“What I do not understand,” said Gaston,” is why we brought the gun, if you really mean to go back to that Indian camp.”
“Of course we’re going back. What else can we do?”
“We could always be practique. You and I are professionals. The boy, here, is at least useful. The others—”
“The others are counting on us, and I don’t want to talk about it. We’re coming to the tracks, if those sounds mean anything.”
They paused in the forest gloom to listen, and the moonlit night was filled with the rumble of an upgrade freight. Captain Gringo moved forward, saying, “Yeah, the right of way should be beyond that next wall of overgrown spinach.”
Gaston said, “You still have not explained the gun. We have no ammunition to spare, and the best way to derail a train is by pulling out some spikes.”
Captain Gringo slashed away a strangler-fig root and told Chino to put the Maxim down for a moment as he peered out at the moonlit ribbons of steel. The tracks climbed gently toward him from the even lower jungle to the north. The freight they’d just heard passing must have been heavily laden indeed to have labored so on such an easy rise. He muttered, “Damn. I wanted a steeper grade.”
Gaston joined him and said, “But of course. One pulls the spikes on an outside curving rail and the train goes bump-bump-bump into a canyon. Here we will do well to drop a few cars in the trackside mud!”
“I don’t want to derail a locomotive. Someone might get hurt.”
Gaston raised an eyebrow and said, “Ah, of course. It is Halloween and we are bobbing for apples. Heaven forfend we should hurt anyone on the other side!”
“The other side deserves what it gets. Most of the people in this neck of the woods are innocent bystanders. Marie Chambrun and who knows who else could be riding back and forth on the railroad. Our enemy is Colombia. Killing Panamanians or innocent tourists would be dumb if there’s any point at all to this revolution.”
“We are still fighting a revolution? Forgive me, I thought the name of the game was simply survival, now. But, idealism aside, what the devil are you planning, if it is not to destroy the railroad?”
Captain Gringo didn’t answer. He stepped out into the right of way and began to hack down trackside growth, tossing leafy branches on the track. Gaston watched morosely for a few moments before he observed, “That salad is hardly thick enough to stop a downgrade engine, mon ami.”
The American said, “I know. We’ll have to clear it away, once the bluff stops a train. We’re close to the Indians and our friends. Don’t want them to map the exact spot.”
“Of course. Anyone can see a speeding locomotive will be utterly crushed by those twigs and leaves. Are you certain there was no marijuana in that smoke we just bathed in? This is ridiculous! That pile of trash won’t even scratch the paint on the cow catcher!”
“You know that and I know that. Would you plow into a dark mass of anything across the tracks in the dark, if you were an engineer with any thoughts at all about your future?”
“Hmm, I see some method in your madness after all. We stop the train. We shoot everybody, and ...”
“Get Chino out here with the Maxim. That distant toot might mean two passing trains. We should be having company soon.”
As Gaston ducked into the jungle to gather the boy and machine gun, Captain Gringo finished piling a weak but massive pile of fluff across the tracks. Far up the grade he spotted what looked to be a star on the horizon. It was growing. They were in luck. He was anxious to get back to Sor Pantera and the others before the Indians got nervous.
As Gaston and Chino rejoined him, Captain Gringo took the Maxim and crossed the tracks. Gaston started to ask why, -then nodded and said, “Of course. Any survivors will report we hit them from the west side of the track.”
They took cover near the brush pile and waited as the Atlantic-bound train came down the track. The headlight’s beam picked up the mass of leaves across the right of way and Gaston marveled, “Merde! It does look like a big tree has fallen across, non?”
Apparently the train crew saw things that way, too. The ground tingled under their feet as the engineer hit the brakes and the locomotive started sliding on its lock drivers. Captain Gringo braced the Maxim on his hip and said, “They’re stopping. You guys stay back but keep me covered.”
He stood in the shadows of a rosewood with the machine gun as the train ground to a shuddering stop.
