The war council in the Jivaro camp that night was sort of weird as well as awfully complicated. Captain Gringo met with the tribal elders, Gaston, Diablilla, the natural leaders of his band, and the blonde Susan Reynolds in the chief’s hut. The pleasant old gent had a line of little black shrunken heads hanging from his smoke-stained ridge-pole just above them, and while Captain Gringo was too polite to ask, some of the heads looked like they’d once been attached to white men. The beards and mustaches gave a grotesque touch to the tiny serene faces with the lips and eyelids neatly sewn shut as they dangled just above his own eye level, facing the others around the little smudge fire. It was funny how large living heads looked in the flickering light.
As he repeated what the dying slaver had told him in Spanish, Diablilla twitted at the Jivaro, and Susan, of course, looked blank, trying to follow. It was surprising that her church had sent her into a solidly Catholic part of the world not speaking a word of any language she was likely to hear. But the idea of Mormon headhunters was sort of dumb in the first place, when you thought about it. The Catholics had spent centuries trying to make Christians out of everyone in these parts. So anybody who was still holding out had to be a hard sell.
The old padres had been allowed pretty rough methods of conversion by the Inquisition. Any tribes who’d held out against the fire and sword of the conquest were going to be rough to convert via brotherly love in English. But that was Susan’s problem. Or, rather, it had been, before her party had gone out of business.
He waited until he’d told it all to his Spanish-speaking followers before he turned to her and said, “I’m sorry, honey. But your friends are all dead. Those guys we chopped up out there were the raiders who hit your camp. They work for a big rubber guy called Dom Luis. He calls himself Dom Luis Do Putumayo, like he owns the headwaters of the Putumayo. I guess he thinks he does.”
Susan gasped. “I can’t believe that! We knew Dom Luis! He struck me as a perfect gentleman of the old school.”
“No kidding? When and where did you meet Dom Luis, Susan?”
“At his plantation, down the river. The steamboat from Manaus dropped us off there. He has a regular little town at his landing on the Putumayo. He was ever so gracious. He entertained us for a few days, told us all about the tribes we might meet and so forth, and tried to talk our leaders out of going farther upstream. He warned us the country was dangerous.”
“Yeah, he probably didn’t want you to see too much of it. What happened then?”
“Oh, Dom Luis loaned us some canoes and ordered some of his men to paddle and guide us up this way. I don’t see how they could have intended any treachery, Dick. I know at least two of our native porters were killed in the raid on our camp. I watched them die. They worked for Dom Luis!”
“Yeah, so did the flagelados who massacred your party. There might have been a mix-up. More than likely, the porters he sent with you were just innocent peons. Everybody living under the Tsar is not a Cossack, and it’s not like Dom Luis is short of help. He’s got his slavers combing the country for new recruits.”
“I can’t believe that of Dom Luis, Dick. He seemed like such a nice man. There must be some mistake. Maybe he doesn’t know what his roughnecks are doing when he isn’t watching them.”
“He knows, doll. Dom Luis is a Brazilian. He’s added a big chunk of Colombian territory to his rubber empire in the last few months. And let’s not say something dumb about him being confused about the borderline. He started with a land grant from Brazil, so his plantation has to be on the map, and the map says it’s just inside the Brazilian border. A guy who invades other countries on his own must feel pretty smug and powerful. He knows they just had a revolution in Colombia. The Colombian military is weak and divided. Patrolling the jungle down here is the least of their worries. So he’s just started grabbing. He’s issued spanking new modern weapons to his own private army and he has enough men to make hash out of any little patrols Colombia will be in shape to send for a while.”
“But, Dick, that’s out-and-out robbery! Won’t the Colombians eventually do something about it?”
“Sure, in a year or more. Meanwhile the price of rubber is booming and you can ship a lot of latex in a year. I suppose, in time, if he can’t beat or bribe the whole Colombian army, he’ll have to pull in his horns a bit. But what the hell, they can’t hit his headquarters on the Brazilian side of the line without getting into a war with Brazil, and they won’t be ready for that in Bogotá in the foreseeable future. Brazil could eat Colombia for breakfast and Bogotá knows it. Old Dom Luis must think he has it made. Did you get a good look at his spread while you were visiting there?”
Susan nodded and said, “Oh, yes, I told you he was ever so hospitable. He has a huge baronial house on a hill back from his private township near the landing. He took us for a ride around his holdings on his little narrow-gauge railroad. He seemed very proud of his railroad. It runs for miles through the jungle, and the Shay locomotive he had shipped up the river was gilded with gold paint. He had what he said was his family coat of arms painted on the tender.”
“Sounds like a neat toy. Did they have the train armed?”
“Armed? Oh, now that you mention it, there were some Gatling guns on the tender and caboose. Dom Luis said he was on guard against wild Indians.”
“As well he should be. How do the tracks run? Is it a single loop or a network of track through the selva, Susan?”
She thought and said, “I honestly can’t say. We went in a sort of circle. A big one. There were other tracks branching off, now that you mention it. But it was hard to see anything. We spent most of the time chugging through thick forest. I’m a little confused about rubber plantations, Dick. We hardly saw any rubber trees at all. Dom Luis speaks very refined English and he was pointing out the different trees to us. He seems to know them all. Quinine, mahogany, balsa, and others I can’t recall. How can you gather enough rubber to matter if the rubber trees are scattered about like that, Dick?”
“You walk a lot. The British have been planting regular rubber plantations in the Far East lately. Brazilian rubber is gathered from wild native trees. Why wait for a tree to grow when you can get some slob to hunt a really big one down for you? Those other spur tracks you saw must lead to widely spaced tappers’ camps deep in the selva. The tappers are sent out with their tools and buckets and told not to come back until they fill them. The way I understand it, a tapper covers a beat of maybe twenty square miles or so, staggering from tree to tree and sleeping under them at night. He taps them going one way. Gathers the latex on his way back. They smoke and bale the latex at the central camp and then the choo-choo comes to pick it up and deliver it to the landing.”
“Brrr, it sounds like a hard life for the poor tappers. How much do you suppose Dom Luis has to pay a man to work like that, Dick?”
