Renegade

by Lou Cameron

  “Juarez was all right, wasn’t he?”

  “A ray of sunshine in a sky forever overcast. Since ’seventy-eight we’ve had only Diaz. You must understand he is only an ordinary monster. Many of the older people remember Santa Ana, and now there was a real maniac!”

  “You mean, better than the devil we know?”

  “Alas, I fear this to be true. Diaz is smart enough to stay on the good side of Washington. He is co-operative with your Standard Oil, and he offers the international business community stability. They, too, prefer the devil they know.”

  “But the way those damned Rurales behave—”

  “Ah, now we get to my strategy, as you call it. You see, one must be just. Los Rurales seldom bother a simple peone who doffs his sombrero and bows as they ride past.”

  “Unless they have something Los Rurales want.”

  “True, but they have almost nothing. Perhaps a plump chicken or a pretty daughter. Hiding such pitiful wealth is easier by far than fighting a revolution, when one is old and tired and illiterate. It is the young of Mexico I am counting on. Boys not yet men who remember nothing but Diaz, and what a tyrant he is. A month ago I met a boy no more than ten or twelve whose father had been murdered by Rurales. His name is Francisco, or, as we call him, Pancho. As we wait here he is only a little boy with brooding Indian eyes, but he has a gun and they say he’s killed his first man, a Rurale dispatch rider. Mark my words, we will hear more of little Pancho Villa in the future.”

  “I wish I had your patience, Professor. But what’s the matter with the dictator’s mind? If he’s smart enough to butter up the outside world, it seems he’d be smart enough to ease up on the peones. They want so little. Why can’t he leave them in peace?”

  “Perhaps he would, if we let him. I know you regard our comic-opera revolution with amusement, but as long as one man is out here resisting, Diaz must send out his butchers, and each time they butcher, some boy like Pancho Villa will survive to remember. There will be many such as he in another few years. From scattered bandit gangs our movement will grow to a revolutionary army. You are still a young man. You’ll live to see it.”

  Captain Gringo didn’t answer as he wondered, once again, just what he’d gotten himself into! The old man was crazy as a loon! Who’d ever heard of a war lasting a generation? And he didn’t figure to live all that long unless he dropped out of this particular war. A man could even justify deserting these crazy rebels. They were deliberately making things worse in Mexico in hopes, some day in Utopia, it might get better!

  One of the others shouted, “Mira! I see the headlight!” and Captain Gringo raised his own voice to shout, “All right. Remember, all of you. You’re only here to cover me. I don’t want anyone to fire unless I tell them to or you see I’m dead and have to look out for your own asses. Are there any questions?”

  Someone laughed and shouted back, “Yes, I would like to know if it’s true gringos don’t believe in Jesus.”

  “I’ll give you Jesus. I’ll send you to see him, tonight, if any of you fuck up!”

  He could hear the locomotive now and added, “Everybody down and dead silence. They’ll have guards riding on the cow catcher.”

  “Can we shoot the guards, Captain Gringo?”

  “No. Stop fucking around and shut up.”

  He crouched in the shadows of the bank with the professor and counted to almost a thousand under his breath as the locomotive pounded up to where they were and beyond, and then he was on his feet and running.

  He ran up the bank, saw the illuminated squares of the passenger coaches ahead of him, and grabbed for a hand iron on a passing freight car. He missed the first one, but as another car whipped past he had the iron in both hands. He hung on. The speed of the train whipped him from the gravel and slammed him up and around into the blinds between the cars. He flailed his legs, caught a heel on the coupler, and shifted his grip to the ladder on the end of the car near the brake wheel.

  He hauled himself up the ladder to the top of the car and braced himself against the flying cinders and lashing air as he got to his feet and started moving forward on the catwalk. He jumped the space between cars and almost ran into a brakeman, headed the other way with an unlit lantern. It was a hell of a way to run a railroad.

  The brakeman saw him at the same time and asked, “Hey, what are you—?” And then Captain Gringo had picked him up without a word and thrown him, screaming, off the train.