There was a forever pause, and then a man climbed cursing down from the cab with a bull’s-eye lantern. He walked along the side of the stalled engine to shine his light on the foliage blocking the track. Then he called back, “It’s not so bad. Looks like lightning put a treetop across. We can clear it off.”
Captain Gringo watched as the engineer climbed down. The cars behind the locomotive were flats, loaded with crossties. He couldn’t have asked for a better train-load.
He stepped out into view and said, “Reach for some stars, muchachos!” Then, as the crewmen started to run for the cab, Captain Gringo put a short burst into the ballast between them and the locomotive to gain their undivided attention. One dropped to his knees in an attitude of prayer as the other froze and stretched his arms as high as they would go. The one on his knees begged, “Por favor, don’t kill us! We are poor people like yourselves! You have the wrong train!”
The other crewman called out, “¡Es verdad! We are only maintenance men. We carry nothing but repair ties. The mail train you are after won’t come through for two hours!”
The American called out officiously, “Hold your fire, Major Garcia! Captain Robles, take your company up the track and wipe out the brake crew! You two locomotive men, walk this way and keep your hands where I can see them!”
The man on his knees rose gingerly but pleaded, “There is no brake crew, Señor El Generale! I swear on my mother’s head, this is only a work train!”
The American snapped, “Lieutenant Chino! Front and center!”
Chino came out of the brush, looking puzzled, and Captain Gringo handed him the Maxim as he drew his pistol and said, “Cover these men. Don’t kill them unless they move.”
Then he trotted over to the stalled locomotive and swung himself up into the cab. He took a quick look at the steam gauge and threw the engine into reverse gear before opening the throttle full steam. As the locomotive spun its wheels, he swung out of the cab and dropped to the trackside. The drivers caught and the train started backing up the track. As it gathered speed he rejoined Chino and the two crewmen and pointed his pistol at the receding headlight to growl, “All right, you two, start chasing that light if you want to live.”
One of the men stammered, “What are you talking about? We can’t catch a runaway locomotive on foot!” But his companion nudged him and said, “Pobrecito, the man said to chase it! Let’s go!”
As the two crewmen started running in the general direction of Panama City, outlined by the receding headlamp, Gaston came out, holstering his own revolver as he said, “That was very amusing. But what in the devil did we just do?”
Captain Gringo said, “They’ll keep to the track ’til they flag another train, probably miles from here. We’ll clear this brush and they’ll be hazy as to the exact location.”
“I’m not worried about the crew members. They’ll probably be running until sunrise. Where did you just send that train with nobody at the controls?”
“I have no idea. I tied the deadman’s grip and sent her back at full throttle. She’s backing with a heavy load of timber and she’s got plenty of pressure in her boiler. I’d say she’ll make the first few curves, going maybe forty miles an hour. By the time she’s doing sixty any curve she hits should do the job.”
Gaston suddenly brightened and said, “Ah, you are a tricky bastard! They’ll find the train derailed and blocking the tracks, but they’ll find it miles from here!”
“Yeah, they’ll have fun looking for our footprints as they clear the tracks, too. We probably bought a full half a day before any troop train moves to cut us off.”
“Perhaps. We’d have had more time to work with if you’d killed those crewmen, non?”
“I know you think I’m softhearted. The next train from Panama City will either plow into those flatcars loaded with heavy ties or find the track blocked, miles from here. The two men we just turned loose will show up somewhere, with at least three versions of what happened, and where.”
“I understand what you Yankees call the razzle-dazzle. But won’t they sort it all out in the end.”
“Sure, but it’ll take them a while. I gave them some false names to chew on. They’ll have to figure out if the train was wrecked by us or by bandits, and they won’t be sure where any of us are. Let’s clear the tracks and tidy up. I want to gather up the others and get our tails as far as possible while the Army picks up the pieces.”
“That sounds good to me, but what if the Indians won’t let us go?”
“We’ll have to fight them, too. But let’s take it a step at a time.”