“It is a hard life. That’s why nobody wants to do it unless they get paid a lot. I don’t think Dom Luis pays them anything. He needs the money for his gold choo-choo and private army. His slaves get maybe enough food to keep them on their feet and a chance to go on living. It’s the going rate on the rubber frontier.”
“That’s awful, Dick! Why don’t the poor slaves run away?”
“Where? Damned few slaves have ever run away, Susan. People who keep slaves don’t make it easy for them to do that. You spent some time alone in the selva, naked and unarmed. Would you care for another shot at it if you knew that there was a warm meal waiting for you if you just came back with the latex, or a good beating if you got caught again by the flagelados before you starved or got killed by a snake or an Indian?”
She shuddered and said, “It’s frightening either way. But I think I’d take my chances with the jungle. Wouldn’t you?”
“Probably. Educated people don’t make good slaves. They know there’s another world somewhere for them to get to. That’s why Dom Luis acted so polite to you missionaries instead of handing you some buckets. The Indians and mestizos he’s been recruiting are simple people who’ve already gotten used to being abused. They’ve lived close to the bone all their lives as it is. Being forced to work for Dom Luis can’t be much fun, even for a subsistence peon, or they wouldn’t run from his slavers. But, once he has them in his power, they probably settle down and just do as they’re told. The good workers probably get a pat on the head and an extra rum ration. If they’re very good indeed he may let them have a night with a slave girl every once in awhile. That’s how slavery works, Susan. A few modest comforts and a smile instead of a scowl from the man who holds your life in his hands. Most people are sheep, even working in a bank back home. As long as Dom Luis either kills or makes gunmen out of the few tough guys his recruiters bring in, he hasn’t got much to worry about.”
“Oh, that’s terrible, Dick. What can we do to help?”
“We have to supply the bastard with more troublemakers than he can handle, of course. These boys and girls with me might look like ordinary peons, but I doubt if they’d tap rubber, free, for me!”
“I see. You and your Blue Brigade will attack the plantation and free the slaves of Dom Luis, right?”
“Wrong. My gang is pretty tough, and now we have them all armed to the teeth. But Dom Luis has a whole private army and, when he misses the patrol we just cut up, they’ll be expecting trouble. You don’t hit a larger enemy force on their own ground with a dozen fighters, Susan. The smartest thing we could do would be to go around them.”
“But, Dick, you just said you wanted to make trouble for the slavers.”
“Year, I know what I said. I never said it was smart.”
Gaston had been listening, quietly for Gaston. He said soberly, “I am not a fan of this mysterious Dom Luis, Dick. But I liked the idea of going around him better. The disgusting rubber man has never done anything to us that warrants the risk of our lives.”
“Come on, Gaston. They wiped out Susan’s friends and just attacked us!”
“Mais non, it is we who attacked them, remember? They were not after us personally. They only sought to improve the lives of these primitives. As to vengeance for the loss of the missionaries, Silva confessed to us that the band we wiped out was indeed the guilty gang. We are ahead, for once, my old and rare! We are almost out of Colombian territory. We are armed and formidable. Thanks to the contents of a few flagelado pockets, we even have drinking money to go around. I vote we march on by. This Dom Luis has no idea we are in his thrice-accursed jungle, hein?”
“Yeah, that gives us a nice edge, doesn’t it?”
“Merde alors! You have not been listening! We will soon be over the border. We are not wanted on Brazilian soil! Not, that is, at the moment. But have you considered the dim view Brazil would take if we were to announce our entry into their fair country by attacking a powerful Brazilian planter who knows enough people in Rio to obtain vast land grants?”
Captain Gringo nodded and replied, “Yeah, we’ve agreed I’m being stupid. But the son of a bitch is more than a slaver, Gaston. He’s a two-faced out-and-out killer! Don’t you see what he did to those missionaries? He played Mr. Innocent and treated them like guests, for the record. Then he sent hired guns after them to wipe them out, along with some of his own people.”
“I agree he sounds like a most tiresome ogre, Dick. But the world is full of them. How can one man hope to rid the world of all its ogres in one lifetime?”
“He can’t. But he can wipe out the ogres he meets. Light one little candle and all that crap. We’ve been in a lot of fights together, Gaston. Most of the time, we’ve simply been fighting to stay alive, and some of the guys we’ve had to fight had to be nicer guys than this Dom Luis. The kids with us picked up the gun to fight for a better world. Are we all going to just walk away from a fight that might really mean something?”
Gaston sighed and said, “I would, if I could, but I have seen that look in your eye before.” He turned to Susan and added, “He thinks he is on a crusade. I think it must have something to do with the books you blond Protestant types read. The nice thing about receiving one’s early religion in a dead language is that less of it seems to rub off on one, hein?”
Susan smiled at Captain Gringo adoringly and said, “I think he’s just wonderful.”
Across the hut, Diablilla turned from the Jivaro chief and asked in Spanish, “Is that girl talking dirty to you, Dick?”
Captain Gringo called back, “No, we’re talking about the rubber slavers.” But as he made eye contact with the young blonde, he wasn’t sure whether he was telling the truth to his adelita or not.
He got Diablilla to translate for him as he attempted to explain his plans to the Jivaro. It gave her something to think about, but the Jivaro didn’t seem too taken with the idea of wiping out a colony of Brazilians. The old chief explained that he was a peaceful gent. Captain Gringo pointed up at the heads dangling from the ridge-pole and asked how such a peaceful gent had accumulated such a collection.
Diablilla warned, “Do not press the matter, Dick. I told you they do not like to take orders. I can tell you how those men lost their heads. They bothered the caslque. Or he thought they were bothering him. Jivaro do not make such fine distinctions as we.”
“Jesus, do you mean they can turn on someone just for the hell of it?”
“No, although their motives may seem unpredictable to their victims. You saw how they took in and cared for this girl they found lost in the selva. You saw how easy it was to make friends with them. Some of the earlier visitors you now see the remains of were not so lucky.”
“They made some dumb move, huh?”
