Smugglers' Gold (11 page)

O
tto Seitz refrained from heavy work whenever possible. He might not be the boss in fact, but being second in command still had its privileges. He got to supervise when there was sweaty work to do, and only joined in on the bloody bits when he craved some excitement. Now, he hung back while a hand-cranked pulley system started raising nets out of the
Banshee
's cargo hold, each net supporting wooden pallets, which in turn held crated merchandise.

Seitz found Stede Pickering against the starboard rail, smoking a pipe that looked like ivory or scrimshaw, with some kind of nautical motif etched on its bowl. Joining the captain, careful not to crowd him, Otto got right down to business. “So, you think you've seen our Georgie boy somewhere before?”

“I'd wager on it,” Pickering replied. “Faces stick in my head.”

“I'm guessing that he hasn't been a member of your crew.”

“No guessing there,” said Pickering. “I'd have to be a total idjit to forget a man I've sailed with, wouldn't I?”

Ignoring that, Seitz said, “You would have seen him in a port then. Somewhere you put in for cargo or supplies.”

“Well, you can bet I didn't see him floatin' on a raft at sea. Although . . .” The captain puffed a little cloud of smoke and squinted through it, toward the Gulf of Mexico.

“Although . . . ?”

Pickering shrugged. “Nothin'. Likely, I'll work it out after we sail. The ocean helps me think.”

“But in the meantime . . .”

“This boy worries you, I take it,” Pickering suggested.

“I'm just curious about him,” Otto said. “Guy shows up out of nowhere at the perfect time. Next thing you know, he's friends with everybody.”

“Not with
you
,” said Pickering.

“I like to know my friends a little better. Find out where they come from, what they did there, this and that.”

“I've got a gold doubloon that says you don't know ever'thing about the boys you call your friends, much less this George Revere. We've all got secrets, Mr. Seitz.”

“I know enough about the others,” Otto said. “But this one, he's a cipher to me.”

“And you don't like mysteries.”

“Not when they might come back to bite me.”

“Alas, I've told you all I can, at least for now. I've definitely seen him somewhere. If it comes to me before we sail, I'll pass it on.”

“I'd rather that you didn't tell the boss we talked about this,” Otto said.

“A little secret is it?”

“I don't want to worry him, in case it turns out being nothing.”

“Leave his mind at ease, you mean.”

“If possible.”

“And maybe deal with it yourself.”

“May not be necessary.”

“But you
hope
it will be.”

“Did I say—”

“You didn't have to say it, laddy. It's as plain as plain can be.”

“Well, anyway. If you can think of anything about him, I'd appreciate it.”

“And you'd show me that appreciation . . . how?”

“What do you want?”

“Not sure yet, but I'll think on it.”

Marley called out to Seitz just then, hailing him from the cargo hatch. He left Pickering at the rail, smoking, uncertain whether he had said too much or if the captain would run straight to Marley with the details of their conversation. Moving toward the hold, he realized that Pickering had not responded to his plea for confidentiality, but Otto didn't want to double back and press his luck, making an issue of it. If Pickering
did
squeal, then Otto supposed that he could weather any minor squall it caused, considering the time he spent with Marley.

“Sorry to interrupt your little chat,” said Marley when they stood together, watching two stout crewmen crank the windlass hoisting cargo into daylight.

“No problem,” Seitz replied.

“Something I ought to know about?”

“Just jawing,” Otto told him. “Nothing special.”

“Well, in that case, maybe you could fetch the wagons up and start to get them loaded.”

“Absolutely,” Otto said, hearing the edge in Marley's tone. Frowning, he went to do as he'd been told.

*   *   *

O
ff-loading cargo from the
Banshee
took the best part of four hours. First came wooden crates with
TEXTILES
stenciled on the top and sides, each heavier than Ryder thought mere bolts of woven cloth should be. He took it that the gold coins and assorted gems were hidden in the boxes, adding weight, and while he kept an eye out for a Customs agent, none appeared to check the
Banshee
's manifest. It made him wonder whether they'd been paid to stay away, or if the sheer volume of cargo moving through the port of Galveston made checking every ship impossible.

