Between one delay and another the sun was up before they found themselves on the trail, but it was just as well since the trail was a bitch, even in broad daylight. Sergeant Vallejo had positioned his men at intervals along the column, with himself in the lead and the machine-gun section bringing up the rear. Captain Gringo knew he’d been instructed to do that, but he doubted if the burly man understood why.
He and the other first-class passengers rode horseback. Second class rode burros. Third class, of course, walked. As the trail wound up in a series of hairpin switchbacks, he wasn’t too sure who had the best deal. A burro was more surefooted than a horse or even a mule. He’d have felt even safer on foot along some stretches. But they faced a long trek and he was feeling bushed already, thanks to the lousy sleep he’d gotten the night before.
If the steep mountain trail made him nervous, its effects on the others were devastating. The Divine Rowena rode with her eyes closed, clinging to the horn of her side-saddle as her dogs trotted on either side. One of the other women in her road company kept screaming that she was about to fall to her death. Captain Gringo was about ready to push her. It wasn’t the little brunette, Theresa Marvin. She rode quietly behind Liza, who in turn sat side-saddle behind the tall American, with Gaston bringing up the rear. The Divine Rowena was up front with her manager Jason, and Gaston seemed anxious to avoid her. It was understandable. By day, with all her clothes on, the big blond kept batting her eyes and practicing her bad French on poor little Gaston. But he knew she’d turn into a pumpkin when the sun went down again, and it was hard not to get interested in a reasonably attractive woman after keeping company with her all day. They’d noticed old Jason seemed frustrated, too. He’d probably been going through this game of hers for some time.
Captain Gringo was still a little pissed off at Liza, but he rode too far away to chat with Theresa. He’d had a better look at her now, and she was better in the flesh than she’d been in his crazy dream. The hat wasn’t as dumb in real life and the veil didn’t really hide her cameo features. It just kept the flies off her face. As it started to get warmer he wished he had one, too. The well-traveled trail was littered with manure, human as well as animal, and the common fly seemed to take on new dimensions this close to the equator. They had a couple of nasty biting varieties as well. The latter seemed more interested in eating their mounts alive, but he’d have preferred them to go for human blood. There wasn’t much danger to a rider flinching and slapping, but a spooked horse on a yard-wide trail with a nearly vertical wall of rock on one side and nothing but air on the other was downright terrifying.
Everyone was of course alert as they started, but as the morning wore on and nobody seemed interested in killing them, the travelers and their military escort settled down to a slogging hot climb. The sergeant called a halt once an hour, of course. It probably did the mounts some good. But it was hard to really rest on the side of a cliff.
They stopped just before noon at a campground slightly wider than a city street. It was shaded by pepper trees and littered with the trash and filth of those who’d gone before them. The flies were waiting in drifting smoke-like clouds. But Vallejo said it was siesta and that there was no place else to stop for miles.
Captain Gringo knew it made sense to stop during the hottest part of the day, but he didn’t like it. Some of the peones built a fire and began to prepare meals, oblivious or inured to the flies. He tethered his horse and walked up the trail to the last tree. He sat under it on the packed earth, with his boots hanging over the edge of an almost sheer drop, and lit a smoke. He knew that if he opened his mouth to eat he’d inhale a fistful of flies with each bite, and his stomach felt like it was full of bugs already. He knew he could smoke with his mouth closed, and the flies weren’t so bad away from the smell of horseflesh and other food.
A soft voice asked, “Mind if I join you?” and he looked up to see that Theresa Marvin had followed him away from the crowd. He started to rise and she said, “Please don’t get up. It makes me nervous to see people on the edge of a cliff.”
He laughed and said, “I figured on rolling part of the way. It’s not a straight fall to the bottom. It only looks like it is.”
She took a grip on the tree and gingerly lowered herself beside him, but sat with her legs curled under her duster instead of over the side. She took a deep breath and said, “My, it does smell better over here. I suppose I should eat, but I don’t feel up to it. How high are we now?”
