by Lou Cameron
“They looked like natives, Dick.”
“So do you, dressed right for the part. Any dark guy with a good tan looks like a peon in white cotton and straw. None of them looked as Swedish as their guns, but none of them looked particularly Indian, either. Let’s drop it for now. Keep your eyes open till we find out who fired those other shots. They sounded like they came from somewhere near the cars.”
“Oui, but in that case, why only two? Nobody can take out twelve people with two shots, and unless one does, at least ten survivors should be making a lot of noise right now, non?”
They found out what had happened when they rejoined the others near the riverbank. Exactly ten people stood around two figures on the ground between Major Wallace’s steam car and the one he’d winched out of the river.
Wallace was one of the guys on the ground. The other was Marlowe. Captain Gringo put the Maxim in the rear of Sylvia’s Stanley and walked over to join them. He didn’t ask if they were dead. He’d seen dead men before. Major Wallace lay on his back with a puzzled expression on his face. Marlowe lay face down with a little whore pistol still gripped in his hand. Captain Gringo asked what had happened. The one called Bertie said, “I shot Marlowe. Had to. The rum bugger whipped his gun out and fired point-blank at the Major for no reason at all!”
The girl called Phoebe said, “I think he had a reason. The poor major had just said to put his hands up. I fear there was more to our Mr. Marlowe than met the eye!”
Captain Gringo said that was for sure, as he knelt to roll Marlowe over and go through his pockets. Sylvia asked, “Why was Major Wallace holding him up, for heaven’s sake?” Captain Gringo couldn’t ask Marlowe. The remittance man’s dead face was covered with mud in place of any expression it might still have worn.
Captain Gringo got Marlowe’s wallet as he explained, “I told him to, when it occurred to me he’d stalled his car out there on purpose. There was only one reason for him to do that. He wanted to be left behind. Gaston and I just met his friends a quarter mile up the road. You boys and girls were expected. ”
He opened the wallet. The damned I.D. said that Marlowe was Marlowe. He started going through the other pockets as he added, “In fairness to this slob, he tried to stop you the nice way by getting lost a lot. The ambush up a ways was the backup in case you really got this far. Here’s a Swiss army knife. Big deal. You can buy that in any good hardware store. He didn’t take any chances about being searched, did he?”
Bertie said, “Oh, I say, why should any of us have suspected him of … whatever it was?”
Captain Gringo was too polite to say they’d been taken in like a bunch of greenhorns by a guy they’d never seen before. He stood up, pocketing the nice knife, and stepped over to the major’s body. As he knelt to go through the other cadaver’s pockets, Sylvia said, “For God’s sake, we know who he was! He and my late husband belonged to the same club!” Captain Gringo took the folded map from Wallace’s perforated shirt pocket. To his mild surprise, the “treasure map” was a modern merchant-marine navigational chart printed on linen bond. It, too, had been perforated. As he unfolded it, Marlowe’s bullet hole multiplied to a dozen, and the bloodstains didn’t do much to make the map legible, either. Captain Gringo grimaced and said, “This poor slob sure got his ticket punched. Is this the only copy of the map?”
Bertie said each driver had been issued a copy by the late major and scampered off to his steam car before Captain Gringo could tell him not to bother. The tall American put the mined map aside, rolled the body to get at its wallet, and satisfied himself that Wallace had I D. no sneakier than Marlowe’s. But Marlowe had to have been a sneak.
He rose to his feet again and said, “Well, gang, I’d say that tears it. Without a leader, the party’s over. You all know the way back to Puerto Cabezas. Gaston and I have private reasons for not going back there, but—”
Sylvia snapped, “Don’t be ridiculous. We still have the maps, and what just happened doesn’t mean the treasure’s been shifted.”
A surly male voice in the crowd muttered, “Reasons, indeed! Leave you two up here to look for the perishing treasure on your own? Not bloody likely!”
Sweet little Phoebe said, “Oh, I say, these chaps wouldn’t play us false. They don’t know where the treasure is!”
