They ditched the incriminating military uniforms the next day.
The llamas had to be abandoned when they descended to the elfin fog forests on the far slope. So Gaston’s sweetheart and the other four were left to fend for themselves on the higher pastures, and the packing got more serious. But they were moving downhill as they took turns packing the Maxim and ammo. Pancho suggested leaving behind the canteens, but Captain Gringo vetoed the idea. It was true they’d find water everywhere in the rain forests, but how much of it would be fit to drink was up for grabs. He said, “Nobody drinks water they haven’t boiled at least twenty minutes. We’ve got enough to worry about without the jungle trots.”
Despite the lower altitude, the upper reaches of the fog forest were cold as hell. Everyone was chilled to the bone by the constant gray mist all around. For, in truth, they were still high and descending through the cloud ceiling that hung over the vast jungle basin of Amazonia. The growth along the trail was spooky. The trees that grew this high were gnarled and stunted visitors from some other planet, reaching claw-like limbs out to snatch at hats and skirts when you weren’t looking. Everything from slimy boulders to twisted trunks was covered with fuzzy green moss. Long gray beards hung dripping from the leafless trees killed by lightning. It was sobering to note how many trees up here in the cloud had caught a bolt of Jove’s fire. Yet even dead wood shared the same spinach green of the mist-nourished moss.
Diablilla marched rather smugly at Captain Gringo’s side, with a belt of machine-gun ammo proudly draped over one shoulder. The ponchos had all been rolled to carry, since the mist penetrated every fold of cloth and walking in wet wool was asking for pneumonia. Gaston and Captain Gringo knew more about lowland jungle running than most of the highland natives they were leading. So there’d been a little griping about unusual orders.
But the two adventurers had insisted. They knew that as the greatest killer in a desert was the unexpected flash-flood, one of the unexpected dangers of the jungle was the common cold. People expected jungles to be hot, and they were, a lot of the time. That was why pneumonia claimed so many lives among jungle dwellers. It was impossible to tear-ass through the jungle in an overcoat. So people with damp, naked skin tended to get sudden chills when the temperature dropped. It never got really cold in a jungle, but sixty degrees is cold enough to make one shiver like hell under damp cloth.
It took them the better part of a day to descend through the fog belt. But by late afternoon they’d gotten down to what the natives called La Montana. High rolling country covered with quinine arid other trees one associates with the South American jungle, or, to give it its Brazilian name, the selva.
Selva, which means forest in Portuguese, was actually a better description than the East Indian term, jungle. The Amazonian rain forest is not a thick tangle, save near the edges of a river or a clearing. Under the high tree canopy it’s too shaded for thick growth at ground level. So while they had to hack their way through places where a fallen forest giant had exposed the red soil to sunlight and a growth spurt, it was more like walking through a vast pillar-filled cathedral, in this case with a sloping floor. They could only see occasional patches of the gray sky high above, and it was dank and gloomy at ground level all through the day.
But after they’d been slogging down the slope through the selva a few hours it was obviously getting darker. Pancho, who was packing the Maxim, asked Captain Gringo what they were going to do about it.
The tall American had been keeping an eye on Pancho. But the ex-soldier hadn’t seemed particularly upset about his relationship with Diablilla, and the erstwhile virgin had been acting rather obvious about her newfound worldliness. He’d caught her talking to one of the other girls that morning, both of them grinning his way, as Diablilla made a measuring motion with her hands that there was no possible mistake about the meaning.
He told Pancho, “You’re right. We’d better start thinking about a campsite. You’re an old campaigner, Pancho. Where do you think we ought to set up.”
The bearded mestizo looked pleased and said, “Well, near water sounds good in the high country. Down here it could be dangerous, no?”
“Yeah, caiman and anacondas make me nervous, too. Any open clearing would be choked with brush. On the other hand, a fire in the open under these trees could be seen a long way between the trunks.”
Pancho said, “We passed a place a few minutes ago that I considered. Perhaps we shall come to another soon.”
“Perhaps we won’t. It’ll be dark in another couple of hours. Let’s move back to your choice, Pancho. Give me that gun and take the point.”
Pancho grinned boyishly and said, “Hey, you are the kind of leader I like, Captain Gringo!” as he handed over the Maxim and pointed back up the slope to add, “Remember that wall of second growth a quarter kilometer back? If we built our fires between tree boles and the brush ...”
“Good thinking. Nobody chasing us down-slope could slip up on us through the brush without making noise. Nobody farther down knows we’re here, and if they don’t see our fires, they won’t know we’re here some more.”
So Pancho led them back to his chosen campground, strutting a bit, but what the hell, he’d earned it. Unlike many officers, Captain Gringo liked to lead men who didn’t have to be burped. No leader can do all the thinking for everyone. Most soldiers think pretty well for themselves, if they’re encouraged. Captain Gringo owed his life to a Negro private in the old Tenth Cav who’d had a hell of a good idea one night in Apache country.
Some of the others grumbled that they were backtracking, but Gaston had caught on and backed Pancho with a string of curses, adding, “The point of this operation is not to get anywhere in a hurry, my children. It is to get there alive, hein?”
So the camp was set up where Pancho had suggested as a long line of small night fires tucked against the wall of uphill brush. Captain Gringo left his part-Indian followers alone as they laid small Indian fires screened from prying eyes by buttress roots and fallen logs. The way you found out if a recruit was an idiot was to let him show you by making a mistake before it really mattered. So far, he’d yet to see these guys and the handful of girls in a real emergency. But they’d lived through a revolution and seemed to be shaping up.
