Ralph Compton Slaughter Canyon (9781101559499) Read online

  “Why are sailors such pessimists?” Warful said, smiling. “In the unlikely event that the Afrikaners don’t arrive, I can take the palace with my gunfighters and your crew.”

  “Hat, King Brukwe has two hundred soldiers and his personal bodyguard consists of fifty Amazons he calls the Iron Handmaidens,” Yates said. “His women can use weapons better than any men and they’re vicious. They’re so dedicated to Brukwe that once in a while a Handmaiden will kill herself on his order, to prove the loyalty of the others.”

  Warful opened his mouth to speak, but the captain held up a hand for silence.

  “The king’s soldiers are armed with British Martini-Henry rifles and a couple of Gatling guns,” Yates said. “The French gave them two cannons that they’ve learned to shoot fairly well.”

  Yates sat back in his chair and talked over stee-pled fingers. “Taking over the kingdom won’t be as easy as you think.” He smiled faintly. “And King Brukwe likes his Jews.”

  Warful was irritated and it showed.

  “Damn it, Poke,” he said, dropping his previous formality, “your attitude has changed since the last time we spoke. Once you were all for conquering the kingdom and taking over the slave trade. What’s changed your mind?”

  “Well, Hat, the French for one thing,” Yates said. “They abolished slavery in 1848 under the Second Republic and—”

  The captain cocked his head on one side like an inquisitive bird. “You know Smiling Jack Rawlings, master of the clipper Lady Clare?”

  “I know him,” Warful said. The man was on a slow burn.

  “Smiling Jack just returned from the Gold Coast and he says the talk is that the French plan to take over Eugene de Montijo, throw King Brukwe out on his ear, and hang all the slave traders.”

  “It’s talk, just talk,” Warful said. “The French reap taxes from the kingdom, and the English and Dutch make money. They’ll leave it alone.”

  Yates looked at Battles. “Is he to be trusted?”

  “No,” Warful said.

  “Well, I’ll say my piece anyhow.”

  Yates stabbed a forefinger at Warful. “Hat, forget Africa. That plan has gone all to hell. Here’s what I want you to do—pay off your gunmen and send them home. After the gold is loaded we’ll sail the Lila to Old Mexico and sell the booty to the Diaz government at five times the American price.”

  “And what do I get out of it, Poke?” Warful said, his eyes cold.

  “I owe you a favor or three from the old days, Hat. You’ll get a first mate’s share, square and true, lay to that. Enough to keep you and your lady wife in luxury for the rest of your days.”

  “Hell, Poke, you’re talking like an old lady,” Warful said. “If Africa scares you so much, why not just take the gold to the Indian prince and be done with it?”

  “No,” Yates said. “This is the biggest score of my life. After I pay off, I’ll sell the Lila and retire from the sea. I’m not getting any younger, Hat, and the hard years are catching up with me. It’s time I laid up in a cozy berth, permanent like, with bacon and eggs for breakfast and a willin’ woman at my side.”

  The captain’s face hardened. “As to being a frightened old lady, I’ll meet you on my deck with pistols or a cutlass any damn time you choose.”

  Battles expected Warful to explode, but to his surprise the man merely smiled, his eyes shining, and said: “Yes, I spoke out of turn, Poke. But you’re passing up millions, the chance to live like an English lord, and those of your blood that come after you as well.”

  “Maybe what you say is true, but the risk is too great. We could all end up hanging from a French noose. Savvy?”

  Warful nodded. “Yes, then we’ll play it your way. Once the gold is loaded, we’ll set a course for Old Mexico.”

  Yates rose to his feet, smiling, and extended his hand. “Then put it there, shipmate. You’ve made a wise decision to sail close to the wind.”

  Warful shook the captain’s hand warmly.

  But his eyes were again the color of bleach.

  Chapter 19

  Brass Buttons for a Mad Dog

  Matt Battles walked onto the dock with a silent, seething Warful striding beside him.

  They were about to cross the street, busy at that time of the morning with delivery wagons of all kinds, significant among them huge beer drays and their straining, four-horse teams, but Warful stopped and turned to Battles. The giant’s hands were trembling and now his eyes were filled with an unholy fire.

