Gaston left the plantation during the siesta hours, leading a dozen protesting mule skinners and a score of mules not much happier. This was High Strategy in Central America. Nobody would be on the trails unless it was a matter of life and death. Both Gaston and Captain Gringo knew it was. As he stood with General Cyclops and some other guerrillas, watching Gaston’s mule train vanish among the banana trees, Cyclops turned with a crooked smile and said, “Bueno. We have paid your little friend and we shall see what we shall see. Wouldn’t you feel more comfortable without that gun on your hip?”
Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “I’m used to packing a gun. I only notice it when it’s not there.”
The big guerrilla frowned and said, “You are making it most difficult to stay on friendly terms, Gringo. Why do you think you need a gun? Are you afraid of me, Gringo?”
“No. Are you afraid of me?”
So there it was, like a sidewinder that had just slithered out into the open. It was time to put up or shut up and Cyclops hadn’t expected it. He stared hard with his one eye. Then he laughed and said for all to hear, “Hey, the gringo has hair on his chest after all. What makes you so mean, Captain Gringo? Don’t you know it’s siesta time?”
The American smiled back and said, “You’re right. It’s getting too hot to fight. Where do you guys want me to flop while I’m staying here?”
Cyclops shrugged and turned to one of his men, saying, “Take him to Dona Consuela and ask her where she wants him to stay. I will be in my quarters until after three.”
The guerrilla called Sancho nodded and started to lead the American toward the house as Cyclops swaggered off in another direction. He apparently had his own quarters, and probably a woman, in one of the outbuildings near the railroad siding.
Sancho waited until they were out of earshot before he sighed and said, “You must live a very exciting life, Captain Gringo. I thought we were about to see a gunfight, just now.”
The American didn’t answer. He didn’t want to cause trouble, yet. If they hadn’t figured out that a leader who ran off early and left his dead and wounded behind might not have a yellow streak, it wasn’t his job to educate them. He’d met General Cyclops before, under other names. Sometimes you could avoid a showdown with a bully by standing up to him right off. If you gave them the idea they had the Indian sign on you, you’d have a fight for sure, after they’d pushed it too far for either side to back off gracefully.
Sancho said, “He only let you keep your gun because it is not important. You won’t get far if you make a break for it.”
The American chuckled and said, “Since I don’t intend to try, we’ll never know, right?”
“Hey, you don’t think you could get away, do you?”
“Damn it, Sancho, I’m trying to be friendly. So let’s cut out the bullshit. I’m not trying to prove I’m better than any of you guys, so don’t keep trying to make me try.”
“Hey, hombre, I’m not trying to provoke you. I’m only trying to warn you. We were under fire together back there and I like you. I don’t think the general does. So watch it.”
“What are you, his aide de camp?”
“Oh, General Cyclops is the only one here with a military rank from the party. When I am not fighting the government I am the loading foreman, here. General Cyclops is El Segundo.”
“Plantation foreman?”
“Right. I agree it makes for an awkward social situation.”
They went up the steps and Sancho knocked respectfully. A Mestizo girl opened the door with a frown and said, “What do you want? The gentlefolk are taking siesta and don’t wish to be disturbed.”
Sancho said, “General Cyclops said this gringo is to stay here in the Casa Grande, Lupelita.”
The maid said, “I received no such orders from Dona Consuela. Why can’t he stay in the workers’ quarters with the rest of you?”
Sancho replied, “I don’t know. Why don’t you run over to General Cyclops’ cabin and ask him?”
The girl grimaced and said, “Never mind. I’ll show him to one of the guest rooms and tell Dona Consuela later.”
Captain Gringo nodded farewell to his guide and followed the maid inside. Her face had been so-so, but he noticed she had a nice rear view as he followed her along a dark corridor, shaded from the midday sun by closed shutters.
To break the awkward silence, he asked her, casually, “Just who is Dona Consuela, Don Marin’s daughter?”
Lupelita shook her head and said, “No, his wife. She is a Vargas on her father’s side.”
“Oh? I’m afraid I’m not up on Nicaraguan society Lupelita.”
The girl said, “That is obvious,” as she opened a thick oaken door and ushered him into a small but nicely furnished room. She waved at a pitcher and wash basin on a heavy chest of drawers and said, “I will fetch you some towels and a cake of soap. The chamber pot is under the bed. Please don’t urinate out the window. There are salad vegetables growing there.”