“Who knows? They may have simply been in the vicinity when some member of the tribe took sick or was bitten by a bushmaster. You see, Dick, these Jivaro do not believe in accidents. Any misfortune, to a Jivaro, must be the result of a hostile act by someone. Someone who wishes them harm.”
“You mean if a Jivaro stubs his toe, it’s witchcraft?”
“Of course. He did not mean to stub his toe, did he? They understand open hostility, naturally. They knew those slavers were out to do them harm and they are most pleased with you for what you did to them. I think I have them convinced that this Dom Luis is their enemy and that they should blame him for any misfortunes in the near future. But let us hope no child comes down with a fever while we are among them. Forget trying to recruit them to our cause, Dick. They don’t understand, and it could be playing with fire to press them further. I have already had some difficulty explaining to them why you and the men with you did not bring back any heads for to shrink.”
“Hell, they’re welcome to them if they want the heads.”
“You still do not understand, Dick. No Jivaro has any use for the head of an enemy another man kills. The casique says you and the men who helped you fight the flagelados should sleep apart from the rest of us tonight. He says his people are frightened of the ghosts that may be following you.”
“Oboy! Purification rites. I ran into that among North American Indians a while back. I guess we’d better not be vile until we do something about appeasing the spirits. But can’t they settle for something easier? I’ve no idea how the hell you shrink a head. I don’t think I want to know.”
Diablilla spoke to the Jivaro. A man older than the chief threw some powdered tobacco in the fire to excuse himself to the spooks before he answered her in some detail. She told Captain Gringo, “They say they are not ignorant people and that they know our customs are not the same as theirs. But he says you’d better do something. I think so, too, if we intend to stay here much longer.”
The American thought, remembered a book he’d read, and said, “Okay, tell them the ghosts of Christians are different. Tell them that iron is big medicine to us and that I took all the iron weapons away from the dead men. I have all their iron and their ghosts will be afraid of me now.”
She tried it and it seemed to work. It made no sense, but it sounded as logical to him as shrinking a dead man’s head. She said, “They say our customs are our own business, but that they’d prefer you to sleep alone anyway. The ghosts might try to give someone else a bad dream if they can’t get inside your head tonight.”
He nodded and said, “That sounds fair.” Then, grateful that Susan didn’t understand Spanish, he added, “I was sort of looking forward to trying it in a hammock with you, querida. But we’d better not press our luck.”
Gaston, who of course had been following the conversation with interest, chimed in, “In my opinion we are pressing our luck to stay here at all. Do you think they would try to stop us if we left before bedtime, Diablilla?”
She replied, “No but they might feel insulted. They have already been erecting new thatch and hanging hammocks for our party. They say they wish for to get drunk with us before we all turn in. If we were to leave and disappoint them ...”
“No problem,” Captain Gringo cut in. “It’s too dark to travel and God knows where other flagelado gangs may be camped out there. We’re safer here with Jivaro scouts out around us to pass the word along if anybody important is headed our way. What’s this getting drunk business, Diablilla?”
“Combined hospitality and magic. They know the alcohol in their chichi does crazy things to one’s head. They don’t know why. They think it is a gift from the spirit world, since they often have visions when they are drunk. They always get drunk with guests. It is fun, and they know they must remain sober around possible enemies.”
Gaston laughed and said, “In that case, let us not be rude, hein? The stuff is not bad, Dick. Hardly even an ordinary wine, but when in Rome ...”
Captain Gringo shot a warning look around at Pancho, Nunez, and the others as he said softly, “Listen, muchachos, if you’ve paid any attention at all, you know what thin ice we’re skating on. Pass the word that nobody refuses a drink, but that they’re to spill as much as they can and swallow as little as possible. If a drunken Indian gets out of line, let it pass. If any of our people takes a swing or makes a pass at an Indian I’ll shoot first and ask why later.”
Pancho nodded and said, “We can hold our liquor, señor. I. will tell the others to nurse their drinks and pass out as soon as possible, eh?”
“Good thinking. Better make sure all the guns are set on safe, too. Tell the adelitas nobody expects them to out-and-out give in to any youthful high-jinks, but to fend off passes gently. Diablilla, what are the odds on a drunken Jivaro trying to rape one of you girls?”
Diablilla looked reproachfully at Susan and said, “They never raped that flashy blonde, did they? I don’t think that will be much of a problem, Dick. These wild tribes are most casual about sex. It is considered proper for any man to ask any woman but his mother-in-law to sleep with him. But they do not get excited if she says no. They just ask someone else. I am sure we girls can handle it.”
So Captain Gringo said the party sounded like a good idea, and the old chief leaped lightly to his feet and led them all outside, laughing boyishly as he shouted to the others.
A central bonfire had been started in the plaza and the idea seemed to be that anybody who didn’t feel like dancing should sit in the circle around the fire. So Captain Gringo hunkered down between Diablilla and Susan, with Gaston on Susan’s far side. There were some disturbing-looking monkeys roasting on spits over the coals. Calabash bowls were being passed around the circle. He asked Diablilla what the form was and she said anybody who was hungry should help themselves to some roast monkey and that anybody who wanted to be polite should take a slug of chichi.
He decided he wasn’t hungry enough to eat anybody that looked like a toasted baby in a fur coat. Meanwhile the calabash bowls were getting closer. Each Indian in turn took a big swallow before passing it on with a grin. Some of the grins looked sort of ominous in the flickering red light. Other Indians behind them had formed a circle to shuffle sideways around the plaza. It was a pretty boring-looking dance. They kept time by grunting in unison as they shuffled in unison. He wondered what they’d think of the waltz. He decided not to show them. As the guests of honor they were already getting more attention than he really felt any need for.
The bowl reached Diablilla. She’d visited the Jivaro before and didn’t hesitate as she raised the bowl to her lips, took a lady-like sip, and passed it on to him. He raised it gingerly to his face. It smelled like stale beer with a lot of malt in it. He repressed a shudder and took a mouthful experimentally. It tasted like sweet malty beer, so what the hell. Was it any worse to drink booze prepared with clean girl’s teeth than it was to drink wine a lot of unwashed feet had been stomping in? The best cheese was rotten milk, when you thought about it. So why think about it, if it tasted okay?
