Gangway! (15 page)

    "So?"

    "So my brother Percival just might be interested in this little operation of yours."

    "Sounds interesting," Gabe said.

    "Course him and me, we'd want a piece of your operation. Not just a fee."

    "No deal. Five thousand for you, five thousand for him."

    Roscoe considered it.

    Gabe said, "You think you could get him down here pretty quick?"

    "If you make it worth his while. Say ten thousand."

    "Six."

    "Nine."

    "Seven."

    "Eight," Roscoe said, "and that's my last offer."

    Gabe figured maybe brother Percival would see three thousand of it if he was lucky, which would leave Roscoe with five thousand of Percival's and another five thousand of his own.

    Enough to make him happy anyhow.

    "Done," Gabe said.

    "Okay. I'll send him a telegram. Ought to reach him soon. He's due into Seattle right about now."

    "Fine… fine," Gabe said. "But I still want a crew for the
San Andreas
."

    "I thought I just told you…"

    "I know what you told me. But two ships are better than one in this operation."

    "You gonna tell me what it's all about now?"

    "Later," Gabe said. And left.

    From the door he looked back and saw Roscoe's eyes glinting at him over the rim of his beer schooner like a pair of gun muzzles.

    

    

    Vangie, through dressing, got up from the bed to yawn and stretch, limbering up her body for the new day. Then, idly scratching her waist at the right side, she turned slowly to limber her mind with a daytime view of the room they'd spent the night in. She liked nice places and this was a nice place, all rose brocade and mahogany finials.

    They had to be early risers, she and Gabe, to be ahead of the hotel maid service, but it was still late enough so plenty of morning sunlight poured through the two wide windows, gleaming on the china pitcher and glistening from the tiny prisms dangling from the kerosene lamps.

    Finishing her turn Vangie looked over at Gabe, who was standing by one of the windows and admiring the silver snuffbox, turning it around and around in the sunlight. His Eastern feistiness and odd hunched way of standing, once so foreign, were dear to her now. It was hard to remember what life had been without Gabe; harder to try to visualize a future life without him. But if he persisted in this Mint business, and if he kept piling one danger atop the other…

    Well. She'd decided not to brood about that, and so she wouldn't. Walking across the room to where he was still fooling with the silver snuffbox, she said, "I was never so surprised in my life as when that went off."

    Gabe shook his head, and hefted the snuffbox-gun in his palm. "One of these days," he said, "you're going to stick your hand in somebody's pocket and blow your fingers off. Or his behind."

    "Maybe I ought to reform," she said. And she was thinking it might be worth it, turning honest, if she could get him to do the same. Keep him from the Mint, keep him from Roscoe Arafoot.

    But he said, "You'll be able to afford reform pretty soon."

    Hiding her disappointment, she nodded at the snuffbox. "You want it?"

    "No, I've got enough." He handed it to her. "Sell it," he said, "we can use the money. It can help us set up for the big job."

    "Gabe, I know you don't like me trying to talk you out of that idea, but…"

    "That's right. I don't."

    "… but I do want to say one thing. Can I just say one thing?"

    "Which thing? San Francisco's better than New York, or you can't rob the Mint?"

    "Neither."

    He gave her a surprised look.

    "All I wanted to say was, please don't have anything to do with those Arafoot brothers. They've got the meanest reputations of anybody along the coast, and they've earned them."

    "Listen, sister, I can handle any six non-New Yorkers you can name."

    "You're underestimating them, Gabe, I promise you. And even if you do get that gold, which is impossible to start with, they'll kill us all to take it away from us if they find out we've got it."

    "Look don't worry about it, Vangie. I've got everything all worked out."

    "You just think you have. You've never met Captain Arafoot."

    "I've met Roscoe. That's enough."

    "Roscoe's the kind one," Vangie said. "I really wish you'd reconsider this, Gabe."

    "Yeah, yeah," he said. But he wasn't listening. He said, "Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something more important."

    "More important? More important than trying to save your life?"

