Gunslingers Don't Sing or Dance by Mike Marino (any book recommendations txt) 📕

into all that...yet...but the question remains...where the hell is his head?”


The answer was forthcoming from the Colonel and Jules who were getting the balloon ready for the days journey. “I found it. Here in the basket,” the Colonel said as he held it up displaying it with a look of shock forever emblazoned on its bodiless face.


“Get rid of it please,” I implored.


“No, I want it. I can use it in my offering ceremony as a charm. A token of good luck and fortune.” Leave it to Jean-Paul to collect and be grateful for dead heads. It was tossed to him and was placed on his saddle horn and would ride with us in that manner for the rest of the journey drying out with skin shrinking gradually until only the skull would remain as a token charm of good luck….or a warning of supernatural forces we would have to encounter in our quest for treasure.  


We were wary, all of us...except for Jules Verne. “This will be a fantastic voyage gentlemen..and dear Isadora. What adventure!”


I could have shot him on the spot...Isadora said only, “Death is a release from this world and entry into a paradise!”


So based on that I was one of the suffering life forms...while lucky Gallegos was one of the grateful dead!
Chapter 17 - Mayan Gods and Space Aliens

 

The Colonels billowing balloon, which we had christened ‘The Aztec Voyager’ after a night of pagan pinatas, peyote and portentous participation in the village fiesta, was made ready for flight. It’s magnificent bag filling with the noxious mixture prepared by the Colonel with the determined acuity of an ancient alchemist. We were voyagers in the sky, much as Aztec and Mayan mythology had described and been inscribed in granite on walls as pre-Columbian petroglyphs and hieroglyphs told tales of visitors from space, gods descending from the blue heavens.

 

We were now one man short in our company as Gallegos had gone and offended Spanish and Native ghosts and gods. Jean-Paul kept Gallegos’ severed head as a souvenir of the degenerate decapitation. Haitian tastes in voodoo decor was beyond my comprehension but, one man’s severed head is another man’s magic charm against unthinkable beasts from the Underworld we know nothing about.

 

Isadora and I would sail the currents with the Colonel and Jules. The basket had plenty of room and we would be able to scout ahead with an eagle eye view of the land for any Federales lying in wait ahead of us, or the legions of Monty Debauchery behind us.

 

“El Diablo, give me a hand with this crate. I want this in the balloon...may come in handy in the next few days,” I asked with a grin.

 

“What are we hiding Senor Baxter? Something of value to be shared with the rest of us. We are partners, yes?”

 

“Si. I mean yes. This is just a box of insurance amigo.”

I pried the lid open and exposed its explosive content for all to see. “It’s dynamite. I planned ahead in case we ran into groups of bandits, well, such as yourselves or Monty’s men.”

 

“We are revolutionaries, Senor. We were banditos, but only out of necessity, Now we fight with a purpose.”

 

“Well then,” I replied, “What kind of revolutionary band would go into battle without the upper hand?”

 

El Diablo launched that grin of his forever chomping on a perpetual cigar that I think he emerged from the womb with. “So, if we have trouble down here…” I couldn’t resist finishing his thought, “We attack it from up there. Boom!”

 

The Colonel was ecstatic and gave out a good old southern rebel yell. “Aerial bombardment! Gads! This will be fun!”

 

We loaded the explosive cargo aboard the basket. Isadora and I then followed suit climbing aboard with help from Jean-Paul on the ground and Jules Verne aboard the craft.

He was scribbling quickly in his small vest pocket notebook, no doubt keeping notes for use in a story in the future about balloons soaring aloft fighting off an enemy on the ground below in pitched battle or perhaps merely a footnote regarding a headless Mexican guide who angered some invisible gods who only emerge while under the influence of peyote as spectral hallucinations yet come complete with cold, hard very real razor sharp steel to punish the non-penitent.

The horses were saddled, men were mounted, basket crew ready to be untethered and launched. As we began our ascent I couldn’t help taking one last look of the morning at Jean-Paul’s adorned saddlehorn. I swore the head of Gallegos was smiling at us. Grinning, knowingly, with his free from flesh spirit floating along the River Styx while his head was going in the other direction to Chichen Itza and hidden Aztec treasure. Hopefully he wouldn’t upset the gods anymore sparing us our heads. Now about those visitors from space we might encounter.

