The three thugs who saved Captain Gringo’s neck that night in Punta Carreta were hardly out to do him any favors as he slugged it out with them in a dark alley near the waterfront.

He’d been on his way back to the schooner when he’d been jumped by the usual three-man team in a fairly professional manner. Their basic mistake had been the assumption that two of them were about to pin the big soldier of fortune’s arms and hold him long enough for the third thug to pat him down for goodies.

He’d proven them wrong by throwing the first one who’d grabbed him over his shoulder, kicking the next in the nuts, and putting the third on the ground with a nice right cross. But then, as he’d tried simply to leave it at that and walk away, the dumb sons of bitches had gotten back up and come to him again. So by now it was starting to look like they really wanted a serious argument.

The tall blond American was in pretty good shape to offer them one. He was packing a double-action .38 in the shoulder rig hidden under his linen jacket. But he didn’t want to draw attention to his presence in Punta Carreta if it could be avoided. A knock-around guy with a price on his head and no understanding with the local law could attract more attention than he really wanted to by shooting up the local citizenry.

As the one he’d decked with the right cross moved into range, the big Yank proved how some guys never learn, by dropping him again with the same punch. But, before he could stomp the idiot, another bored in, windmilling, and had to be stopped with a left hook. It stopped him pretty good. So now there was only one left on his feet, and if he’d had any sense he would have been scampering off by now. He was the smallest of the three.

The remaining thug didn’t like the odds, either. So he whipped out a six-inch blade to give himself a literal edge as he dropped into a knife fighter’s crouch, slowly waving the blade from side to side, as if he thought he was an alley cat and the knife was his tail or something.

Captain Gringo shook his head wearily and said, “You’d better put that thing away before one of us gets hurt, muchacho. I’m not carrying enough dinero to justify a killing.”

The knife fighter minced closer as he purred, “I do not wish for to cut you for your money now, Yanqui. There is a saying in my village. When the tree refuses for to bend for the wind, one must cut it down!”

“Hey, that’s really neat. Did you ever hear what the Mexicans say about the open mouth attracting flies?”

The ladino didn’t answer as he braced himself for the final rush.

Captain Gringo braced himself, too. Like most knock-around guys, the big American had learned by now, the hard way, that a man seriously intent on stabbing someone seldom waved the blade about for inspection or announced his intentions in advance. On the other hand, none of these guys was acting too sensible this evening and there was always the chance of meeting, a jerk-off who didn’t know the rules of the game.

In the dim light, Captain Gringo tried to read the other man’s eyes. He could just make them out. The knife waver’s face was blank. But his alley-cat eyes betrayed expectancy, as if he was waiting for something to happen before he made his move. So Captain Gringo didn’t move. A tense million years went by. Then a familiar voice behind Captain Gringo snapped, “Dick! Hit it!”

So Captain Gringo dove for the dirt, just in time, as another knife spun end over end through the space his back had just filled.

The thug he’d been facing didn’t move fast enough. He caught the thrown blade to the hilt with his chest, gasped, dropped his own knife, and followed it down.

Captain Gringo rolled over, drawing his own .38 as he growled, “Enough of this shit.” But then he saw he didn’t need his less-silent weapon after all and put it away. He rose to his feet, nodding, as he said, “Thanks. Last time I counted, there were three of the pricks. I only see two now.”

Gaston Verrier finished wiping his own blade clean on the shirt of the thug he’d stabbed, slipped it back in its sheath under his collar at the nape of his neck, and shrugged as he replied, “One must assume he no longer wished to play, hein? The last I saw of the species of insect, he was running away as if the devil incarnate was after him.”

That sounded reasonable. Old Gaston didn’t look scary, normally. He was much older and a lot smaller than Captain Gringo. But he looked dangerous enough, and was, with a knife in his hand. He fought pretty good with his feet or a gun, too.

Captain Gringo saw that both of the thugs on the ground would never bother anyone again and said, “I must be getting old. I should have known that one, there, was trying to distract me as his buddy was coming topside again.”

Gaston said, “If I had not seen what was happening before you did, we would not be having this trés amuse discussion, Dick. But if you wish to discuss it further, may one suggest we do it somewhere else, tout de suite?”

“Good thinking. Let’s get back to the schooner before the one that got away comes back for a rematch, with company. That’s where I was heading anyway, before I was so rudely interrupted.”

Gaston shook his head and said, “Mais non! Not that way, mon hasty youth! Follow me. I have better cockroach instincts at times like these, hein?”

Captain Gringo didn’t argue, at first, as he chased the little Legion deserter around a couple of corners into the dark maze of the waterfront slums of Punta Carreta. But as he started to get completely lost he grabbed Gaston’s elbow and reined him to a walk, asking, “Hey, we should be clear by now. So where in the hell are we going? The docks are over that way, Gaston.”

Gaston said, “Unhand me, you rude child. I know where the waterfront is. That is why we must go this way if we don’t wish to be caught and hanged by our adorable necks, hein?”

“What are you talking about? Those local toughs we just tangled with didn’t know we were off the Nombre Nada. But the one who got away has to have more friends in town than we have. So the schooner has to be the safest place for us to run for, right?”

 

“Wrong. The reason I was looking for you just now was to tell you not to go anywhere near that ugly little boat or your pretty gunrunning girlfriend, Esperanza! It’s a good thing I found you playing with those other children before you made it back, non?”

The hairs on the back of Captain Gringo’s neck began to tingle. They’d been doing that a lot since the day a U.S. Army court-martial had tried to put a hangman’s noose around said neck. He fell back in step with Gaston, wherever the hell they were headed, and said soberly, “Okay. Tell me exactly what happened, without all that amusing French bullshit! Have Esperanza and her crew been grabbed, and by whom?”

Gaston growled, “Merde alors, he tells one to come right to the point and then he won’t shut up.”

“Damm it, Gaston—”

“Wait. Before you strike a man old enough to be your father, your big Basque beauty and her ugly little schooner are in no danger. They are not wanted by anyone along this particular stretch of the Mosquito Coast. I wish one could say as much for the unruly child at my fond side, hein?”

Captain Gringo frowned and said, “I told you to cut the wisecracks. I’m not wanted here in Costa Rica either, dammit. That was the whole point in asking Esperanza to sail this way with us.”

“Really? I thought the two of you had other things in mind. But perhaps it was merely the motion of the vessel that’s been making her bedsprings sound like that and ...” Captain Gringo broke stride, spun Gaston around, and said, “Get to the fucking point.”

So Gaston replied, “The U.S.S. Maine just dropped anchor in the harbor. Is that plain enough for you?”

Captain Gringo whistled softly. Gaston nodded and said, “It is a bare possibility your moody Uncle Sam sent a U.S. Navy battleship into this remote banana port because their shore patrol is interested in picking bananas. But do you want to take the chance?”

“Not if I don’t have to. You’re sure Esperanza and the others are okay?”

Gaston tried not to look evasive as he asked, “Why would even your trés fatigue former country be after Esperanza and her crew? Merde alors, half the guns she runs are for people your President Cleveland and his secret service seem fond of, for some reason that escapes me.”

“I didn’t ask why they might be after our pals, dammit. I want to know if Did Esperanza tell you it was okay for us to just take off like this, or are you being practiqué again?”

“We turn right at the next corner, Dick.”

“You worthless little rat!”

Gaston snapped, “Fermez la bouche! You are not that much bigger than me, and, for a species of idiot who persists in telling me I talk too much, you certainly do listen well! I know the Maine is not after anyone but you, because we are on our way to meet the rogues who tipped me off in the time of Nick. One of them contacted me earlier this evening as I was scouting the paseo for a species of pussy who admires older men. They told me to warn you and meet them later at the posada I am leading you to. One assumes they have a deal to offer that has to be more enjoyable than returning to the States in irons, non?”

Captain Gringo came to another complete stop, one eyebrow raised, as he said, “I think I liked it better back there in that alley with guys I understood better. These guys contacted you over on the plaza. Have you even seen one guy in U.S. Navy whites in town tonight? I know I haven’t!”

Gaston frowned and asked, “Are you suggesting I would be dumb enough to lead you into a trap, Dick?”

“Why not? I’ve been dumb enough to lead you into a couple. Tell me some more about these helpful pals of yours—and, by the way, have you any idea who the fuck they are?”

Gaston said, “Picky, picky, picky. A person is good enough to warn you of danger and you insist on a formal introduction?”

Captain Gringo didn’t answer. It was just light enough to make out a drainpipe running down from a tile roof. Better yet, there were no windows on the streetside wall of the stucco house in question.

As he started hauling himself up, hand over hand, Gaston shrugged and followed. They couldn’t discuss what they were doing until they’d both made it to the crunchy terracotta tiles of the low-pitched roof. Then Gaston asked, mildly, what they were doing up there.

Captain Gringo didn’t answer as he gingerly rose to his feet for a better look across the rooftops between him and the harbor. He was more worried about cracking a tile than falling. So he told Gaston to stay put, once he spotted what he’d hoped he wouldn’t see.

Then he dropped down beside the lighter Frenchman to spread his weight on the tiles before he sighed and said, “I can’t swear it’s the U.S.S. Maine. But there’s a fucking big battlewagon for sure in the harbor right now. It gets worse. They’re sending a steam launch ashore.”

Gaston nodded and said, “Eh bien, one tends to doubt they are landing mere tourists. Would the rogues who tipped us off have done so if they were working for the U.S. Navy, Dick?”

Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “Guess not. Maybe we’d better go see who in hell they are working for. We can’t stay here all night, and if our pals aboard the schooner have a lick of sense they’ll be putting out to sea any minute!”

~*~

When they got to the posada they found out that the gang, or whatever, hadn’t merely rented part of it. They’d taken over lock, stock, and barrel. A notice nailed to the front door said, in Spanish, that the inn was closed for alterations. Another sign, in English, said less politely that the joint was off limits to U.S. military personnel.

Since neither notice applied to soldiers of fortune, they went in. The main-floor cantina was dimly lit and almost deserted. A not-bad-looking ladina was reading a magazine behind the bar. A tough-looking bozo in a rumpled linen suit was seated alone at a table near the entrance, with a sawed-off shotgun and a schooner of cerveza in front of him. Four other knock-around guys were playing cards at another table across the room. They looked about as friendly as the thugs who’d jumped Captain Gringo in that alley. But Gaston recognized the two who’d contacted him earlier at the paseo. So nobody got tense when the guy with the shotgun got up to casually lock the door behind them.

One of the gunslicks who knew Gaston said, “The big chiefs are waiting upstairs to talk to you. What took you so long?”

Gaston muttered something about the crude manners in Punta Carreta and Captain Gringo said nothing as the two of them crossed to the stairwell and went on up.

The hall above was illuminated even lousier. All the doors but one at the far end of the hall were closed. That one was open and spilling brighter light. So that’s where they went.

It was obvious that two Anglo women—seated side by side on one of the leather couches by the beehive fireplace in the parlor of the suite they’d taken—were identical twins. They were both tough-looking but not unattractive blondes who could have been either side of thirty. There was a coffee table between the facing couches, and, better yet, there was a tray of glasses and a bottle of Jamaica rum to go with them. One of the women said, “Sit down. We’ve been expecting you boys. You can call me Flora, and this is my sister, Dora. Not our real names, of course. We work together for obvious reasons.”

Captain Gringo waited until he and Gaston were seated and Flora was pouring drinks for them before he asked who they worked for. Dora said, “It’s such a bother to make up names. Let’s just say my sister and I are insurance agents.”

“You’re out to sell us insurance, ma’am?”

Flora laughed as she handed him his drink and said, “Hardly. You boys couldn’t afford the premiums our company would charge to insure anyone in your line of work. What my sister meant was that we’re, ah, troubleshooters for a big American insurance firm. We want to hire you to shoot some trouble.”

Captain Gringo didn’t answer as he tasted his drink. It wasn’t bad. Gaston smiled and said, “Forgive me, m’mselle. I find it rather odd that an insurance firm would need our usual services.”

Flora said, “That’s because you don’t know much about life insurance, Lieutenant Verrier. Our firm made the mistake of issuing a double-indemnity policy on what they thought was a good risk. A young lady from a good Chicago meatpacking family was on her way to Europe. Our underwriters assumed she meant to take the usual grand tour, of course, when they allowed her parents to take out a rather alarming but short-term policy on her continued existence. They had no way of knowing, at the time, that the girl was gaga, see?”

Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “I’m afraid I don’t see. We’re not in Europe. We’re in Central America.”

“So is the nutty and over insured meat packer’s daughter,” said Dora adding, “She’s with the International Red Cross in Guatemala, trying to get herself killed. If she manages to do it, our company is out a hundred thousand Yankee dollars. Need we say more?”

Captain Gringo said, “I wish you would. For openers, how did you two know Gaston and I were here in Punta Carreta, and what makes you think we’d be any help to you in Guatemala?”

Flora said, “We were waiting for you in Limón, knowing you were on your way back to Costa Rica after that last job. We found out the U.S. Navy was keeping tabs on your career, too. So we rode clown the coast like hell, and fortunately got here faster than the Maine. Never mind how we read the U.S. Navy’s mail. As to your qualifications, do you recall the lady named Vera, who works for Lloyd’s of London?”

“Very fondly. Is she the one who recommended us?” Dora giggled and said, “In more ways than one. We insurance agents work together now and again, and Vera told us how understanding you were that time in Nicaragua.”

Flora said, “You saved Lloyd’s a bundle by taking out those crooks in such a delicate manner. This job we have for you may involve the same kind of work. Would you like to see the machine gun we bought for you now?”

Since she was rising, Captain Gringo rose too. On her feet, Flora was something worth rising for. She had to be wearing a corset under that thin summer print. No mortal woman could have a natural waistline that slender if her other parts were real. She probably had some bracing for those big knockers, too. They were riding high, considering their size.

She led him into another, darker room and struck a match to light a candle on a large round table in the center of the room. The candle was not alone. A Maxim .30-30 was perched on its tripod mount atop the table. It was covered with shipping grease and looked spanking new. He nodded approvingly, stepped over to it, and opened the breech to inspect it as he asked where the ammo belts were. She said, “Under the table. As you see, we haven’t cleaned it or messed with the head spacing. Our game is insurance. We leave weaponry to former weapons officers.”

“Oh, you know about my past?”

“Did you think we hired people we didn’t know about? Please don’t tell me you were framed by the U.S. Army, Dick. Every gunslick we meet seems to have been framed for some damned thing or another, and it gets to be a bore. We know you’ve been a good boy since you escaped from that army guardhouse in the States. Can I cable the home office you’ve taken the job?”

He said, “Maybe. Let’s talk some more about the fine print. Where’s Gaston, by the way?”

“With Dora. I won the toss. We can talk more comfortably in the next room, and I see you’re going to take some convincing.”

He followed her as she picked up the candle and led the way into yet another room. When he saw the four-poster and nothing else to sit on, he smiled thinly and asked, “Is your sister trying to convince Gaston, Flora?”

She laughed and said, “I told you she lost the toss. Why don’t we get the sexual tension out of the way before I explain just what else I want you to do for us, dear?” Before he could answer, Flora slipped her dress over her head and sat on the bed to unpin her hair. He repressed a gasp of delighted surprise when he saw she wasn’t wearing another stitch, save for her long black stockings and high-button shoes. He’d been wrong about her needing whalebone underwear. Flora was built like an impossibly constructed brick shithouse. So what in the hell was he doing with his own duds on at a time like this?

It took him only a little longer to shuck everything but his socks and hang his shoulder rig within easy reach of the bed as the statuesque brunette lay back across it. But, though he was already rising to the occasion, Captain Gringo didn’t like surprises. So he moved over to lock the door from the inside before he turned to join her. As he did so, she smiled up at him and said, “Vera told us you had amazing self-control.” Then, as she glanced down between them, she gasped and added, “Oh, my God, she might have warned me about that!"

He said, “Flattery will get you everywhere,” as he reclined beside her, took her in his arms, and kissed her while he ran his free hand down her roller-coaster curves to warm her up a bit, first.

When his hand got to home plate, he saw she didn’t need much foreplay. Her love maw was almost gushing. So, as she tongued him deeply, he just rolled into the saddle between her welcoming thighs and commenced to enter her.

It wasn’t as easy as he’d expected. Despite her Junoesque hips and expectant lubrication, old Flora was built sort of tight. She seemed more than willing to help him get it in, judging from the way she opened wide and said “Ah!”, but it felt like a ten-year-old virgin had somehow managed to get inside the body of a more than full-grown woman and he was afraid that if he really shoved hard he could hurt her.

She seemed worried about it too, and moaned, “Jesus, take it easy, handsome. I haven’t been with a man for months and ... Forget what I just said. Vera was right. It only seems impossible at first.”

He chuckled fondly as he finally got it all the way in, let her get used to it, and started moving gently. She wrapped her silk-sheathed legs around him with a contented sigh and purred, “Oh, yesss! I like tall men, don’t you?”

