Smugglers' Gold

by Lyle Brandt

  Or was it worth the risk? Should Ryder simply make himself scarce and wait for Director Wood to drop a net on Marley’s gang? How long would that take, if in fact it happened at all?

  Without communication from the capital, Ryder had no idea if Wood was acting on the information he’d received so far, or if the telegrams had even reached his hands. Assuming that they had, it still remained for Wood to find the men and other resources he needed to conduct a raid in Galveston, where local lawmen—some of them, at least—took cash to let the smugglers operate with evident impunity.

  If Wood was able to corral the Marley gang, could he trust any local jail to hold them? Was an honest judge available in Galveston—or anywhere in war-torn, Yankee-hating Texas—to preside over their trial? Could jurors be empaneled who would dare convict them on the evidence, at risk of possible retaliation? If convicted, would they be released with payment of a fine and warned to sin no more?

  It was too much to think about just now, but Ryder had decided one thing, anyway. He would proceed to Awful Annie’s as agreed and make-believe that nothing in the least unusual had happened to him on his way there. Wait and see if anyone reacted to him turning up, alive and well, when they had wished him dead.

  And then, what? Let them try again, with better planning next time?

  The half-mile walk to Awful Annie’s was a nerve-racking experience. He kept expecting gunshots from the shadows, watching darkened windows for the flicker of a curtain to betray a sniper, half expecting enemies to rush at him from alleys or from recessed doorways. When he made it, uncontested, Ryder lingered for a moment at the entrance to the bar and bawdy house, steeling his nerve, then pushed his way inside.

  “You’re late, George,” Bryan Marley said by way of greeting. “Come and have a drink.”

  Ryder crossed to the bar, telling the King of Smugglers, “Sorry. I’m still getting used to how the streets run every which way here in Galveston.”

  “It takes a while,” Ryder agreed, filling a whiskey glass and sliding it toward Ryder. “Now you’re here, I thought you’d want to know I found the coppers who were after you last night.”

  “And?”

  “I gave their badges to a sergeant who’s a friend of ours. He’ll say he found them at a pawnshop, but the owner can’t identify whoever left them there. The two you thumped have been suspended for a week, no pay.”

  “They won’t be happy,” Ryder said.

  “Won’t matter,” Marley told him. “When they come back off suspension they’ll be walking a beat around Broadway and Avenue L.” Noting Ryder’s lack of comprehension, Marley added, “It’s all black around that neighborhood. They’ll have a grand old time.”

  “And won’t be carrying a grudge?”

  “To hell with ’em. They come around harassing us again, they’ll wish they’d let it go with bruises.”

  “Sorry if I caused you any trouble,” Ryder said.

  “All in a day’s work,” Marley said.

  Scanning the faces of the crew assembled in the barroom, Ryder said, “I guess I’m not the only one who’s late.”

  “Otto, you mean?” Marley was nodding as he spoke. “He had some business to take care of, but he’ll be along directly. I think he’s warming up to you a little.”

  “Oh?”

  “You may have noticed that he’s wary around strangers.”

  Ryder sipped his whiskey. Said, “I got that.”

  “But this afternoon, after you left with Ed and Harry, Otto said he thought you’d do all right.”

  “High praise.”

  “From him it is, believe me.”

  “Well.”

  “Get on his good side and you couldn’t have a better friend. But if he has it in for you, watch out.”

  Feeling the burn of whiskey in his throat, Ryder replied, “Thanks. I’ll remember that.”

  12

  Otto Seitz was tired of waiting for his pistoleros to return. He pictured Harry Baker and the Mexican—Alfredo Something—stopping off somewhere along the way to wet their whistle, losing track of time while he sat there in the small, smoky cantina, sipping tepid beer. It’s what he got for hiring sluggards, and he had a good mind not to pay what they had coming for the finished job, if they were too damned lazy to show up on time and claim their money.

  Five more minutes, he decided. After that, forget it.

  What could Baker do if he came in an hour late and Seitz was gone? Complain to the police? Sue Otto for defaulting on their contract? Any mention of their deal would put his fat neck in a noose, and Seitz didn’t believe the gunman was that stupid.

