by F. M. Parker
Patrick understood that the captain was recommending he get lost in the city. He stroked his dense black beard and reached back and ran his pigtail of hair through his hand. “I’ll get a shave and a haircut and buy some proper clothing and turn myself into a landsman. After that I doubt that any of the crew that met me on the street would recognize me.”
“See that?” Griffith said and pointed head at the Golden Gate two miles distant and where fog was visible forming like smoke in the harbor entrance between the headlands. “Day’s almost done and with that blocking the Gate, it appears that we’ll have to wait until morning. So we’ll drift-anchor off the coast tonight. In the morning at first light, we’ll enter the harbor and tie up at one of the piers.”
Griffith ordered the sails lowered and the ship coasted the last quarter mile where she was turned into the wind and hove to on the sapphire blue sea. A sea anchor, a large funnel-shaped canvas object nine feet in diameter across its mouth, was lowered from the bow of the ship on the end of two hundred and fifty feet of stout cable and into still water.
Griffith spoke to Patrick. “With the sea-anchor, the ship won’t drift more than a league during the night.” He paused and continued to speak. “We won’t have much time to talk in the morning before you go ashore, so a little warning. San Francisco is a rough town and there’s not much law. The worst is the Barbary Coast. That’s a section of town down near the docks around the intersections of Pacific, Kearney and Broadway. And be careful on The Embarcadero for that’s where most of the crimps hangout. They’re always looking for a big strapping fellow like you. They’d shanghai you, bust your head with a Billy club or slip you a Mickey Finn, a drink laced with opium, and you’ll wake up out to sea and bound for a three year voyage to nowhere. Keep one of the Colt pistols for you may have need for it.”
“I know about Mickey Finns and the other tricks crimps play. They’re plentiful in London and do the same dirty work there.”
“You have the watch. No lookout is needed so let all hands sleep. Wake me at midnight.”
“Yes, sir.”
The night came and the heavens filled with distant stars as Patrick stood his deck watch. The coast of California became hidden by darkness. Still Patrick felt the land’s strong presence close by. Now and again he caught the smell of earth and vegetation on the offshore wind. His mind was full of anticipation of stepping upon the shore. He held out his arms and brought them in against his chest as if embracing his new life in California.
Patrick began to pace the deck. He needed action to devour the hours for the night would be long and the dawn slow in arriving. Round and round he went, down the port side, across the stern, up the starboard side to the bow. There he always halted for a few minutes and stared toward the shore. A thought came to him. There must be thousands of young women in Frisco. Pleasant images of these delightful creatures came to fill his mind.
The pocket watch of the dead first mate chimed in Patrick’s pocket. He touched it and wondered if the mate had a wife and kids waiting for him in Frisco. He must remember to leave the watch behind among the man’s possessions. He would take only the clothing he now wore.
He went amidships and rang eight claps on the ship’s bell to signal midnight. As the sound moved away across the water, he sensed the presence of someone near him. At the same moment, a shadow appeared upon the deck beside him as something blocked the moonlight.
Patrick whirled and grabbed for the pistol in his belt. He recognized Proctor leaping at him with his arm thrusting outward toward him. Moonlight glinted off the steel blade of the knife held in Proctor’s hand.
Patrick crouched and yanked on his pistol. The front sight of the weapon caught for an instant under his belt. As he tore the pistol free, Proctor’s burly body drove into him and sent him crashing down upon the deck. Patrick’s quick crouch had saved him from Proctor’s knife and it passed over his shoulder, ripping the cloth of his coat.
Proctor fell heavily upon Patrick. His knife drove an inch deep into the oaken deck of the ship near Patrick’s neck.
Proctor wrenched his knife free and rose up and drew back his arm to stab. Patrick caught the upraised arm and stopped its descent, and swung his pistol savagely against his Proctor’s head. As the man collapsed, Patrick shoved him aside onto the deck and rolled away. He jumped erect.
As he straightened, a second man, Tyson, came rushing at him and swinging his knife. Patrick thumbed back the hammer of the pistol, lifted the weapon, and pointed the barrel into Tyson’s face. Patrick’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Tyson slid to a stop. He stared down the barrel of the pistol. Then he raised his eyes and glared at Patrick.
“Back off,” Patrick ordered. Even as he gave the order he felt the animal urge to shoot Tyson who had meant to kill him. He should shoot him, this he knew.
Tyson read Patrick’s desire to kill and flung his knife down on the deck. “Don’t shoot,” he said hastily.
Patrick heard Proctor groan and stir. He stepped backward so that he could see both men and keep them under his pistol.
“Kill them. Both of them.” Griffith commanded as he hurried across the deck from the aft hatchway and toward Patrick. “I saw what they tried to do.”
Griffith stopped beside Patrick and faced the two men. “I always thought you two were part of the mutiny. Shoot them, Sullivan, and let’s finish this.”
Patrick aimed the pistol at the center of Proctor’s chest. Griffith was correct, this needed to be ended. Still he held back from shooting. He swiftly began to consider alternatives.
“What the hell are you waiting for?” Griffith growled.
“I’m not sure shooting them is the best way to go. Why not turn them over to the authorities?”
“I’ll tell you why not. We have no proof they were part of the mutiny. All we have is that they tried to kill you. Are you going to stand up before the law and testify to that? I think not.”
“There has to be another way.”
“Like what?” Griffith challenged in a tough voice.
“Put them ashore.”
Griffith snorted with disgust. “You shot two men for killing your horse. Now you don’t want to shoot two men who tried to kill you. If we let them go, they’ll try again to kill you. Some dark night on shore, they’ll cut your throat.”
“You’re in the same danger.”
“I don’t think so. They wouldn’t try to kill a ship’s captain. Not after I tell the authorities of my suspicion that they were part of the mutiny.”
