Renegade 25

by Lou Cameron

  He blinked in the dark and said, “You’re right. I never would have guessed it was him!”

  She shrugged a bare shoulder against him and began to fondle him as she said, “Well, the poor Swiss doesn’t have his own woman aboard, like Keller, Horgany, or you. But it’s still a little disgusting, don’t you agree?”

  “I’ve never tried it. What happens, now that the crew knows?”

  She frowned and asked, “What do you mean, darling? Nobody’s going to do anything. They just wanted to know. My people are a curious race.”

  “You can say that again. On some vessels the skipper would maroon anyone caught at buggery, it they let the poor bastard live at all. Your people must be tolerant as well as nosy.”

  She chuckled and said, “Everyone enjoys gossip. But Greek men feel it is beneath them to pick on weaklings, unless their women are involved.”

  “Hmm, that makes them not only regular guys but explains a lot of dumb stories, I guess. How come your people are so strict with you girls if they don’t mind a guy getting sexy with another guy?”

  “Heavens, can’t you see the difference, dear? What you and I are doing would be a sin, if my father ever found out. What Socrates does is just silly! The poor thing thinks he is a woman, but it’s not his fault he’s crazy. That Swiss is the one who’s disgusting, as well as weak. Could you put this in such a disgusting place, Dick?”

  “Heaven forfend!” he answered innocently, adding, “I’d cut it off first.”

  She laughed and said, “Please don’t. I’m not through with it just yet.” Then she stiffened in his arms and hissed, “Oh, someone’s coming!”

  It sure wasn’t him. He stiffened, too, and tried not even to breathe as they heard someone moving around in the hold outside. Moving sneakily; too!

  A million years went by as the two lovers in the crate listened with bated breaths to the odd rummaging sounds outside. Then whoever it was went back up the ladder and shut the hatchway quietly.

  He took a deep breath and muttered, “Must have been one of the crew, swiping a late snack or something.”

  But Antigone said, “No, In the first place, not even Socrates would steal ship’s stores. That would get a man killed aboard a Greek vessel! Besides, he didn’t come over this way, where the provisions I haven’t unpacked yet are.”

  “He or she was surely after something down here, and I don’t think it was sloppy seconds, no offense! We’d better get dressed and get out of this box, Doll.”

  “Don’t you want to make love to me some more, darling?”

  “Want to. Can’t. I have to see if I can find out what he she or it might have swiped. Aside from that, this hold isn’t as private as you said it was, and I do so hate to get caught with my pants down!”

  It was a good thing he’d thought of that. They’d barely dressed-and lit the hold lamp to examine the cargo when the hatch above slid open and Venezis called down, in Greek. So when Captain Gringo told her to for Pete’s sake answer and let him take it from there, she did, and the skipper came down the ladder, holding a big belaying pin in his free hand and wearing a puzzled frown on his leathery face.

  Captain Gringo said, “You heard it too, eh? Your cook here just told me she thought someone was trying to get into her stores. But when we came down just now, whoever it was was gone.”

  Venezis went right on frowning thoughtfully as he said, “You heard noise in the hold and came down alone, without calling me?”

  Captain Gringo opened his jacket to expose the grips of his .38 as he answered easily, “I didn’t come down alone. I told this girl here not to follow. But you crazy Greeks all seem to want to act brave for some reason.”

  Venezis said, “All Greeks are brave, even our women, as you just saw. But you probably just heard something shifting as we tacked just now. The trades are picking up again and I’ve hoisted the sails to save fuel; see?”

  Captain Gringo certainly didn’t want the skipper poking about among the packing cases. So he said, “Well, everything seems secure enough now.” Then he turned to Antigone and said briskly, “You did well to tell me anyway, Miss … Antigone, right?”

  She managed not to laugh as she demurely admitted that was her name. So the three of them went back up out of the hold together and, what the hell, he’d seen enough to know that none of the other cases had been broken into. So maybe it had been someone just looking for a place to jerk off or something.

  But he told Gaston about it anyway as he rejoined the Frenchman in the stateroom he was supposed to be spending the night in and now, dammit, had to.

