Robert Howard: She Devil

“We sighted him just as the fog lifted,” said the bos’n, spitting carefully to leeward. “He was driftin’ along in a open boat, balin’ and cussin’ somethin’ fierce. His boat sunk under him before he could get it to the ship, and he swum for it. A shark tried to scoff him on the way, but he kicked its brains out or bit it in the neck, or done somethin’ atrocious to it. That’s Wild Bill Clanton!”

“The hell it is!” grunted the captain, staring with new interest. Then he swore as Clanton bashed Mr. Richardson on the snout with appalling results. “They’re bleedin’ all over my clean deck!”

“Well,” said the bos’n, “as soon as he clumb over the rail he seen the mate and went for him. From the remarks they passed before they was too winded to cuss, I gathered that Buck stole a gal from Clanton once. I went after you, but you seemed busy, so I just let ’em fight.”

Bam! Mr. Clanton’s left mauler met Mr. Richardson’s midriff with an impact that sounded like the smack of a loose boom against a wet sail. Bam! A mallet-like right-hander to the jaw and Mr. Richardson went reeling backward and brought up against the rail with a crack that would have fractured the skull of anybody except a bucko mate on a trading schooner.

Clanton went for him with a blood-thirsty yell—then his eyes encountered Raquel, poised in the ratlines. He stopped short, batted his eyes, his mouth wide open as he glared wildly at the ivory-tinted vision posed against the blue, in a sheer wisp of pink silk that tempted even as it concealed little.

“Holy saints of Hell!” breathed Clanton in awe—and at this instant Mr. Richardson, a bloody ruin, lurched away from the rail with a belaying pin. Bam! It crashed on Clanton’s head and that warrior bit the deck. Mr. Richardson croaked gratefully and bestowed himself lovingly on his victim’s bosom, naively intent on beating his brains out with his trusty belaying pin. But Clanton anticipated his design by drawing up his legs, after the manner of a panther fighting on its back, and, receiving the hurtling mate on his feet and knees, he catapulted Mr. Richardson over his head.

The mate smote the deck headfirst and reverberantly, and this time the impact was too much even for his adamantine skull. But Clanton, bounding up, observed some faint signs of life still, and sought to correct this oversight by leaping ardently and with both feet on the mate’s bosom.

“Grab him!” yelled Harrigan. “He’s killin’ the mate!”

As no spectacle could have pleased the crew better than Mr. Richardson’s violent demise, they made no move to obey. Harrigan ran forward blasphemously and tugging forth an enormous revolver thrust it under the nose of Mr. Clanton who eyed it and its owner without favor.

“Are you the cap’n of this mud-scow?” Clanton demanded.

“I am, by God!” gnashed Mr. Harrigan. “I’m Bully Harrigan! What are you doin’ on board my ship?”

“I’ve been keepin’ a damned sieve of a boat afloat for a day and a night,” retorted the other. “I was mate aboard the Damnation, out of Bristol. The cap’n didn’t like Americans. After I won his share of the cargo at draw poker, he welshed and put me afloat—with the aid of the crew.”

Harrigan broodingly visualized the battle that must have required!

“Carry the mate to his bunk and bring him to,” he ordered the men. “And for you, Clanton, you’ll work for your passage! Get for’ard!”

Clanton ignored the command. He was again staring at the vision clinging to the ratlines. Raquel peeped at him approvingly, noting the clean-cut muscular symmetry that was his.

“Who’s that?” he inquired, and all turned to stare. Harrigan roared like a sea-lion with awakened memory.

“Drag her down!” he yelled. “Tie her to the mast! I’ll—”

“Don’t touch me!” shrieked Raquel. “I’ll jump and drown myself!”

She didn’t mean that, but she sounded as though she did. Clanton reached the rail with a tigerish bound, caught her wrist, and whipped her down onto the deck before she knew what was happening.

“Oh!” she gasped, staring at him with dilated eyes. He was bronzed by the sun of the Seven Seas, and his torso was ridged with clean hard cords of muscles. In fierce admiration his gaze devoured her from her trim ankles to the foamy burnished mass of her hair.

“Good work, Clanton!” roared Harrigan, striding forward. “Hold her!” Raquel wailed despairfully, but Harrigan, reaching for her, had his hand knocked aside, and he paused and goggled stupidly at Clanton.

“Avast!” roared Clanton gustily. “That’s no way to treat a lady!”

“Lady, hell!” bleated Harrigan. “Do you know what she just did? Threw away my chart! The only dash-blank chart in the world that could show me how to find the island of Aragoa!”

“Was we goin’ there, cap’n?” asked the bos’n.

“Yes, we was!” yelled Harrigan. “And what for? I’ll tell you! Ambegis. A barrel full! At thirty-two dollars an ounce! You bilge-rats been grousin’ to know where we were sailin’ to—all right, I’ll tell you! And then I’m goin’ to tie that wench up and skin her stern with a rope’s end!

“A few months ago a blackbirder bound for Australia went on a reef in a storm, off a desert island, and nobody but the mate got ashore alive. They’d found a mess of the stuff floatin’ on the water, and filled a big barrel with it—and it floated ashore with him. The mate stood the solitude of the island as long as he could, and then took to sea in the ship’s boat he’d patched up. He’d salvaged a chart and marked the island’s position. He’d been weeks at sea when I picked him up, on my last voyage from Honolulu to Brisbane. He was ravin’ and let slip about the ambergris—I mean he was that grateful to me for savin’ him he told me all about it, and gimme the chart for safekeepin’, and right after that he got delirious and fell overboard and drowned—”

Somebody laughed sardonically and Harrigan glared murderously around.

“He called the island Aragoa,” he growled. “It ain’t on no other chart. And now that the daughter of Jezebel has fed that chart to the sharks—”

“Why, hell!” quoth Clanton. “Is that all? Why, I can steer you to Aragoa without any blasted chart! I’ve been there a dozen times!”

Harrigan started and looked at him searchingly.

“Are you lyin’?”

“Belay with those insults!” said Clanton heatedly. “I won’t take you anywhere unless you promise not to punish the girl.”

“All right,” snarled Harrigan, and Raquel sighed in relief. “But!” brandishing his gun in Clanton’s face, “if you’re lyin’, I’ll feed you to the sharks! Take the wheel and lay a course for Aragoa. You don’t leave the poop till we raise land!”

“I’ve got to have food,” growled Clanton.

“Tell it to the cook. Then get hold of that wheel.” Reminded suddenly of Raquel’s lightly-clad condition he roared: “Get below and get some clothes on, you shameless slut!”

A heavy toe emphasized the command by a direct hit astern, and she fled squeaking for the companion.

Clanton scowled, descended into the galley, and bullied the Chinese cook into setting out a feed that would have taxed the capacity of a horse. Having disposed of this, he swaggered up the poop ladder and took the wheel. The men watched him with interest, which was shared by Raquel, peeping from the companion. She had heard of him: who in the South Seas had not? A wild adventurer roaring on a turbulent career that included everything from pearl-diving to piracy, he was a man at least, not a beast like Harrigan.

Her flesh tingled deliciously with the feel of his strong grasp on her rounded arm; she was consumed with eagerness for more intimate contact with him, but the opportunity did not come until night had fallen and the powerful figure stood in solitary grandeur at the wheel.