Smugglers' Gold (10 page)

“It sounds to me like you're nursing a grudge against this guy for no good reason.”

“Oh, you'll hear my reasons when I've dug them up.”

“Uh-huh. Meanwhile, don't go off half-cocked. And keep your boys away from him.”

“I won't do anything without your say-so, Bryan. You know that.”

“I know you'd better not.” Then Marley smiled and placed a hand on Otto's shoulder, saying, “Just relax for once. Try to enjoy a bit of life.”

“Who's got the time?” Seitz asked. “We have that load coming tomorrow, and I wouldn't be surprised if somebody took up the slack for Menefee. On top of that—”

“G'night, Otto. I'm going home. Stay here and worry to your heart's content if you've a mind to.”

“Bryan—”

“But remember what I said. Hands off!”

“Hands off,” Seitz solemnly affirmed. Thinking,
My hands, at least. For now.

But when he had the evidence he needed, that would be another story. How to find it was the problem, or to recognize it once he had the proof in hand. And having made that recognition he would strike decisively, no begging Marley for the go-ahead. Given a choice between securing permission or forgiveness, Seitz would gamble on forgiveness nine times out of ten.

And this time, Otto realized, he could be gambling with his life.

George Revere—or whatever his name was—had impressed the boss. Okay. That part was understandable. You help a man out of tight corner, he's going to be grateful. Help him twice, and kill one of his enemies while you were doing it, you rose dramatically within his estimation. Knocking him back to normal size, and further down from there, would take some thought and effort.

Otto needed something dirty. Not a woman thing, or opium. Something that would diminish George Revere in Marley's eyes, make him expendable.

No, more than that. Something to be disposed of without hesitation, eagerly.

Or he could do the job himself, then turn around and blame it on some other gang in Galveston. Maybe just leave it unexplained, plead innocence when Marley questioned him and stick to that no matter what. The city was a rough place, dangerous, and Bryan's new best friend had shown a knack for making enemies.

Might be a way to go, if he was desperate. But first, Otto preferred to find out what was truly wrong with George Revere. Sniff out the rot that marked him as a danger to their gang and serve it up to Marley on a silver platter. Make it so that Bryan would be champing at the bit to kill Revere himself.

Otto would miss out on the fun that way, but vindication was its own reward. As much as he loved Marley—as a brother, mind you, not like a couple of Marys—Seitz admitted to himself that he would like to see his old friend taken down a peg or two. Leave him in charge, of course, but help him understand that others had a way of seeing things he might find helpful, worthy of considering.

Better a moment of embarrassment than being brought low by a stranger he had trusted on an impulse. Otto did not seek a change in leadership for their effective team, but if he thought about it now, who better to succeed his old friend than himself?

It would require a vote, simple majority if no one challenged him. And why would anyone dispute Otto's succession if he personally had revealed a traitor in their ranks? Of course, it would be tragic if he couldn't stop that traitor from eliminating Bryan Marley before Otto's bullets cut him down.

Something to think about,
he told himself. And smiled.

*   *   *

B
ack in his rented room, Ryder considered what he'd done to the policemen. If they had been sent for him particularly, by the captain he had irritated, Ryder thought that he—or rather, George Revere—could be in trouble. On the other hand, if they'd been watching out for anyone from Marley's gang, there was a fair chance that they wouldn't know his name or his address in Galveston. A third alternative, and the least likely, would apply if they'd been simply watching out for anyone to roust and picked on Ryder by coincidence. In that case, Ryder thought, he would be free and clear.

But there were still the badges—no. 59 and no. 107—lying on the nightstand next to Ryder's narrow bed. It seemed unlikely to him that the city would employ that many officers, allowing for sequential issuance of numbers, but it ultimately made no difference. At least two cops would be intent on punishing the man who'd knocked them out and walked off with their tin, if they could manage to identify him. They'd be furious, might even put the order out to gun him down on sight, which would do nothing to help Ryder with the job at hand.

He had not counted on assistance from the local law, but neither had he figured on them hunting him. Ryder would treat it as another complication, keep his head down, and attempt to persevere. Meanwhile, he had another job ahead of him with Marley, shifting cargo on the docks at noon, which ought to rule out gunplay.

Maybe.

After two nights on the island, Ryder knew that he could take nothing for granted. No one from the crew that he had joined was trustworthy beyond completion of the basic tasks assigned to them, and any who suspected that he worked for law enforcement would dispose of him without a second thought, given the chance. Their competition, on the other hand, might kill him simply for consorting with the Marley crew. As for the local coppers, he'd been warned to view them as corrupt and likely brutal, not an element to trifle with.

