Текст книги "Clementine"

Автор книги: Cherie Priest

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

11. CAPTAIN CROGGON BEAUREGARD HAINEY

Simeon squinted at the sky and drew a quick, hard sip from his cigarette before tossing it aside. He asked, “You see that?” and he cocked his head towards a corner of the sky where a fistful of puffy clouds were parting to make way for something heavy, high, and dark.

The captain’s scarred face widened with delight. “Men,” he said, “Watch for it. Look-let it land. You see where it’s going?”

The craft swayed as it sought a place to settle; it moved drunkenly and slow, too loaded down to fly swift or straight. It hummed and hovered over the Waverly Hills compound. Atop the low central mound where the sanatorium hulked, the Free Crowslipped and jerked through the air as if it threatened to land on the roof, but it did not rest there. It swung over to the side and behind the main building, into the trees beyond it-where there must have been another clearing, or perhaps a landing dock designed for just such a purpose.

“How are we going to play this, Captain?” Lamar wanted to know. “Do we catch them mid-air, or do we let them land?”

The captain said, “Mid-air hasn’t worked so well, so far; but then again, we didn’t have a ship this strong. Still, this time let’s let them land, and we’ll take it out from under them.”

Simeon said, “We’re going to take it quiet, and let ’em walk back to Washington?”

“Not even if they ask nicely.” Hainey stomped back up the folding stairs that led inside the Valkyrie. “I don’t plan to leave any of the bastards standing. Or this bastard, either,” he indicated the ship he was entering.

“Sir?” Lamar asked.

The captain answered from the interior, “Engineer, I want you to unscrew that bottom armor plate along the rear hydrogen tank. Leave it naked, and be careful about it. But be fast.”

When he descended the stairs again, he had the Rattler slung across his shoulders. It had long since cooled from the assault in Kansas City, and although it was almost out of ammunition, another band of bullets sagged around the captain’s chest like a sash.

He continued, “We want to give them a few minutes to get themselves moored and get comfortable.” Then he asked Simeon, “You don’t think they saw us, do you? This is a big bird, but we’ve got some tree cover and the hill between us.”

“I couldn’t say. But I’d guess they didn’t.”

Hainey stripped the last handful of bullets out of the Rattler and began to thread the new band into its chambers. Lamar was already whacking at the armor with a wrench and a prybar, and they both finished their tasks in less than a minute; but Simeon joined Lamar, and between them they pulled away another crucial strip of plating, widening the vulnerable spot and giving themselves a bigger target.

“That ought to do it,” the captain declared. “Let’s leave it for now and go. It’ll be safer to blast it from the sky, anyway, and I think we’ve given Brink and his boys time enough to get our ship secured. Simeon, help me with this thing.”

Simeon took the barrel of the large, freshly loaded gun, and helped to carry it as if it were still suspended in a crate. Together they walked through the trees, down the hill, and around the back end of the building where an improvised landing pad had been cleared and a set of uncomplicated pipework docks had been established. From the edge of the clearing where Hainey, Simeon, and Lamar were hunkered and hiding, it looked like there had once been a building in the clearing-and now there was nothing left but its foundation, which made a perfectly serviceable spot in which to park an airship.

The Free Crow-improperly christened the Clementine-sagged on its moorings. None of the lines and clips that held it to the earth were strictly necessary, and none were drawn tight for the ship was so overburdened that without the fight of the engines, it would have sunk to the ground.

A pair of large Indian men milled about outside the ship. They looked enough alike to be brothers, but neither Hainey nor either of his crewmembers could guess which tribe they hailed from. Beside them, seated and scowling, was a heavily bandaged man with a wrapped foot, thigh, and hand. He fiddled with a makeshift crutch and swore under his breath.

Hainey whispered, “I knew I’d got one of them, back in Seattle.”

Lamar said, “You shouldn’t have fired inside the ship. You could’ve killed us all.”

The captain made half a shrug and said, “I know. But I was mad as hell, and being mad got the better of me. I wonder what man that is,” he said, and he meant that he wondered what position the crewman held. “I think his name is Guise. I know the first mate is a fellow called Parks, but I don’t see him out there.”

“He must be inside,” Simeon said.

From within the ship, a loud, repeated banging sound echoed throughout the hull. The sound had a sharp edge, like a sculptor’s chisel biting into stone; it rang with a timbre that made Hainey think of miners picking their way through coal. He said, “They’re trying to dig it out of her, I bet.”

