The Dangerous Ladies Affair

22 Quincannon

In the wet darkness Quincannon drew the muffler up over his face like a bandit’s mask, wishing that he had a slicker rather than the soon-to-be-sodden chesterfield. At least his valise was waterproof. Visibility was no more than a few yards; he could barely make out the daubs of light that marked the ferryman’s shack, the brighter glows of the protected hurricane lanterns on the steamboat landing. Wind gusts constantly changed the slant of the rain so that it was like a jiggling curtain against the night’s black wall.

Shoulders hunched and body bowed, he set off along the muddy levee road. Its surface was still solid along the edges, but if the rain continued to whack down with this much intensity by morning the road would be a quagmire.

Faint scattered lights materialized here and there in the town buildings, but none shone at the upslough wharf when he detoured in that direction. At first he thought Burgade had lied and the Island Star had slipped out of Dead Man’s Slough under cover of the storm. But no, she was still moored there, the bumpers roped to her strakes thumping against the pilings as the rough waters rolled her from side to side. All dark as she was, she looked like an abandoned derelict.

Quincannon heeled around, returned to the levee road, and plowed down it past the unlighted ferryman’s shack. The steamer landing, he saw as he approached, was deserted. When he entered the landing’s rickety lean-to shelter, he startled a bird of some sort, a snipe or plover, and sent it whickering off through the swamp growth. Nothing else moved in the vicinity except the rain and wind — whipped cottonwood and willow branches.

He stood shivering under the lean-to, watching the river. There was no sign yet of the first of the Stockton packets. He had been there less than five minutes when the ferry bell on the opposite side of Dead Man’s Slough began its muted summons. Noah Rideout’s transportation to Schyler Island, no doubt. Through the downpour he saw light bloom brighter in the ferryman’s shack, then had glimpses of the grizzled tender emerging with a bug-eye lantern in hand and readying the scow. It would be a rough and potentially dangerous crossing in this weather, even though the slough water at that point was not as badly roiled as the open river.

But the ferryman knew his onions. After more than ten minutes, the barge returned to this side without incident. A large hooded carriage drawn by a brace of horses rattled off the lowered apron, came on down the road to the landing. Quincannon stepped out from under the lean-to to meet it. It was a black Concord buggy, gold monogrammed letters on its body — NJR — just visible through the blowing rain. The driver, wearing a hooded oilskin slicker, set the brake and stepped down. Rideout’s aide, Foster.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded when he recognized Quincannon.

“The same as you. Waiting for Mr. Rideout.”

“I told you he won’t want to be disturbed tonight. Your business with him can wait until tomorrow.”

“No, it can’t.”

Foster glared at him. “If you’re looking for trouble, mister, you’ll find more than you can handle with me.”

“I doubt that,” Quincannon said. “What I have to say to Mr. Rideout may save him a considerable sum of money—”

He broke off at the sound of the first shrill blast of a packet’s whistle. This was followed by two more, which announced her intention to put in at Kennett’s Crossing. He stepped back onto the landing, in time to make out the steamer’s three tiers of blurred lights downriver. In that moment a lull between gusts brought a new sound to his ears. It was faint and far-off, an odd hollow chunking. Almost immediately it came again... and again. It seemed to be coming from on or across the slough, but he couldn’t be certain of exactly where. He waited to hear it one more time — and heard only the wind, the harsh slap-and-gurgle of the river water as it punished the landing’s pilings and the flanking banks.

Foster was tending to the somewhat skittish horses; he seemed content now to wait for his employer’s arrival before saying anything more. The night boat was now making her turn toward Kennett’s Crossing. She was within a few hundred yards of the landing, her buckets churning, when a slicker-clad figure came hurrying down the levee road, tacking unsteadily through the mud and rain. He lurched past the buggy onto the landing — the old man with the glass eye, Dana. He was almost upon Quincannon before spying him; he started so violently he came close to losing his balance and toppling into the river.

“Hellfire!” he shouted when he recovered. He leaned close to peer into Quincannon’s face, breathing whiskey fumes at him. “That you, you damn Johnny Reb? What you lurking here for?”

“I’m not lurking; I’m waiting for the night boat.”

“Frisco bound, eh?”

“No. Meeting someone.”

“Another Copperhead, I’ll wager.” The old man followed this with a lusty belch. “Say, you got relatives fought with the Confederates at Antietam?”

“No. Every member of my family was faithful to the Union.”

“Damn lie.” Foster had come up onto the landing and Dana appealed to him, “Reb that shot my eye out looked just like this fella here.”

Foster said nothing. Quincannon said irritably, “I was eight years old in 1862.”

“Phooey.” Dana belched again, then moved over to the far end of the shelter to watch the packet’s approach.

The steamer’s captain was experienced at landing in the midst of a squall. He brought the stern-wheeler in straight to the landing, her whistle shrieking fitfully, and held her there with her buckets lashing the river while a team of deckhands slung out a gangplank. As soon as the plank was down, a man wearing a yellow slicker and rain hat and toting a carpetbag hurried off. After which Dana, with a one-eyed glower at Quincannon and a muttered, “Goddamn all Johnny Rebs,” staggered on board. The deckhands immediately hauled in the plank and the steamer swung out toward mid-channel again. The entire operation had taken no more than a minute.

The arriving passenger was Noah Rideout; he went straight to the Concord buggy, where Foster now stood. Quincannon joined them as Foster opened the door and slung the carpetbag inside.

“My name is John Quincannon, Mr. Rideout. Of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, San Francisco.”

