The trouble with tropic days is that they are all the same length. North or south of the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn the summer days are longer than the nights. Nearer the equator you get twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of darkness all year long.
So while Captain Gringo’s chain drags worked better then he’d hoped, and his men ignored La Siesta with the enthusiasm of beavers, they’d only cleared a quarter section by the time he blew his whistle and yelled out, “Knock off, muchachos. Mariana is another day.”
Gaston joined him with a puzzled frown and asked, “Why are you quitting so soon, Dick? There is another two hours of daylight left.”
“I know. I want to get our people clear before the elves move in at twilight.”
“Merde alors, we are abandoning all of this to the savages? I thought we’d set up camp and—”
“Are you crazy? What’s the point? Our guys will work better in the morning if they’re rested at home and start out with a good breakfast and maybe a morning quickie from mamma.”
“But who is to guard our work here?”
“What’s to guard? We’re not building. We’re tearing down. Do you really think black magic can grow all those trees back in a night?”
Gaston stared soberly at the huge gash of uprooted timber and sighed, “I must be getting old. You are right, of course.” Gaston laughed and added, “Pappa Blanco is probably planning a night attack on this work site right this very minute. Sacre, he will be tres confused, hein?”
“I hope so. Up to now, everybody’s just been reacting to his moves, and letting him choose the whens and wheres. Two can play at razzle-dazzle. Let him worry about what we’re going to do next.”
As they walked toward one of the tractors to unhitch -the drag chain and use it as a vehicle cum machine gun nest, Gaston said, “I see now why you chose to ignore all the occult goings on.”
Captain Gringo nodded and said, “Sure. They’ve had everyone going crazy trying to figure out how he worked his Voodoo shit and what his plans were.”
“You, of course, have it all figured out?”
“No, I just don’t give a shit. We were hired as soldiers, not detectives. You were around when we had our Civil War, Gaston. Did you follow old U.S. Grant’s career?”
“Mais non, I was having my own civil war in Mexico, on the losing side. What has U. S. Grant to do with Pappa Blanco? I fail to see what they might have in common.”
Captain Gringo laughed and said, “Grant would agree. He was probably the most unimaginative officer in the Union Army. That’s why the Union started winning every battle, once they got rid of the bright boys and put old Rummy-Grant in charge. You see, the Confederates had made all the other Union leaders look like assholes by springing flashy razzle-dazzle surprises. Lee had Stuart and Moseby tear-assing all over hell, and the Union guys went crazy trying to figure out what they’d do next.”
“Ah, I begin to see the analogy. What did your Grant do about the ingenious tactics of M’sieu Lee and all?”
Captain Gringo helped Gaston aboard the tractor and looked around before he answered. He saw the others were moving out, well-guarded by Gordo’s flank guards, and decided to wait and follow up with the tractor-mounted Maxim. So he told Gaston, “Grant ignored the flashy stuff. Scouts would dash in to report a rebel column doing something noisy somewhere else and Grant just puffed his cigar and went on planning his own moves on the map. He wasn’t a brilliant general, but he had common sense and he saw what more imaginative men had missed. He, not Lee, had the bigger army, the supplies and the guns. So he just went by the book and took the positions all the time-tested rules said he ought to take. At Shiloh he marched into a brilliantly set up Confederate ambush. His advance reeled back while Grant was having breakfast at a country tavern. He wasn’t a very excitable guy, and ham and eggs beat running around inspecting things.”
Gaston said, “Wait. Even I know that Grant was not beaten at Shiloh.”
“Most other generals would have been. The rebels shot the shit out of his advancing columns and had him in a pincers with half his army on one side of a river and half on the other. Grant got up, wiped the egg off his face, and wandered over to the battlefield. He saw some units retreating and told them they were going the wrong way. A brigadier galloped up to warn him they were about to be surrounded. Grant said that was bullshit. His army was four times the size of the rebel army, so, no matter what they looked like they were doing, they couldn’t surround anything important. Grant cussed and fussed everybody back into position and the Union advance went on. It was a blood bath for both sides, but the Union had the weight and numbers, so that was that. He crossed the river where he’d meant to cross. He marched up, taking position after position, until, one day, the war was over.”