“The diamond?” Lamar asked.

“That’s right. They’re digging through the cement in her coffin, trying to reach what she’s wearing. They should’ve started that sooner, rather than leaving it to the last minute like this.”

The first mate said, “Maybe there’s more cement than they bargained for.”

And Lamar suggested, “Maybe they were too busy running from us.”

Hainey nodded at the engineer and said, “I like your explanation better. Well, let’s get going.”

With Simeon’s help he hoisted the Rattler up onto his shoulders, and checked the smaller guns that hung on the belt around his waist. They did this with all the quiet they could muster, and they were at barely enough distance that they thought no one would hear them…until Hainey stood up straight, Rattler primed and ready, and found himself face-to-face with one of the Indians who had only a moment before been a hundred feet away.

The native man had a shape that looked like it’d been carved from a tree, and gleaming black hair that hung down almost to his hips. He was dressed like a white man, in a linen shirt tucked into a pair of denim pants.

Nothing rustled and no part of him moved. He did not even blink.

Simeon and Lamar were frozen to the spots where they stood, even though the newcomer appeared unarmed. It was too startling, the speed and silence with which this man had moved into their midst.

It occurred to all three black men at once that there’d actually been two Indians, down by the Free Crow. Their realization came a split second before the injured man beside the craft began to holler, “Where the hell did you two get off to? Eh? What’s going on?”

Within the ship, a man’s voice demanded to know, “What are you barking on about, Guise?”

“Them Indians done took off!”

“They’ll be back. Now if you’re not going to help in here, at least keep your mouth shut.”

At no point during the exchange had the Indian unfastened his eyes from the captain’s, but once Mr. Guise had sulked himself into quiet he said, very softly, “Hainey.”

“That’s me.”

“Yours,” he said, pointing at the craft.

Hainey gathered from the enunciation, or maybe from the brevity, that he was dealing with a fellow who spoke little to no English. He wasn’t sure how to proceed except to say, “Yes.”

The second Indian appeared behind Simeon, close enough that he could’ve harmed the first mate, but he simply stepped to join the man who must’ve been his brother, yes-Hainey could see the resemblance more strongly, when they stood together like that.

The second man said, “Seattle,” but he said it with at least one extra syllable, and he lodged an accent mark into the middle of it.

Hainey wasn’t sure if this was in reference to the old chief for whom the city was named, or the city itself, so he nodded in general agreement that yes, he’d been in the city; and yes, he knew of the chief. He said, “I got no gripe with him or his tribe, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Brink,” the first one said with disgust. Then the second man said, “You take,” and he pointed at the Free Crow. He said it with finality, and when he turned away, his brother did the same.

They walked into the woods as quietly as they’d emerged, and then they were gone.

Hainey hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath, but he had, and he let it out to say, “That was strange.”

His first mate sniffed. “Brink must not be much of a captain. Or maybe he’s all right to his white men, and not the rest.”

“There’s no telling,” Hainey said, with a tone that said he didn’t give a damn one way or the other. He strained under the weight of the Rattler, which was hard enough to balance when he was moving about-and as a stationary load, it was even worse to hold. “I wish we could’ve asked them about who else was on board, though.”

“They’ve got the one beat-up fellow outside. He won’t give us too much hassle,” Simeon said.

“Shot up,” Lamar corrected him. “And Brink, and probably a first mate. It might be three against three.”

“Four against three,” Hainey said, and he patted the Rattler. “Let’s go.”

The three men sneaked back behind the airship and then, on the captain’s signal, they rushed down the last of the hill and into the landing zone.

Simeon had his revolver up, loaded, and ready to fire; Lamar held a rifle that was poised to blow a hole in the first something or someone that got in his way. Hainey’s footsteps were twice as heavy as usual, and his shoulders screamed as the Rattler dug into them hard, jarring sinew and bone with every stride.

The injured Mr. Guise heard the oncoming rush when Hainey was still ten yards out; but bound in his bandages as he was, there was little he could do except yelp for his captain.

“Brink! Captain Brink!” he shouted.

“What now?”

“Company-” he said, though the last bit of the concluding “y” was sliced off by a bullet from Simeon. The bullet went straight through Guise’s throat and his head snapped back. His body toppled onto the hard foundation and bounced there, and except for the gurgling and the spreading blood, it didn’t otherwise make a scene.