  The tall American teetered for balance a long, anxious moment, then legged to the front of the forward freight car and dropped down between it and the passenger car in front.

  He held the ladder with one hand as he almost stood on his head to reach the janney with the other. He was desperately aware that anyone taking a casual peek put the rear window of the passenger coach would spot him outlined in a square of light. But who looks out a window between two railroad cars?

  He uncoupled the whole rear of the train, and as the passenger coaches and engine went merrily on their way, Captain Gringo climbed topside again and proceeded to twist the brake wheel.

  He could only set the wheels on this one car, but the grade was flat and he felt himself slowing down as the locked wheels under him bawled like ruptured pigs. Far up the track he saw the rear lights of the forward section wink out as a distant crackle of gunfire drifted in the wind.

  As he felt the train stopping, a freight-car door under him opened and a voice shouted: “What’s wrong? Why are we stopping?”

  Cupping both hands to his mouth, Captain Gringo shouted, “Now you shoot, you lazy sons-of-bitches!”

  The desert exploded in a firecracker burst of happy-go-lucky musketry, and it was over in minutes. The few guards left back with the horses leaped out like the cars were on fire, hands up and screaming for mercy.

  They didn’t get much. By the time Captain Gringo joined the others on the ground they were all dead and a guerrilla was hauling of! a pair of boots he thought might fit.

  The professor ran over to him, shouting, “You did it! Oh, I love you like a son!”

  Ignoring him, Captain Gringo shouted, “Pepe, Roberto, Paco! Fold down the loading ramps and get those fucking horses out on the double! If any are wounded or stubborn, shoot them. I want every animal off in less than three minutes or I’ll carve your hearts out with a dull knife. Where the hell is Sergeant Moreno?”

  “I hear and obey, my Captain and Father of train robbers!”

  “Let’s get to those fucking field pieces and skip the compliments.”

  “They are in the last car, my Captain. You want them spiked; no?”

  “Jesus Christ, I thought you said you knew about artillery. You don’t spike a breech-loading gun, you silly son-of-a-bitch! You blow it up. Have you still got that putty I gave you to carry, or do I stuff your head in?”

  “I have the sacks of putty. Pedro, here, has the dynamite you gave him, too. Where do we put it?”

  He said, “Follow me,” and led them around a horse ramp to the rear car. The door was open and some guerrillas were admiring the four squat field pieces and their ammo caissons jammed together tightly in the car and braced with pine dunnage. He demanded the demolition gear and went to work. He slapped a gob of putty and a stick of dynamite atop each caisson. Then he opened each gun’s breech block, stuffed it with putty, and shoved three sticks in each. He threw the soggy sack of putty to the sergeant and said, “Here, work around to the muzzles and stuff them up.”

  “You will not light the fuses until I am finished?”

  “Not if you hurry. The firing’s dying down farther up the track. Our guys are withdrawing up at that end. We’ve got maybe twenty minutes to be at least a kilometer from here.”

  He saw his orders were being obeyed and he went to the doorway to look out. For all their crazy jokes, they were good soldiers. The Army horses were about unloaded. Someone shouted, “When do we start herding these horses away, Captain Gringo?” and he shouted, “Now! As each man finishes the job I gave h
im I want him running for home. Move it!”

  He ducked back inside and said, “Get out of here, Sergeant. The rest of you, too.” Then, even before they’d moved, he started lighting fuses. After that he was quite alone.

  He lit the last one and jumped out, running. He didn’t stop running ’til he got to the mounted guerrilla holding his horse. Then he vaulted into the saddle, heeled his mount, and snapped, “Away, everybody!”

  He was riding at a dead run across the desert when he suddenly saw his own shadow ahead of him, outlined in brilliant orange, and then the shock wave slapped him across the shoulders and the night filled with a horrendous roar!

  He didn’t look back. He could hear the flying debris coming down all around and, by the force of the blast, he knew the ammo had detonated, too.

