by Lou Cameron
“They’ll get wet,” Captain Gringo cut in, adding, “The rainy season is starting and, even if it was the dry season, there’s just not room out there. They’d be packed like sardines arid we’d have half of them down with diarrhea in no time.”
Across the table, Bowman gasped, said, “Jesus, Walker!” and got to his feet to bolt from the room. The redhead he’d left behind blushed and said, “Oh, you shouldn’t have said that. My Jim has been suffering an upset tummy since we got here.”
El Criado Publico sniffed and said, “I agree it is not a topic for dinner conversation. But we must do something about the security of my people.”
Captain Gringo nodded and said, “Leave them alone to fend for themselves, then. I don’t see why a pro like Maldonado would shell the village down by the water. He and his men won’t occupy it until they take this high ground, because we could, from up here. He’ll dig in along the tree line to the west to cut us off from the jungle.”
He took another sip of coffee before he added wearily, “That’s if we’re dumb enough to let him, of course. There’s still plenty of time to move inland and set up flexible lines of defense. Artillery isn’t worth much in heavy timber against a shifting target.”
The rebel leader frowned and said, “That would mean abandoning the villagers I’ve just liberated to the mercy of the enemy!”
“So what? Maldonado’s a professional soldier, not a butcher. He won’t put anyone against the wall unless they shout viva la revolution a lot, and they won’t. There are other villages to liberate. The idea is to keep a viable army in the field and make them expend time and money on your movement.”
“But I have worked so hard at reforming this particular area.”
“Okay. So it’s reformed. Once the rains start in earnest, it should be safe to dig in for the season in some other village and reform the hell out of it. That Colombian column will go back to Panama City to dry out, and meanwhile you’ll have survived longer than the average rebel movement ever gets to in these parts.”
“We are talking in circles, Captain Gringo, and my mind is made up.”
That seemed for sure. So when the next course was served, Captain Gringo ate silently and then excused himself from dessert to go see how Gaston was making out.
He found the dapper little Frenchman up on one of the star points, dismissing the crew who had just placed one of the captured howitzers to his taste. The position overlooked the fishing village and wide moonlit lagoon to the east. The night was clear and pleasantly cool with the trades picking up again. But the air still held a hint of brass polish. Captain Gringo took a drag on his claro and said, “I sure wish that hurricane out there would swing ashore.”
Gaston said, “Oui. It would be trés amuse to sit high and dry as our playmates from Panama City flounder about in tangled wet spinach. You just missed another amusing sight, Dick. That strange girl, Inocencia, just asked me to help her get her pussy back. It appears they have locked the creature up somewhere, and Inocencia seems to think I have the rank to restore it to liberty. I told her I found her pussy worthy of my total admiration, but alas, I only work here, non?”
Captain Gringo grimaced and said, “Both her pussies are sort of weird. The old man’s locked it up down below. For once he makes sense. I sure wouldn’t want that thing coming up behind me in the middle of a firefight!”
Gaston said, “Oui. That is what I just told her. Speaking of weird pussy, Dick, have you noticed something weird indeed about the pussy situation here?”
“I just said I had. Inocencia’s nuts, and that redhead can’t be as dumb as she sounds.”
Gaston shook his head and said, “Never mind the pussy that we know and love. What I wish to know is where the missing pussy might be!”
“We’re missing some dame?”
“We are missing more than one! Until M’mselle Pendergast arrived, no doubt unexpectedly, Inocencia was the only female in this fort! She does not even have the usual duenna required by Spanish custom. There are no female servants. Rank has its privileges in any garrison, but not even the officers have the usual adelitas. Some of the enlisted men have girls down in the village. I asked. But no women are allowed in the barracks up here. I am beginning to suspect we may have enlisted into a bed of pansies!”
Captain Gringo frowned thoughtfully and said, “The old man can’t be, if he’s a widower with a grown daughter.”
“He may have felt confused in his youth. The enlisted rebels come in all shapes and sizes, but have you noticed that every one of his officers is a pretty-boy?”
