Smugglers' Gold Read online

  Which gave him an idea.

  He had not hoped to catch the pirates still in port, but now he had an opportunity that Ryder didn’t feel he could ignore. Who knew how long the Banshee would remain in port, or when it would return? How long until her captain changed the clipper’s name again to throw pursuers off her track?

  He might be able to prevent that, even put the operation out of business for a time, if he was quick and deft enough. It meant delaying any further search for Otto Seitz, but Ryder was prepared to pay that price.

  He left the neighborhood of Awful Annie’s as he had approached it, without drawing any notice to himself. The men who could identify him liked to spend their daylight hours indoors, whenever possible, preferring whiskey and the charms of painted women to a sunburn and hard labor on the docks. He hoped the Banshee’s crew was of a similar persuasion as he made his way down toward the waterfront, alert to any danger from familiar faces on the way.

  He found the Banshee without difficulty, tied up to a pier, the gangplank down. Ryder expected guards but saw none on the deck as he approached the clipper. Could it be that all of them had gone ashore? That would explain the gangplank, since there’d be no means of lowering it from the pier, with no one left on board.

  And finally, he knew that there was only one way to find out.

  With one hand on his holstered Colt Army, Ryder approached the sloping plank and went aboard as if he owned the ship. No one came out to challenge him before he reached the weather deck and stood there listening for any sounds of human habitation on the ship.

  Nothing.

  It seemed unlikely to him that the Banshee would be left wholly unguarded, and he got the answer to that question moments later, when he found a crewman dozing in a hammock toward the starboard side, in shade. Beside him, near his dangling fingertips, an empty bottle stood upon the deck. Ryder retrieved and sniffed it, nearly overpowered by the fumes of rum, and put it back.

  If this was Pickering’s security, he thought, the ship was his.

  *

  A rapid circuit of the weather deck and cabins proved that Ryder was correct; the drunken pirate was the only soul aboard the clipper, other than himself. From what he’d seen at Awful Annie’s, Ryder guessed the other crewmen would not be returning to the Banshee for a few more hours, at least, but he would finish off the work he’d come to do as quickly as he could, regardless.

  First, a search belowdecks.

  Ryder did not hope to find the treasure from Timbalier Island still aboard, and he was right in that assumption. Had they stashed it in the same warehouse where he had helped unload the other loot and ganja previously? That was something to investigate, but first he meant to put the Banshee-Revenant-whatever out of action, permanently.

  If he had his way, this ghost would never ply the seas again.

  Well back in the hold he found barrels of tar, presumably used for waterproofing and the patching of leaks while at sea. A tool chest lay nearby, and Ryder rifled through it, settling on a rusty hatchet that he thought should serve him well. Tipping one barrel on its side, he swung the hatchet half a dozen times to smash the lid and waited for the barrel’s viscous contents to come dribbling out. Once that was done, he rolled the opened barrel forward through the hold, leaving a trail of tar behind him from the other barrels, like a powder train.

  And every bit as flammable.

  He knew that fire remained the greatest danger to a wooden ship, whether at sea or moored in port. Fueled by the tar, once it was lit, the Banshee would go quickly up in flames, and maybe take the pier along with it. Ryder would have to save the drunken watchman if he could, but first he had to start the fire.

  As it turned out, the tar was slow to catch. Ryder wasted a match before he saw a lantern hanging from the bulkhead, smashed it on the deck to spill its reservoir of kerosene, then tried again. This time the flames took hold without delay, spreading along the trail of tar that he had laid, soon lapping at the other barrels in the rear part of the hold, filling the air with acrid smoke.

  And it was time to go.

  He clambered up a ladder to the weather deck and circled back to reach the sleeping seaman in his hammock. Slapping him repeatedly brought no response beyond a muttered curse, so Ryder hoisted his deadweight out of the hammock, to the rail, and tipped him overboard, into the water. From the shout that echoed back at him, accompanied by thrashing sounds, he knew the man was finally awake.

