Gangway! (20 page)

    He dove from the plank, sideways toward the deck, trying to land on the relative softness of a coil of rope. The wagon flashed up the planks past the spot where he'd just been, thudded to the deck with a bone-rattling jar, careened across the ship and crashed to a shuddering stop against the pile of hay bales stacked up against the base of the mainmast.

    There was a second of stunned silence, everywhere in the world. Francis sat up on the coil of rope and blinked. Then, like a lazy railroad semaphore, the mast tilted slowly and fell across the wagon, just behind Ittzy and just in front of Gabe, landing with a crackling, grinding roar and disintegrating itself into kindling.

    Gabe looked at it. He seemed to be deaf. "Uh," he said.

    

    

    As the last echoes of the self-destructing mast faded into history, Captain Flagway emerged from his cabin and walked forward toward the gold wagon as though the deck were heaving under his feet in a heavy storm. An almost empty whisky bottle was clutched in his right hand.

    Roscoe's crew was swarming over the ship, casting off lines, raising sail, shouting nautical gutterances at one another. Ittzy and Roscoe were stretching a tarpaulin over the length of the gold wagon. Vangie was seated on a water barrel, fixing her hair with the aid of an ivory comb and a small mirror. Francis was brushing hemp flecks from the seat of his trousers. Gabe was standing by the side rail, tensely watching an endless stream of mounted men pouring from the main gate of the Mint, thundering downhill toward the pier.

    And up in the rigging, there was no wind.

    Gabe collared Roscoe. "Why the hell aren't we moving? They're after us!"

    Roscoe looked up, shielded his eyes with his hand, and studied the sails. "No wind," he decided.

    Everybody else also looked up. Captain Flagway, in looking up, overbalanced himself and sat down on the deck. He went on looking up.

    "I don't believe it," Gabe said. The posse was topping the nearer slope, men and riders leaping down the second hill. "I just don't believe it," he said.

    Vangie closed her eyes, the mirror and comb forgotten in her lap. Now that disaster had struck, she was no longer loud. "I knew it," she said quietly. "I knew it, I knew it all along."

    Gabe tottered across the deck, staring upward. He still couldn't believe it.

    The Bay was filled with ship traffic, and a steamer, Daniel Webster, was sliding past just now, outward bound for the Golden Gate. It passed very close to the
San Andreas
and its wake made the water heave, causing the
San Andreas
to roll from side to side on the ripples.

    The motion took Gabe's mind away from the empty sails. Greenly he staggered back and turned to the rail. Leaning there, he watched the steamship easing by just a few feet away, nearly close enough to touch.

    Gabe stared at that other ship. Why couldn't the
San Andreas
move like that? He looked upward and saw no sails on Daniel Webster, only a black stack spouting smoke. And that was the difference right there-the difference between being old-fashioned and out of date and caught, or being modern and up to date and safe.

    Then the thought hit him. "God damn," he whispered, just for himself, and suddenly forgot about being sick or caught or any of that negative stuff. "I've got it!" he yelled, and smacked the rail with his palm.

    The rest of them had been alternately watching the posse getting closer and the sails staying empty. Now they turned and watched Gabe suddenly race across the littered deck toward the prow of the ship. Just beyond him, Daniel Webster steamed majestically along, matching his pace, so that to the rest it looked as though Gabe and the steamship were fixed in one spot while the
San Andreas
was sliding backward.

    Captain Flagway covered one eye, the better to see and comprehend what was happening. Unfortunately, he then closed the uncovered eye instead of the covered one and could see nothing at all. "An eclipse," he suggested. "They'll never find us in the dark."

    Ashore, the posse thundered to the bottom of the hill and streamed toward the pier.

    Aboard, Roscoe's crew huddled together, trying to look like a passing acrobat act that had nothing to do with all this. Ittzy was calmly lashing the tarp over the gold. Roscoe and Francis, side by side, stared at the oncoming posse. Captain Flagway tried to see in the dark. Vangie was tearing her hair.