“Oh, come on. Has anybody tried to get you to bend over for the soap? They do seem young and overzealous. But so would a bunch of monkish students, and we know the old goat was a law professor in Cuba before he decided to put his theories into practice.”
Gaston said, “If they are college boys, they must have gone to one très strange school. I was, as you know, raised in the same faith. So when I was forced to go to school at all I naturally attended Catholic school. It is not true that choirboys are sexless.”
“So I’ve heard. Come to think of it, these jurado guys are sort of androgynous. They don’t act interested in sex one way or the other.”
He thought, and added, “Isn’t there a Catholic order that, ah, sort of castrates its monks?”
Gaston blinked in surprise and replied, “Mais non! This is the nineteenth century, not Renaissance Italy! The Popes long ago forbade the creation of castrati choirboys, on pain of excommunication. There is still some obscure Russian sect that cuts off balls for God. But what can one expect from mad Russians, hein?”
Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “I understand more than one Pope tried to stop the Spanish Inquisition, when playing with matches got a little out of hand, too. But did anybody listen?”
“True. The Spanish have always considered themselves more Catholic than any mere Pope. But how are we to check your interesting theory? I, for one, am not about to ask any jurado to drop his pants for me. If he were to turn out to be a mundane miraposa, we could both end up feeling trés silly!”
Captain Gringo laughed at the mental picture and said, “The guy who’s really out to shove it up our tails is somewhere out in the jungle with an army. So let’s not worry about the guys on our side, as long as they have the balls to fight.”
Gaston said, “I have a better idea. Let’s run for Costa Rica and let them fight alone! This is not a good situation, Dick. Maldonado knows what he is doing. Zagal does not.”
“I know. I just tried to talk sense to him. But we took the money, and I could sure use that presidential pardon!”
“Oui, even though I shall miss you if you go back to Connecticut to be a Yankee. But what good would a full pardon from your President Cleveland do you against a Colombian wall? That is where we shall all wind up unless someone around here begins to think rational thoughts, you know!”
Captain Gringo nodded and replied, “I know. Meanwhile, we’ve got a day or so to work something out. So I’m turning in. Are you coming?”
“Not yet. You don’t need me to jerk you to sleep I shall stay and admire the view for a while. If la Nombre Nadra appears on the horizon I shall sleep a lot better. We have something to outrange the twin of this adorable howitzer, and if Esperanza brings me a gun with a longer tube, I may stick around awhile.”
So Captain Gringo went below to hit the sack. Gaston leaned against the rough stone battlement and gazed out to sea as he smoked his own cigar. He turned when he heard a soft footstep and saw Inocencia standing there in the moonlight. She said, “It is no use. They won’t let me see poor Diablo. They said it was my father’s order. Oh, how I hate that man!”
Gaston said cautiously, “I make it my practice never to involve my tender nose in family quarrels, señorita. No doubt you feel your father is strict, but I am sure he means well, hein?”
“My father is a monster,” Inocencia said flatly. Then she moved in closer and said, “Listen, caballero, if you will help me get Dia
blo out of that dungeon I will let you fuck me.”
Gaston gasped and replied “Mon Dieu! I am overwhelmed by your offer! But as I told you before, there is nothing I can do about your adorable pussy. The one in the cellar, I mean.”
“What is the matter, don’t you wish for to fuck me?”
As a matter of fact, Gaston had to think about that. In his time, old Gaston had shoved his dong into some pretty ugly stuff, and the girl was really beautiful. But she was also obviously emotionally unstable, and her father owned a private army. He said, with a gallantry he didn’t really feel, “It would probably kill me. But I can’t think of a better way to die, señorita. On the other hand, there is simply no way for me to get at your other pussy. I am not in command here. Your father is.”
She pouted her lush lower lip and said, “It’s not fair. Father will not let me encourage anyone to pay court to me, and now he has deprived me of my sole companion. I hate to sleep alone.”
Gaston sighed and said, “One gets used to it by the time one reaches my age. I have always tried to avoid it as much as possible. But that is life, non?”