“Since I’m the one they tried to knife, I say put them ashore in one of the boats. I’ll keep my eyes open and take my chances with them.”
A thoughtful expression came into Griffith’s eyes and he began to comb his thick red beard with his fingers. Then he began to laugh. “You’re a damn fool, but it’s you neck.”
He gestured to Proctor and Tyson. “Go over there and lower that first boat. I don’t want you sonsofbitches on my ship. Move it before I change my mind.”
The men hastily went to the boat resting in its davit near the railing of the ship. Proctor took the nearer end of the boat, Tyson the opposite. They untied the two hoisting lines from the belaying pins that held them secure, hoisted the boat up from its rest in the iron framed davit, swung it outboard, and lowered it toward the water.
Griffith moved silently toward Proctor busy with his task. He pulled an oak belaying pin from its socket in the cap rail as he came up behind the man. At the sound of the boat splashing down into the water, Griffith raised the stout belaying pin, and using it as a cudgel, struck a mighty blow upon Proctor’s head. Skull bones broke and a sliver of bone drove into Proctor’s brain. He fell lifeless.
Griffith raised his weapon and sprang toward Tyson. The man had seen Proctor fall and grabbed the belaying pin that had held the boat’s hoisting line. He jerked the belaying pin free and pivoted to defend himself. He was too late for Griffith was upon him and struck, breaking the man’s arm and send
ing the belaying pin clattering to the deck. Griffith struck a second time, bringing the heavy weapon down powerfully upon Tyson head. The blow drove Tyson to his knees. Griffith struck again and flattened Tyson on the deck.
“There they are both dead as they should be,” Griffith said and sweeping his sight over both corpses.
He shook the belaying pin at Patrick. “You should have taken care of them. I ought to use this on you for being a weakling.”
“I wouldn’t like that.” Patrick said in a warning voice. He wasn’t the starving, frozen, weak man who had crawled upon the Huntress those weeks before. He gave Griffith a grin. “And besides I knew you wouldn’t let them live and go ashore.”
“You knew.” The captain’s voice held both anger and respect.
“I remember that first day when I came aboard and you shot three of the mutineers who had tired to take your ship. Proctor and Tyson must have also been part of the mutineers. I knew you wouldn’t let them go Scott free. No captain would.”
Griffith lowered the belaying pin. “I’ll be Goddamned. So you had me figured. You just might make out all right in Frisco.”
“That’s my plan.”
“All right then. Let’s finish this job before one of the crew comes on deck. The way I’ve got it figured, is that you‘d best take these two and dump them in the water some distance off from the ship. Then continue on to the shore and do whatever your plan is. I’ll tell the crew that I found nobody on deck when I came up for the watch. That I searched the ship and found you, Proctor and Tyson missing. Further that Proctor and Tyson must have killed you and stole one of the boats. You agree to that?”
“Sounds like a good story. I’ll want my pay first.”
“I always keep my word. Wait for me.”
Griffith hastened across the deck went below and shortly returned. He held out a sheaf of bills. “Here’s your pay, a thousand dollars and your seaman’s pay. Good luck to you.”
Patrick handed the mate’s watch to Griffith in exchange for the money. He stuffed the money into his pocket without counting it for he knew the amount would be correct. He moved to Proctor, the nearest corpse. Griffith came up and they lifted the body and lower it into the boat. They turned to Tyson’s corpse.
*
Patrick rowed the boat with the two dead men through the night. Tyson was lying so that his face was turned toward Patrick, and with the moonlight lighting it, he seemed to be looking at Patrick. As Patrick stared back, he saw not Tyson, but Swallow’s dead, pinched face.
He spoke quietly, “I’m sorry, Swallow, that I didn’t get you to London like we had planned. I’ll give your wife and daughter half of my money soon as I can write to the bank in London.”
With that apology and promise to Swallow, Patrick knew all the suffering and violence he had endured to gain his freedom had been well paid. What he didn’t like was that all of it had made him a hard man.
At the distance Patrick judged was midpoint between the ship and the shore, he unceremoniously dropped the two dead men into the dark water. A quarter hour later he grounded the boat upon the California shore. He stepped out on the sandy shore and shoved the boat back into the sea.
As the boat vanished into the darkness, Patrick sensed a great weight lifting off his shoulders. He had arrived in a bright, new land that held much gold. The joy of life possessed him and he felt like singing. He launched into a raunchy London street song about a highwayman and what he had stolen from the pretty misses. Singing lustily, he started to dance, stomping the ground joyously and whirling wildly about on the beach. He started a second song, bellowing it out even more boisterously, flinging the words out over the sea. Had somebody observed the dancing sailor with his long black hair and shaggy beard dancing in the half light they would think he was a crazed spirit, or a marionette gone out of control.
Patrick stopped singing and turned away from the sea and toward Mount Sutro, its name he had learned from the ship’s charts. He began to climb up through the brush and boulders on the flank of the hill.
At the top, he halted and looked down onto famous San Francisco lying some half a mile distant. In the darkness of the night, the bay was a great expanse of blackness with tiny specks of light from the ships at anchor. Closer to him, the buildings of the city could be made out. The numerous street lights along the avenues glowed yellow, yellow as nuggets of pure gold.
In San Francisco, he would find a beautiful woman for a wife and they would create a wealthy family named Scanlan. He walked down the flank of Mount Sutro toward his future.
Table Of Contents
THE HIGHWAYMAN
About the Author
Also by F.M. Parker
Foreword
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
The Highwayman
Copyright © F.M. Parker, 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
This digital edition published in 2011 by F.M. Parker
ISBN 978-1-908400-15-4
eBook Conversion by www.ebookpartnership.com