They had a little trouble retracing their steps to the fire. Gaston was muttering about this, but Captain Gringo saw the bright side. If they had trouble finding the place, people who didn’t know what they were looking for in the first place would have an even tougher time.
A full moon spangled the jungle floor with silver, they knew where they were going, and they were looking for a fire. But they got turned around and had to circle for the place they’d last seen the others. In the end they found it by scent. They smelled the smoke before they moved upwind to spot the faint orange glow through the gumbo limbo saplings. As they moved into the clearing they found it nearly deserted. The boy called Little Turtle squatted by the fire, staring into the coals, alone.
He perked up when he saw them and got to his feet. He waved his bow and started talking to them in his own dialect. His words made no sense to them at all, but he’d obviously been left behind to guide them.
As he saw they understood, the Indian trotted off into the brush and completely vanished. Captain Gringo and his companions stopped just outside the clearing, and the American called after Little Turtle.
The boy came back with a puzzled expression, said something they didn’t understand, and did it again. Captain Gringo went back to the fire and picked up a burning stick. Then he scuffed the coals out with his foot.
Gaston said, “You don’t have to worry about the fire spreading in this jungle muck. It’s wet as a dishrag and even if it should burn, who cares?”
“I do. We just went to a lot of trouble not to pinpoint our position.”
Little Turtle came back out of the darkness, yelling at them to follow. Captain Gringo handed him the improvised torch and gestured. The Indian looked disgusted, but when he started a third time they could see which way he was going.
Keeping up with him was a bitch.
Captain Gringo saw Chino was having trouble running through the jungle with the Maxim gun, so he relieved the boy of it as he shouted for the Indian to slow down. Little Turtle was almost out of sight again, or, rather, the firefly glow of his light was.
They were in the low, swampy lands between the coastal ranges, and they could see that the ground was dropping even lower as they followed the Indian. They were in the bottom of what would be the Panama Canal, if anyone ever finished it. The central area of the isthmus lay between the Culebras they’d just crossed and the lower San Bias ranges to the north. The railroad and proposed canal route followed notches in the coastal hills. Little Turtle didn’t seem to be headed for either, but was leading them into what seemed to be a swamp.
He led them over a maze of game trails among froggy mud and bigger ponds where ghostly gray trunks rose from water the color of ink and smelling like alligator. As they kept going it got worse. The youth with the torch jumped across open channels and led them over islands that quivered under foot like rain-soaked floating mattresses. He was finally getting the idea that they couldn’t follow him at a dead run. They were getting optimistic about anyone trying to trail them. It was hard enough to get through when you knew where you were trying to go.
Captain Gringo knew they’d be hopelessly lost if they let their guide get out of sight. So he kept cursing the others on as he bulled after Little Turtle with his heavy load. The Indian was fifty pounds fighter without a machine gun on his shoulder, so he ran dry of foot where Captain Gringo sank in up to the ankle and, a few times, to the knee.
The bugs started working on any exposed flesh they’d washed clean of that insecticidal smoke. He remembered reading about the poisonous tree frogs and bitter butterflies of the jungle and began to think Bates and Darwin had missed a point. The little critters down here hadn’t evolved that way to keep the bigger ones from eating them. The mosquitos would suck you dry in a night unless you had a lot of blood to spare or tasted bitter as hell. It was nice to think the frogs the Indians used for arrow poison were probably killing bugs this very minute. But they sure were leaving enough to go around!
Most of his hide stayed reasonably dry, of course, and the frustrated mosquitos hovered in a cloud around him and the Maxim on his shoulder, humming high-pitched famine songs and occasionally landing on the weapon’s cool metal to hitch a ride. But they never quite landed on his smoked hands or face. They just hovered close enough to drive him crazy and make it a chore to breathe. If you panted too hard you sucked in bugs and had to spit them out. The taste was disgusting.