She regarded him thoughtfully in the moonlight for a time, then she smiled, in an oddly disturbing manner, and said, “My father would have a fit if I went to bed with a man as old as he.”
“True, señorita. Perhaps we should not tell him, hein?” Gaston thought she was joking. But Inocencia took his hand and said, “Bueno. We won’t. Come with me, caballero. For I mean to fuck you like a madwoman!”
So, a while later, when Captain Gringo heard noises next door and unplugged the pinhole to see what in the hell was going on in there, he was surprised to see Gaston, of all people, going sloppy seconds to a jaguar. They both seemed to be enjoying it as Gaston humped the lovely young Inocencia dog-style instead of cat-style. For one thing, Gaston had a surprisingly big dong for such a little guy, and the chestnut-haired beauty was arching her spine to take it all as she showed them both how much she admired older men.
Captain Gringo plugged the hole again and got back in bed with his book. It was shitty to play peeping Tom on a buddy, and if they hadn’t caught her with the jaguar by this time, Gaston probably wouldn’t get caught in there either. Like most over strict fathers, El Criado Publico probably thought that all one had to do to keep a daughter pure was simply to make sure she didn’t go out at night. Captain Gringo chuckled fondly as he remembered that girl down the block back home who was only allowed to speak to young men on her porch swing. She sure had given great blow jobs.
He’d relit the lamp to read and his pants were handy when he heard a soft knock on his own door. So he only had to haul on his pants and pick up his .38 and he was in shape to receive visitors.
It was Martha Pendergast. The redhead blushed when she saw he was bare from the waist up. He didn’t see why. She was in her nightgown. And it was a thin one.
She said, “I have to talk to you about my Jim.”
He said, “I wish you wouldn’t. I’m not a doctor. But I think it’s yellow jack. I don’t want to know anything else about him.”
She came in and shut the door before she insisted, “There’s something wrong with him, and I don’t mean the trots he seems to have picked up from the water here. Do you find me attractive, Dick?”
“Sure. You’ve only got one head and I don’t see any scars. But I thought you were spoken for, Martha.”
She said, “I did, too. But Jim hasn’t touched me since we got engaged.”
“Well, aside from having the trots, he could be an old-fashioned boy.”
She frowned and said, “I’m an old-fashioned girl. But not that old-fashioned! Heavens, we’re almost in the twentieth century, and, you know, we’re supposed to be engaged!”
He moved back toward the bed as he chuckled and replied, “I get the picture. Ah, have you been engaged before, Martha?”
“Only a few times. I wouldn’t want you to think I was a loose woman.”
“Oh, heaven forfend! I understand your problem completely. It would be kind of dumb to marry a guy for keeps without trying him on for size first, wouldn’t it?”
“That’s exactly what I suggested to my Jim. But he said the idea was shocking. He said he’d promised his dying mother that the girl he would someday marry would be pure.”
He sat on the bed, saying, “Well, I won’t tell on you, if you still mean to marry the jerk-off.”
She sat down beside him as she sighed and said, “I suppose I ought to. Jim has a very good job and I’m almost twenty-five. I’ll probably never get a better offer, and I’d hate to die an old maid.”
He doubted that was liable to be her fate as he caught a whiff of her perfumed body odor. But he said, “I don’t see what you need me for, then. I’m not a justice of the peace.”
She leaned even closer as she said, “No, but you’re a man of the world and I need your advice, Dick. I think I’ve patched things up after sort of shocking Jim. I cried a little and told him I’d just been testing him. You know how it goes.”
“Boy, do I know how it goes. I’m still missing something, Martha. If you mean to go ahead and marry the guy without a physical exam, what can I tell you?”
“How to act like a virgin. As we were making up, I had to tell a few little white lies. You know, his dying mother and all.”
Captain Gringo laughed incredulously and asked, “Hell, don’t you even remember what it feels like to be a virgin?”