He'd make no judgment on the Customs men in his report, Ryder decided, if he didn't catch them with their hands out or collaborating in some other way with Marley's gang. Meanwhile, he helped unload the clipper, lugging crates from deck to pier, along the gangplank, and securing them in Marley's waiting wagons. On his first pass, Ryder caught the horses watching him, placid as he increased the burden they would have to haul away.

He counted eighteen crates before they started taking off the ganja, bagged in burlap, each sack weighing thirty pounds or so. The plants carried a smell of fresh-mown grass about them, as he hoisted each across his shoulder and proceeded down the gangplank toward the second wagon. Ryder guessed you'd have to chew or smoke it to receive the kick Parsons had mentioned. In their present form, sacked up, the plants succeeded only at inspiring him to sneeze.

When they were nearly finished, Ryder saw a couple of policemen coming down the wharf, both armed with pistols and with billy clubs, one of them twirling his club on a leather thong that looped around his wrist. Neither of them resembled those Ryder had left unconscious on the street last night, and both were wearing badges in their proper place.

Hoisting a sack of ganja to its place inside the second wagon, Ryder watched the coppers draw Marley aside, followed by Otto Seitz. The four of them conversed, briefly, none glancing Ryder's way before a roll of currency changed hands. It was his first glimpse of a bribe in progress, and while Ryder could not read the numbers on their badges, he had memorized the faces of both officers before they ambled off the dock and out of sight.

One more round-trip onto the
Banshee
's weather deck, and they were done, both wagons loaded. Ryder loitered on the pier and watched as Marley paid the captain, then shook hands with him and turned away. Seitz lingered for a moment longer, said something to Pickering, and then followed his boss to join the others.

“Okay,” said Marley. “Now we only have to stow the merchandise. Ed, you and Harry drive the wagons. Take a couple of the boys along to help unload them at the warehouse.”

Parsons turned to Ryder, nudged him with an elbow to the ribs, and told him, “You're with me.”

Ryder responded with a nod and mounted to the wagon's high seat, letting Parsons take the reins. Behind them, Harry Morgan and another member of the team, Bob Jacobs, rode the second wagon trailing them. Ryder let Parsons navigate, watching for street signs as they rolled through town and counting blocks between those that appeared to have no names. It took them twenty minutes at a walking pace to reach a warehouse labeled
TIDEWATER STORAGE
in faded blue paint on a parched white background. Two men he didn't recognize were waiting by the open double doors, and Parsons greeted them by name—Johnny and Lee—before he drove the wagon through to the interior.

Inside, the warehouse seemed more spacious than it looked from streetside. Roughly half of it was filled with crated merchandise, stacked up in chest-high rows that ran the full length of the building. Ryder had no chance to examine any labels, but assumed that most of them were tagged to keep a casual observer from suspecting what might lie within. If so, it seemed that Bryan Marley had a sizable supply of contraband to move.

Parsons maneuvered to the far end of the warehouse, stopped his team with ample room to turn around when they were done, then hopped down from the driver's seat. Ryder joined him and focused on the task at hand, already thinking forward to the next free time he'd have, and what he'd tell Director Wood in his next cryptic telegram.

So far, he had received no answers from the capital and had not banked on any. If and when Wood moved against the Marley gang, Ryder supposed that it would take him by surprise. He only hoped that there would be warning enough to let him come out of the final scrape alive.

A
fter going through the same half-hour routine to lose observers, Ryder made his way back to the Western Union office, where he wrote Director Wood another telegram. This one simply stated two words:

CARGO RECEIVED

Then Ryder revised the telegram to include for the first time the address of his boardinghouse. He did not expect an answer from the capital, but wanted Wood to know where he'd been staying if the play went wrong somehow.

