Land Sharks

by S. L. Stoner

  “One is big with a smashed nose. The other is smaller, but I didn’t see him good enough to describe his face.”

  “Do you think they’re the ones who attacked you the other night?”

  “Could have been. They’re the right size.”

  Neither man spoke again. When the service ended, Franklin left first.

  When Sage reached the street door, he remembered the problem of Matthew. Feeling silly, he leaned out the entrance to inspect the street. Sure enough, the boy was there. He lounged against a building corner a block away trying to look as if he belonged there. He wasn’t succeeding. No one could mistake that redtopped, freckle-faced countenance for anything other than that of an eager, wet-behind-the-ears country bumpkin. Sage retreated. He pushed back into the building, startling Chaplain Robinson where he stood patting the shoulders of departing attendees.

  “Forgot something,” Sage muttered in explanation. The chaplain nodded.

  Once inside the chapel, Sage spotted a door to one side of the dais. Passing through it, he found a large empty kitchen. Across that room another door opened onto the side street. He exited after first peering out to make sure Matthew had not shifted his position to cover that exit.

  Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough. He had to get that boy out of his hair. Hopefully, Grace Kincaid had chores enough to keep Matthew busy until a week from Sunday.

  SEVENTEEN

  BEFORE CALLING IT A NIGHT, Sage needed to accomplish one more thing. It was time to make his first move toward switching employers. Sage mused that the thought of never again hearing Pratt’s querulous voice was like imagining a toothache’s absence before the tooth got pulled. Certainly, there’d be no missing Pratt. Yet, his short but intensive exposure to the man’s personality would be a lasting memory. Not a bad thing, provided he never heard that voice again.

  Men wearing a variety of garb and speaking every imaginable language crowded the smokey and raucous Erickson’s saloon. Sage scanned the room looking for just two men. At last he spotted them. They sat at a table near the center of the room, looking like successful businessmen. Each wore a gold watch chain draped across his vest, a bow tie snug against his collar, and a spotless derby hat perched atop neatly barbered hair. Their commonplace appearance was fooling no one. Those seated at neighboring tables snicked nervous glances in their direction. As Sage watched, a staggering drunk sobered up enough to make a wide detour around the table where the two men sat. These were Kaspar Mordaunt’s runners and everybody seemed to know it. They were also the men in the rowboat whose arrival frightened Pratt away from the Clarisa’s anchor chain.

  When they noticed Sage approaching their table, they stopped talking and leaned back in their chairs. Each man’s expression was challenging, his lips compressed into a thin slash that said Sage should just go away if he wanted to avoid being hurt. Ignoring their blatant hostility, Sage slung a chair away from the table and sat. “Hello, gentlemen,” he said, trying for a tone that conveyed nervous bravado. “ Name’s Twig Crowley. I’m just up from Frisco, looking for work.”

  “We know who you are. And you’re lying. You got work. You’re rowing that old tub, Pratt, around the harbor,” said the one on the left. He sported a long nose that looked sharp as a knife edge.

  Sage shook his head in disgust. “That I am, which should tell you why I’m looking for better work. Pratt’s doing half the business he could ‘cause he’s into coddling them.” Sage made a face of disgust. “Besides, he talks too damn much.”

  The sharp nosed one wasn’t buying. “Look somewhere else. We don’t hire just anybody like that old windbag Pratt does. And we ain’t looking for scrawny fellas like you.”

  “I’m wiry and I’m tough,” Sage said, a mulish tone to his response.

  “Hah,” said the second man. “There’s more to this job than pulling oars. Fact is, I bet you can barely do that from the look of you.” His voice sounded gravelly, as if someone had once nearly succeeded in cutting his throat.

  Sage shoved his chair backward and stood, balling his fists as he did so. “How’d you like to eat those words, mister?”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw a saloon bouncer leave his post at the door and lumber in their direction. Sage sat again and leaned across the table, making his voice carry over the drunken babble around them.

  “I’m a hard worker and I don’t ask questions. I do what I’m told. Anytime you want to see how tough I am, step outside. I’ll have some surprises for you.”