“Jesus Christ!” a man declared from within the belly of the Free Crow. “Hold them off, I’ve almost got it!”

“They won’t shoot-not in here, not with the hydrogen!”

But outside, the Rattler was warming up. Its telltale whirring hum was cranking up to a faster grade and a higher pitch, and it would take nothing but the squeeze of a trigger to pepper the craft and all its occupants with bullets as long as a man’s palm.

“It’s Hainey!” someone announced, and through the front window glass, the captain spied a meaty, dark-haired man with a glare in his eyes and a deep frown cut into his face.

“Who else would it be?” said someone else, presumably Brink. “Draw up the bay stairs!” he ordered.

But Hainey wouldn’t have it. He said, “Help me, Sim. Help me aim,” and he guided the man with his eyes.

The first mate caught on fast, and braced his back against the captain’s. “Got the back end, sir. You point it, it’ll hold steady.”

And the captain squeezed the flat, wide trigger. A stream of ghastly firepower gushed in a line that strafed the bay stairs, cutting them into pieces-and then, on a second pass, tearing them altogether from their fittings. Over his shoulder, Hainey said, “We can fix that later!”

Above the din of the Rattler they heard the Free Crow’s engines hack to life. Brink had given the order to take off if they couldn’t hold their ground, but the ship was still moored and there hadn’t been time to manually disengage the hooks. The craft tried to rise but only lifted itself a few feet before the hitch squealed an objection, and the pipes leaned against the force of the engines and their thrust.

Like an unhappily snagged balloon, the craft lunged and heaved-doglike, at the end of a leash; it yanked with the fury of a horse strapped into an unwanted bit.

“Those docks won’t hold!” Lamar shouted.

“They’ll hold long enough!” A man swayed at the edge of the bay docks and caught himself on the edge, half out, and half inside the bucking ship.

“Sim!” the captain screamed, and the first mate braced himself, and he braced the Rattler, and the captain began firing again.

The burst took off part of the man’s arm and tore through his torso; when he fell he landed with a splat, not far from the body of Mr. Guise. Whoever he was-and Hainey felt certain that this was Parks, the first mate-he wasn’t dead and he even tried to rise enough to run. He hadn’t fallen far, only ten or twenty feet, and an arm was only an arm…though his side gushed with gore as he struggled to stand and move.

Hainey was having none of it.

A second carefully measured burst blew the man off his feet and sent him sprawling over the edge of the landing pad, no longer alive enough to bleed or run.

“Felton Brink!” Hainey roared.

No answer came, but the ship was now effectively unmanned, and it bobbed erratically against its tethers.

Slowly, and with a grating peal that could be heard even above the whine and romp of the engines, an amazingly sized block came skidding out of the bay door-where there was no longer a set of stairs or a folding portal to prevent it from scooting out, tipping over, and dropping to the earth with a crashing crunch. It did not quite shatter but it cracked throughout; and it did not fall unaccompanied. Behind the block of battered cement, a head full of bright red hair ducked-but it didn’t duck so fast that Hainey hadn’t spotted it.

“Brink!” he yelled with triumph, and with another signal to Simeon he pointed the Rattler at the cement block and began to blast it apart. The brick could’ve hidden a mule without much trouble, and it hid the red-haired pirate with ease; but the determined onslaught of the automatic gun broke it apart, tearing out chunks the size of fists, and sending great splits stretching through its bulk.

“Captain!” Lamar said with urgency, and Hainey thought perhaps the engineer had been trying to summon his attention for several seconds before he’d noticed. “Captain, the Crow! Without that brick on board, she’s going to pull the pipe docks loose and take off!”

Over the metallic gargle of the gun, the captain only heard about one out of every three words; but he understood the intent, and he could see for himself that the craft was now empty, and without intervention it would break free, fly heaven knew where, and crash itself into scrap.

He swore loudly and repeatedly, on everything from Brink’s thieving soul to his father’s gleaming eyes. He flipped a switch to power down the Rattler and with Simeon’s help, he deposited it onto the ground.

Felton Brink used the quiet moment to run. He stood just enough to see over the block, saw the men running towards the jittering, flailing craft, and he took off running back up the hill.

Hainey made a mental note of which direction he’d gone, and he said to Simeon, “Get to that tether! Crank and draw the strap by hand, bring the ship lower-as low as you can get it without dragging her down on top of us! Lamar,” he said then. “Get over here-underneath her, with me!”

