Gringos 8, p.1
Gringos #8, page 1
The Home of Great
Western Fiction
When Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa swore to bring his people out of slavery and into the 20th Century, he didn’t reckon on having a Hollywood film crew in on the action. But now that is the price he must pay for the guns and ammunition he needs to fight the most savage battle of the war, and for the services of the men who will get them. The Gringos. The four hardest hombres south of the Rio Grande.
GRINGOS 8: WHEELS OF THUNDER
By J. D. Sandon
First published by Mayflower Books in 1981
Copyright © J. D. Sandon 1981, 2023
This electronic edition published January 2024
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by means (electronic, digital, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book / Text © Piccadilly Publishing
Series Editor: Ben Bridges
Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Estate.
Visit www.piccadillypublishing.org to read more about our books.
‘Except for the occasional film like Juarez of Viva Zapata, it has seldom been the intention of the motion picture industry to take Mexico seriously. Depicted on the screen as a comic-opera land of violence and mañana, filled with gap-toothed peons, oily villains, and dusky señoritas, Mexico’s reputation rests on revolution.
Yet the motion picture has never acknowledged the role it played in the revolution. One journalist has gone so far as to call it “The War Waged to Make a Movie”—an understandable exaggeration, for the motion picture had never before been drawn so close to politics. And while it had frequently recorded history, film had hardly been considered as a means of changing history’s course.’
Kevin Brownlow: The War, the West and the Wilderness
For John Stewart:
with continued thanks and admiration,
and especially for
September 17 and 18, 1979
Foreword
1914—the year which would see the European powers enter upon the Great War was also the fourth year of the revolution that was tearing Mexico apart. The dictator, General Victoriano Huerta, clings to power while under attack from three sides. The south thunders to the peon army of Emiliano Zapata with its demands for agrarian reform—the land belongs to him who tills it—wrenching the land back from the Federal forces who protect it on behalf of the absentee landlords and working it themselves. In the north-east and north-west two rebel forces fight in an uneasy alliance. Carranza, the governor of Coahuila Province, and his army under Alvaro Obregon form one line of attack; the other comprises the guerrilla army of the former bandit, Pancho Villa.
The United States, reasoning that Huerta cannot maintain his position, gives tacit support to Carranza as the man most likely to restore stability and so protect American commercial interests. Some powerful forces in the United States—notably those linked with the newspaper giant, William Randolph Hearst—are doing their best to force the American government to intervene and use military means to halt the fighting. Other Americans are drawn to the struggle for a variety of reasons—a belief in the cause of the oppressed, a love of danger and excitement, a thirst for blood or money, the knowledge that here in the heat of ragged battle they can ride and fight and enjoy the illusion of freedom.
Such men are The Gringos.
Chapter One
THE MAN WHO stepped out of the shadow was tall. His hair was thickly dark, starting to gray at the temples. The pants and vest he wore were black, his shirt a grubby white. In the light from the lantern across the street his lined face seemed older than his almost forty years. But not his body. Strong, athletic, disciplined. Taut now as he waited, the fingers of his right hand tight round the grip of a Colt .45 automatic.
A second shadow fell across the light and the footsteps Onslow had heard materialized into a man perhaps an inch shorter than himself, a length of fair hair showing beneath the curved brim of the gray Stetson he wore. The man walked easily across the empty street, the folds of his dark gray suit creased and rumpled, the black string tie angled wrong at the collar of his light blue shirt.
‘Yates,’ said Cade Onslow.
Yates McCloud nodded and stopped close by where Onslow was standing, the automatic now back in the holster by his right hip. ‘’Lo, Major.’
‘You found him?’
McCloud nodded again. ‘Sure. Been followin’ him best part of four hours.’ He laughed shortly, the soft southern drawl relaxing into his voice as he spoke. ‘He’s a man as believes in some mighty fancy forms of entertainment, let me tell you.’
Onslow said nothing, ignoring the strong smell of whisky on McCloud’s breath.
‘Where is he now?’
McCloud inclined his head backwards. ‘Block down the street. Hotel called the Rio Grande Star. Room seven on the first floor.’
‘Alone?’
McCloud chuckled. ‘Is he hell!’
A frown crossed Onslow’s already serious face. ‘Who then?’
‘For one there’s a greaser called ... Hell, I can’t remember what he’s called, but he’s one of the federales who came over to make the deal. I guess our man don’t want to let him slip out of his sight.’
‘Who else?’ asked Onslow, impatience showing in his voice.
‘Couple of whores.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ Onslow shook his head.
‘Steady on, now, Major. Just cause you ain’t a sportin’ man, that don’t mean ...’
Onslow closed with the southerner, his fist not far from McCloud’s chest. ‘It means there’s three more to deal with, three more to get in the way. I wanted this done quick and quiet.’
‘Them whores,’ said McCloud, ‘you can just send ’em running.’
‘And the Mexican?’
McCloud shrugged.
Onslow touched, lightly, briefly, the butt of the Colt at his hip. ‘Let’s get to it.’