“Not this way. It works better when one of us is a girl. So what’s with the other dame in Guatemala, Flora?”

“Fuck her. Better yet, fuck me! I’ll tell you about the job later, after you do a job on me, you goof!”

That sounded reasonable. So he started moving faster. She did, too, and though she stayed just as tight after she came ahead of him, her insides were even wetter now, so he could pound her harder without rubbing either of them raw. It seemed to be driving her nuts.

She sobbed, “Oh, God, I’m so glad I won the toss! Poor Dora doesn’t know what she’s missing!”

He didn’t say he doubted that. He knew there was more to Gaston than met the eye, and, from the way women pestered Gaston, once he’d shown them that dirty old men needed love and respect, too, Captain Gringo suspected old Dora was in for what old Queen Victoria regarded as crimes against nature. Captain Gringo was as depraved as the average good sport, but Gaston would eat anything, like a maniac.

The twin sister Captain Gringo was enjoying seemed to be a maniac too, now that she’d gotten over her first shyness with him. She was moving under him amazingly as he came, hard, and let it soak in her a moment as he got his second wind. She moved so well it hardly mattered that he wasn’t. She gasped and said, “I can’t believe your stamina, darling. Most men are such quitters!”

He repressed a grimace and didn’t answer. He could see how a dame like Flora could have a problem keeping the average guy going. Between her not bad looks, the way she moved them, and the usual tightness between her shapely hugging thighs, Flora could have made a fortune in Dodge any night the herds were in town. She was a born three-minute trick.

He was saved from looking like a sissy to her because of reasons he didn’t think it proper to discuss with a lady. He’d been cruising up the Mosquito Coast, until this evening, with a hell of a good lay named Esperanza. So he’d started with the advantage of not being as hard up as the average guy old Flora had probably crossed sex organs with in her travels.

He could tell she’d done so with many a man in her checkered past. Few professional whores moved half as well. But he made no value judgments about his hyperactive partner of the moment. For in his own time he’d screwed around more than the queen approved of, and, what the hell, she wasn’t charging for such nice stuff. Or was she?

Knowing what had to be coming, besides Flora, distracted him enough to keep him moving in her at a steady lope without coming again, as he pondered on what else he and Gaston might be getting into. She seemed to take his cool, protracted lovemaking as a compliment, since she came again, or said she had. He decided he might as well join her and started pounding harder. She pleaded, “Please, Dick! I’m too sensitized to do it again. Don’t you want to hear about the job in Guatemala now?”

He didn’t answer. He was almost there, and, Jesus, it was even better this time. She moaned that he was hurting her as she thrust her pelvis up to take it all. As he shot deep within her, she sobbed and said, “Oh, Christ, me too! You’re killing me and I love every inch of it!”

He laughed, rolled off, and said, “Okay, let’s talk. I have a smoke in my shirt pocket, if I can remember where the hell I dropped my damned shirt.”

As he sat up and bent over to pick up his shirt from the floor by the bed, Flora sighed and said, “God, you have a lovely body. But as I was saying, this stupid lady from Chicago is insured double indemnity against a violent death.”

“What happens if she just catches consumption?”

“It only costs us half as much, of course. She’s young, healthy, and our company doctors checked her lungs before we insured her. We naturally assumed we were talking about a little Miss Rich Bitch who intended to take in a few cathedrals and art museums before she came back to Chicago to settle down as a spoiled society matron. So we gave her goddamned parents good terms on her goddamned policy. It was low premium and short term. Fifty thou’ should she croak of natural causes while out of the States. Double that, should she be eaten by cannibals, murdered for her shoes in Paris, or something. I mean, how many rich American tourists die of anything while they take the usual grand lux tour, right?”

He got a claro and some waterproof matches from his shirt, lit up, and leaned back to rejoin Flora as he asked, “Two questions. Are all bets off once she returns to the States, and what in the hell is she doing in Guatemala if she said she was going to Europe?”

Flora snuggled closer and said, “I told you the policy was short term. No definite dates, since our underwriters assumed she’d just nip over for the summer and be back in time for the social season. Our legal eagles have studied the question of her destination. We’re stuck. She did go to Europe. She hasn’t been back to the States in over two years. The stupid little do-gooder joined the International Red Cross when she got to Geneva. Her meatpacking papa says he had no idea his daughter was out to save the world, the lying son of a bitch. He took out a bargain double indemnity on her because he knew she might not be long for this world. When we checked further, as we should have in the first place, we found out she’s always been a tomboy who worried her folks sick. While she was still a damned teenager she tore off to Apache country to do social work among the Pueblo Indians!”

He whistled softly and said, “You wouldn’t have her as a client right now if she’d gone out to serve tea to the noisier New Mexican tribes. But how much trouble can even a tomboy get into as a Red Cross nurse?”

“You want it alphabetical or numerical? You know, of course, that the Guatemalan highlands are infested with bandits and active volcanoes?”

“So’s the rest of Central America. Though most of the volcanoes I’ve met have been quiet, so far.”

“That’s what Vera told me, bless her. But while the volcano you and Gaston met that time in Nicaragua for Lloyd’s was a sleeping giant, there’s one in Guatemala that’s a pisser. They call if Boca-Bruja. It’s up near the Mexican border and it’s just blown its top. Earthquakes, ashfall, lava flows, the works. The International Red Cross sent a medical-rescue team into the disaster area a few weeks ago, and guess who went with them?”

“Ouch. What’s her name?”

“Cynthia Swann, of the Chicago Swanns, the silly little bitch. We have to get her out of there before she manages to get herself killed by Boca-Bruja or that even sillier Caballero Blanco.”

“What in the hell is Caballero Blanco? I mean, I know it means ‘White Knight,’ but—”

“Don’t ask me why he thinks he’s a white knight,” she cut in, adding, “He’s the local rebel leader, bandit leader, or both. Whatever he is, he’s got the Guatemalan government worried. He and that damned volcano have my company worried, too. We want you to go in and get our over insured client out, Dick. What’s it going to cost us?”

“Let’s worry about that after I decide on the job. What if this client of yours doesn’t want to come out with us? We’re soldiers of fortune, not white slavers.”

Flora began to toy with his limp tool as he smoked the firmer claro while she explained, “They’ll all want to come out, if anyone can get into them. The last anyone heard from the team, they were low on supplies, the natives were restless, and they’d done all they could.”

“I know the feeling. So what’s stopping the Red Cross team from just packing it in and returning to civilization on their own?”

“They can’t. They’re cut off. The only mountain trail in or out of the disaster area isn’t there anymore. It seems to be covered with lava, a lake of boiling acid water, or both. Reports are naturally a little sketchy at the moment.”

By this time she’d taken the matter firmly in hand and it was starting to get firm indeed as she stroked it skillfully. He said, “Hold it. Better yet, let go. It’s hard to talk sense with a hard-on, and I’m missing something here. You say you want us to go in and get them out. Then you say the only trail in or out is covered by lava and boiling acid. I’m good, honey, but I’m not that good!”

“You’re marvelous,” she purred. As she went on playing with him, she explained, “I said the trail from the Guatemalan lowlands was cut off. I didn’t say it was the only one. Some Mexican smugglers tell us there’s another trail into the disaster area, through the Mexican border country.”

He frowned and said, “Ouch! Not what you’re doing to my dong. I meant the country you’re talking about. Mexico makes me nervous, doll. Sometimes I think I make El Presidente Diaz nervous too. Every time I go anywhere near Mexico, his damned Rurales wind up trying to shoot my ears off!”

“That’s why we got you the Maxim in the next room, dear. We tried to reason with El Presidente, too. But the prick won’t cooperate, and, hmm, speaking of cooperative pricks—”

“Not just yet, dammit! You know I’m willing to screw you all night, Flora. But I’m starting to wonder about less attractive kinds of screwing. I’m missing something. The Diaz dictatorship can be rude as hell to widows and orphans, but that oily old bastard running it likes to stay in good with Uncle Sam if it doesn’t cost him anything, and I don’t see why he’d refuse to allow an American insurance company to do things the easier way. So what’s all this bullshit with machine guns and soldiers of fortune Los Rurales have orders to shoot on sight?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Dick, if this was a ruse to capture you and Gaston, we’d have just let the shore patrol from the Maine pick you up.”

“We knew that or we wouldn’t have come to meet you. Uncle Sam’s reward on my head is bigger than the one Diaz has offered, too. But I still don’t see why you can’t just send in a plain old rescue team.”

“Diaz won’t let us. He says he can’t be responsible for the lives of his Yanqui guests in country he doesn’t control, see?”

“No, I don’t see. The last time I visited Mexico, old Diaz was in a lot more control than most Mexicans with any brains wanted him to be. He’s got his butchering Rurales everywhere, Flora!”

She said, “Not in the south Sierra Madres near the Guatemalan border, dear. What there is of the country on the map is mighty rugged, and a lot of it’s not on any map. Our agents in Mexico City say El Presidente could be telling the truth for a change. No Rurales have been patrolling that far south in some time. The last bunch they sent in never came out. So you and Gaston won’t have to worry about Rurales, see?”

“Jesus, what do we have to worry about, if it eats Rurales for breakfast? Those apes are tough!”

“Pretty please with sugar and a new machine gun on it? We’ll have Mexican guides waiting for you, and we can promise a safe landing on a stretch of the southwest Mexican coast that another agent of ours controls better than El Presidente Diaz might suspect.”

“I’ll think about it,” he growled, as she dropped her head in his lap to arouse him even more with her soft, moist, tightly pursed lips. He knew she couldn’t talk with her mouth so full and he didn’t feel like discussing business at a time like this. So he chuckled and said, “Hey, let’s not waste it. I want some more of the real thing, doll box!”

She giggled and rose to her hands and knees to swivel around. She might have meant to lie down again, but he had a better idea when he saw how nice her curvaceous derriere looked by candlelight. So he swung off the bed, grabbed a hipbone with each hand as he turned to aim his weapon, and, standing in his stocking feet on the floor, pulled her on like a glove, dog-style.

She arched her spine to take it all the way as she gasped, “Oh, yessss! It feels even deeper that way. I wonder if you’d even need a machine gun to get through the Sierra Madres, darling. I’ll bet if you just pointed that big cock at half the bandits in Mexico they’d run away screaming!”

He laughed, but said, “I’m more worried about the ones who don't run away. If we have to discuss business at such a weird time, what are you offering, besides this, Flora?”

“What you’re doing to me is hardly a matter I’d want on the company books, you big goof. I was told to offer you the going soldier-of-fortune monthly fee or a flat rate, whichever you prefer. Ah, could you move a little faster?”

He did, as he thought for a few strokes and then said, “Okay. We charge a thousand a month, each. If it takes us a whole month to get in and out, we’re probably not going to get in or out. How does a flat two thou’, one now and one if we make it, sound to you, Flora?”

“Oooh! Just keep going in and out like that and you’ve got a deal! That feels fantastic!”

Everything about her and the company she worked for seemed a little fantastic. But, up to now, it sure felt good. He asked her, “Will you and your sister be going with us, Flora?”

She said, “No, damm it. Our job is finished once we get you boys over to the Pacific coast and turn you over to other company people. But if I can’t go with you, I sure am coming with you and, Jesusssss!”

She fell off him, forward, leaving him in mid-air, halfway to heaven. He started to drop back into position atop her, but Flora rolled to one side and said, “That’s enough for now, dear. I have to get dressed and start the ball rolling.”

“Can’t you roll your balls after I ball you at least one more time, dammit? I was about to come, honey!”

She laughed, jumped up, and then bent to pick up the cigar he’d dropped on the bare floor as she said, “I’ll be right back, silly. Here, smoke this or something until I send a few messages. Please don’t jerk off while I’m gone, though. I’m still hot, too.”

He laughed, accepted the smoke like a good sport, and relit it as she quickly slipped her print dress back on and sort of pinned her hair. He said, “I still have to check with Gaston. But if your sister’s as persuasive as you are, I don’t think he’ll give us any argument. We don’t have any place better to go, now that we can’t get back to the waterfront. How do we get over to the other coast?”

She said she’d tell him later and left him alone. He took a deep puff of smoke as he lay back across the bed, and damned if he didn’t still have a full erection. He laughed again. He knew why she’d cut him off like that. She didn’t intend to start from scratch when she came back. Yeah, she’d been around a few blocks with the other boys on the block. But was that anything to bitch about?

He wondered how long it was going to take her. The old posada didn’t have electricity, let alone a telephone. But there was a cable office in town and she’d surely send one of her armed brownies instead of going out alone after dark, unescorted, in a little Hispanic town.

He wondered why he was wondering. He’d had the hot-blooded Basque beauty, Esperanza, shortly after sunrise that morning. It wasn’t that long after sunset, and he’d just had strange stuff. Either of them were enough to satisfy a sensible man for at least a couple of days, and this particular day had been sort of rough.

He snuffed out the cigar again. It was dangerous to smoke in bed when a guy felt like he’d been digging ditches. Some bruises he’d picked up in that alley fight were coming back to haunt him now, and he sure hoped old Flora wouldn’t feel insulted if she found him asleep when she got back. He wasn’t sure it was safe to doze off here and now. But where the hell else in town would it be safer?

He was just about to when the door opened and a familiar teasing voice said, “Oh, dear, you’ve let it go soft, you brute. Have you been naughty while I was confirming your contract, or are you simply tired of me already?”

He opened one eye and growled, “Come over here and find out how weak and helpless I am, doll box. Did the front office say when I get to see any of your other charms?”

She stripped even faster than the last time, and as she got on the bed with him he noticed she’d taken time to get rid of her stockings and those damned high heels, bless her. She cuddled beside him and reached for his groin as she said, “We’ll give you boys your checks in the morning before you catch the coach to San José. I don’t have my fountain pen or anything else on me at the moment.”

He laughed, said that was for damned sure, and reeled her in for a kiss. He wasn’t sure if he meant it or not. She’d left him way in the middle of the air, but now that he’d had time to cool down, his back sure felt stiff.

She kissed back, passionately enough to inform him that if he'd had enough, she surely hadn’t. She tongued him and did other things as teasing with her soft, experienced hand. So maybe his back wasn’t that stiff after all. He was getting stiff enough where it mattered.

But she must have been a perfectionist. She withdrew her tongue, sat up, and said, “The poor thing seems to be injured. Mommy had better kiss it and make it well.”

That seemed fair. It seemed even better when she went down on him again and commenced to play French music even better than his old meat flute remembered. He wondered if she expected him to return the favor. Esperanza usually did, but Esperanza hadn’t been laying anyone else of late, and though Flora said she hadn’t been with another man for some time, he found it hard to buy. No lady screwed that good without constant practice, and, hell, he hadn’t even had to ask. He could imagine who or what she might go to bed with if he, or it, really begged for it!

But she didn’t offer him any seafood. She simply sucked it to full attention and then forked a shapely and now naked thigh across him to straddle him as she said, “I like it best on top. Just lie still, dear. This freak of nature you carry in your pants takes a little getting used to.”

He didn’t answer. He just lay supine, not moving anything, as she began slowly and teasingly to impale herself on his now raging erection. As she did so, her eyes got wider and she hissed, “Oh, I don’t know, dear. This is really a little too much of a good thing, if you ask me!”

He hadn’t asked her. He’d thought they’d gotten beyond that maidenly crap by now. But damned if she didn’t feel even tighter as she gingerly settled down, biting her lower lip as if she were getting into a hot bath she wasn’t sure she could stand.

Apparently she could. Because once it was all the way in she leaned forward and started moving her hips very nicely indeed. Now he was glad he hadn’t fallen asleep. They hadn’t tried it this way before, and it felt completely different. He reached up to fondle her breasts as she started bouncing faster. That was funny. He hadn’t noticed, the last time, that one of Flora’s nipples was inverted. But the little mole he had noticed at the base of Flora’s throat seemed to be missing, and so, what in the hell were they up to if this was Dora?

He knew that was a dumb question as soon as he asked it of himself. He was blessed with natural curiosity. Why should dames be all that different? Obviously the dizzy twins had compared notes on more than their report to the home office, and the guy who’d said variety was the spice of life had had a good point. It was sort of flattering to know old Flora had recommended him so highly as she took her turn learning about French culture. He wondered if Gaston would catch on as quickly. He hoped not. He decided not to tell him if he didn’t. Even Gaston had some standards, and Captain Gringo knew he’d be mad as hell if he found out he’d just eaten out a broad who’d come more than once with another guy.

Dora, still pretending to be Flora, moaned that she was too excited to go on that way. So he rolled her over to do it right, and, yeah, now he knew for sure.

The two girls had the same faces and bodies. They were even built much the same between their identical thighs. But this one moved nothing like her twin sister. She was not only more acrobatic, she was double-jointed as well, he learned, as she locked one ankle around the nape of his neck and proceeded to run her bare toes through his hair while she fondled his nuts with one hand and tried to sodomize him with one finger of the other.