And why?

He couldn't answer that specifically. Perhaps as a lifeline to the world outside of Galveston, although he knew it likely wouldn't do him any good. If Marley saw through his deception, Ryder guessed that he would simply disappear—or else be found some morning in a gutter, with his throat cut or a bullet in his head.

Or maybe both.

With that depressing thought in mind, he went to find a barbershop that offered baths. His afternoon of labor on the wharf and at Tidewater Storage had left him feeling grimy and fatigued. The place he found rented tubs for a dime per half hour and Ryder went for the works, adding a shave and haircut to make it an even six bits. He enjoyed the hot water, just soaking and thinking, but kept his Colt close on a plain wooden chair.

Just in case.

From the barbershop, he went in search of supper, settling on a restaurant that specialized in seafood. Ryder ordered something called a crawfish pie, with fresh bread on the side and strong black coffee. He was pleasantly surprised by the concoction he received—a kind of stew baked in a pie crust—and was quick to clean his plate.

Too quick, in fact, for his appointed meeting with the gang at Awful Annie's after nightfall. That afternoon, Ryder had asked whether they ever tried a different place, and Parsons had replied, “Why would we? Annie's got whatever anybody needs.” That observation had reminded Ryder that he first saw Bryan Marley in a different saloon, before the ambush that he'd interrupted, and he wondered whether that had been significant in some way that eluded him.

Only one way to answer that,
he thought and set off for the first saloon after he paid his tab and left the restaurant.

It took a bit of searching, since he'd found Marley by chance the first time, on an aimless tour of Galveston's bars. He had paid no special attention to its location, and the seamy streets looked different in any case, by daylight. Finally, to save time, Ryder walked back to his boardinghouse and launched his search from there, retracing his steps from two nights back as best he could. It took the best part of an hour, even then, for him to find the place where he had first found Marley drinking with a group of men Ryder had never seen again, among the smuggler's crew.

A quick look past the bat-wing doors confirmed no sign of Marley on the premises this afternoon. Inside the tavern, after he had checked its darker corners for a second time, Ryder proceeded to the bar and ordered beer. The mug arrived, he laid a silver dollar on the bar, and told the bartender, “I'm looking for a friend of mine who comes in here sometimes.”

Eyeing the coin, ten times the price of Ryder's beer, the barkeep asked him, “Got a name, this friend a your'n?”

“It's Marley. Bryan Marley.”

Fingers edging toward the silver dollar, the bartender said, “He drinks in here awright, from time to time. Ain't seen him in a couple days.”

“Just one more thing.”

“Wha's that?”

“Are any of his friends around today? Somebody who could tell me where to find him?”

Lazy eyes perused the crowd of customers. “Nobody here I ever seen him drinkin' with,” the barkeep said. “Some of 'em won't be comin' back, I guess.”

“Why's that?”

The silver dollar disappeared into the barkeep's pocket as he said, “They went'n got killed off last night. Lucky it didn't happen here. You gonna drink that beer, or what?”

Ryder emptied the mug in four great swallows, turning for the exit as he waited for the alcohol to hit him, either clear his head or drown the idea that was taking form inside it.

Murdered friends. A number of them killed the same night he had followed Bryan Marley into Gerta's for a showdown with Jack Menefee. Ryder did not remember Menefee himself among the men Marley was drinking with, the first time Ryder stumbled onto him in Galveston, but were the others members of the gang he'd fought at Gerta's place? No matter how he racked his memory, Ryder couldn't recall.

All right. Say Marley
did
have friends inside the rival camp. So what? Some of the gang had tried to kill him moments after others—if they did belong to Menefee—were sitting down and sharing drinks with him. Did it mean anything? And if so, what?

Ryder pushed through the swinging doors and stepped onto the sidewalk, pausing there to check his pocket watch. A slow walk down to Awful Annie's should be just about—

To Ryder's left, a window of the tavern shattered as a pistol shot rang out. He glimpsed the muzzle flash, across the street, then dived for cover, reaching for his Colt.

