The Dawn of Fury (29 page)

There were plenty of poker tables in the Red Rooster, most of them fully occupied. When two men folded, Nathan and Silver took their places at a table with three big men who looked like bullwhackers. Their names were Keller, Zondo, and Thigpen. The three were well oiled, and their skill with the cards—if they had any—had suffered mightily. It was table stakes. Nathan took two pots and Silver took the next two.

“You varmints is winnin' jist too damn often to suit me,” said Thigpen, loud enough for the entire saloon to hear.

“I don't play to suit you,” said Silver coldly.

“You know, Silver,” Nathan said, “Thigpen is almighty close to Pigpen.”

“By God,” said Silver, “you're right. I been wondering what that smell was.”

Thigpen's two companions had already folded. They roared with laughter, along with everybody else who had heard the exchange.

“Damn you,” Thigpen shouted, “cut the palaver an' play poker. I raise you ten.”

“I'll see that,” said Silver, “and I raise you twenty.”

“I'm out,” Nathan said.

“My deal,” said Thigpen with a triumphant smirk.

“One card,” Silver said.

Thigpen dealt the single card, and before he could deal for himself, Silver's cold voice stopped him.

Thigpen seemed about to strangle on his fury as he carefully slid a card off the top of the deck. It was time to put up or shut up, and Thigpen came up lacking. The best he could do was three aces. When Silver showed his hand, he had four kings.

“You bastard,” Thigpen snarled. “I should of—”

“Drawn a fourth ace,” said Silver. “It's on the bottom of the deck.”

With a heave, Thigpen upended the table. He heaved a whiskey bottle, but Silver ducked and the bottle struck somebody else. Another bullwhacker had drawn back a Colt to slug Silver, but a slug from Nathan's left-hand weapon sent the Colt spinning. Some of the bullwhackers were so drunk they began slugging one another, while others drew their guns and began shooting. The affair had gotten out of hand and quickly became a knock-down saloon brawl. On hands and knees, Nathan and Silver began crawling toward what they hoped was a back door. Finally out of the fray, they got to their feet and escaped out the back door into an alley.

“We'd best find another place and get off the street,” Silver panted.

“Yeah,” Nathan agreed. “They'll pull the Red Rooster's tail feathers plumb out, and it'll cost a pile to put the place back together.”

They reached another saloon whose back door stood open, with lamplight leaking out into the alley.

“We'd best ease around and go in through the front door,” said Silver. “If the law comes nosin' around, the bartenders will remember any likely pair that snuck in from the alley.”

They ducked between two buildings and found themselves on a boardwalk between a saloon and an eatery.

“To hell with the saloon,” Nathan said. “Let's get some coffee and maybe some pie. That'll give us a chance to catch our wind and find out if anybody's lookin' for us.”

They walked into the little cafe, and since it was early evening, found it crowded. There were no available tables, so Nathan and Silver took stools at the counter. The coffee was hot and black, and they sipped their way through a first cup before starting on the pie. By the time their cups had been refilled, it seemed unlikely that they had been pursued as a result of the ruckus in the Red Rooster.

“Well,” Silver said, “I know a place where the women are young and not too hard to look at. Not free, of course, but reasonable.”

“I don't think so,” said Nathan. “I hate to say it, but that bunk on the
Queen of Diamonds
is looking better by the minute.”

Silver laughed. “I wouldn't have thought one saloon fight would leave you runnin' for cover.”

“Well, by God,” Nathan said, “I didn't see you hanging around for the finish. I've been in enough saloon brawls to learn that they usually end with somebody gettin' shot and the law comin' at a fast gallop. Last time I tangled horns with a slick dealer, him and his pard drew on me. I had to shoot the varmints to save my own hide, and
still
had to shuck out of there without the pot I'd fought for. A man ought to have better sense than to sit in on those small-stakes games with saloon riffraff. You lay with dogs, you end up with fleas.”

“After tonight,” Silver said, serious for a change, “I'd have to agree with you. When you pulled iron, I thought you were going to drill somebody. That was one damn good shot. By all rights, that hombre should have been a dead man.”

“I'd never kill a man in a saloon brawl,” said Nathan, “unless there was no other way. Dead men—even those in the wrong—have friends, and if they don't come after you, they'll send the law.”

“We'd as well mosey on back to the
Queen of Diamonds,”
Silver said. “If we wander into another saloon, we're just likely to run into those varmints from the Red Rooster, ready to continue the fight.”

Reaching the landing, Nathan and Silver could see the dim hulk of the steamboat. Near the gangplank sat one of the crew in a deck chair. Quietly he got up and lowered the plank. Nathan recognized the man as one of the waiters. He immediately raised the gang plank, once Nathan and Silver were aboard. They were past the lounge and saloon, nearing their cabin, when they were frozen in their tracks by a scream. Drawing their Colts as they ran, Nathan and Silver headed for the lounge, only to find it empty. They shoved through the swinging doors and into the kitchen. There they found the gambler, Harkness, standing over the body of Shekela. The girl had been stripped to the waist. Nathan had the shaken Harkness covered, his Colt cocked, while Silver knelt beside the girl.

“She's dead,” said Silver grimly.

“It was an accident,” Harkness whined. “I ... I ... she fell . . .”

“You can tell it to the captain, Harkness,” Silver said. “Stone, keep him covered while I go for Captain Lambert.”

“That won't be necessary,” Lambert growled, shoving through the swinging doors and into the kitchen. Behind him was the crewman who had lowered the plank for Nathan and Silver to come aboard. Lambert, in a fury, turned on the cowering Harkness.