Captain Gringo ignored both remarks as he explained, “If there ever was anything worth digging up at Laguna Caratasca, it’s long dug. Can’t you all see what’s just happened? Marlowe joined your expedition to steer you wrong. Those fake guerrillas a quarter mile ahead were waiting to make double-certain. In other words, the other side was on to you before you started!”
The redhead, Pat, of all people, said, “Pooh; if some other chaps beat us to the treasure, why would they have gone to so much trouble to stop us? What poor Major Wallace was after must still be there!”
Sylvia said, “She’s right. They may know about the treasure, but they haven’t found it yet, Dick. By the way, whom do you suppose they are?”
He shrugged and replied, “Professionals, which is more than you folks can say. Look, you’ve all got money and nice homes to return to. This has gotten beyond an adventurous lark. The other side is playing for keeps and we don’t even know who they are!”
Bertie came back with his own copy of the map and handed it to Captain Gringo already unfolded. As the American scanned it, Sylvia said, “We’re pressing on, with or without you and Gaston!”
There was a chorus of agreement as Captain Gringo studied the neatly inked-in additions to the printed blowup of Laguna Caratasca. He whistled wearily, started folding the map again, and said, “Okay, you’d probably never make it back alive alone anyway. We haven’t time for an election. So I’m the new numero uno and Gaston is my segundo. Gaston?”
“Oui?”
“I’m taking Marlowe’s White Steamer for a cover-up joy ride as soon as we can unload the supplies and get up a head of steam. I want you to lead everyone and everything northeast into the big timber at least a couple of miles before you fort up and wait for me there.”
Gaston nodded and turned to point at two of the Englishmen, saying, “You and you will assist me in unloading Marlowe’s horseless carriage. The rest of you to your vehicles and fire up your boilers, avec dispatch!”
One of the Englishmen made the mistake of asking why he had to take orders from a perishing little Frog. So Gaston kicked him in the balls.
As the victim writhed on the ground in pain, Captain Gringo said, “Sorry about that. I forgot to tell you Gaston’s used to commanding Foreign Legion thugs. I said there wasn’t time for an election and this is not a debating society. We have maybe an hour to get the fuck out of here, if we’re lucky. We’re up against pros, damn it! They had a squad of well-trained riflemen backing Marlowe. So what do you bet they have someone even meaner backing the guys we just took out?”
*
After Gaston and the others had driven away, Captain Gringo loaded the two bodies into the back of the White Steamer and got in the front with the machine gun. He opened the throttle gingerly and the big steam car responded by lurching forward. He saw that its engine was less responsive than a Stanley’s. So much the better. He wanted weight and power, not speed.
He drove over the stubble cleared by Sylvia’s push into the gumbo limbo, and when he came to standing saplings, he kept going. He admitted she’d had a point about wanting to drive all the way to the lagoon country through this shit. Most of the trees went down ahead of him as the bumper cut them off near the ground. Some of the springy trunks whipped the wrong way and tried to ride with him. But fortunately they were only a little thicker than broom sticks so he didn’t get seriously clubbed.
He leaned into the whipping with his head as low as the steering wheel, following the ruts by feel until he burst out into the clearing where the would-be ambushers had waited. They were still there, with company. A mess of turkey buzzards had settled to feed on the corpses. He braked to a stop and looked away as one
helped itself to a juicy eyeball, ignoring him and the steam car.
He turned and said, “This is where you get out,” to Marlowe’s corpse. He rolled the dead sneak over the side to sprawl artistically in the gumbo limbo stubble. He thought about moving over to the flank to police the brass he’d spilled mowing down the other bodies in the clearing. He grimaced and muttered, “Hell with it. Anyone who can read sign will know these slobs were taken on the flank. If we leave ’em a really interesting trail, they won’t bother looking for the few footprints Gaston and I might have left in the dead leaves over there.”
He put the steam car in reverse and drove backward in a circle, the way a panic-stricken or wounded driver might have at greater speed. He cut a swath of underbrush, reversed, and made a K turn out into the clearing deliberately to run over a corpse with a squishy bump while he left some tire tracks to read. Then he drove back the way he’d come and ran over Marlowe as long as he was about it. Why make it easy for his friends to recognize the bastard, right?