He chuckled and said, “I see you’ve had some rather boorish guests staying here, eh?”
Lupelita shrugged and said, “Revolution makes strange bedfellows. Until they made him a general, Cyclops would not have dared sit down inside this house. Now he spits on the floor. Last month a colonel from the central committee tried to rape me, right in that very bed!”
The American glanced over at the four-poster draped with mosquito netting and said, “I promise to behave myself, Lupelita. My name is Dick, by the way.”
She said, “Your name is your own business, señor.” And left to fetch the soap and towels.
The American sighed and walked over to the window, opening the jalousies to stare out at the garden as he wondered how he was going to spend the next few hours without going crazy. He was tired from the overnight boat trip and all the excitement since. He knew he’d have no trouble falling asleep for a few hours. But that would leave him with a whole night ahead of him. He knew he was keyed up and that he’d wind up pacing the floor once he’d caught forty winks.
He saw it was getting hot outside and shut the jalousies to explore the room. There was a Spanish bible on an end table near the bed. There was nothing else to read. He could just about handle a Spanish language magazine and the bible wasn’t all that interesting in English. How long had Gaston said it was going to take, two weeks?
He muttered, “Oh boy,” and turned as Lupelita came back in. He saw she carried a tray and that she’d brought a pitcher of sangria and some snacks as well as a fresh cake of scented soap on a neatly folded towel. She put them on the chest, saying, “It’s all right. I have spoken to Dona Consuela and she said to make you comfortable. I would not have- been so rude if I had known that peon, Cyclops, doesn’t like you.”
He laughed and said, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend, eh? I thought everyone here was on the same side, Lupelita.”
The girl shrugged and it was either because of the dim light or the pleasanter expression on her mestizo features, but she seemed almost pretty as she sighed, “Little people do not get to choose their sides, señor. Had I been sold to a hacienda of the ruling junta, I would no doubt be a firm believer of the Liberal Cause.”
“You were sold, Lupelita? I didn’t think they had slavery down here.”
She smiled crookedly and said, “They call it peonage. They do not sell our bodies. They sell our debts. You see, my father died owing money to Don Marin. I was the only asset my family had. So, to keep their little farm down the road—”
“I understand. I ran into peonage in Mexico. Have you thought about running away, if you don’t like it here?”
“Where would I run to, a whorehouse in Managua? Besides, if I refused to work off my father’s debt as a servant here, my widowed mother and my brothers and sisters would lose their land.”
Then she brightened and added, “It is not so bad, here. Doha Consuela is kinder than some mistresses I have heard of. Things could be much worse.”
He saw she was about to go and he knew it wasn’t any of his business. But he was too keyed up to face the next few hours alone and there was no telling what else he’d learn if he could keep the conversation going. He said, “Let’s share these goodies while you tell me why you’re so upset, huh?”
She said, “I am not upset.” But she stayed where she was as he poured sangria in a pair of glass tumblers he found next to the water pitcher.
He handed her a glass and said, “Sure you are. Something’s bothering you, and it isn’t being stuck here as a chambermaid. Why don’t we sit down?”
He moved the tray over to the bed and parted the netting with an elbow before setting the tray on the spread and sitting beside it. Lupelita looked undecided as she stood there with the glass in both hands, untasted. He patted the mattress and said, “Come on, I won’t bite you on the ankle. How much money did your father owe these folks when he died?”
The girl moved over and gingerly perched on the very edge of the bed as she murmured, “Almost three hundred pesos. I don’t know if I should be here with you like this, señor.”
“Call me Dick. Three hundred pesos isn’t very much money, Lupelita.”
“It is when you don’t have it. You see, my father was very careful, and he tried to keep ahead of his debts to Don Marin. But each year, after the harvest, by the time he paid the interest and had to buy more seeds and staples—”
“Right. I owe my soul to the company store. But that’s still not much of a debt to rate a life in bondage, kid.”
She settled more comfortably and took a sip of Sangria before she nodded and explained, “Oh, Dona Consuela told me that. She is most kind and she writes off-some of what I owe, each month, in the books they keep. She credits me ten pesos a week and the original debt is paid off, now. But you see, my poor mamacita and my little brothers and sisters—”
“Right. They keep borrowing from the plantation for seed and food and money.”