*   *   *

Y
ou missed,
pendejo
!”

“I can see that, damn it!” Harley Baker raised his pistol for a second shot, wishing that Tijerina would shut up and let him think.

“
Mira!
He's crawling to
el callejón
.”

The alley, Baker guessed he meant. “I
see
him. Shut your trap and lemme do this.”

“Dispárale, cabron!”

The pistol jumped in Baker's fist, its smoke obscuring his target in the dusky street. He knew it was a wasted shot before the Mexican beside him yelped, “
Chinga!
You missed again,
estúpido
!”

“If you say one more goddamn word—”

But Tijerina didn't wait around to hear his threat. Instead, the slender pistolero bolted from the doorway that had sheltered them, running across the street to chase their target down the alley where he'd disappeared. Baker was slower off the mark—no great surprise, since he had eighty pounds on Tijerina, easily—and by the time he'd reached the alley's mouth, both of the other men had disappeared into its shadows.

Bad idea,
he thought, but had to follow them regardless. He'd been paid to do a job, and failure carried penalties beyond refunding the advance. More to the point, he'd made the deal himself. If he let Tijerina bag their target on his own, how would it look? First thing he knew, the Mexican would want a bigger share, or he might strike off on his own.

Baker scuttled through the alley, virtually blind, mouthing a string of silent curses as he scattered rocks and trash in front of him, making a racket that would wake the dead. This was supposed to be an easy job, just trail the stranger for a bit and pick him off first time they had a clean shot at him. Baker had considered going for him at the barbershop, but that meant killing witnesses as well, and nobody was paying him for that. His rule—one fee, one body—was as simple as it got.

Ahead of him, a pistol cracked, its flash some thirty yards away. Baker, already winded from his short run, held a steady plodding pace as he approached the spot. He wasn't fool enough to blunder forward and expose himself to hostile fire before he knew exactly what was happening. That was the quickest way to die in Baker's line of work, and he intended to survive the night no matter who else bit the dust while he was at it.

One Alfredo Tijerina, maybe, if he got a notion he could claim the whole prize for himself.

They were friends after a fashion, barely, but the money mattered most. And when you got right down to cases, Baker figured he was just another Mexican.

Four shots remained in Baker's Colt Model 1861 Navy revolver, and he had a second pistol—a .436-caliber Dean and Adams double-action all the way from England—tucked under his belt as a reserve. If all else failed, the handle of a Bowie knife protruded from the top of his right boot, for close work in a clench. Whatever he discovered when he reached the alley's farther end, Baker imagined he was ready for it.

But it turned out he was wrong.

Nothing
was waiting for him when he cleared the alley. No corpse on the ground, not even bloodstains to suggest that anyone was hit. No sign of Tijerina or the target, either, which confounded Baker, since he didn't know which way to turn.

Damn it!
He couldn't match Alfredo's speed, and now he'd lost his quarry in the darkened maze of streets. Without a stroke of luck—

Two shots echoed from somewhere to his left, the sharp sounds overlapping. Tijerina only had one pistol, so that meant their mark was shooting back.

Trailing the echoes, Harley Baker caught his breath and broke into a shambling run.

*   *   *

R
yder knew he was running out of time and luck. The first two shots had missed him, but he couldn't count on hasty marksmanship to spare him if the chase dragged on. He had no destination yet in mind, but knew he couldn't run to Awful Annie's and the Marley gang if there was any chance at all of Marley setting up the ambush.

Why?

He couldn't say and had no time to ponder the dilemma. Maybe Seitz had swayed him, though there'd been no evidence of that during the afternoon. Had Pickering the pirate finally remembered seeing Ryder on the
Southern Belle
, battling his men? And what would that prove, other than determination to defend himself? There was no reason for the buccaneer to brand Ryder a traitor or informer, but he
might
have noted the coincidence of Ryder turning up in Galveston so soon after their skirmish in the Keys. Was that enough to land a target on his back?

