It took them less than two hours to clear the outskirts of the capital. They settled into the easy mile-eating pace of the seasoned soldier, although Gaston, as usual, kept bitching.
The barely visible countryside of the alto piano was farmland where it was flat and looked like rolling prairie where it wasn’t. The thin night air was downright cold now, and the stars looked close enough to reach up and gather. From time to time a nightbird neither of them knew sounded off with a whimpering lonely cry. The irrigation water in the roadside ditches smelled like stale human shit. That was probably what was in it. A line of telegraph or telephone poles followed the road, its overhead wires humming in the night wind off the mountains, invisible to the east. From time to time they noticed a distant light, off across the fields. But there were few farmsteads. Like most Latins, the Colombian peons tended to cluster in huddled villages rather than live spread out like Americans and northern European farmers.
Gaston was saying, “The last time I passed through here I cut those thrice-accursed wires.”
Captain Gringo said, “You were lucky. That was dumb. They probably had too many other things to worry about in the middle of a revolution.”
“What are you talking about, Dick? One cannot afford to have the enemy talking back and forth about one, hein? There are at least a dozen military outposts between here and the north coast. They are all connected with Bogotá by wire.”
“That’s why it was dumb of you to cut the wires. Look around you. Do you see anybody staring at us? Cut a fucking wire and within minutes some C.Q. back at the Bogotá presidio will be waking up the brass and sticking pins in the map. How far apart are these outposts, the usual day’s ride?”
“Oui, one may safely assume their patrol areas overlap. Why?”
“Why? We’re on foot, you asshole! Ten minutes after the line goes dead in any outpost some son of a bitch will be blowing boots-and-saddles. You want to outrun cavalry patrols in open country, be my guest, but do it far away from yours truly! How far are we from those salt flats you were telling me about earlier?”
Gaston thought and said, “I am not certain. I have passed no landmarks I remember in this distressing darkness. But the Great Salt Desert starts a good thirty miles north of the capital. So we don’t have to worry about hitting it tonight.”
Captain Gringo frowned and said, “The hell we don’t. It should be staring us right in the face about dawn.”
“Merde alors, you expect me to walk thirty miles in less than one night?”
“Shit, a good soldier can cover fifty from dusk to dawn if he keeps his feet moving and his mouth shut. I thought they soldiered in your old outfit, the French Foreign Legion.”
“Perhaps they did. It was so long ago I don’t remember. Listen, Dick, we have to get out of these street clothes and aboard some horses. Even with mounts and canteens the Great Salt Desert is not a thing to be taken lightly. It is not your ordinary desert. It is pure table salt, covering hundreds of square miles. Our party was well mounted and we had plenty of water when I crossed it last. It was not a pleasant journey.”
Captain Gringo thought before he said, “Hey, it’s cool up here in the Andes and as I recall it rained a day or so after we split up.”
Gaston said, “True. It drizzled one morning as we were crossing the salt flats. By noon the air was so dry we felt like mummies. The problem of this desert is not aridity. It is the salt. Salt absorbs moisture. It never stops absorbing moisture. There is not a bush or a blade of grass. There is not so much as a puddle of standing water between rains. When it is raining hard, you may see water in the low places. Pure pickle brine. Our native mule skinners kept us wisely to the ridgeways. Dry salt is trés joligant to walk on. Damp salt is fatal to the foot of man or beast.”
“I get the picture. I chased some Apache across a desert once or twice. Are there any mining installations around the salt flats?”
“Our guides mentioned some we had to avoid. Why?”
“Somebody has to be digging that rock salt somewhere. Rock salt is a major export of this country. I was thinking of the Borax operations in my own deserts. They’ve got to have water tanks and mules around any salt diggings. Let’s figure out where your guides told you not to go, and then head that way.”
“Ah, when in doubt, march on the sound of the guns, hein? But would not they have military outposts guarding the salt mines, Dick?”
“I don’t see why. Bandits raid gold and silver mines. I never heard of anyone robbing a salt mine. With any luck, we ought to find a peon work crew sitting on mules and water in some out-of-the-way nowheres-much. Do we bear to the left or the right when this road peters out? I can see it’s already shrinking to little more than a wagon trace.”
Gaston shrugged and said, “I am not certain. Our guides left the telegraph lines near a split we should come to in a few hours. I think they said the right fork was the main line to the coast.”
“Then the wires to the left must lead somewhere else. If the country is dry to the north, that has to mean mining country. You notice something about that roadside ditch to your east, Gaston?”
“There is no roadside ditch now.”