The trail Little Turtle was following, if he knew where he was going at all, wound in big zigzags through the swamps and onto slightly higher ground. Captain Gringo noticed that the Indian still trotted in wide curves, as if a straight line were taboo, even on level ground. He saw that the Indian never broke through any vegetation, but would move yards out of the way for a clump of fragile fern. Whites or mestizos probably made better time hacking their way in straighter lines, but the Indian method made for less effort in the long run and, of course, left no trail.
They seemed to have followed the Indian for hours, and Captain Gringo noticed Little Turtle had started relighting fresh torches from better-burning sticks, once he caught on. Then, about a minute and a half before Captain Gringo really decided he wouldn’t be able to carry the effing gun another ten yards, they burst through a wall of hanging vines into a clearing around a jungle pool. There were small, smudgy fires all around the water, and the strangers could see that the San Bias had been here long enough to have built thatched huts. An Indian dog trotted over to sniff at Captain Gringo and Gaston, growling low in its throat. But it didn’t bite and it didn’t bark. The San Bias seemed to be a quiet crowd.
They hadn’t seemed to have guards posted, either. Yet Blanca and some other San Bias stepped out of the huts as the newcomers rounded the pond. Captain Gringo could understand why they thought the albino had magic powers, seeing her in this dimmer light. The other Indians were dark outlines. Blanca seemed to shine in the dark like a ghost. Her nude skin was even lighter than Gaston’s at Captain Gringo’s side. He wondered how she protected herself from sunburn.
Blanca said, “So you came back. Did you kill the train?”
“We sent it back up the tracks to crash. How far are we from the railroad, as the crow flies?”
“I do not know. I am not a crow. We have only been in these parts for a few moons. Our old highland homes were stolen from us by the Christians in the days of the Iron Shirts. Since then we’ve lived on the islands where the San Bias Mountains wet their toes in the northern waters.”
“I know. Where are the others I left with you, Blanca?”
“They are tired. I have sent them to various hammocks among my own people. Do you want me to wake anyone in particular?”
“No. Let them rest up for tomorrow. I’ve no real news for them and we have another long day ahead of us.”
“Come. You will sleep in my cabana. Little Turtle will show your friends to comfortable hammocks for the night.”
He murmured to Gaston and Chino, warning them to keep it friendly ‘til he told them different, and followed the albino toward her hut. From the rear in the moonlight she looked like a naked white girl out for a stroll in the garden. He wondered if the San Bias had a virginity clause in their religion when it came to witches. He decided he’d better drop the idea and leave it that way. They hadn’t really planned on moving in with the Indians, and their adoption was already awkward enough. Escaping the camp would be no problem. But it was awesome to contemplate trying to lose these natural-born trackers in a jungle they knew so well.
Blanca ducked under the low-thatched door jamb and Captain Gringo followed with the gun to keep it dry if it should rain. He knew enough woodcraft to understand the reason they’d camped by open water. The fish in the pool would tend to keep down mosquitos, and there’d be plenty of water at hand if one of these grass huts caught fire. The Indians thought ahead and, despite their apparently primitive lifestyle, were better adapted to Panama than the Creoles who’d been here for generations. It was small wonder they’d resisted the missionaries’ attempts to “teach” them the advantages of civilization. Panama was unhealthy for whites even near the coasts. The canal builders had died like flies in these central lowlands. The San Bias doubtless thought people who lived like Europeans were crazy.
As he leaned the machine gun against an upright post, he saw that the hut was open a few inches from the ground, all around the thatched walls, so that moonlight, and fresh air, spilled across, the packed-earth floor. The interior was furnished with two big hanging hammocks of meshed twine, and he remembered they were an Indian invention the navies of the world had learned from Columbus. A dark form occupied one of the hammocks, and for a moment he thought Blanca had a man in here with her. Then a voice he recognized as that of Sor Pantera asked, “Did you wreck the train?”
He said, “Yeah. What happened to your clothes? I took you for native, just now.”