He drove back near the river and circled around aimlessly to wipe out or confuse the pattern of tracks left earlier by other vehicles. Then he stopped, dragged the dead Wallace up front, and got out. He sat the corpse more or less behind the wheel, picked up his machine gun, and opened the throttle a bit with his free hand. The White Steamer slowly backed into the river. Its firebox hissed and went out as the sluggish water rose to swallow it. But the steam on tap kept the White moving. So Captain Gringo braced the Maxim on his hip and proceeded to shoot the shit out of it. As the boiler blew with a billowing cloud of steam, the big car stopped a dozen yards off shore. He’d used up the rest of the belt. He ejected it and tossed it into the river for the current, such as it was, to carry away.
He surveyed his handiwork. Wallace slumped nicely over the wheel out there as Captain Gringo put himself in another’s boots and murmured, “Let’s see, they throve into the ambush as planned, but the wise-ass sons of bitches had flank scouts out on foot and it was a mutual disaster. The agent we planted in the expedition bought the farm. The leader was hit in the shootout and only made it to here, but it sure looks like the others made it back across the Segovia. By now they’d have made it back to Puerto Cabezas, and then …? Shit, why worry about them?”
He hefted the spent machine gun to his shoulder and picked up a snapped-off sapling before following the tire tracks Gaston and the others had left cutting into the woods. As he walked backward out of the clearing near the river, he swept soggy dead leaves into meaningless patterns with his heavy improvised broom. It was hard work in this humid heat, but he made sure there were no tire tracks within a city block of the clearing before he dropped the sapling, turned, and followed the remaining tracks.
It wasn’t as easy as it might have been. At Gaston’s direction, Sylvia’s lead car had zigzagged for the high and dry between the buttress roots of the big timber, and the soggy forest duff had sprung or oozed to heal its furrowed surface. He’d have lost the trail if he hadn’t known it was there and the general direction they’d taken. But after he’d walked a million weary miles with the heavy Maxim and was cursing Gaston for driving off so fucking far, he spotted the side of a steam car ahead between the trees. Better yet, Gaston had posted a perimeter and he was challenged by Bertie as he came in. As they met, Bertie said, “Oh, sorry. We’ve assigned Phoebe to drive Wallace’s steamer. Wilson didn’t do so well getting here. Don’t know if he’s less experienced or if it was the kick in the nuts.”
Captain Gringo made a mental note that the possible troublemaker was named Wilson. He’d memorize the other names when he had time for contemplation. He moved on, saw that Gaston had drawn the big vehicles into a wagon laager, and heaved the Maxim into the back of Sylvia’s Stanley with a sigh of relief as the others joined him, babbling all at once.
He nodded approvingly at the extra gear now strapped neatly to the Stanley, but said, “Don’t bunch up, damn it.”
Gaston elbowed through to say, “Merde alors, Dick, are you expecting an artillery shelling?”
Captain Gringo said, “Don’t know. They had mighty up-to-date rifles. Okay, as long as the gang’s all here, I think I left them a false trail. The reason for all these dramatics was on your maps. Professional draftsmen inked those printed charts for Wallace. I’d say that was where he made his-first mistake. A journeyman draftsman doesn’t make enough to live on in London if he likes booze and broads enough to matter. The poor dumb Wallace had them ink in the words Treasure Trove on at least five charts, and anyone can read Laguna Caratasca when it’s printed halfway across a damned navigational chart! One of the draftsmen made a private copy to show his drinking buddies. Jack the Ripper can’t be the only criminal London’s ever seen. So you kiddies weren’t the only gang recruited to go treasure hunting. Damn, I wish Wallace hadn’t bought the farm! He left us with so many loose ends!” He turned to Sylvia and said, ‘Tell me more about Wallace, Sylvia.”
She said, “I thought I had. He rowed for Harrow and belonged to my late husband’s club. I assure you he was socially acceptable.”
“Where did he get that major’s rank?”
She looked blank. Bertie said, “Indian Army, retired, he said.”
