Gangway! (3 page)

    "Well, by God," Gabe muttered. He pushed himself away from the rail and reached for his property. "I'll take that."

    But she held onto it; partly from panic, it seemed, and partly from a grasping nature. She glared at him, her jaw set, and held on tight.

    Gabe felt as weak as railroad beer. He yanked at the knuckle-duster, clutching his cap in his other hand, and panted, "Gimme that. Give it to me."

    "No." She said it through clenched teeth and held on.

    The knuckle-duster was turning this way and that in their hands, neither of them able to keep a firm grip on it. One of them-probably the girl, who obviously had no idea what it was she'd stolen-accidentally touched the concealed button on the side. The duster's knife-blade snapped open, flipping up between all those fingers without quite removing any of them.

    "Sheee!" The girl let go in a sudden hurry and jumped backward.

    Gabe slapped his cap on his head to free his other hand, then disengaged the blade and folded it shut. Opening the single-shot chamber, he rummaged in his cluttered pockets for a new cartridge. At the same time he kept one eye on the girl and the other on the corner of the forward cabin beyond which the gold guards were clustered. They weren't visible from here, but it was curious that the sound of the shot hadn't brought them on the run.

    No. It wasn't curious after all. They knew their business, those guys. They weren't about to be distracted from the gold by some trivial diversion like a gunshot sounding within forty feet of them.

    He found a .41 cartridge and thumbed it into the knuckleduster in the chamber between the brass knuckles and the knife. Then he shoved the weapon back in his hip pocket where it belonged and took two steps backward to bring the gold stack in view.

    The guards down there were all staring in his direction, and now when he came in sight they all took fresh grips on their shotguns and stared at him a little harder.

    The girl had recovered fast. Indignant, she demanded, "What sort of thing is that?"

    Gabe moved back into the shadow, out of the gold guards' line of sight-and fire. "None of your business," he muttered.

    The girl was rubbing her knuckles and frowning like a folded-up awning. "Mister," she said, "there ought to be a law against you."

    He stared at her. "Against me!"

    "Going around with that… thing in your pocket. You could hurt some-"

    "Now just wait one minute!"

    "-body." She stamped a little foot. "You've got no right to carry a thing like that in a pocket where you ought to be carrying your wallet. And furthermore…"

    "And furthermore," he said, leaning close over her to drown her out, "I'm thinking I ought to turn you in to the captain for picking pockets."

    The girl opened her mouth, but this time didn't manage to say anything. Gabe glanced toward the cabin corner to see if any of the gold guards planned to mosey on down this way. None were in sight, but at that moment a wide man with a rolling gait and an official-looking cap came swinging around the corner instead. He came bearing down on them like an express wagon. "I heard a shot."

    Gabe glanced at the girl. Her eyes were very round and large.

    Gabe shrugged. "We didn't hear anything." He tipped his head toward the girl. "You hear anything?"

    "No. Not a thing."

    "I didn't either," Gabe said. "A shot, you say?"

    "Sounded like a pistol to me," the wide man said suspiciously. His nostrils were wrinkling. "I could swear I smell powdersmoke."

    "I don't smell a thing," the girl said.

    The wide man stood with his shoes planted three feet apart and scratched his head in bafflement. The girl moved closer to him, looked up into his downcast face, and then reached up and thumbed one of his eyelids back. "You sure you're feeling all right?"

    The wide man jerked his head back. "I feel fine. What are you talking about?"

    "Maybe a touch too much sun," the girl said, mostly to herself. "I'd stay under cover for a while if I were you. Do you hear things very often? Smell things?"

    "I… uh…"

    "I'm a nurse, you see. I've seen cases before."

    "Cases? Cases of what?"

    She had the wide guy worried now. But she only smiled sweetly. "It's nothing to worry about, I promise you. A little too much sun can do it, you know. Take my advice, Captain, stay out of the…"

    "I ain't the Captain. I'm the Mate."

