The Seekers

by F. M. Parker

  “And a clever one he won’t see until it’s too late,” Levi added.

  * * *

  Mattoon stopped with Dokken on the street and scanned the broad grounds surrounding his home. He paid special attention to the carriageway that led to the side of the house, passed under a covered walkway leading directly to the entrance, and continued on to the stables in the rear. That portion of the carriageway between the street and the house was flanked by shoulder high shrubbery and large, tall trees that were ideal for hiding an enemy.

  He focused on his home, rising serene in the moonlight, a beautiful white jewel in the center of the dark grounds. Life here was so very different from the sensual, and violent life he lived on the waterfront. Here in this house he entertained San Francisco’s elite people, the rich and the powerful, in lavish parties. Since he was a bachelor, lovely daughters were trotted out for his inspection. Young widows made their coy overtures to show they were available. Ah, what a great life. He hoped Scanlan and Coffin, two nobodies, were indeed hiding somewhere near thinking to pounce on him? He would shoot them all to hell before they could spoil the life he had built for himself.

  Mattoon knew of the death of the Chinese girl, and the killing of the three men he had sent to collect protection money from the pair of young businessmen. The death of the girl pleased him, a just reward for daring to escape from his custody. The slaying of his men did not bother him at all for there were others to take their places. But the skill Coffin had shown in the killing of the men did make him cautious. It seemed that winning the rifle shooting contest in Sacramento had not been a fluke for Coffin. Then he had been joined by Scanlan returning from the Beremendes rancho where he had prevented Mattoon’s men from driving off her workers. Mattoon would like to know exactly what had happened there. Then the two men had burned the Porpoise Saloon. Mattoon had not expected that, and surely not the action the men took to identify themselves to the bartender. They had obviously calculated that the saloon was valuable to Mattoon and had destroyed it in an attempt to bring him chasing angrily after them. Others on the waterfront knew about the challenge to Mattoon, and for him to maintain supremacy in his domain, he had to take up the challenge. He had done just that, but warily and with plenty of tough fighters backing him. He had survived many battles and knew there were times for boldness, but when your opponent started the game, that was a time for caution.

  With Dokken and five tough fighters, Mattoon had led in a search for Scanlan and Coffin, checking their office, their home and the home of their foreman, Isaiah Green. A damn foolish name for a black man. He had been tempted to give Green a hellish beating and then run him out of town, but had constrained himself, and instead put a man to watch him in the chance he would lead them to his employers. He had dismissed the remainder of his men, except for Dokken, and then made his way through the night to his home.

  Mattoon had been surprised when the two partners hadn’t been found. He had had trouble with other men who had resisted his efforts to collect protection money from them, or had other grievances against him. Those men had either forted up in their places of business, or at home. Mattoon had patiently waited. Until the day they came outside, thinking the battle was over when Mattoon’s men had not again approached them. Once on the street, they were easily taken prisoner, never to be seen again. He had thought Scanlan and Coffin would have acted the same.

  “We’ll check the entire grounds and then inside,” Mattoon said.

  “It’s damn strange we haven’t been able to find them. Do you think they would be so dumb as to come here?”

  “I don’t think they’re here. But it wouldn’t be so dumb for most men would drop their guard when they reached home. We’ll stay together as we look for them so we don’t shoot each other.”

  Mattoon moved out. Dokken took a parallel course on the right. They went warily through the broad grounds landscaped with stone walls, flower beds and tall trees towering over everything. Mattoon noted Dokken was tense, his eyes constantly probing the night shadows. Dokken, like Mattoon, had seen Coffin shoot. Scanlan could be equally skilled with a gun.

  “What’s that?” Dokken asked. “There ahead in those trees.”

  Mattoon swiftly looked at the copse of trees faintly illuminated by moonlight. The light was not good, still he could see the dark, vertical outlines of the boles of the trees. He minutely examined the open space among the half-dozen trees, and found nothing that resembled the body of a man. “Do you still see something?” he asked.

  “Not now. I thought I saw movement, but I must have been mistaken.”