He passed the bowl to Susan, who was kneeling in his shirt to hide her thighs despite the darkness. She said, “Oh, I couldn’t!” and he said, “Sure you could, and you’d better. It’s not as bad as I thought, Susan. Just pretend it’s regular beer.”
“Heavens, I can’t drink beer! There’s alcohol in it!”
“Not that much. You’d have to swill a quart of it to feel anything.”
“That’s not the point, Dick. My church forbids alcohol, tobacco, and coffee.”
“Sounds like a fun religion. Pretend it’s tea, then.”
“We don’t drink tea, either. The Prophet Joseph teaches us that it’s wrong to take artificial stimulants into our sacred bodies!”
“He sounds like a lot of laughs. Drink your damned beer, babe! That’s a command from the Prophet Dick Walker and you can quote me at the Pearly Gates someday. You’re liable to get there at a later date if you do as I say. These guys smear artificial stimulants on their darts and arrows, too! So this is no time to be a wet blanket! Come on, damnit, they’re watching you!”
Susan shuddered, closed her eyes, and took a swallow. As she passed the bowl on to Gaston, she said, “Oh, that wasn’t so bad. I was expecting something more, well, exciting. Do you suppose I’m drunk now?”
He chuckled and said, “No. You’d have to put away an awful lot of that stuff to feel it.”
“It tasted rather refreshing. What does it feel like to be drunk and abandoned to the temptations of Satan, Dick?”
“Beats me. Usually, by the time I’ve gotten drunk enough to do anything all that interesting, I’ve just wanted to lie down and sleep it off.”
“Really? I’ve always been taught that one sip of Demon Rum can lead straight to ruination. How do you account for all the drunken brawling and sinful behavior if it’s only supposed to make you sleepy, Dick?”
He said, “I guess you have to start out feeling ornery to begin with. I’ve never seen a really decent cuss get fighting-mean on liquor. It just brings out the devil that’s already in you.”
Gaston nudged her and said, “If M’selle would permit me, I have a raging thirst and a certain curiosity about my own devils.”
Susan handed the bowl to him, but not before she’d taken another, rather heroic gulp. She repressed a belch and said, “I was thirsty, too, and the Prophet teaches that if one sins once, one may as well sin twice, for there is no evading the All-Seeing Eye and it marks the fall of the sparrow. Amen.”
Gaston took a swallow and passed it on. Another bowl was following the first around the circle faster than the dancers shuffled. Captain Gringo took a swig and passed it on sans comment as he eyed the roast monkeys dubiously. He knew he really ought to put something in his gut if this was going to be an all-night beer bust. But some of the others had torn off bits and pieces to nibble now, and the only thing more gruesome than a monkey roasting whole on a spit was a mutilated monkey doing the same thing. He remembered he had some parched corn and jerky in his roll, over by the guns. The last time he’d looked, it had been covered with a sort of gray fuzz, but at least it didn’t have tiny hands. He’d wait until things settled down a bit and fetch it. He wanted Susan to eat something, too. Diablilla and Gaston were used to alcohol. He didn’t know what effect even weak booze might have on a what … virgin?
He chuckled to himself as he wondered if virgin was the right word for a novice drinker. He wondered why he found that so funny. Then he wondered if the blonde was the other kind of virgin and why that seemed so funny, too. Then he frowned and warned Gaston, “Watch it. This chichi has more of a kick to it than I thought.”
Gaston said, “Oui, the sweetness masks the alcoholic content. Sherry wine can sneak up on one the same way. But never fear, my old and rare, I can drink a Russian under the table.”
“I’m not worried about you. Keep your eyes on the other folks in our party. Some of the Indians are already sloshed and it’s early yet.”
The dancers had been passing chichi around and some of them were smoking funny cigars that looked like cornhusk tamales and smelled like burning hemp. They were dancing faster now, although, like every American Indian dance he’d ever seen, the choreography was pretty uninteresting. They seemed to think shuffling one step one way and two steps the other was inventive as hell, though, because it made them giggle a lot.
Diablilla nudged him and passed him the Indian cigar going around in the wake of that last bowl. She was exhaling through her nose with a dreamy look in her eyes as he took it from her. As he took a polite puff, Diablilla murmured, “God, I’d like to suck your cock.”
He choked and inhaled more than he’d intended before passing the smoke on to Susan without thinking. Then he blinked in surprise as the cannabis hit him and said, “You’d better pass on that, Susan, it’s marijuana.”
But the missionary had already inhaled a deep drag, coughed, and was saying, “Wheeee, so it is! What’s marijuana, Dick? I thought it was tobacco.”
He said, “It’s not tobacco, it’s dope,” and she looked relieved and took another puff before passing it on to Gaston. He frowned and asked, “Weren’t you listening?” and Susan said, “Yes, you said it wasn’t tobacco. The Prophet never said anything about marijuana in the Book of Mormon, so it must be all right. Ye shall name and gather the fruits of the earth and have dominion over something or other. Amen.”
He shrugged and turned back to tell Diablilla to take her hand out of his lap, for Chrissake. She said, “I wish for to be vile,” and he said, “Later. I think they’ve gotten over their first fear of ghosts and in a little while we’ll be able to slip away and tear off a quickie.”
“I do not wish for to fuck later. I wish for to fuck right now. What is the matter with you? Have you forsaken me for that blond pig? You men are all alike. You get a girl to be vile with you and then you want another.”
“Knock it off. I told you she’s a Bible-thumping missionary and, even if she wasn’t, you’re my adelita.”
“Prove it. Be vile with me in front of her.”
“Jesus Christ, you’re hopped up. What’s the matter with all of you? Neither the booze nor the smokes are all that powerful. I hardly feel a thing.”
Then he reached out, tore an arm off a monkey, and began to gnaw it like a chicken leg. He was hungry as hell all of a sudden, and it tasted better than he’d expected. Sort of like veal with a pork aftertaste.