Gaston said, “I see. We have the men and the guns. Pappa Blanco has a bag of tricks. We pay no attention to his black magic. We come back again and again, in strength, until he is walled off to the south. I agree it should work, Dick. But are you not even curious about how Mab wound up in Lloyd’s grave, or where all those other corpses went?”
“Sure I’m curious. Grant must have wondered about Moseby’s Gray Ghost act too. But first we put the son of a bitch out of business and then we figure out who he was and what he wanted.”
“Who he was, Dick?”
Captain Gringo’s eyes were grim as he nodded and said, “Yeah, past tense. The son of a bitch killed a couple of people I was rather fond of. So he’s already dead. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
The governor general and his wife gave a garden party that’ night. Captain Gringo thought a victory celebration was premature, but he went anyway. Gaston said he’d rather act as O.D., and keep the guards on the ball as darkness fell.
The rain had let up. The trade wind dried everything to the clammy, damp stage people from England seemed to find comfortable. So again the tables were set up under paper lanterns above the terrace. At Captain Gringo’s suggestion, Pedro and a couple of the other guards were set up on the roof with a machine gun and Mrs. Gage was gracious enough to send them up some refreshments.
Captain Gringo’s main reason for coming was Alice, and she wasn’t hard to corner alone near the punch bowl. She asked him why he hadn’t been back to “see” her, which was a rather veddy veddy word for hot and heavy screwing, if he was reading her eyes correctly.
He made certain nobody could overhear them before he said, “I’ve been busy. Listen, you have Charles and Dama Luisa wrong.”
She shrugged and said, “I don’t think adultery is wrong. I rather enjoy it.”
“I noticed. The point is that Luisa is an innocent bystander. Old Chuck hasn’t been able to get near her.”
“How unfortunate for poor Charles. I gather she told you all this when you were making love to her?”
“I’ve been unfortunate too. The dame Chuck was seeing on the side is dead. So you can make up with your husband if you want, or throw the bum out if that’s your pleasure. Just don’t send any more boyfriends to work Luisa over. You’ve been barking up the wrong tree and the local peones would tear you limb from limb if they found out you were after one of their favorite people.”
Alice looked like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth as she sipped punch and said, “Darling, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t assassinate my rivals. I out-fuck them, as who but you should know? Why don’t we find some place where we can lie down and talk about it?”
“Maybe later. I have a couple of errands to take care of tonight.”
“Oh? I hope they’re both pretty.”
He saw she didn’t want to talk about anything but her twat, so he excused himself to mingle his way toward the colonel on the far side of the garden. Mrs. Gage caught up with him and whispered, “I saw you flirting with my daughter. Why don’t we nip over to your quarters and discuss your naughty ways, Dickie-bird?”
He repeated, “Maybe later. I want a word with your husband.”
“Heavens, you’re not bisexual too, are you, Dickie-bird?”
He blinked and asked, “You know about the colonel and Webster?”
“Heavens, he’s been sodomizing my son-in-law for years too. But don’t tell Alice. She and Charles are already having trouble and ...”
“Jesus H. Christ! You people are weird! Burton gets his job and your daughter from his nibs by bending over, and you try to patch things up by–I’ll talk to you later.”
As he moved away, she said, “Talking wasn’t what I had in mind.” He wondered where he was going to sleep tonight. At the rate things were going he could wind up with mother and daughter under him and dear old Dad trying to climb on top!
He found the colonel talking to his male harem, Webster and Burton. They didn’t act like two bisexuals and a fag. They were talking business as usual. Captain Gringo assumed the casual sodomy of exclusive boys’ schools had its own rules of public behavior. West Point hadn’t taught him the form. He was glad. If Americans were unsophisticated by international standards, he was willing to live with that.
Colonel Gage said, “Ah, there you are, Walker. We were just talking about you.”
