Deadly Shoals (33 page)

“What?”
Nash's eyes widened. “
He's
dead, too?”

Stackpole blinked, and looked at Wiki, who cautiously asked, “Who else is dead?” Surely Nash didn't know about the clerk?

“Poor Rowland Hallett, that's who.” Jim Nash hauled out a huge handkerchief, blinking hard. “He was bit by a bull seal, and his finger got infected. Then his hand went bad, and his arm started to go rotten, too. So we hurried him to El Carmen, and consulted a man what has the bloody sauce to call himself a surgeon.”

“Ducatel,” said Stackpole grimly.

“Aye, that's the name. He reassured us that he'd come right if we left him there to be doctored, but instead of making him better, he cut off his arm and killed him. When we got back to El Carmen to take poor Hallett back on board, it was to receive the dismal news that he had passed away the day before. On the Sabbath.” With a loud trumpeting, Jim blew his nose, and said, “And Adams is dead, too?”

There was a pause, and then Wiki observed, “
He
didn't die of natural causes.”

“What d'you mean?”

The whaling master answered: “Someone murdered him—and it's
his
job to find out who and why.” He jabbed a thumb in Wiki's direction.

“
Murdered?
What the devil are you saying?” Nash looked at Captain Coffin, who was watching and listening quietly, and demanded, “What the hell is going on?”

“Wiki's a sheriff's deputy,” said Captain Coffin. “He keeps himself busy solving murders. It's an odd kind of hobby, but he appears to like it.”

“What do you need a sheriff on the
Osprey
for? How many murders do you get, for God's sake?”

“Not with me,” said Captain Coffin hastily. “He's with the expedition.”

“The same expedition what's given you the job of carrying the specimens?”

“That's the one.”

“Well, it's a damned waste of taxpayers' money, in my honest opinion, and it don't surprise me that they have murders on board. Why don't you do your boy a favor? Buy the
Athenian
and put him in command.”

“He's too busy finding murderers for that.”

“You reckon? So how did he get involved in this case?”

Stackpole said, “I boarded the U.S. brig
Swallow
with an official complaint of piracy, found they had a sheriff on board, and took him upriver to investigate.”

“Piracy?” said Nash blankly.

“Of the schooner
Grim Reaper
! The same schooner I arranged with Adams to buy from Hallett on my behalf!”

Captain Nash's eyes sharpened. Then he said cautiously, “Would you, by any chance, be S. R. Stackpole?”

“Samuel Rodman Stackpole,” Captain Stackpole confirmed in a growl. “The damn poor fool who gave Adams a draft for one thousand dollars to buy her, and left him to find a gang of sealing hands, and stock her with provisions and salt. Eight days later, when I returned to pick up my purchase, Adams had disappeared, and the schooner was gone—pirated!”

“Some thieves killed Adams, and then got away with the
Grim Reaper
?” Jim Nash clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Oh dear, oh dear, poor Adams, robbed of a schooner he didn't even own. How did you find his corpse?”

Wiki said, “We were tracking the route he rode upriver from the store.”

“He was lyin' there dead, huh?” Obviously, Jim was picturing a dried-out corpse lying by the side of the trail, because he went on, “You sure he was murdered? That he didn't die of thirst or somethin' like that? Men keel over real easy up the Río Negro, you know.”

“He'd been knifed and then shot to death.”

“Well, that sure sounds like murder, and a thorough job of it, too,” the Stonington man admitted. “You got any theories about the killer?”

“The thief, of course,” Stackpole interrupted. “Adams stole my money and my schooner, and then his killer stole both from him.”

Nash exclaimed, “What the devil gave you the idea that Adams
stole
the money?”

“When we realized the deed of sale was forged, of course!”

“Forged?”

“It was signed the day after Captain Hallett died, and yet it was made out in his name!”

Nash looked puzzled, and then light dawned in his face. “That's because it was
Captain Hallett
who made arrangements with Adams to sell the schooner,” he said.

Dead silence. Captain Coffin was sitting at his ease on the red settee, one arm stretched along the back, and the other hand holding his brandy glass. He was watching and listening with alert interest, but as before, he did not offer a word.