  Going down the gangplank, Ryder took it slow and easy, acting as if he belonged. The first black wisps of smoke were just emerging from the Banshee’s hold as he stepped off the pier onto dry land, but then the first pale gout of flame shot skyward, and a sailor working on a nearby vessel raised the dreaded cry of “Fire!”

  Two sailors passing on the dock ran to the clipper’s gangplank, mounted to the deck, and started calling out to anyone who might still be aboard. When satisfied that no one was imperiled by the flames, they beat a quick retreat and stood apart with others, watching while the fire spread from the hold to upper decks, then climbed the masts and rigging unopposed. Crewmen aboard surrounding ships were busy with their own defenses, no one sparing any time or energy to save the Banshee as it was consumed at dockside, gradually burning to the water line.

  Ryder remained, watching, until the fire had done its work and guttered out, charred masts collapsing, crushing any structures on the clipper’s deck that had not been devoured by the flames beforehand. Turning from the blackened hulk as it began to settle, he was satisfied with one part of a job well done.

  But he was far from finished, yet.

  *

  Stede Pickering was working on another glass of rum—his sixth, maybe his seventh. He’d lost count and wasn’t too concerned about it, since he had a solid head for liquor and the little redhead’s amorous exertions had burned off a fair amount of alcohol that he’d consumed before their tryst upstairs. His mood was mellow when the barroom’s bat-wing doors flew open and a straggler from his crew barged in, his shirt and trousers sopping wet.

  “Captain!” he called out from the doorway, rushing forward. “Come quick! It’s the Banshee!”

  This one, Jonas Walker, had been left behind to watch the clipper, and his presence in the bar could only mean bad news.

  “What of her?” he asked, apprehensively.

  “S-s-sir,” the seaman stammered out, “she’s gone!”

  Pickering lumbered to his feet and growled, “The hell you say! What do you mean, she’s gone?”

  “Burnt up is what I mean, sir. Burnt and sunk. Gone up in smoke.”

  Pickering grabbed a hold of Walker’s sodden shirt, hoisting the smaller man up onto tiptoes. “Burnt and sunk! Just where in hell were you, while this was goin’ on?”

  Walker went pale beneath his sailor’s baked-in tan. “I mighta fell asleep for just a second, sir. No longer, I can tell you that, when somebody pitched me over the rail.”

  “Asleep? And then tossed overboard? By who?” Pickering raged.

  “I din’t exactly see his face, sir.”

  Pickering pulled Walker close and sniffed him. Mixed in with the smell of sea water, he recognized the pungent scent of rum. “And you were drunk on watch, goddamn you!” he exploded.

  “No, sir! I—”

  Pickering slammed his fist into the sailor’s face and let him drop, unconscious, to the sawdust-littered floor. Turning to face the cribs upstairs, he bellowed out, “All crewmen from the Banshee, to the waterfront! No lagging! Last man on the pier’s dead meat!”

  Trusting the fear his sailors felt for him to roust them out of bed, Pickering turned and bolted from the bawdy house, dead sober by the time he reached the sidewalk and began to run with loping strides down toward the docks. The distant pall of smoke was visible already, growing larger, darker, as he closed the gap, gaining momentum on the downhill sprint.

  And it was true, by God.

  He’d hoped that Walker was exaggerating, his impressions blurred by alcohol,
but that was not the case. Where Pickering had left the Banshee—safe and sound, as he’d supposed—a blackened ruin lay partly submerged, the stump of one burnt mast protruding six or seven feet above the water’s surface. Pickering stood gaping at the wreckage while his sailors started to arrive, some barely dressed, after their run from Awful Annie’s to the docks.

  “What happened, Captain?” someone asked.

  “The hell should I know? Was I here?” Pickering fought to calm himself and added, “Jonas says somebody tossed him overboard. Next thing he knew, the ship was burning.”

  “Tossed him over?”

  “Who’n hell?”

  “Bastard was drunk, all right,” said Pickering. “If I find out he set this fire by accident or otherwise, I’ll see he takes a week to die.”