Sor Pantera said, “You told us to be friendly and do as they told us. Blanca says it’s unhealthy to sleep in a blouse and skirt.”
He noticed she seemed to be getting used to nudity, now, and it wasn’t as if there was much to see in such dim light. Blanca pointed to the empty hammock and said, “You will sleep there, Captain Gringo. You must take your clothes off, too. It is bad for the hammock strings when people wear stained cloth and boots in bed.” He said, “I’ve washed off a lot of smoke and the bugs will eat me up if I strip down, now.”
She said, “Get in the hammock naked. I will place a smudge pot under it and you will see. We don’t like to be bitten, either. That is how my people came to consider that you and your friends might be humans, after all. We used to watch the men working on that big ditch to the west, and they acted like stupid animals. They drank bad water and-ate the wrong fruits. They slept on the ground in damp sacks. Before we got around to killing them, they started to die, so we just watched. It was all so strange, but a bit amusing.”
She ducked outside. So Captain Gringo sat on the hammock and peeled off his boots and shirt. He asked Sor Pantera, “Am I in her bed?” and the Spanish widow replied, “No, she and I have been sharing this one. She said something about you being bigger than that hammock was designed around. I don’t think she expected you to return, but I’ve managed to make friends with her, I hope.”
“Good thinking. We’ll worry about the next step when I come up with it. We could all use a good night’s sleep.”
Blanca came back with a clay pot filled with smoldering punk and leaves. She shoved it under his hammock, and when he commented that the smoke smelled different, she said, “It is stronger than the herbs the ones with you had gathered. I’m putting it under your legs so you can breathe. Try to get a little in your hair before you go to sleep, though. It will even free your hair of lice, if you have any. Sor Pantera had crab lice between her legs, but we got rid of them.”
He didn’t ask how she knew this. As the albino climbed into the other hammock with the naked Sor Pantera, he shucked off his pants and swung himself gingerly into the swaying hammock. He’d slept like this before, of course, so he knew how to position himself to keep from falling out in his sleep. A hammock was comfortable enough if you liked sleeping on your back with your butt hanging down. Men who preferred sleeping on their stomachs or sides were just out of luck.
Sleeping two in a hammock seemed impossible, when you thought about it. But it wasn’t his problem. Since the Indians managed to reproduce their numbers, he assumed they had it figured out.
Blanca had been right about the size of the guest hammock. It was a foot too short. But the sides came up to envelop him, and he could manage with his knees up and wedged together. That took care of a certain shyness he might have felt about waking up naked in the cold gray light he knew was coming. He relaxed as the smoke rose around him, and his tired legs were grateful. In no time at all he fell into an exhausted sleep.
He must have slept the sleep of the just, because he didn’t remember having dreamed as he opened his eyes a few hours later, wide awake and wondering why. It took him perhaps a few seconds to remember where he was and consider what he might have been awakened by. It was a little lighter now, and some birds were cussing in the jungle canopy as the sky pearled to the east. He felt chilled, and the smudge under his hammock had gone out after smoking him like a ham some more. He closed his eyes again and willed himself to catch another forty winks. It was too early to get up, and they might have a hard day ahead of them.
He heard a giggle and a wet kiss from the other side of the hut and turned his head to peek over the rope rim of his own hammock with one eye. Then he softly murmured, “What the hell?”
For a moment he thought Blanca was going at it hot and heavy with some Indian boy. Then, even as he wondered where Sor Pantera was, he saw that the darker of the two figures over there in the dim light was the swarthy widow. Blanca lay crosswise on her hammock with her phosphorescent thighs apart and her white hair dangling over the far side. Sor Pantera stood on the dirt floor, bare legs apart and bent double, with her hairy round rump staring Captain Gringo in the eye. She was orally making friends indeed with the Indian girl. Sor Pantera had her hands on the hammock rope and was swinging Blanca gently to meet her darting tongue. Her own unserved organs were pointed right at the big American as she stood there, bent over most invitingly.