“That’s what I mean. From the little I can see of it, we’re in open range now. They probably graze cattle between the irrigated farmland and the desert ahead. Keep an eye peeled for El Toro. Some of these half-wild Spanish cattle get fresh as hell when they spot a human on foot.”
Before Gaston could answer they both heard an odd sound coming up the road from behind them. Captain Gringo stopped and turned around, muttering, “What the hell?” as he listened to what sounded like a woodpecker trying to open a tin can.
Gaston cocked his head and decided, “Too little to be a railroad engine. Too big to be a clock. What does that leave us?”
Captain Gringo spotted the distant glow of two little cat’s eyes and marveled, “Holy Toledo. It’s a horseless carriage!”
“An automobile?” blinked Gaston. “What the devil is an automobile doing up here, of all places?”
Captain Gringo said, “I don’t know. But we’d better get the hell out of its path. The bugger has headlamps.”
The two soldiers of fortune moved off the road at right angles, looking for cover. There wasn’t any. The short dry grass just rolled on into the dark forever. Captain Gringo stopped and said, “Okay, let’s just stand still here and act like fence posts or something. I can’t see the road from here. So the road can’t see us.”
“Do you mind if I smoke?” teased Gaston.
Captain Gringo didn’t answer. Gaston never shut up, but he knew how to freeze as well as any other old soldier when it was important.
They watched with interest as the horseless carriage putted closer. The tall American had been right about the range. The contraption was noisy enough and its two carbide lamps could be seen for miles in the open. But the rest was just a dark blur. They couldn’t see how many passengers were aboard as it passed. Captain Gringo made a mental note of the headlamps’ range as he watched the way they illuminated the roadway ahead of the vehicle. He wasn’t totally unfamiliar with the critters since they’d been showing up here and there for the last few years. But a professional soldier had to keep abreast of new-fangled notions and the art was new-fangled like hell lately.
The noisy contraption moved on at a pretty good clip, considering, and as it faded into the darkness again he said, “That was interesting. Let’s go. They didn’t spot us.”
As they moved back to the road and slogged on, Gaston said, “I rode in one of those things in Mexico City one time. My derrière still tingles, and the stench, merde alors! Why do you suppose they ever invented such a complicated way of getting from here to there, Dick?”
“They have some advantages if you can keep them running. You don’t have to feed them when you’re not using them, for one thing, and they don’t get tired like a horse. That thing was moving faster than your average buckboard and this is a lousy road. They must have those new rubber tires. Did you gauge the range of those headlamps?”
“Of course. They can see about a pistol shot ahead of them at night. What of it?”
“Just thinking. It’ll never make a tactical weapon. You can hear it long before they can see you. I was reading something about the German Army ordering some of those things. Can’t figure out how they’d use them.”
“Bah, les Boches are always testing new things. They are as bad as you Americans. Take it from an old soldier, my rosy-cheeked boy. War is a business of elephantine simplicity. It never really changes. The Great God Mars will always favor the bigger battalion and there will never be a real substitute for an infantry charge, pressed with elan.”
“Against machine guns?”
“But of course. I know you are an enthusiast for automatic fire, Dick. But there are limits to what the machine gun can do. You shall see when the new young Kaiser gets the war he’s been asking for of late. This time, France will be prepared. We shall show him what we think of his machine gun and other new toys. The flag of France will be flying over the Űnter den Linden within six weeks.”
Captain Gringo didn’t answer. They’d had this argument before. Gaston was old enough to be his father and the skills he learned as a young man had served him well into middle age. But the last few years had been pissers. Captain Gringo was still a junior officer, or would have been if the U.S. Army hadn’t stripped him of his first lieutenant’s bars and sentenced him to hang. The military skills they’d taught him at The Point had been obsolescent when they sent him out to fight the last wild Indians. Now they were hopelessly out of date. The last ten years or so had seen more new inventions than the previous few hundred. Men still serving in his old army, who’d charged with muzzle loader in the Civil War, now had to bone up on the new Maxim and Browning machine guns by the light of the electric bulb in their quarters. Senior navy men now walking the bridges of a dreadnought that could lob sixteen inchers at an enemy over the horizon could remember first engagements aboard sailing ships with wooden walls firing broadsides into one another at point-blank range. Every army now had field telephones and observation balloons. And he’d read in Scientific American that some silly son of a bitch was talking about some kind of horseless carriage that might someday fly, for Chrissake!
It was small wonder that older guys like Gaston clung to the past. The future looked sort of scary! But Captain Gringo was alive that night because he hadn’t stopped growing when he got out of West Point. A guy had to keep up with the times or they’d get him.