    "All right, Mate. Stay out of the sun for a day or two. That's my advice." The girl turned smartly, hooked her arm in the bend of Gabe's elbow, and promenaded off with him along the deck.

    Near the stern Gabe stopped and shook her arm off. Up forward the Mate was still scratching his head, but presently he put his cap back on and his wide shape rolled into the corridor doorway and disappeared.

    "Nurse," Gabe snorted.

    "Thanks for not turning me in." She was doing her demure-little-girl act again. So sweet, so pretty. Sweet as laudanum poison, he thought.

    But she was pretty all right.

    Frowning, which didn't spoil her prettiness at all, she said, "What was that horrible thing anyway?"

    "What thing? Oh you mean my knuckle-duster." He looked around-they had no witnesses. So he took it out of his pocket and slipped the brass rings over his fingers and showed her. "Like that. See, you can hit him with it. Or you can cut him with it. Or if you're really mad you can shoot him."

    Wide-eyed, she looked at him in wonder mixed with doubt. "What sort of a person," she said, "would carry a thing like that?"

    Feeling pretty expansive, Gabe stowed the knuckle-duster away in its pocket again and said, "Well, I'm from New York, see. Back there, you know, men are men, and you got to be prepared to defend yourself. Not like these joskins out here."

    She glared. "Out where?"

    "Out here in the hicks."

    She took a deep breath and her lips pinched into a thin line. "I guess," she said coldly, "you mustn't ever have been to San Francisco."

    "Sweetheart, I haven't seen anything you could call a city since I stepped on the train in Manhattan, and I don't have very high hopes for San Francisco."

    "San Francisco," she said, standing up very straight, "is the Paris of the West."

    "Well, that's real nice," Gabe said. "New York isn't the Paris of anyplace. It's the New York of the world, the only one, and all I want from my life is to get back to it."

    The angrier she got, the taller she wanted to be. She was now up on the balls of her feet, teetering there like a beer bottle when you thump your fist on the table. "If New York is so wonderful," she demanded, "why'd you leave it?"

    It's not as if I had a choice, he thought. But what he said was, "Well… a man's got to see the world. How'd I have known New York was the only place in the world worth being in if I never went anywhere else?"

    "That's not true."

    "What do you mean it's not true? I haven't seen a single-"

    "That's not what I mean. You're not telling me the whole story."

    "What whole story?"

    "Hah," she said in disgust. "Here you are three thousand miles from home with that-knuckle-duster thing in your pocket, and no money, and a tough line of…"

    "What do you mean no money?"

    "Brother, I went through your pockets like a squirrel through a bag of peanuts. I can tell you what color lint you're carrying around. And you haven't got a cent in your kick. Well, to be exact, you haven't got a cent in your kick now."

    He jammed his hand into his trouser pocket where he'd put the change after he'd bought the boat ticket.

    Nothing.

    "You used to have fifty-five cents," she told him sweetly.

    Gabe peeled his lips back from his teeth. "Give… it… back."

    "Fifty-five cents." She made a face, produced the six coins from the enormous bag she had slung over her shoulder, and dropped the money coin by coin into his open palm. "There you are my good man."

    "Of all the…"

    "Now you've got fifty-five cents. But I'd still call that no money."

    "Maybe my money's waiting for me in San Francisco."

    She grinned. "So's mine," she said. "In somebody else's pocket. Exactly the same as you."

    "A pickpocket calling me a crook. I've heard a lot of…"

    "Oh come on. You didn't turn me in."

    "I should have. I still should." But he felt he was losing control of the conversation, and it irritated him.

    "But you didn't and you won't. Because you don't want to talk to the police any more than I do."

    He said truculently, "I'm not wanted anywhere."

    "I can well believe that."

    "The only reason I didn't turn you in was because " He stopped abruptly. It wasn't true anyway. There were two reasons. One, he'd never turned anybody in to the law; it was against his philosophy. And two, she was too pretty to turn in. But he was damned if he was going to tell her that out loud.