He hesitated, decided anything else he could do with his suddenly raging erection would be just as silly, and swung himself out of the hammock. He crossed the hut in three giant steps, put a hand on each of Sor Pantera’s upthrust buttocks, and asked, “Mind if I join you?”
Her warm derriere flinched, but she didn’t stop what she was doing, and Blanca raised her head to grin the length of the darker woman’s hairy spine as Captain Gringo positioned himself, standing like a stallion behind Sor Pantera, and thrust home.
Sor Pantera shuddered and muttered, “¡Ay tanto toro!” but she didn’t raise her head from the Indian girl’s pink lap as she leaned into his thrusts and clamped down hard. He laughed out loud, but didn’t say why. He knew she was enjoying the perverse situation, but he didn’t think he should say her co-operative rear reminded him of a bearded toothless mouth. She was hot as hell and had astounding muscular control down there. He knew he wasn’t going to last much longer in this piquant position, and the two of them were breathing hard and faster, too. Sor Pantera started moaning like a big cat and he was just about to come when she suddenly collapsed at his feet in a ball, sobbing loudly in mindless pleasure and leaving him literally in midair.
He found himself facing the albino girl on the swinging hammock, and she’d obviously been left out, too. She lay writhing with her pink thighs apart and her pink eyes closed, begging, “More! More! Don’t stop!”
So he took one step, grabbed a knee in each hand, and pulled her on like a glove.
Blanca gasped and opened her eyes as he entered her wet, turgid flesh and, still keeping his bare feet on the floor, he rocked her almost off and on as she cooperated with her hips but said, “I’m not supposed to do it with a man! I explained about witches to Sor Pantera and—”
He grinned down at her and soothed, “I won’t tell if you won’t, honey. Don’t try to say you’re a virgin and I won’t say you’re full of crap!”
She rolled her head from side to side, muttering complaints in her own language even as her pale breasts flushed pinker and she wrapped her shapely thighs around his waist to quiver, stiff-backed, as they came together. His legs gave out and he fell face down across her, kissing her surprised rosebud lips as she gripped his shoulder blades with her palms, slid them down each side of his spine, and dug her nails into his buttocks in a long, lingering orgasm.
Sor Pantera sat up, gasping, “My God! You didn’t put that thing in little Blanca, did you? She told me she was forbidden to satisfy herself with the men of her tribe.”
As she climbed in with them, Captain Gringo said, “I’m not a member of her tribe and you had her hot enough to take a railroad train to the caboose.”
“You’ve probably gotten us both with child, you monster.”
“Yeah, ain’t I awful? You should have told me what you girls were doing was intended as a form of birth control. I thought you were just out for a good time.”
Sor Pantera giggled and said, “There are advantages to having a man about the house. But we must keep this a secret from the others. I do not wish to be known as a loose woman.”
“Honey, you are tighter than Hell, but I get your message.”
He started to move in Blanca again and Sor Pantera protested, “Hey, I thought it was my turn!”
He said, “Come on, she’s our hostess.” But Blanca had been following the exchange and murmured, “I wish to be perverse this time. Get off and let us change positions. Sor Pantera can be on the bottom and I will take the part of the puppy.”
He climbed out and the girls positioned themselves in the reverse of the way he’d found them, with Sor Pantera spread-eagled on the mesh and the pale, hairless rump of the albino facing him. As she lowered her white-haired head between Sor Pantera’s swarthy, hairy thighs he entered her pink, shaven genitals from the rear and started touching bottom with every stroke. It felt wild as hell. The contrast between rumps was startling, and while the Indian girl couldn’t grip the way the older woman could, she made up for it by being tighter built. It was getting quite light, now, and he knew they wouldn’t have much more time for this morning game. He hooked a hand on each of Blanca’s hipbones and let himself go. It took longer, as all three expected, but the pleasure was even greater now that they were all aroused. He had to spread his legs wide because the Indian girl’s were so short, and one of them put a hand out to play with his scrotum as he pounded her. He came first. Any man born of mortal woman would have. But he knew what they expected and kept going until Blanca climaxed and jumped off to run somewhere. He leaned forward to enter Sor Pantera as she lay spread across the hammock, and the switch of her shapely, dark, and somehow bestial torso inspired him to stay fully aroused as he once more entered the thick mat of blue-black pubic hair.