  Gaston didn’t like it. He said, “If someone planted a bomb down there I may never speak to you again, Dick. You should have searched further!”

  Captain Gringo said, “I looked around as much as anyone could without hauling half the cargo up on deck. Nobody aboard would be crazy enough to sink the schooner under them. By the way, speaking of crazy, that Greek boy, Socrates, sure gets around. They say he’s been screwing that Swiss, Fitzke, now.”

  “Sacrebleu, I am beginning to feel so left out. I thought you said Keller liked boys.”

  “That’s what his wife told me, before she changed her story. Maybe Keller and Socrates had a lover’s quarrel and the Swiss caught him on the rebound?” Gaston laughed and said, “I wish that Hungarian, Horgany, would go to bed with Socrates so I could get a crack at that little Eva! Alas, they seem a devoted couple, even though she does have the eyes of a dedicated sex maniac.”

  Captain Gringo told him to stop talking dirty and let him get some sleep for chrissake. It was bad enough a guy had to turn in earlier than planned with an only partly satisfied erection. Now the noisy old bastard had to remind him of stuff he hadn’t even been thinking about.

  He turned over and tried to fall asleep. He wondered if Antigone, or Herta, was hurting for him right now. He wondered what that little Oriental-eyed Eva looked like with her clothes off, and if Horgany was treating her right right now. Jesus, he was never going to fall asleep at this rate, tired as he was. But then he did, and didn’t stop to dream until just before Gaston woke him up, saying something dumb about something on deck.

  Captain Gringo sat up, rubbing his face, and muttered, “God damn you, Gaston. I was having this dream and somebody was telling me something important, if only I could remember who it was or what they were telling me. What time is it?”

  “About seven in the morning, and wait until you see what’s come up with the sun! It looks like a Carib canoe, adrift, and the lookout does not think it’s empty. He just called down that there is a naked lady lying down in it off our bows!”

  The lookout wasn’t drunk or crazy. As Captain Gringo and Gaston joined the crewmen in the bows, the Peirene lay dead in the water, gently riding the long glassy ground swell as the second mate and bos’n gently hauled a stark-naked girl aboard from her semi-swamped dugout canoe She was unconscious. That was the only reason she wasn’t putting up one hell of a fight. For the more worldly soldiers of fortune could see at a glance she was a Black Carib, no more than fourteen or so, with her firm young body too dark for pure Indian but too red for pure black or mulatto.

  Venezis still thought he’d rescued something less inclined to kill on sight, of course, so as they approached he turned and said, “There is no paddle aboard the canoe or adrift in sight. She must have lost it and been swept out of the mouth of some river over that way, no?”

  Captain Gringo said, “No, she’s not a Mosquito. The first thing we do is tie her hands and feet. Then we’d better take her canoe in tow and wake her up with some brandy. I doubt it, but she may speak a little Spanish.”

  Venezis frowned and said, “We’ll make her comfortable in my quarters and give her some ouzo. But it seems silly to tie her up.”

  Then the naked girl opened her eyes, murmuring in quite human discomfort until she looked up at the Greek seamen holding her and showed Ilias Venezis what a Black Carib behaved like, thinking she’d been captured by the white men she’
d been raised to hate.

  The Greek who’d been gently supporting her howled and reared back, clapping a hand to his face as four claw marks spattered blood across the deck. The second mate tried to grab her from behind but made the mistake of uttering soothing remarks to what he still took for a little girl, until she put him on the deck with a kick in the crotch. So when she screamed like a banshee and staggered aft along the deck, it was all hers, even if she didn’t know where she was going.

  Venezis gasped. “My God, what’s wrong with her?”

  Captain Gringo said, “Spanish slavers, for openers. I’ll get her when she falls again. She’s too weak and groggy to really sink the ship with her teeth right now.”

  He saw he was right when the Black Carib girl staggered into the fore-cabin coaming, tried to tear the roof off, and fell unconscious to the deck again as Gaston whipped off his belt and said, “I’ll get her wrists. Someone get those ankles before she wakes up again, dammit!”

  Captain Gringo dropped to his knees to hold the girl’s ankles as Venezis came unstuck and produced a length of splicing cord to lash them together. Gaston said, “Give the rest to me. I’d rather have my pants falling down than a Black Carib running free on deck. But that looks better.”