His mission still remained a relatively simple one: catch Marley and the others smuggling contraband, avoiding payment of the legal duties, and deliver his report to William Wood in Washington. When it was time to make arrests, he had been told that reinforcements would be waiting, ready to assist since one man could not be expected to corral a gang. Ryder expected Yankee soldiers, if the city force could not be trusted, but he'd have to wait and see how things progressed. If Wood had any influence over the Texans—doubtful, on the face of it—Ryder might still find ways to work with some of them.

At least the ones he hadn't knocked unconscious.

Before lying down to sleep, he cleaned the Colt Army, reloaded it, and checked the barrel to be sure he hadn't knocked it out of true when he'd applied it to a pair of bony skulls. Finding no damage to the weapon, confident it would perform upon demand when needed, he stretched out atop his blankets, still wearing his shirt and trousers.

If someone decided to surprise him in the middle of the night, or at the crack of dawn, Ryder intended to be ready for them. If attacked, he would defend himself by any means available. The Henry rifle lying on the floor next to his bed was fully loaded, with a live round in the chamber, giving him a decent chance of fighting clear should someone try to storm the room.

And if the raiders were police?

He pushed that prospect out of mind and settled back to sleep, shifting his thoughts to Tampa and Irene McGowan, wondering if she had found her family and settled in with them. Ryder had no reason to think they'd ever meet again, but thinking of her settled him a bit. And later, in his dreams, when she got mixed up with Nell at Awful Annie's, Ryder had no reason to complain.

S
tede Pickering enjoyed the feel of salt spray in his face, running across blue water with wind in his sails and the whole world in front of him, his for the taking. It was freedom, nothing more or less, the legacy his forebears had passed down to him through generations of dependence on themselves and no one else. As for the law, it was an inconvenience he avoided when he could, or met head on and shattered by pure brute force.

Another feeling he enjoyed.

The clipper had made good time from Tampico, with a stop at Corpus Christi, and was bound for Galveston. The gold Stede carried in the clipper's hold—some seven hundred pounds of it, concealed in crates of textiles—would be worth a little over thirteen thousand dollars on the open market, but the price he got in fact would be reduced by one-third at the dock, since the receivers had to cover costs of storing and distributing the contraband. The gems, pried out of rings and necklaces and such, sorted by type and quality, would bring another two, perhaps three thousand dollars.

Then, there was the ganja, grown and processed in Jamaica, where the clipper stopped at monthly intervals to fill its hold. Stede normally preferred a mug of rum when he was trying to relax, but he had tried the ganja once. A merchant's duty to his customers, learning his products inside out. It gave a pleasant lift, without the rage that sometimes settled over him when he was drinking heavily, but Stede still liked the potent kick of alcohol. Most of his ganja
customers, before the war, had been plantation owners looking for a way to pacify their slaves—or so they'd said. He didn't know who used it now and frankly didn't care. The thousand pounds he carried should be worth four hundred dollars to him, more or less.

All told, when he had paid his crew and covered various expenses, Stede should have about five thousand dollars in his pocket. Not a princely sum, but it was more than most seafaring men would earn in eight or ten years' time. And once he'd spent it, celebrating his good fortune, he would start all over with another load. His cache of gold and gems was not exhausted yet, and by the time it was he meant to be retired, a member of the leisured class, perhaps inhabiting a private island of his own.

One place he wouldn't want to live was Galveston. Its crowded wharf and streets were like a glimpse of Hell to someone who had known and learned to love the freedom of the open sea. When Stede put into port and tried to walk through Galveston, he couldn't make a block without some stranger bumping into him and snarling as if
he
had been the clumsy one. He had thumped a few over the years, had been arrested once and forced to pay a fine for what they called battery, laughing up his sleeve the whole time at the things he'd done, which they would never know about.

The clipper was Stede's favorite ship, at least for now. He'd have to scuttle it someday, most likely sometime in the next few months, but there would always be another. For the moment, he enjoyed its speed and all he had accomplished as its captain. In Tampico, he had changed its name, the paint still bright and crisp across its bow.

Banshee.