The hotel lobby was small and sparsely lit. A night clerk leaned head and shoulders down onto the small desk to the right of the door. The stairs were beyond the desk to the left.
Onslow paused inside the door and pointed to the clerk, looking at McCloud.
McCloud nodded, slipped the Colt Lightning from his shoulder holster and reversed it in his hand. He brought the butt down on the back of the sleeping clerk’s right temple and after that the man slept all the more soundly.
Onslow was already on his way up the stairs.
McCloud followed, half a dozen steps behind.
From behind the door to room seven came the sound of laughter, male and female, broad and coarse, high and drunken. On the front of the door the metal figure 7 hung upside down from a screw through its stem. Onslow drew his gun; McCloud’s was still in his hand, now the right way round.
‘Three,’ Onslow mouthed silently.
McCloud’s eyes shone as he nodded that he understood.
On the unspoken count of three, Cade Onslow kicked the door in.
A man stood on a sagging bed pushed back against the far wall; his shirt was open at the front, pulled up over his spreading belly; his pants were down around his calves. His attempt at an erection had been one of the causes of amusement up to the point where Onslow and McCloud had intruded. One of the women was kneeling in front of the man, apparently concerned to do her best to repair the situation. She hadn’t had a great measure of success and what little she had achieved went for nothing when the door was kicked back and two armed men burst in. The man sagged more than the bed he was standing on.
The out-of-uniform federale officer was not exactly that. His pants were still on, braces fixed across his bare chest; his gun belt had been removed and now hung behind the still vibrating door. His mouth was open, the dark moustache drooping down over his upper lip. His dark eyes were small and tight with anger, with danger.
The whore kneeling on the bed had now half-turned towards the intruders. Her red hair fell in loose curls about her head, touching her shoulders and the thin straps of the slip which was the sole garment she was wearing. Her hair was beautiful, the face it framed was not, not any more. Once it might have been, but one of her customers had expressed his dissatisfaction with the blade of an open razor. Bright lights didn’t suit her.
Her companion sat back in an armchair to the left of the bed, huddled rather than sat, clutching a mostly-finished bottle of wine between her naked breasts. When the two men at the door looked at her, she didn’t think to cross her naked legs. She was preoccupied with the thought that she was about to be killed. Her left hand left the bottle and reached for her neck, wanting the reassurance of the small crucifix she wore on a thin gold chain. Her eyes closed for a fraction of time; the cross was not there. The chain had to have broken. Her eyes opened and she looked across the floor and the bed for the missing crucifix.
Yates McCloud shut the door and as he did so, he saw the gun belt. With a tight smile, he drew the pistol and tucked it down into the waistband of his suit.
The man on the bed was beginning to shake; his belly was beginning to shake. He reminded Onslow of an overweight dancer he had once watched perf orming in a cantina in Nogales. Onslow knew the man wasn’t a dancer, but he had spent time in Nogales. Onslow had met him there himself not once, but twice. Nogales and Juarez and many other places close to the border. The man’s name was Kennedy and he was a gun dealer. All manner of guns: Colts, Mausers, Lugers, Brownings, Winchester rifles, Maxim machine guns, Lewis guns—rumor had it that Kennedy could arrange delivery for the very latest mortars from Germany, for 32-pound Howitzers, for a 300-pound piece of naval artillery if the buyer could arrange his own transport. Kennedy would also sell you a single box of cartridges for your pistol if he could make enough profit on it. He was not a proud man.
As of now he was a very frightened man.
He had recognized Onslow just a matter of seconds after the door had been kicked back.
He knew that Onslow was in the pay of the rebel forces across the border. They had made transactions many times before when there had been an arms embargo against such sales to the rebels. Now the policy of the American government had switched and there was an embargo against sales to the forces of General Huerta, the Federal army.
Kennedy was entertaining a Federal officer in his room.
Something about the look on Onslow’s face made it clear to Kennedy that Onslow knew all that had been going on and he didn’t like it one little bit.
Kennedy wished he had his trousers fastened and his shirt down over his belly; he wished he was somewhere other than room seven in the Rio Grande Star hotel—anywhere; he wished Onslow and whoever was with him would turn around and go away.
He might as well have wished for the moon.
McCloud pointed his gun at the two girls. ‘Get dressed and get out.’
They scurried around the room, picking up garments and dragging them on; the one from the chair found her gold cross inside one of her shoes and kissed it fervently before slipping it round her neck.
‘Never mind that,’ snapped McCloud. ‘Just get!’
The woman glanced at him and fumbled into her shoes.
‘Wait!’ McCloud called as they were at the door. ‘You raise anyone, you open them mouths of yourn, and you’re both dead. Understand?’
The terror in their eyes gave their answer.
McCloud closed the door behind them and leaned back against it.
Kennedy reached down for the pants about his ankles.
‘Leave ’em.’ Onslow’s voice was as cold as the barrel of the Colt automatic steady in his hand.
Kennedy looked up and blinked.