    "I know, I know." He walked away from the window, nodding, hunch-shouldered, so totally into his own head she knew it was hopeless to try to attract his attention. "I need a wagon," he said.

    She didn't realize he meant he wanted a wagon from her until he turned and looked at her and said, "Okay?"

    "Okay? What's okay?"

    "The wagon."

    She pointed at herself. "You want me to get a wagon?"

    "I need it tonight," he said. "At three a.m. Up by the Mint."

    "Gabe," she said, "I pick pockets, not livery stables."

    "Oh," he said. He seemed a bit surprised, but not very disappointed. Shrugging, he said, "I just figured you could get us anything we needed. You've been providing pretty good so far. Okay, I suppose I can go ask Roscoe."

    "Wait!"

    He glanced at her, one eyebrow lifted.

    A wagon. She thought desperately, then gave one quick nod and said, "All right. I'll do it."

    He smiled, as sunny and cheerful as the day outside. "Good girl," he said.

    "A wagon," she said. "Tonight, at three."

    He nodded and pointed skyward. "Up by the Mint," he said.

    

    

    From the main gate of the Mint the street ran downhill two or three blocks. Then it humped up over a lower hill before it swept all the way down the steep pitch to the waterfront flats, across them and out onto the New World pier. Since the New World was en route to or from Sacramento at the moment, the pier was empty.

    That little hump-actually it wasn't so little-was what bothered Gabe. Everything was downhill, except that stinking hump.

    He stood near the wall of the Mint, gazing down at the hump and past it to the rooftops beyond. Gaslights illuminated the streets and the fog was a thin mist tonight. The chill was in his bones.

    Roscoe-whom Gabe had positioned strategically downwind-said, "It's after three. Where the hell is she?"

    "She'll be here."

    "You can't trust 'em," Roscoe said.

    Francis, who stood watching between Captain Flagway and Ittzy, said, "Listen."

    "To what? The damn fog?"

    "Shut up, Roscoe dear."

    Gabe heard the slow clop of hoofs.

    "That'll be her," he said.

    The buckboard came in sight, pulled by a weary and bony horse. Vangie was driving it.

    Gabe grinned at her. "Knew you'd do it."

    Roscoe said, "Where'd you pinch the wagon?"

    Francis was stepping forward as the wagon stopped, and Vangie wrapped the reins around the brake handle. "It looks familiar to me," Francis said suspiciously.

    Gabe looked at it more closely. "Yeah. Me too."

    Vangie climbed down. It was Captain Flagway who had presence of mind to step forward, take her elbow and help her down.

    She turned and said brightly, "All right. Now you get to tell me what it's for."

    "Wait a minute," Gabe growled. "You're changing the subject."

    "I am?"

    "Vangie."

    She was all innocence. "Yes?"

    "Where'd you get the wagon, Vangie."

    "Why?"

    "Because it looks damn familiar, like Francis says. I've seen this wagon before."

    "Of course you have. You've ridden on it before."

    "Yeah. That's what I thought." Gabe threw his arms up, beseeching the sky for help.

    Vangie turned to Francis. "What's the matter with him?"

    Francis said, "Vangie."

    "Yes Francis?"

    "You hired the wagon, didn't you. You rented it."

    "Well…"

    Gabe said, "Damn it, if I'd wanted to rent a wagon I'd've done it myself! What do you think we needed you to get a wagon for?"

    "Well, you mean you actually expected me to steal a wagon right off the street?"

    "Yeah. Yeah."

    "But why?"

    "Because there's a chance there won't be any wagon to return to the owner."

    Captain Flagway looked alarmed. "Oh, my."

    Roscoe gave a disgusted grunt. "Look, what's the matter with all ya? You rented the wagon from the livery stable, right?"

    "Yes," Vangie said, still very confused.

    "You don't figure the wagon's gonna be in one piece after we do this thing tonight, right?"

    "Right," Gabe said.