Wiki said, “Captain Hallett really
did
give Adams the job of selling her?”

“He did, indeed,” Nash replied. “On January 6, the same day that we arrived up the Río Negro to hand him over to a doctor—which is why the deed is kinda confusing, I guess. Though Adams produced the form, nothing was signed, on account of Captain Hallett's arm made it impossible. He was in a real bad way, and we was in a hurry to entrust the poor fellow to that quack what pretends to practice medicine. Then we left him at the surgeon's ranch, and went back to the brig and sailed off to pick up the drying gang, along with their stockpile of pelts, leaving the
Grim Reaper
lying at anchor off El Carmen for the inspection of prospective purchasers. Got back on January 14, to hear the good news that the schooner had been sold—and the terrible tidings that we'd lost our captain. He'd expired just the day before, bless his departed soul. So I was the one what signed the deed of sale in his place.”

Wiki echoed, “
You
signed it?”

“That I did, after checking all the details that Adams had filled in. And Adams signed it, too, on the buyer's behalf. S. R. Stackpole,” Nash added, and looked at the whaling master, and said, “I guess that's you.”

Stackpole groped in a back pocket, and hauled out the deed of sale. “That signature's yours?”

Jim Nash inspected the illegible scrawl, handed it back, and said, “It is.”

“You don't write very well,” reproved Wiki.

Ignoring this, Stackpole pursued, “And Adams gave you my draft on a Connecticut bank?”

“He did,” Jim agreed.

“For a thousand dollars?”

“Aye.” Jim Nash slapped the front of his jacket as if he had it stowed in a pocket, though he added complacently, “It's in the brig's strongbox, and the owners should be mighty gratified about that, too.”

“I reckon they should,” grimly agreed Captain Stackpole. “But they ain't goin' to know about it, are they—because you're going to give me my money back.”

Jim Nash shook his head emphatically. “No, I ain't. You bought her fair and square, and I got documents to prove it—my receipt from Adams, and the affidavit you gave Adams appointing him your representative.”

“But where's my bloody schooner?” Stackpole cried.

“I appreciate that you paid over the money and got nothing in return,” Jim Nash said, and wagged his head in vast sympathy for a fellow shipmaster who'd been thoroughly diddled. “That really is too bad, but I don't know what I can do about it. What you have to do is report it to the authorities, who should pass on the news to a man-of-war. Mighty tough on pirates, is the U.S. Navy. Tell you what, though,” he went on, illuminated by a great idea. “If you buy the
Athenian,
I'll strike a thousand dollars off the price, to make up for your loss. Couldn't be fairer than that, huh?”

Stackpole, very obviously, didn't think much of this generous offer. Wiki meditated that if looks could have killed, Jim Nash would have been felled to the deck.

After waiting in vain for a reply, Jim looked at Wiki, and said with lively interest, “So where did you find the corpse? At the salt dunes?”

“Inland, past the
salinas,
” said Wiki. “His killer had buried him, but not very well, so that the skull was exposed. The vultures led us to his grave.”

Nash grimaced, demonstrating yet again that even hardened sealers had feelings. He said, “But why were you tracking Adams past the
salinas
?”

“We'd found that all the goods in the store had gone, and reckoned they'd been taken to provision the
Grim Reaper,
which I calculated was up at the salt dunes,” Stackpole said.

“But that's ridiculous,” said Nash. “Adams told me he was going to load the provisions after the schooner got back to El Carmen.”

Wiki said, puzzled, “He
told
you he was going to load at El Carmen?”

“After he'd filled the salt bins,” Nash agreed. “He was goin' to the salt dunes to fill with salt first, and then he was sailing back to load with provisions.”

“He told you all this on the fourteenth, after you signed the deed?”

“Aye. And then I went up to the salt dunes with him.”

“On horseback?”

“No, of course not,” Jim Nash said. “On the schooner.”

Wiki felt more bewildered than ever. He said, “But Ramón told me that there wasn't a captain on board when the
Grim Reaper
sailed upriver.”