  “Keep alert,” Mattoon said.

  * * *

  Levi waited in the darkness that gripped the house. His eyes searched for movement and his ears reached out for the slightest sound. He held his pistol, a weapon with which he was not handy, and wished he had his familiar Spencer rifle instead. The police had it now and he would never again have possession.

  He believed Errin and he had been here for hours, but his only measurement of the passage of time was by the size of the cold knot that was growing in his stomach. Why didn’t Mattoon come? Then this waiting could end.

  He could see nothing directly ahead where he knew the stairway rose to the upper two floors. To the side he could make out the barest of the dim outline that marked a window on the far side of the wide room. Errin sat in the gloom a few feet in the opposite direction. He had made not one sound since they had carried two chairs into the hallway and seated themselves. Levi envied him his self-control. They had chosen this location in the center of the house, for as Errin had said, there was no way to guess which way Mattoon would enter. From here they could move swiftly to intercept the man at either the rear, side, or front entrance. In fact, Mattoon might appear any place in the house for he could have a secret entrance to use when he felt threatened, and he must feel threatened after the burning of the Porpoise Saloon.

  “Why doesn’t he come?” Levi whispered.

  “Patience, partner,” Errin replied. He had heard Levi moving fretfully in his chair. “He’ll come and when he does, we’ll do what has to be done.” The darkness and the waiting wasn’t too awfully difficult for him and he realized his tolerance had come from the countless days he had spent in the total darkness below deck in the prison hulk ships in Botany Bay, Australia. Strange that something so horrible as the hulks had helped prepare him for this fight against Mattoon. His young comrade without doubt had lived an entirely different life.

  A loud crashing sound of the heavy front door slamming into a wall reverberated through the house. A pistol exploded. A shout erupted, quickly cut off.

  “What the hell!” exclaimed Levi.

  “At the front,” Errin shouted. “Come on let’s see what’s happening.”

  Levi moved hastily toward the door. Errin caught him by the shoulder as he passed and slowed his reckless pace. “Careful now, this might be a trick to make us show ourselves.”

  “How’d Mattoon know we’d be here?”

  “He’d figure it out if anybody could.”

  “But we’ve got to see.”

  “Right. But slow and easy does it.”

  In a few steps they were close enough to see the door standing wide open and could hear the stomp of feet and thud of fists striking flesh and bone and the strained breathing of men in fierce combat. Mystified by who the fighters might be and why they fought, Errin stole up to the door and looked out into the night. Levi came up beside him and stood in the doorway.

  The dark form of a man lay motionless on the three steps rising up to the entrance. Just beyond that, a tangle of four men rolled and thrashed on the stone paved walk leading from the carriageway. The men grappled and struck swiftly and in the murk Errin could not make out who they were. Close by, four men surrounded a man much larger than they, and were attacking him from all sides. Errin thought the man, from the size and shape of his body, was Mattoon. The man pounded his assailants and seemed for the moment to be holding th
em at bay. Then one of the attackers ran forward and launched himself through the air at Mattoon. Despite the big man’s effort to dodge the flying body, it struck him solidly in the side, and he went down. The smaller men swarmed upon him, hammering him with their fists, stomping him with their feet.

  Not a word escaped the attacked or attackers. Their harsh breathing rent the air and the thud of striking fists and feet.

  Abruptly from beside the wall on Levi’s side of the door, shapes took form, black from black. Men, seemingly having cat’s eyes in the darkness, leapt upon him. One man swung a blackjack, a twisted leather club a foot in length with a lead weight in one end, and brought it down on Levi’s extended gun hand. His weapon went flying. The men jerked him from the doorway and fell upon him, hitting him savagely with their fists on the head and body.

  Errin pointed his pistol at the mass of men, trying to find one of Levi’s foes to shoot. But the bodies of the men moved too swiftly and Errin held his fire for he didn’t want to hit Levi. He jumped forward swinging his pistol at the head of the nearest man. As he cleared the doorway and before he could reach his target, a man came out of the darkness on the side and caught his arm in a vise-like hold. A second man grabbed the pistol, and twisting mightily, wrenched it from Errin’s grasp. Errin thought his trigger finger was broken. A third man dove in low and encircled Errin’s legs with his arms and clamped them tightly. The first two men sprang upon Errin, and, with his legs pinioned so he couldn’t hold his balance, drove him to the ground. A bony fist landed a head-jarring wallop to his jaw.