He told her he didn’t enjoy that. She giggled and said lots of men did and that she wanted to find out if his rectum was as tight as her pussy. He laughed and told her nothing was as tight as her pussy. If she got the joke, she went on playing dumb, until they’d both enjoyed themselves beyond passion into just plain showing off.

He knew she was waiting for him to call a halt. So he did, got up to make sure the door was locked, and staggered back to bed. They were both asleep within minutes.

Captain Gringo would have slept until noon, if the lady in bed with him had let him. But as the tropic sun peeped through the jalousie slats across the window, she nudged him awake and said they had to think about getting up and dressed if he expected to eat any breakfast before the stage to the high country pulled out.

He groaned, sat up, and looked around for something to put on. She lay there, stark naked, looking a little hurt as she asked, “Just like that? We’ll probably never meet again, and you don’t even want to screw me good-bye properly?”

She did look tempting with the strips of sunlight painting tiger stripes across her naked flesh like that, and now that he reconsidered his options, he did have a morning hard-on. So he laughed, kissed her, and laughed even harder when he mounted her. She naturally asked why, and he naturally didn’t tell her he’d just noticed that her mole was back and both her nipples were normal again this morning. Considering what Gaston had probably been doing to her tight little twat in recent memory, it was mighty flattering to know she’d come back for another old-fashioned lay with him.

Of course, Dora was probably enjoying this weird game of musical beds right now, too, if he knew Gaston. So he just humped away arid went along with the harmless gag. He enjoyed amusing sex adventures as well as the next guy or gal.

But all good things must come to an end, and once they’d kissed the girls good-bye and boarded the San José stage with their gear, the rest of the day was boring as hell.

Costa Rica had nice scenery, a stable popular government, and not enough bandits along its dirt-paved coach roads to matter. The coaches were no better or worse than any others. There was no such thing as a comfortable stagecoach and it took forever to get up to the cooler high country.

They spent the night at a highland posada, with no other company, then spent another boring day getting to San José. Then things got better for a while. They cashed the checks the twins had given them, banked most of it, got laid, and caught the train down to the Pacific seaport of Puntarenas. They didn’t meet anyone pretty enough to matter on the train, nobody shot at them along the way, and while the train wasn’t a Pullman, it sure beat a coach in every way.

In Puntarenas they were met at the depot by a couple of gun thugs who said they were working for the same insurance company and probably were, because they helped Captain Gringo and Gaston with their considerable luggage and drove them to the docks where a steel-hulled schooner was waiting. Captain Gringo asked the bored-looking Yankee skipper if they had to worry about clearing customs and the skipper shifted the toothpick in his mouth to the other side and told him not to be silly. So the next thing the two soldiers of fortune knew, they’d been shown to not-great but not-bad staterooms and were on their way.

~*~

The voyage up the Pacific coast was a lot more comfortable than either a coach or train, but it seemed to be taking forever, so things tended to even out. The food, like everything else aboard the chartered schooner, was neither good nor bad. The crewmen, while polite enough, were either uncommunicative by nature or, more probably, under orders not to discuss company business with temporary help.

Gaston made up for it by talking a blue streak, as usual. So far, his only comment on the twins back in Costa Rica had been to the effect that the one he’d had had been almost too much for a man his age. His younger American friend preferred to leave him in ignorant bliss and kept changing the subject to where they were going rather than where they’d just been. Hence, long before they got there, Captain-Gringo heard more about the Mexican-Guatemalan border country than he really felt the need to know.

Gaston, of course, knew Mexico like the back of his hand, having knocked around it since back in the seventies, fighting for various sides in the unsettled years since Juarez had died and left the place in one hell of a mess.

Gaston hadn’t passed through the particular part of Mexico they were headed for in recent memory. But he remembered it, not too fondly, from the time he’d been part of a French Foreign Legion border patrol for the late Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, and, as Gaston asked rhetorically, how much could the amusingly eroded scablands of the southern Sierra Madres have improved in a generation?

He added that the Sierra Madres paid no attention to any border drawn by human hands on any map. They simply ran on down through Central America, with a modest gap here and there, until they turned into the Andes of South America. Some parts were higher and some parts were lower, but the mountain chain was all rough-and-ready rock laced with live volcanoes, carved with deep canyons, and shaken with monotonous regularity by earthquakes. He said he had no idea why any sensible person would want to live in such country.

Captain Gringo said, “Never mind the geology lecture and let’s not worry about sensible people. What do you know about more truculent mountaineers, Gaston?”

The Frenchman shrugged and replied, “The last time we marched through, they shot at us avec annoying accuracy. We did not get to talk to many of the natives. For some reason they did not regard us as the liberators Maximilian insisted we were. One must assume, since El Presidente Diaz is an even bigger species of bastard, they have not changed much more than their adorable mountains.”

Captain Gringo nodded and said, “The twins said the country was too rough for Los Rurales to police. What do you make of this white knight character, Gaston?”

Gaston shrugged and said, “He sounds like the usual Mexican guerrilla with perhaps unusual taste in attire.”

“Hold it. El Caballero Blanco’s not supposed to be raising hell on the Mexican side of the border, remember?”

“I remember, but does El Caballero Blanco? The so-called border is an imaginary line on a map this species of pale idiot may not have ever read, if indeed he can read at all. You will see when we get there, assuming we ever get there, that there shall be neither a border fence nor a sign welcoming us to Guatemala. It’s the kind of country your old friend Geronimo would love to meet you in for a rematch. As a matter of fact, now that I think back, Geronimo could have some distant cousins already there, waiting for us. I forget the names of the local tribes. But I seem to recall they were poor relations of the Aztec, Maya, or some other dreadful Indians.”

“So what? By now they’ve been converted by missionaries, right?”

“Surely you jest. I just told you those hills were not safe for either the French Foreign Legion or Los Rurales! To convert a savage to anything, one must first get close enough to talk to him, alive.”

Captain Gringo knew better than to ask about the so-called Spanish conquest. But Gaston tended to pontificate about watch repair when all you’d asked him was the time of day. So the little Frenchman insisted on explaining, “The Conquistadores tended to skip the tribes who had no gold. So a lot of places that appear on the map as former Spanish colonies are still inhabited by people who never heard of His Most Catholic Majesty and—”

“Never mind the history lesson,” Captain Gringo cut in, adding, “I get the picture. Wild Indians don’t scare me as much as wilder bandits with modern weapons. What’s the bandit situation in the Sierra Madres right now?”

“Right now? Merde alors, it’s been over twenty years, Dick. Since the country is trés rustiqué, one may assume anyone dwelling in the scablands wearing pants and guns would tend to be antisocial, hein?”

“The twins said the guys who’ll be meeting us up the coast are Mexican smugglers who know the way into the Guatemalan version of the Sierra Madres. Does that make sense to you?”

Gaston shrugged and observed, “To indulge in smuggling, one would have to know the way across some border or other, non?”

“Maybe. But what in the hell would they be smuggling? Guatemala is a poor country. Even if it wasn’t, the Guatemalans grow the same crops, drink the same coffee, and smoke the same weeds.”

Gaston laughed and said, “Eh bien, that is easy to answer, Dick. Our smugglers will most obviously be running silver into Guatemala and guns into Mexico on the return trip. El Presidente Diaz has an annoying habit of demanding one-fifth of all minerals exported from Mexico, and of course he takes a trés dim view of anyone importing guns into his private paradise for peons.”

Captain Gringo thought, nodded, and said, “Yeah, that works. If the guides the company’s hired jump the border regularly, they must have some sort of arrangement with the local Indian and mestizo types. So the only question left before the house is how far we can trust our guides, right?”

Gaston grimaced and said, “That is no question. Never trust any stranger with a gun. Have you considered the ties obvious easy way out yet, my donquichottesque child?”

Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “It won’t work any better. We can’t get off this boat until it docks, and once we’re ashore in Mexico, we’ll already have all the enemies we need without having to double-cross anyone. The insurance company has the local law fixed. But they won’t stay fixed very long unless we carry out our part of the bargain.”

“True, up to a point. My plan was to go along with the joke until we’d cleared the seaport they control. Once in the foothills of the Sierra Madres, if we cut north instead of south—”

“Are you crazy? That would mean playing tag with Los Rurales again!”

“Oui, but in much nicer country. We only have to make it as far as Tehuantepec, where the women are beautiful, the pulque is drinkable, and I know rogues who can get us aboard a southbound boat.”

“You asshole. Have you forgotten there’s a federate army post in Tehuantepec?”

“Sacre goddamn, Dick. I said nothing about reporting in to the duty sergeant there. The shitty species of town is trés lousy with all sorts of unwashed beachcombers of various complexions. Who is going to notice two more, if we don’t stay long?”

“The guides the insurance company’s hired, of course. They’ve just paid us the front money, in case you forgot, and somehow I have a pretty good suspicion they’ll want to protect their investment.”

Gaston shrugged and said, “The guides are no problem. As for the front money, we have already cashed our checks. So what could they do about it, once we were safely back in San José?”

“Back up and run that shit about our guides past me again. Are you suggesting what it sounds like you’re suggesting, you murderous little bastard?”

“Oui, but would it not make more sense to murder them before they can murder us? What hold can the insurance company have on them, once they have us at their mercy in the high country? If they make a regular habit of passing through it, they must have lots of friends there, non?”

“Okay, but—”

“But me no buts, Dick. We are discussing professional criminals on their own home grounds. The insurance company could hardly have offered them more than they just paid us. The machine gun, ammo, and other supplies we’re packing in could be sold for much more to any of a dozen Mexican rebel factions. Merde alors, we’d be trusting them with our lives in a savage area where most men would kill a stranger for his shoes, or just for practice!”

Captain Gringo fished out a claro, lit it, and blew a thoughtful smoke ring before he said, “You’ve got more than a point. But let’s not cross our bridges before we’re even ashore. We’ll play it by ear as we go. If the guides act reasonable, we’ll go along with the gag. If they stare too much at our mosquito boots, we’ll do it your way.”

“Dick, a ladrón out to rob you seldom tells you in advance.”

“I’ve noticed that. I’m still not about to gun anyone who hasn’t given me a good reason.”

“Eh bien, what are we arguing about, then? I shall watch the sons of the bitch while you are sleeping. You shall watch the sons of the bitch while I am sleeping. When they prove me right, we shall kill the sons of the bitch and cut this shit of the bull, hein?”

~*~

The Yankee skipper had timed it so that the schooner put into the fishing village and former pirate cove after dark. The shoreline was ringed with lantern light since, like most people in the tropics, the local Mexicans were night people. But the skipper wasn’t interested in the dimer illumination. He waited until someone ashore flashed a bull’s-eye lantern at him exactly twice, then thrice, before he dropped anchor, well out in the harbor roads.

Captain Gringo and Gaston went aft to the poop to ask him what happened next. The laconic New Englander spat over the side and said, “We wait until they send out a lighter for you and your gear. We don’t wait long. They sent the right signal. But I don’t like the looks of them other two vessels, yonder.”

They followed his gaze shoreward and could just make out the black outlines of two moored vessels, both bigger than the one they were on. Captain Gringo squinted and said, “I make the one closer in a three-island tramp steamer. The other sure looks a lot like a gunboat. Would it be Mexican, skipper?”

“How the hell should I know? Never seen it in these waters before. Never seen this port so crowded before, neither. Don’t like it. But a deal’s a deal and they did signal us right. So I’ll give ’em a few minutes. Not too damned many, though. Ain’t been paid enough to tangle with no gunboat, Mexican or, hell, Bulgarian!”

Gaston said, “Regardez, a steam launch approaches,” and the skipper said, “I see it. Ain’t the lighter I was expecting, neither dammit to hell. What have you boys gotten us into?”

Captain Gringo said, “I’m not sure. Could I borrow that hat of yours, skipper?”

“My hat? What in the hell do you want with my hat, Mr. Walker?”

“That’s a U.S. Navy captain’s gig, or I’ll eat it, and your hat, bill and all. It’s too late to run for it and my blond hair shows in the moonlight. You don’t look like anyone they could be after.”

The older man handed his merchant officer’s cap to Captain Gringo, saying, “I sure hope you’re a good talker. It’s you they’ll question when they see you on this poop with this skipper’s cap.”

Captain Gringo said, “I used to be an officer,” as he put the rather greasy cap on and pulled the bill low. Gaston said something about inspecting the cargo and headed forward to make himself scarce. A few minutes later, the padded bow of the steam launch bumped the steel hull of the schooner, near the sea ladder, and a voice called out, “Ensign Westfield, U.S. Navy. Permission to come aboard?”

The real skipper muttered, “Oh, Jesus!” as Captain Gringo called back, “Permission granted, swabby. Sorry we can’t pipe you aboard fancy, but this is a working vessel, not a seagoing show-off.”

The older American at his side whispered. “Have you gone crazy, Walker?”

Captain Gringo laughed and said, “No talking on my bridge, mister. Just go along with me for now and I’ll show you how to deal with junior officers.”

“You’re going to make him mad, dammit!”

“Hold the thought. He’s coming aboard, with company.”

The white-clad ensign had two enlisted men, with pistol belts and SP armbands on, to keep him company as he came up the ladder and strode pompously aft. Captain Gringo moved forward to stare coldly down at them from the poop as he said, “Well, I see you made her up the ladder without your mama’s help, sonny. What can we do for you?”

“My captain’s compliments, and we’d like to ask a few questions, ah, sir.”

“You got a search warrant, sonny?”

The young ensign snapped, “Look, I’m trying to be polite, but I don’t like to be called sonny and there’s a full-grown gun turret trained on your vessel, if you get my meaning.”

Captain Gringo snorted in disgust and said, “Bullshit. This is a Yankee schooner with proper registration and a license to trade in these waters. You may scare Uncle Sam’s little brown brothers. But you don’t look like much to us! Before you hand me any more bullshit, it’s only fair to warn you I served a hitch in the service one time. So I know the standing orders better than you do, sonny.”

The pissed-off ensign sniffed and said, “I take it you were an enlisted man, of course?”

Captain Gringo laughed and said, “Damned A. Chief petty officer, before I wised up and got out of your chicken shit school for seagoing servants. I haven’t had to sir one of you jerk-offs for some time. But I’ll be a good sport and meet you halfway if you’ll tell me what the fuck you want.”

The two enlisted men behind the pompous young officer were trying not to laugh as he threw back his shoulders and said, “That’s better. My orders are to ascertain what this vessel is doing in these waters.”

Captain Gringo turned to the real skipper at his side and asked, “Don’t they teach them to talk pretty at Annapolis?” Then he turned back to the navy men and said, “What we’re up to is none of your fucking business. But I’ll tell you anyway, because you’re so pretty in them tropic whites. We put in here to pick up a passenger. She’ll be out here soon or we’ll be leaving without her.”

“She?” asked the ensign with a puzzled frown. Captain Gringo wanted the navy to stay puzzled and, hopefully, distracted, so he answered, “Yep. Can’t tell you what she looks like or how she feels about sailors. They just told us she wants to go up the coast to Mazatlán. You can’t get there by land, as you’d know if you ever read your charts.”

“I know Mazatlán is cut off from the inland by mountains, dammit. Never mind your Mexican passengers. Are you landing anyone or anything here?”

“Who wants to know? Are you a Mexican customs officer? I’d have taken you for U.S. Navy. I sure hope you haven’t boarded me under false pretenses, sonny. What the hell are you guys doing in this port, by the way?”

“I’ll ask the questions here, if you don’t mind.”

“I do mind, sonny. This ain’t your yard I’m anchored in. You’re just down here showing the stars and stripes to the natives, and I ain’t no native. So don’t try to push an old sea lawyer around. You’re talking to a licensed master of the U.S. Merchant Marine. So if you don’t want to talk polite, get the fuck off my vessel!”

By now the two tougher shore patrolmen were grinning at each other behind their officer’s back. The ensign was smart enough to know he was being made a fool of, too. But, as Captain Gringo had hoped, he didn’t know what he could do about it.

He said, “Very well. I’ll inform my commanding officer how you feel about the U.S. Navy and we shall see what we shall see.”

Captain Gringo chuckled indulgently and said, “Oh, hell, I don’t want a war with you, sonny. Just so we understand I don’t have to take no shit off you, I’ll let you see our papers and show you the cargo manifest. My mate here has ’em.” He turned to the real skipper and said, “Show junior our papers, Smitty.”

The Yankee skipper swore under his breath and said, “They’re in my desk, ah, Skipper.”

Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “Go get ’em, then. May as well send these boys away happy.”

The real skipper moved for the nearest hatchway, fast, as Captain Gringo told the navy boarding party they could smoke if they had ’em, and asked casually, “Have you checked out that cargo vessel closer to shore yet? Now there's a tub that could be landing all sorts of awful things, if you ask me.

The ensign laughed and said, “A lot you know. We just escorted it down from San Diego. It’s a Red Cross mercy ship. You’ve heard about the earthquakes and ash falls not far from here?”