Maybe. He might find out, if he could stay alive and capture the would-be assassin without killing him. No easy task on darkened, winding streets when he was busy running for his life.

Ryder had made it to the nearest alleyway, ducked in, and picked up speed, stumbling and lurching over cast-off garbage hidden by the shadows. Every noise he made betrayed him, but he didn't want to make his last stand in the alley, nothing in the way of cover for him if the narrow passageway became a shooting gallery. If he could make it to the other end . . .

Footsteps scuffled and scraped behind him, someone else contending with the alley's litter. Muttered curses—was that Spanish?—also helped him gauge the progress his pursuer made, while Ryder tried as best he could to watch his step and minimize his noise.

Not well enough, apparently. A shot rang out behind him, loud as thunder in the alley's narrow confines, and he heard the bullet ricochet off brickwork to his right. He ducked, a stupid reflex since the slug was already long gone, and quickly found that running in a crouch accomplished nothing but to slow him down.

He could return fire, but the muzzle flash would show his adversary where to aim unless he hit his mark by pure dumb luck, and Ryder thought the risk outweighed the possible reward. Killing the shooter, even if he managed it, would solve one problem while the other—finding out who'd sent him—still remained.

The alley's western mouth was twenty feet ahead of him, a slightly lighter patch of darkness to his straining eyes. He tried to hug the nearest wall while moving forward, fearful that the gunman on his heels would catch a glimpse of him in silhouette and hit him on the run.

One final dash and he was clear, ducked to his left and stopped some ten feet from the alley's entrance. Dropping to one knee, raising his Colt Army. Ryder braced it with both hands, since his right was trembling from the frantic sprint, pulse hammering against his ribs and in his ears. It nearly deafened him, but he could still hear someone drawing closer, stumbling, grumbling to himself.

“Chinga tu madre! Dónde estás, cabron?”

The footsteps slowed, then stopped completely, just inside the alley's shadowed mouth. Ryder imagined his intended killer poised there, trying to decide if it was safe to move. Was it a trap? Would a delay permit his target to escape?

“Mierda!”

The man made up his mind, emerged, crouching and scuttling sideways like a crab. He must have seen or sensed where Ryder was, swinging his pistol into line. They fired together, Ryder wincing at the muzzle flash that nearly blinded him, hearing the bullet whisper past his left ear in the night. His shot was better, smacking into flesh, dropping the gunman on his backside with a solid thump. From there, groaning, the shooter toppled slowly over backward, arms outflung, his six-gun tumbling from his hand.

Ryder edged forward, not convinced the man was dead—hoping, in fact, that he was still alive and fit to answer questions if they could communicate. Ryder could recognize the Spanish language, but he didn't speak it. If the shooter couldn't talk to him in English, or if he was too far gone to answer any questions, Ryder would be left in limbo with his quandary.

Watching the wounded gunman's hands, Ryder moved closer, knelt beside him, bending down to ask him, “Can you hear me?”

*   *   *

G
oddamn it!”

That was English, but the words had not come from the supine pistolero's blood-flecked lips. Somebody else was coming down the alley, wheezing with exertion, heavy footsteps drawing nearer by the second.

Two assassins, then. At least.

Ryder eased backward from the dying man, who'd sprawled across the entrance to the alley on his right. He had no way of knowing if the second gunman had already glimpsed him, but if so, the stalker wasn't wasting ammunition on a risky shot. Waiting to close the gap, perhaps, and find out what had happened to his partner while he lagged behind.

The wounded Mexican gave out a final rattling gasp and died. Ryder felt nothing but relief over the killing, edged out by a mounting apprehension as the other pistolero shambled closer. From the sounds he heard, Ryder concluded there was only one man in the alley, but that didn't rule out others circling around the block to flank him from the north or south—maybe from both directions, if the hunting party had sufficient numbers.