Chapter 18 - Balloon Battle of the Yucatan

 

 

Along with the dynamite, we were also armed with Navy Colts and two Henry rifles ready to unleash a rain of lead from above on any adversary we might come across on this, the most dangerous stretch of our foray in a foreign land infamously known for quick death for interlopers at the hands of gunslinging vengeful vaquero’s or imprisonment and torture by the ruling French army who ran Mexico with Napoleonic iron fist. Treasure hunters, let alone gringos were fair targets for European bullets.

 

We felt safe aloft in the Colonel’s balloon with El Diablo’s contingent of wild men running interference on terra firma should it come to that. We were heading inland away from the cool gulf waters alive with marine life venturing into a land of rattlesnakes and curses!

 

Isadora was radiant as the early morning sun bathed her in it’s golden rays. She was the treasure I really craved. She cast a net over me and I was captivated. Better to be captivated than Gallegos who had been decapitated!

 

A few mile out of Merida we noticed a great column of dust rising ahead of us by a few miles. More troubling was a black speck floating in mid-air heading in our direction. “What is it Baxter?” Isadora queried cautiously. “I’m not sure, but I don’t like it!”

 

The Colonel already had his brass spyglass extended and he spoke in a tone that set the hairs on my neck to stand at attention. “It’s a damned balloon!! Flying the flag of France...and she’s heading our way along with French troops on horseback with lances and rifles.”

 

I immediately leaned over the basket rim to yell a warning to el Diablo. “Frenchies ahead! On horseback and one damned balloon!!!” I got the signal ...Message Received.

Isadora squeezed my arm tightly. I was already tightly wound as a German pocket watch,

“Well, Colonel. What now?”

 

He let out that blood curdling rebel yell he must have used a thousand times during the war, “We attack sonny. We attack!”

 

The French had balloons? I was naive. Jules Verne filled us in. “Monsieur. We invented ballooning! Pleasure flights by adventures at first but once developed. Napoleon used them in 1859 to defeat Austria.”

 

Not only were going to engage what could quite possibly the first air battle in history, but the French had the upper hand and edge of experience!  I had to think fast and furious. If this was to be war then I had to think like Tecumseh Sherman and not a mere gunman-writer. Dynamite and Balloons!

 

We quickly made sure our Colts and Henry’s had full chambers. Then an idea blasted through my head. “Colonel. How close can we get to their balloon?”

 

“I can touch basket to basket, but be aware my young Yankee friend. They will try to place a few rounds in our canvas to force us to land.”

 

“Do it,” I said with my best commander in chief voice, then hollered down to El Diablo. “Their balloon will reach you before the ground troops by the looks of things. Keep them busy up there. Keep a steady stream of lead flying. I have a plan!”

 

“And just what is the plan, Baxter?” Isadora fairly pleaded and I could sense the fear in her voice. “Hand me some dynamite!” I yelled as we closed in on the balloon, French ground troops not far behind. El Diablo, was no stranger to warfare as he divided his forces with half of them racing ahead to deliver the first blows to the ground troops while the remainder dashed just ahead of us to begin the balloon assault.

 

As we neared combat readiness, Jules was writing in his journal as fast as a Gatling gun at Gettysburg! The Colonel was getting us as close as we could. So close we could see their faces. Bullets from below kept them busy firing back in the hopes of avoiding being downed by a well aimed bullet.

 

They probably thought we were going to try to board them as we were so close! We weren’t pirates on the high seas trying to capture a frigate, but we were high in the sky trying to bump their balloon so we would be as close to them as a baby in a womb.

 

The Colonel got the balloon rim to rim…”Get ready to back off Colonel” I yelled as I let the fuse on three sticks and dynamite and tossed them into the French balloon basket. Panic ensued, firing from the French ceased as they scrambled, bumping heads to get the explosives tossed out. Confined quarters, fear and panic did the rest.

 

Our balloon broke away fast and were a safe distance away when the explosion ripped the basket apart ejecting its cargo of French soldiers and guns to the death awaiting them on the rocks below. We could feel the heat of the blast. On the ground El Diablo’s rebels stopped in amazement and awe as the cascade of humanity soared to the ground below, the basket non-existent with the tattered balloon now billowing lifeless in the sky floating along on a current taking it towards the sea.

 

While the French ground troops looked up in amazement were now dazed and momentarily off guard as El Diablo’s men attacked with a fury. The French waving sabers as good officers will do in such events. Sabers are no match for guns. Ceremonial parades yes, ground battle with gun toting degenerates? No!

 

To add to the blood flow we were now free from any French ground fire which allowed us to float menacingly over the croissant cadre in soon to be blood soaked uniforms followed by