  On the other hand, the Mex seemed like a hothead, too damned cocky for his own good around white men. He might be the sort to hound Seitz, prodding him for payment even when the terms of their agreement had been violated, but it wouldn’t get him anywhere. Except, maybe, a shallow grave.

  Seitz wasn’t taking lip from any Mexican bandido, nor a sweaty pig whose only talent seemed to be backshooting. Two could play that game. Arrange a meeting for a settlement, and when the pair of them arrived, pay them in lead. Otto was confident his sawed-off scattergun could do the trick, relieve him of a problem while it saved him money, and the rest of Marley’s crew would never know a thing about it.

  Perfect, then.

  Time’s up, he thought and drained his beer. Leaving the tavern, Otto spent a final moment on the sidewalk, peering north and south along the street, in case Baker and his amigo were approaching even now. Nobody visible from where he stood resembled them, and Otto spat into the street before he turned away, starting his trek toward Awful Annie’s.

  This was something he would never share with Bryan Marley. Seitz had acted for the benefit of all concerned, whether the boss saw it or not. He had mistrusted George Revere from their first meeting, thought there must be something false about him at the core, no matter how often he had contrived to rescue Marley from the jaws of doom. It wasn’t simply knowing they would never be the best of friends; his animosity toward Marley’s new good friend ran much deeper than that. Otto wasn’t entirely sure he could explain it, even to himself, but he still harbored a conviction that eliminating Georgie Boy had been the proper thing to do.

  And now, it seemed he’d managed to achieve his goal for half price, after all.

  He had originally offered twenty dollars for the killing, ten paid in advance. He likely could have argued Harry down a bit, but since the fat man didn’t care about collecting the remainder of his fee, it all came out the same.

  Except to Harry and the Mex, if they came after him for more.

  Otto heard the music blaring out of Awful Annie’s from a block away, discordant as ever. Sometimes he had difficulty knowing if the bar’s name was derived from its proprietress, its liquor, or its entertainment. Still, Annie’s had come to be a kind of home away from home for Bryan Marley and his men when they were not engaged in forays to the wrong side of the law.

  Tomorrow, for example.

  But tonight—for Seitz, at least—a celebration was in order. Granted, he couldn’t let it slip that he was tickled by the fate of George Revere, much less that he’d arranged it. No one else would know that they had lost the new boy yet, and Otto didn’t mind keeping the secret. Let it come out in its own good time. Meanwhile, he’d tip a glass to Georgie Boy and to a job well done.

  Marley would thank him someday, if he ever learned the truth. Or maybe it was better if he just kept Bryan in the dark. Let him believe that friends of dead Jack Menefee had managed to retaliate somehow, or that the coppers George had waylaid on his walk home from the bar last night had come back to avenge themselves.

  It was all the same to Seitz, whatever, once the irritant had been removed.

  Smiling, Otto pushed in through the swinging doors and felt his grin go rigid, turned into a grimace at the sight of George Revere standing before him at the bar, shoulder to shoulder with the boss. The two of them were drinking, talking amiably, with the others gathered r
ound them. It was like awakening from pleasant dreams into a living nightmare, biting into fresh ripe fruit and finding maggots.

  Still alive.

  And what should Seitz discern from that? Had Harry and the Mex simply absconded with his cash? Or had Revere gotten the best of them somehow?

  He obviously wouldn’t learn a damned thing standing in the doorway, gaping like a fool, nor could he brace Revere and pose the question to him. Otto saw that he could only make the best of it, pretend nothing had happened—if, in fact, it had.

  Seitz pictured Harry Baker and Alfredo Something laughing at him, laying out his money for tequila, and he hoped they were alive.

  He would enjoy hunting them down and killing them himself.

  *

  Ryder saw Seitz hesitate as he came through the bat-wing doors, smile flicking off for just a second, then returning. Was he startled to see Ryder standing in the flesh before him, or was that simply the expression of distaste he usually showed to George Revere? Ryder could read it either way, but by the time Seitz reached the bar his face and attitude were back to normal.

