Smugglers' Gold (5 page)

“He's in ladies' corsets,” Ryder interjected.

Cagle shot a glare at him, while Irene said, “We'll keep that to ourselves, shall we, mister . . . ?”

“Revere,” he told her. “George Revere.”

“No relation to Paul,” Cagle added.

She blinked at Cagle. “Paul?”

“It's not important.”

“I would not have pegged you for a George,” she said.

“Oh, no?”

“Something a trifle more adventurous, I think. Perhaps Gerard, or Graham.”

“Sorry. Just plain George.”

“I wouldn't go that far, Mr. Revere.”

Cagle frowned, seemed on the verge of making some remark, but he was interrupted by a waiter stopping to deliver menus. Irene asked about the soup du jour, but grimaced when she learned that it was turtle, opting for a lobster tail instead. “I draw the line at reptiles,” she told Ryder, with a quirky smile.

He ordered T-bone steak with baked potato. Cagle put the waiter through an inquisition on the merits of the fried and roasted chicken, then decided on pork chops instead. They sat and talked about the
Southern Belle'
s accommodations and their several destinations while they waited for their food. Cagle was headed for Savannah, while Irene was going on around the Keys and Straits of Florida to visit kinfolk in Tampa.

She lit up with another smile when Ryder said that he was traveling to Galveston. “I hear it's very wicked there,” she said.

“I couldn't tell you,” he replied. “It's my first time.”

“In Galveston, he means,” said Cagle, smirking.

Irene blushed at that, but the arrival of their meals saved her from having to respond. Ryder picked up his knife, imagining how it would feel to let some air out of the corset salesman, but he cut a bite out of his steak, instead, and found it was delicious.

Small talk occupied them while they ate. Ryder let Cagle carry most of it, describing a variety of trades he had pursued before he settled down to women's intimates. Most of it had to do with clothes, though he'd spent the war designing military uniforms.

“Which side?” asked Ryder.

“The correct one,” Cagle said and gave him an exaggerated wink.

“And what do you do for a living, George?” Irene inquired.

It was a chance to try his cover story on for size. “Import and export,” he replied, leaving it vague.

“So, shipping,” Cagle said.

“My part has more to do with acquisition,” Ryder said, “and distribution.”

“Such as?” Irene pressed him.

“Anything my customers desire. Jamaican rum's a popular commodity. Some other products from the islands. Now and then, a little something more exotic.”

“And you've visited these places?”

“All a part of doing business.”

“You must tell me more about them, when we have the time.”

Leaving the dining hall when they were done, Ryder decided that the trip might be more interesting than he'd thought.

*   *   *

R
yder soon discovered that the
Southern Belle'
s arrival in a port produced the same reaction as its steaming out of Baltimore. The packet's whistle sounded well before it docked, drawing a crowd to meet it at the pier. Some came to welcome disembarking passengers, while others paid their fare and came aboard, bound for some other port. Cargo was hauled ashore and rapidly replaced with other items. Some folks simply came to gawk, while others stood and waited for their mail.

Norfolk wasn't much to look at, in his personal opinion, when they reached it in late afternoon. All Ryder knew about it was what he had read in newspapers, during the war. The Battle of Hampton Roads had been fought there, at sea, in March of 1862, between the ironclads USS
Monitor
and CSS
Virginia
, built from remnants of the old USS
Merrimack.
It came down to a standoff, with some 340 dead and about 120 wounded, but Gen. John Wool had captured the Rebel port two months later, holding it for the remainder of the war. It had been spared from any major damage, and appeared to be a thriving spot for commerce now.

Their second day at sea established Ryder's pattern for the trip. He had an early breakfast in the dining hall and had a walk around the deck, stopped by the boat's small library but couldn't find a book that suited him, then went to lunch at noon. Irene McGowan met him there, while Arnie Cagle chose another table, trying out his jokes on a new audience. This time, they shared their table with an aging couple on their way to Jacksonville, to see their third grandchild.

The
Belle
's next stop—at Wilmington, North Carolina—came up in the afternoon, some twenty hours out of Norfolk. A major port for the Confederacy, on the Cape Fear River, Wilmington had been the capital of blockade runners after Norfolk's fall, holding out until February of 1865. When Gen. Braxton Bragg evacuated, driven out by Union troops, he'd burned large quantities of cotton and tobacco marked for sale in England. Even so, most of the action had occurred outside the city, leaving stately antebellum homes intact.

The packet's stops in one port or another soon became routine to Ryder. There was Charleston, scene of Fort Sumter's bombardment, and Savannah, captured by General Sherman as a Christmas present for President Lincoln in December 1864, where Arnie Cagle took his bulging sample case and disembarked. The weather started getting steamier as they continued down the coast to Florida, stopping again at Jacksonville, a seedy and dilapidated port where shirtless black men loaded ships under the watchful eyes of overseers, much as Ryder thought they must have done before they were emancipated. Eighteen hours farther down the coast, Miami was a tiny settlement, noteworthy only for its lighthouse at the southern tip of Key Biscayne.