She lay back with her spine arched and her head off the far side and he was repelled and excited at the same time by the feline reek of her writhing brown flesh. Then he saw Blanca had moved around to the space between the hammock and thatched wall and was standing facing him across the length of Sor Pantera. The Spanish woman knew without being asked what was expected of her, so, raising her arms to grip the albino’s slender form, she began to kiss Blanca between the shaved pink thighs as Captain Gringo pounded from the other end. She not only smelled sort of dirty, she liked her loving sort of dirty, but it was exciting, just the same. He felt a little better about her dumb remarks about pregnancy. The Indian girl was a practicing witch, and Sor Panera had no stretch marks on her oddly hairy belly. He knew they were both as good at taking care of themselves as they were at needing to know about such matters.
They managed a mutually satisfactory conclusion and wound up three in a hammock, with Captain Gringo in the middle on his back and the two oddly mismatched girls on either side. He fondled them both as they cuddled their heads on his shoulders, and when one or the other began to play with him below the waist he grinned and said, “Decisions, decisions, let me get my breath back, ladies.”
It must have been Sor Panera working on him, because Blanca said, “We haven’t time for another one. The sun is almost up and we can’t be found like this. I think we should get cleaned off and have breakfast.”
He said, “That sounds good. I’ll race the two of you for the swimming hole outside.”
But Blanca asked, “Are you serious? That pool is filled with piranha!”
“I’ll bite. What’s a piranha?”
“Little fish. And you won’t bite. They will! A most amusing thing happened to a Creole hunter near our old village a few years ago. He walked into a marching column of soldado ants and, of course, they started to climb all over him and bite. So the idiot jumped into the river to get away from the ants, and the piranha stripped him to a skeleton.”
“You find that amusing, honey?”
“Yes. The Creoles are a bother to my people.”
“Don’t those little man-eating fish bother you?”
“Of course not. Fish keep down the mosquitos, and they are very good to eat. If we wish to go into the water, we chop up certain vines and throw them in the water first. The soapy sap puts all the fish to sleep, and after we enjoy a bath we gather them for a meal. I don’t want to kill the fish here, though. As I said, they keep down the insects and we may be here for some time.”
He nodded but didn’t answer. He’d already known from another Indian girl how the natives lived comfortably in the jungle not by fighting nature, but by understanding it. These San Bias would make great additions to the rebel cause if he could manage to recruit them.
He asked Blanca to tell them about the white men who’d driven them from their seaside refuge, and the albino said, “We don’t know why they wanted our lagoons and offshore keys. They don’t seem to be after pearls. Usually, when Christians come to save our souls they seem most anxious about our pearls, too. They even dig up the bones of our ancestors searching for pearls we may have buried with them. Anyone can tell you pearls are worthless after a few months under damp soil.”
“I’d heard pearls were fragile. I’m surprised you Indians know so much about the jewelry business.”
“What do you take us for, ignorant people? We live as we do because it is the best way. We are not unaware of the outside world. Sometimes we trade a few pearls to the few Christian schooner crews we can trust. The outside world is not all bad. Fishhooks and good stout cordage are worth trading for. I have forbidden my people to buy rum and calico, but we trade for the few things we need, when the Christians are not on the warpath.”
“I understand about the rum. What’s so evil about calico?”
“People make clothes of it. Even some of our own girls are foolish enough to want to look like Creole women, but the air is always damp and people get sick wearing clothes.”
He ran a palm along her smooth flank and said, “I can see certain advantages to running bare-ass through the brush. Let’s get back to these men who invaded your fishing grounds. Were they in uniform?”