Captain Gringo felt his asshole tighten, but he kept a straight face and said, “I just made a final check with Gaston. The Caribs must know we’ll soon have them cut off. So they’ve pulled all the way back. We’ve secured the area, but I don’t think they’ll hit us again, now that they’re on the defensive.”
The colonel nodded and said, “So Webster here, was just telling me. You know, of course, that they’ll try to do something about the ground you cleared this afternoon?”
“Yes sir. I’m sort of hoping they’ll burn some trees for us.”
“The more the merrier, eh what? The farm workers assure us the sugar will grow back good as new, too. How long do you think it will take you to set up that entire defense cordon?”
Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “About a week, at the rate we’re going. Pappa Blanco doesn’t have a week, if he values his hide.”
Burton frowned and said, “I don’t think I follow that, Walker.”
Captain Gringo saw the others didn’t either. He said, “We have the Caribs pushed back and probably having second thoughts about their Macumba man’s magic. Don’t forget he’s an off-islander, whatever his race. There are always sub-chiefs jealous of the big cheese, and lately Pappa Blanco’s magic hasn’t worked out so hot.”
Webster asked, “Oh, do you think his followers might turn on him?”
“If they don’t, I intend to. I’ve got some cabled feelers out and we’ll soon know who’s been bidding to replace Pantropic here as leaseholder.”
Colonel Gage said, “Not bloody likely! I’ve just cabled the stockholders that we have the blighters whipped!”
Burton said, “Besides that, no other sugar trust has bid on Nuevo Verdugo.”
Captain Gringo nodded and said, “I know. It’s an oil company. Three of them, as a matter of fact. Two American oil trusts and a Dutch outfit. I think we can assume the Dutch are innocent. I’ve got a guy in ,the states digging into it and—”
Webster cut in to blurt, “Oil? What oil are you talking about?”
“Come on, the shit is seeping out of the ground all over the island! The two main bulges of Nuevo Verdugo are classic anticlines like the ones they’ve started drilling in Texas.”
“But we had our own geologists look for signs of petroleum, old bean.”
“Sure you did. British geologists brought up on the old textbooks. Drilling for oil is a new science and it pays to keep up to date. Those first oil fields in Penn State seem to be a fluke. No oil strikes since Drake’s well back in the fifties has ever been found in the classic rock formations of the Ohio Valley. But your geologists, who’ve never found an oil well in England, looked for the rocks and fossils the books said should be there, and when they didn’t find them, they ignored their own eyes and went home. Don’t take my word that we’re sitting on two oil domes. I told you I checked with Wall Street. Three of the biggest petroleum trusts have been secretly bidding against each other with the Crown.”
Colonel Gage looked like he was about to vomit. He gasped, “See here, damn it, we were here first!”
Captain Gringo nodded and said, “You’re right. Pantropic has a ninety-nine year lease. That’s why somebody has been trying to drive you out of business before you found out there was something better than sugar you could ship from here at a tidy profit.”
Gage said, “I see it all now. But once I cable London, the board of directors will never sell out and—”
“And that will be the end of it,” cut in Captain Gringo with a nod, adding, “by now the mainland operators know the game’s up, too. My questions were discreet, but word gets around when a guy starts asking about oil wells.”
Burton said, “If I were this Pappa Blanco, I’d try to overrun this town and drive everyone off the island tonight!”
Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “No, you wouldn’t. It wouldn’t do any good. They could butcher us all in our beds and burn Utopiaton to the ground, but Pantropic would just send in another bunch of us. The scheme called for the company abandoning its lease. Would you abandon a lease on an oil field?”
Colonel. Gage said, “By George, I’d better cable London right away!”
Captain Gringo said, “You don’t have to. I already cabled Sir Basil Hakim that I had a handle on the situation and explained the plot. He’s got stock in Pantropic, but he’ll probably buy more before he tells your board of directors and rockets the price out of sight.”
Colonel Gage said, “I know you’re trying to help, but I rather resent your high-handed way of taking charge without informing me, old chap!”
Burton snapped, “Goddamnit, you might have let us in on it before you cabled! A guy could make a killing on the exchange if he knew Pantropic’s stock was about to go up!”