“Heard something about something like that in the hills of Guatemala. But this is Mexico, mister.”

Relieved not to be called sonny, the ensign nodded and explained, “You can’t get into the disaster area from Guatemala. The newer and bigger team means to try getting in from the north.”

“No shit? Well, I’m glad I’m not going with ’em. Hear it’s mighty rough country, inland from here. I hope, for their sake, it’s a big expedition with lots of guns.”

“It’s not the navy’s problem, once they’re all safely ashore and on their way.”

“How come you had to escort ’em down the coast, then? I’ve never met with coastal pirates in these waters, mister.”

The ensign grimaced and said, “The biggest pirate in Mexico seems to be running the country at the moment. President Cleveland himself asked Diaz to allow the International Red Cross to enter the disaster area via Mexican territory, and the greaser said no!”

Captain Gringo laughed and said, “I figured there had to be some reason for a gunboat in this harbor. Ain’t it a bitch how reasonable some old boys can get when you’re pointing four-inchers at ’em?”

The ensign said it was nice to see they agreed on some things, and so, by the time the real skipper came warily back with the ship’s papers, they were on somewhat friendlier terms. The ensign scanned the papers in the poor light, as if he knew what he was reading. Captain Gringo knew he’d go back to his gunboat to report that he’d checked them out, if only to look more important than they’d made him feel. He hoped the skipper of the gunboat would buy it. He knew from his own experience as an officer that while one could push green shavetails and ensigns around, anyone who’d held his rank a little longer tended to push back.

As the boarding party went back over the side, Captain Gringo gave back the real skipper’s hat. The older man heaved a long sigh and said, “All right, it worked, for now. I mean to weigh anchor before they come back for a rematch. Our next port of call will be Tehuantepec. I sure hope you boys have friends there. Because that’s where you’ll be going ashore.”

Gaston came out from under the rug to join them as Captain Gringo said, “Let’s give our friends here another few minutes. That navy launch is almost out of sight now.”

The skipper started to say something. Gaston casually took out his six-inch blade and began to clean his fingernails with it as Captain Gringo put a hand inside his jacket and added, “Pretty pretty please?” So the skipper said he’d wait another five minutes, period.

They never got to discover just how he meant to weigh anchor without licking them both. Because it was less than five minutes before a dark lighter, lying low in the water, bumped alongside. Nobody came aboard. Someone in the lighter called out, in Spanish, “If anyone wishes for to go ashore, they had better move fast. We are not getting paid enough to spend the night out here!”

The skipper shouted orders in English to his crew and warned the men in the lighter that he’d shoot them if they tried to leave before he got rid of a couple of lunatics and their belongings. So a few minutes later Captain Gringo, Gaston, and their gear were on their way across the dark harbor with a Mexican crew not any friendlier than the guys who’d almost literally thrown them off the schooner.

Gaston asked the nearest sweep a polite question about their destination and was told, “We are not paid for to talk. We are paid for to take you ashore. The people we are delivering you to may wish for to gossip with you. They may not. If you don’t like it, swim.”

~*~

The lighter put in on a shingle beach beyond the last lights of the quay that less-secretive people tied up to. The men who’d brought them ashore dumped their bales and boxes on the sea-wet rocks and told them to get the hell out of their boat. Captain Gringo didn’t see anyone else around. When he asked about that, the lighter skipper told him they wouldn’t have put in there if there had been anyone waiting. He told his men to shove off. So they did, leaving the two soldiers of fortune and their gear to their own devices in the moonlight. Gaston sat on an ammo box and said, “The natives I met in North Africa with the Legion had better manners. Have you ever had the feeling you were not welcome, Dick?”

“Yeah. Don’t light that smoke. Someone’s coming.”

Gaston got back to his feet and they both took out their revolvers and held them in the side pockets of their jackets as bare feet padded over the shingle toward them. As the strangers got closer, they turned out to be a gang of kids. The biggest one, no older than twelve, took off his straw sombrero and asked, “Do you need help with your luggage, señores?”

Captain Gringo replied, “¿Quien sabe? We would have to know where we were going before we decided, muchacho.”

“I am called Gorrion. I know where you are going, señor.”

“Would it be too much to ask you where, Gorrion?”

“Si, señor. We are being paid for to take you and your luggage there, not to ask or answer questions.”

“That sounds fair. Let’s go, then.”

Gorrion told the other kids to pick up the stuff as he told the two soldiers of fortune to follow him. He didn’t offer to carry a thing, himself. Gaston muttered in English, “What a lovely child. Can you imagine what he’ll be like by the time he’s old enough to shave, Dick?”

Captain Gringo smiled thinly and said, “Rank has its privileges in any organization. They’d probably be acting nicer if they were out to screw us. But keep your eyes peeled and your hand in that pocket anyway.”

“Merde alors, did you really think you had to tell me that? But let us look at the bright side. Since everyone we have met up to now insists on treating us so rudely, we should not feel guilty when we have to cross them double, hein?”

“Watch the mouth. Kids who carry things for tourists tend to pick up English fast.”

If the punk in the lead had any idea what they thought of his manners, he didn’t show it. Gorrion led them inland into a tangle of cabbage palmetto, then cut left along a dark dirt path toward the lights of the little fishing port. But before they got close enough to the lights to worry about them, Gorrion cut right along another byway, this one through prickly pear, and led them around the outskirts of town to the back door of a low rambling building. His followers placed the stuff they’d carried this far against the stucco wall on either side of the door. Then Gorrion snapped, “¡Vamanos, muchachos!” and they all scampered off into the darkness without another word.

The soldiers of fortune looked at each other. Captain Gringo said, “Dis must be de place. Cover me while I knock.”

“I have a better idea. Let’s run.”

Captain Gringo ignored him and stepped over to knock on the door. It opened before he could, and a voice, from the inner darkness said, “Entre por favor. We have been expecting you, Captain Gringo.”

The voice sounded pleasant as well as feminine. But Captain Gringo asked, “Could we have some light on the subject, señorita? I mean no disrespect, but my mother told me never to walk into anything blind.”

She laughed and struck a match as she said that her own mother had told her never to do a lot of things she’d done anyway. He believed her. She was a tough-looking little mutt with mixed Indian and Spanish features. She wouldn’t have been bad looking if she hadn’t looked so hard and unkempt. She held up the match long enough to let him see that she wasn’t pointing anything but her pelvis at him and that the room behind her was empty. Then she shook it out, saying, “Lights attract moths and other insects in this part of town. I am called Pilar. Did you bring the machine gun?”

He said he had. So she told him to get everything inside, for God’s sake, and it only took the two men a few moments to do so. As they straightened up in the darkness, Pilar shut the door, bolted it, and struck another match to light a coal-oil lamp, saying, “Bueno. We should be safe here for the night. We will be leaving for the mountains in the morning.”

Captain Gringo asked, “Where’s here, and what do you mean when you say we in connection with the Sierra Madres, Pilar? Gaston and I learned our soldiering in armies that didn’t march with adelitas much.”

Gaston muttered, “Merde alors, speak for yourself!”

But since he said it in English, Pilar ignored Gaston and told Captain Gringo, “We are not adelitas, we are smugglers. Come, I shall introduce you to your other guide, Concepción.”

She picked up the lamp and turned away toward another door. So they followed her, if only to avoid being left in the dark. In the next room an older and fatter mestiza who’d obviously heard their arrival was putting tin plates of refritos and tortillas on a crude table, painted blue of course. Pilar introduced her companion as Concepción and told them to sit down. So they did. Captain Gringo assumed it was about time he put his .38 back in its holster under his left armpit, so he did that, too. Pilar nodded approvingly and said she admired men who thought on their feet.

As she took her own seat, Concepción brought a pitcher of sangria to the table as well. As she sat down and dug in with no further ceremony, Captain Gringo said, “Well, you girls look tough enough to climb mountains with. But what about our stuff? We brought too much for four people to pack.”

Pilar said, “I know. That is for why we have two mules. They are in what was once a spare bedroom, next to the room we left your things in. It is not safe to leave anything outside in this part of town.”

“I asked you before just where we were, Pilar.”

“I know. It is not important, since you shall never see this place again and, should you ever be picked up by Los Rurales, would not really have any need to give them this address. We have friends who watch the old dump when we are out of town. We are out of town a lot.”

“I gathered as much, Pilar. How many smuggling runs have you girls made, so far?”

“Enough for to know the way. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking we do not look like border jumpers. That is one reason we have never been caught. It will be harder, this time. A party of two men and two women look like they are going somewhere, even when the men look like Mexicans. Sombreros are no problem. But we are going to have to do something about those gringo linen suits.” Concepción poured herself some sangria as she said, in a much softer voice, that she thought the stand that sold peon clothing at the village market would still be doing business, since it wasn’t late.

Pilar shook her head and said, “They are both too blanco for to pass as charcoal burners. I think it might be best for to disguise them as native Mexicans of some substance. We shall tell anyone we meet near the coast that we are going prospecting.”

Gaston asked what about people they met further inland, and she laughed harshly and said, “Anyone who asks questions of strangers in the Sierra Madres is too crazy for to go on living. The idea is to look like a party too dangerous to attack without a good reason, and too poor to offer a good reason, eh?”

Gaston chuckled fondly and said, “I am beginning to believe you lovely ladies do know your way around in these parts.” He turned to Captain Gringo and added in English, “What do you think, Dick?”

Captain Gringo said, “Speak Spanish. We either trust one another or we don’t.” He turned back to Pilar and added, “I think you girls must know the way, since you’ve made it back and forth more than once. If you know my nickname, you know a little about me, too. The company hired you as guides. They hired Gaston and me to head the expedition.”

She shrugged and replied, “So?” and he said, “So we begin by cutting out all this street-gang tu madre nonsense. When I ask questions, even Gaston here answers them. If you’re afraid we might turn you in, you don’t know enough for us to bother taking you along. You girls, at best, are wanted for simple trespass and customs violations. The two of us are wanted for more grown-up shit. Is any of this getting through to you, or do I have to talk slower and move my hands a lot?”

Concepción giggled and murmured, “¡Ay, que toro!”

But Pilar looked as sullen as ever as she answered, “I am used to being the boss here.”

He said, “I noticed. I just took over, anyway. If you don’t like it, say so, and we’ll just be on our way.”

She frowned and said, “Do not speak so estupido. You would never get through the Sierras without us. Besides, we have already taken the front money, and we are women of honor.”

“I’m sure you are. I’m sure you want the final payment, too, and you won’t get it until we get in and out with the insurance company’s client. So let’s talk about that. How many days will we be on the trail, Pilar?”

She shrugged and said, “Three or four. Maybe more. It depends on who else is using the trails. There is more than one route to follow, in places. We have found it wiser to go the long way around when we see campfire smoke ahead.”

“That’s the way I travel in Indian country, too. How bad are the local Indians, by the way?”

“Indians are not hard to deal with, when one has plenty of ammunition. Bandits are another matter. Bandits tend to have repeating rifles, too.”

“I’ve noticed that. So tell me about the bandits. Are we likely to run into this Caballero Blanco everyone’s so worried about?”

Pilar said. “Not on this side of the border. He is not exactly a bandit. He says he means to liberate Guatemala from the current junta and give schools and hospitals to the little people.”

Captain Gringo grimaced and said, “Right. Meanwhile he of course collects contributions to his cause at gunpoint. We’ve met his kind before. One of them’s the president of Mexico at the moment. But we don’t have to worry about high-minded Guatemalan rebels until we get to Guatemala. Which way is this market you girls mentioned? You’re right about it being a good idea to pick up some charro outfits.”

Pilar protested, “Impossible! You can’t go into town tonight!”

“I didn’t ask your permission to go shopping, dammit. I asked you which way the market was!”

“It is due north, along the Camino out front. But what if you get caught?”

“I’ll be in a hell of a mess. Gaston, you stay here and mind the shop. I know your size and you can have any color charro outfit you want, as long as it’s granite gray.”

Gaston just chuckled as the tall American rose, put his hat back on, and headed for the door. Pilar started to rise, too. But Gaston said, “Don’t try to stop him, querida. It’s a waste of time. I think he is crazy, too. But that is the way he is. Would you girls like to play spin the bottle with me until he gets back, if he gets back?”

~*~

Captain Gringo didn’t think he was acting crazy as he followed the dirt road into the lit-up center of town. He knew the insurance company had fixed the local if not the federate law, and the snippy navy jerk-off had told him a whole mess of other strangers were in town at the moment.

When he found his way to the open-air market he saw it was true. A pair of couples wearing the tropic kit of the new International Red Cross were gawking at the local color more obviously and less politely than an old Latin American hand like Captain Gringo thought prudent. The two women wore a sort of khaki nursing-sister’s uniform. The men with them looked like they were on Safari in Darkest Africa, pith helmets and all. They were saved from being taken for a pair of Stanleys looking for Livingstone by their Red Cross armbands and their lack of weaponry. He’d heard the Red Cross didn’t approve of packing guns. But you couldn’t have it both ways, this deep in Mexico.

Most Mexicans were as polite to innocent-looking strangers as the next guy. But when you wanted to swagger and sneer around Mexican villagers, it was a good idea to do so with one hand resting on the grips of a serious-looking side arm.

None of the local natives seemed to give Captain Gringo more than a passing glance as he walked quietly among the market stalls. But the Red Cross workers were attracting murderous looks and silent curses as they tittered about, fingering goods and commenting on them in English without even nodding to the shabby barefoot merchants.

It wasn’t Captain Gringo’s problem. So he avoided them and any questions they might ask by cutting down a side aisle and asking an old woman selling fruit, politely, if she knew where they sold clothing. She told him where to go and he bought a papaya from her, gravely waiting for her to make change. Poor people could take an obvious tip the wrong way and they both knew he’d thanked her enough by buying one of her over ripe papayas.

He got rid of it as soon as he was out of her sight, as she no doubt expected him to. He wondered how the hell she existed on the few sales she could possibly make.

He found another old woman selling vaquero gear and bought a pair of modest charro outfits trimmed with black braid instead of mock silver conchos. He knew how she survived. She charged too much for such an out-of-the-way village. But she was pleasant enough as she made his change, once she’d seen he was neither a haggler nor a cheapskate.

She asked politely if he was with the other Anglo strangers in her village. When he said he wasn’t, she said, “Bueno. I would stay away from them if I were you, señor. Far away, if you are the peaceful young man I assume you to be.”

He put the bundle under his left arm, leaving his gun hand free, as he smiled and asked casually, “Oh? Are those Red Cross people in trouble already; señora?”

She shrugged and replied, “It is not for me to say. But when a bleached-blond gringa points at a stand selling religious figures and laughs like a chicken, one tends to wonder about her continued good health. The figure she mocked was that of Santa Maria, Madre de Dios! She seemed to find the costume of the Virgin more amusing than we do. If you are not with them, it would be wise to finish your shopping early.”

The old woman put a finger to her cheek, pulled down a lower eyelid, and added, “Need I say more, señor?”

He shook his head, thanked her for her sage advice, and turned away. He knew the smartest thing to do right now would be to take the tip at face value and start making tracks. Like most adults of any race, the old market woman and probably most of the other merchants were trying to keep a lid on it, at least until closing time. But there were always clowns who had nothing better to do in any tough neighborhood, and beating up strangers was second only to bullfighting as the national sport of Mexico!

As he headed across the market to rejoin Gaston and the girls, he heard a distant female laugh. The old woman had been right. It did sound like a chicken trying to lay a square egg. But he didn’t think the Red Cross girl was trying to lay an egg. The only egg in question was about to hit the fan any minute. So what in the hell was he doing here?

As he came to a cross aisle, he spotted a couple of obvious village toughs who were fortunately looking the other way, toward the source of the amused cackles. Captain Gringo moved on, slower, as he argued with himself. It wasn’t his fight. It figured to be a mean one. The two Red Cross guys were unarmed and outnumbered. Worse, they didn’t even know they were in trouble.

He came to another cross way as he heard the annoying cackle again. He sighed and turned down it. The dame was a dope. But she probably meant no real harm, and they’d both been too pretty, he recalled, to deserve the Mark of the Cow carved on their faces for the rest of their lives.

He saw he’d asked for even more trouble than expected when he spotted what was coming up the aisle between the stands to meet him. It was a three-man navy shore patrol, led by a burly CPO. All three were armed with pistols and billy clubs. All three were looking at him thoughtfully as he continued toward them. He didn’t want to continue toward them, but he knew it would make them even more thoughtful if he turned and ran like hell. He could probably get away via some broken field running through the crowded marketplace. But he didn’t want Uncle Sam even to guess that there was at least one obvious Anglo in town who didn’t want to say howdy for some reason.

So, as he got within earshot, Captain Gringo nodded to the CPO and said, “I’m sure glad I ran into you guys. There’s going to be a free-for-all.”

The CPO replied, “That’s what we heard. Some kid just ran up to us and said his mama sent him to tell us some white folks are in a jam.”