  “Otto, you get that business taken care of?” Marley asked him.

  “Done,” Seitz answered. “Then, I thought I saw a few of Jack’s old boys prowling around, so I came out the long way.”

  “Did they spot you?”

  “Guess not. Here I stand.”

  “I thought they might’ve learned their lesson,” Marley said. “Maybe we need to put the rest of them away.” He brooded over that, draining his shot glass and refilling it, then said, “But first, we’ve got this other job to do.”

  Seitz cleared his throat, shooting a sidelong glance at Ryder as he asked, “You sure we oughta talk about that now?”

  “Why not?” Marley replied.

  “Well …”

  “Otto, I’ve told you. George is one of us now.”

  “Fine. Okay.”

  Ryder kept silent during that exchange, trying to keep his face expressionless while reading theirs. Was it an act on Marley’s part? On Otto’s? Both? Could he trust Marley’s claim to see him as a trusted member of the gang? Or had he come around to Seitz’s way of thinking, setting up a trap to snare the traitor?

  Ryder saw no other way to play it than proceeding on the course he’d chosen, taking Marley’s comments at face value while he kept his guard up against any ambush laid by Seitz or both of them together.

  “So, the other boys already know about this,” Marley told him. “You’ll be going on a little cruise?”

  “I will?”

  “Not by yourself, o’ course. Otto’s in charge, taking a dozen of the boys.”

  “You won’t be coming?” Ryder asked him.

  Marley shook his head, pouring another shot of liquor. “I’ve got business to take care of here in Galveston. More than I thought, if Menefee’s ragtag and bobtail haven’t figured out who’s boss.”

  So he’d be working under Seitz directly, without Marley serving as a buffer. Ryder didn’t like the sound of that, but couldn’t very well refuse.

  “Where are we going?” he inquired.

  “You know Timbalier Island?” Marley asked him.

  “Sorry. Never heard of it.”

  “It’s off the coast of Terrebonne Parish,” Seitz chimed in. His tone was almost normal, as if speaking to another human being. “That’s Louisiana, southeast of New Orleans.”

  Ryder tried to picture it, imagining a map. “That’s what, two hundred miles?” he asked.

  “Two-fifty be more like it,” Seitz replied. “You get seasick?”

  “Not yet.” He thought about the Southern Belle, churning along. “How long is that likely to take?”

  Seitz answered with a question of his own. “You have someplace better to be?”

  “Just curious,” said Ryder, meeting Otto’s gaze and holding it until the smuggler blinked. The answer came from Marley when he’d drained his latest shot. “Say thirteen hours out and thirteen back, depending on the wind.”

  “So, not a steamer then.”

  “A clipper,” Marley said. “You helped unload it earlier today.”

  The Banshee. Formerly the Revenant.

  “Ah,” Ryder said and reached out for his whiskey glass, relieved to see no tremor in his hand.

  “Stede thinks he’s seen you somewhere,” Seitz recalled.

  Ryder allowed himself a shrug. Said, “Everybody makes mistakes.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What are we doing on this island?” Ryder asked, directing it to Marley.

  “Digging up a buried treasure,” Marley answered, smiling. “Did you ever want to be a pirate when you were a kid?”

  “I never thought about it,” Ryder answered, honestly.

  “Well, here’s your chance. You know that pirates used to move their loot through Galveston, long time before the war?”

  Ryder recalled Director Wood’s short lecture on the French Lafitte brothers. “That sounds vaguely familiar,” he acknowledged.

  “Well, it didn’t all come through,” Marley explained. “Back in the day—say forty, fifty years ago—they made a deal with Washington to fight against the British, in return for all the booty they could steal. O’ course, once Andy Jackson beat the redcoats at New Orleans, someone changed the rules. You know how that goes. One day, everybody’s friends. The next”—he brought a hand down on the bar, as it were a hatchet’s blade—“the law is hanging pirates right and left, grabbing their gold for Uncle Sam.”

  “No great surprise,” said Ryder.