Someone got their signals mixed and now bowls of chichi and cornhusk reefers were being passed around both ways. Diablilla passed him a smoke, he took a cautious drag and handed it to Susan, who, in the meantime, had gotten one going the other way. She put both in her mouth before he could stop her and inhaled deeply as he muttered, “You’re going to damage your lungs.”
Her lungs looked pretty good as she leaned back in his loose shirt, expanding her chest. She smiled owlishly and said, “Oh, hello,” as she handed him both smokes. He sat confused, with one in each hand, and said, “I think one of these is supposed to be going the other way.” But Diablilla took them both away from him and said, “I can do anything she can do, and better. Watch this.”
Then Diablilla put a tip in each of her nostrils and inhaled furiously. For some reason it struck him funny as hell, and as he laughed she did it some more. Then he took them away from her and passed them in opposite directions, saying, “Come on, quit kidding around.” He might have known Susan would stuff hers up her nose before passing it to Gaston, who handed it on to the Indian on the other side of him sans comment and received a bowl of chichi in return. Captain Gringo reached for more monkey. He was okay, he was sure, but feeling sort of lightheaded and hungry as a bitch wolf. When Diablilla put her head in his lap, it didn’t seem as embarrassing as he knew it should have. She fumbled at his fly and then she snuggled down and went to sleep. He was a little disappointed. He had a raging hard-on now. But he decided it was just as well. He remembered it wasn’t polite to screw in public. He’d forgotten the reason.
Susan didn’t seem to notice Diablilla’s actions. She’d been staring up thoughtfully at the dancers. Suddenly she muttered, “You call that dancing?” and then she was on her feet and doing a Cakewalk around the fire.
The Indians loved it. They laughed like hell. Captain Gringo laughed, too. For a missionary, she gave a pretty good imitation of a saucy music hall gal. They’d have raided the show in Frisco or even Paris, though. The Cakewalk was a daring dance wearing a flounced skirt and tights. Susan only had his shirt on, and as her long bare legs flashed in the red firelight you could sure see she had nothing on under it. The Indians had already seen her bare-bottomed. So had everyone else, come to think of it, but Pancho and some of the other guys were clapping their hands to keep time for her as they shouted “Ole!” and other things he didn’t think he’d ever translate for the American girl if she asked.
She didn’t ask. Born and raised more soberly than even the average Victorian miss of her generation, Susan was like a kid in a candy store, or maybe a runaway convent girl, as she forgot her inhibitions for the moment. A couple of Jivaro girls broke out of the dance line and tried to cakewalk behind her, squealing with delight. They were both stark naked, of course, and now that a guy had had time to settle his nerves, they looked a lot nicer and a lot nakeder in the sensual flickering light. One of them kicked too high and fell on her rump with a laugh. An equally naked Indian nearby rolled over on her and proceeded to screw hell out of her with no further ceremony. Captain Gringo looked over at Gaston and muttered, “Jesus, how do we cool things down?”
“Merde alors, who wants to? This is turning out to be a better party than one might have anticipated, non?”
“Yeah, but we can’t let our guys start an orgy with these natives.”
“Why not, if the natives are friendly? Relax, Dick, our people are heavier than the Indians and it takes more to affect them. Besides, I have been watching and the muchachos have been nursing their refreshments.”
Captain Gringo pointed across to Quico, holding a young Jivaro girl in his lap, and growled, “Like hell. Look at Quico!”
“I see him. She’s pretty, in a droll way. What is the problem? She sat down in Quico’s lap. He did not sit in hers. If any of her tribesmen did not approve, they would have said so by now, non?”
“How could they? The whole tribe seems to be drunk as a skunk.”
“Oui, they have little tolerance for drugs or liquor. Perhaps this is just as well, when one has only limited quantities at one’s command, hein?”
“Oh, shit, you’re not listening either. Before they started this brawl they handed us a whole mess of taboos, remember?”
“Oui, Obviously they have forgotten them, along with any other rules of the house they may have had. Regardez, is that not a boy buggering a boy, over there in the shadows?”
“That’s their problem. They’re both Indians. I can see they’re getting too sloshed to give a damn about ghosts and stuff, but they’re going to remember them in the morning, and everyone’s likely to have one hell of a hangover. I think we’d better get our crew together and retreat gracefully to some empty huts.”
Gaston shrugged and suggested, “Wait a few minutes. It could be as dangerous to offend their hospitality as it might be to abuse their sisters.”
Before the American could answer, Susan Reynolds was shaking him by the bare shoulder. She said, “Hey, let’s dance. I’m lonesome.”
He hesitated. Then he gently lowered Diablilla’s head from his lap to her crossed arms and left her there, face down, as he rose. At least he saw a way to keep Susan from flashing her blond snatch at everybody. He took her lightly in his arms and began to waltz her around the fire. She giggled and said, “Oh, nice. ‘The Blue Danube’ has always been my favorite.”
Since the only music was the rhythmic grunts and clapped hands all around them, she was either kidding or she’d been smoking some reefer.
The outer dance ring had broken into trios and quartets of Jivaro, sort of staggering in step with locked arms. At least half of them were on the ground, either out like lights, coupled in casual sexual embrace, or, in one embarrassing case, jerking off.
As he tried to whirl her past without comment, Susan asked, “Why do men do that, Dick? I’ve noticed a lot of that since I’ve been here among these Indians. When they’re not abusing one another they seem to be abusing themselves.”
“Yeah, well, they don’t have an opera house or library. Let’s sort of move out of the way. The party seems to be getting rough.”
He waltzed her to the edge of the clearing and let go of her. It wasn’t just to spare her feelings. He had some feeling of his own to worry about. He was naked above the waist and all too aware that she was naked everywhere under the thin cotton shirt he’d given her. Her nipples against his chest as they’d fooled around hadn’t done a thing for his erection and he’d been worried about her feeling it. She tended to dance pretty close, for a missionary.
She took his hand calmly and said, “Well, we could sit this dance out, if there was a place to sit.” Then she giggled and said, “Oh, I know this hut. I have a hammock inside. Lesh go sit in my hammock, huh?”
He eyed her dubiously. She was tight as a tick. He looked over to where Diablilla lay by the fire. Gaston was seated beside her, quietly smoking marijuana. He knew Diablilla was safe. But was anyone else around here?