Gaston said, “Regardez, there seems to be a light ahead.”
Captain Gringo said, “I see it. Looks like a window just off the roadway. Probably a roadside stop. Coaching inn or something.”
“Do we stop for a drink or ease around it?”
“Neither. We move in closer and find out what the fuck it is before we decide anything.”
The tall American didn’t have to tell Gaston why they were walking on the grass beside the roadway instead of on the crunching gravel as they walked closer to the light ahead. As they approached within rifle range they could see it was indeed a roadside posada. The glow was from an open doorway spilling lamplight out on the dusty packed earth between the walls and the rutted roadway. As they got closer they could see two dimmer squares of illumination where red curtains hung across the bottle-glass windows on either side of the doorway.
There was more than that to see. Gaston blinked and said, “The automobile we saw before. It is parked just beyond the doorway!”
Captain Gringo led them in at a slant, putting the road and plenty of grass between them and the open doorway as they lined up on it for a look-see inside.
He stopped and hunkered down. Gaston joined him and together they stared morosely into the little posada. There was a bar against the far adobe wall. Two men stood at the bar with their backs to them. Both wore the blue of the Colombian Military Police. Gaston muttered, “Merde, I was dying for a drink, too.”
“The night is young. Let’s take a look at that horseless carriage.”
They moved north of the posada and crossed over to the parked vehicle.
Gaston said, “I have met this beast before. It is a French Lenoir.”
Captain Gringo muttered, “It looks like a sawed-off buckboard with the horses missing and, Jesus, look what’s in the back!”
The Lenoir runabout was in fact little more than a flatbed wagon with the front half of an oversized baby buggy perched up front. But in the center of the flat deck behind stood a steel post, and on a swivel atop the post sat a .30-30 Maxim machine gun!
A long ammo belt hung down to the wooden decking where the rest of it coiled like a rattlesnake. There were spare ammo boxes and drums of extra fuel in a rack behind the twin bucket seats. Captain Gringo grinned at Gaston and asked, “Do you know how to start this thing?”
Gaston said, “Oui, but are we not putting the cart before the horse, even though we need no horse? What about those soldiers in there?”
“Fuck ’em, let ’em get their own horseless carriage. This one’s ours!”
“True. But they may not see it our way and you were the one who said we should not cut the wire, hein?”
“Yeah, when you’re right you’re right,” growled Captain Gringo, drawing his .38 as he stepped into the shadow of the posada’s corner near the Lenoir.
Gaston joined him, drawing his own revolver, and complained, “It would be quicker to nail them from the doorway, non?”
But the tall American shook his head and said, “Noisier, too. If this is a regular coach stop they could have a telephone inside.”
“Modern science has its limitations, Dick. We could wipe out everybody, and then who would telephone whom?”
“Hey, there’s no need to stage the last act of Hamlet. The innkeeper and his family are just innocent bystanders. Shooting women and children’s not my style even when I’m mad at them. Relax, we’ve got plenty of time. It’s not like we were going anywhere important tonight on our fucking feet!”
So they waited and it only took a million years until one of the uniformed men came out, either to take a leak or to get something from the vehicle. Captain Gringo stepped out of the shadows, gun leveled at the soldier’s belt buckle, and softly said, “Buenas noches. If you’re smart and want to go on breathing, amigo, you’ll grab some stars and turn to stone!”
The soldier raised his hands wearily and murmured, “I have always been considered most intelligent, señor. My wallet is in my hip pocket.”
“To hell with your wallet. We want your motorcar. I want you to listen carefully before you answer. They call me Captain Gringo and if you’ve heard of me you know I’m a man of my word.”
“I know who you are, Captain Gringo.”
“Shut up. I haven’t finished. I’m giving you my word that you and your comrade will come out of this alive and unharmed if you do just as I say. All bets are off if you try anything cute. Do you understand?”
“I am an old soldier, Captain Gringo. Soldiers do not get old by being cute.”
“Es verdad. I want you to call your comrade out here. If he comes out shooting, you’re both dead. I’ll leave the dialogue up to you.”
“We have your promise, Captain Gringo?”
“I said you did. What do you want me to do, sign it in blood? We haven’t got all night. As a matter of fact, we have, about ten seconds and then the egg hits the fan and we do it the hard way.”
The captive sighed, then called out, “Hey, Ramon? I need a hand out here!”
There was a long pregnant pause. Then the other man came out, squinting into the darkness, with nothing but a bottle in his gun hand as he asked, “What do you mean, you need a hand? You want me to hold it for you while you piss? Hey, Chico, I’m not that kind of a boy.”