  “So Poke wants a cozy berth,” he said. “Well, by God, I’ll give him one—a tight pine box six feet under the sod.”

  Battles smiled. “You didn’t think much of his proposition, huh?”

  “Did you?”

  “It beats hanging.”

  “The French will hang nobody,” Warful said. “Politicians in Paris can poke holes in the air with their fingers and talk about the evils of slavery, but their officials in Africa are getting rich off the trade.”

  Warful bent his head, talking closer to the marshal’s ear. “We’ll kick King Brukwe out on his black ass, take over the kingdom, and the Frogs won’t even raise an eyebrow.”

  Battles hedged, unwilling to show his hand. “Why not pay off your men and take Yates’s deal?”

  “Because I want a kingdom,” Warful said, his eyes distant. “It is my birthright and I will rule wisely and well in a land free of the Jewish pestilence and where Negroes live in slavery, as is their birthright.”

  The man was as mad as a hatter and Battles decided there and then that the Lila must not be allowed to leave San Francisco.

  Somehow he had to make his break and talk to the city police.

  It wasn’t going to be easy.

  “Hatfield Warful, look at me, poor Mad Dog Donovan, as ever was.”

  Battles saw a tall, thin man coming toward them, moving with a strange bird-hop gait.

  “Mr. Donovan,” Warful said, smiling, “Captain Yates told me you’d been half hung since last we met.”

  Donovan spat. “The Dutchies, damn them. Hung me for a pirate rogue, and me as square as the driven snow.”

  Warful turned to Battles. “You’ve heard me talk of Mr. Donovan, the one they call Mad Dog.”

  “Aye, Mad Dog is my name,” Donovan said. A sly look came into his black eyes. “But I can tell a sailor from a sundial, any day of the month. Says you, ‘Never was truer words spoke and by a finer seaman.’”

  “You have a way with you, right enough,” Warful said.

  “And I ain’t got much time for fools, me bein’ as smart as new paint as you’re well aware,” Donovan said.

  The first mate of the Lila wore a claw-hammer coat over a striped jersey and washed-out canvas pants that had once been a blue color. A red bandanna was tied around his head and at the base of his neck. He was missing his left hand. In its place was a smooth chunk of bullet-shaped ivory, inlaid with an exquisitely wrought Chinese dragon in green jade, two scarlet rubies for its eyes.

  “I seen ye talking to Sam Garrety, Cap’n Warful,” he said. “What was that lubberly seaman telling you?”

  Warful smiled. “He just cursed the Lila and all who sail in her.”

  “For the one hundred and eighth time,” Battles said.

  “Aye, he’d do that, damn his eyes,” Donovan said. “He’s never forgotten the day I tickled his back with the cat fer pilfering rum. Thirty strokes o’ the best I gave him, and him squealing like a birthing sow the whole time. Says you, ‘You done your duty, Mr. Donovan. The cat speaks every language in the world, it does, with its nine tongues.’”

  “There’s no evil in skinning a thief’s back,” Warful said.

  Donovan looked sly again. “D’ye smell it, lads?”

  “Smell what?” Warful said.

  “There’s blood on the wind, and the stink of hammered iron festering in a man’s guts.”

  “I don’t smell blood,” Warful said.

  “Not yet, ye don’t, Cap’n. But ye will, lay to that.” />
  Donovan tipped his head to one side and stared hard into Warful’s eyes.

  “Bound fer Africa, are ye not?” Mad Dog did a little jig. “Weigh anchor and hoist the mizzen, I say, and let’s around the Horn.”

  He took a step back, pointed his ivory stump at Warful, and laughed, the high-pitched cackle of a madman. “Them Africans will kill you, Cap’n. They’ll shove a pointed stick up your ass.”

  The slightly contemptuous, faintly amused expression on Warful’s face didn’t change.

  “Will you sail us to Africa, Mr. Donovan?” he said.

  “Ah, and for why? says Mad Dog.”

  “I’ll make you the captain of the Lila.”

  The man’s face brightened. “You’ll give me a blue coat with brass buttons and a spyglass a yard long?”

  “Of course. Every captain should have those things.”