  Neither man changed his contemptuous posture. Sharp Nose spoke again.“It doesn’t work like that around here, Crowley. We’ve got no reason to trust you. Nobody knows you. But I tell you what. You bring us some men we can ship out. Then, maybe we’ll be interested in working with you. There’s a whaling ship we’re trying to man, and nobody is willing to ship on her. She’ll be leaving with tomorrow night’s tide. She’s just been patched up. Bring us a man for the Karluk, and well, maybe, there’ll be place for you in our organization. Otherwise, don’t bother us again.” He dropped his crossed arms to lean forward across the table, speaking his next words with unmistakable menace, his eyes narrowed into brittle points. “And keep in mind one thing. We don’t like informers. If that’s who you are, then you’re already a dead man.”

  “Got a problem here, Mr. Drake?” The sudden voice at his ear jerked Sage upright in his chair. The burly bouncer stood there, meaty fists on his hips.

  “Nope, Amos. Mr. Crowley was just leaving,” said Sharp Nose.

  Sage stood, nodded at both men, and walked straight out of Erickson’s. Once outside, he leaned against the brick front, letting the night air evaporate the sheen of sweat raised by the encounter. After a few seconds, he thought to look up and down the street for Matthew. The boy appeared to be nowhere in sight.

  He needed to return to Pratt’s, but first he wanted to mull over his rebuff by Mordaunt’s runners. Apparently, a willingness to associate himself with Mordaunt’s operation was insufficient to get him inside it. Mordaunt set high stakes standards: the devil’s standards. No way Sage was going to shanghai a man onto a death ship. He’d have to think of some other angle.

  Near Pratt’s, Sage stepped into a seedy saloon called “Toppers.” He wanted a beer and time to think before subjecting himself to Pratt’s incessant yammering.

  Inside Toppers there were no musicians, shrieking women, or roaring men–only the splash and swish of the bartender rinsing glassware and the quiet murmur of conversation. Sage welcomed the quiet after Erickson’s. He stood at the bar, his foot on the rail, staring into the mirror and pondering the difficulty of trying to ingratiate himself into a band of cutthroats. As his beer mug reached half gone, his ear caught the word “Chink” sounding in a conversation at a nearby table. Sage strained to hear more.

  “I guess you could say my philosophy is the only good Chink is a dead one,” the man continued, “and, heh, heh, I’ve done my part in that regard. My way of seeing it, the Chinks need to go back to China and keep their mitts off what belongs to decent white men!”

  Sage casually shifted position until he could look over toward that table as he swallowed beer, only to start choking when he recognized the man speaking. He looked like in his picture, only older, with lines etched deeper in a face grown more fleshy over the years. It was Homer LaRue.

  Sage turned his back to the man and he tried to control his choking while his mind raced. The man who’d murdered Fong’s relatives at the bottom of the Snake River canyon sat, like a giant toad, less than six feet away.

  “Yeah, I guess he’s done his part and then some.” Sage muttered. He wanted to swing around, grab the man, and shove his teeth down his throat until he choked. The sudden surge of fury turned his stomach sour. He grimaced and put his mug down on the counter.

  “Mister, is something wrong with the beer?”

  Sage’s eyes jerked to the bartender, who stood in front of him, looking mildly concerned. Sage looked down and saw thathe still clutched th
e mug handle in a white-knuckled grip.

  “No, it’s fine. Just got took with a sudden bad thought. Factis, pour me a second one,” Sage said, slapping another nickeldown on the counter.

  As he nursed the second beer, Sage’s mind snagged on thethought of Fong and the wading crane. What had Fong said? Oh, yes, something about the crane needing to be ready for what-ever the current brings. Sage smiled grimly to himself, thinking, “Just might be some truth to Fong’s advice.” Here he’d walkedinto a saloon to wrestle with the problem of how to get closeto Mordaunt. He could have picked any saloon in Portland. Hecould have never seen Homer LaRue. Instead, he was stand-ing within a few feet of the man who’d murdered Fong’s uncleand cousins in cold blood. Sage gripped the beer mug until hisfingers hurt. He itched to pound the heavy mug into the man’shead, forever stilling that ugly hateful voice.

  Instead, Sage calmly sipped his beer until LaRue rose to take his leave. Setting down his mug, Sage left twenty-five cents on the counter for the barkeep and followed the man from the saloon. LaRue turned to the west with a slightly drunken stagger. Sage dropped back, staying close to the darkened buildings as he followed. Five blocks farther on, LaRue entered the glass doors of an older but decent hotel frequented by sales drummers. Sage watched as LaRue crossed the lobby and mounted the stairs. Seconds later, a gaslight flared to life behind a second floor corner window. Sage marked its location before turning back toward Pratt’s boardinghouse.

