"The Lady from LUST – South of the Bordello" by Rod Gray (1968)

[tirepanted3]

CHAPTER FOUR

I could not make my try at Raquel until tomorrow, when she would be a low man on the terrorista totem pole, bringing up at the tail end of the single-file line. If she lagged behind far enough, killing her would be as easy as devouring a blueberry tart at a pie-eating contest.

In the meantime, I had to stay out of sight. Not being in terrorist uniform, I would stand out like a nudist at a church social. So I made myself scarce.

I hid the Drum bod in one of the coffins. Naturally, I waited until El Oro had gone to examine the coffins, to learn if his zombies had captured any more unwilling volunteers for his ragtag army.

I gathered, had he found anybody in one of those biers, he would have shot him full of drugs and added him to his fearsome family. No sooner had he left the coffin shed than I was slithering my frame inside a casket. I fell asleep with its lid propped open so I could breathe. Oddly enough, I slept like a baby.

My eyes popped wide a little after dawn.

I tiptoed around the village of the dead, making sure everybody was in his place. Raquel was snoring slightly, lying outstretched on the dusty porch of what had been a saloon. I would keep an eye on her.

The rest of the scare gang were just waking up. Some of them had new cartridge bandoliers hung about their shoulders, one or two had traded their old rifles for the Chinese-made AK-47 automatic attack guns. Raquel, thank God, was quite content with her shiny new Russian AK-50. I would have hated to rely on any of those guns I’d rammed pebbles into, in an emergency.

While I drooled, I watched the boys and girls eat their breakfast and then shoulder their rifles. They marched out with El Oro in the lead, Nita right at his heels, Sullenly, her behind resting on a porch rail, Raquel waited until the next to last marcher was half a mile away. Then she shouldered her AK-50 and began her own walk.

Me, I was her shadow. I slithered and crawled and ran across the barren soil, scratching a thigh and bruising my hip in the process of keeping up with her. Not that she walked fast, she was too mad to want to keep up with the group, but I was afraid she might turn around and eye her back trail.

Luck was with me. Two hours after leaving el pueblo des muertes, my pussycat prey sighed and sank her rear down on a flattish rock. She made a grimace with her lips, and reached for her canteen. Her face was turned away at this moment, so I figured it was a good time to launch my attack.

I ran across the barren ground as fast as my legs could carry me. I might have made it undetected had not a rock decided to make a stab at my toe. I plunged face down right in front of her.

“Caramba!” Raquel squealed. “Who’re you?”

I answered her with my hands that latched onto her tight ankle, tugged and turned. Raquel squawked, slid off the rock and bounced her buttocks on some stones just below her resting place.

“Sorry about this, sweetie,” I muttered – and slammed her in her soft belly with an elbow.

The air went out of her lungs. She gasped and choked, flopping in her helplessness. If you have ever had the breath driven from your lungs, you know that feeling. She could hardly move.

“I’ll make it easy, honey,” I told her.

My hands went to her throat. She was another human being, I know; after my hands left her throat, I was sick all over the ground; but she was an enemy and I was engaged in a quiet little war to prevent her kind from getting a foothold south of our border. So I did what had to be done, then relaxed to let nausea soothe my nerves.

I buried her naked body and my clothes under a cairn of rocks. Then I slid into her plain cotton panties, khaki pants, blouse, fatigue cap and the armament she had carried. I examined the attack rifle, the machete in its scabbard, the two hand grenades hanging from the leather belt. Everything seemed to be in good working order.

I took up the march where Raquel had left off.