  A sailor that he didn’t recognize was standing close at hand and overheard Pickering’s comment. Gambling with his own skin, he spoke up to say, “At least both of your men got off all right.”

  “Both of my men?”

  The stranger nodded. “One over the starboard rail, the other down the gangplank.”

  Pickering’s assembled men immediately started babbling amongst themselves, their questions batting back and forth until he scowled and shushed them. Turning to the stranger who had spoken, he asked, “Do I take it that you saw this second man come down the plank?”

  “As plain as day, friend.”

  “And could you describe him for me?”

  Now the stranger paused for thought, eyes closing for a moment, opening before he spoke again. “I’d reckon he was six foot tall, dark-haired, no whiskers. Young, in my opinion, middle twenties. White, o’ course. I do recall he wore a pistol, here.” Reaching across his body toward the left hip, for a simulated cross-hand draw.

  “Was he familiar to you? Might you know his name?”

  “Never laid eyes on him before,” the stranger said.

  “Thanks, anyway.”

  That vague description could apply to half the men working along the waterfront, but there was something … Wait! The pistol. Pickering had seen a rig like that, just yesterday.

  But no. It couldn’t be.

  Raging, he turned his back on what remained of the poor Banshee, formerly the Revenant, and started back toward Awful Annie’s, boot heels clopping on the cobblestones.

  *

  Jonas Walker thought that he was drowning for a second, then he tasted beer and realized someone was trying to revive him from his captain’s stunning punch. He came up sputtering, his right eye stinging from the dose of alcohol, his left one swollen almost shut from the impact of Pickering’s knuckles.

  “Ups-a-daisy,” someone told him, as they hauled Walker to his feet. He was disoriented for a moment, then remembered where he was and what had happened just before the lights went out.

  Hands steered him toward the bar, where someone handed him a shot glass full of whiskey and he gulped it, gratefully. Walker wasn’t used to helping hands and wished that everyone would just leave him alone, but that was not to be.

  The leader of the outfit, Bryan Marley, was beside him now, refilling Walker’s glass while he plied him with questions. Where had Pickering and all his crewmen gone in such a hurry? Were they coming back, or not?

  It seemed that none of Marley’s men had heard Walker when he’d told his captain that the Banshee was on fire, so he went through it all again, stopping at intervals to wheeze a bit and make a show of wobbling on his feet until the empty shot glass was refilled and he felt fortified enough to forge ahead.

  It was embarrassing, explaining how he’d been assigned to guard the ship but had a bit of rum and fell asleep, then woke to someone tossing him over the Banshee’s rail. The dunking cleared his head—well, more or less—but by the time he’d dragged himself onto the dock, all sopping wet, the clipper was in flames. Walker had seen ships burn before, and didn’t feel like dying in a vain attempt to fight the fire, so he had done the next best thing and raced off to the whorehouse, where he had alerted Captain Pickering and then got knocked out cold.

  “You say somebody set the ship on fire deliberately?” Marley asked him.

  “Must have,” Walker said. “If he was passin’ by and seen the smoke, why heave me overboard? I weren’t but twenty paces from the gangplank.”

  “Sabotage,” somebody muttered, and that got some of the others grumbling.

  Marley shushed them, pressing in on Walker. “Did you see the guy who tossed you over?”

  “Nope,” Walker replied. “I may’a mentioned I was sleepin’ off a wee bit of a bender. He was strong, though, I can tell you that.”

  Somebody in the group mentioned a name—sounded like “Menefee”—but Marley snapped right back at them, “He’s dead, goddamn it!”

  “Doesn’t mean his friends are,” someone else complained.

  “Whoever done it,” Walker said, “looks like we’re stranded here in Galveston until the captain finds hisself another ship. Looks bad for business.”

  Marley seemed to have a sudden thought, his face taking on an anxious look. “The warehouse! Gabe, take Jack and Willy. Hustle over there and make sure it’s all right.”