    Gabe reached the bow and lunged to the rusty anchor that lay on the deck. He picked it up with a great rattle of chains, and with superhuman effort heaved it out across the rippling water.

    The stern of the steamer was just passing, and the flying anchor fell across her taffrail like a grappling hook.

    The posse hit the pier like Bedford Forrest's cavalry. You could count every tooth in every horse's mouth.

    Daniel Webster steamed ponderously on into the fog and the anchor chain ran out from its rusty winch, making a sagging dip into the water between the two ships until suddenly the winch caught, the U-shaped sag became shallower, the dripping rusty links lifted out of the water, the chain became a straight line, the straight line became taut-and the
San Andreas
was all but jerked from the water.

    She leaped away from the pier and went churning off in the wake of Daniel Webster, heading straight for a passing fogbank, pulling out from the pier just as the lead horsemen were starting up the planks. The planks slid along the pier, angling to keep one end on the ship and one on the pier, held down by the weight of horses and riders, until the
San Andreas
moved out from shore, turning away from San Francisco and toward wherever Daniel Webster had it in mind to go-

    The planks couldn't stretch. They lost their grip, the outer edges slid off the rail of the ship, and planks and horses and horsemen and all went bubbling and screaming and flailing their way into the water. Men sat on horses who stood on planks that fell rapidly through the air and slapped mightily at the ocean, sinking everybody.

    And that's how the surfboard was invented.

    Out in the Bay the great white fogbank bounced lazily, like God's beachball. The two ships steamed steadily toward it.

    Seven horsemen in the posse didn't stop in time and followed the leaders into the water. The rest milled around on the pier getting things sorted out. One or two of them started shooting at the disappearing ship, and then they all opened up with a fusillade of gunfire over which their angry voices roared with frustration and rage.

    Into the fog steamed Daniel Webster, unwittingly towing a decrepit sailing ship with her sails filling in the wrong direction.

    The red-haired cop, McCorkle, raced onto the dock with his huge notebook brandished in the air. "Wait, pull over to the pier!"

    Bullets punched holes in the rotten wood of the
San Andreas
at the waterline and below decks thin little fountains began to arc into the bilges.

    Roscoe's crew swarmed aloft to furl the sails before they braked Daniel Webster to a stop. And meanwhile on board the steamship, the captain was studying his gauges in a state of confusion bordering on apoplexy. He turned to the speaking tube and yelled down to the engine room: "More speed, damn it! What's wrong with you down there?"

    "Captain, she's goin' full out. Whaddya want from us?"

    "We're only making five bloody knots, and how are we supposed to beat the bloody clipper record that way?" The captain straightened up and looked around into the thickening fog, trying to figure out why his ship had slowed down.

    Aboard the
San Andreas
, joy was unrestrained. Vangie, in relief and elation, allowed herself to be kissed by Francis and Ittzy and Captain Flagway (who had found his sight and his legs again in the general triumph). Then Roscoe and his crew approached, wiping their mouths on their sleeves, and Vangie switched to shaking hands.

    They were in the fog now. Francis peered around in its cottony whiteness, saying, "Where's Gabe? The man's brilliant, he should be toasted in champagne. Where is he?"

    "He was here a minute ago," Ittzy said.

    "Maybe he went ashore during the eclipse," Captain Flagway suggested.

    Vangie looked all around. "Gabe? Gabe?"

    They found him at last hanging over the rail. "No champagne," he groaned. "For God's sake, no champagne."

    

    

    "Fog's thinning out," Captain Flagway said. He was watching the taut anchor chain that extended into the fog ahead of them. He was beginning to make out the shape of the steamship just ahead.

    Somewhere in the vague foggy distance behind them there were bells and sirens and gunshot-signals. It was all unhappily reminiscent of various chases and battles Flagway had drunk his way through along the South American coast. Here he was in motion for the first time in three years, on the deck of a ship slicing through the water, and he hated it.