Captain Gringo said, “He told you true. Follow me.”

The CPO had gotten his stripes obeying the voice of command and Captain Gringo had learned to command pretty good a while back, leading a cavalry troop in Apache country. So the shore patrol fell in with him as he marched on the sound of the guns, or, in this case, chicken cackles. But, since the commanding stranger was still obviously dressed as a civilian, the CPO felt free to inquire where the hell they were going.

Captain Gringo said, “Some of those Red Cross workers we’re supposed to be looking out for have been acting like tourists above and beyond the call of duty. The locals are fixing to jump them. Probably as they leave the market. But maybe sooner, if that silly dame doesn’t shut up. Have you pulled this duty in a Latin port before, chief?”

“Yeah. I get the picture. Are you packing a gun, mister?”

“Of course. But we may be able to get everyone off the hook with a ruse. No time to explain. I see the intended prey ahead, in front of that hat stand. Just play along with me, chief. I know what I’m doing, I hope.”

The Red Cross workers were now pestering the old man selling straw sombreros. At least, the big buck-toothed blonde was. The two men and the other girl, a little brunette, seemed sort of embarrassed as the blonde put a big sombrero on with another chicken laugh and asked them how she looked in it. The little brunette said, “Silly, Trixie. I wish you’d cut it out. I don’t think the old man here shares your ideas of humor.” As Captain Gringo and the navy men moved in, the CPO murmured, “Oh boy, those greasers on the far side are moving to cut them off from the nearest exit!”

One of the other shore patrolmen added, “Don’t look now, but there’s another bunch edging in from behind us, chief!” Captain Gringo said, “Pretend you don’t notice. Here’s where I find out how much I really know about Mexican psychology.”

He marched up to the Red Cross workers, snatched the sombrero from the blonde’s head, and placed it firmly back on the stand with the others as he shouted, “So you're the silly bitch who dared to insult the Mother of God!”

All four of the Red Cross workers stared at him, thunderstruck. He’d shouted in English because it would have been too obvious a ruse in Spanish. But, as he’d hoped, a native who spoke English laughed and translated his remarks to the crowd.

The blond gasped and said, “What are you talking about! Who are you, anyway?”

Captain Gringo kept his voice loud enough for his volunteer translator as he snapped, “Never mind who I am. You people are under arrest!”

The shore patrol was just as surprised, but smart enough to wait and see. So one of the Red Cross men got to shout, with a Dutch or German accent, “Don’t be ridiculous! We have done nothing. We are members of the International Red Cross!”

Captain Gringo roared, “I don’t care who you are, you son of a bitch! I’m still taking you in, and all four of you are going to be in prison until you’re old and gray!”

The Red Cross workers gasped collectively and the little brunette, bless her, started to cry. The other man, who hadn’t spoken, asked in French what was going on. The one who spoke English didn’t answer him. He asked Captain Gringo what the charge was. The tall American said, “Sacrilege. You poked fun at a figure of the Madonna and you’re going to pay for it, you stupid bastard!”

The Red Cross man blinked in confusion and the big blonde cackled weakly and said, “That’s ridiculous! The Spanish Inquisition went out of business years ago!”

“This isn’t Spain. It’s los Estados Unidos de Mexico, and we’re wasting time here. Chief, I want a guard on either side of these prisoners as we march them off to see the judge. Let’s move it out!”

The CPO hesitated only a moment. He’d said he’d pulled this kind of duty before. He nodded and barked, “Simmons, secure the prisoners on the left. Ryan, you take the right flank. We’ll take ’em to the brig for now. Let ’em sweat a bit before the judge sees them in the morning!”

A big, tough-looking Mexican who’d just joined the audience asked what was going on, in Spanish. A young tough who’d been thoughtfully cleaning his nails with an eight-inch blade laughed and told him, “The gringo policia are arresting them for sacrilege. They are going to prison for mocking the figure of Santa Maria.”

“Es verdad? I did not know gringos were so religious.”

“Neither did I. But even a gringo must believe in God, no? Julio understands their language. He says he thinks the four of them are in much trouble.”

Captain Gringo didn’t let on that he understood as, having waited until the shore patrolmen were in position, he shouted in English, “All right, prisoners, let’s go. I warn you not to make a break for it when we get to the darker streets to the north, unless you want to be shot!"

It worked. The toughs blocking the nearest route out made way for them, grinning, as Captain Gringo and the navy men marched the so-called prisoners out of the market. One of them passed a truly dreadful remark at the two women, but since Captain Gringo didn’t want them to know he spoke Spanish, he let it go. The blonde, at least, probably deserved it. And the sobbing little brunette didn’t know they’d suggested she suck off the warden, so what the hell.

When it was safe to talk, the CPO laughed gleefully and told Captain Gringo, “I sure thought we were in for it back there. Are you secret service, mister?”

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret. Let’s keep in formation a few more blocks in case anyone’s keeping an eye on us.”

“I get the picture, SS. But where are we going?”

It was a good question. So Captain Gringo stepped closer to his “prisoners” and told the English-speaking man, “Lead us to your own field headquarters. But don’t look like you’re leading us, right?”

“We’re not about to go anywhere else, you maniac! Would someone please tell us what on earth is going on?”

Captain Gringo said, “You four were about to be jumped back there. We pretended to arrest you because most Mexicans would rather take a good beating than go to jail.”

The little brunette gasped and said, “Oh, thank God! I thought we were really in trouble!”

He said, “You still could be, ma’am. The four of you had better not go into town again until your unit leaves. When would that be, by the way?”

The now subdued blonde said, “We’re not sure. Our leaders are having trouble getting guides. We assumed it would be easy. But when we told the people here we wanted to go up into the Sierra Madres, nobody seemed to want the job.”

Captain Gringo nodded but didn’t answer as he digested that. The man who spoke English was explaining the situation in French to the other Red Cross guy, who laughed a lot like Gaston did when he got the whole picture. The little brunette told Captain Gringo she was ever so grateful and had no idea how she’d ever repay him for his quick-witted kindness. Captain Gringo just smiled at her, too. He had a couple of things in mind, if he could manage to work out this new development the way he meant to try.

~*~

He couldn’t. When they all got to the posada the Red Cross was using as temporary field headquarters, the navy shore patrol parted in friendly fashion to go looking for more trouble. Captain Gringo went inside with the four workers he’d rescued, and smoked a third of a cigar by the time it had all been explained and he’d been properly thanked by the expedition commander, an old goat with a Swiss accent who held court at a corner table in the cantina but didn’t offer anything but coffee to drink. His name was Fitzke. Herr Doktor Fitzke, to hear him tell it.

Captain Gringo let Fitzke run down before he said, “I’ll be leaving for the Sierra Madres and the Guatemalan high country in the morning, doc. I’ve got native guides, a sidekick who shoots pretty good, and plenty of stuff to shoot. We’d be willing to join your party, if you like.”

Fitzke pursed his lips and said, “Impossible. The International Red Cross is not allowed to carry weapons.”

Captain Gringo frowned and said, “Are you serious, doc? That’s wild and woolly country we’re talking about. It’s not safe up there in the Sierra Madres even with guns. The snakes are bad enough. The locals would never forgive themselves if they let food, supplies, and medicine, along with a mess of real live women, pass through without at least making the old college try.”

“Nonetheless, the International Red Cross is bound to abide by its charter, mein Herr. We are not a military organization. We are forbidden to behave as one.”

“Sir, the people where you’re going never heard of the International Red Cross. A lot of them don’t even speak Spanish. Whoever wrote those rules for you never could have had the Sierra Madres in mind!”

The old goat just shrugged and smiled smugly. Captain Gringo said, “All right, there’s still some safety in numbers, and my friends and I do have guns. Would it be against your charter if we just came along for laughs? We won’t charge you a centavo, and I understand you can’t get anyone else to guide you.”

Fitzke shook his head and said, “As a matter of fact, I managed to hire two Mexican guides just this evening. So we won’t need your, ah, services, mein Herr.”

Captain Gringo frowned and asked, “Have you told your Mexicans that they don’t get to bring any guns along, doc?”

“Of course. Naturally, they agreed.”

“You mean naturally they’re crazy or don’t know the Sierra Madres worth a damn, doc! The damned Rurales are afraid to wander around up there, and they come with Winchesters and Colt .45s they practice a lot with! I’d like to see these so-called guides of yours.”

“I’m afraid that is impossible, mein Herr. They are not here. They have gone to make preparations for the trip and will be joining us in the morning. But what could you possibly want with them? I thought you already had your own guides, mein Herr.”

Captain Gringo shook his head wearily and said, “I didn’t want to swipe them, I assure you. I just wanted to see if they were both real Mexicans.”

“What else would they be, Swedes?”

“They sure as hell can’t be local natives, doc. Everyone in this part of Mexico knows you don’t take women and other goodies worth fighting for into the high scrub without even a BB gun! How many people are we talking about, anyway?”

Fitzke sniffed and said, “There are thirty male field workers and ten nursing sisters in this relief expedition, if it’s any of your business. Why?”

Captain Gringo picked up his bundle, got to his feet, and said, “There’s a chance that big a bunch may look like too big a boo for the average raiding party. But the odds against you getting through are still lousy, even if your dopey guides know the way. I’m still willing to help. But if I’m wasting my breath, just say so and I’ll be on my way, doc.”

Fitzke said he was. So he left, muttering under his breath. He’d have never saved four of the idiots from the local villagers had he known they all meant to be murdered by bandits anyway.

He had to pass through the market again to get back to Pilar’s hideout. So on the way he stopped at another stall and picked up three old Spencer repeating rifles, with ammo to fit the bore. He would have bought more, had the gunsmith had any in stock. But, as it was, he was packing quite a load when he got back to Pilar’s.

The front door was locked. He kicked it a few times and at last Pilar got around to letting him in. She frowned at the extra guns as he placed them on the table. She asked who they were for and he said, “I’m not sure. We may make some converts along the way. Where’s Gaston?”

“In bed with Concepción. He asked me to join them, but I don’t go in for kid games.”

“Oh? What sort of games do you go in for, Pilar?”

She shrugged and said, “I’ll sleep with you, if you like. It’s up to you. It’s only fair to warn you I am an old-fashioned girl. I only like for to fuck.”

He laughed and said he admired old-fashioned girls. He hadn’t been thinking along those lines until just now. He wondered why, as Pilar picked up the lantern and led him into another room. She looked a lot softer from behind and he hadn’t had a woman since that wild night with the twins back in Costa Rica.

Pilar had fixed up her own bleak little room with a sleeping pallet on the floor in one corner and a plaster Madonna in a corner niche. A votive candle was already burning in front of the little santa. So Pilar blew out her lamp and placed it on the floor near the door as she closed and bolted it. Even by soft candlelight she looked tough as hell.

But as she slipped off her peon blouse, exposing her firm breasts, he could see she wasn’t a surly teen-aged boy with long black hair after all. She said, “Get in bed. I’ll join you in a moment.”

That sounded reasonable. So he shucked his hat and jacket and sat on the pallet to finish undressing as Pilar, with no trace of shyness, unfastened her skirt, let it fall, and stepped out of it stark naked in the candlelight. She wasn’t built like a teen-aged boy below the waist, either, and Captain Gringo was already rising to the occasion as she stood there with her hands on her firm hips to ask him, “Well, do you think I’m worth the time and effort, Captain Gringo?”

He said, “Call me Dick, and get over here muy pronto, querida!”

She smiled thinly and said, “Si, si, un momenta,” as she turned from him to face the plaster Madonna and dropped to her knees before it with her naked back to him. He watched, bemused, as Pilar offered a silent prayer, or perhaps a lewd wink, to the garishly painted little figure. Then she crossed herself, rose, dusted off her bare knees, and came to join him as he asked with a puzzled frown if she always said her prayers like a good little girl before she went to bed with a man.

She said, “I pray every night before I go to sleep, whether I have company or not.” Then she shoved him down roughly, forked a leg over his supine flesh, and grabbed his erection to guide it in as she impaled herself on him.

He hissed, “Jeeez!” as her wet warmth reminded him how long indeed it had been since he’d been in such nice surroundings. She was tight as well as hot, but didn’t subject him to the usual maidenly gasp as she took it to the hilt and proceeded to screw him, very nicely, while she calmly observed, “You have a nice cock. I’m glad. We are going to be spending many nights on the trail together and I hate to play with myself, don’t you?”

He chuckled and said, “I like this a lot better than my hand. Let me get on top, querida.”

She moved faster, contracting skillfully, and replied, “Not yet. I like for to be in command. Don’t you like what I am doing, Deek?”

“Very much. But I’d like it better if I was in charge.”

She hitched her bare heels forward to throw her weight on them as she began to move up and down in long, teasing strokes, saying, “In my own bed, am the boss, Deek. Ah, I felt that. But you can’t take it out until I come, too!”

He didn’t answer. He just lay there letting her milk the last drops of his unexpected but not at all unpleasant first ejaculation. Her brown skin was shiny with sweat as she tried to move even faster with her full weight on her smooth but powerful legs. He knew for sure, now, that old Pilar was used to hiking over mountains a lot. But he could tell she was starting to tire, too. So he simply reached up, pulled her heaving slippery breasts down against his chest, and rolled over with it still inside her as she protested, “No! I wished for to come on top!”

He hooked an elbow under each of her slippery brown knees and spread her thighs wider as he proceeded to pound her hard. With her tailbone against the firm floor pallet it was easy to hit bottom with every stroke, and she forgot her street-punk act as she gasped and said, “¡Madre de Dios! What do you think I am, a bottomless pit! You are too big for to do it to me that way. You are hurting me and... Ay caramba! It feels so good and I am, oh, Jesus, Maria, y José, I am cominggggg!”

That made two of them. So Captain Gringo stopped to let it soak as they swapped spit and cooing noises while her insides rippled like warm wet velvet on his shaft. When they came up for air, Pilar said, “That was not fair. How was I to know you carried such a concealed weapon?”

“Have we settled it about who’s the boss of this expedition, Pilar?”

She laughed and asked, “Is this an expedition? It feels like fucking. But, bueno, I do not mind taking orders from a man, if he is a real man, and if you were any more real I would need a doctor right now! Could we rest a moment, querido? Doing this with you takes a little getting used to!”

He kissed her, dismounted, and reached for his shirt to fish out a claro and a light. “As they cuddled together after he’d lit up, Pilar shared the cigar with him, commenting on the good tobacco. She smoked like a tough little mutt, too. But now that they’d gotten to know each other a little better, she was feminine enough to ask him about the extra guns. He told her about the Red Cross expedition’s odd views on weaponry and she agreed that they were trying to commit suicide. But she still didn’t see how the old Spencers could possibly help.

He said, “We’ll let them start ahead of us. We’ll follow just out of sight behind them. Do you want to make an educated guess about what has to happen next?”

She took a puff on the claro, handed it back to him with a frown, and said, “It is not a guess. It is a certainty that they will walk into an ambush within a day or so. But why should we care, Deek? We are not Red Cross workers.”

He took a drag and said, “No, but we still have to get where they’re going. If they’re out front, they’ll run into trouble before we can, see?”

“Better them than us. But for why do we need extra weapons? Concepción and I have our own and you two men have pistols, rifles, and that machine gun as well, no?”

“Call me a soft-hearted slob. But if those Red Cross guys live long enough, some of them may know how to shoot. Four old rifles spread among forty people won’t help much, but it’s better than nothing.”

“Ah, you mean to sell them the repeaters when they see the light?”

“We’ll work something out. It depends on how many of ’em are left to see anything. What are the odds on the guys in the Sierra Madres jumping a party that size, not knowing they don’t have guns, Pilar?”

She shrugged and said, “¿Quien sabe? Los Indios may not attack them if their guides are smart enough to steer them clear of any villages or sacred places. The guerrillas have better weapons, but taking on thirty men who could be armed is not an adventure to consider lightly. They may make it through the smaller bands. If El Caballero Blanco and his hombres are between here and the cut-off first rescue party, the second one is as good as done for.”

“The White Knight doesn’t scare easy?”

“El Caballero Blanco is in the habit of fighting the Guatemalan army regularly, and they have tried for to kill him with field artillery! Thirty men in any kind of uniform would be just what El Caballero Blanco would desire for a light supper. The ten women, of course, would make a good dessert!”

“Let’s hope nobody runs into a serious rebel band, then. Shall we get some sleep, or are you game for some dessert, too?”

She asked him if he was kidding. So he laughed and started to snuff out the claro on the dirt floor. She took it from him and said, “Wait, do not put it out. I wish to take a few more drags on it.”

He thought she meant she wanted to puff it with her mouth some more. She didn’t. As he reclined on one elbow to watch, bemused, Pilar spread her thighs and lay on her back to shove the wet, unlit end of the claro up her love box, and, sure enough, she could puff it pretty good that way, too.

As he watched the glowing tip winking like a red firefly on the end of her unusually improvised dildo, he said mildly, “You told me you didn’t go in for crazy sex, querida.”