“Yes, and they have to pay the rent and taxes, too. Dona Consuela said that if anyone wants to marry me, she will ask her husband to write off the entire debt as a wedding gift.”
He sipped his own drink and asked, “Oh? Do you have a caballero lined up?”
Lupelita’s face went bitter again as she asked, “Who would want a mestiza girl with no dowry and a widowed mother to support?”
He nodded sympathetically and said, “I owe Dona Consuela an apology. She probably thinks she’s doing you a favor. How long has she been married to that old man, speaking of weird marriage customs?”
Lupelita said, “About three years, I think. I believe her family arranged it against her wishes. They say she was seeing, well, too much of a younger man her father did not approve of.”
Then she lowered her eyes and said, “I am being disloyal. I should not be telling a stranger about family matters. As a matter of fact, I should not be here at all.”
He figured she’d have left by now if she really meant it. It was too early to press the matter either way. So he kept his mouth shut.
Lupelita took another sip of sangria, looked over at the door, and said, “I don’t know what I would say if anyone found me here with you like this.”
He said, “Relax. It’s siesta time. Everyone else should be in their own quarters, right?”
“Yes. Dona Consuela has retired with her husband. But that door is not locked and ...”
He got up, taking the tray with him and placing it out of the way as he strode over to the door and twisted the key in the lock. As he turned around, Lupelita was staring wide-eyed at him, but she was still on the bed. She asked, “For why did you lock the door, señor?” and he said, “For to keep nosey people from opening it, of course. Don’t worry. The key’s still in the lock, any time you want to leave.”
Then he walked slowly over to her, took the glass from her unresisting hand, and put it aside as he sat beside her and took her in his arms, adding, “Do you want to leave, Lupelita?”
She struggled a bit, albeit weakly, as she protested, “What are you doing? I was only trying to make you comfortable, as Dona Consuela ordered!”
He said, “I’ll bet they’re more comfortable than we are, right now. We’re still in this ridiculous vertical position!”
Then he fell back across the bed with her and kissed her, braced for at least a token resistance. Lupelita opened her lips to his questing tongue, but as he put a hand on one of her melon-shaped breasts she turned her head aside and gasped, “What’s happening? Are you trying to rape me?”
He buried his face in her hair to kiss her ear as he answered, “No, I’m trying to seduce you.”
Then he kissed her lips again as he ran the free hand down the front of her firm young body and groped under the hem of her peasant skirt.
She grabbed at his wrist to resist him, but she was laughing as she came up for air and asked, “What’s the difference between rape and seduction, you brute?”
He said, “Salesmanship,” as he discovered, to both their pleasure, that she wore nothing under the loose skirt.
She protested, “Damn it, you are raping me!” as he parted the hair between her legs with his fingers and began to massage her moist clit. He noticed she wasn’t fighting him, despite her words, and when she pleaded, “Stop it. I didn’t come here to be wicked,” he noticed she’d spread her thighs and was beginning to help him with the hand she’d locked around his wrist.
He could tell she was no virgin. But Lupelita was obviously one of those old-fashioned girls who thought a man could be fooled into thinking she was if only she could hold out past common sense. The afternoon light through the jalousies painted tiger stripes of sunlight across her light brown face, and the pupils of her eyes were dilated with desire as he rose on one elbow trying to figure out how he was going to get rid of his gun belt and pants without giving up any advantages. The humor of the situation made him smile and Lupelita asked, “Why are you laughing at me?”
He knew this was no time to take his hand away from her groin. So he worked her harder and soothed, “I’m not laughing. I’m smiling because you’re so pretty, kitten.”
He picked her, up and headed for the bed, saying, “Yeah. We ought to get away from this door, too.”
But as he put her down across the mattress and started to undress her, Lupelita protested, “No, I can’t!”
“What do you mean, you can’t? You just did!”
“Oh, I can’t resist your advances, you brute. But I mean I can’t let you see me naked! It’s broad daylight!”
“What’s the matter? Have you got another guy’s name tattooed on your chest? It’s not like we’re strangers, Lupelita.”
But he saw she wasn’t cooperating as he tried to figure out how the skirt unfastened, so he shoved the hem up until her brown belly was exposed below the navel and rolled into the saddle of her welcoming thighs.