Webster looked annoyed, too, as he said, “Obviously you and your friend, Gaston, have already placed your orders for a few shares, eh what?”
Captain Gringo’s smile was bitter as he answered, “No. We don’t have permanent mailing addresses. You guys still have time to get rich. The London exchange is closed for the weekend. So don’t get your shit hot. You’ve got plenty of time to wire your brokers. They’d be home in bed, right now. But—”
“By Jove, all is forgiven!” Colonel Gage laughed and said* as visions of sugarplums danced in his head. Burton was grinning like a shit-eating dog, too. Captain Gringo knew his next moves, as if he’d spelled them out in a fireworks display. Burton stood to make a killing on the stock market and leave his bitchy wife. He probably hadn’t enjoyed getting cornholed by the colonel either. It was nice to see a fellow American so happy, even if he was a fat stupid bastard.
Webster said, “I can see why you’re so optimistic, Walker. How do you imagine these sneaky oil chaps will contact their man here on Nuevo Verdugo to tell him the show is over? We control the only cable outlet.”
Captain Gringo said, “I know. It’s my guess they’ve given him a timetable, so he’ll know when it’s time to leave. That’s when we’ll nail him.”
The three of them looked blank. So he explained, “The guy can’t stay here now. If the other witch doctors don’t eat him or something, it’s only a matter of time before we find out where he’s hiding. There’s another steamer due in a couple of days. We just have to watch and see who’s anxious to leave ...”
“Are you suggesting Pappa Blanco is hiding out among us here in town?” asked Webster. Captain Gringo nodded and said, “&e has to be. That girl, Prue, told me he met the other witch doctors away from the Carib camps, somewhere in the jungle. For a guy living in a tree, he also had a pretty good grip on our plans. Somebody, a worker, a guard, a harmless-looking Creole, or whatever, has been slipping back and forth. Meanwhile, I’ve got Padre Hernando, Gordo and some other people, asking questions and comparing alibis. If we don’t uncover him before the ship pulls in, he ought to be nervous enough to try and board her.”
Webster frowned and said, “You make him sound like a rather crude criminal, Walker. Have you forgotten he has, well, certain powers?”
Captain Gringo snorted and said, “Sleight of hand, you mean. Those so-called zombies were just vagrants they recruited, doped up with painkillers and strychnine, and used for cannon fodder. They probably were landed from a schooner further down the coast.”
“But that beheaded black corpse, full of embalming fluid when it attacked you ...”
“Bullshit. The guy I beheaded was drugged to the stage where neither one of us knew what he was doing. Later, Pappa Blanco’s confederate at the infirmary just switched corpses on us. One dead Negro looks like any other, if you cut off his head.”
Burton gasped, “Someone on the medical staff was working for Pappa Blanco?”
“Yeah. Willie May. Sorry about that. She was the one who murdered Doctor Lloyd so we’d have no professional medical advice when they tried to spook us. Poor Mab O’Shay knew her job, so they murdered her too, and tried to hide her in Lloyd’s grave.”
Webster looked sick and asked, “Then where on earth was Doctor Lloyd when you dug the nurse up?”
“Under the earth, of course. They put Mab in his grave on top of him. When Gordo dug as- far down as her coffin, he saw no reason to dig deeper. He opened the coffin, found the wrong body, and wet his pants like he was supposed to.”
Burton said, “I can’t believe poor silly Willie would do anything like that!”
Captain Gringo nodded and said, “Yeah, she did act pretty silly. But it has to have been her. Process of elimination. She was the only one who could have put that snake where Lloyd could step on it, after switching his anti-venom labels. Gaston was sort of, well, chummy with the other colored nurses, so they have alibis.”
“But Willie May was murdered by that zombie girl, Miss Lee.”