  “Then I’m your man.”

  “I may have to get rid of Captain Yates, mind,” Warful said.

  “Then cut his throat, says I, and be done with him.”

  “I thought the man saved your life,” Battles said.

  Donovan nodded. “That he did. He brought me back from the dead.”

  His next words cut through the morning air like a knife.

  “He did me no favor. Soon he’ll know that Mad Dog was better left in the grave.”

  Chapter 20

  Treasure!

  Warful warned Matt Battles to keep his mouth shut about what had been said at his meeting with Poke Yates.

  “I’ll tell the men what’s happening, but only after we’ve cleared the straits and are at sea,” he said.

  Battles pretended indifference. “You’re the boss,” he said.

  An hour later Warful called a meeting of his hungover gunmen, filling a room at the back of his premises that Kelly kept for private conferences.

  Warful glanced around the assembled men, then said: “Now that we’ve all gathered, I have something to tell you that you will be glad you heard.”

  Warful beamed like a benign schoolmaster, then said: “The gold will be loaded into the Lila the day after tomorrow. After that is completed, I plan to capture the ship and take possession of its cargo.”

  “Now you’re talking, boss,” Dee O’Day yelled. “Gun the crew an’ take the gold, like I always said.”

  “No, Mr. O’Day,” Warful said. “That much gunfire would certainly draw the attention of the police, even on the Barbary Coast.”

  “Then we cut their throats, quietlike, and sail to somewhere and divide the take,” O’Day said.

  “Have you ever sailed a ship, Mr. O’Day?” Warful said. His eyes traveled over his men. “Have any of you ever sailed a ship?”

  Getting no answer, he said: “Without the sailors we wouldn’t even be able to leave port.”

  “Then, damn it, who do I kill?” O’Day said. “Give me a name.”

  “The captain will be deposed,” Warful said. “But only the captain. We need the seamen alive.”

  Lon Stuart’s eyes looked like chips of flint and his dour stare telegraphed his irritation.

  “So we have the gold and the boat,” he said. “Then what?”

  “I’ll tell you all when we’re at sea,” Warful said.

  When a man who is good with a gun moves his hand a fraction of an inch closer to his holstered iron, alarm bells ring.

  And those bells clamored in Warful’s eyes big-time when Stuart dropped his hand slightly and said: “No, you’ll tell us now.”

  The gunmen mumbled their agreement and Sam Thorne, a fast gun who was just as dour and dangerous as Stuart, said: “Damn right you will.”

  Battles studied Warful’s stricken face. The man had very suddenly run out of room on the dance floor and was in danger of losing his hold over his gunmen.

  For a few long, ticking moments, the situation balanced on a knife-edge, but the tall man rose to the occasion.

  Warful spread out his arms and adopted a suffering expression, as though he was crucified by their doubt.

  “Do you want me to tell all, reveal my most closely guarded secrets?” he called out, like a man in extremis.

  “Yeah, we do,” Thorne said, the knife scar on his left cheek bone white against his flushed face. “That’s the way of it.”

  “Treasure!” Warful screamed.

  He let the ensuing silence stretch, then said: “Gold, diamonds, rubies, the finest pearls in all creation, crowns, diadems, necklaces, rings, riches stacked as high as a tall man. A king’s ransom, nay, not a king, the ransom of an ’undred mighty emperors!”

  A murmur of interest ran through the gunmen, and even Battles was intrigued. Neither Poke Yates nor Warful had mentioned treasure before.

  “We have a treasure right out there at the docks,” Stuart said. “Why hunt for more?”

  “Because the gold we have is nothing compared to the fabulous wealth that lies within our grasp,” Warful said.

  Greed is a spur that goads a man to recklessness, and by nature, every man in the room heeded the siren song of easy money.

  “Where is this treasure, boss?” Dee O’Day said.

  Warful let the tension build for a few moments, then said: “Africa!”

  O’Day stepped into the brooding silence that followed this announcement.

  “Where the hell is that?” he said.

  “East, Mr. O’Day, to a slave port named Eugene de Montijo, a city bursting with all the riches of the world.”

  “And where the hell is the treasure?” a gunman said.