  If Carillo and the others had pulled their end off as smoothly, any surviving troops were in a hell of a mess. Gaston had promised to blow enough holes in the locomotive’s boiler to leave the train stranded in the middle of the desert. Naturally, the soldiers would be stuck there too. When they cautiously made it back down the track to where their mounts and heavy weapons had been, they’d find nothing but scrap metal. If their C.O. had the brains of a gnat he’d hole up in the shade of the remaining cars, horde any water left in the locomotive tender, and sit tight until another train came. Since the guerrillas had cut the telegraph wires too, they were likely to have quite a wait. But what else could they do, poor bastards?

  Captain Gringo led his men back to a small but very noisy fiesta. El Generale Carillo had obviously beaten them back to Vegas Salinas, and the little pueblo was delirious.

  After dismounting and seeing to his pony, Captain Gringo went first to see if Rosalita was all right. He found their little love nest empty. Everyone seemed to be at the victory celebration.

  About a third of the villagers were crowded into the little cantina, with the other two thirds trying to get inside. The doors were off their hinges, being used for a table out in front, so everyone could move freely back and forth, and everyone did. He found Rosalita standing by Gaston near the table, so he probably wasn’t called upon to kill anyone for his honor. Like the others, Gaston and the girl were standing, helping themselves to the heaping bowls of food and jars of pulque on the erstwhile saloon doors. He joined them as a yapping dog ran past him with a whole roasted chicken in its jaws. He asked the Frenchman, “How did it go up where you were?”

  Gaston said, “Good and bad. Mostly good. We shot up the boiler, and the engineer, being a fool, hit the brakes instead of coasting on like he should have. Someone in the coaches showed a little more sense and doused the lights, so we had to fire at the flashes of their guns and they, of course, could see ours. So it was almost even. They were more bunched up, but they had some cover. We shot them up until everyone’s first clip was empty and then, as you suggested, ran like hell. I would say they took some heavy casualties and, of course, we heard the other cars blowing up before we got here.”

  “So, what’s the bad part?”

  “We lost three men. One boy made it almost home before he fell from the saddle. He’d been hit in an artery and was too intent on being tough to mention it until he’d bled to death.”

  “The other two?”

  “Who knows? We didn’t miss them until we got back and took the time to count noses.”

  “Jesus Christ, you don’t know whether they’ve been killed or captured? Where’s Carillo?”

  “Inside, getting drunk, of course. It’s the biggest thing he’s ever pulled off and he’s self-satisfied about it. I’d stay away from him if I were you. He knows we know it was your idea and might get testy if you threw a wet blanket over his tales of blood and slaughter.”

  “Gaston, don’t you see what it means if one or more of our guys have been taken alive?”

  “Certainly. No doubt they’ll try not to talk for a time, but in the end the troopers will get the location of this hideout from them.”

  “Doesn’t Carillo know this?”

  “Certainly he does, but he’s ridiculously brave at the moment. He says he can whip the whole federal Army any day of the week and I, for one, would not argue with Carillo when he’s drunk. Have some pulque yourself. I doubt if anything unpleasant will happen for a time. At the very least those troops we stranded out there won’t bother anyone for at least forty-eight hours.”

  “What makes you think they’ll stay stuck, once they know there’s a village and well less than twenty miles away? Good legged-up infantry can cover twenty miles in a night with time to spare. Has anybody here ever considered posting a guard or two at night?”

  “They’d only fall asleep. These men are fair fighters, but hardly disciplined. Those troopers out to the east are cavalry, not infantry. Show me the cavalryman who can march twenty miles in as many hours and I’ll kiss your ass.”

  “Start kissing. I’m cavalry, and I can walk four miles an hour. Ten hours straight. I’ve done it.”

  “Oh, you’re not an ordinary soldier. You’re a fucking machine of some kind. We’re talking about sloppy Mexican saddle bums.”

  “Desperate sloppy Mexican saddle bums who know they’ll fry like eggs out there if they don’t find shade and water soon. Let me tell you something about lousy soldiers, Legionnaire. Back in the 10th they gave me a ragtag, sullen bunch of illiterate colored boys who’d only joined the Army because they couldn’t hold a job. They called me Nigger Dick and sent me out to chase Apaches with what they dismissed as he-coons.”