“No she wasn’t. Prue was poisoned by Willie May, just like Mab. Then Willie May moved her body at the last minute. She was the only one who had a few moments alone with Prue’s coffin. She rolled Prue under a bed or into a closet or something. Pappa Blanco or his Carib assistants were supposed to come and carry it off. Only they delivered a bomb instead. They blew up Willie May and that other innocent nurse because Willie May was getting dangerous. She was involved with a white man and maybe talking about a bigger piece of the action. Anyway, the dead Prue’s corpse was blown up in the process, and you can figure out the rest.”
Burton said, “Jesus, we knew they played rough, but Pappa Blanco must be a real son of a bitch.”
Captain Gringo shrugged and said, “I’m a real son of bitch, too. People playing for high stakes don’t hire pussy cats. We’ll never know what sort of a hold he had on the late Miss Willie May. He uses people like toilet paper. But his zombies fizzled and his Caribs have found out that a Maxim beats black magic and drums at scaring people. So now I figure he’ll be out to save his own ass. I’ve wired the steamship company. Even if he somehow slips past us on the docks, they’ll let us know if he tries to book passage on the Q.T.”
Webster said, “You keep saying he, Walker. How do you know we’re not dealing with a woman?”
“You’re not dealing with the motherfucker. I am. Prue Lee said he was a man and the Caribs say he’s a man. They met him bare ass, wearing spooky paint, but he must have had a pecker. None of them wear so much as a fig leaf. He may be black. He may be brown. I’m betting on white. The big oil companies are hung up on racial superiority and they wouldn’t trust an operation this size to anyone but a company man.”
“Couldn’t some American pass himself off as a mestizo?”
“Sure he could, for a while. The Indians didn’t know what the fuck he was. But it’s a small town you’ve got here. He can’t stay hidden in the woodwork forever. Right now he’s probably sweating bullets trying to figure a way out. The trouble with islands is that you can’t just walk away.”
He took out his watch and added, “You guys know as much as I do now. I’ve got a date with a lady. So why don’t you play the stock market or something? Nothing’s going to happen tonight.”
He turned to go, but Webster said, “Not so fast, dash it all! I see how they tricked us about a lot of things, but they must have a huge gang of confederates right here in town!”
“How do you figure that, Webster? I told you how Willie May and maybe a couple of beachcombers rigged the spooky shit around the infirmary. By now the mastermind will have eliminated all his stooges who could point a finger at him. The Caribs left are back in the Stone Age, where I’d leave them for now, if I were you. They’ll eventually get used to the idea of civilization if the company shares some of the oil and sugar revenues in the form of pots and calico. Without outsiders stirring trouble, the island will go back to status quo.”
Webster said, “Willie May could have killed Lloyd, Mab and that Macumba priestess with a little help from her friends. But, dash it all, you’ve forgotten that someone dug up a whole graveyard, if we assume the zombies didn’t dig themselves out!”
“Oh shit, nobody can revive a corpse if it’s really dead. The folks buried over there were just innocent workers who died of natural causes.”
“Then where in blazes are they tonight?”
“Right where they were buried, of course. I’ll admit Pappa Blanco’s simple trick gave me a turn until I had time to think about it.”
“You know how all those corpses left their graves?”
“Sure, they never left them. Willie May’s white uniform was spotted by some Creole kids while she carried out Pappa Blanco’s instructions.”
Burton blurted, “That little skinny negress never dug up fifty graves in one night by herself, Goddamn it!”
Captain Gringo said, “I’ll take your word for how skinny she was. She didn’t dig them up. She just moved the markers. She pulled up each stake and drove it back in the soft earth a couple of yards to the side. If you dig where nobody’s been buried, you don’t find anyone there. Haven’t any of you guys ever played poker with a stranger on a train? Pappa Blanco’s not even a good stage magician. He’s just a con man with a nasty imagination.”
Webster frowned and said, “It’s all so simple, once the obvious is pointed out. But I confess he had me frightened with all that mumbo-jumbo!”
“That was the plan. Between shipping no sugar and sending wild reports about Voodoo bullshit, you guys were supposed to be recalled to London as either worthless, crazy, drunk, or all three. That was when another outfit meant to make Pantropic an offer that would pay off’ their losses here and let them forget the whole deal. I’ve really got to be going, guys. The lady is expecting