    Besides, his stomach suddenly reminded him he was on a boat.

    "Because what?" she challenged.

    "Never mind."

    "You're turning a little green. Don't tell me you're going to be sick again."

    "Shut up."

    "You've already thrown up everything you've had to eat for the past six months. How can you have anything left to throw up?"

    "Urp…"

    He knew the riverboat was slowing again because he could feel the alteration of its motion in the pit of his stomach. He swallowed painfully and lifted his head to look toward shore. "What the hell is that?"

    "Port Chicago."

    Four buildings and a pier. "Chicago."

    "Port Chicago. There's a difference."

    "I can see there is." Gabe's eyes rolled upward, seeking inspiration from the sky. "Pittsburg was bigger than this!"

    "Wait till you see Richmond."

    "What's San Francisco? Two stovepipes and a tent?"

    

    

    She found herself liking this self-proclaimed city slicker. It was hard to tell why. He didn't have any money. He didn't like California. He thought everybody who didn't have an accent like his was a hick. She had met plenty of snob dudes with their Boston drawls and their noses in the air, but this one wasn't like that-he was even worse.

    She looked at him fondly. He was drooping over the rail in terminal agony and somehow he made her feel protective. Maybe it was because he talked so tough and blustered so much. Her father had been just like that. Underneath he'd been a lamb.

    This one was more likely goat than lamb, but there was something appealing in the brave helplessness with which he regarded the world from behind his soulful eyes. He looked underfed and rumpled. His face was an uneven triangle, he tended to talk out of the side of his mouth, he had a voice like lumps of coal rattling down a sheet-metal chute, he wasn't what anybody in the world could possibly call handsome, he was feisty and opinionated-you might even say he was disagreeable; but then you could say all that about a Siamese cat and she loved Siamese cats.

    She said, "That's Richmond."

    He lifted his head, which had been hanging over the rail. He had a look. "It would be," he said and let his head droop again.

    The boat eased up against the rickety pier. Its every shift was echoed by a muffled groan from the dude draped on the rail. Finally the boat stopped, and the dude made a dash for the pier.

    She went along with him. "Don't you ever get used to it?"

    "To tell you the truth," he said glumly, "I haven't gone out of my way to try."

    The mid-afternoon sun was warm on deck. She waited for him to come up from the rail to the nearly vertical. He kept hold on the rail, but it was one of his respite periods between relapses. She was learning to time his cycles and she didn't bother to talk to him except during the respites.

    "Maybe we ought to introduce ourselves," she said. "What do you call yourself?"

    "Unless I want me, I don't call."

    "Well, my name's Evangeline."

    "Evangeline," he said in a flat tone of voice, looking at her with an expression that implied he didn't believe a bit of it but that it didn't surprise him because it wasn't the first time he'd been lied to.

    "That's the truth. Evangeline Kemp."

    "Sure."

    "No, really."

    He looked her over. "Your parents sure didn't know much when they named you."

    "You bite your tongue!"

    "I only speak as a gent whose pocket you picked. What do folks call you? Vangie?"

    "Not if they care whether I speak to them or not. My name is Evangeline. E-van-ge-line."

    "Well, I'll tell you, Vangie," he said weakly. "Right now four syllables is more than I can handle all at once."

    "I'd rather be called Hey-You."

    "In your line of work you probably are, most of the time."

    "That was the first time in my life I ever did anything like that," she said.

    He just looked at her.

    She shifted around a bit, looking defensive. "That's the truth," she said.

    "Fine," he said. "Now tell me a lie. I want to see the difference."

    "No, really." She leaned toward him, her expression earnest and brave but tragic. "My folks are down in San Francisco," she said, "and all my money was stolen from me, and…"

    "Vangie," he said. "Just pretend you told me the whole story, all right?"

    Innocent bewilderment spread across her face. "Story?"