Lone Star 02 (25 page)

The entire maneuver was over in seconds. The first sailor had barely recovered his balance and was just raising his machete for another try at Ki's back, when the samurai spun one of his
sai
so that the blade was pointed to the rear, and then stabbed backward, running the sailor through. With his other sai he parried the thrust of another sailor's knife, before slitting the man's throat.

“It's no good,” the captain swore. “Jimmy! Here's my keys! Open up the gun locker in my cabin. Arm the men!” He tossed the key ring through the air to the sailor he'd addressed, a man who seemed quite happy to quit the fight to do his captain's bidding.

It would not do to have the sailors armed with guns, Ki thought. He hurled one of his sai at the departing sailor. The blade penetrated the man's back, its momentum carrying the swab another few feet before his lifeless legs gave out and he thudded to the deck.

Now there were only two men left to confront him. The captain was hurrying toward where his keys lay tangled in the dead man's fingers. The samurai ducked beneath the slashing blade of the first man to attack him. He carefully grasped the point of his remaining
sai,
and used the pronged hilt to hook the other sailor's leg. One jerk of the sword sent that man sprawling on his back. Ki snatched up the fallen sailor's machete in time to drive it into the chest of the man who was still on his feet, but when he turned to use his
sai
upon the downed man, he was met with a plea for mercy.

“Don't kill me! P-please!” the sailor whimpered. His face was deathly pale, and his eyes were screwed shut. “I give up! Don't do it!”

Ki straddled the man, brought his blade up, and then started it on its downward plunge toward the sobbing man. But at the last moment, he baton-twirled the weapon, so that it was the hard round knob mounted at the end of the
sai's
handle, and not its razor-sharp blade, that came into contact with the swab's head, knocking him cold.

Muttering to himself, Ki stepped over the unconscious sailor, plucked his sai from the corpse of the man who had briefly held the captain's keys, then hurried on toward the stem.

He spied Moore being attacked from behind by a sailor who looked to be twice the slender detective's size. Ki hurried to the scene, but it looked as if he was going to be too late. The big, burly swab had locked his forearm against Moore's throat and lifted him up into the air. The detective's gun fell to the deck as his legs dangled. Ki could not throw one of his
sai
or one of his
shuriken
blades—there was too great a danger of hitting Moore's body. He ran as fast as he could, but the samurai despaired that his companion's life would be choked out of him before he could arrive to lend a hand.

Then Ki stopped running, to watch in amazement as Moore managed to slam his elbow into his attacker's gut, driving the air out of him and forcing him to loosen his lock about Moore's throat.

“I'll murda ya, ya little rat!” the sailor spat, trying for another armlock around his opponent. “Stand still! Damn you!” He groped for Moore, like a bear being worried by a terrier.

Moore was simply too fast for the lumbering sailor. He ducked beneath the man's hamlike hands, to drive a set of fast uppercuts into the sailor's ribs. The big man's grunts changed into a squeal of pain as Moore quickly stepped behind the fellow in order to deliver a series of short, hard jabs into the man's kidneys.

The groaning swab was now desperate. He was swatting at Moore as though the detective were a stinging bee, but his blows caught only air. Finally he tried to backhand Moore, and that was the sailor's final mistake, for it left him wide open. Moore easily ducked the clumsy blow, and moved in for a try at the swab's chin. He locked his two fists together and brought them up in a sledgehammer swing that started at deck-level and picked up speed and power as it rose. Moore's aim was a trifle off. He missed the man's chin, but caught him square on the nose. There was a splatter of blood, and a surprised yelp from the sailor. He lost his balance and tottered backward, cracking the back of his skull against the cargo hold's hatch cover.

Moore himself had put so much shoulder into the punch that his swing carried him full around. His feet slid out from under him and he hit the deck on his belly. Ki couldn't keep from laughing as he helped Moore up.

“Showed that big palooka,” Moore muttered. He glanced at Ki. “Hell, if I'd known how amused you'd be, I would've let the guy kill me. Where's my gun?”