    "So what's the problem? We get all done, I go down and have a little talk with the hostler. I tell him the young lady parked the wagon on the street, and some no-good backstabbin' thief stole it while she wasn't lookin.' What's the problem?"

    Gabe pondered it. "That might work all right. But we'll all have to make damn sure nobody sees our faces. A hundred people will probably see exactly what happens to this wagon."

    "So it was whoever stole it that wrecked it, that's all," Roscoe said. "Jeez, you guys worry about the weirdest things."

    Vangie turned to Gabe. "I still want to know what you're going to do with it."

    "You see this hill?"

    She turned and looked. Down, up, and down again. "What about it?"

    "Well, we need to find out if the wagon can get up enough speed from here to get up over that hump and keep on going."

    She shook her head in bafflement. "I don't understand. Don't you think the horse can pull it up over that little hill?"

    "We don't want a horse."

    "No horse?"

    "No horse. If it'll roll past that hump on its own, it'll get up ten times the speed of any horse alive when it starts down the far side. It's the only way to outrun the guys that'll be chasing us."

    "You mean you're just going to let the wagon roll by itself?" she said in awe.

    "Well, Ittzy's going along to steer and handle the brakes."

    "Oh," she said, and nodded slowly as though it all made perfect sense.

    Gabe grinned and patted her cheek, and turned away to help the others make ready. They unhitched the horse and turned the wagon around until its tailgate wasn't far from the main gate of the Mint. The guards couldn't see what was happening from their posts, although they might hear an occasional noise. But nobody was trying to break into the Mint, so they probably wouldn't get too curious.

    Ittzy got aboard and braced the wagon tongue between his knees to steer. He put one foot up against the brake handle so he could lean on it if he had to. "Okay. I'm ready."

    Gabe nodded to Roscoe. The four men got behind the tailboard-and gave a mighty push.

    The wagon rolled away. It picked up speed pretty quickly on the slope, and Gabe was grinning when it zipped through the bottom of the U and caromed on up toward the hump.

    His grin halved when he saw the wagon slowing.

    Ittzy was steering precisely up the middle of the street. It was almost half past three in the morning; there was nobody else anywhere around. But that didn't mean much now because the wagon was faltering, slowing to a speed a crippled snail could have outrun-and stopping, hesitating, pausing a long daguerreotype silent frozen pause, and then rolling back down toward the trough…

    Francis looked ready to burst into tears. Gabe felt the same way. Two blocks below them the wagon pendulumed back and forth, rolling halfway up one hill, then halfway up the other, until Ittzy at last set the brake and locked it in position at the bottom of the trough.

    "Damn it," Gabe said.

    Roscoe said, "I think maybe you need another plan, bub."

    Vangie said, "Don't give up so quickly. Good Lord, you men!

    Gabe turned an unfriendly eye on her. "Yeah? What's your idea, then?"

    "Simple," she said. "You just need more weight on the wagon that's all, to carry it over the top."

    Roscoe said, "What the hell difference that gonna make?"

    Vangie told him, "Obviously, Roscoe, you just don't understand the basic principles of mass and inertia and momentum."

    "The what?"

    Gabe said, "Well, it's worth a try. Let's lead this nag down there and lug that wagon back up."

    Roscoe said, "What do we fill it up with? We gonna go next door, get the borrow of some gold?"

    "We'll fill it up with us," Gabe said. "We must have seven hundred pounds among the five of us, let's see what difference it makes."

    Roscoe shrugged and said, "I'll try any damn fool thing once. This can't be worse than the mushroom that Mex girl give me that time."

    They all walked down the slope together, Roscoe leading the horse. Francis said to him, "What sort of mushroom?"

    "Don't ask me. Girl said it would put me in heaven, but if that was heaven I'm just as glad I'm due for the other place."

    They reattached horse to wagon, and all rode back up to the top of the hill again, near the entrance to the Mint. Then, while everybody else stayed aboard, Roscoe got off, unhitched the horse, tied it to a handy lamppost, and went back around by the tailgate. "Everybody ready?" he asked.