  The men he’d spoken to rushed out into the early dusk and disappeared, the barroom’s bat-wing doors flapping behind them. Walker stood waiting for another shot of whiskey on the house, but it appeared that Marley had lost interest in him. He was giving orders to the men who still remained, directing some to gather weapons, others to go off in search of gang members who weren’t already at the brothel. Walker understood that they were making ready to defend the place—or maybe go to war.

  He leaned against the bar and thought about that for another moment, weighing his alternatives. There was no point in volunteering to help Marley and his men, after he’d just confessed his own ineptitude. Likewise, he couldn’t count on any mercy from his captain or the crewmates he’d let down. There must be something he could do in Galveston, while waiting for a berth aboard some other vessel, but the thought of being killed or badly injured in a shooting war held no appeal for Walker.

  On the other hand, if he got out of there while Marley and his people were distracted …

  Walker saw them huddled at the far end of the bar, all deep in earnest conversation. There would never be a better time, he thought, and ambled casually toward the door.

  16

  Ryder approached the warehouse cautiously, convinced that Marley would have guards stationed around it to protect the loot deposited in recent days. He was correct but found the two lookouts detailed to watch it posed no problem, since their throats were slashed from ear to ear, their bodies dragged inside the warehouse and concealed there.

  Ryder saw that much because the broad front door was standing open to receive him. Pistol drawn, he ducked inside to stand above the corpses, listening to sounds that emanated from the shadowy interior. It sounded like one man, or two at most, opening crates and pawing through their contents, likely seeking treasure he or they could haul away on foot, without a team and wagon.

  Ryder had not counted on a robbery in progress, much less double murder. He had come to search the warehouse with no plan fixed firmly in his mind, aware that he could not abscond with much of Marley’s loot himself, uncertain whether anything he carried off without a warrant qualified as evidence. He’d planned to have another look around, at least, maybe consider treating Marley’s cache as he had done the late Banshee, but now he faced a different proposition altogether.

  He cocked the Colt Army, half wincing at the hammer’s sharp metallic sound, but if it carried to the looter farther back inside the warehouse, it did not disturb him. Or them. Ryder moved as quietly as possible, placing each foot with caution on the concrete floor, avoiding any scuffs to give himself away. It seemed to take forever, moving down one aisle between two rows of wooden crates, the person he was stalking still unseen and one row over to his right. The stacks of merchandise concealed Ryder from his intended prey, as it hid him�
��or them—from Ryder, but it made him wonder how he would, in fact, confront the prowler after all, without forewarning him.

  When he had reached a point directly opposite the sounds of avid searching, he decided it was only one intruder after all. A pair would certainly be talking now, even in whispers, as they rifled through Marley’s loot for some specific prize. One man would make things easier, but there was still the problem of approaching him. Unless …

  The crates nearest to Ryder, standing like a wall between the burglar and himself, were stacked in an arrangement mimicking stair steps: one crate on top, with two beneath it, three beneath the two, and so on, down to six across the bottom row. Holding his pistol and his breath, Ryder began to climb the barricade, expecting each move that he made to cause some creaking sound that would alert his target on the other side. The crates were sturdy, though, and made no sound before he reached the top, leaned over, and looked down into the next aisle—

  Where he had an unobstructed view of Otto Seitz, kneeling, a Bowie knife beside him on the floor that he had used to pry the lid off of a crate that he was rifling through. Gold coins jingled though his plunging hands, Seitz dumping them around his knees as if they had no value. Digging deeper. Seeking … what?

  Ask him? thought Ryder.

  Suiting thought to action, he immediately rolled across the topmost crate and dropped into the aisle behind Seitz, landing in a half crouch, with his six-gun leveled. Seitz spun toward him, reaching for the knife instinctively, then froze at sight of Ryder and his Colt Army.

  “It can’t be!” Otto blurted.

  “Guess again.”

  “Awright.” Seitz rocked back on his heels, hands on his knees, the Bowie still within his reach. “You’re back with Marley, eh? He sent you here? And now you’ve got me.”