“Not really. You see, when I was about nine there was this boy next door and one day as we were playing doctor—”
He cut in with another laugh and said, “I’m beginning to see the light. Getting into slap-and-giggle before one’s been properly scared by Queen Victoria could make it tough to play the blushing bride, I suppose. But, hell, how experienced could Jim Bowman be, if he talks so dumb? Just tell him you ride bikes a lot, and cry a little on your wedding night, and he’ll probably buy your tales of innocence.”
“I’d already thought of how I cried when I hit that bump on a hard bicycle seat, Dick. But I’m worried just the same. As were making up, Jim confessed he’d been wicked a few times as a student at Yale.”
“He went to Yale? That explains a lot.”
“He said he’d been to a house of ill repute more than once. But that he’s reformed and very ashamed of his misspent youth. I forgave him for not being a virgin. I don’t think he’d be as broad-minded if he suspected I might not be.”
“I think you’re right. But what do you expect me to do about it, audition you as a virgin?”
She clapped her hands and said, “Oh, would you?”
He told her he’d be glad to as she pulled her nightgown off over her red head and lay back stark naked and redheaded all over.
He shucked his pants and didn’t bother with the lamp as he got right down to testing her virgin act. It wasn’t very convincing. As he mounted her she hissed in pleasure, bit down with her internal muscles, and came up to meet him in a series of most experienced bumps and grinds. He grinned down at her in the lamplight and said, “Take it easy, Red. You’re not supposed to come, the first night.”
“Oh, pooh, that hardly seems fair. Kiss me and help me come, you big silly.”
So he did. Her French kissing was another mistake, but he enjoyed it, so what the hell. Martha spread her creamy thighs wider to take him deeper as she dug her nails into his buttocks to take it all the way. She moaned, “Oh, I like to feel it touch bottom with every stroke like that. I hope my Jim has a cock as big as yours, dear.”
He grimaced in distaste and kissed her lush lips again to keep her from talking so dumb. They were both hard up, so they came soon, together.
As they paused for breath, she giggled and said, “That felt marvelous. I wish we could be engaged for a while. Did it feel like you were fucking a virgin, dear?”
“Hardly. I don’t think even a Yale man would buy your hot tamale as a cherry pie. Can’t you even act like you’re not sure you want to?”
; She raised her knees, locked her ankles across his bare rump, and said, “But I do want to, Dick. Doesn’t everybody like to fuck?”
“Hmmm. I can see I’m going to have to calm you down a bit before we consider the finer points of wedding-night dramatics.”
“Oh, goody! Let me get on top this time!”
He did. The view was inspiring as she moved her creamy body and red pubic thatch up and down, her head thrown back as her perky white breasts bobbed with lives of their own to follow. He hadn’t had any woman at all for some time, and the redhead was better than most. But, for a virgin, old Martha sure was acrobatic.
She stopped halfway to heaven and said conversationally, “I want to try something my second or third beau taught me when we got engaged. He wasn’t nearly as big as you.”
He didn’t answer as she wedged her naked legs around and got a bare heel planted in each of his armpits, bracing herself on locked elbows with her hands gripping his shins when she leaned farther back and said, in that same dumb baby-doll voice, “Tickle me while I go up and down, dear.”
He grinned and reached down to place his palm against her soft lower belly, with his thumb on her clit as he rotated it in the moisture where her red pubic hair parted pinkly. She hissed in pleasure and began to move up and down with his more vital organ clasped tightly inside her. She asked, “Isn’t this nice?” and he responded by coming in her, hard. She giggled when she felt it and kept moving. He didn’t mind at all. So by the time she’d climaxed that way, he was fully aroused again, and since she seemed to enjoy acrobatics, they wound up in some very odd positions indeed before she finally said, “Seriously, Dick. I want you to give me some fucking lessons.”
He laughed like hell, since he was pounding her from above and behind pretty good when she said it. But he knew what she meant. So he withdrew, rolled her over on her back again, and said, “Okay. Pretend this is your wedding night and we just got into bed.”
“But, Dick, I’m not going to many you. I’m going to marry Jim.”
“Whatever. The first thing you do is cross your legs and tell me to stop and let you think about the awful things I seem to be about to do to you.”