  Errin struck upward with his fist into the man’s face above him and knocked him away. He swiftly hit a second man, but it was a glancing blow. The man, little hurt, bore in and hit Errin powerfully in the ribs. The man holding Errin’s legs, released them, and rising quickly to his knees, rifled a flurry of hard strikes into his stomach. The man Errin had knocked away came in swinging. Yet a fourth man entered the fray, coming up behind him. He landed two savage blows in Errin’s back.

  Time jumped backward for Errin, and once again he was in the black hold of a prison hulk and fighting for his very life against men who would kill for a worn pair of shoes or a torn shirt. He fought with all the tricks he had learned in that hard school. He grabbed the man in front of him and flung him away. He whirled on the man behind. The man bravely closed with Errin and they fell locked together. The two remaining men jumped upon Errin. Errin rolled, and bucked, and hurled himself and his clinging foes against the wall of the house. As they careened off the wall, a shoulder came in contact with Errin’s mouth and he bit down savagely, twisted his head and ripped loose a large piece of flesh. His thumb found an eye he could not see and he gouged without mercy. He found himself face to face with a man, and he butted him savagely, feeling the man’s teeth break, and pain shoot through his own head.

  The sheer number of Errin’s opponents caused them to be often in each other’s way and this hindered their efforts to overpower him. He tore free of their strong hands and fought to his feet. He lambasted his foes fiercely with both fists. They grunted with pain as his blows landed. He laughed wildly at their cries, and struck them with every ounce of his strength.

  One of the attackers shouted something Errin could not make out. Until that moment, though the men had grappled fiercely with Errin, they had hit him only with their fists. They had seemed intent only in subduing him. Now a vicious blow of some weapon thudded into Errin’s head. Stars exploded behind his eyes. Total blackness took him like a thunderclap.

  Chapter 29

  Levi lay silent and unmoving striving to quiet the splitting pain behind his left temple. He had been conscious for seconds. He remembered the battle with the men in the yard of Mattoon’s home and the terrible blow to the side of his head by some hard object. The last thing he had heard was Errin’s shout of defiance, and then there was only blackness. How long had he been unconscious? Where were the men who had attacked Errin and him? Where was Errin?

  His fear for Errin overrode the pain and he rolled his head to look around. He found he was on the floor of the foyer of Mattoon’s home. The feeble dusk of morning was seeping in through the open doorway. He could see into the yard and nothing stirred within the range of his vision. Through the murk in the room, he saw Errin on the floor near the far wall.

  “Errin, are you alive?” Levi whispered.

  Errin, only partially conscious, heard the taunting whisper of someone asking him if he was alive. Hell yes, I’m alive and will prove it. He flung himself to the side intending to roll, to make a moving target for the fists and blackjacks that could come striking out of the darkness at any instance. The violent spasm of his muscles barely turned him onto his side. To his alarm, he discovered his hands and feet were tightly tied. He flopped back onto his back.

  “Errin, it’s me Levi. Are you hurt bad?”

  “Good to hear your voice, partner,” Errin replied. “I’m damned bruised, but alive.”

  “I’m tied up, hands and feet.”

  “Same here. Those little bastard Chinamen did a fine job on us.”

  “Who do you think they were?”

  “Scom Lip’s hatchetmen is my guess. Couldn’t be anybody else.”

  “I don’t understand why they jumped us,” Levi said. “I thought we were on the same side.”

  “Since we’re still alive, my best guess is that we got in the way when they came for Mattoon.”

  “Mattoon was ours. I wonder what Scom Lip did with him.”

  “Let’s go ask the Chinaman. He tied our hands in front so he meant for us to get free without too much work. Roll over here so I can untie you.”

