Bounty Hunter

Chapter 10

The older woman saved John Tone’s life.

Her yell was almost a scream, a torrent of Chinese that had no meaning and held no emphasis, good or bad, for Tone.

But the effect of her words was almost magical. Instantly scowls and angry yells turned to smiles and the knives disappeared. Men stretched out and touched Tone, whether for luck or out of a sense of gratitude, he had no idea.

A handsome younger man, tall for a Chinese and well built, wearing tailored Western clothing, pushed his way through the crowd. He went immediately to the sobbing girl and spoke to her for several minutes.

The young man stepped in front of Tone. Without a word he took the bamboo pole from his shoulder, then stared intently at Tone’s face, as though memorizing his every feature.

Finally he said, “Thank you. Best you leave now.”

Tone nodded. “I hope the girl is all right.”

“She is my sister and she will be all right.” He hesitated a heartbeat, added, “Her honor is still intact.”

By the flat expression in the man’s eyes, Tone judged that this conversation was now over. He nodded again, then turned and walked to the mouth of the alley. When he looked back, the young Chinese man was watching him.

By ingrained habit, Tone sat at the table in his room and cleaned and oiled his revolver. More than one man had died in a gunfight because of a dirty weapon.

He reloaded, then looked at the gun on the table in front of him, his mind racing, considering the Colt’s implications.

He had deliberately made himself a target, but ended up shooting the wrong man. The Englishman needed killing, or so he told himself, but his death didn’t bring him a profit and no closer to settling with the six men on his list.

He would not walk the street again at night. There were so many robbers and killers along the waterfront that by making himself a target he could kill men every night. Where was the sense in that? There was none. He was a businessman, not a killer.

Unbidden, another, more disturbing thought, came to him: did the Englishman die only because of his nationality?

Tone picked up the Colt, enjoying its balance, the cool look of blue metal, the warm glow of the mahogany handle.

The Englishman came at him with a knife, threatening to gut him. It was a justified killing. Self-defense as ever was. But he’d fired twice, making sure the man would die. No, that wasn’t true. He wanted only to put him down and have him stay down.

Tone laid the Colt back on the table. He hadn’t murdered the English sailor. He’d killed the man in a fair fight. Even Blind Jack would be able to see that.

The Fenian rebellions, the Troubles, Molly O’Hara’s death—that was all behind him, a life he’d led in a different time and place. Ireland was a forgotten memory, like a beautiful fairy gift that had vanished in the morning light. . . .

Someone tapped lightly on the door. Tone asked who it was, his hand on the revolver.

“It’s me, John. Jennie Burns.”

Tone told her to come in, but he didn’t let go of the gun until the woman stepped inside. She was carrying a bottle. “A peace offering for running out on you like that,” she said.

“I guess you had good reason,” Tone said.

“Glasses?”

“By the bed there.”

Jennie brought a couple of glasses and set them on the table along with the whiskey, and she sat opposite Tone.

“A couple of drinks first, then I’ll give you a riding lesson you’ll never forget. I’m a bucker, remember?”

Tone smiled. “I remember.”

The woman filled two glasses and handed one to Tone. She raised her drink and smiled. “Slainte!”

“Slainte!”

Tone drained his glass and stretched out a hand for the bottle to pour another. He never reached it. Suddenly the room was cartwheeling around him and Jennie was smiling . . . a smile of triumph.

The door burst open and Simon Hogg rushed inside, a couple of big men right behind him. Despite his reeling head and blurred vision, Tone was aware of a fourth man standing back in the shadows, gaslight wobbling in the little pince-nez glasses perched at the end of his nose.

“That’s him!” Hogg yelled.

Tone struggled to his feet. “Hogg, you traitorous bastard!” he shouted.

The big man’s face seemed to be submerged in a tank of turbulent water. “You’re only a traitor if someone finds out about it, Mr. Tone,” he said. “And no one will, because by this time tomorrow you’ll be on the high seas bound for Canton.”

Tone staggered across the floor, trying to reach his gun. He tripped over his own feet and fell flat on his face.

“Pick him up, ye swabs,” the man with the pince-nez said harshly. “Kill the whore, then let’s get him on board.”

His cheek on the rough floorboards, Tone saw the glittering arc of a descending knife blade, then heard Jennie’s terrified scream. Hogg stabbed again and again, and finally the girl fell silent.

Strong arms lifted Tone to his feet and he was carried out the door and into the street. As he was dragged toward the misty docks, his mind closed down and he no longer knew what was happening.

Like his captors, he was unaware of the burdened Chinese coolies trotting past him, their eyes looking at nothing but seeing everything.

Tone woke to darkness, his head threatening to split open from pain.

He could see nothing, but he heard the soft lap of water and smelled the dank stench of ancient piss, vomit and rotten slops. Rats scurried everywhere in the gloom and squealed and squeaked and gnawed.