Then he saw Captain Gringo and Gaston and froze, adding, “Oh, shit.”
Captain Gringo waved his gun and told the two of them to get in the back. Then he hauled himself up to stand over them, holding the gun post as he covered them. He said, “Okay, Gaston. You’re driving. Let’s get out of here.”
Gaston blinked and said, “I told you I knew how to start the engine. I said nothing about knowing how to drive one of these monsters, Dick.”
“So start the fucking engine and learn! It’s obvious you steer it with that tiller bar, isn’t it?”
“Oui, but these other pedals and levers are trés confusing. Let me see. There is something one should know about putting the gears in a certain position before one twists the starting crank.”
Captain Gringo swore softly and said, “Get in the passenger seat.” Then he pointed his muzzle at the captive he considered most reasonable and added, “You, start the engine and get us out of here, muy pronto. Gaston, you take his gun and keep an eye on his hands.”
The old soldier didn’t argue. He was smart enough to see the advantages of clearing the neighborhood before the posada keeper became curious enough to come outside, too. The engine was already warm and started on the second crank with the gears in neutral. The soldier leaped in and threw them into gear and they were on their way. Nobody had had to tell the captive driver that they wanted to go north, away from the capital. But after they’d putted half a mile he asked them just where they thought they were going.
Captain Gringo yelled above the put-puts, “Where we want to go is not your problem. Where were you boys headed?”
The driver hesitated before he shrugged and said, “Well, it hardly matters now. We were on our way to the Arroyo Blanco salt mines with this gun car. El Arano expected you to try for mules and water there.”
“I keep hearing about El Arano. He sounds pretty good. Did he mention us by name or was this just S.O.P. following a shoot-out in town?”
“Por favor, señor, Colonel Maldonado does not take enlisted men into his confidences. Sometimes I don’t think the officers know what he’s up to, either.”
“That’s not the question I asked, amigo.”
“Look, let us not be grim with one another. I can tell you he is indeed after you and Señor Verrier here, without betraying secrets. After all, you both know who you are, too, no?”
Captain Gringo told him to keep driving and stood, legs braced, as he held the action of the machine gun with his free hand and considered these new developments. It seemed obvious now why they’d had a cordon around the railroad depot. Why hadn’t they cordoned off the main country road out of town? Easy. It would have taken the whole army to seal off every lane leading out of town and El Arano had foreseen that anyone with half a brain could play hide-and-seek with infantry or even cavalry in the dark. So he’d sent these guys and probably others to race ahead and hold the bottlenecks. If the tricky colonel had thought of them needing mules and water to cross the desert, he was expecting them to cross the desert. Captain Gringo knew this gas buggy could get them across the wide open salt flats muy pronto. But the wires led beyond the desert and guys waiting on the far side could spot them coming for miles in daylight. Hell, they’d hear them for miles, even if they crossed the treacherous salt at night with their lights out!
Okay, there was no way El Arano could know this soon that they’d stolen his horseless carriage cum machine-gun nest. If they drove like hell they might just get across the desert before ... But that wouldn’t work either. If the other side had thought to secure those mules at the salt mines on this side, they were already expecting them on the far side.
Gaston must have been thinking along the same lines. He kept turning in his front seat and asking where they were going. The American switched to English as he called down, “Later, damnit. I told these guys we were going to let them go alive.”
Gaston said, “Oh,” and shut up. The driver felt better, too. He spoke English, although he liked to keep some things to himself. He’d never know that Captain Gringo had hoped he’d understand. A desperate man might try anything. An old soldier who knew he was getting a break tended to behave himself.
They drove on for nearly an hour with the roadway getting rougher and the country around more rugged. The springy construction and rubber tires of the Lenoir allowed a speed that would have been suicidal in a regular buckboard at night. None of them knew, as later drivers would, the danger of outrunning one’s headlight beams. So the driver just had time to spot the eye glows of a startled furry something in the ruts ahead before they’d run over it with a sickening crunch. He braked to a stop without thinking. Captain Gringo said, “I noticed. It was a wildcat. If it wasn’t dead we’d be hearing about it now.”
The driver started to throw the Lenoir in gear again. But Captain Gringo said, “Hold it. We must be fifteen or twenty kilometers from that posada by now. This is as good a place as any to say adios, muchachos.”
“You promised us our lives, señor.”
“No problem. Just take off your uniforms and boots and leave them with us before you start walking.”
“You are stranding us out here, in the middle of nowhere, stark naked, señor?”
“Well, consider the alternatives and you’ll see it’s not so bad. You can keep your underwear. But let’s get a move on, shall we?”