‘Leave ’em be and stay right where you are.’
‘But...’
‘Just do it!’
The gun dealer swallowed hard and stood up, the springs of the bed complaining under his weight. At the side of the room, the Mexican officer was judging his chances of making a dive for the door. If he could hit the man there hard enough, if he could grab his own gun from the man’s waist, if he could get the door open as he fired the gun, if...
McCloud was looking at him, openly smiling as though he knew the thoughts running through the Mexican’s head. The smile said, Come on, try it, try it and see what you get.
The Mexican knew exactly what he would get. He also thought the same treatment would be meted out to him if he simply stood there and waited for it.
He didn’t know what to do.
‘You and this feller been talking business?’ Onslow said to the gun dealer.
Kennedy started a lie, his hands waving through the air. Several words into it, he stopped. ‘You know how it is, you understand the business. You and me, we’ve dealt with one another before.’
‘I’ve brought you business,’ said Onslow, ‘you’ve grown fat off it.’
Kennedy shuddered, his belly wobbling, balls shaking timidly in their wrinkled sack.
McCloud laughed till a quick glance from Onslow shut him up.
‘Now you’re dealing with scum,’ Onslow said, looking away from Kennedy towards the Mexican.
‘No, I ...’
‘Selling arms to trash in cheap uniform.’
‘I ...’
‘No better than that ugly whore you just paid for.’
Kennedy’s mouth opened, round and silent like a fish in a bowl; it closed again just as silently.
‘I’ve come to tell you to change your ways.’
Kennedy wanted to piss, suddenly needed to, more than anything else in the world. His bladder tightened and he winced visibly.
McCloud grinned at the man’s evident discomfort.
The Mexican chanced a half pace forward and brought no reaction.
‘Stop selling to the federales.'
Kennedy winced again, gestured with his right hand. ‘I need to …’
‘You need to listen good to what I’m saying.’
‘But you know I take no sides, I sell to the highest bidder. Always that is what I do.’
‘Uh-uh,’ said Onslow, shaking his head. ‘No more. Taking sides is what you’re going to do.’
Kennedy’s face had turned purple, his fat right thigh pressed across to his left, his hand clasped his limp penis. ‘I must ...!’
‘Use that.’ Onslow pointed to a chipped bowl standing on a sideboard against the wall.
Nervously, Kennedy got down from the bed, the rusted and bent springs squeaking beneath his weight as he moved. He held the bowl between his legs and used it, back to the watching men, the urine splashing back against his belly and the tops of his legs.
‘Stinks worse’n an alley,’ commented McCloud with exaggerated distaste.
The Mexican tried another shuffle forward and again received no response. The butt of the gun at McCloud’s waist looked big now, bigger each moment that he looked at it; he could almost feel his hand around it. He licked his tongue against the hairs of his moustache and held himself back.
Kennedy set the bowl back on the sideboard.
‘What’ve you sold?’ asked Onslow.
Kennedy shrugged. ‘Nothing. Nothing, we have met for the first ...’
Onslow hit him, hard across the face with the back of his left hand, the knuckles cracking into Kennedy’s cheek, splitting the corner of his fleshy lip and drawing a filigree of blood.
‘You’ve been talking for two days now. Don’t waste time with no lies. Not if you know what’s good for you.’
Kennedy tasted the blood as it ran slowly into his mouth. ‘Ammunition,’ he said slowly. ‘That’s all.’
‘What kinds?’
‘Forty-five caliber cartridges, thirty-forties for the Winchester, belts for the machine guns. So.’
‘What else?’
Kennedy hesitated long enough to swallow a little more of his own blood. ‘Howitzer shells. Mortars.’
Onslow nodded. ‘Delivery?’
Kennedy wiped at the line of blood and it dripped from the edge of his hand onto his shirt front, the straggly hairs of his chest.
‘Delivery?’ asked Onslow, stepping closer.
Kennedy flinched.
‘When?’
‘One week, perhaps longer.’
‘Where?’
‘Here. To Presidio.’
‘And crossing the border?’
Kennedy looked at the Mexican. ‘That is not my responsibility.’
The Mexican stared back at him with scorn. ‘If these gringos do not kill you, then I will.’
McCloud laughed and shifted his weight from one leg to the other.
‘That delivery isn’t going to be made,’ said Onslow. ‘Not to the federales it isn’t. You understand?’
Kennedy coughed, glanced towards the Mexican, nodded gingerly; his trousers were still round his ankles.
‘Say it!’
‘I understand.’
‘That’s good,’ said Onslow. ‘Villa could do with those shells.’
The Mexican took three steps towards Kennedy, his attempt to get his gun from McCloud apparently forgotten. He leaned his head back and then brought it forward smartly, spitting full into Kennedy’s face.
McCloud grinned and watched to see what the arms dealer would do.
Kennedy wiped the spittle clear with the end of his shirt.
The Mexican spat in his face a second time.
Onslow touched the Mexican on the arm, moving him away.