Mostly, he concentrated on Irene McGowan, sharing meals with her and, by their third day on the
Southern Belle
, accompanying her on walks around the packet's several decks. On the night they left Miami, Ryder had a feeling that she might invite him to her stateroom, but she left him standing at the door instead, after a chaste peck on the cheek. He chalked it up as progress of a sort, and went off to his narrow bed alone.

Proprieties.

It was too much, Ryder supposed, to think that she would risk her reputation on a man she barely knew, and whom she'd never see again after they parted at Tampa. So much for shipboard romance.

They were finishing breakfast, four days out, when the
Belle
's steam whistle sounded their approach to Key West, dominated by Fort Zachary Taylor and a U.S. Navy base. Key West had stayed in Union hands throughout the war, despite Florida's secession, and Fort Jefferson—sixty-odd miles distant, on Garden Key in the Dry Tortugas—presently served as a federal prison, with Dr. Samuel Mudd numbered among its inmates.

The island wasn't large, less than eight square miles of land, but it was jammed with shops and houses lining narrow streets, its harbor filled with ships and boats of every size. Ryder went ashore with Irene, browsing at shops and market stalls, but limited his purchase to a bag of oranges. Four hours out of port, the
Southern Belle
entered the Straits of Florida, starting its swing into the Gulf of Mexico and up the long peninsula's west coast to reach Tampa, the best part of another day ahead.

Standing with Irene at the rail, sharing an orange, Ryder considered that they still had one more night on board, together. He had already decided not to press his luck, simply enjoy her company and not make anything more of it, feeling fairly virtuous for his restraint. At the same time, he wondered whether he had lost his touch with women other than the working ladies he had patronized in Washington.

In any case, considering the job at hand, this wouldn't be the time to start—

“Oh, look!” she said. “Another ship!”

It was a sleek, three-masted clipper, sails billowing as it tacked from westward, on a course that seemed designed to intercept the
Southern Belle
. Ryder could see the crewmen scurrying about on deck, doing whatever sailors did to maximize a vessel's speed.

“You don't suppose we'll hit it, do you?” asked Irene.

“Doubtful.”

As if on cue, the
Belle
sounded its warning whistle, sharp and shrill.

“They're putting up a flag!” Irene exclaimed.

“It isn't just a flag,” said Ryder. “That's a Jolly Roger.”

“What?”

“It means they're pirates, and they plan to come aboard.”

R
yder led Irene McGowan to her cabin on the
Southern Belle
's topmost deck, instructed her to lock the door, then hurried back downstairs to his own cabin amidships. There, he donned his pistol belt, double-checking the Colt's cylinder, then loaded fifteen .44-caliber rounds into his Henry rifle's tubular magazine. A quick pump on the lever-action put one cartridge in the chamber, permitting Ryder to load a sixteenth round before he left and locked his cabin.

When the Union Army had begun to issue Henry rifles, Confederates armed with muzzle-loading weapons had complained that the new guns could be loaded on Sunday and fired all week. That wasn't strictly true, of course, but its high rate of fire—up to forty-five shots per minute by some estimates, in true expert hands—had proved devastating against charging lines of graycoats.

Ryder had only used his Henry for target shooting so far, but he knew that 200-grain bullets fired from its .44 rimfire cartridges left the rifle's muzzle traveling around eleven hundred feet per second. Too slow for big-game hunting or a long-range shot of any accuracy, but the slugs were hell on human targets out to fifty yards or so.

And Ryder didn't think the pirates would be that far from the
Southern Belle.

The packet's whistle shrieked as Ryder made his way back to the main deck, jostling other passengers along the way. Panic was spreading, heightened by a crack of pistol fire across the water as the clipper closed to firing range. Some of the people Ryder passed drew back from him, seeing the rifle in his hands, but he ignored them. What they thought of him was meaningless. His sole priority was to prevent the raiders clambering aboard the
Southern Belle
and wreaking bloody havoc there.

They had a decent chance, he thought, assuming that the steamer's captain didn't quail and cut his speed in some misguided bid to save the boat. In that case, Ryder knew, it could mean fighting hand to hand along the rails, and from the flight of passengers he'd seen so far, it didn't seem that many were inclined to risk themselves in combat for the Leary Line.

What they'd forgotten was that once the pirates came on board, no one was safe.

The very thought of pirates raiding in the modern day and age struck Ryder as ridiculous, but it was happening, and it brought back to mind what William Wood had told him about Galveston. He had no reason to believe that these were Bryan Morley's men, but meeting them was an ironic introduction to his job in Galveston.

Now, all he had to do was stay alive for the remainder of the trip.