“You are quite fast,” Ki said. “And, of course
, he
was quite slow.” He pointed at the fallen sailor.

“Speed is what it's all about,” Moore said smugly, picking up his Colt.

“Until you come up against
a fast
big man,” Ki teased.

Moore waved his gun. “I find it helpful to shoot big, fast men,” he cheerfully replied. “I hate to change the subject, but look at what I found.” He slid open the cargo hold's hatch cover.

Ki peered down into the hold. Twenty ragged, pitifully emaciated Chinese men fearfully looked up at him.

“My daddy in Oregon would be so pleased,” Moore said quietly, “assuming I
had
such a daddy. Look at their backs, Ki. They've been whipped badly.”

“That would be the captain's doing,” the samurai said slowly. His voice trembled with fury. “I will pay him back for this cruelty. But why have their shackles been removed?”

“That's standard practice when a slave ship approaches its port,” Moore explained. “It allows the circulation to come back into the coolies' limbs. Otherwise they would not be able to haul themselves out of the hold.”

Ki nodded. “Well, it will make our task easier.” He gestured down toward the coolies. “We must find a way to communicate with them. They must know that we mean to help them.”

A shot thwacked into the hatch bulkhead. Both Ki and Moore took cover on the far side of the cargo hold.

“The captain has armed his remaining men,” Ki said. “It is time to strike against the ship itself.”

Moore did not answer him. Instead, the detective slowly read from a crumpled sheet of paper. The strange sounds he made were tentative and faltering, but they were definitely Chinese. The coolies nodded to Moore, and began to speak excitedly among themselves in their native tongue.

“What did you say to them?” Ki asked.

“While you were at the bordello, I copied this out of a phrase book I had in my library at home,” Moore replied. “I believe I said, ‘We are friends. We take you to freedom.' Either that or ‘What time does the train arrive?'” Moore's eyes narrowed as he stared at the area where the sailors had regrouped. “It's the captain himself, and he's waving a white flag!”

“Get your head down,” Ki ordered. “He may have a white flag in one hand, but he holds a revolver in the other!”

“You two better give up!” the captain shouted, standing up behind a hastily erected barricade of crates. “Else you'll not leave this ship alive!” One of his men squeezed off a shot. “Hold your fire, men! Give them a chance to surrender!”

“He does not wish his men to fire because they may hit some of their human cargo,” Ki began. “Jordan, you—”

But Ki was cut off by the loud report of Moore's Colt .44. The captain dropped his pistol, clutched at his throat, then fell out of sight behind the crates.

“Sorry,” Moore shrugged. “But that bastard deserved to die for what he's done to these men.” His smoking gun barrel gestured toward the coolies in the hold.

Ki nodded. “One of us had to kill him,” the samurai acknowledged. “I grow weary of this. Let us finish it.”

Panicked, and freed from restraint by the death of their captain, the sailors let loose a volley of gunfire. The rounds rattled against the bulkhead, sending splinters flying.

“Get ready to throw the green bomb I gave you,” Ki instructed. “Ready? Now!”

As Moore lobbed his grenade, Ki let fly two of his own. The three
nage teppo
landed accurately, each exploding like a stick of dynamite. Shards of wooden crates and deck planking, as well as coils of rope and the mutilated bodies of several sailors, flew in all directions. The remaining sailors, now totally demoralized, flew belowdecks.

Finding themselves suddenly unopposed, Moore and Ki made quick work of getting the coolies out of the hold. Understanding what was expected of them, the coolies organized themselves into several gangs and lowered the ship's lifeboats. All in all, there were about fifty men distributed among the clipper's three boats. When all the boats were in the water, Ki ordered Moore, “You ride in the first boat, and I'll take the third.”

As Moore nodded and hoisted himself over the gunwale, Ki said, “Give me your white
nage teppo.”

Moore handed it over, saying, “Don't be too long, now. I'd hate to have to leave without you. I don't understand why you have to burn the ship, anyway. It's been without a tillerman ever since the fight started, and it's bound to run laground.”

Ki shook his head. “I want nothing left that the cartel could salvage.”