  “Ah, a good question. The treasure lies in the palace strongroom of the local king, guarded by a few dozen of his men.” Warful grinned. “We can take it from him and be back on board the Lila with the treasure within an hour.”

  “How long does it take to sail to this ... Africa place?” O’Day asked.

  “No more than forty days or even less, depending on the trade winds,” Warful said. “The Lila is the fastest bark on the high seas, mind.”

  “Forty days at sea is a long time for landsmen like us,” Stuart said.

  “Indeed it is,” Warful said. “But it’s a small investment of your time that will pay off in great riches. You will all return to the United States fabulously wealthy men.”

  Warful looked around the room. “Well, what say you men, will you come with me?”

  “You sure about that forty days?” Stuart said before anyone could answer.

  “Indeed I am,” Warful said. “Why, it’s little more than a month. Most of you have spent that amount of time in a brothel without even noticing it.”

  The tall man got a few laughs, but they were subdued, wary.

  Stuart’s eyes were moving from one man to the next. He saw no real expressions of dissent.

  “All right, boss, we’ll play it your way,” he said. “But if it goes bad, for any reason, we turn around, fog it back to the good ol’ U.S. of A. and keep the gold we have.”

  Warful nodded. “You can’t say fairer than that, Mr. Stuart. As soon as the gold is loaded, we take the ship, then sail for...” His voice rose to a shout. “Africa!”

  Battles noted that the response was less than enthusiastic, but for now the gunmen would go along with Warful’s plan, the lure of vast wealth overcoming their better judgment.

  After a few days riding the rollers of the Pacific, they just might change their minds.

  After the meeting broke up, Battles took Warful aside.

  “You lied about the treasure, didn’t you?” he said.

  Warful shrugged. “Who’s to say that King Brukwe doesn’t have a treasure?”

  “If he doesn’t, the men won’t fight to put you on his throne.”

  “Oh, but they will, Mr. Battles,” Warful said. “They will have to—or die.”

  Chapter 21

  A Great Secret

  Later that morning, Matt Battles stuck his Colt in his waistband and headed for the door. Warful, who seemed to have eyes in the back of his head, stepped out of the
bar area and called out to him.

  “Taking a walk, Mr. Battles?” he said.

  “I need to stretch my legs and get some fresh air,” Battles said. “I figure to walk around town a little, see the sights.”

  “An excellent idea. I’m afraid there will be little opportunity for walking aboard ship.”

  Warful stepped to the door of the barroom and stuck his head inside. “Mr. O’Day, Durango, can you come here?”

  When the two gunmen appeared, Warful said: “Mr. Battles says he’s in need of a walk and I’d like you men to accompany him.”

  Durango grinned. “Hold his hand, you mean?”

  “Alas, the Barbary Coast is a dangerous place for a man walking alone. Footpads and cutthroats of every stripe are always on the scout for the unwary.”

  “I don’t need company,” Battles said.

  Damn it, this was not going as he planned.

  “Ah, but I insist,” Warful said. He smiled like a snake. “Even the police avoid the Coast, so they’d probably be unable to come to your assistance should you land in trouble.”

  Disappointment sank in Battles’s belly like a lead weight. He realized that Warful guessed what he’d been planning and he wasn’t about to allow him out of his sight—even if it was through the bleary eyes of Durango and O’Day.

  With two gunmen shadowing his every move, Battles had no chance of going to the police.

  O’Day, a killer with the intelligence of a ten-year-old, didn’t know what was happening. But Durango did, and there was a triumphant lilt to the man’s grin.

  Battles nodded. “Very considerate of you,” he said to Warful. “I wasn’t aware of the dangers.”

  “You’ll be quite safe with Mr. O’Day and Durango, I assure you,” the man said. “They’re both skilled with arms and dead shots.”

  That last was a warning, and Battles accepted it as such.

  He smiled at Durango. “You ready to do some walking?”

  Durango and O’Day were former cowboys and shared the puncher’s distaste for walking any distance. They also had the cowboy’s love of tight, foot-pinching boots with two-inch heels, made for riding a horse, not trudging the cobbled streets and alleys of a crowded city.