He liked the sound of it, the images that it evoked. Stede was a superstitious man, like most sailors, although not religious in the normal sense. He'd witnessed savage rituals in Haiti, what they called
vodou,
and in Cuba, where Catholic saints were mixed into black magic for something called
Santería
. Stede had seen people possessed and behaving like animals, slathered with blood in the name of religion, and didn't know whether their prayers would be answered by gods or by demons.

Not that any of it mattered to him, either way.

Stede named his ships for ghosts because they were elusive, flitting here and there across the sea in answer to the winds and to their captain's will. And ghosts were frightening to most people, which often helped Stede in his chosen occupation as a predator. He changed the names from time to time, if they became well known, and made various superficial alterations to the vessels, thereby helping to prolong their useful life.

Banshee.

It had a nice ring to it.

And he had been growing bored with
Revenant.

*   *   *

T
he waterfront was busy by the time Ryder arrived, ten minutes early for his meeting with the Marley crew. Upon arrival he had ascertained that work gangs labored more or less around the clock in Galveston, unloading cargo and replacing it with merchandise bound for other cities, some halfway around the world. Watching the segregated groups of stevedores, hearing the shouted orders from their foremen, Ryder wondered how much different the process was from antebellum days, when all the grunt work had been done by slaves.

That was illegal now, of course, at least in theory. A thirteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution had been passed in Congress and ratified by twenty-three states, but still stood four states short of final ratification. Four of the eleven Rebel states had ratified the ban on slavery, which still left seven holding out, dragging their feet, Texas among them. It appeared that some Confederates still didn't realize they'd lost the war. An irritating fact, but not Ryder's concern just now.

He spotted Bryan Marley, standing near a hot tamale stand with Otto Seitz and several others Ryder recognized from their adventure of the night before. A pair of horse-drawn wagons sat to one side of the group, waiting to haul whatever merchandise they were expecting. Ryder made his way to join them, noting the change of expression on Otto's face as he picked Ryder out of the crowd. Seitz said something to Marley, speaking from one side of his mouth, and Marley turned to watch Ryder approaching.

“George,” he said, “I'm glad you made it.”

“It was touch and go,” Ryder replied.

“How's that?”

“I had a spot of trouble on the way back to my boardinghouse last night.” He palmed the badges from his pocket, handing them to Marley.

“So, what's this?” asked Marley, clearly puzzled.

“Cops,” Ryder explained. “They tried to jump me, but I beat them to it.”

“Beat them how?” Seitz interjected, frowning.

“They're alive,” said Ryder. “Or they were, with headaches, when I left them. I can't say what might have happened to them lying there, if someone hostile came along.”

“You took their badges . . . why?” asked Marley.

Ryder shrugged. “Why not?”

“Coppers don't like being embarrassed,” Seitz advised.

“Too bad. They had worse than embarrassment in mind for me, I'd say. With these”—he nodded toward the badges Marley held—“you can identify them.”

“What's the point of that?” Seitz asked.

Ryder allowed himself another shrug. “It seems to me you must be paying off some of the law in town. If these two are collecting from you, Bryan here deserves to know he didn't get his money's worth.”

Marley was nodding. “That's good thinking, George,” he said and put the badges in his pocket. “I'll hang on to these and see who they belong to. If they're on our list, they'll need a talking to.”

“Your call,” said Ryder, with a pointed glance at Otto as he added, “You're the boss.”

Seitz couldn't very well object to that, but he was obviously fuming as he turned his full attention toward the Gulf of Mexico. “This should be it,” he said, to no one in particular.

Scanning the water, Ryder saw a clipper gliding into port, its crewmen scrambling like monkeys in the rigging, trimming sails. The ship sparked something in his memory, but Ryder told himself that clippers shared a common slender form and deep draft, built for speed, with sails aplenty to take full advantage of the slightest wind. There was no reason why this clipper should not bear a close resemblance to another that he'd seen, not long ago.

Five minutes later, Ryder saw the clipper's name—
Banshee
—painted across its bow, red letters on a white background. The paint looked bright and fresh, not weathered as it would have been by months at sea.

Coincidence, he told himself, but felt a niggling sense of apprehension in his stomach as the clipper docked and Marley's men rushed forward to secure its mooring lines. He waited for the gangplank to be lowered and the
Banshee
's captain to descend, greeted by Marley on the wharf, with Otto Seitz beside him. Only when the bearded, grinning captain reached the pier was Ryder's first impression finally confirmed.

He'd seen that face before, all right. Not smiling; shouting orders in the midst of battle.

Fresh paint might disguise the clipper's old name, but he recognized the skipper of the
Revenant.