With the bay floor hanging open, its underside portal destroyed, there was nothing to grab and nothing to climb, only an open hole on the bottom of the craft. The Free Crowwas becoming more distressed by the moment, as her engines strove against the tethers that wouldn’t let her up. Freed from her overweight load, she stretched against the straps and chains and would’ve taken the whole landing pad with her if she could only get enough leverage.

“Sir!” Lamar objected, suddenly twigging on.

“Over here! Now!”

And even though the ship loomed, snapped, and reared only a few feet over their heads, he obeyed. He crouched his way over to Croggon Hainey, who stood as tall as he could reach, then bent at the knees and held his hands together like a slingshot.

The captain said, “You’re going to have to grab for it, and once you’re on board, you’re going to have to steady her.” He didn’t ask if this was possible, or even if it was likely. He assumed that it must be, because no other option was acceptable.

Lamar nodded, swallowed, and backed up enough to take a running leap at the captain’s hands.

Hainey grabbed the engineer’s foot and swung with every ounce of strength left in his bruised, overworked, scratched and scarred back…

…and the slight-framed engineer went tumbling up through the air, where his left hand and right fingertips snagged the bay’s edges.

His right hand lost its hold, then found it again; his left hand squeezed hard enough to almost dent the metal, and held, and gave him leverage enough to work an elbow, and then a knee, and then a heel onto better footing. It took him no more than ten seconds to haul his whole body onboard, and then he vanished into the interior.

Hainey turned to the cement block and saw how it had been carved, and how deeply it had been broken before he’d even begun to shoot at it. Down all the way to the core it’d been breached, all the way to the fossil of a woman’s body, lying crushed by the weight of its tomb.

To the first mate he said frantically, “Help him if you can, once he gets her steady!”

“You’re going after Brink?” Simeon asked, but the captain didn’t answer.

He was already gone, in pursuit of the red-haired pirate who was carrying the most dangerous diamond in the world.

12. MARIA ISABELLA BOYD

Anne snuck Maria to the back of the sanatorium, where an exit was unwatched and no one might interrupt them. “Out here,” she said, opening the door. “That walkway will lead you to a fork. Take the left path, and it’ll send you to the outbuilding-perhaps a hundred yards off.”

But Maria had only barely heard her, for bobbing above the trees was an airship, seemingly tethered and distressed about its state. “God in heaven!” she exclaimed. “Is that the Clementine? Er, I mean, the Free Crow?”

Anne said with wonder, “I haven’t the foggiest idea! Good Lord, what’s going on over there?”

“I could make a guess,” Maria murmured, and she fought the instinct to dash to the thrashing craft, if only to learn what was happening. The crown of the ship leaped and lurched, straining and fighting, and the spy could hear shouts-but she couldn’t tell what was being shouted. She turned to the nurse and double-checked, “This path? The left fork?”

“That’s right,” she said without taking her eyes off the tussle in the trees.

The path would lead her away from the ship, but she took it with a running start. Her carpetbag full of ammunition and personal effects bounced against her thigh and her skirts tangled around her knees; she kicked to keep herself mobile and she tore down the unpaved path, knocking gravel and dirt up against her knickers. Trees leaned above and cast her passage in shadow, and in the back of her ears she heard the whine of an overdriven engine and the breaking of branches somewhere in the distance.

Where is this outbuilding?She asked herself as she panted under the load of her luggage, her clothes, and the changing grade of the scenery.

Then she saw it, as the trees parted and the path dumped out to an open spot in the woods, where a low, undecorated structure sat surrounded by greenery.

Before she could burst free of the forest and make her presence known, a red-haired man flung himself past the armed guard who stood at the door. He wrestled with the knob and threw himself inside, slamming the door behind himself.

Maria stopped at the edge of the woods, since the guard was distracted by the visitor and no one had yet noticed her. She held one hand against her chest and counted to twenty-an old trick she’d picked up on the stage, but it worked, and her breathing slowed. Once she had her body under control, she slipped that hand down to the shawl tied around her waist and she withdrew one of her Colts.

Moments later, the door opened again and the red-haired man stood beside a taller, thinner man in a Union uniform. “Steen,” she assumed softly, and she watched as he commanded the guard to summon his fellows. In seconds, three more guards had joined the first, and right before the officer retreated into the building’s interior, she saw something the color of sunlight flash in his hand.

The diamond had been handed over to its purchaser.

