green and lion’s-mane colors of the grass on the ridge now. He was going to feel foolish if nobody came after all the dry wads of cobweb he’d been swallowing up to now.
It got brighter and some birds fluttered into his field of fire to start gleaning the slope for insects. Weren’t the troopers even interested? One of the captives must have talked by now. Maybe they thought there weren’t enough rebels left to bother hunting down.
Then, suddenly, a man in mustard uniform appeared on the skyline, followed by another and another.
Captain Gringo held his fire as he watched the patrol line up on the ridge above. There were a dozen now. One turned as if to motion following troopers up the slope behind him. It looked like a full combat patrol of at least thirty men. Two more popped up against the skyline as one who
looked like an officer or NCO began to pan out across the treetops with a pair of field glasses.
Captain Gringo knew he’d be spotted any second. So he took a deep breath, let half of it out, and pulled the trigger.
The Maxim chattered its deadly woodpecker song as gouts of dust rose along the crest of the Culebra. He hosed low, cutting weeds and anklebones alike as men started dropping up there. Some, he knew, fell into the bullet stream with their legs chopped out from under them. Others simply ducked and rolled back over the slope. There was no way of telling for sure. But as he finished his traverse the ridge was clear, save for drifting dust and someone in the distance calling for his mother.
Captain Gringo rose, lifted the gun out of its tripod mount as he backed into the trees behind him. There was a puff of smoke, and a bullet slammed into the leaves above his head. He kept moving back, but fired a burst from the hip for luck before crabbing to his right. He ducked under a hanging vine, bulled through some thorns, and found himself in clearer ground between the buttress roots of main canopy trees that stood free of light-loving underbrush. He headed for the others, firing short bursts of four or five rounds from time to time. He fired into the air, not to hit anything but to make the troopers thoughtful about charging after him recklessly.
He ran west of the path he knew Gaston had taken, cut back to the tree line, and popped out as a long, ragged line of troopers came over the ridge with fixed bayonets. He braced the Maxim on his hip and shot away the last of his belt, hosing them from the flank and putting at least two more on the ground.
Then he ducked back in the trees, backtracked, and started legging it downslope with the gun over his shoulder. He didn’t run. He moved in the mile-eating silent stride of a trained infantryman. Green troops ran. Old soldiers walked. A man could run perhaps five miles or so before he began to hurt. A legged-up infantryman could cover fifty miles and still be fit to move on, taking only a little more time.
He found Gaston and Chino waiting for him where the path crossed a running stream. Gaston said, “I sent the children wading. They went downstream.”