“Detective?” Rideout peered up at him; he was half a head shorter and stood with his feet widespread, in a way that was both belligerent and challenging. He reminded Quincannon of a fighting cock.

Foster said, “He came out to the ranch this afternoon looking for you, sir. Wouldn’t tell me why.”

“Not true,” Quincannon said. “I told him why — Pauline Dupree.”

Rideout stiffened visibly. He said nothing for nine or ten seconds while the wind wailed and one of the horses let loose with a mournful whicker. Then, warily, “What about Pauline Dupree?”

“It’s a long story. One that may well be advantageous to you, financially and otherwise.”

“It’s late,” Foster said, “and Mr. Rideout is in need of rest. You can tell him your tale tomorrow—”

Rideout said, “Shut up, Caleb,” without looking at him. Then, to Quincannon, “Advantageous to me, you said?”

“If your business in Stockton included a meeting with Gus Burgade.”

“Who?”

“A barrel of a man wearing a buffalo coat. An emissary of Miss Dupree’s.”

“Emissary? The hell you say!”

“Then you did have such a meeting. At which you turned over a large amount of cash to him. Correct?”

“By Christ! What are you trying to sell me?”

“Tell, not sell. I am neither a blackmailer nor an extortionist, though I can’t say the same for Miss Dupree.”

There was another short pause. “I don’t believe it,” Rideout said then, but his voice lacked conviction.

“I believe I can prove it to you. Shall we step in out of the rain, sir?”

The rancher turned abruptly to the buggy, shook off Foster’s attempt to help him, and drew himself inside. Quincannon followed. Though it was a relief to be shed of the storm, his clothing was saturated and he felt the night’s chill deep in his bones. The rain pelting down on the calash hood was loud enough to make conversation almost as difficult as it had been outside.

Rideout noted it, too. “It’s too noisy to converse here,” he said loudly. “Suppose you come along with me to my farm. I can damn well use a drink while I listen to what you have to say.”

“If it wouldn’t be an imposition.”

“Imposition, hell. You were hoping I would invite you, to save spending the night in that rathole of Adam Kennett’s, else you wouldn’t have brought your valise along.”

Quincannon didn’t deny it.

The coach rocked as Foster climbed up into the driver’s seat. Rideout shouted up to him, “Move out, Caleb!”

“Now, Mr. Rideout?”

“Now. And don’t spare the horses.”

The Concord jerked into motion, wheeling away from the landing and onto the muddy levee road. When they reached the ferryman’s shack, the muscular tender emerged with his bug-eye lantern. The black scowl he wore testified to his displeasure at having to make two dangerous crossings of Dead Man’s Slough on such a night as this. As did his grumbling remark that “the wind is a she-devil tonight, the current flood fast” — the most words Quincannon had heard him speak at once.

Rideout put an end to his protestations with a gold coin that flashed in the light from the bug-eye lantern. The ferryman had the apron down and was making ready with the windlass when Foster drove the Concord buggy down the embankment.

The horses were even more skittish now; Foster had some difficulty coaxing them onto the rocking barge. He set the brake and then swung down to hold the animals’ harnesses while the ferryman hooked the guard chain, cast off the mooring ropes, and bent to his windlass.

Impulse prodded Quincannon out of the carriage, to stand braced against the off-rear wheel. He disliked being closed inside a conveyance in such situations as this, preferring to be in a position to observe the proceedings and to offer assistance if needed. And he couldn’t get any wetter than he already was. He scanned as much of both shores as could be made out through the deluge. He thought he saw someone moving on the road near the town wharf, a dark shape like a huge winged vulture, but he couldn’t be sure; very little was distinct in the rain-soaked night.

Progress was slow, the barge rolling and pitching on the turbulent water. They were less than halfway across when Quincannon heard a singing moan in the storm’s racket — wind vibrating the ferry cable, he thought, or the strain on the scow produced by the load and the strong current. Suddenly, then, the barge lurched, made a dancing little sideslip that almost tore loose his grip on the buggy’s wheel.

The ferryman shouted a warning that the wind shredded away. In the next instant there was a loud snapping noise and something came hurtling through the wet blackness, cracking like a whip. One of the cables, broken free of its anchor on the north bank spit.

Swirling water bit into the scow, drenched Quincannon to the knees as it sluiced across the deck. The ferryman was thrown backward from the windlass; the drum spun free, ratcheting. He shouted again. So did Foster, something unintelligible. The barge, floating loose now and caught by the current, heaved and bucked toward the slough’s confluence with the dark sweep of the river.

The terror-stricken horses reared, and one’s hoof must have struck Foster; he screamed in pain, staggered, lost his balance, and was gone into the roiling slough. Quincannon felt the deck canting over, the buggy beginning to tip and slide away from him. Rideout had the door open now and was trying to struggle out; Quincannon caught hold of his arm, yanked him free. In another few seconds the carriage would roll and the weight of it and the horses tumbling would capsize the scow. There was nothing to be done but go into the water themselves, attempt to swim clear while they were still in the slough.

The ferryman knew it, too. He yelled a third time — “Jump, jump!” — and dove over the guard chain.

But Rideout fought against going overboard. Clawed desperately to free himself from Quincannon’s grasp, to cling to the side rail, all the while shouting, “I can’t swim! I can’t swim!”

Quincannon was bigger, stronger, younger, and there was no time left for such concerns. He wrenched the farmer around, locked an arm about his waist, and hurled both of them off the tilting deck.