One of the guards stepped inside with his commanding officer; the other two kept their position on either side of the door, and both held revolvers at the ready. They anticipated trouble, that much was certain; and Maria was equally certain of the trouble they faced…even before she saw a broad flash of a blue wool coat sneaking between the trees on the other side of the clearing.

She fell back farther into the trees and began to work her way around, sideways, as softly as her luggage and her dress would allow.

Croggon Beauregard Hainey met her in the middle.

He whispered, “I thought that must be you,” and he looked over her shoulder, past her head at the spot in the sky where the ship had been doing its terrible dance over the edge of the trees. Maria glanced too and saw that the craft had settled, and she thought that its engines sounded calmer, or perhaps she was only too far away now to hear the frantic whine.

“You found your ship,” she whispered back.

“But that thieving pirate made his delivery,” making the same point.

She asked, “So what are you doing here? Take your ship and make your getaway!”

“Not while that son of a pox-spreading whore is still breathing. Goddamn,” he rumbled. “I should’ve brought the Rattler.”

“And why didn’t you?”

He threw his hands up and said, “Because it’s heavy, woman! I can hardly carry the thing, and Brink was running with nothing but the diamond to tote.”

“You carried it just fine in Kansas City.”

“Across an open, flat field, sure,” he said, and realizing he was on the verge of a very distracting argument, he said, “Point is, I don’t have it, and we could use it.”

“We, Captain?”

“We, woman. You want the diamond, and I want the bastard who boosted it. How many shots have you got?”

She set her carpetbag down and whipped out the other Colt. “Twelve loaded. And you?”

“Same, damn it all.”

“There’s only five of them. The two guards at the door, plus a third inside-with Ossian Steen and your pirate Brink. That leaves us nineteen shots to spare.” But she was thinking the very thing he next said aloud.

“We can down the two at the door easy as pie, but if the other three are holed up…” he indicated a pair of windows. “They could hold us off awhile. And all I’ve got to back me up are two men who are a little bit busy right now.”

“What are they doing?” she asked, looking again to the bulbous, curved dome. But the trees thwarted her and through their leaves, she could no longer see the spot on the hill where the craft had so recently struggled.

“Long story,” he told her, and then when it didn’t seem to be enough he added, “They’re trying to wrestle my bird into submission. It was running, and unmanned.” But he didn’t bother to enlighten her on how that had come to pass.

“Ah,” she said. And to change the subject, “I have an idea.”

“So do I. I’ll retreat, summon the lads, and we’ll wipe this building off the face of the earth. I’ve got a couple of Minnericht’s Liquid Fire Shells stashed on board that would do the trick in under a minute flat.”

She gasped, “No! No, you can’t do that, not yet. Please,” she laid her fingers on his arm. “Hear me out. There’s a child in there, a boy named Edwin who is being held hostage by Steen. You can’t just demolish the place with him inside. Let me try something first, and…and if it doesn’t work, then you can level the place with me inside, too.”

He said with no small degree of sarcasm, “That’s a generous offer, Belle Boyd.”

“Not particularly. If what I’ve got in mind doesn’t work, I’ll be dead anyway, and I won’t mind the imposition. I’m going to barge inside under some pretense, seize the boy, escape back to the sanatorium, destroy the infernal machine, and…and…then I’ll think of something else.”

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

“You’re not the first to say so.”

He shook his head and put his hands on his hips, and said, “Fine. Risk your own neck, if that’s how you want it. I’ll cover you if I can, but if you take too long, I’m getting my men and turning this patch of Kentucky into a fire pit that’ll burn until Jesus comes back.”

“Works for me,” she said. She gave the outbuilding and its guards a hard glance, made a decision, and said to Hainey before she left, “Give me two minutes before you get your gang.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Only two minutes?”

“If this takes any longer, it won’t work at all. Trust me. I move fast. Do you have a watch?”

“Not on me, but I can count to sixty twice.”

“Good enough.” Maria shoved one of the Colts back under her shawl and held the other one in her hand, covered by the handbag. She reached to the neckline of her dress and gave it a tug that started a revealing rip, and dropped her carpetbag at her feet.

“What are you doing?” Hainey asked.

“Getting my story in order.” She took a deep breath. She said, “Captain, start counting.”

“Wait.”

“What?” she asked.

“Do me one favor. Leave Brink for me. Don’t shoot him unless you have to,” he requested.

She nodded.