“No. They dressed as sailors on the coasting schooners do. They took over our cove and made a camp there. Small ships come in to unload big wooden boxes. We don’t know what is in the boxes. When the white men from the sea saw some of our people looking at them they yelled and shot at them. We decided it was better to move away from the sea for now. In the days of the Iron Shirts we dwelt in these inland forests, and the wise elders have kept its secrets for us. So we would be safe, here, if other Christians didn’t get so excited and shoot at us every time they saw us.”
He told Sor Pantera, “That accounts for the scare about an Indian invasion. Any idea who those gun runners might be working for, Sor Pantera?”
She shrugged and said, “Not the Balboa Brigade. The American-backed rebels land their weapons rather openly on the Pacific side.”
“That leaves Sir Basil Hakim, and I did meet him first near the north coast. But I can’t figure his plan. Isn’t the action going to be around Panama City, if and when it comes?”
“Of course. Who holds Panama holds the isthmus. There’s hardly anyone living to the north in those coastal swamps. A few scattered villages. Some banana planters. The French completed the easy digging from that coast and ran out of men and money here in this jungle. The people who mean to finish the canal must gain control of the Culebra Mountains and the main harbor, all on the Pacific.”
He said, “Yeah, there’s another advantage to keeping the action down that way. Any gunboats fixing to mix in would have to come all the way around the Horn. The rebels and the Colombian Army can ha.ve a nice private war before England, France, or Spain could mix into it.”
“What about you Yanquis? The U. S. Navy has bases on the Pacific shore of your California, no?”
“Yeah. That’s why I’d bet on the Yank-backed rebels when push comes to shove. You Balboas should try to work with them, Sor Pantera.”
She sighed and said, “That is what our poor Spinoza said. Our other leaders were impatient. Nobody in Panama wants to live under the far-off government in Colombia. But the other rebel groups seem to be playing a waiting game.”
“They may be playing it smart. If they ever get the open backing of the U. S. Navy, they’ll take Panama at a walk. Nobody else will argue the point, and the Colombians probably won’t risk transporting a real army by sea with U. S. gunboats offshore.”
“That is what Spinoza said, but why is it taking your country so long? Americans already own the railroad and most of the businesses in the place!”
“It’s not exactly my country anymore, and you just answered part of your own question, Sor Pantera. Washington has some loose ends to clear up, closer to home, before it dabbles in Panama with its gunboats. Spain still holds Cuba, just off the tip of Florida. Mexico is in turmoil. Meanwhile, Americans are buying up stock from the defunct Suez Society and getting in on the ground floor. I’d say Uncle Sam should toss his hat in the ring before this century’s out, and we’re coming up on No. 20 fast. If I were you, I’d sit tight until the Yanks and Spanish settle the Cuban problem, then start waving lots of flags.”
“Pooh, we don’t want to be Yanqui puppets. I thought you wanted to help us have our revolution now!”
“Relax. I’m not deserting. For one thing, I haven’t any place better to go. But we’ve gotten past winning your revolution, Sor Pantera. If we’re lucky, we may live to see the way it all turns out. I’m trying to keep us all alive long enough to see if we can find out who betrayed you and what the hell’s going on to our north.”
He patted Blanca’s shoulder and asked, “Could you get your tribe to help us, honey?”
She kissed his chest and asked, “Why should they? I only understand a little of what the two of you just said. I don’t want anyone to build a canal through here. We are having enough trouble with the Christians already living here!”
“You want your pearl beds back, don’t you? If you’ll help us, we might be able to drive away the men who stole your islands.”
“That would be nice. But how could we be certain others as bad might not come?”
He didn’t answer. He was starting to see that the pink little witch was a lot smarter than she looked, and lying to her could be dangerous. So he decided not to talk about other Indian reserves he knew about. The Apache had asked similar questions not long ago.
That’s where he’d learned to use a machine gun.