  He wasn’t anticipating a restful night. Pratt made Sage sleep in the tiny alcove tucked behind the front door, on the canvas cot, even though the boardinghouse had bedrooms to spare. This was because, in the hours he wasn’t performing as Pratt’s rower or bellhop, Sage performed as Pratt’s human guard dog. In that role, he vetted the sailors who staggered in and out at all hours of the night. And, like a guard dog, Sage snapped awake every time the door opened or a floorboard creaked, no matter how great his fatigue. The sleeping arrangement was one more thing he would not miss when he departed Pratt’s employ.

  The distant rumble of wagon traffic on nearby Burnside Street jarred his thoughts back to the mission and the unrelated problem of Homer LaRue. Life’s current certainly delivered the unexpected. He needed a way into Mordaunt’s organization so that he could find out for sure whether Mordaunt was responsible for Kincaid’s death. And, if he was, by God, Sage would bring Mordaunt down. But how? And now, right in the midst of figuring out how to achieve that seeming impossibility, Homer LaRue’s hateful self turns up. Darned if Sage knew what to do about him. Something, for absolutely certain sure. But what?

  As that querulous question circled his mind, a pale wash of light began flooding the street. The full moon broke free of low-hanging clouds and lit his path. When he reached the corner of Fourth and Couch, a faint rustle on his left caught Sage’s ear. Looking in that direction, he saw only a pile of garbage heaped against the side of the building. Then the pile moved and groaned. Wary of a trap, Sage approached cautiously. He used his booted foot to push aside wads of crumpled newsprint, collapsed freight boxes, and empty cans, uncertain whether the form lying underneath the trash was a human being. When he saw a hand, he began flinging aside the garbage, exposing the man’s upper torso. Just as he dropped into a crouch, moonlight illuminated the man’s face. It was Stuart Franklin.

  “Oh, no,” Sage breathed, “Oh, no.”

  Franklin groaned and his eyes fluttered open to focus on Sage’s face.“Miner to the rescue again?” Franklin’s faint voice carried a tinge of wonder that it was his new friend who crouched over him.

  “What happened?”

  “Two men,” Franklin gasped out, speaking as if the two words wreaked painful havoc on his throat. He swallowed and started again, “Two men, the same ones as before. One big with a pushed-over nose. The other one was skinny, with a funny looking mustache.” Franklin began to pant in pain, his eyes squeezing shut.

  He reached out to clutch Sage’s sleeve. “They were waiting . . . outside the Society. Can’t understand. No one could know I’d be there. Chaplain Robinson let me in the back door. Someone . . . on our side must have told them. They thought I was dead, so they congratulated themselves on making the most of the tipoff. That means . . . you’re in danger, too.” He gasped again, his hand dropped and his head fell sideways.

  “Lie still, Franklin. I’m going for help. I’ll be right back,” Sage told the unconscious man, He jumped up and ran toward the sound of wagon wheels rolling down Burnside, a street away. It was an empty delivery dray rumbling its way west, the driver atop his seat, slouched with weariness. Sage’s arm waving and raised voice caused the weary horse to shy between its shafts.

  “Mister, I need your help,” Sage shouted, “A man’s hurt real bad back down that street. I’ll pay you to drive him up to the St. Vincent hospital on Westover.”

  The man straightened and reined in his horse. “Alrighty, sir. Whereabouts is this hurt man?”

  “About a block down,” Sage said, pointing back down Fourth. The driver gave Sage a searching look, obviously fearing deception. Then he turned the dray north on Fourth to follow Sage’s running figure.

  When they reached the dark form on the sidewalk, Franklin lay completely motionless. Sage kneeled at Franklin’s side. He held his breath, fearing what he might find. A ragged inhalation by the injured man brought relief and spurred Sage back into action.

  “We’ll need to lift him into the bed of the dray.”

  “Just a minute, I got some sacking,” the teamster said. “I’ll spread it out so he’ll have some cushioning.” The driver ran to the back of the dray and returned to slide his arms under Franklin’s legs.