Grumbling and bitching about the cold as well as the indignity, the two soldiers undressed to their socks and union suits and Captain Gringo told them they were free to go. So they went, before he could change his mind.
Captain Gringo chuckled and waited until they were out of earshot before he said, “Okay, Gaston, the engine’s running. Slide over in the driver’s seat and see if you learned anything.”
“Maybe you had better drive, Dick. You’re better at machinery than me.”
“I know. I want you at the tiller in case I have to use this machine gun. Move over, damnit. I’m tired of standing up.”
So Gaston did as he was told and Captain Gringo forked a leg over and joined him behind the curving dashboard in the other bucket seat. It was just as well he’d seated himself firmly; Gaston threw the Lenoir in gear and they flew backward, then stalled when he tromped the brakes.
Gaston muttered, “Merde.” as silence closed in around them. The tall American sighed and said, “Okay, I’ll get out and crank, but for God’s sake put it in neutral, huh?”
Gaston fumbled with the gear levers and said, “There, it is either in neutral or I am about to run over you,” as Captain Gringo climbed down. The husky American started the warm engine on the first crank and climbed in as the Lenoir stood shuddering and complaining with an occasional backfire. Gaston said, “Here goes,” and tried again. This time they rolled forward, albeit in a series of rabbit hops until the little Frenchman got the feel of things, or just got lucky. Captain Gringo said, “Slow down until you make sure you can steer this thing,” and Gaston answered, “How, you species of imbecile? This creature has a mind of its own!”
The springs bounced them sickeningly as the horseless carriage ran off the road and across the open range at an angle. Fortunately, there was nothing much to hit out there and before they could find anything worth crashing into, Gaston had the tiller under control and was saying, “Regardez! I am a genius! I have never had a lesson and already I am trés formidable at the steering of these things!”
Captain Gringo said, “Swell. See if you can get us back on the road, for Chrissake.”
Gaston swung them in a tight circle that threatened to capsize them, and as his companion swore again, Gaston said, “Ah ah, one learns with experience. A gentle hand on the reins is called for. But regardez, I can go right, I can go left, see?”
“Will you stop fucking around and get back on the road?”
Gaston laughed gleefully and hit the roadway at an angle, bouncing over a rut with a Godawful jolt. As Captain Gringo saw they seemed, indeed, to be tearing up the roadway at an alarming clip, he said, “That’s swell. Now slow down, for God’s sake.”
Gaston replied, “Poof, I have only learned to guide this ridiculous thing. The way one sets the rate of speed eludes me.”
Captain Gringo leaned over and adjusted the throttle lever. Gaston said, “Spoilsport,” as they dropped to about fifteen miles an hour. But he felt better about it, too, despite his delight with his new toy. He said, “We can outrun any mounted patrols with this adorable creature, Dick. But I was thinking about an ambush ahead, before we rid ourselves of those unwelcome guests.”
Captain Gringo said, “Great minds run in the same channels. We’re never going to make the north coast now. Every outpost between here and Barranquilla has been alerted by now. They’re going to be sore as hell about this gas buggy, too. Those guys have a long hike ahead of them, but they’ll get to a telephone long before we can get anywhere important.”
“I agree. I would have shot them, but you Yankees are so sentimental. Unless we intend to drive around in circles until we run out of fuel we really should be considering some place to go, hein?”
“Yeah. Let’s turn right at the next crossroads.”
“Right, my old and rare? There is nothing over that way but the Andes. As a Frenchman, I am trés pleased with the way Monsieur Lenoir’s creation marches, but I doubt very much that it can climb mountains like the goat. And even if it could, there is nothing on the other, side.”
“Sure there is. The Colombian border is on the other side of the high Cordillera Oriental, right?”
Gaston gasped. “Mais oui, but now I know you are suffering from the altitude, Dick! Assuming we can get over the mountains, which we shall never manage aboard this thing, they drop off on the far side into unexplored jungle. A lot of unexplored jungle. Colombia’s eastern lowlands extend at least four hundred miles, and when you got to your thrice-accursed border we would still be in the middle of the Amazonian rain forest!”
“So what? You just said it was unexplored. If it’s unexplored, nobody lives there.”
“Nobody civilized, you mean. The jungle is not uninhabited. Some of the tribes on the far slope are cannibals. Others, more delicate, merely cut off one’s head and shrink it. Even armed with a machine gun, the country over there can be dangerous to one’s health.”
“So what do you want to do, hang around up here until we meet some other guys with machine guns?”
“Hmm, since you put it that way, perhaps we should start watching for a road to the east, non?”