She said, “I am not doing this for to show off. The smoke makes me more sensitive inside, see?”

“I see indeed, and it’s giving me another hard-on, for some dumb reason. Aren’t you already, ah, tenderized enough in there, doll box?”

She giggled and said, “It tickles and teases and I know you have already come twice. So if I am to arouse you again I must add spice to my tamale, no?”

It was teasing him, too, just watching, as he considered the smooth internal muscles expanding and contracting on that big cigar. It was enough, to make a guy feel jealous. He said, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, querida, but I’m already about as hard as a guy can get. Let’s cut this smoking in bed and do it right.”

She rolled her head on the pillow, glanced down, and said, “Oh, you do seem to be hot again, no?”

“That’s what I just said. Take that dumb thing out and let me get in again.”

She laughed, started to withdraw the claro, then moved it in and out of herself experimentally as she said, “Oh, this feels so strange.”

“It looks strange, too. Do you always jerk yourself off when there’s a perfectly good real thing at your disposal?”

She started doing it faster as she replied, “No. This is the first time I’ve tried this, with a man watching. It is giving me a very strange thrill. I wonder what it would feel like if I went all the way with it.”

He grimaced and said, “Jesus, this is the first time I’ve ever had a fucking cigar steal my girl.”

She said, “Lie back down, Deek. I wish for to try something.” He shrugged and lay back, muttering, “Whatever Gaston and Concepción are doing next door has to make more sense.”

Then he closed his eyes and hissed in pleasure as she rolled over onto her hands and knees to go down on him as she went on dildoing herself with the claro. For a girl who said she was old-fashioned, Pilar sure sucked like an old pro, and this was sure an easier way to come than most, so what the hell.

It was just as well that he was semi-sated, given the skillful way she offered head. He knew he’d have come by now if she’d started this freaky way. She began to move on her knees to aim her brown rump at the head of the pallet, next to his. He didn’t know about that. He could be as good a sport as the next guy with a reasonably clean lady he knew better. But the tough little mestiza had been a bit gamy even before she was sweated up and filled with his and who knew who else’s love juice.

But that wasn’t what she wanted. She spit him out just long enough to say, “Help me with the cigar, por favor!” So, as she inhaled again with her mouth, he laughed and took hold of the claro to slide it in and out of her while he fingered her wet clit with the other hand. That did it for her. She sobbed, swallowed his shaft all the way, and blew smoke out her vagina. He could tell from the vibrations of the now ruined-for-good cigar that she was coming, hard.

He did, too, deep in Pilar’s throat. But, wanting to finish right, before it went soft on him, he withdrew the cigar, threw it away, and shoved her forward to roll over and mount her from behind And she was right about smoked meat having a tang all its own. It flashed hot and cold as he shoved it in and out of her while she beat the straw-filled pallet with her fists and sobbed that she’d never had it so good before.

He knew she was probably full of shit as well as his excited organ grinder. Dames knew they were expected to tell guys things like that no matter how many times they’d come with others or, in Pilar’s case, probably anything that would fit. But he knew she wasn’t faking when she came again and clamped down so hard that she popped him out as he was on the backstroke, almost there. He swore, fumbled it back between the slippery brown cheeks of her rollicking rump, and thrust home hard all the way. She gasped and arched her back to shove her brown cheeks up against him as he realized his error and said, “Oops, sorry, thought this was the other hole.”

“Do it, do it, do it!” she said, sobbing. So he finished that way in less than ten strokes and collapsed on her soft brown back, saying, “I hope I didn’t hurt you, querida.”

She murmured, “You did, a little, but I’ve always wondered what it would feel like back there. Don’t move. It doesn’t hurt now. But, Madre de Dios, it feels so big in there.”

He knew she was shitting him about her shit hole’s virginity, too. No dame liked it this way unless she’d done it a few times with someone or something. From the skilled way she rippled those internal muscles, he suspected a banana or perhaps a burro had had her this way ahead of him. He wondered why a dame who looked so tough and made love so wildly felt the need to pretend it was all so new to her. Maybe she was just a compulsive liar. That was something to think about, when a dame was about to lead you into other new territory where a fib could cost a guy his life!

But he put the vague suspicion aside for the moment when Pilar purred, “You can start moving now, querido.”

“You’re sure you want to do it some more this way, doll box? I don’t want to hurt you and I don’t see what you’re getting out of it.”

She arched her spine teasingly and said, “It does not hurt. It feels most dirty and romantico at the same time, and that is what I am getting out of it. Do it, Deek! Fuck me in the ass, muy toro, and make me come this way, too!”

So he did, and she did. By the time they fell asleep in each other’s arms, he was sort of looking forward to a week or so on the trail with this tough little mutt.

~*~

Since they wouldn’t be leaving as early as planned, the girls cooked a warm breakfast the next morning as the soldiers of fortune regarded each other wryly across the table. They were both dressed like Mexican vaqueros and Gaston looked like he’d had a hard night, too. But both the fat Concepción and little Pilar seemed to glow as they busied themselves to take care of their newfound friends’ other appetites. It wasn’t polite to compare notes on pussy in front of ladies, so Captain Gringo brought Gaston up-to-date on the Red Cross team and his plan to use them as advance scouts, with or without their knowledge or desire. Gaston said it was the smartest suggestion he’d made up to now and that it could only be topped by just tossing in the towel and running like hell.

Captain Gringo said that aside from being a breach of contract, it could wind up being more dangerous, in the end. He said, “We know what’s ahead of us in the Sierra Madres. The girls will get us in and nobody’s after us in Guatemala right now.”

Gaston said, “Oui, but once we get in, we must get out, and with at least one extra bit of baggage. This species of Red Cross girl the company is so worried about may not get along with your Pilar, if she is at all attractive, hein?”

“Oh, shit, we’re not going in to screw her. We’re going in to rescue her, you dope!”

“True. But where in the fine print does it say you have to be rude to her, Dick? I was hoping you might be able to persuade her to come with us with your usual charm. I see, this morning, that you have forfeited that advantage. Assuming, of course, you intend to use the same guides on the return trip.”

They were speaking English. But one never knew. So Captain Gringo said, “Let’s not discuss business at the table. We have to find Miss Swann alive and well before we can ask her about her sex life.”

“What if she is not alive when we arrive, Dick? No word has been heard of that first Red Cross team since the volcanic indigestion cut them off up there.”

“I wish you hadn’t asked that. If they’ve all been cooked or killed by anything else, we’re shit out of luck, of course. But we’re not going to find out sitting here. What time is it?”

“Six-thirty, why?”

“Sunrise was at six. The Red Cross bunch will probably screw around awhile, but Fitzke said they were pushing off this morning. So let’s give ’em another hour. We’ll be moving faster, once we’re moving. So if we’re giving them a real lead, it still evens out.”

The girls joined them at the table, and as they all dug in, Pilar asked what they were talking about. Captain Gringo explained about letting the other party get a good lead and Pilar said, “I do not like it. We usually slip out of town before daybreak, Deek.”

He said, “I know. But they’re not smugglers. They’re greenhorns.”

“What if we are stopped by curious law officers, Deek?”

“We tell them we’re going out to gather firewood or something. You girls aren’t combining business with pleasure this trip, are you?”

Pilar looked away and asked, “Whatever do you mean, querido?”

He grimaced and said, “Oh boy, I might have known. How much silver are you taking over the border with you, doll box?”

“Only a little. Just a few ingots. Is it important, Deek?”

“Only if we run into Rurales, I suppose. We’ll probably have to shoot it out with the pricks anyway. But let’s not deal any more cards from the bottom, Pilar. Are you sure the silver’s the only thing you were holding out on?”

She pouted and said, “I did not hold anything out on you, querido. When you asked about it, I told you about it, no?”

“I guess so. Who are we smuggling silver to, if the road to the Guatemalan lowlands is cut off?”

She looked away with a stubborn set to her jaw. He nodded and said, “Right. You did mention El Caballero Blanco in admiring terms last night. Okay. So we don’t have to worry about his band, and you say the other bands are small and sneaky. I want you to listen carefully before you fib to me again, Pilar. Are you listening like a good little girl?”

She nodded, and he said, “Numero uno, neither the company we’re working for nor Gaston and I give a damn about the political situation in Guatemala. You know we’re both wanted by the law. So we couldn’t betray your White Knight if we wanted to. Agreed?”

She nodded again, and he said, “Numero segundo, your pal El Caballero Blanco must like money or you wouldn’t be smuggling it to him. He must know some Guatemalan trails that aren’t on any map or he wouldn’t be in a position to spend any dinero he gets from anyone. Do you think we could make a deal with him?”

She frowned and said, “El Caballero Blanco does not like Anglos, Deek.”

He said, “That’s not what I asked. Nobody likes us as much as we like ourselves. But United Fruit still buys all the bananas they want down this way. We’re talking cold cash, not popularity. You know the mission. You know we don’t get the final payment until we get that over insured Red Cross girl out alive and well. If Guatemalan rebels, wild Indians, or the man in the moon is willing to help us get her out, I’m willing to cut them in on the action.”

Gaston frowned and growled, “Merde alors, we are talking about my money, too, Dick!”

Captain Gringo switched to English as he muttered, “Upshay utshay, you asshole. A hundred bucks is a lot of money down here and that’s all we’re talking about.”

Pilar asked what Gaston was bitching about. Captain Gringo smiled reassuringly and said, “Por nada. He’s just a worrier. I just told him I was sure El Caballero Blanco was a sensible hombre. How do we go about contacting him, Pilar?”

She shrugged and said, “¿Quien sabe? We are to deliver the silver to some friends of his in Guatemala. We may not meet him at all. This could be a good thing for you two, querido. When I tell you he does not like Anglos, I do not mean he is undecided about them! He has proclaimed more than once that Yanqui imperialists are the curse of Central America.”

“Do you think he’d overlook our past misdeeds for a hundred of our dollars or more? How much were you girls promised to get along so well with us, by the way?”

Pilar didn’t answer, but Concepción said, “Oh, we are each to get two hundred Yanqui dollars, once we finish this job, Deek.”

The soldiers of fortune exchanged glances. Gaston nodded and said, “Mon Dieu, the company must think you girls are good if they are willing to pay so well for your services, hein?”

Captain Gringo kicked him under the table and said, “Finish your breakfast. We’ve still got to lash our gear to a pack saddle.”

He turned back to Pilar and said, “Since you don’t seem ready to answer my question yet, I won’t press you to right now, querida. But think about it. Talk it over with Concepción here, in private if you like.”

He finished his coffee, stood up, and told Gaston, “I’ll be with the mules, if you ever finish stuffing yourself.”

He left the kitchen. Gaston was smart enough to chase after him before the girls, who’d started later, could finish and join them.

The two Spanish mules tethered in what was supposed to be a guest room for people had shit all over the floor and one of them dropped another couple of turds nervously as they rolled their eyes at the strangers. Captain Gringo saw that one packsaddle in a wall niche had already been laden with the girls’ trail gear. He picked up a bare one and with it moved toward the more constipated mule, saying softly, “Easy, boy. I’m willing to be friends if you are.”

Gaston said, “Watch it, Dick. That one’s a biter!” Captain Gringo answered, “Never tell an old army man about mules. The other one’s a kicker and bucker. I’d rather risk a bite on the ass than our gear scattered all along the dusty trail. Would you get our stuff from the next room while I saddle this son of a bitch? Leave the machine gun for last. I want it on top.”

“Merde alors, now who’s telling an old hound how to sniff trees?” snorted Gaston, leaving to get their gear while the tall American made friends with his transportation.

The mule didn’t want to make friends. He sidestepped the packsaddle pad and, as Captain Gringo held his rope halter, tried to bite his hand off.

It didn’t work. Captain Gringo punched its muzzle, hard, and said soothingly, “You didn’t really want to do that, did you?” Then he twisted the nose noose painfully tight and added as gently, “I’m putting the pad on now, mule. You don’t get to breathe again until I do.”

The mule got the message. Like those of both its horse and donkey ancestors, the mule’s mouth and nasal passages were not connected. So it could only inhale through its nostrils, which made a head cold fatal to its species, and made it easier to control than it wanted to be, when a man understood basic equine anatomy. The mule stood still as Captain Gringo put on the pad, let it take a breath, and then saddled and cinched with no further argument.

Gaston staggered in with a lazy-man’s load and helped him lash the bottom layer to the packsaddle. The mule noticed that Gaston was smaller than the one he’d given up on, for now, and tried to bite the little Frenchman, who grabbed its muzzle and said, “Surely you jest!” and bit it savagely on one ear, drawing blood as the mule tried to protest but couldn’t, with Gaston’s fingers up its nose.

Captain Gringo said, “Hold him. I’ll get the next load.”

He brought their sleeping rolls in from the next room and lashed them to the mule. Then he went back for the ammo and, last of all, the machine-gun. He lashed that, wrapped in a tarp of course, with the muzzle braced over the rear fork and the breech nestled by the forward one. Gaston offered him the harness rope and said, “Eh bien, while there is time, let us see how much silver they are smuggling, non?”

Captain Gringo said, “Non. Don’t mess with their pack. It’s not going to be easy to get to if Pilar smuggles as good as she does other things, and they’ll be in here any minute.”

Gaston shrugged, then winked and said, “The fat one is a trés formidable lay too. So I’ll forgive you, this time, for getting the pretty one.”

Captain Gringo didn’t answer, which was just as well. The two girls came in to join them. Pilar frowned at what they’d just done and said, “Just a moment, Deek. That was the mule, we intended to use!”

He said, “I figured he was the best one, too. We’ve got a much heavier load, Pilar. Old buck there won’t get us in as much trouble scraping your pack off on a tree as he would ours. If you lose your sleeping roll, don’t worry. I’m sure we can work something out.”

Pilar pouted and said, “His name is Eduardo, even if he is a bucker. This is most unjust. Both these mules are mine, and you have taken Roberto, my favorite! It is true Roberto bites, a little, but he is steadier on the trail.”

Captain Gringo nodded and said, “That’s what I just said. You’d better load your Eduardo with your packsaddle if you’re going with us today, muchachas. It’s getting late and we don’t want that Red Cross too far out ahead of us.”

So they did it, bitching all the while, and a short time later they were all on their way east, toward the foothills of the Sierra Madres.

To get there, they had to get out of the village first, and that was a bit more complicated than expected. Gaston, walking ahead as Captain Gringo led the lead mule, spotted the shore patrol first and hissed, “Sacre species of triple-thumbed toads! What are those trés adorable sailor boys doing in the native quarter at such an ungodly hour?”

Captain Gringo said, “Let’s ask them. Drop back and let me do the talking.”

Gaston started to argue, but didn’t. He could see it would look worse if they tried to avoid the patrol at this late date. The navy men had stopped in the shade of a live oak and were regarding the two men, two women, and two mules with undisguised curiosity. So far they hadn’t drawn their pistols. Hoping to keep things that way, Captain Gringo stepped up the pace to approach them with a friendly smile as he asked in English, “Have you guys seen that Red Cross team this morning?”

The petty officer in command replied, “They left town about half an hour ago. Who wants to know?”

Captain Gringo moved closer, still smiling, as he tried to think up an answer they might buy. The petty officer’s hand was on his pistol grips now. So the taller American kept both his hands in very plain view as he said, “We got a late start and we’re trying to catch up with the column.”

“That’s not what I asked you, mister. Who the hell are you and do you have any papers to prove it?”

Captain Gringo said, “Sure,” as he put a hand inside his charro jacket, hoping their mothers had never told them about shoulder holsters. But the day was saved when one of the junior members of the patrol took another look at Captain Gringo, grinned, and said, “Hey, I know you. I was with Chief Wilcox at the market last night. How come you’re in Mex duds this morning?”

Captain Gringo didn’t answer and the shore patrolman said, “Oh, right, stupid question.”

The petty officer turned to the patrolman who’d met Captain Gringo before and growled, “You know this guy, Mason?”

“Sure. He’s secret service. Chief Wilcox said so.”

Captain Gringo sighed and said, “He’s got a big mouth, too. How in hell am I supposed to keep secrets if the navy keeps blabbing about my mission to everyone?”

The new patrol leader laughed and said, “Don’t get your shit hot, SS. We’re on your side. Uncle has you watching them Red Cross jerk-offs for some reason, right?”

“I’m not supposed to tell.”

“Shit, you don’t have to. Most of them are damned furriers and the Mex government’s being a pain in the ass about it, too. Is there anything we can do to help, SS?” Captain Gringo laughed easily, said there wasn’t, as he thanked them just the same, and they all parted company alive and well.

Gaston murmured, “Merde alors, that was close, and we have yet to reach the city limits of this trés petite village!”

Captain Gringo said, “So pick ’em up and lay ’em down, but don’t look back!”

“There you go telling your teacher how it’s done again, Dick. How on earth did you sell that trés strange story to them, anyway?”