*   *   *

B
ryan Marley met the
Banshee
's captain and his first mate at the bottom of the gangplank, shaking hands with both. Seitz hung at Marley's elbow, clearly wanting to be part of it, while Ryder hung back in the ranks of Marley's men collected on the pier.

“It's good to see you, Stede,” Marley addressed the captain, then turned to his mate and nodded. “Randy.”

“Same as ever,” said the first mate, grinning at a joke he obviously told at every given opportunity.

“You know Otto and all the boys,” Marley continued, nodding toward his crew.

“Not
all
of 'em,” the captain—Stede—replied. “I see a new face over there.”

Marley followed the sailor's gaze to Ryder. “Ah, you're right,” he said. “George, come on over here and meet a friend of mine.”

Ryder advanced to stand at Marley's side, letting him make the introductions.

“George Revere, Stede Pickering. He's captain of the
Banshee.
” Grinning, Marley added, “Though I do believe she had another name last time I saw her.”

“Names don't mean much to me,” said Pickering. “But I remember faces, and I'd say yours looks familiar.”

“Oh?” The best Ryder could do was act surprised.

“I've seen you someplace,” Pickering insisted. “Can't quite put my finger on it, but I figger it'll come to me.”

Trying to look confused, Ryder replied, “I'm pretty sure I would remember meeting you.”

“Ah, well, I never said I
met
you, laddy. What I said is that I've
seen
you. There's a difference you know.”

“That's true enough,” Ryder agreed. “I can't imagine where that would've been.”

“I'll work it out, don't worry.” With a grimace, Pickering inquired, “You ain't a copper, are you?”

Ryder forced a laugh and said, “Not even close.”

“He thumped a couple, though,” said Marley. “Just last night, in fact. And brought me these to show for it.”

He took the badges from his pocket, letting Pickering examine them. The captain's frown inverted, turned into a gold-toothed smile. “They'll have to spin a tale today, I reckon, showin' up without 'em.”

“So,” said Marley, pocketing the badges as he got around to business. “Have you got the goods?”

“Indeed I have, and then some,” Pickering confirmed. “Your lads ready to help off-load?”

“That's why they're here,” Marley confirmed.

“Well, come aboard then, and we'll get 'em started workin' for a living.”

“Don't say that,” Marley advised him. “It's what they've been trying to avoid.”

Pickering laughed at that and answered, “Ain't we all?”

The gangplank groaned beneath their weight as Marley led his team aboard the
Banshee.
Ryder eyed the crewmen lined up on the clipper's deck, around the open hold, but Pickering remained the only one he recognized. As they approached the hold, Stede Pickering ran down the list of cargo they'd be carrying ashore.

“I've got the usual pistoles and doubloons,” he said. “Say seven hundred pounds in all, whether you want to pass it on as is or melt it down.”

“At eighteen ninety-three per ounce,” Marley replied, “that's—”

“Thirteen thousand two hundred and fifty-one dollars, retail on the open market. Since we're not exactly
on
the open market, I'll be asking nine.”

Marley considered that, then nodded. “Done,” he said. “The rest?”

“A fair number of gems, including diamonds, rubies, emeralds, with some topaz and sapphires. As for carats, I would estimate . . . well, how does one million strike you?”

“Nearly three pounds,” Marley answered, when he'd done the calculation in his head. “How much?”

“Two thousand even,” Pickering replied.

“All right. And what about the ganja?”

“Say another seven hundred pounds. I'd like to get four hundred for it.”

“Fair enough. I've got a couple wagons standing by.”

“What's ganja?” Ryder asked Ed Parsons, standing to his left.

Parsons responded with a crooked smile. “It's like tobacco, with an extra kick to it. You oughta try it, Georgie.”

“Hmmm.”

“You owe it to yourself to live a little,” Parsons said.

“I'll think about it,” Ryder said.

“Ask little Nell about that ganja, next time you go up to see her in her crib,” Parsons suggested, chuckling as he moved off toward the
Banshee
's open cargo hatch.

Ryder watched him go and put the ganja out of mind. He had been sent to document smuggling of gold and gems, a mission now completed once he traced the
Banshee
's cargo to wherever Marley planned to stash it. Somewhere within Galveston, he calculated, for convenience. One thing the town had in abundance was warehouses, and a big-time smuggler without storage space available would soon be out of work.

“Awright,” Stede Pickering called out to Marley's men. “You came to work, so get your backs into it!”

*   *   *