He said, “It’s not altitude sickness. That starts at about five thousand feet, it if bothers you at all. You might be seasick from that ride you just had. I don’t suppose you’d like a cheroot?”
She dimpled and said, “It’s not proper for a lady to smoke in public, but what the hell, as we say in Rome.”
He grinned and took out a smoke for her. As he struck a light he noticed the way she lifted her veil to smoke it and had to struggle to keep from laughing. She took a deep drag, blew it out through the black mesh and said, “Thank you, that certainly helps to kill the smell around us. Does your wife smoke cigars, Mr. MacUlrich?”
He knew she had to have heard he and Liza were married, so he assumed she was establishing the fact that she “knew” he was married. He nodded and said, “It’s better than dipping snuff like Queen Victoria. Are you English, by the way? Your accent seems American.”
“Oh, most of us are Americans. The Divine One picked us up in San Francisco. Apparently English Shakespeareans tend to laugh at her.”
“Well, As You Like It is a comedy, isn’t it?”
“Yes, not one of his better efforts, but it’s the only one she’s committed to memory. We were a disaster in Merry Wives of Windsor. Naturally she wanted to play Mistress Page and made me play Mistress Ford. Some of the audiences were quite rude about it.”
He laughed and said, “I can see why. She seems to have the ages reversed.”
“Oh, that was the least of our worries. I can play the older woman, but her Spanish isn’t very good and she forgets her lines in English.”
“You don’t sound like you care for her very much.”
“Good grief, who would? Poor Jason is gaga over her, but he’s the exception to the rule. Perhaps she reminds him of his mother.”
“Meow! Why do you work for her if you dislike her so much?”
Theresa shrugged bitterly, and said, “It’s a living. I’m actually not a very good actress, myself. But I thought if I could tour with a legitimate road company and collect some press notices ...”
So that was it. She’d been told he was a newspaperman. He’d never realized the full advantages of being a member of the fourth estate. She was a pretty little thing and what could it hurt to write her up for his supposed Canadian paper? He could probably be in and out and on his way before she realized his rave notices weren’t going to appear in print after all.
But he decided his life was already complicated enough with a so-called wife that carried her act all the way to the vapors. He knew he’d probably never see any of these people again once they got to Bogotá, and there didn’t seem much chance of getting next to her on the trail. So he let the offer go over his head and said something noncommittal about looking forward to watching her play when and if they reached the capital.
As if she’d had her own lines provided by a very unimaginative playwright, Liza came to join them, saying, “There you are, darling. Have you been enjoying the … scenery?”
“No. When you’ve stared off one mountain you’ve stared off ’em all. You’ve met Miss Marvin, haven’t you, dear?”
Liza smiled frostily and said, “Quite,” as she sat on the other side of him and linked a possessive arm through his. Theresa made small talk just long enough to keep her exit from appearing a complete rout, then excused herself to see about her horse.
As soon as they were alone, Liza asked, “Have you gone mad? I want you to stay away from that little slut.”
He frowned and said, “Hell, if I thought she was a slut I’d have never let her go. What game are we playing now, Liza? You keep changing the script too suddenly for a guy to keep up.”
“Look, I told you I was sorry about last night. We’re supposed to be an old married couple. How’s it going to look if anyone notices you flirting with that girl? What will they think?”
“That I’m an old married man, of course. Let’s get something settled, kiddo. We’re only pretending we’re married, see? You don’t really own that ring Greystoke issued you, so let’s cut this jealousy bullshit.”
She blanched as if he’d struck her and blurted, “How can you talk to me that way? I know this started as just an act, but … have you forgotten the other night, darling?”
“No,” he said. “It was marvelous. Being true-blue to you wouldn’t be such a chore, if all our nights could be like that. Or, hell, if half of them were! I’m not demanding. But you were the one who threw all that crap about feeling used and abused at me, Liza. I didn’t know the orgasm was confined to the male of the species, but if that’s the way you feel—”
“You old silly! I told you I was sorry! I prommy-wommis I’ll make it up to you when we get to Bogotá.”