Susan was tugging at him. He let her lead him into the thatched hut. It was pretty dark, but he could see enough to observe she’d been right about the shrunken heads hanging from the rafters. The quickly erectable Jivaro roofs of thatch were held up by saplings driven into the earth. Four hammocks of hand-spun wild cotton hung around near the outer walls of interwoven twigs. Susan said, “This one’s mine,” and leaped into it, exposing her bare behind as she did so. She rolled over, the shirttails up around her waist and her long shapely calves dangling over the edge as she added, “Come and sit by my side if you love me, like the song says. Do you love me, Dick? The cowboy loved the girl in the Red River Valley and you sure look like a cowboy to me.”
He remained standing over her as he said, “I know you’re feeling gaga, but try to listen anyway. I’m a soldier of fortune, a bum. Love is just another dirty word to guys in my business. No offense, but—”
“Oh, hell, let’s just fuck platonically then.”
He blinked and gasped, “I beg your pardon, Miss Missionary?”
“Whash the matter? Don’t you like to fuck, cowboy?”
“It’s always been one of my favorite hobbies, but for a girl who doesn’t smoke or chew—”
“Oh, you Gentiles always think we Latter Day Saints are some sort of fanatic Puritan sect, don’t you? I’d forgotten.”
“Hey, that’s not all you’ve forgotten, doll. I tried to read the Book of Mormon one time. Couldn’t really get into it, but I do know you kids have the same Ten Commandments as the rest of us.”
She giggled and said, “We break them as often as the rest of you, too.”
“Even missionaries?”
“I know, I’m being awful. But for some reason, tonight it doesn’t seem to bother me. What are you waiting for, Dick? I haven’t had sex since our camp was raided and I’m really hurting!”
He started to climb into the hammock. Then he grinned and started to unbuckle his belt as he said, “Hell, I thought you were a damned virgin.”
She laughed and said, “The Prophet Joseph teaches that all virgins shall be damned indeed. The body is the fleshy temple given to us by the Lord. Amen. Thou shalt not defile it with artificial stimulants. Neither shalt thou abuse it by jerking off.”
He dropped his pants and said, “Amen!” as he climbed into the swaying hammock with her. He fought for balance on his knees, gripping the rope edges on either side of her as she hooked one calf over either side, presenting her open thighs to him as she unbuttoned the shirt demurely. He gingerly lowered himself and as his turgid shaft touched the blond fuzz, she took it in one hand, murmured, “Oh, nice,” and guided it in for him.
He realized as she hissed and arched her spine to meet his thrusts that she hadn’t been nearly as drunk as she’d been pretending. That made it even better. He’d set her straight that this was to be no more than good clean fun, and, since she seemed so surprisingly pragmatic, he’d be able to explain about Diablilla without the usual tears and recriminations. He knew he’d get plenty of those from Diablilla if he wasn’t careful! But they could sort out the details later. Right now, it was time for a good healthy orgasm with a beautiful woman who obviously wanted the same.
So he gave her one, and then, since the crazy sway-backed position in the hammock was ruining his spine, he suggested they try it another way. She said she was game for anything that didn’t hurt.
He climbed out and lay her crossways on the cotton strings with her tail bone and heels hooked on one side rope at the level of his hips. He stepped in and re-entered her at the new angle as she gazed up at him in wonder with the other rope against the nape of her neck. She gasped, “Oh, whee! It certainly feels deep that way!”
“Am I hurting you?”
“No. I said it felt deep. I never said I didn’t like it deep. Try swinging me, it feels deliciously wild.”
So he did, and it did. Considering it was the second time, it made for a fast as well as novel orgasm. Susan climaxed easily, too. And he wondered why that sort of bothered him.
It wasn’t that she’d turned out to be more earthy than he’d imagined. Susan was, in fact, the sort of woman men always said they were looking for. A healthy, uncomplicated broad who just plain loved to screw and went at it as casually as any man. She didn’t say silly things about loving him and when he got around to telling her about Diablilla being his adelita, and what that meant, she just said, “We’ll have to be careful then. But don’t worry, I’ve handled jealous girls before. Let’s try something new.”
She rolled over and lay face down, her legs dangling and her spine arched by the sag of the hammock to present her pale derrière at an astounding angle. He started to put it into her from behind and she murmured, “Shove it up my rear. It’s fun that way, too.”
He hesitated. Then he saw she’d run her hand under the side rope and was fingering herself. He nodded, got his wet shaft into position, and gingerly entered her tight pink anus as she hissed and said, “Oh, that’s lovely. Swing the hammock, will you?”
He did, and it felt good as well as strange. The strangest thing was the conversational way she went at it, as if she was sharing a meal with him. He put a palm on each buttock and as he moved in and out, enjoying the unusual view, he said, “You sure are full of surprises, for a girl who bitched about the way the Indians carried on, doll.”
She said, “A little faster, please. I was hysterical when you met me, Dick. I kept expecting them to rape me, and, despite the way I seem to be shocking you, I am particular who I do this with. Besides, they really are rather disgusting little creatures. They don’t just indulge in normal sex. They seem to be bisexual child molesters and you have to admit that an old man doing, well, this, to a little boy is a bit much.”
“It’s okay if we’re the same size and opposite sexes, huh?”
“You kind of like it, don’t you?”
“As much as you do. But, no shit, were you this friendly with those other missionaries coming up the river to save souls?”
“Not with the other girls in our party. One has to draw the line somewhere. Perhaps I should explain about our mission, Dick. You seem to have the idea I was with a lot of dried-up old prudes.”
“Not anymore.”
“Our temple doesn’t send out the usual lifelong missionaries. Every young man and woman of our sect is supposed to donate two years of his or her life to missionary work. After that, we return to the Great Salt Lake and resume our regular lives. The elders feel that youthful enthusiasm helps in doing good among the unbelievers.”
He felt he was coming and muttered, “God knows you’ve got youthful enthusiasm, and you’re doing me a lot of good. Do you want to turn over and finish right?”