Which might prove difficult.

The clipper was already close beside the
Southern Belle
when Ryder reached the main deck, one of its burly crewmen leaping toward the packet, catching hold of its brass rail. He was a bearded thug, with a revolver tucked under his belt and a long knife clenched in his teeth, freeing both hands for climbing as he came aboard, snarling at nearby passengers to frighten them away.

Instead of fleeing, Ryder stepped up to the rail and slammed his Henry's brass butt plate into the scowling face, driving the blade back through its hairy cheeks with an impressive splash of blood. Squealing, the pirate lost his grip and tumbled backward, falling in between the clipper and the
Southern Belle,
where he was lost to sight.

Another burst of gunfire crackled from the clipper, sending Ryder down below the steamer's gunwale to avoid the bullets flying overhead. As he was ducking, Ryder glimpsed the name painted across the clipper's bow:
Revenant,
which, if he recalled correctly, was some kind of ghost or evil spirit.

Apt enough, under the circumstances.

Ryder wormed his way along the gunwale, moving forward, while his would-be killers wasted ammunition on the spot where they had seen him last. One of the fleeing passengers was cut down as he headed aft, thrashing around a deck suddenly slick with blood.

Ryder popped up, shouldered the Henry for a hasty shot, and winged one of the pistoleers who lined the clipper's starboard rail. The man let out a squawk and lurched away, his left arm dangling, while the others turned their guns toward Ryder and he ducked back under cover.

There'd been no opportunity for him to count the men aboard the
Revenant,
but guesswork pegged the number visible on deck near twenty-five or thirty. Not a large force, in comparison to passengers aboard the
Southern Belle,
but none of those showed any inclination yet to join Ryder in fending off attackers. He could understand the women running, some with kids, but he had hoped at least a handful of the men would stand and fight.

Where was the crew? Were there no arms aboard for such emergencies, when they were hauling U.S. mail?

Instead of waiting for a hero to appear, Ryder continued on his slow way toward the steamer's bow, staying below the gunwale as he crawled along on hands and knees. The deck was clear now, as other passengers had ducked into companionways or fled back to their cabins. He supposed they meant to hide out if the
Southern Belle
was overrun, a sign that fear had robbed them of their basic common sense.

If pirates took the steamer, they'd be going door to door in search of plunder, maybe killing as they went. He didn't like the women's chances of remaining unmolested, thinking some of them might be hauled off as hostages or worse. He didn't know of any slavery per se remaining in the world, but chivalry and pirates didn't go together in his mind, either. Ryder imagined females being used, then tossed over the side to rid the
Revenant'
s rough crew of witnesses, wherever they were going next.

Unless he stopped them here and now.

*   *   *

T
he next time Ryder risked a look over the rail, the
Revenant
seemed to be losing speed, letting the
Southern Belle
pull out ahead. It made no sense, until he saw a clutch of half a dozen pirates at the clipper's stern, manhandling a pair of wooden beams they'd propped across its starboard rail. He took another moment, putting it together, then saw that they meant to jam the steamer's paddle-wheel if they could manage it.

He risked a rifle shot from where he was but missed, and the returning storm of pistol fire drove Ryder back below the gunwale. All that he could think of now was getting to the pilothouse, to warn the steamer's captain and avert what might be crippling damage to the
Southern Belle.

But that meant leaving cover for a spring up narrow stairs, exposed in daylight to the shooters on the
Revenant.
Ryder supposed the run up to the bridge would take a minute, maybe two, in normal circumstances, but he couldn't outrun bullets on the best day that he'd ever had. Granted, the pirates hadn't shown much skill at marksmanship so far, but any hit at all—even an accidental one—could finish him.

Or, he could wait right where he was, until they jammed the paddle-wheel, then poured over the rail in strength.

No choice, really, at all.

Ryder was up and running in another heartbeat, half crouched, with his shoulders hunched in grim anticipation of a hot slug in the back. The pirates poured it on, but they were either hasty shots or poor ones, peppering the
Southern Belle'
s bulkhead but doing poorly with a moving target. Even so, as Ryder reached the stairs—or “ladder,” as the sailors called it—rising to the wheelhouse, he was sure that he had stretched his luck beyond the breaking point.

Somehow, he made it to the bridge without taking a hit. The port side door was closed, but opened to his touch. Slipping inside, he ducked again as gunfire smashed the window to his left, glass flying everywhere.

Ryder had glimpsed the steamboat's captain from a distance, several times during their voyage, and had been impressed with both his size and his demeanor. Six foot four or five in height, and barrel-chested, graying hair and beard to match. He hardly looked the part of a commander now, as Ryder found him on one knee behind the steamer's large spoked steering wheel, cringing from bullets as they whistled overhead.

Seeing Ryder with his rifle on the bridge, the captain closed his eyes, clung to the wheel, and said, “All right, then. Shoot! You may as well.”