“Ramón?”

“The
capataz
of the Indian sealing gang that worked for Captain Hallett.”

“My God, you do get around! Ramón had the makings of a fine sealing master—though, mind you, Hallett was very good with the Indians, treated 'em like Christians. He looked for the heart and soul of a man, and paid no notice of the color of his skin.” Jim Nash hauled out his handkerchief again, partly because of renewed grief, and partly to hide embarrassment as he abruptly realized that what he'd said might not be the height of diplomacy, considering that Wiki was brown.

Wiki said tactfully, “The feeling was mutual—Ramón also said that Captain Hallett was a fair and just
caudillo
who worked as hard as his men.”

“Aye, that he was.” Again the sealer blew his nose. Then Nash went on in more practical tones, “So he told you there wasn't a captain on board the
Grim Reaper
when we sailed to the dunes? Well, the way that it was, Adams took the tiller for the run, and I sat at my ease. And Ramón knew I was captain of the
Athenian,
not the schooner, so what he said would've made sense to him, even if it didn't to you.”

And Ramón had been derisive at the very idea of a
pulpero
like Adams being considered a captain. Nodding, Wiki changed the subject. “Why did you sail upriver with Adams?”

“I was doing him a favor,” said Jim. “Just two of the seamen he'd hired turned up, and they was useless sogers, so I loaned a couple of good men to help him out.”

Wiki exclaimed, “He'd hired
seamen
?”

“Adams shouldn't have done that,” Stackpole protested. “I told him to find a sealing gang, but that I didn't need seamen. I was going to send over three hands from the
Trojan
to sail the schooner to the rookeries.”

“Perhaps Adams hired them to get her up to the salt dunes and back to the pueblo, not to take her out to sea,” Wiki suggested.

Nash looked doubtful, and said, “He gave me the strong impression he'd hired those two useless sogers for the whole of the sealing season.”

Wiki asked, “But he hadn't found a gang to do the actual sealing?”

“Nope. He said he couldn't find Indians who were willing. Anyways, I helped out by loaning him two good seamen from the
Athenian
for the trip.”

Wiki guessed, “Peter and Dick?”

Nash was astonished. “You truly are a sleuth! How d'you know their names?”

“Ramón told us,” said Wiki.

“Ramón? Well, of course he knew Peter and Dick, on account of they sailed the schooner every time the gang was being ferried to a sealing beach.”

Wiki nodded again, and said, “Tell me about the two so-called seamen Adams had hired.”

“Portuguese,” Nash replied succinctly. “Wore gaucho costumes, but spoke Portuguese. It was a crime to call 'em seamen, though I heard they had a fishing boat. Didn't seem to know one rope from another, though it could've been pure laziness. Adams was mighty wild about the third fellow, the sailing master what didn't turn up, because he would've shown 'em how to work, or so I gathered.”

Stackpole cried, “I didn't tell him to hire a sailing master!”

Ignoring this, Wiki said urgently, “Did you hear the names of those Portuguese men?”

“Gomes—one name for both of 'em, on account of they was brothers.”

Wiki paused, his thoughts racing. Then he said, “What happened after you moored the schooner at the dunes?”

“I'd brought three of the
Athenian
boats, which followed the schooner upriver, and we set to getting our pelts out of the schooner and into them.”

Stackpole said bitterly, “Weren't you taking a risk, leaving valuable furs on board?”

“It was safe enough, we reckoned, and there wasn't all that many of them, just five hundred or so. We trusted Adams to make sure they wasn't stolen, and was right, because when we got back they were just the way we left 'em. Truth to tell, we figured that the sight of a few dozen hides would help a speculator make up his mind to buy,” Nash candidly confessed, earning himself another black look.

Captain Coffin entered the conversation for the first time for a while, saying thoughtfully, “Wouldn't it have been easier to unload the skins while the schooner was moored off El Carmen?”

Just like the provisions,
thought Wiki.

“It didn't make any difference to us,” Jim Nash said, and shrugged. “It was all happening on the water, wherever.”