“No, wait, I’m almost there and ... Faster, Dick! I’m coming! Shove it all the way and let me feel you gushing in my bowels!”
He sighed, “Glugh!” but closed his eyes and fired his weapon despite her unromantic reminder where it was. As he leaned against her, letting it subside in her contracting, pulsing rectum she sighed and murmured, “Oh, that felt naughty. Let me up. This damned hammock is a bother. Let’s do it right, on the ground.”
“I think I can. Let me see if I can find something to wipe off on.”
But she dropped to the ground at his feet, opened herself to him on her back, and said, “Don’t worry about that. Give it to me while I’m still hot.”
He dropped to his hands and knees to mount her frontally, but observed, “Doesn’t it bother you that I’m sort of shitty?”
She answered by wrapping her arms and legs around him and pulling him into her. So he guessed it didn’t. Her armpits smelled rank and gamy, too, and he could tell she hadn’t bathed since she’d been with the Jivaro. It was sort of disgusting and sort of exciting. In her own way, the pale American blonde was more earthy and primitive than either the Indians, or his mestizo companions, male and female. He knew she liked her sex hot and smelly, too, and the hard-packed dirt under her rollicking rump didn’t faze her a bit as she bounced to meet his thrusts, kissing him now for what he suddenly realized was the first time.
The cannabis had affected his drive, and while he had no trouble keeping it up, it was starting to turn into work now. He found himself wishing this was the softer, sweeter little Diablilla. He knew that he could just tear it off and go to sleep with Diablilla. The memory of Diablilla’s totally different body seemed to inspire him and he laughed at his own contrariness as he felt the firmer, bigger blonde responding to his faster lovemaking. She moaned, “Oh, here it comes again!” and he lied, “Me too,” and faked an orgasm of his own as she stiffened and sobbed, “Enough! I can’t take any more tonight!”
He stopped, withdrew, and helped her to her feet, asking, “Shall we return to the party?”
She said, “You go. I have to lie down. That stuff we’ve been smoking has had a strange effect on me and all of a sudden I feel faint.”
Then, without further discussion, Susan flopped into the hammock, rolled over, and started to snore.
Bemused, Captain Gringo put his pants and boots back on, hitched his gun belt in place, and muttered, “There goes my last illusion. She snores like a man, too!”
Then he laughed and went outside.
The fire was still glowing in the center of the camp. He’d noticed it had gotten sort of quiet. The dancing had stopped, and dimly visible forms lay scattered about in the faint glow. Some of them were just dead to the world. Others were screwing casually around the fire. He spotted a naked Indian throwing the blocks to one of the adelitas from his guerrilla band, and though she didn’t seem to mind at all, Captain Gringo looked quickly around for her soldado. He was a guy named Jose and he was sort of big and wild-eyed most of the time. Then he saw there was apparently no problem. Jose was nearby, staring dreamy-eyed down at the Jivaro girl he’d mounted, closer to the fire. The girl was about twelve and seemed to be enjoying the joviality as much as Jose, so what the hell.
But Captain Gringo hadn’t counted on his people rutting with the Indians and so he looked around for Gaston and Diablilla with renewed concern. He didn’t see Gaston. Diablilla lay where he’d left her, snoozing off her refreshments. As he hunkered down beside her, Diablilla rolled over on her back, looked blearily up at him, and said, “Oh, there you are. Where were you just now? I thought you had deserted me, but every time I try to get up my legs act funny.”
He said, “I went to take a leak. We’d better find a hammock for you, kid. You can’t sleep out here on the ground. The fire will be dead in a while and you’ll catch a chill.”
As he started to lift her, Diablilla sniffed and muttered, “Bastard. You have been vile. I can smell it. Who’s codfish shop have you been in to, eh?”
“Yours,” he lied, adding, “Don’t you remember? You said you wanted to, before, so we did. I guess you were drunker than I thought.”
He picked her up and started to carry her as far from Susan’s hut as he could manage. She snuggled in his arms and muttered dreamily, “You should have awakened me, querida. I don’t remember being vile tonight, and it’s not fair.” She sniffed again and said, “Oh, my, we were vile, weren’t we? I did not know I needed a bath that badly. My poor baby, I have made you smell like pussy all over.”
He said, “Hey, I like the way pussy smells, remember? Here’s a hut we might be able to use for the night. It seems to be empty.”
“Can we be vile some more, Dick?”
He started to say no. Then he reconsidered. There was only one way she was going to buy his story, once she sobered up. He had to get her just as raunchy.
He ducked inside and stood with her in his arms, trying to adjust his eyes to the gloom. He saw one of the hammocks was occupied by a couple who seemed to like each other a lot. He carried Diablilla to an empty one, lowered her into it, and removed his pants and boots again. He hung his gun belt over a crossbeam and climbed in with Diablilla. She was still half stoned, but she’d had the presence of mind to raise her skirts around her waist and, like Susan, she’d hooked a knee over each side rope. It seemed an instinctive reflex for any woman in a hammock.
He lowered himself into her, surprised he still had an erection capable of entering anything that tight. Diablilla said, “Oh, that feels good, but I feel sort of dry for a girl who has just been vile, querido. How do you account for this?”
He got it all the way in, luxuriating at the new feeling as he soothed. “It’s that stuff you smoked. My mouth feels dry, too. It feels better now, doesn’t it?”
She moved her hips, intrigued by the advantage the ropes under her knees gave her, and said, “Ah, I am starting to feel wet for you, again, my toro. Are you sure you do not mind the way I smell tonight? I seem to be most fishy and … you did not do anything vile to my back door, did you? Madre de dios, we smell like farting herrings left too long in a warm place!”
“Your warm place is fantastic. Do you want to talk about it all night or do you want to enjoy it?”
She replied by offering her undivided concentration as well as her soft little body to his guilt-excited thrusts. And after she’d come, fast, he knew he was in the clear. For now. He’d worry about how Susan was going to come out of her own haze in the morning, when the morning got there.