“Speak up, damn you,” Lambert bawled.

“She . . . she agreed to ... to meet me here,” Harkness stammered, “but she ... she ... tried to back out . . .”

“And you strangled her,” said Silver. “Her neck's broken.”

“No,” Harkness cried, “no. She . . . she fell . . .

Captain Lambert took from his pocket a key, which he handed to Byron Silver. “Take him to the lower deck,” Lambert said, “and lock him in one of the cabins. He is to remain there until we reach New Orleans. He will then be turned over to Mr. Stumberg.”

“No,” Harkness begged. “Please.” His face was pasty white, and he sank to his knees before Captain lambert.

“Get him away from me,” Lambert snarled in disgust. “You,” he said, his hard eyes on Nathan, “take the girl's body to the first deck, and when Silver has disposed of this ... vermin, he will unlock another of the cabins. Leave the girl there until I determine what we are to do with her.”

The trembling Harkness stumbled ahead of Silver and practically fell down the hatch to the lower deck. Nathan wasn't so fortunate. He finally had to take the dead girl by the wrists and, easing her as near the lower deck as he could, drop her the rest of the way. He swallowed hard, sick to his stomach. Reaching the first deck, he shouldered the body of the hapless girl and made his way along the dimly lit corridor, following Silver.

“That's far enough,” said Silver. Taking the key Lambert had given him, he unlocked the sixth door on the right, and finally, the barred door. “Now, he said, ”get in there.”

Harkness stumbled in and fell to the floor, sobbing. Silver slammed the barred door, locking it, and then locking the outside door. Without a word, he unlocked both doors to the fifth cabin and swung them back. Nathan took Shekela inside and eased her down on the lower bunk. For just a moment, he thought Silver was going to slam and lock the barred door. It would have been a treacherous thing to do, and Nathan couldn't understand why the possibility of it had crossed his mind. Quickly he stepped into the dim corridor, and Silver locked both the doors. Only then did Silver speak.

“This is one hell of a mess. Stumberg will have Harkness skinned alive, and maybe us with him, just on general principles.”

“I don't take kindly to bein' gunned down in another man's fight,” said Nathan. “We had nothing to do with this.”

“Try talking sense to Stumberg when he's killing mad,” Silver replied. “My God, it can't get any worse than this.”

But it could, and did. Nathan and Silver reached the second deck to find Captain Lambert bellowing like a fresh-cut bull, while the entire crew—even the pilots—thundered down the gangplank to the landing. Lambert, red-faced, so angry he couldn't speak, glared at Nathan and Silver.

“Now what's happened?” Silver asked, as mildly as he could.

“The damn fool I had manning the plank left his post,” Lambert shouted, “and the other girl—Trinity—jumped ship. The two of you get the hell out there and look for her.”

Again Nathan and Silver left the steamboat, joining the mystified crew in what seemed like a fruitless search. There wouldn't be a moon until later, and the only light was the little that leaked through the doors and windows of the saloons and eateries, several hundred yards distant.

“Captain or not,” said Nathan, “he's not playing with a full deck. Hell, the man left his post to tell Lambert something was wrong. With this old fool, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.”

“I wouldn't be too harsh on the captain,” Silver replied. “He's afraid. Afraid of Stumberg, and like a mortally wounded rattler, he's striking out at anything and anybody within reach.”

The desperate crewmen searched until almost midnight, going into every eatery and saloon along the river. Nathan and Silver searched streets leading away from the landing, toward town, to no avail. Wearily they started back to the landing, and found most of the crew waiting there, like dejected, lost sheep.

“Damn it,” said one of the men, “she ain't to be found. I say we go on back and tell the old grizzly, and be done with it.”

“God,” Stevens groaned, “we're in for it.”

It was worse than they had expected. Captain Elias Lambert stormed up and down the deck, cursing every man and his ancestors back three generations. Finally his shoulders slumped and the life seemed to go out of him. Quietly he turned to Silver.

“What would you have us do?”

“Call off the search, sir,” said Silver. “All the commotion around the landing is starting to attract attention in the saloons and cafes. It won't take much for somebody to call the law to investigate.”

“Everybody aboard,” Lambert said. “Hennessy, you raise the plank. The firemen to your posts. The rest of you to your quarters. We depart in the morning at eight bells.”

Nathan and Silver, back at their bunks, could not sleep. It was Silver who finally spoke.

“I reckon Harkness deserves whatever Stumberg chooses to do with him, but I can't help sympathizing with the poor bastard. He's there in the pitch dark, without even a light.”

“You still have the key,” said Nathan. “If we slipped down there and lit a lamp for him, would Lambert have us drawn and quartered?”

“Only if he finds out about it,” Silver said. He got up, opened the door and looked down the corridor. “Come on. It's clear.”

They stepped into the corridor and Nathan closed the door behind them. Even if Lambert caught them, they might survive his fury as long as they were on the main deck, but they couldn't remain there. In their sock feet, they practically slid through the hatch and down the steel-runged ladder to the dimly lit first deck. There was nobody to observe them except the two firemen who fed the fireboxes at the forwardmost end of the deck. It took but a moment for Silver to slip the key in the lock and swing back the first door, and that was as far as they needed to go. There had been no light, but Harkness hadn't needed any, nor would he ever again. Around the gambler's head was a halo of blood, while the dead fingers of his right hand gripped a .41-caliber sleeve gun. Harkness had shot himself in the temple.

“God,” said Silver, closing and locking the door.

“Are you going to tell the captain?”