Renegade 29 by Lou Cameron

Author:Lou Cameron [Cameron, Lou]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Piccadilly Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“Of course. The homeowners required to quarter our troops are naturally supposed to feed them as best they can. But if they run short the General’s standing orders are that the neighbors just have to supply the extra provisions. It’s no problem, look you. Almost every peon in town keeps pigs and chickens if not a goat or milk cow.”

They were already coming to the end of the main drag, Progreso not being a large town. As they were passing a cactus hedge a skinny little Mexican with Mayan features and a machete in his hand popped out of a gap in the nopales, screaming something about his daughter, his pig, or both. Before he’d gotten to the point, or come anywhere near anyone with that wildly swinging machete, Royce had calmly pointed his twelve-gauge and blown the man almost in two with a double blast of number nine buck. As the Mexican beat his fluttering sombrero to the dust and just lay there, Royce said, “See what I mean? Some of them act crazy even when they can see you’re armed, look you!”

Captain Gringo stared down at the pathetic corpse in the spreading pool of blood and guts without comment. In fairness to Royce, he didn’t see what else the Welshman could have done. But he was beginning to understand the dead man’s point of view, too. Royce said, “Let’s go, shall we?” as he stepped over the man he’d shot, reloading his shotgun as he did so. Captain Gringo and Gaston walked around the gory mess. Neither asked Royce who was supposed to clean up after him. They knew.

Royce led them around the next corner, down the block of walled inwardly facing houses a ways, then stopped at a substantial oaken door, saying, “Ah, here we are.”

The Welshman knocked on the door with the muzzle of his shotgun. Naturally it opened without keeping them waiting long. A small, dark, frightened-looking chica seemed to be trying not to cry as she murmured, “Estrada, por favor. I shall take you to La Señora.”

She did, or at least she led Captain Gringo across the pateo to the main salon of the establishment as Royce turned away to go back to wherever he wanted to. The maid vanished too, once she'd presented them to a not bad but stem-looking white woman pretending to be Queen Victoria on her throne-like seat by the cold hearth of her baronial fireplace.

She sniffed and said in English, “So you’re the two gun-thugs General Ramos has seen fit to shove down my throat, eh? Very well. Behave yourselves and I won’t poison you. Lucrecia will show you to the quarters we’ve prepared for you and you’ll find your engines of destruction waiting for you there. The rascals who brought it in tracked mud all over my floors, and I’ll thank you to remember this is a respectable house! I dine at eight sharp, every evening. You two will be fed at six, by my servant, in the kitchen.

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