  Seconds later they were heading toward St. Vincent’s, Portland’s largest hospital. It sat above the city in the foothills of the western ridge. To Sage, crouched beside a man he’d come to consider a friend, the twenty-five blocks seemed endless. As the dray pulled up at the hospital entrance, Sage leapt out and ran inside. Within a minute he returned with two husky men, a stretcher, and a stout nun in a white apron who calmly issued orders to all of them.

  Once the doctor and nurses were bent over Franklin, Sage rushed back to the driver who waited atop the dray, his tired horse still wheezing from that last uphill pull. When Sage reached paper bills up to the man, the driver waved them away.

  “No, sir. I’ll not take any money. Your ‘thank you’ is enough. I’m just grateful that the good Lord first brought you and then me along at the right time. There weren’t too many empty wagons this time of night. I hope your friend makes it. He looks awful poorly.”

  Sage accepted the kindness. As the wagon with its weary horse and driver rumbled away down the dark street, Sage reentered the hospital, where the new electric fixtures lit the room to an approximation of daylight.

  After endless minutes, the doctor stepped from behind the curtain that shielded Franklin. “You a relative?” he asked.

  Sage shook his head.

  “You know how to reach any of his relatives? They might want to be here.”

  Sage remembered that Franklin’s grandfather and brother were both dead. Wait a minute, weren’t there sisters mentioned in the letter from Franklin’s brother? If so, he wouldn’t know how to find them. He said to the doctor, “Sorry, I just met him a few weeks ago and don’t know him all that well.”

  “Hmm, well, if you can think of any way to find a relative, now would be the time.”

  “He’s that bad?”

  “There’s a number of severe injuries to his bones and he’s concussed. He’s unconscious now, and it is anyone’s guess if he’ll ever come to consciousness again. If he has family, someone better tell them.”

  Sage said, “I’m pretty certain he has no one in these parts, but there’s a man who knows him much better than I do. I’ll go to his house and ask him.”

  “I wouldn’t waste any time,” the doctor said, his face grim in the unnaturally bright light.

  EIGHTEEN

  Sage ran fiv
e blocks, mounted the long steps and crossed the veranda to pound on the front door. Laidlaw must have been in the adjacent room because the front door opened immediately. The British consul stood there, with shirt collar open, suspenders loosened, a finger serving as placeholder in a leather-bound book.

  “Adair! What’s happened?”

  Sage sucked air into his straining lungs before answering. “It’s Franklin. They may have killed him.”

  “Oh, dear Lord, no. What happened?” Laidlaw asked, his face going flaccid with shock. He pulled the door wide open. “Come in, Adair, come in.”

  “No! We’ve got to get back to the hospital. The doctor wants to know if he has any relatives. You seem to know him best.”

  Laidlaw said nothing, only grabbed a coat and hat from an oak hall tree and headed out, pulling the door shut behind him.

  As they hurried toward St. Vincent’s, Sage told Laidlaw how he found Franklin and what the injured man said before he passed out.

  “So Franklin said positively that the crimps have an informer in our midst?”

  “That’s what he said. He said the thugs talked about it because they thought he was dead.”

  Laidlaw said nothing. When he did speak, he changed the topic. “You still intend to find out who is responsible for young Kincaid’s death? Even after seeing the consequences of going up against the crimps?”

  “I’m more determined than ever.” Sage told the consul how the cuts on Kincaid’s feet pointed toward Kaspar Mordaunt as the crimp responsible.

  “Mordaunt. That doesn’t surprise me. He’s the most powerful and brutal of the crimps. I heard tell that when he came up short of a man to ship out, he pulled his own son out of the schoolroom to fill the order. Anything for the blood money, that’s Mordaunt. I wager he’s the one behind the attacks on Franklin.”

  “Mordaunt will pay for what he’s done,” Sage vowed.

  Laidlaw shook his head and gave Sage a rueful smile. “Oh, you might be able to prove his guilt to your satisfaction, but bringing him to justice–that’s an entirely different matter,” he said, “Mordaunt and his runners got most of the judges in this city elected. He’s one of the ones I told you about, making a big party out of election days, driving drunken sailors from poll to poll in wagons loaded down with whores and kegs of beer. Some of the men vote ten times over.”