As he started moving again she ran her palms over his back from shoulders to buttocks as she crooned, “Oh, you have such a lovely body, and it is exciting to feel your nakedness.”
Then she reached between them and started fumbling with her own clothes as she added, “It’s wrong, I know, but I think you’re right about it being better with no clothes between us!”
He liked the way she screwed, but her conversation was getting sort of tedious, so he didn’t answer as he rose on his arms to give her leeway. Bouncing to meet his thrusts, Lupelita hauled the skirt and blouse up over her face and away, to land in a ball across the bed as she closed her eyes and pleaded, “Don’t look at me.”
He did, and he liked what he could see, now. The tiger stripes of sunlight accentuated the molded curves of her Junoesque but firm peasant body. He knew she’d be fat and sporting a moustache by the time she was thirty, but, right now, she was Primal Woman in all her glory. Despite the dumb protestations an alien culture had forced her to adopt along with clothes and other useless habits, Lupelita made love with the natural lust of a healthy jungle animal. As she began to sweat more in the heated semi shade of the stuffy room, it was more obvious she hadn’t bathed recently. But the musky odor of her groin and armpits seemed to go with the tiger stripes across her heaving breasts and, if she stunk, it was a healthy raunchy stink. He knew he wasn’t smelling like a rose right now either, and, without asking, he knew his sweating flesh excited her.
The reason people wrinkled their noses at the smell of sweaty socks and locker rooms was probably because of the sexual overtones their more primitive minds remembered from less proper times. Like other properly raised Victorians, Captain Gringo was uncomfortable in a crowded room filled with the stench of unwashed humanity. Alone with a desirable woman, he found it exciting to inhale and enjoy it. And, almost as if she’d read his mind, Lupelita let go with a ripping fart that tickled his testicles as he was climaxing.
She flushed a becoming shade of dusky rose and started to say something stupid. Then her eyes widened and she wrapped her thighs around him to take it all as she husked, “¡Madre de Dios!”
Then she apparently died, fainted, or just didn’t think there was any point in protesting her innocence further. He kissed her eyelids and eased some of his weight off her. But as he started to withdraw, she murmured, “Don’t move.”
He said, “We could both use a sip of sangria and a rubdown with that towel, honey. I’m not finished with you by a long shot.”
“You do not think I am a bad woman?”
“I think you’re an angel, and the siesta is only beginning.”
He got off her and went to get the towel and refreshments. As he sat beside her again he saw she’d rolled over to hide her nakedness, albeit not her tawny spine and rollicking rump. He wiped her back with the towel and it was just as well she wasn’t meeting his gaze as he gazed down at her.
He liked Lupelita. It didn’t seem fair that her kind seemed doomed by an unjust fate to mature womanhood at twelve, motherhood by fourteen or so; and middle age before thirty. He didn’t know if it was because of the way her people lived or some inborn natural defect. But if there was anything to Darwin, despite the church elders back home, he could see why peasant girls were so yummy in their teens. The breed survived by having all the kids they could before they turned to potato sacks by the time their men were full grown.
He knew he didn’t really want to know, but he asked, “How old are you, Lupelita?”
She said, “Sixteen. Why?”
He said, “Just wondering. I was afraid you might be too young for me.”
She smiled up over her shoulder at him and said, “¿Es verdad? I thought you were laughing at me because of the color of my nipples.”
“I thought you were younger,” he lied. Then he said, “Sit up and have some sangria, honey. There’s nothing shameful in having nursed a kid or two. I like your nipples just fine.”
She stayed as she was as she protested, “The one niño I had died before I could nurse it. But the midwife said all bad girls’ nipples turned dark anyway.”
He said, “You’re not a bad girl. Not unless all our mothers were bad girls.”
“But I was not married when I had my pobrecito, and the padre said I had been wicked. When I tell him about this afternoon, he is going to be very cross.”
“Do you have to tell anyone? Why can’t we have a few nice secrets between ourselves?”
“Oh, if I don’t confess what we just did, it will be a sin! Do you wish for me to burn in Hell forever?”
“No. I want you to have some sangria. Then I want to give you something else to confess.”
She giggled and sat up, covering her breasts with one forearm as she took the glass from him and said, “You are most wicked, but I have learned it is useless to say no to you.”
