John Adams - The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

I cleared my throat. "Holmes lacks your legion of followers," I said.

Jacaré turned to me. "This your plan, doc? Get my dander up so I have my men back off and challenge Holmes to a fair fight?"

"I wouldn't recommend it," I said. "A fair fight didn't work out well for Professor Moriarty."

Jacaré leaned back and for a moment I was certain he was going to draw his sword and strike me down. Instead, he laughed, a tremendous braying laugh that echoed across the swamp and set the albino alligator back to churning the waters. "I'm not much for fair," he said. "But I like entertaining. Twelve on two, where's the sport in that? We'll make it two on two." He nodded at the huge bald man. "Darcé," he said. "Tie off that rope. You can kill Dr. Watson while I murder Mr. Sherlock Holmes."

Darcé's fingers flew as he tied the rope to the pier using some complicated sailor's knot. As he strode toward me, I saw that he was even more gigantic than I had first estimated. His muscles bulged as he stepped toward me. He smiled a gap-toothed grin. "You scared?" he asked.

I forced myself to stand straight, raising my fists in preparation. "Are you?" I challenged.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jacaré squaring off against Holmes. The pirate had drawn his gleaming sword, but my friend was unarmed and I feared for him.

Letting Holmes's plight draw my attention was a mistake. I didn't even see Darcé raise his heavy arm for the first blow. I was slammed backward, careening off the dock to the mud. My chest ached. He charged after me, standing over me and leaning over to punch me in the face. When I rolled to the left, avoiding the blow, he straightened up and kicked me in the ribs. I rolled away, gasping in pain, and this time grabbed at his ankle as he tried to kick me again. It was like trying to uproot a tree, but I rolled into it with all my weight and he toppled beside me to the ground. He growled and snorted and pulled himself to his knees. I punched him in the jaw, but I had little leverage and he seemed barely to notice.

The pirates were cheering on Darcé and Jacaré, alternately laughing and jeering. I could neither see nor hear Holmes, but took some slight comfort in the fact that his fight evidently had not ended yet.

Darcé butted me in the face with his head. The blow split the skin over my right eyebrow and blood flowed into my eye. I swayed, stunned, while the giant climbed to his feet, and could do little but groan in protest as his iron hands lifted me up above his head. Then he took three long steps toward the bonfire and prepared to throw me into the flames. Fearing for my life, I wrenched around, throwing my arm over his neck, and we fell to the mud together. The fall took the wind out of me, and my old war wound from the Jezail bullet throbbed. But Darcé's face was in the mud and that gave me a brief moment of opportunity. I struck the back of his neck with great force twice, stunning him, then struggled to my feet. I plucked a heavy branch from the bonfire, wincing in further pain at the heat, and swung the fiery end of it at the pirate's bald head. His skin hissed as the torch struck him, and I shuddered at the horror of it, but I raised the branch once more and hit him again and he lay still.

The pirates stared at me in stunned disbelief. With Darcé vanquished and Jacaré engaged with Holmes, they were unsure what to do with me. I knew, however, that that advantage could not last long.

I looked at Holmes. He stood on the end of the pier, holding off Jacaré with a board he had pulled from the deck. His jacket had been sliced open just over the left elbow and blood streaked his arm. My first instinct was to draw my revolver and shoot the pirate lord, but I stopped myself. If I missed, I could hit Holmes. And the other pirates' indecision would soon evaporate if I began shooting at their master.

Jacaré swung his cutlass at Holmes, who stepped to one side, precariously close to the edge of the pier, and blocked the blow with his board, which shattered into splinters.

"Skillful," Jacaré said admiringly. "You learn kung fu?"

"Baritsu," Holmes answered shortly, eyes watching the pirate carefully.

Making up my mind, I pulled Darcé's sword from his belt. "Holmes!" I shouted, rushing forward and sliding the weapon to him along the pier.

Holmes crouched and grabbed the sword by the hilt just as it was about to tilt into the swamp. "My thanks, Watson," he said. Then he raised the blade to Jacaré. "En garde," he said.

The huge, pale alligator splashed the water again and I was drawn once more to the Holingbrokes' danger. I rushed to the rope that held them and began pulling it, trying to figure out how best to get them down.

The brothers watched me groggily, nearly unconscious from the beating and the strain of being held upside down.

I made little progress. Slippery from the mud, my hands kept losing purchase. I pulled off my coat and wrapped it around the rope. The pirates moved closer, drawing blades and guns, still not quite sure whether to murder me now or later.

Holmes and Jacaré continued their duel, the blows from their swords ringing out like bells. "What the hell are you waiting for?" Jacaré called out to his men. "Kill the doctor."

I sighed, certain I would never see England again.

"Those belts!" cried out a raspy voice.

"Throw us them belts!" said another. I looked in surprise to see the Holingbroke brothers, all four arms outstretched, reaching for the gun belts I still had slung over my shoulder.

With no time to think, and the pirates closing in, I did what the twins asked.

I had occasionally indulged myself in the past by reading stories of Western gunslingers in the penny dreadfuls, always assuming that their feats were greatly exaggerated. The circular Holmes and I had seen in Piccadilly Circus had described the Holingbroke brothers as the greatest marksmen of the Wild West, and again I assumed hyperbole. But I have rarely seen anything move so fast as those Siamese twins. Even beaten, exhausted, and hung upside down, they snatched the belts out of the air and drew the Peacemakers in less time than it would take me to blink. All four pistols rang out repeatedly, like thunder rolling across the swamp. I turned around, wiping blood from my face, and saw to my eternal amazement that all the pirates around me had been shot dead.

"I got six, you got four," said one of the brothers.

"I got five," the other said.

"No, we both shot that last one, but I shot him first. You want credit for shooting a corpse now?"

"I shot him first."

"Nope. It's six to four, me," the first brother said. "Don't take it too hard, I think you got whipped more than me, too."

"I think you got hit in the head harder," the second brother said. "Affects your counting." He turned to me. "Hey, doc! You mind helping us down?"

I looked at Holmes, still locked in combat with Jacaré. They'd moved from the pier to the deck, and his back was up against the ramshackle building. He'd been wounded again, a gash along one cheek, but I could see him smiling in the firelight, and he shook his head at me when I began to raise my revolver toward his opponent.

Without the pirates surrounding me, helping the Holingbroke brothers down presented little challenge, and soon they were sitting in the mud, rubbing at the wounds the ropes had burned into their legs and watching the duel.

"It's over," Holmes said to Jacaré, blocking another blow. Holmes was clearly not as skilled in swordplay as his opponent, and made few attacks of his own, but he managed to ward off the worst of Jacaré's assaults, and continually maneuvered himself over to the pirate's left side, using his opponent's eyepatch as an advantage.

"Maybe so," the pirate said. "Maybe I should have killed you straight out, but it seemed like a waste."