“It’s a long story. Suffice it to say, everybody likes to look smarter than he really is. Slow down. I didn’t mean you should hop, skip, and jump when I said to keep moving. If we don’t want to catch up with that column, we’d better take it easy. A long column always moves slower on the march, even when it’s all male.”

“There you go again, you fucking species of cavalry trooper. If we walk too slow, those adorable sailors we just passed might wonder just how serious we are about catching up, non?”

“Non. They’re trained pros and they think we’re shadowing the Red Cross for Uncle Sam, see?”

Gaston laughed and said, “Great minds run in the same channels, then, since that is exactly what we are doing. Ah, oui, regardez that fresh mule dropping in the dust ahead.”

“I just did. They haven’t found it yet. That means they’re less than half an hour ahead of us. But we’d better not call a trail break until we’re out of town.”

They plodded on as the sun rose higher and the dust got hotter. Then, when they came to a banana grove by the side of the road, Captain Gringo led the way in, made sure that, as he’d assumed, nobody was working the unripe bananas, and tethered the mule to a stalk as he announced, “We’ll shade here for at least a couple of hours. I hope. Pilar, you know this neck of the woods. Are we likely to have company here this morning?”

Pilar shook her head and said, “I do not think so. These bananas belong to old Tío Renaldo and he is a lazy drunk even when it is time for to pick them. But I do not think we had better take our clothes off while we fuck, just in case.”

Captain Gringo laughed and said, “We’ve got too much ground to cover to tear off a piece every time we take a break, querida. Haven’t you ever heard of just resting?”

He flopped to the weedy grass in the moist shade to recline on one elbow as Pilar flopped down beside him, saying, “You said we would be here two hours. How much rest does anyone need, Deek? It is too early for to eat again, and we have not walked far enough for to be tired. Are you cross with me because we argued about the mules?”

He said he wasn’t. So she said, “Bueno,” and hoisted her dark peon skirt up around her naked hips as she lay back and spread her brown thighs. He said, “For God’s sake, it’s broad daylight and we’re not alone, you know!”

She said, “Yes, we are. Gaston and Concepción just went for a walk among the bananas, hand in hand. I do not think they went for to pick bananas, do you?”

He looked around, saw she was right, and said, “Just the same, some damned body has to watch the mules and that road over there, and I’m not worth a damn at that with my pants down.”

“Just unbutton your fly, then. I will not mind. Those new pants look smooth.”

“They are. They’re clean, too. I mean to keep them that way for now, and besides, I’m not worried about the mechanics involved. I just can’t guard our lives and supplies and screw at the same time. Can’t you wait until tonight, for Pete’s sake?”

She said, “Tonight may never come, and I am hot now! If you will not fuck me, I shall have to satisfy myself some other way.”

He laughed and told her to be his guest. He was only kidding, but Pilar rolled to her feet, reached up into the nearest banana tree, and selected a green banana. A big one. Then, as he watched, bemused, the tough little mutt dropped down to the grass again and proceeded to fornicate with the local vegetation. It looked dirty as hell. So why was it giving him a hard-on to watch?

He knew if he watched her slide that big green substitute in and out of that hot little snatch much longer he was going to get jealous and change his mind. So he got to his own feet and moved over to check the cinches on the mules or something. The mules were fine. They liked it in the shade, eating weeds, and Eduardo’s half-assed attempt to kick him missed by a mile and was only in fun. He looked back. Pilar had that banana going in and out as if she were churning butter inside her. Her eyes were closed and she rolled her dark head from side to side as she moved her hips in passion, mockery, or both. He grimaced and walked closer to the road. He wasn’t expecting to see anyone coming along it from either direction. So he was more than a little surprised when he did.

Two dozen armed and dangerous-looking men were riding west toward the seaport at a bone-jarring but mile-eating steady trot. Like Captain Gringo and Gaston, they were dressed in gray charro outfits. But they were not vaqueros or anything else as human. They were Rurales, and Los Rurales didn’t ride in such big bunches unless they were on the trail of somebody El Presidente Diaz really wanted a lot!

Captain Gringo knew he was high on their list as he faded back through the bananas, drawing his .38 as he crawfished. There was no way in hell he was about to stop twenty-four homicidal maniacs with five bullets. But taking at least five of the pricks with him beat any higher hopes he might have if they failed to just ride by!

He could no longer see the dusty road now, but from the steady, sound of hoofbeats it didn’t seem they were going to stop to pick bananas, Lord be praised.

He made it back to the mules and cut around to start unlashing the machine gun as Pilar stopped jerking off long enough to ask what was going on, in a too-loud voice. He snapped, “Rurales! Keep still!”

She didn’t. She wailed, “Oh, my God! Save me! Save me!”

He cursed, spun around, and took a running dive at her to clap a hand over her mouth and hiss, “Jesus, Pilar! Have you gone nuts?”

She stared wild-eyed and struggled with him as he soothed, “Easy. Easy. They seem to be riding on. Here, let me give you a hand with that banana.”

He removed his hand from her mouth and took the free end of the green banana firmly in hand to dildo her with it some more as he said, “That’s why I didn’t want the real thing in you just now. Nobody thinks too straight when they’re excited, But you sure get excited a lot, for a girl who’s supposed to be used to playing hide-and-seek with the law!”

She spread her brown thighs wider and put a hand on the back of his wrist to help as she replied, “I am used to ducking customs agents. But, Madre de Dios, Los Rurales are not supposed to patrol these parts. Some evil person back in the village must have betrayed us! Ah, could you do that a little faster, querido?”

He could and he did, as he shook his head and said, “They could be after almost anyone who doesn’t admire El Presidente Diaz, and there’s a lot of that going around in Mexico these days. I didn’t notice a telegraph wire along the road we took out of town. Is there a telegraph Pilar?”

She answered only with a groan as Gaston came in view through the banana stalks, buttoning his pants. Gaston asked why he’d just heard a woman scream. Then he saw what they were doing and asked, “Is that any way to treat a lady, Dick? Move over and let a man do it right if you’re not in the mood, hein?”

Captain Gringo let go of the banana, got to his feet, and put away the gun in his other hand as he told Gaston, “Just trying to calm her nerves. A mess of Rurales just rode by. I think they rode by. But just thinking isn’t good enough when there are Rurales anywhere near you. Screw her or something while I man the Maxim. But don’t let her yell anymore!” He moved back to the mules and finished unlashing the machine gun. He armed it and stepped clear of the mules with the Maxim braced on one hip, trained on the out-of-sight road. He strained his ears for at least a million years and all he heard was a greenfinch tweeting in the tree above him. He flinched when he heard a snapping twig behind him. But it was only Gaston coming to join him, pistol drawn, and observing, “She seems to prefer fruit to older men. I don’t think she’ll scream again. I told her we’d kill her if she did. Shall I go get Concepción?”

The taller American said, “Yeah. Tell her to get dressed, while you’re at it. We’d better move the girls and mules farther back among the bananas. I’ll cover your withdrawal from here with the Maxim.”

“Merci. Mais just what is our line of retreat, Dick? Concepción and I were just enjoying the shade as far south as it extends. This grove is not a vast forest. There’s an open, freshly spaded milpa less than fifty meters off the road.”

“Oh boy! Okay. Just get the fat girl dressed and ready to run. Leave Pilar and these mules with me for now.”

“Tres bien, if I can trust you not to shove a banana up either mule’s derriere. What was that strange business all about, by the way?”

“It was her idea. She seems to be sort of warm-natured. Get going, dammit!”

Gaston chuckled and left. A few moments later Pilar got up, smoothed her skirts sedately, and came over to join him, asking if they were going to die. He said, “It’s a little early in the morning for that, as well. Those Rurales were in too much of a hurry to beat the bushes as they rode. So it wasn’t a simple fishing expedition. They were on their way to some known address.”

“Oh, God, do you think they know about our hideout back there?”

“Take it easy, querida. They won’t find us there now. What is there for them to find if someone did turn you and Concepción in to the law? You didn’t leave anything of value at the old house, did you?”

She shook her head and said, “No. Santa Maria and her candles are in my sleeping roll on Eduardo there.”

“Your silver, too?”

She hesitated and said, “Si, a little. You and Gaston are the main contraband, this trip.”

“I’ll bet. But that’s your own business. My point is that there’s nothing the Rurales can use against us, even if that’s where they’re headed. Gaston and I kept our Anglo clothes and we certainly didn’t leave any note for the milkman. I asked you before if there was a telegraph line out of that village, Pilar.”

She nodded, giggled, and said, “Si. If I had been able to answer at the moment I would have told you, then, there is one. It runs northeast along another road, to Mexico City. For why do you ask?”

He shrugged and said, “You’re right. It was a dumb question. It’s obvious someone wired the government about some damned body. It might or might not have been about us. Then Mexico City wired a Rurale post closer to us to check something out. How come you never told me that road we took leads to a Rurale post, Pilar?”

She shuddered and replied, “I never knew it did, before. The road out of town is not the one we will be following all the way. It is only the easiest route to the hills. Once we start climbing, we take less-imposing old Indian trails, forking south off the main road running east and west, see?”

”I do now. Those Rurales must be stationed on the far side of the Sierra Madres. They rode all night along the main line if they got this far by this morning. The only question left reads two ways. They could have ridden in such imposing numbers because crossing the Sierra makes them nervous, even via the main roads, or because they’re after someone on this side of the passes that makes them nervous too.”

Pilar nodded soberly and said, “Everyone who has ever heard of Captain Gringo has heard about him chopping up Los Rurales, more than once, with that machine gun!”

He smiled thinly and said, “Not this particular machine gun. But yeah, I’d stay the hell away from me and mine if I was a Rurale, too.”

Gaston and Concepción joined them. Captain Gringo left the ammo belt in the Maxim’s feed, but grunted it back aboard the mule and started lashing it in place on the packsaddle as he told Gaston, “I think we’re okay for now. But we’d better not stay here after all. It’ll only take those bastards a few minutes to ride into town. If we’re what they came to look for, it’ll only be a few more minutes before they start back, trying to cut our trail. I don’t know how you feel, but I don’t want ’em doing that.”

Gaston nodded soberly and stared down at the ground, saying, “Eh bien, neither we nor the mules have made any tracks in this adorable green turf. But we did leave a dusty road a few minutes ago, hein?”

Captain Gringo took the lead mule’s halter line in hand and said, “Right. Follow me with the kicker. We’re going to have to do something about that.”

They led the mules back to the road. There, they told the girls to stay put as they led the two mules out to the center of the road, where the dust was a confusion of hoofprints going both ways. Then, walking backward, they backed the mules into the bananas again. Captain Gringo studied the road shoulder for a moment and skid, “Okay, it reads that two mules went into the grove for some reason and four came out. How would you put that together, Gaston?”

Gaston shrugged and suggested, “Two mules coming out from town met two more under the bananas and they all went off somewhere together?”

“Yeah, neither we nor the girls left much in the way of human footprints in the sunbaked surface, and it gets even better when you consider there’s no real difference between the shoes of a mule or a horse. If they think they’re talking about four riders, it gets even harder to read. Let’s cut across to that newly turned dirt and see if we can add some more artistic touches.”

He led them all through the bananas to where, sure enough, he found himself facing a modest acre or so of freshly dug red dirt. The far side was enclosed by uncultivated lowland second growth. Mostly weed trees, with stubby young palmetto dominating. He looked east and west as he took a coil of rope from their packsaddle. Both ends of the milpa were hedged in as well with tangled spinach. He thought, then told Gaston, “Take the girls east along the tree line and work south into that palmetto and sea grape. I’d dig in at the southeast corner if I were you.”

“Gladly. But what are you planning to do, mon general?”

“Hopefully, I’m going to account for the riders those first two riders met in this banana grove. Get going, dammit.”

Gaston said, “Come avec moi, mes cheries. Dick wants to play by himself this morning.”

As Gaston led the two girls away, Captain Gringo tied the lead of the biter to the tail of the kicker. Then he tied the end of the long rope to the tail of Roberto. He let the rope uncoil as it dragged while he held the kicker’s halter and led them normally down the tree line to the west a ways. Then he let them go, picked up the slack rope near them, and let it run through his hands as he worked around the northwest corner of the milpa, walking backward to make sure he was leaving no heel marks in the grassy edge. He got to the far corner and moved east along the far side of the field the same way. The mules across the way were eating grass now as he dragged the long rope sideways across the bare clods, raising some dust but not leaving any sign anyone could read as anything more than breeze across the dusty soil. When he decided he’d positioned himself about right, he proceeded to haul the rope in hand over hand.

The mules didn’t like it much. They both struggled and bounced around a bit as they were forced to cross the open milpa backward. The kicker tried to kick the biter’s face off and was rewarded for his efforts with a good bite on the rump. So by the time Captain Gringo had them reeled in under the trees on the other side, they’d both steadied down, although they both rolled their eyes at him as if they thought he was loco en la cabeza while he untied them and got them moving the right way along the far tree line toward Gaston and the girls.

When he joined them at the southeast corner of the open field of fire, Gaston said, “Eh bien, I always knew you had artistique tendencies, Dick. Even from here, one can see how two riders crossed from the south-southwest, breaking into a trés happy lope as they saw their other mounted friends waiting for them among the bananas, hein?”

Pilar was too smart to ask dumb questions. But fat Concepción said, “I do not understand. There was nobody riding across the milpa just now. Deek dragged two pack animals across it backwards, no?”

Captain Gringo didn’t answer as he led the mules deeper into the tangle and unlimbered the machine gun again. So Gaston explained, “Mais non, you are mistaken, ma petite. When one leads pack animals, one generally leads them forward, walking beside them. So obviously, since there are no human footprints, and since unled animals seldom walk so strangely, two mounted people rode across the field this morning. Do not burden your mind with further thought on the moment, cherie. I admire you for your body rather than your brains, hein?”

Captain Gringo rejoined them with a Winchester for Gaston and the Maxim and an extra ammo belt for himself. As he set up a hasty albeit well camouflaged machine-gun nest, Pilar asked if she and Concepción should get their own saddle guns. He said, “No. If we can’t stop ’em with a Maxim and a Winchester, forget it. I don’t want you girls pointing guns at anything until I see how well you shoot. We’ll enjoy some target practice as well as some sex a little farther from town. Right now, just keep your fannies down and your pretty yaps shut.”

Pilar said, “I am frightened, Deek!”

He said, “Welcome to the club. Better yet, I just changed the plans. Gaston, take them both back into the bushes a ways. Screaming dames make me nervous when Los Rurales are in my neck of the woods!”

Gaston said, “True. But won’t you need me and this rifle if your droll ruse fails to work?”

“I’ll need you and a whole infantry platoon if this machine gun jams on me. But move the dames and mules out of earshot anyway. Do it now. If they’re coming at all, it’ll be fairly soon. We’re only a few minutes out of town, dammit!”

Gaston rose, gathered the girls and other livestock, and led them away, leaving Captain Gringo alone and feeling mighty lonely. He looked at the sky, figured it had been at least three-quarters of an hour since the Rurales had passed the first time, and checked the head spacing of his Maxim. It was set the same way he’d adjusted it. So that was that, and what else could he do to pass some time, goddammit?

It was hot and sticky, even in the shade, and something itchy was crawling up his leg now, under his pants. He didn’t swat it. Old tropic hands never swatted anything crawling over them until they made sure it wasn’t a scorpion or worse. It felt like an ant. He sure hoped it was an ant.

There was nothing he could do about it right now. To keep from getting stung, bitten, or just squishy, he’d have to slowly stand up and gently shake his pants leg. A man couldn’t do that while manning a machine gun on his belly. So the hell with it.

The Ice Age came and went. Man discovered the wheel and was about to lay the foundations of Rome by the time the creepy-crawly had made it up to his crotch and was tickling hell out of his sweaty balls. He’d just about decided that Los Rurales were through scaring him for the day and that suddenly dropping his pants would surprise whatever was in there with him before it could seriously damage his genitals, when, without warning, a mounted Rurale rode out into the milpa, wheeled his horse, and called out, “Hey, sergeant! There are more hoofprints over here!"

Captain Gringo forgot the whatever crawling around in his pants as a dozen more riders joined the first in his machine-gun sights. He felt his trigger finger itch worse than his balls and told it to behave itself. It wasn’t a good idea to open fire on Rurales when at least half the bastards were still under cover!

The NCO who’d responded to the first rider’s announcement reined in and looked down at the mule prints. The riders were spread out enough so that he had to raise his voice to be heard by everyone, including the Yank training a Maxim on him, as he decided, “Bueno. I get the picture now. Two riders coming from town rode into the bananas to meet whoever these two were. Ah hah! See how they moved out of town through the brush over that way? Look, right there is where they spotted their friends ahead, reined in, then loped to meet them.”

Another Rurale, who’d ridden farther back along the mule tracks, called out, “Shall we backtrack them through the palmetto, sergeant?”

The NCO shook his sombreroed head and called back, “For why? We don’t wish for to find out where they came from. We wish to know where the motherfuckers went!”