“Retired, Bertie? The guy couldn’t have been much more than thirty-five or so.”
“Well, now that I think about it, I do believe there was some sort of a row. Chap at the club said Wallace had gotten into some sort of sticky wicket in the Punjab and been allowed to retire for the good of the service or some such rot. Sorry, don’t have any details to offer. By the way, I do hope he was buried properly back there?”
“I disposed of both the bodies properly,” said Captain Gringo, which was true, when you studied it. He said, “All right, we’ll sort out the small print later. Right now we’d better put some more distance between our butts and whomsoever. Gaston, how tough was it driving through this tall timber?”
Gaston said, “Formidable, but not as impossible as I expected at first. I frankly thought you were mad to suggest chiving through a jungle in horseless carriages. I always thought they had been designed with paved roads in mind.”
“Let’s hope that’s what the other side thinks. Sylvia, do you have a pocket compass?”
“No, but there’s a compass on the dashboard. Didn’t you notice?”
“No. Who looks at dials when cops are shooting at you? With dashboard compasses, this gets even better. You sure can’t navigate by the sun, down here under all this spinach. Okay, everyone mount up and follow us. We’re going for a drive in the country.”
Nobody argued. Nobody wanted to be kicked in the balls. As he got in with Gaston, Pat, and Sylvia, he said, “Drive due west, doll.”
Sylvia started the Stanley and swung the wheel as he’d told her to, but objected, “Why are we headed for the Pacific, Dick?”
He explained, “We can’t get there from here. Honduras is too bumpy away from the coastal lowlands. Anyone trailing us will be afoot, or at best aboard a bronc, and horses need lots of rest in the tropics. The plan is to drive so far that nobody can possibly catch up before we’ve taken time to rest up, sort things out, and plan our next move. You were right about the seaward approaches to the lagoon being guarded. Wallace was an old military hand and had the standard marks for gun emplacements inked in. Unless he had a vivid imagination, somebody on the other side sure has lots of money and a private army. Where Wallace screwed up was in marking his own sneaky landward approach. The trail we just left wasn’t on the original charts until he had it inked in. Assuming the other side has a copy, we don’t want to approach the lagoon anywhere near that damn trail! If our luck holds out we may be able to swing around through the jungle in a wide circle and come in from the northwest, which would surprise the hell out of me if I were holding the lagoon right now. The lagoon runs nearly fifty miles along the Mosquito Coast. A force big enough to have every approach covered would be big enough to take all of Honduras, so why fool around with hidden treasure?”<
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At his side in the back, Gaston said, “Eh bien, but Laguna Caratasca is not our target, Dick. We know where that was without Wallace’s map. Did the map pinpoint the treasure?”
“Of course not. The other side wouldn’t still be looking for whatever Wallace was after if he’d been that dumb. There’s a two-mile-square area just north of the end of the old trail where he was dumb enough to letter in ‘Area of the Buried Treasure.’ Where was that old pirate camp?”
“In the area he outlined, of course. I am beginning to see the light. Wallace didn’t know the exact location himself. He just knew where the coastal pirates used to hide out between sea forays. He heard or, worse yet, assumed some of them buried some loot before they were shelled to premature retirement by Queen Victoria’s adorable gunboats. It is my understanding that they did not content themselves with pounding the pirates from the sea. After they pulverized the camp, they sent landing parties in to mop up. The pirates may not have been in condition to discuss buried treasure with the Royal Marines, but it seems to me the heavy shelling should have unearthed anything that was not buried trés deep, non?”
Captain Gringo smiled thinly and said, “That works even better. Wallace was a military man and marines talk to soldiers if they’re buying the drinks. Try it this way. The pirates didn’t bury anything. Like you said, why should they have?”
Gaston nodded and said, “Oui, les Royal Marines are paid better than my gay old Legion, but not that much more. Let us say one or more of the landing party found some goodies in the ruins, shoved them into a shell crater, and kicked as much sand in atop the loot as they could manage before their officers got wise! It falls together much better than a barefoot Captain Kidd, non?”