Ryder crouched down beside him, saying, “Listen, Captain! I'm one of your passengers. You probably have pirates on the
Belle
by now, and they're about to jam the paddle-wheel.”

“We're finished, then,” the captain told him, bitterly. “My crew's not worth a damn for fighting. In the old days—”

“Can you get more speed out of the engines?” Ryder interrupted him.

“Maybe a knot or two.”

“What's that mean?”

“It's a measurement of—”

“Never mind. Do what you can. I'll try to hold them off.” Retreating toward the open wheelhouse door, he paused and added, “If you get a chance, why don't you ram the bastards.”

“Dangerous,” the captain said.

“You think we're not in danger now?”

Gunfire was crackling from the
Revenant
as he emerged, the pistols' popping punctuated by a shotgun blast. From his position at the apex of the steamer's superstructure, Ryder had a clear view of the pirate clipper and its men still laboring to jam the larger vessel's paddle-wheel with wooden beams, her captain shouting orders at them from the bridge. Although exposed to gunfire from below, he paused to aim his Henry down the full length of the
Southern Belle
and triggered two quick shots in the direction of the wrecking crew.

One found its mark and dropped a pirate twitching to the deck. Without him, two more who'd been helping aim one of the long beams toward the steamer's paddle-wheel were thrown off balance, lost their grip, and watched it tip over the gunwale, gone.

Which just left one.

Unfortunately, shooters on the
Revenant
had Ryder spotted now, and they were pouring on the pistol fire. Their aim had not improved, but they came close enough to make him drop and crawl along the deck, working his slow way toward the stern. Beneath him, Ryder felt the steamboat shudder as it put on extra speed, but he had no idea if it would be enough.

And there
were
pirates on the paddle-wheeler now. He heard them calling back and forth to one another from the main deck, mostly cursing, while a woman screamed somewhere below him, toward the stern. It set his teeth on edge, but Ryder knew there were too many passengers aboard the
Southern Belle
for him to help them individually. His first priority was making sure the pirates didn't stop the
Belle
dead in the water, where it would be easy prey.

And that was proving difficult enough.

In fact, he thought, it might turn out to be impossible.

*   *   *

T
hroughout his tenure with the U.S. Marshals Service, Ryder had been called upon to fire his pistol only once. As luck would have it, that event had ended his career—and, indirectly, placed him in his current life-or-death predicament. He wasn't squeamish when it came to shooting, but he'd never pictured holding off an army, either.

Or, was this part of a navy?

Either way, quick action was required, or he was sunk.

When he had crawled approximately half the steamer's length, Ryder popped up again and risked another glance in the direction of the stern. All five remaining pirates there were grappling with the one remaining spar, trying to jam the churning paddle-wheel, but its ungainly length and weight was stalling them. Before their shipmates had another chance to spot him, Ryder raised the Henry rifle to his shoulder, sighting down its twenty-four-inch barrel toward the clipper's stern.

His first shot drilled one of the pirates closest to the rail, pitching him forward so his body fell across the beam, adding more weight as his supporting grip was lost. His next round hit the crewman bracing up the butt end of the spar and sent him tumbling to the deck. Before Ryder could fire again, the other three gave up and scampered off in search of cover, while the beam slid overboard.

One problem down, but now the pistoleers were after him again, slugs hammering the steamer's woodwork all around him. Ryder ducked into a nearby passageway that ran from port to starboard and descended to the middle deck from there, safe for the moment with the full bulk of the
Southern Belle
between the pirates and himself. As for the boarders from the
Revenant,
he'd have to hunt them down and deal with them as best he could.

And it appeared that he'd be doing it alone.

Ryder heard shouts, screams, crashing sounds as cabins were invaded, raiders kicking in the doors. He ran in that direction, through another passageway to reach the port side of the boat, nearer the
Revenant.
Halfway along, another figure blocked the daylight at the far end of the passageway—a burly, bearded man with a revolver in his hand, aimed straight at Ryder's face.

The shooter pulled his trigger, and the pistol's hammer fell with a resounding
snap.

Misfire!

Ryder bellowed and charged him, swung the Henry's butt into the big man's groin and heard the air evacuate his lungs as he hunched over, clutching at himself. Ryder's momentum carried both of them along the short remainder of the passageway and to the steamer's railing, where a final shove was all it took to roll the pirate overboard.

Shark bait? It didn't matter, just so long as he was gone.

Close to the
Revenant
again, Ryder took cover at the gunwale and began to rapid-fire across the rail, spraying the clipper's deck with lead. He hit one of the crewmen, likely not a fatal wound, and saw more of them dive for cover. From the bridge, one of the crew—maybe the man in charge—was shouting to be heard over the sharp reports of gunfire, calling to the members of his boarding party.

“Ahoy! Belay the boarding! All hands back to me!”