  “Right. Except, they missed a few. More than a few, in fact. The ones they hung kept quiet to the end, about the fortunes they had stashed away. Those who survived, well, they laid low awhile, then went back to the only trade they knew. Over the years, they raised a new brood in Jamaica, Cuba, other places. Passing down the memory of where their fathers buried gold and jewels and who knows what all they collected through the years.”

  “Like what the Banshee brought today.”

  “Like that,” Marley agreed. “Except the ganja. That’s a new thing, more or less. The darkies like it, and it’s catching on with certain others I could name.”

  “So,” Ryder inquired, “when do we leave?”

  “You’ve got an early start,” said Marley. “Under sail by eight A.M.”

  “I’d better catch some sleep, then,” Ryder said.

  “Not yet, you don’t,” a soft voice said, beside him. Turning to his left, he saw Nell’s upturned, smiling face. “Before you go, there’s something that you need to see. Upstairs.”

  *

  You’re special, George,” Nell said, when they had finished for the second time.

  “I’ll bet you say that to all of your gentlemen callers,” Ryder replied.

  “O’ course I do. But with you, I mean it.”

  “Might kind of you, but I believe you’ve worn me out.”

  “We aim to please,” she told him, smiling sleepily.

  “You hit the mark,” Ryder assured her, as he slowly started getting dressed. He left two dollars on the dresser, well above the going rate.

  “Come back and see me?”

  “If I can,” he answered, from the door.

  “Say ‘when,’ not ‘if,’” she chided him.

  “That’s what I meant.”

  “G’night, George.”

  “Good night, Nell.”

  He looked around for Seitz and Marley on his way downstairs, but spotted neither one. They had a way of disappearing once he went upstairs, a circumstance that troubled Ryder more tonight than in the recent past. He wasn’t keen on the idea of sailing off with Pickering and Seitz to search for pirates’ gold, but there was no way to refuse the order without goading Marley into suspicion along with his chief lieutenant.

  Or did Marley suspect him already? Was that the purpose of sending Ryder off with Seitz and Pickering, while Marley stayed on shore? If so, and Ryder shipped out on the Banshee as commanded, he would be as
good as dead. His only hope, if Seitz and Pickering both had it in for him, would be their fear of riling up the boss.

  Another thought: was Pickering afraid of Marley? Would he hesitate to kill Ryder for fear of angering a customer?

  No ready answer came to mind for that question. Ryder could only forge ahead, unless he planned to quit the Secret Service there and then—a move that still would not protect him if he stayed in Galveston. The prospect of escaping from the city on his own, making his long way back to Washington, confessing failure to Director Wood on his first mission for the agency disgusted him.

  So be it. He would sail tomorrow on the Banshee, with his fingers crossed for luck and his Colt fully loaded. If their treasure hunt took a turn for the worse, at least he’d take a few pirates down with him.

  And Seitz. Kill him first, if it came down to that. Blast the smug look right off of his face.

  But first, he had to leave another message for Director Wood. His last, perhaps, leaving a trail for Wood to follow if he disappeared.

  That meant another long, meandering excursion to the Western Union office, Ryder watching out along the way for any gunmen anxious to try their hands where the first pair had failed. Along the way, he wondered if he would have benefited from relating the attack to Marley, maybe looking for a flicker in his eyes to see if he had been informed of it beforehand, but the opportunity was gone. He might not see the boss tomorrow—off on “other business”—and it would seem bizarre for him to wait twelve hours before mentioning the ambush.

  Skip it.

  Western Union’s night clerk was a tall, broad-shouldered man who liked his liquor, if the broken capillaries on his nose and ruddy cheeks were any indicator. Add them to the fumes that he exhaled, and Ryder marked it up as a sure thing. He guessed there was a paucity of supervision on the late shift, wondering how many telegrams were garbled in transmission.

  As a hedge, he guessed the spelling of Timbalier Island, kept it short, and waited while the clerk tapped on his key to send the message off. Once its receipt had been confirmed, Ryder began the long walk back through mostly empty streets to reach his boardinghouse.