A Rurale sitting his horse closer to Captain Gringo seemed to be looking right at him as he pointed east and said, “If they took the road east we can head them off by cutting through the second growth that way, sergeant!”

But the NCO, bless him, shouted, “Don’t be an asshole. Roads were made for to keep a rider from tearing the hide off his horse as well as his knees. That’s saw palmetto and sea grape you’re so anxious to ride through, muchacho. Besides, we don’t know which way they went after meeting in the banana grove. So let us think before we dash madly after who knows what, eh? To begin with, there is nothing here to say these hoofprints were left by Captain Gringo and that little Legion deserter. Lots of people ride horses, they tell me, and they also told me the two soldiers of fortune and those whores left town leading two mules, not four horses!”

Another Rurale nodded, but said, “Just the same, sergeant, someone rode most secretively through here. Don’t you think the captain would want us to check them out, too?”

“Madre de Dios, do we have time to search for every sneaky person in Mexico! We are after big game, muchachos! I do not read the sign here as anything but simply skullduggery. Obviously four riders wished for to meet in those bananas secretly. Their reasons could have been most banal.” Another rider broke cover to call out, “Hey, sergeant, over here. Rosario just found a sign under a banana. He said to tell you it looks like someone was fucking a woman who moved her big ass a lot. The guy scraped the sod bare with his toes, too.”

The NCO threw back his head and laughed. Then he said, “What did I tell you, muchachos? I see it all, now. A couple of naughty boys met a couple of naughty girls out here for to play slap and tickle where neither the padre nor their families were liable to notice. By now they are all back in the village, trying to look innocent about the grass stains on their clothing, no?”

The other Rurales thought it was pretty funny and even Captain Gringo had to grin as he pictured it their way, which was close enough, when one thought about it.

The NCO said, “Bueno. Let us be on our way, then. We still have to catch up with that goddamned Captain Gringo, wherever he’s gone.”

As they all started walking their mounts back toward the banana grove, one asked their NCO if he wanted to check out the Red Cross column they’d met a while back again. They were almost out of earshot now, but Captain Gringo was relieved to hear the loud-mouthed NCO observe, “It’s a waste of time and we were told to stay away from those busy bodies in any case. Our informants in town say Captain Gringo tried to join the Red Cross people and was turned down. We are looking for two men and two women, afoot and leading mules. So, dammit, let’s go find them!”

Captain Gringo didn’t move a muscle as the Mexican lawmen moved out of sight and the creepy-crawly inside his pants started moving down the other leg, God bless it. He deliberately waited a good five minutes. Then he made himself wait another five before he decided they’d really left. To keep his hands busy while he lay doggo, he checked the action of his Maxim again. You could never do that too often, and there were times when you couldn’t. The head spacing, feed mechanism, and firing pin were just as sound as they’d been the last time he’d looked. He tried to think of anything he hadn’t already checked that morning. He’d checked everything but the bore, which was silly, since he’d cleaned the gun more than once along the way and hadn’t gotten to fire it once. But what the hell. He removed the belt, leaving it close at hand in the grass just in case, and ejected the round in the chamber. He put his thumb in to reflect some light down the barrel. There wasn’t any.

He frowned and moved back into the palmetto, dragging the Maxim and both belts after him. Then he rose to his knees, stood the Maxim on its breech, and looked down the muzzle. Then he started to swear a lot.

He took out his pocketknife, cut a handy sea-grape whip, and peeled it before ramming it down the barrel. He had to ram pretty good before he’d driven the long plug of clay out the far side!

He inverted the open breech to spill the now busted-up hard clay. Then he used his improvised ramrod to scrub the last of it out of the lands, or at least clean the barrel enough so he could fire without blowing his own head off!

He picked up the gun and its belts and went to find Gaston, the girls, and the mules. Gaston noted the grim look on his face and asked if he’d seen a ghost he knew personally, or just a strange one.

Captain Gringo said, “Both,” as he lashed the gun to the packsaddle again and added, “The Rurales had a hasty peek and fell for our ruse. Someone tipped them off that we’re back in Mexico. Someone else stuffed the barrel of this Maxim full of adobe. It’s a good thing I didn’t find that out the hard way! I think we’re in trouble, Gaston.”

“Merde alors, you just noticed? I told you that before we left Costa Rica! But who could the species of rat be?”

“How do you like your rats, alphabetical or numerical? The Mexican government wants us for everything but spreading the common cold. I don’t think the U.S. Navy knows we’re here. We’d never have bluffed the SP more than once if they had orders to look for a guy answering my description. The Rurales know we were turned down by the Red Cross. Let’s go with that for now. Anyone who can read could have seen one of the reward posters out on us when and if they went to the local telegraph office to wire home that they’d made it this far. It wouldn’t have cost them as much to wire Mexico City while they were at it.”

“True. But how would a species of Red Cross rat have been able to sabotage our machine gun, Dick?”

“I’m still working on that. I’m sure I cleaned the barrel a couple of times aboard the boat. I came back to the house right after I met those Red Cross guys and gals. I should have noticed if anyone crept in in the wee small hours, but the gun was right by the back door and said door was supposed to be locked.”

Gaston looked sheepish and said, “Speaking for myself, there were times during the night when I would not have noticed a herd of elephants down the hall.”

Captain Gringo looked at Pilar, who was grinning, as he said, “Yeah, that works. Any knock-around guy worth his salt could open a simple latch like that with a knife, and damned near everyone down here packs a knife. Have you girls had trouble with burglars in the past, Pilar?”

She said, “No, Deek. But this is rather frightening! What if the intruder had not stopped in the back room? What if he had come in on us while we were—”

“He didn’t have the balls,” Captain Gringo cut in with a shrug, adding, “They sent a sneak, not a killer. Probably wired a local police informer who wasn’t about to take us on himself. It was a pretty neat trick, now that I think about it. If he’d taken the mules, we’d never have left town, and even Los Rurales avoid breaking windows they don’t have to. They sent someone to make sure we were with two known guides, had him mess up the gun to shave the odds in their favor without tipping us off, and then, meanwhile, rode to meet us on the trail. Having met nobody on said trail by now, Los Rurales must be a little confused, too.”

Gaston opened the breech of his Winchester and held the rifle to his eye like a telescope before he gasped and swore in French, Spanish, and Arabic. Captain Gringo nodded and said, “Don’t just cuss about it, pal. Cut yourself a stick and clean the fucking mud out of your own bore!”

As Gaston did so, Captain Gringo checked all the other guns, and, sure enough, the girl’s saddle guns as well as the repeaters he’d picked up the night before at the market had all been gummed up with clay.

He showed Pilar and Concepción how to get the crad out as he checked the supplies. Nothing had been stolen, and since most of the food was in cans he didn’t see how they could have been poisoned. He threw away a sack of flour, telling Pilar, when she bitched, how easy it was to piss most anything through thin cloth. She blanched and said, “I do not think we wish for to go any farther with the two of you, Deek! Concepción and me were hired as guides, not as moving targets!”

He shrugged and said, “Okay, doll box. It’s not far from here to your village and it’s sure been nice knowing you. You can take your silver with you. You can take your plaster Madonna, too. But the guns and mules stay with us.”

“That is not just, Deek! Why would you wish for to rob poor women who have been so good to you, eh?”

“It’s not robbery, Pilar, it’s simply survival. You don’t need trail supplies to make it back to the village. We do, to get to Guatemala.”

He didn’t press the matter either way as the two female guides went out of earshot to have a chat about it. He just went on cleaning guns. When there was time, he would break out the gun-cleaning kit and do it right. Meanwhile, it was more important that they just shoot, if need be.

As long as he was at it, he cleaned Pilar and Concepción’s carbines, too. He’d finished and was lashing everything back in place when they rejoined him. Pilar said, “We have been thinking. If you try to get through to Guatemala without us, you will never make it, and we will never get the final payment from the insurance company, no?”

“I was hoping you’d see it that way, doll box. Old Gaston’s a lousy lay.”

Concepción giggled and murmured that he was wrong. Pilar laughed too and said, “Bueno. We’ll go on with you for now. But only if we do not brush with any more Rurales again, eh? It is said Los Rurales make a habit of raping women they catch.”

He raised an eyebrow. Pilar looked down and said, “All right, that part might not be so bad. But after they gang rape female prisoners, they shoot them. That is one thrill we are not looking forward to!”

Things started looking up, in every way, as they worked their way east the rest of the day through brush that the Rurale NCO had been right about. The slope kept getting steeper and the girls kept bitching about having to wade through overgrown thorny spinach without the usual siesta when the sun stopped fooling around and really heated things up. Pilar protested that she and Concepción never headed into the Sierra Madres by this route, since there didn’t seem to be any route, goddammit. Captain Gringo just kept them all moving as he explained soothingly, “I know you girls are used to moving at night, when the roads are safer. But it’s not dark out now, and those Rurales will be tearing up and down every goat path around here until they get tired of looking for us.”

“Si, Deek. But meanwhile the heat is killing us, and what if we get lost?”

“How can we get lost, querida? We’re looking for a mountain range running north and south from Alaska to Patagonia and we’re going from west to east, uphill.”

“Si, but we do not know every inch of the Sierra, Deek. We only know the trails of a very modest part of it. If we wind up in some box canyon none of us have ever seen before—”

“We’ll be in a hell of a mess,” he cut in, adding, “Meanwhile, nobody’s shooting at us and we have to be heading into some damned part of the Sierra Madres. So pick ’em up and lay ’em down, querida.”

“Can’t we stop for at least a short siesta, Deek? It is after noon and oh so hot!”

“I thought you were afraid of getting lost? We’re under shade most of the time, we don’t want to hit the high country after dark, and I want you up on a ridge for some educated looks around when we hit the serious Sierra Madres and—”

“You are talking like an idioto!” she cut in, adding, “We shall never make it to the open scablands in one day, no matter how fast we walk. The coast is more than a day’s march from the true spine of the Sierra Madres.”

He frowned and asked, “No shit? Then what’s this slope we’re pushing up, doll box?”

“The coastal range, of course. We have many hills and dales for to cross before we shall be in the real mountains.”

He walked on a few paces, shrugged, and said, “Okay. So what are we trying to prove? I like siestas too.”

As he tethered the mule to a sapling, Gaston did the same with the other and joined them, along with Concepción. The fat girl didn’t ask questions. She simply flopped to the ground with a groan of sheer relief. But Gaston asked why they’d stopped, so Captain Gringo explained, “We’re not going to make it anywhere important today. So we’ll fort up here until it cools off some. Then we’ll forge on until dark and make camp for the night. Any complaints?”

“Mais non. This seems a most pleasant picnic ground, save for the insects.” He looked up through a gap in the tree canopy to add, “I had better break out a machete and play Robinson Crusoe, though. It looks like rain.”

Captain Gringo didn’t think it did, but Gaston had been down here longer, so he didn’t argue as they made camp. He did argue, however, when Concepción proceeded to pile a mess of sticks together for a fire. He shook his head and said, “Don’t do that, Concepción. It’s hot enough in this clearing already.”

She looked confused and asked, “But how am I to boil water for our coffee, Deek?”

He said, “You’re not. It’s broad daylight. So let’s let Los Rurales guess where we are. Let’s not send them any smoke signals.”

Pilar yelled, “Concepción, you are such a big fat fool I can’t stand it! Do you wish for to get us all killed?”

“No, I only wish I could have some coffee.”

Captain Gringo left Pilar to explain the facts of life in enemy country as he found a tree that looked reasonably easy to climb, and climbed it. The discussion about campfire smoke had reminded him that they were not alone in these shrubby hills. He was a big man and the tree was swaying as if it had noticed this by the time he’d worked high enough to see out across the tops of the less imposing growth all around. He saw that Gaston was right about the rain clouds coming in from the southwest. When the wind was from that quarter along this coast, it was talking about a gully-washing storm. To the east he could see the distant purple peaks of the Sierra Madres. They didn’t look too far away. But mountains were like that.

Closer, about ten miles to the northeast, he spotted a lazy plume of blue wood smoke. He nodded to himself. The road was over that way and the Red Cross expedition had taken that route. Their Mexican guides had probably insisted on stopping for la siesta. By now, if their guides knew as much about the local weather patterns as they should, the other party would be putting up their tents as well.

He didn’t see any other smoke plumes in any direction. Los Rurales were either enjoying their own siesta back in the coastal village or, if really serious about this business, traveling Apache-style, too.

He climbed back down to see that Gaston had already thrown together two lean-tos, facing away from each other, the dirty old thing.

Pilar was under the palmetto thatch open to face the tethered mules. She was sipping from an open can of preserved tomatoes as he saw Gaston and Concepción were already out of sight under the other lean-to. He smiled crookedly and moved out to the mules. Pilar called out to ask what he was doing and he called back, “Going to take the packs off and let ’em graze on long leads.”

She got up to join him, saying, “Bueno. But you do not have to keep them tied, Deek. They never stray far from Concepción and me.”

“Yeah? Well, you must know more about mules than an old army man like me, then. It’s fixing to rain fire and salt with maybe some summer lightning thrown in. Surely you hobble them at night up in the high country, Pilar?”

She shook her head and said, “No. We do not have to. Eduardo and Roberto are in love with us, you see.”

He frowned and stared thoughtfully at the kicker, who’d just let out a yard of dong to take a piss as Pilar patted his muzzle. Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “No. I couldn’t have heard that right.”

Pilar laughed like a dirty little kid and said, “Of course not. You know I’m not that loose between my thighs, querido.” He laughed and said, “I should hope so. I know that while mules are sterile they’re not sissies, but there’s just no way any woman could serve a dong like that. A burro, maybe, but...”

She giggled and said, “Silly, we just jerk them off. Didn’t you know that old trick for to make a mule your lasting friend?”

“Not in this man’s army. We used to just hit ’em a lot. Are you serious, Pilar?”

“Si, it is fun for us, too, in a way. Concepción and me sometimes get most hot, telling each other dirty stories as we make the mules come. Once, Concepción got so excited, she tried to really do it with Eduardo, but of course they could not.”

He grimaced and said, “That’s sure a shame. But it probably saved her life.”

“Si, that is what I told her. But you know how people get when they are really hot and have nobody for to fuck, eh?”

“Yeah, but why worry, in a world full of bananas?”

She grinned lewdly and took his arm to say, “I do not see any banana trees around here, querido. But let us get under the shelter and I am sure we shall find a satisfactory substitute, no?”

He laughed, told her to just start without him if she couldn’t wait, and unsaddled the mules while she moved sensuously back to the lean-to. A warm gob of rain plopped down on his wrist as he secured them on long leads, just in case, anyway. He’d heard circus-animal trainers used masturbation to keep their critters calm and friendly. He chuckled as he considered the work involved in jerking off an elephant. He wondered what else two oversexed girls did alone on the trail in their travels. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He had nothing better to do for the next few hours and he wasn’t really jealous about that green banana, but, hell, a guy didn’t want to shove his personal treasure into anything really disgusting, right?

When he rejoined Pilar under the thatch, she was still sipping from the tomato can, but stark naked as she reclined on the improvised floor mat of fern fronds. She looked cooler than he felt. So he stripped to join her, and, bless Gaston’s thoughtfulness, the ferns under them smelled clean and fresher than she did. He didn’t fault her for her gamy body odors as he took her in his arms again. He’d been sweating like a pig all day too. So it tended to even out.

She drained the can and tossed it away as she lay back on the ferns to welcome him home between her widespread thighs. It was too hot and there was far too much codfish in the air right now to consider anything but old-fashioned missionary stuff. But as he entered her once more he was sure glad she’d suggested it. He’d almost forgotten how tight she was, for such an obviously adventurous little mutt.

They were both sloppy with sweat by the time they’d climaxed again together for the first time. Naturally she wanted more and naturally he didn’t have to have his arm twisted as she twisted skillfully under him. But he heaved a great sigh of relief, just the same, when the sky opened up to dump sheets of silvery tropic rain, cooling the air under the lean-to pleasantly.

Pilar laughed and said, “Oh, thank you, Santa Maria! Even with a handsome man, there are limits to how much sweat one desires to fuck with. Let me up, Deek. I wish for to run out and get clean again!”

That made two of them. So, hand in hand, they stepped out into the downpour and let the warm sweet rainwater run down their naked bodies as they smiled at each other.

Over the wet hair on Pilar’s shoulder he saw that other great minds had been running in the same channels. Gaston and Concepción were running around bare-assed in the rain like a couple of kids, too. They looked pretty silly. Gaston had a pretty lean and muscular body for a man his size and age. Concepción looked more like a circus fat lady taking a shower. There sure was a lot of her. But the falling rain veiled them both a bit and the details were Gaston’s problem in any case. Gaston spotted them and waved. Captain Gringo waved back but called out, “Keep your distance, old buddy,” adding in English, “I like an orgy as well as the next guy, but not when the other guys bring stuff like that to the party!”