And after scooting away from Hainey by ten or fifteen yards, she leaped out of the woods into the clearing as if she had a pack of wolves on her heels.

She fired off a blood-curdling scream of feminine terror and, as the two guards in front of the outbuilding furrowed their brows, she wailed, “Help me! Oh help me, gentlemen, you must!”

She flung her body up against the nearest guard and wept piteously. Between great sobs she gasped to the other guard, “You there! Your weapon! Ready it, man-he’s out there! He’s right behind me!”

The guard she clung to held her back at an arm’s reach, took in the sight of a woman in a torn dress and got a glimpse of what lay beneath it. He stammered, “Ma’am, please, contain yourself!”

But she would not be soothed so easily. She gulped, “But sir! There’s a horrible man-a hideous Negrowith a terrible scar-he accosted me in the woods! He assaulted me!”

Behind the cover of the woods’ edge, Croggon Hainey rolled his eyes.

The second guard demanded to know, “Where is this man?”

And as the first untangled himself from Maria’s clutched embrace, the first guard said, “Which way did he come from?”

“Over there!” she indicated a position approximately ninety degrees away from Hainey’s precise locale.

The guards exchanged a set of knowing looks that did not go unnoticed by the spy, who stayed in character to such an extent that she required a handkerchief-which was provided by her first choice of guards. He said, “We’d better put her inside.”

“But Steen…?” It was a feeble objection, and when the door was flung open to reveal the Union officer, both men snapped to attention while Maria wibbled convincingly.

“What’s going on out here?” he demanded, and seeing Maria his eyes narrowed into a look of confused concentration. “Do I know you?”

She shook her head, flinging a stray tear loose.

The nearest of the guards said in a stiff voice, “Sir, she was assaulted in the woods by a hideous Negro with a terrible scar!”

Maria bobbed her head and said, “Please, sir, let me come inside. Protect me, I beg you!”

One of the guards declared, “He came from that way, sir!” and repeated Maria’s lie.

Ossian Steen said, “Fine.” And he asked the guard who was stationed within the outbuilding, “How long until the rest of them arrive?”

From inside, a voice replied, “No more than five minutes, sir. They’re on their way.”

Steen appeared to consider his options. Then he grabbed Maria by the arm, towed her toward himself, and told the two men, “Go hunt for him. We’ll hold down this preposterous little fort until the rest of your garrison gets here.”

With that, he pulled Maria inside and slammed the door behind them both.

The outbuilding’s interior was no larger than its exterior would suggest; really, it was only one large room-stuffed with desks, boxes, books, crates of guns and ammunition. All the walls were bare except for the farthest, behind the largest desk, where a map of the Mason-Dixon area was tacked up and heavily scribbled upon.

And underneath this map, behind the desk was a small pallet with a moth-eaten blanket and a punched-flat pillow the size of her purse. In the corner, at the pallet’s foot, was crouched a small boy with his head buried in his folded arms, atop his knees. He did not look up at the commotion; he did not even appear to be breathing, but holding himself so little and still that he might make himself invisible.

Maria wondered how much time she had left.

Standing beside the desk, which must surely belong to the lieutenant colonel, was a red-haired man in scorched brown pants and an undershirt, with a loose gray jacket covering his bulky arms. He was possibly the whitest man she’d ever seen, with skin so pale it looked pink at the joints of his fingers, and blue around the recesses of his eyes. He gave her a look from top to bottom, folded his arms, and didn’t say anything.

A pair of guns hung from a belt around his hips, but he wasn’t holding anything at the ready.

“I swear I’ve seen you before,” Steen said to Maria. “It’ll drive me mad if I don’t figure out it.”

To change the subject, she said, “Who’s that child? Is he your son?”

“That’s no business of yours. Keep your mouth shut and your head down if you want to stay inside here, or we’ll throw you back out the door and let the pirate have his way with you.”

Outside, a pair of gunshots rang out from the woods, and there were shouts from behind the trunks of the trees.

“Hainey,” the red-haired man growled. “Jesus Christ. He can have his ship; why won’t he just take it and leave?”

Maria fingered the Colt she gripped behind her handbag. In a few steps she retreated to the desk, and to the boy. She crouched down beside him and touched the edge of his arm, but she said to Felton Brink, “Perhaps he took it personally.”

“What would you know?” he snapped back without looking at her. He walked to the nearest window and hid himself behind the edge of the frame so he could see outside without risking a bullet in the face.