  The skipper tossed Gaston the coil. They’d just tied her good when she woke up again, struggled madly, screamed loudly, and banged her head on the deck a couple of times to knock herself out again.

  Captain Gringo said, “You don’t want her in your quarters. If she can’t get at you any other way she’ll shit your bunk. Let’s take her to the mess and put some food and water in her, for openers. She looks like she hasn’t been getting either regularly, lately.”

  He picked her up. She was amazingly light for so much trouble. He carried her aft to the ship’s mess, where by now everyone, awakened by the noise, seemed to be gravitating. As he carried the young girl through the gathering crowd he shouted, “Stand back and, better yet, get the hell out of here. This kid’s scared of white faces. So it could throw her into shock to see this many gaping at her when she comes to again.”

  Actually, it seemed to give the Black Carib a raving fit just to see Captain Gringo, Gaston, the skipper, and Antigone Kantos when she sputtered and opened her eyes again after the Greek girl had forced some ouzo between her lips. She bit down on the tin cup with strong white teeth and tossed it over Antigone’s shoulder with a jerk of her head. Then, since the startled Antigone was out of easy reach, she twisted and tried to bite Captain Gringo’s face off as he held her up in a seated position atop the mess table.

  He swore and flattened her gently but firmly against the table as she pounded her bound heels on the wood, struggled to free her bound hands, and cursed him and everyone else in sight in incomprehensible Carib.

  Antigone asked what she was saying. Captain Gringo said, “It’s Carib to me. Have you got anything back there that smells really yummy? I don’t think she’s getting the message that we want to feed her before we rape and torture her.”

  “My God, is that what she thinks you mean to do to her?”

  “Can’t you tell? Get some damned food, Antigone!”

  The Greek girl dashed into the galley, grabbed the first pot she came to, and ran back out with a mess of fava beans laced with garlic and olive oil. She smiled down at the raging captive and put a spoon in the Greek cooking to let the Black Carib girl smell it.

  Captain Gringo braced himself. He knew what he’d do if unknown savages showed something that smelled like that under his nose!

  But apparently the pretty little Black Carib had been adrift at sea longer than they’d assumed. She went right on scowling and snarling at Antigone, but let the Greek girl feed her a spoonful at a time, the way a trapped wolf might accept its last meal.

  Captain Gringo laughed and said, “I’ll be damned, she seems to like Greek cooking!”

  The laugh was a mistake. The young captive turned her head away from Antigone, glared thoughtfully at him, then spat a mouthful of chewed fava beans and garlic in his face.

  He wearily wiped it away as he sighed and said, “Could use a little less garlic. I forgot they only allow their friends to laugh at them.”

  “They have friends?” marveled Venezis.

  Gaston said, “Oui, but, as one might assume, not many. She probably thinks we are Spanish slavers. Please don’t point out there are no Spanish slavers anymore. It’s been quite some time since the last ogre ate a child in my old neighborhood, but when one is raised on horror stories, one tends to become excited when they seem to be coming true, hein?”

  Having deigned to swallow a few spoonfuls of Antigone’s highly seasoned beans, the young captive refused more and seemed to be asking for something. Then she remembered one wasn’t supposed to ask favors of the devil and dummied up, trying not to cry. Antigone asked, “What do you suppose she’s asking for?” and Captain Gringo said, “That’s easy. Water. Now that we’ve relined her stomach and put some salt back in her, we can slake her thirst without killing her.”

  Antigone ran back to the galley as Venezis snorted in disgust at himself and said, “Of course. I should have thought of water right away instead of ouzo!”

  But Captain Gringo said, “No. It’s better to wake a dehydrated stomach up gently. I made the mistake of pouring a canteen down the throat of a prospector we found lost in the Arizona desert one time. He thanked us, threw it all up, and died of shock. I think it’s die salts you lose, sweating under a hot sun. I don’t know what the garlic helps, but, yeah, this one’s coming back to life okay.”

