Ralph Compton - Bounty Hunter

Heading in their direction, footsteps thudded on the cobbles and voices were raised in drunken song. As Tone watched, three men staggered out of the mist. Two of them were supporting a third, who was so hopelessly drunk the toes of his boots dragged along the street behind him.

“Tone,” Penman said, quietly but urgently.

“I see them.”

“Be on guard.”

Though the three were big, rough-looking characters, Tone had been willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. But the alarm in Penman’s voice, a man not easily scared, had him on edge.

Suddenly the three men separated, the one in the middle now squarely on his feet. The guns came out of their pockets fast.

But Tone had already drawn and fired.

One of the men went down, and the others looked at him, hesitating for just a moment as they were stunned by Tone’s speed. In a gunfight any pause can be a fatal mistake.

Tone fired again, another hit. The man who’d been playing the drunk staggered back a step, then crashed onto his back. The third ruffian, scared now, turned and tried to flee. Tone aimed between the man’s shoulder blades and fired. All at once the tough’s legs seemed to be made of rubber. He lurched forward, taking a few ungainly steps, then sprawled his length on the ground.

Gun smoke drifted with the mist as Tone swung his Colt on men who were running from the nearby dives.

“ ’Ere, you bloody toffs, what are you up to, then?” a man cried in an English-accented voice that even after twenty years set John Tone’s teeth on edge.

“Those footpads attacked us,” Penman said. “We were forced to defend ourselves.”

The Englishman was big, walked with a sailor’s rolling gait and had chosen to be belligerent. The two dozen or so others with him were no friendlier and Tone and Penman were surrounded by a sea of hostile faces.

“That there is Long Tom Piggott,” the Englishman said. “And over there is Billy Maitland.” He looked at a man in the crowd. “You, go see who our other dead shipmate is.”

The man stepped to the body and turned it over with the toe of his boot. He looked across at the Englishman and yelled, “It’s Cod McNear, Sam.”

“Three of the finest sailor lads to ever walk the streets of the Barbary Coast,” the man called Sam said. “They was all good shipmates, but Cod was gold dust.”

“Aye, an’ always good for a drink when a poor sailorman was down on his luck,” another man yelled.

There was a muttering among the crowd, which had swollen by the addition of a score of eager-eyed whores. Fists clenched and curses were thrown in Tone and Penman’s direction.

Sam turned, obviously enjoying being the center of attention. Now he played to the crowd. “Lads—an’ ladies”—that last brought a ribald cheer from the whores, as the man knew it would—“I say it’s coming to it when honest men can’t walk the streets without being gunned down by toffs out for a night on the town.”

Men cheered and a whore spat in Tone’s direction and screamed, “I say we tar an’ feather them and run them out of the waterfront on a rail.”

The crowd was eager for any diversion and cheered wildly.

A tarring and feathering often resulted in death, but Sam, basking in his sudden glory, had something even more radical in mind.

“Or we can string ’em up, lads. What do you say?”

This time the cheering was louder. A man yelled, “I’ll get ropes!” He turned and ran toward one of the dives, his feet growing wings as the crowd urged him on.

Tone was aware that he had only two rounds left in his Colt. With a wild recklessness in him, partly driven by his hatred for Englishmen, he took two long paces and was suddenly in front of Sam.

He jammed the muzzle of the revolver into the man’s forehead, thumbed back the hammer and smiled. “You first, Sammy boy. As soon as your man shows up with a rope I’m going to scatter your goddamned brains.”

The Englishman was suddenly so terrified that he pissed his pants and everyone saw it. At least temporarily, it took the wind out of the crowd as they saw their hero so humiliated.

“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Tone.”

Tone took a quick glance behind him. A tall man wearing an officer’s rings on the sleeves of his uniform coat was watching him. He was backed by four tough sailors armed with Winchesters.

The officer looked at Penman. “Sorry we’re late. The fog out in the head of the strait is thick as molasses in winter.”

“I’d say, Mr. Brown, that you arrived in the nick of time,” the lawyer said, flashing his wintry smile.

Brown looked over at Sam, who was standing as still as a stone statue, his eyes crossed as he fixed his horrified gaze on Tone’s gun. Clubs and brass knuckles he knew, but guns and the gunfighters who used them had not been any part of his education.

“Sam Wilkins, go back to your rum and your whores,” Brown said. “There will be no more talk of hanging, or tarring and feathering either.”

Wilkins’ throat worked for a few moments, and then, standing stock-still, he said, “He’s going to shoot me, Mr. Brown.”

“I doubt it, Sam. Why would he waste a bullet on the likes of you?”

Tone eased down the hammer of his Colt. “You’re lucky, Sammy,” he said. “I really don’t like you.” He laid emphasis on the statement by driving his left fist into Wilkins’ belly. Then as the man bent over, retching green bile, Tone slammed the barrel of his revolver on the back of his head. He stepped aside to let Wilkins fall, then walked around him and picked up his bag.

“Shall we get on board, gentlemen?” Brown asked, looking emotionlessly at Wilkins, who was groaning on the damp cobbles. “It’s a long ways out to the strait.”

Brown’s cold eyes swept the crowd. “I’d advise you people to get off the street. If you have any more mischief in mind, let me warn you that my men will drop a dozen of you before you cover a couple of yards.”

The mob was surly, still on the prod, but the sound of levering Winchesters convinced them that this was not a good night to die.

Brown watched them go for a few moments, then called out, “When Sam Wilkins recovers tell him to bury the recently departed, since he was so fond of the dear, honest souls.”

Penman stepped to Tone’s side. “Not a man to forgive and forget, are you?” he asked.

“Live longer that way,” Tone answered.

Chapter 5

The yellow fog pressed around Tone as he sat on a thwart at the stern of the rowboat, Penman huddled beside him. There was no sound but the creak and thud of the oars in the locks and the slap of water against the sides.

Tone was no judge, but Brown seemed to be a capable sailor. He stood in the stern and constantly checked the compass he held, now and then altering course a degree or two.

The rowers were a rough-looking bunch and most showed scars, probably from past violent encounters in dockside dives all over the globe.

Brown turned and peered at Penman through the gloom. “How are you holding up, Mr. Penman?” he said.

“As sick as a pig, Mr. Brown. Need you ask?”

Brown nodded. “The sea is picking up as we get closer to the strait, starting to roll some.” His teeth gleamed in the darkness. “Once you get on board the Spindrift you’ll be as right as rain.”

“I doubt that, Mr. Brown. Speaking to you as a dying man, I doubt that very much.”

“And you, Mr. Tone?” the officer asked.

“I’m all right, just thinking how good some fried salt pork and beans would be about now.”

One of the rowers guffawed, and Penman turned his green face to Tone. “Sir, your cruelty knows no bounds, does it?”

Tone grinned and opened his mouth to reply, but the little lawyer was already retching over the side.