His own slaked lust, despite the novelty, made it take him much longer than usual. But, fortunately, Diablilla took this for inspired lovemaking as he drove her over the peak three times before he came anywhere near joining her. The constant stroking in her between-times throbbing afterglows drove the little Colombian crazy and she was letting the whole world know it. As she literally screamed she was coming, a dry voice from the other side of the hut observed, “Can’t you two keep it down a bit, Dick? This child with me speaks a little Spanish and she says her Jivaro boyfriend is inclined to be possessive.”
“Gaston, is that you?”
“Mais non, it is the Tsar of all the Russians. Fortunately, this nubile wench’s boyfriend was trés unconscious when last we observed him, but you two are making enough noise to wake the dead.”
Diablilla had shut up, embarrassed, the minute she heard Gaston’s voice. But she whispered, “We shall be quietly vile. But are you saying you are being vile with a Jivaro, Gaston?”
“Of course she is a Jivaro. How many kinds of Indians does M’selle think there are around here? I told you we were being discreet, hein?”
They weren’t being discreet enough. The Jivaro girl was tittering and carrying on as Gaston’s hammock creaked, groaned, and threatened to break free of its poles, or split, or both. It put a decided cramp in Captain Gringo’s own style. He was already having enough trouble keeping it up. It seemed to bother Diablilla, too. She’d stopped cooperating and, in a hammock, if you don’t get some cooperation you’re not going anywhere.
He told the girl to hang in there and eased himself over the side to have a word or two in English with Gaston. As he approached the other swinging love nest and got a better view of its contents, he blinked and said, “Jesus H. Christ, I knew you were a dirty old man, but I didn’t know you liked boys!”
Gaston was on his back with his Jivaro sex partner astride him, bouncing like a kid on a bed. Come to think of it, it was a kid on a bed. Gaston said, “Snide me no snide, my old and rare. I assure you I am enjoying a trés pleasant old-fashioned rutting with a female of the species, whatever her species may be.”
“If that’s a girl, how come she has no tits?”
“You Yankees and your constant preoccupation with secondary sex organs. I brought her in to screw her, not to milk her, hein?”
“Oh, shit, Gaston, that’s a baby you’re banging! She can’t be nine years old!”
“I do not ask ladies for birth certificates. If they are big enough, they are old enough, and, if you will observe more justly, I am not banging her. She is banging me, and most enthusiastically, might I add? Leave me to my small pleasures, my old and rare. I am almost there again and I am not an exhibitionist.”
Captain Gringo stood .bemused and undecided as the little Jivaro girl grinned roguishly at him and bobbed up and down on Gaston’s old but massive tool. If this was child abuse, which it had to be under the law, the child didn’t seem to feel abused and there wasn’t any law for hundreds of miles.
Curious despite himself, Captain Gringo marveled, “Jesus, is she really taking it all?” and Gaston closed his eyes and muttered, “Oui, and I am coming, so go away. You can have her later, Dick. I am not selfish, but let me finish with no further distractions, hein?”
Captain Gringo went back over to his own hammock. Diablilla asked, “Is it as bad as I thought?” and he answered, “Worse,” but he didn’t go into it. He remained on his feet and took a smoke from the pocket of his pants hanging over the hammock rope. Then he realized he’d light things up if he struck a match and Diablilla had enough to worry about. So he passed up the smoke.
There were some disgusting noises from across the hut and then it got silent for a time until Gaston sighed and said, “That was trés amusing. We can talk, now, Dick. My amorous amie seems to want to go out and play.”
Captain Gringo moved over again and saw Gaston was alone in the hammock, grinning like a shit-eating dog. He said, “You ought to be shot. Like those other dirty old goats who hang around schoolyards with bags of candy.”
“Merde alors, I told you she has a boyfriend, and he is bigger than me. Where did you think she picked up her Spanish? She’s been putting out for guests since she was six.”
“Glugh. I didn’t think that was possible.”
“Well, to get in a six-year-old, one must be hung a bit more modestly than you or even me. But who broke her in and with what is not our problem. She screws like a mink and I assure you she likes a well-hung hombre.”
Gaston laughed and added, “It was rather droll, observing what seemed to be a little girl on a seesaw as I felt myself inside what was most obviously a woman of experience. Those contractions, ooh la la!”
“Okay, forget that. I’ve got another girl for you.”
“Really? I thought you and Diablilla were quite satisfied with your arrangement, but if you need any help with her...”
“Shut up, I’m not talking about my adelita. I want you to get over to Susan Reynolds’ hut and make friends with her before Diablilla cuts us both up with a rusty knife.”
“Sacre! You wish for me to attempt the seduction of a missionary?”
“You’ll find it’s not as hard as it sounds. She just surprised hell out of me, and I want out. Go over and console her when she wakes up hungry. I think she’s a nymphomaniac, but she’s a nice uncomplicated lay and, uh, she likes variety.”
Gaston laughed and said, “I thought I was finished for the evening, but your words of cheer inspire me to new heights. Are you sure she will accept a father figure, Dick?”
“She’d probably screw her father if she could get at him. Don’t ask me what she wants, goddamnit. Get your horny ass over there and find out what she wants for yourself!”
Gaston rolled out of the hammock, picked up his clothes and gun, then decided he’d save time by just carrying them as he crossed the clearing in the dark.
Captain Gringo chuckled and went back to rejoin Diablilla. She was sound asleep. The combination of soft liquor and drugs, plus hard sex, had knocked her out for the night.
He knew two in a hammock made for great screwing and lousy sleeping. So he climbed in another hammock, naked, and settled down to catch a few winks of his own. He felt he’d more than earned them.
He was too keyed up to sleep. His body was tired, but his brain was racing with plans and other worries as he lay there, listening to the small night noises that could mean anything. He had to get his people out of here before they wore out their welcome with the unpredictable headhunters. He had to figure out how he intended to take on the private army of Dom Luis with his smaller band. He had to do wonders and eat cucumbers, too. He knew he was wasting brain cells planning tactics against objectives he’d never scouted. It made more sense to just go around the rubber baron’s empire. It made more sense, right now, to sleep, for Chrissake. He couldn’t shoot any bad guys or screw any more bad girls tonight. Everybody else around him seemed to have packed it in for the night.