  Antigone returned with a pitcher of water and some sweet sticky loukoumi she’d just baked. The Black Carib girl seemed to trust another female better. She may have assumed Antigone was a slave girl, too. At any rate, she let Antigone feed her loukoumi and would have swallowed the whole pitcher of water had not Captain Gringo told Antigone to take it easy. The native girl glared at him as she realized he was the head torturer who wouldn’t let her have all the water she wanted.

  The others asked what came next. Captain Gringo said, “We’d better lay her down somewhere and toss a blanket over her.”

  Antigone frowned and said, “I hardly think she needs a blanket, Dick. She’s sweating like a little pig now.”

  He nodded and said, “Yeah, she sure was dehydrated. Now that her pores are starting to work again, she’ll probably come down with pneumonia on us if we let her catch a chill. She must have been adrift quite a while to get her system so screwed up.”

  Venezis said, “You’re right. She’s starting to shiver. I once found a Turk adrift, back home, and we’d no sooner cooled him off and made him comfortable than he turned blue and died on us. But it could have been worse. At least it was only a Turk. We’ll have to put her to bed. But where, if you say she’s liable to mess the bunk?”

  Antigone laughed and said, “Let’s put her in Socrates’s cubby. He’s seldom in his own bunk, and what’s a little skata on the sheets to his kind?”

  Venezis laughed too, but said, “All right. But you shouldn’t talk about a shipmate like that, Girl. It’s not seemly, coming from a woman.”

  Gaston said, “I’ve a better idea. Why not just give her a paddle and put her back in her canoe. Look at those savage eyes glaring back at us. She shows no gratitude at all and I doubt she ever shall, hein?”

  Captain Gringo said, “We’re not after thank-you notes. We just have to save the poor little brute’s life.”

  “Pour quoi? If the shoes were on the other feet the adorable child would eat us! Can’t you see she’s an untamed savage?”

  “Sure, but we’re supposed to be civilized. Let’s get her into that cubby under a blanket.”

  They did, but it wasn’t easy. The Black Carib girl wriggled like a panic-stricken snake when Captain Gringo picked her up to carry her to the mess attendant’s cubby. It felt sort of sexy to him. For she was nicely built as well as naked and slippery. But from the way she was screaming she must have thought he wa
s about to put her in the cooking pot. She seemed surprised as hell when she found herself still bound but lying on a clean sheet with a cotton-flannel blanket over her. Antigone said she’d stay with her until she calmed down, since she was the only one the frightened native girl didn’t scream at.

  As the men went back outside, Venezis asked how long all this would be going on. Captain Gringo said, “We’re over a day’s sail from the Bahías, where she must have drifted from. It looks like she lost her paddle before or after getting caught in the coastal countercurrent that swept her this far down the coast. By the time we reach her home waters, she’ll have hopefully calmed down enough to tell us which Bahia she belongs on.”

  “How? Do you speak Carib, Captain Walker?”

  “Not exactly. But we all know at least three Carib words. ‘Hurricane,’ ‘hammock,’ and ‘cigar’ were picked up by the early Spanish from the Indians. She may remember a little Spanish, once she stops spitting at everyone.”

  Venezis shrugged and said, “Well, I’m sure Socrates can find somewhere to bed down until then.” The Greek skipper chuckled and added in a lewd tone, “Our Socrates has never been happier than on this voyage.”

  “Yeah, I heard he’s been keeping his little ass busy. I wonder where, right now. I haven’t seen him at all this morning. But what the hell, he’s not my type.”

  Venezis frowned and said, “Pantocrator, you are right, and it’s his watch, too! I’m a tolerant man, but this is too much. He’s not supposed to entertain passengers when he’s supposed to be on duty! Let’s see, he’s been bending over for that Frenchman, DuVal, so—”

  “I protest in the name of France!” Gaston cut in, adding, “DuVal is a stuck-up species of bourgeois prick. But he is not a homosexual. He was boasting to me last night about his five children, and one must assume if a man has one, it could hardly have come out of a pervert’s derriere, hein?”

  Venezis shrugged and said, “Perhaps DuVal has been away from home too long. Perakis told Tarsouli and Tarsouli told me that Socrates spent the night in the Frenchman’s stateroom.”