“All right,” Moore said, “but hurry. Most of these coolies are probably not experienced boatmen, and I don't know how long I can hold these boats together in these waves.”

“Only a moment, my friend,” Ki replied, hurrying off toward the open cargo hold.

After lowering himself into the hold, it took Ki only a moment to find an area where a number of barrels of lamp-oil were stored. Smiling, he hurled the deadly egg in the direction of the clustered barrels, but did not wait to see it land. He was already well on his way toward the ladder that led up out of the hold when the tiny grenade hit and cracked open with a deep
whump!
The flaming, sticky liquid inside the bomb spread quickly over the containers of flammable oil. Ki knew it would take a few moments for the oil to catch, but when it did...

He was on his way over the gunwale and into the last of the three boats when there came a muffled explosion from belowdecks, and he felt the wooden side of the big ship shudder. He dropped into the boat, and Moore and Ki cast off the lines holding their lifeboats to the ship. The coolies in the middle boat understood, and did likewise, and Moore guided the tiny convoy of refugees toward a stretch of dark shoreline some distance from the relatively well-lit waterfront and the crowds that would soon gather there to watch the funeral pyre of the cartel clipper.

As they put distance between themselves and the ship, Ki looked back and smiled again, in satisfaction, as an orange fireball erupted from the main deck, illuminating the stretch of dark water between the lifeboats and their dying mother ship.

A bit later, as Moore and Ki stood with the huddled Chinese on a sandy beach, watching the floating mountain of fire in the middle of the black bay, Moore turned to Ki and said, “You know, I'm afraid my friend won't be too happy about his mosquito boat.”

“Don't worry,” Ki replied. “You keep reminding us of how large your bill will be. I'm sure the cost of such a modest vessel will be easily absorbed. You have earned your pay, Jordan Moore. You are a fine warrior.” He turned, and momentarily contemplated the huddled group of coolies. “I will take them to Chinatown now,” he said finally.

“All by yourself?” Moore exclaimed. “Let me come with you.”

“No, my friend. It will be all-right. I know a shortcut.” Ki motioned to the coolies, and they nodded and headed toward him, eager to get off the chilly, windy beach.

Moore watched Ki head off with his ragtag band until they were swallowed up in the darkness.
What's he being so all-fired mysterious about?
the detective wondered.
Well, if he wants to go off on his own, that's just fine. Two can play at that same game.

 

 

Ki hustled his charges along the back-alley route that Su-ling had shown him the night she'd escorted him out of Chinatown. He had a hard time keeping the coolies from running off in fifty different directions once they'd reached the relative security of Chinatown's outskirts, but a few stem glances and barked orders kept them docile. After all, they'd seen what happened to men who made Ki mad.

It was just midnight when Ki and the coolies reached the Gold Coin restaurant owned by Su-ling's family. Due to the lateness of the hour, the place was empty of diners.

“What do you wish here?” the father scowled as he left the kitchen to confront Ki. “What are you doing with these men?” Behind him stood his wife, his young son, and the old grandfather, but Su-ling was nowhere in sight.

There was something wrong here, Ki suddenly felt. “Where is she?” the samurai asked softly.

The father's face was pale with grief. His eyes, Ki now noticed, were red-rimmed and raw. “I have to tell you nothing!” the father spat contemptuously.

Suddenly one of the coolies began to speak to the father in their own tongue. The restaurant proprietor listened intently. When the coolie was finished, Su-ling's father turned to regard Ki. “This man says that you rescued them from a slave ship. That you killed the captain and crew who mistreated them. That you burnt the ship itself.” The father shook his head.
“Jibon-ren,
I do not understand. Why would you risk your own life for Chinese people?”

“The feud between us must be forgotten in this new country,” Ki began quietly. “The old bitterness must be gone, like last night's dreams. Yes, I am a samurai. But I fight not for a warlord; I fight for all downtrodden people. In America; I am a samurai who fights for
you.”

“Samurai,” the father groaned in misery, “if you had come last night, things might have been different.” He stared at the sawdust-sprinkled floor, unable to meet Ki's gaze.