  “Your colonel must have liked you.”

  “He was a Southerner who hated Connecticut Yankees and blacks, in that order. That’s neither here nor there. The point I’m trying to make is that I led those useless he-coons out and brought most of them back alive. Before it was over we’d civilized the shit out of a couple of Apache bands nobody else had been able to whip.”

  “I know a good officer can whip almost any troops into shape. You forget I was in the Legion. But we can hope any officers we left alive out there are no better than Carillo. We can hope the missing men were killed. Merde, there is always hope, and, in any case, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  Rosalita, who’d been following the conversation with little interest, tugged his sleeve and asked, “Can we go home now? All this food and pulque has made me most sleepy.”

  “You run along and I’ll join you, querida. This is man talk.”

  “I know. I don’t understand it. If those soldiers attack, will you protect me, my tow?”

  “Of course I will.”

  “Good. I’m going to bed. Don’t be too long, you monster.”

  She walked away, a trifle unsteady on her feet, and he noticed the other men, even drunk, carefully got out of her way without looking at anything higher than her feet.

  Gaston said, “I didn’t want to say it in front of the girl, but it’s time we made some plans. Have you ever been to Tehuantepec? It’s really the nicest part of Mexico. The climate is marvelous and the women down there are all beautiful nymphomaniacs.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Desertion, of course. I agree our chances for a protracted existence are fading fast in this part of the country, but it’s a large country, and in Tehuantepec the trade winds make all this rushing about more comfortable.”

  “You’re joshing! We can’t just light out like rats deserting a sinking ship!”

  “What is so marvelous about being a drowned rat? You deserted the American Army to save your skin, didn’t you?”

  “I had no choice, that time.”

  “Merde, you think you have a choice now? This is not an army. It’s an armed mob led by a fuzzy-minded old man and a drunken bully. Have you taken any oath to either? Have you been paid, merde alors?”

  “I thought these were your friends, Gaston.”

  “I am not particularly annoyed at anyone here. The professor would pay me if he had any money. On the other hand, they owe me six months’ back pay as a co
lonel, Carillo threatens me with sodomy when I mention it, and I agree there’s a chance this place will be subject to a dawn attack by most annoyed federal troops. So, while Carillo’s drunk, let’s take the machine gun and some ponies and wend our weary way, hein?”

  “I don’t know. What about Rosalita and the woman you say you have here?”

  “Merde, women are easier to get than ammunition in this country. I noticed she called you a monster, my tow, but in consoling her so well for the loss of her virtue you’ve gotten her on the right track and skimmed the cream of amour for your time and trouble with her. As for my mujer, if you met her you’d know why I prefer to leave her behind. It would take two ponies to carry her. One under each cheek. A fat woman is all right. A jealous fat woman is disgusting.”

  “Gaston, you and I are the only men here who could even remotely be considered professional soldiers. If regular troops hit them in the shape they’re in it’ll be a massacre! A hit-and-run attack is one thing. In a stand-up fight against regulars this band wouldn’t stand a chance!”

  “I agree on all points. That’s why I’m leaving. Professional soldiers do not die for lost causes, even if they’ve been paid. Are you coming with me? I think it’s foolish, but we can bring Rosalita, if you have any untried positions left or, my God, you’re not fond of her, are you?”

  “Well, she’s a sweet little thing, and she says she loves me.”

  “Merde, every fifteen-minute whore in Mexico says she loves you. It seems to be expected of them by the men. I don’t care if you bring her along or not, but make up your damned mind. Time is running out!”

  Before they could argue further the professor joined them at the table. The old man was sober.

  Captain Gringo asked, “Professor, can you tell me just how many troops your friends said were on that train?”

  “Of course, Captain. A troop of about two hundred cavalrymen and a battery of field artillery. Why do you ask?”

  “Hmmm. Figure three hundred to be on the safe side. That means at least two hundred if they’re coming and…”

  “If who is coming? What are you talking about? What do all these mysterious numbers mean?”