    Flagway hated the sea. He always had. All he wanted was a railroad ticket to Baltimore.

    It was definitely lifting. The fog. He saw the vague shape of a man striding into the stern of the steamer.

    That must be the captain, he thought. He almost waved to the man. After all they were colleagues.

    Yes, it was definitely the steamer's captain. You could tell by the way he started screaming, shaking his fist, and throwing his gold-braided hat on the deck and jumping up and down on it.

    Finally the fellow went away for a few minutes. When he returned he had two sailors with him, and they both carried crowbars. They started prying at the anchor hooked into their stern rail.

    All at once the steamship leaped forward, the anchor flew into the air, and the captain and two sailors and two crowbars all fell bloop into a scrambling mass of arms and legs.

    And Daniel Webster steamed off into the mist, quickly absorbing herself from view.

    He smelled Roscoe's approach. "Got a little breeze up out here," Roscoe said. "I'll get the boys to run up the canvas. You want to go steer?"

    Flagway edged away from him. "Why shur… shut… shertainly."

    "Due north after we bust out the Golden Gate. That's where m'brother's got the other ship."

    On the way to the tiller Flagway noticed Gabe, still draped over the rail like a suit waiting to be sent to the cleaner's.

    Beyond Gabe he noticed the gold wagon again. Well after all it was only the Government's money. Governments did all sorts of things with money, but Flagway couldn't think of any government that had ever done him any good personally. All he really wanted out of life was to get home and go back to helping Daddy in the apothecary shop. Was that so much to ask? Yet the governments of sixteen countries had prevented him from achieving that simple goal for more years than he could count.

    Manning the tiller and peering glazedly into the thinning mist, Captain Flagway watched Roscoe's toughs swarm up into the rigging and loose the sails to the wind. He aimed the lumbering ship north into the Pacific Ocean.

    Slowly, Gabe lifted his head. The horizon was doing seesaw things.

    Vangie said, "Feeling any better?"

    "I'm either cured or dead. I think."

    "You mean it's all over?"

    "I mean, I think the teething ring I lost when I was eight months old has just turned up."

    Weakly he turned around and leaned his back against the rail to survey the ship. Roscoe was marching about giving orders to his crew in a voice like a bassoon. Captain Flagway was at the tiller making drunken gestures, flanked by Francis and Ittzy. The gold wagon crouched under its tarp with the broken mainmast across it.

    "We made it," Gabe said slowly. "How about that. We made it."

    "So far," Vangie said.

    "Boy, you are something," he said. "You are really something. You just never give up. Now just what the hell do you mean, 'so far'?"

    "We're in the middle of the ocean. So what happens when we land again? Don't you think the police will be waiting to arrest you?"

    "No."

    "Well, you're probably right about that. Because we'll never get that far. Roscoe and his brother will probably feed us to the fishes first."

    "I'm glad the sea air makes you so cheerful."

    "When Roscoe throws your dead body overboard, don't say I didn't warn you."

    "I probably won't say a word."

    "And there's another thing. Isn't the ship wallowing kind of low in the water?"

    He shrugged. "Probably the gold."

    "We'll never get away with it," she said. "Not in a million years."

    "Yeah."

    "Did you see the headline in that paper last week when they hanged those murderers? JERKED TO JESUS. That's what they're going to do to us."

    He closed her in the circle of his arms. "Yeah."

    "Don't think you're going to shut me up by romancing me, Gabe Beauchamps." Then she gave a strangled little cry and stiffened in his arms.

    Gabe leaned back a bit to look at her and saw her staring forward. He turned his head, and here came Roscoe and his crew, fanned out across the deck, a little less menacing than the armies of Attila the Hun.

    Roscoe was armed with his two enormous pistols, and his men brandished huge knives and belaying pins.

    Gabe knew the answer to the question, but he asked it anyway: "What's up, Roscoe?"

    "Your time, buster," Roscoe said. He gestured with the guns. "We're taking over."

    Vangie, anger and frustration in her voice, said, "I told you!"