Ralph Compton - Bounty Hunter

Twenty yards . . .

Langford looked back to the wheelhouse. “Benson!” he roared. “Ram her, damn your eyes!”

In reply, the man screamed louder.

“Sergeant Langford,” Tone said. “Your revolver, if you please.”

The big cop understood instantly why Tone would not fire his own guns. He passed over his revolver.

Ten yards . . .

The Hotchkiss cannon had been abandoned, but now the boat was coming under small-arms fire from Sprague’s deck. Tone aimed at a towheaded man who was leaning over the rail aiming a rifle and fired. The towhead threw up his hands and vanished from sight. Tone kept firing and, for the moment at least, cleared the rail.

With a tremendous crash, the little boat, now a splintered wreck, hit Sprague’s yacht on her port side just forward of the stern. Her bow failed to penetrate the Spindrift ’s stout iron plates, but she rose up and climbed onto her, like a stallion mounting a mare.

The bow rose higher, tumbling Tone and everyone else head over heels along the deck until they collided hard with the base of the wheelhouse. Now almost vertical, the boat hung there until her weight forced her downward again. The bow crashed onto the deck, breaking apart Spindrift ’s timbers as it buried itself deep.

A smoking, shot-riddled hulk, the little craft groaned, as though completely spent by this final effort, and stuck fast.

Tone scrambled to his feet and clawed his way up the crazily slanted deck. A bullet chipped wood a few inches from his face, a second sang a whining death song past his head. Behind him, Langford was exhorting his cursing men as they sought footholds on blood-slick planking.

Tone reached the bow and clambered over, aware how dangerously exposed he was to marksmen on the deck. He jumped onto the Spindrift —and was immediately skewered by a snarling sailor wielding a wicked-looking boarding pike.

Chapter 42

The sailor had aimed for a killing belly thrust, but Tone saw the danger and turned at the last moment. The foot of razor-sharp steel missed Tone’s guts, but scraped bone, skidded and buried itself an inch deep into the flesh of his left hip, just below his belt.

Feeling as though he’d just been branded by a red-hot iron, Tone grabbed the wood shaft of the pike with his right hand and aimed a roundhouse left at the sailor’s head. His punch connected with the man’s jaw and he went down hard.

Tone let the pike fall to the deck and quickly glanced around him. Led by Sprague, a dozen men were charging toward him, armed with pikes and boarding axes.

A bullet crashed into Tone’s left shoulder and sent him reeling. His back slammed hard against the Hotchkiss cannon and he cursed wildly. They were cutting him to pieces!

“No! I want that one alive!” someone yelled. It was Sprague’s voice.

Suddenly Langford stepped to Tone’s side, huge bowie knife in hand. Guns were firing and a pirate went down, screaming. The cops were swarming onto the deck, revolvers blazing.

“Stay right there, John!” Langford yelled above the battle din. “You’re out of it!”

Tone shook his head and elbowed himself erect. His .38s were in his hands and he was firing. Even light-headed as he was from loss of blood, at a range of less than ten yards Tone’s fire was devastating. Five of Sprague’s men immediately dropped dead or wounded to the deck, and the rest turned away from the deadly hail of lead.

Langford roared and led his men in a charge after the fleeing pirates.

His revolvers shot dry, Tone indulged in a grandstand play, a showy bit of bravado that he would marvel at later. He spun his guns fast, then, in one slick motion, did a border shift, reversed the .38s and slid them into his belt. It was his way of showing the pirate riffraff that he was still alive and eager for a fight. He would assure himself afterward that it seemed like a good idea at the time.

The battle had moved forward toward the bow of the Spindrift and the deck around Tone was deserted, except for the dead and wounded, several of them wearing blue uniforms.

Suddenly Tone became aware of the trim of the yacht. The deck was tilted away from him at an odd angle, and a marlin spike rolled toward him and vanished under the chase gun.

The Spindrift must have suffered below-water damage from the collision and was settling by the stern.

A sense of urgency in him, Tone stooped, picked up the boarding pike at his feet, and got ready to move forward to rejoin the fight. He felt weak and dizzy, though neither of his wounds pained him. If he survived, the pain would come later.

Seagulls, attracted by the scent of blood in the water, wheeled and swooped, calling out to each other. From horizon to horizon, the sky was a deep azure bowl and the sun was fair up, wedding itself to the sea with bands of gold. The pirate flag, black as a crow, still flapped from the mainmast, the skeleton dancing a jig in the breeze.

Tone started to make his way across the slanting deck, then stopped in his tracks. Blind Jack, huge, intimidating and dangerous, emerged from the narrow deck passage between the main cabin and the port rail. He grasped a bloody cutlass in his hand.

But it was the three people behind Jack that gave Tone pause.

Sprague was in the lead, holding a boarding axe. Behind him, dressed in a split canvas riding skirt, black vest and white shirt, was Chastity Christian. And behind her, thin and white as a cadaver, was Luther Penman, who caught sight of Tone, reared back his head and hissed his fury like a snake.

“Jack,” Sprague said, taking the giant by the arm and pointing him in the direction of Tone, “take him. Throw him into the longboat.” He turned. “You two, get in as well, or I’ll leave you to drown like rats.”

Blind Jack had lost the black band from around his eyes, revealing empty sockets networked with scars. He shuffled toward Tone, leading with his left foot, the scarlet-stained cutlass chopping at the air in front of him.

“Come to me, little rabbit,” he whispered. “I’m a rough-and-ready man, an’ no mistake, but I won’t hurt you—lay to that. See, matey, Cap’n Sprague wants you for his own, to gut at his leisure, as you must surely understand.”

Jack was only yards away and Tone had no intention of fighting him hand to hand. That was a battle he could not win. He bounced the boarding pike in his hand, finding the balance, then drew the weapon back and hurled it with all of his waning strength at the grinning giant.

Tone’s aim was true.

The lance-shaped blade drove through Blind Jack’s chest and stuck out a span-length between his shoulder blades. The giant staggered, dropped his cutlass and tried to tear the pike free. He failed and his knees buckled, sending him crashing onto the deck. A pool of blood, as black as Blind Jack’s heart, spread around him.

Sprague had been watching from the rail. “Stand by,” he yelled to Chastity and Penman, who were already in the longboat. “I’ll be right back.”

Now he looked across the deck at Tone, the axe slanted across his chest. “I’m going to cut you into collops, you traitorous dog.”

Wearily, Tone picked up Jack’s cutlass. Suddenly he wanted it over with. He needed rest . . . a place to rest. . . .

Sprague, knowing that the last grains of sand were trickling through the hourglass, charged, the axe poised for a tremendous killing stroke.

He was counting on Tone to step back, vainly trying to parry his attack with the cutlass. But Tone stepped into him. The axe swung, too wide. But the lower edge of the blade cut deep into the thick meat of Tone’s left shoulder, staggering him.

Cursing, Sprague sprang back. He eyed Tone and readied the axe again. Circling. “I’ve got ye now, Tone,” he snarled. “By God, I’ll chop you up and feed you to the sharks.”