Meanwhile, as Diablilla built their own fire near the spread-out poncho she’d decided was theirs, he set up the machine gun on a fallen log. It had no tripod mount and the water jacket made it heavy and clumsy to fire offhand. He took out his jack knife, opened the screwdriver blade, and opened the petcock to drain the jacket. Pancho, who’d been a soldier and seemed eager to learn, strolled over to ask him what he was doing. Captain Gringo said, “Water weighs eight pounds a gallon. If I have to fire this gun from the hip, I’d rather not have to lift that much.”
“Ah, I heard about the way the famous Captain Gringo fires a machine gun like a carbine. But they told us the water is for to cool the barrel, no?”
“It is, if you’re firing steady in a siege situation. I’ve found these guns can take a little dry firing in short bursts.”
“What if a long burst is needed?”
“It very seldom is, Pancho. I don’t think the modern manuals we read have machine-gunning down to a science yet. Someday I’ll bet they make all these things air-cooled. I’d like to see more weight in a thicker barrel and forget this horseshit with a water-filled tin can around it. I just explained about the weight. There are other problems Señor Maxim didn’t think about when he designed this toy. You can’t always get water, and when you can, it can freeze. Maxim builds these things to hose a steady stream of lead, like the old Gatling gun. Think what you could do with a lighter weapon, made more like a rifle and fired in quick bursts. You don’t need more than six or eight rounds at a crack to discourage hell out of anybody coming at you. I’ve found the other side has a tougher time locating your position, too.”
Pancho shrugged and said, “Well, you are the machine-gun expert,” and moved away. Captain Gringo watched him out of one corner of his eye. If Pancho lined up one of the other girls, the problem was over. But Diablilla had said something about the other women in the band having chosen new soldados, hadn’t she?
He finished with the gun and stood ,up, putting the knife away. As he started to walk off, Diablilla called, “Where are you going, querido?” and he said, “Down the slope aways. I want to see if anyone can spot a fire from farther down.”
He turned his back and left the campsite. It was quite dark now. He had to watch his step. The leaves rotted away soon on the red soil, but freshly fallen ones were slippery as banana peels, and there were other things a guy could step on in the dark, like bushmasters or other poison snakes. Fortunately, army ants didn’t march at night. They made camp, too.
Mosquitoes didn’t. He slapped the side of his neck and got one. Mosquitoes weren’t really much worse in the jungles down here than they’d been in the backyard on a New England summer’s eve, but he didn’t enjoy them anywhere. He’d met that old Spanish doctor in Panama who kept saying mosquitoes carried Yellow Jack. Nobody else believed him, but Captain Gringo had an open mind on Yellow Jack. He’d had it once, and he didn’t want to go through that again. They said a guy was immune to jungle fevers once he’d lived through a bout. But they’d lied to him about Santa Claus, too.
Diablilla called his name and he stopped and turned. It was damned near pitch-dark and he couldn’t see any fires. It looked like they were safe for at least one more night. One night at a time was the way you lived your life down here.
Diablilla’s form was a ghostly blur as she caught up with him. She said, “I brought the poncho, my toro.”
“Yeah? How come? Don’t you want to sleep by the fire?”
She laughed and said, “Of course I wish for to sleep by the fire, but how can we make love up there among the others, eh?”
He grinned and said, “You’re on, but it’s sort of early, isn’t it?”
“Early? I have been wanting to feel you inside me all day! Come, make me your vile woman some more. We can eat and sleep later.”
So they spread the poncho on the ground and undressed to resume her education. Considering how late in life she’d started, there seemed little he could teach her. She’d never known the girl could get on top, but when he suggested it she responded with enthusiasm. As she lowered herself on to him she gasped, “Oh, I feel like a little chicken roasting on a spit! Am I being vile enough for you, my soldado?”
“Yeah, I’ve never had it so vile. Jesus, if only I could get you in a hotel room where we could go at it right …”
She bounced happily and replied, “I, too, think this would be nicer on a soft mattress. Is it true that wicked people do this in front of mirrors with the lights on? That sounds very vile.”
“I know. Would you like to do it, Diablilla?”
“Oh, yes. It is most pleasant, doing terrible things with you. It is very odd, but I do not feel ashamed when we do vile things together. I have always heard this is a fate worse than death. Yet I have never felt so alive! Do you think I have become a wicked person, Dick?”
He propped himself up on one elbow to kiss her and fondle her bobbing breasts as he assured her, “You’re not being wicked. You’re being a woman.”
“Si, but the Church says that Our Lord does not approve of people doing this, querido.”
“Maybe. Do you think Our Lord made us, Diablilla?”
“Si, it says so in the Bible.”
“All right, if He made us, He made, us the way we are below the waists, right?”
“Of course, and I am most grateful for the way He made you, Dick!”
“I owe Him, too. You’ve got a lovely little box. So listen, why would anybody go to all the trouble of giving us such complicated organs if we weren’t supposed to do anything with them?”
She started breathing faster as she gasped, “Oh, I like what we are doing with them, Dick. I think I am, how you say, going again?”
He rolled her over on her back and began to pound her as he growled, “You’re not going, doll, you’re coming,” and she moaned, “Either way, I love it!”