Tone was lying on his back on heavy timbers and he rose to a sitting position, a movement he instantly regretted as white-hot pain bladed into his skull.

He tried to take stock of his situation by piecing together what had happened. He had been drugged, he remembered that. Jennie and her bottle! Her smile as his head spun . . . but now she was dead. Hogg had stabbed her. That damned blackhearted traitor. “You’ll be on the high seas, bound for Canton. . . .” He tried to think. Where was Canton? In China . . . yes, that was it . . . a long, long ways from San Francisco. . . .

Something hairy with wet feet scurried across Tone’s hand. Then another. He cried out in panic and lurched to his feet, only to bang his head hard against a deck beam. He didn’t remember falling because he was already unconscious.

“Damn it, did the whore’s drink kill him?”

“He’s alive. Look, his eyes are opening.” Simon Hogg’s voice.

Yellow lantern light spiked into Tone’s vision, blinding him. He blinked and tried to focus on the shadows surrounding him.

A man spoke, his words hard-edged, meant to wound.

“Wake up, Tone. You’ll be needed on deck soon. Them soft hands of yours will soon get hardened by the rope.”

“And so will his back, I warrant,” another man said, and Tone heard Hogg laugh.

“Water,” he croaked.

“Give him water,” the hard-voiced man said. “No point in killing him all at once.”

A ladle of water was pressed to Tone’s lips and he drank deep. Then he said, “Where am I?”

A man’s face swam into Tone’s sight, the pince-nez at the end of his thick nose glittering orange in the lantern light. “Why, matey, you’re aboard the good ship Lady Caroline out of New York town, soon bound for Canton with five hundred tons of cotton cloth and yarn.”

“She’s a hell ship to be sure, Mr. Tone,” Hogg said. “Cap’n Silas Muller loves nothing better before breakfast than seeing the cat flay the skin off a poor sailorman’s back. He says it gives him an appetite for his salt pork, like.”

“I guarantee you’ll get well acquainted with the cat before too long,” Pince-nez said.

Anger flared in Tone. “Who are you, apart from a lousy son of a bitch?”

The man smiled, then backhanded Tone hard across the face. “Watch your lip, matey. As to who I am, why, I’m Edward J. Hooper, large as life.”

“The church deacon and slaver.”

Hooper shook his head and Tone could feel the force of his anger. “Now I regret not putting a bullet into you, Tone. In my day I’ve slid a cutlass into the bellies of a dozen just like you, swabs who fancied themselves hard cases. Aye, church deacon and slaver, if you consider Celestials to be human. As far as I’m concerned, I import monkeys, that’s all.”

“Why didn’t you kill me and get it over, Hooper?” Tone asked.

“Excellent question!” The banker turned to Hogg. “Is that not an excellent question, Mr. Hogg?”

The big man shrugged. “If’n you say so.”

“But I do say so, Mr. Hogg. Indeed I do.” Hooper pushed his face closer to Tone’s. “It seems that Sergeant Thomas Langford has taken a keen interest in you, damn his eyes. Now, normally this would not trouble me overmuch. Langford can die like any other man. But if your body was found, in an alley perhaps, or washed up by the tide, it could cause”—he waved his arms helplessly as he sought to find the right word—“complications.”

“Complications indeed, Mr. Hooper,” Hogg said, nodding, as though the man had fairly stated the case. “Sergeant Langford is a curious man.”

“Indeed, Mr. Hogg.” Hooper agreed. “I said that Langford can die like any other man, but killing a San Francisco sergeant of police can get messy. The law starts poking its nose into places where it’s not wanted and that can be bad for business.”

The man sighed. “No, I thought the matter through and decided this is the best way. The good Captain Muller will work you to death, Tone, then bury you at sea. Langford will shortly find the body of a dead whore in your room and deduce that you killed her in a fit of rage, then fled the city for parts unknown. The case will be then closed as far as the police are concerned.”

Lantern light shadowed the white mask of Hooper’s face. “Truth to tell, Tone, you are so very unimportant I wonder that I’m even talking to you. All you are is an annoying little fly that Muller will soon swat for me.”

He turned to Hogg. “When will the captain have his full crew?”

“Another couple of hours at most. Most of them will be drugged, but he’ll have enough able-bodied seamen to sail on the tide.”

Hooper nodded. “See that it’s done.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Hogg said.

Tone’s eyes sought the big man in the gloom. “Hogg,” he said, “I’ll come after you. I’ll hunt you down and I’ll kill you.”

Hogg laughed. “Talk comes cheap, Mr. Tone. By this time next week you’ll be food for the sharks.”

He and Hooper and the others with them who had been silent and invisible in the darkness climbed out of the hatch, then let the heavy cover slam back in place.

Once again Tone was imprisoned in a dank tomb where only the blind rats were thriving.