  * * *

  Errin kicked the entry door of Scom Lip’s big store with his booted foot and the strong wooden panel rattled with a harsh sound on its iron hinges. “Open up in there,” he shouted.

  But a few seconds passed before the door slowly swung wide and two tong warriors with pistols in their hands stepped into the opening. Their wary black eyes checked Levi and Errin swiftly and then ranged both ways along the street.

  “I’m Scanlan and this is Coffin. Take us to Scom Lip.” Errin’s voice was hard and he would fight his way inside if the men tried to deny him entrance.

  The tong men spoke together rapidly in their tongue. Then one hurried away into the rear of the store.

  Errin would be damned if he was going to wait for an invitation. He stepped forward to enter. The tong man lifted his empty hand in a signal to stop and shook his head rapidly back and forth.

  “Stand out of the way,” Errin growled. Ignoring the pistol, but closely watching the man, Errin advanced.

  The eyes of the tong fighter narrowed and his finger tightened on the trigger of his pistol that was aimed straight at Errin’s stomach. Errin knew that if he proceeded further, there was a strong probability the man would shoot.

  Errin halted just as the first man returned at a trot. The man bowed to Errin and Levi. “It is very early, but Honorable Scom Lip welcomes you to his place of business. Come this way.”

  Errin and Levi followed the tong man back past the loaded shelves and through the rooms behind where men were already working at there ledgers and sorting and packaging supplies. They came to the door of the office of the tong chieftain.

  “Honorable Scom Lip waits for you in this room,” the guide said. He gestured for Errin and Levi to enter.

  Scom Lip came to his feet as the two white men came into the room. A smile that held no welcome spread grudgingly across his lips. Ke, taut and watchful, stood a few feet to Scom Lip’s left. Several large, purplish bruises marred his face.

  Neither Levi nor Errin smiled. Their bodies still ached from the beating they had received at the hands of the Chinaman’s fighters.

  “I have been expecting you to come,” Scom Lip said.

  “We have a good reason,” Errin replied in a brittle tone. “Why did your men jump Levi and me?” He stabbed a finger at Ke. “And he must have been part of it fr
om the looks of him.”

  At Errin’s harsh tone, Scom Lip’s smile vanished and a menacing scowl appeared. Ke started to advance upon Errin.

  Errin pivoted to face Ke. “Come on. Try it alone.”

  “Stop,” Scom Lip commanded Ke. “We must not fight with our friends.”

  Ke halted. “But he insulted you,” Ke said, trembling with the effort to control himself.

  Scom Lip stepped to a nearby table and took up two pistols that lay there. He turned and pointed the weapons at Errin and Levi. With a face that seemed carved from stone, he stared at the men for several seconds. Then he held out the weapons. “I believe these are yours.”

  Both Errin and Levi knew the cost to Scom Lip not to retaliate in some manner, but instead he gave them their pistols. Errin spoke in a flat, neutral tone. “Why did you prevent us from shooting Mattoon? Did he escape?”

  “Mattoon did not escape. Nor did Dokken, your other enemy.”

  “Then what happened to them?” Levi asked. “Are they dead?”

  “Oh, no. At least not yet.”

  “They were ours to kill,” Levi said. He couldn’t keep all his disappointment from his voice.

  “But you would have killed them quickly, much too quickly. Or have been killed by them. So I decided to arrange their punishment. It was not difficult to reason out what you planned to do, after you burned the Porpoise Saloon. I regret that you were hurt. Ke had very strict orders to not harm you. But you both are fierce fighters and he had to use more force than we had thought would be necessary to subdue you. We meant only to quiet you until we had captured Mattoon. Dokken being there was an unexpected bonus.”

  Scom Lip looked closely at Levi and Errin. “Neither of you seem to have been badly hurt.”

  “We’re all right,” Errin said. “What happened to Mattoon and Dokken?”

  “They are bound to the Antarctic on my ship that left at daylight this morning to hunt seals.”

  “What kind of punishment is that?” Levi exclaimed. “I wanted the pleasure of shooting them, to see them die.”