“I thought we were going to split up, once I deliver you and your message or whatever.”
“Heavens, we’ll still see each other! We’re supposed to be married. My job is done once I contact my friends in Bogotá and deliver my … message. After that, I’ll be completely at your disposal and you can use and abuse me all you like.” She snuggled closer and added, “I’m rather looking forward to it. So don’t be naughty with those actresses, you lusty thing.”
She was conning him, he knew, but he couldn’t figure out how to make her tell him what this was all about. He said, “Well, if we come to any nice bushes between here and Bogotá I’ll invite you into them first.”
“Don’t be beastly, dear. You know I have this thing about the idea of anyone bursting in on us while I’m in, well, an undignified position. Surely it will keep until we can do it right, in a nice private hotel? I want to take a shower with you and then I want you to do something very naughty that I just thought about last night.”
He said that sounded swell as well as utterly depraved, and changed the subject. She was giving him an erection. She probably wanted to. He didn’t mind a lady trying to arouse him, if they intended to follow through. But like the Divine Rowena, Liza seemed to want to practice where nobody could take her up on it.
A while later he excused himself by saying he wanted to talk with the sergeant of their escort. He left her there in the fairly fly-free shade and waded through the flying hordes, really looking for Gaston. His trail-wise sidekick had had the same idea, but Gaston had found his shade on the far side of the camp. Captain Gringo hunkered down beside him and said, “Gaston, we’re in trouble.”
“Merde alors, what was your first clue? We have been in trouble since we met in front of that Mexican firing squad.”
The American said, “Remember that time Greystoke hired us to look for a secret German naval base?”
“Oui, but I assumed he had forgiven us for the noise we made.”
“Yeah, it all turned out right in the end. But I’ve been thinking. The goddamn Brits never take the short and simple way when there’s a complicated way around.”
“True. It’s those strange schools they send their children to, no doubt. That must be why they use such big words, hein?”
“This is serious, Gaston. You remember how Greystoke hired us for what seemed a simple job, and then it got all wheels within wheels?”
“Oui, he was using us as cover for his real objective. He was most surprised when we succeeded. We were supposed to draw attention from a British team while we failed. I am still somewhat annoyed that they intended me to be a very dead red herring. But this time we are not pulling any of the Crown’s chestnuts from the fire, hein? Our real mission is for your Uncle Sam and—”
“How do we know that, Gaston?”
“Comment?”
“Oh, sure, we talked to some guys in the American Consulate. They were probably working for State. But we know the big trusts own everyone in Washington and that a lot of the big combines are international.”
“Aha! You think perhaps we are on another quest of the wild goose, as pawns of the great powers?”
“I don’t know what to think. We know Liza works for Greystoke and she’s giving off very mixed signals. Do you buy an old pro like Greystoke sending a neurotic consumptive nymphomaniac out on anything important?”
“My congratulations on the nymphomaniac part, I was only aware she was very strange. I see your problem. She is either pretending to be tiresome for some ulterior motive, or else Greystoke has indeed saddled us with a confused and unreliable woman to ... What? Get us killed?”
“That’s what it’s starting to look like. There’s no reason for Liza to be acting like she has been. On the other hand, if the Brits only wanted us out of the way, they could have done it a lot easier in Limón. The same thing goes for those guys from State. If they hadn’t felt up to shooting us themselves, they only had to finger us for the police and the rewards on us would have done the rest.”
Gaston nodded and said, “That is the trouble with logic. It leads one up a blind alley no matter how one studies the board. Let us consider the reaction of the guts. How do your guts feel about the mission, so far?”
“Lousy. I could swear someone slipped me a Mickey Finn last night. But that won’t work, either. I was allowed to wake up and I’m not missing a thing. If we had any choice, I’d say our best bet would be to turn around and start running. But the hell of it is that we don’t seem to have a choice.”