Renegade 18 by Lou Cameron

Author:Lou Cameron
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: piccadilly publishing, jr roberts, captain gringo, ramsay thorne, steamy ebook, western novel ebook, richard walker, ron schwab
Publisher: Piccadilly

“They can’t be. There’s too many of ’em. We’re far enough south for vampires, but vampires live in small clusters, which is just as well, when you think about it. Those have to be harmless bug-eaters. If they were bloodsuckers, or even fruit bats, nobody could live in this part of Mexico.”

“Mais Oui, but how many people are there in these mountains, Dick?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, we just left over a hundred peons back at the cars. They used to live near here, and they never had much livestock. So they’d have all been bitten by now if there were any vampires in the area. I asked Rosalinda about her old village. She said it was just an ordinary village surrounded by milpas and orchards.”

“Did you ask her if she’d ever been bitten by a bat?”

“Sure. I wondered about the so-called curse of Caverna de los Murciélagos too, and her village got its name, Pueblo Murciélagos, from the same bats. She says the valley is famous for its bats. She forgot to tell me there were this many. Now I see why. But the point is that the bats are harmless. There’s just so many of ’em that the sky gets sort of spooky at dawn or dusk, see?”

“Spooky is an understatement! Sacre bleu, those clouds of flying mice seem endless! There must be millions of them, now!”

“Yeah. Let’s watch for things that can hurt us. We’ll go right up to the ridge, then follow it in line with the valley till we’re opposite the mine.”

They fell silent as they legged it up the steep slope together. On the crest, they saw the sky above was lighter already, and they were right in the bats’ flyway. Gaston cursed as one fluttered by his nose under the brim of his sombrero. He started flailing with the barrel of his rifle. Captain Gringo said, “Cut that out. You can’t hit a flying bat with a tennis racket, but you can spot sudden movement a long way off. Come on, keep your eyes peeled for guys in the brush all around and forget the fucking bats.”

“Gladly, if the little sons of the bitch would forget about me! Are you sure these things don’t bite, Dick?”

“If they did, you’d have been bitten by now, wouldn’t you? I guess you could get a brown bat to bite you, if you hurt it. So don’t hurt any, and let’s see if we can get into position before we have the sun outlining us up here.” They could. As the winding valley made a gentle turn, they spotted a light below to the north. Captain Gringo said, “Looks like a night fire. Must be near the mine, since nobody else lives around here. Shake a leg.”

“Sacre goddam! I am shaking, all of me! One of those filthy bats just brushed the back of my poor neck with its wings!”

“Bullshit. You just felt the wind of its passage. They never fly into anything, Gaston.”

Then a bat made a liar out of him by crashing into his shoulder to bounce off, squeaking like an outraged mouse.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.