And so they drank all the sangria and ate all the snacks and tried every position they could think of as they spent the rest of the siesta together. Then, as a distant bell tolled three times, Lupelita sat up with a sigh and said, “I must get back to work. La Dona Consuela will want me to help her dress after her bath.”
He said, “We’d better swab you off a bit before you leave, too. Any married woman who couldn’t smell what you’ve been up to would have to have a head cold.”
She laughed and said, “I know. Sometimes, when I take fresh linen into the master bedroom, I can tell they have been very naughty.”
Captain Gringo frowned thoughtfully and went over to get the wash basin and wet toweling. He didn’t know why the mental picture she’d evoked annoyed him. Consuela certainly had a perfect right to screw her own husband in her own bed, even if Don Marin was old enough to be her grandfather. But—it was funny—he somehow hadn’t pictured that cool snooty looking beauty on her back with her legs spread like that. The old man had looked like a warm meal and a good lay would kill him. But what business was it of his, and why was it giving him a hard-on?
As he reclined beside Lupelita, giving her a whore-bath with the damp towel, she noticed his fresh erection and marveled, “Are you still hot, you wicked bull?”
He sighed and said, “It’s a bad habit that’s gotten me in a lot of trouble. But I’ll survive until tonight, if you have to go back to work right now.”
Lupelita reached out to fondle him as she purred, “Who knows? I may have been busy in the kitchen for the next few minutes, no?”
“Aren’t we cutting it sort of fine?”
“Pooh, La Dona Consuela sometimes lingers in her bath until three thirty. Give me the towel. I want to wash you off before I really have something terrible to confess.”
He let her have her way, figuring she knew the odds better than he did. But she’d just gotten started with her mouth when they heard a distant female voice calling, “Lupelita, where are you? I need your assistance with these infernal laces!”
Lupelita stopped sucking long enough to murmur, “She wears a corset, the silly thing.” Then she rolled atop of him to add, “Eat me, too!”
He said, “For Christ’s sake, they’re looking for you! You’d better go!”
She said, “I don’t want to go! I want to come!”
And he decided the quickest way to get rid of her would be to oblige her.
So there they were, going sixty-nine, when he heard a knock on the door. He stopped, but Lupelita didn’t, and she wriggled her behind demandingly as she went on sucking and Consuela Lopez called through the door, “Captain Gringo, are you awake?”
He worked Lupelita with his fingers as he called back, “Almost. What time is it?”
“Well after three and my husband and the others would like to speak with you. May I come in?”
He felt his erection swelling in the peon girl’s mouth as he gasped and stammered, “Not just now, Dona Consuela. I’m undressed and about to bathe. I’ll, ah, be with you in a minute.”
The unseen woman called back, “Very well. We’ll be on the veranda when you’ve finished. You haven’t seen that idiotic servant girl of mine, have you?”
He stared up at Lupelita’s derriere and worked a third finger in as he called back, “She brought me some refreshments a while ago. I’ve no idea where she went, though.”
Lupelita was trying not to laugh and it felt funny as hell with his shaft between her sputtering lips. Consuela’s voice sounded resigned as well as annoyed as she replied, “She’s probably with some peon out in the bananas again. I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed you.”
As they heard her heel taps fade away on the hallway tiles, Lupelita rose and switched ends, sinking her pelvis on to his hips and bracing a bare heel in each of his arm pits as she settled his shaft deep inside her bouncing body and giggled, “I like this banana better than any others they grow on this hacienda.”
He grinned up at her and said, “You’re going to get in trouble, and I’m not just talking about here and now. What’s this I hear about you sneaking out to the groves with other guys?”
“Pooh, the bitch has a wicked mind. I told you I was not a bad girl.”
He thrust up to meet her as he closed his eyes and murmured, “No, you’re not bad at all. In fact, you’re damned good.”
But he knew he had to get himself out of this, and pronto. Lupelita obviously knew how to take care of herself, after that one unfortunate slip. She was probably screwing half the workmen on the plantation, too, from the way she moved her rump.
That was the trouble. She liked to live dangerously. If his hostess caught them like this it would be bad enough. If one of Lupelita’s other lovers found out she’d been putting out to a gringo, he was going to have a fight on his hands. Gaston figured to be gone at least two weeks, and there was no way this bimbo was going to keep a secret like this! He’d learned the hard way that peon girls liked to boast of their affairs and that the peon men always got terribly excited about it.