Slocum and the Celestial Bones

by Jake Logan

  “Who the hell are you?” demanded the captain, strutting over. He wore enough gold braid, all faded from sun and saltwater, to anchor his ship. On his chest he wore several medals. Slocum recognized them as Union commendations. Whether the master of this ship had ever fought for the Yankee navy or simply wore the medals out of arrogance did not matter to Slocum.

  “The man who’s going to take your new recruit back to shore,” Slocum said.

  “Like bloody hell, ya will!” the captain roared. “I paid good coin for him. He’s shippin’ to China.”

  “You can have him back when I’m done with him,” Slocum said. “I got a bone to pick.”

  He heard movement behind him. Slocum ducked and slipped to the side, but the sounds he heard came not from the deck but the rigging. A sailor aloft swung a heavy pulley that collided with the middle of Slocum’s back, sending him sprawling. As he fell, he fired. He hit one of the shanghaiers but did nothing to slow both the captain and his crewman above from falling on him like a ton of bricks.

  Slocum gasped as the air rushed from his lungs.

  “Looks like we got two fer the price o’ one, Cap’n,” Slocum heard. A giant surf roared in his ears. Every breath came like a dagger driven into his chest. He pulled his arms in and realized he still clutched his six-shooter.

  “Git ’im to his feet and put ’im to work alongside his matey over there,” Slocum heard. His eyes refused to focus. That didn’t stop him from turning in the direction of the voice and firing. A loud cry of pain rewarded him. He fired again, swung around and kept firing. By the time his six-gun came up empty, he was able to make out the clipper ship’s crew in disarray.

  He stumbled toward where Stark still sprawled on the deck and realized he would never get to him. The shock of seeing two of their mates gunned down was wearing off. Slocum caught a quick glimpse of the captain. The man clutched his sleeve, now turned red with spurting blood. He had been winged, too.

  Realizing he had overstayed his welcome and had no chance of fetching Stark back to San Francisco, Slocum turned and fell rather than dived over the railing. He crashed into the cold water of the bay and came to the surface, sputtering for breath.

  The bullets sending up tiny water spouts all around him lent urgency to his flopping into the rowboat and putting his back into the oars. In a few minutes he was beyond the range of the piss-poor marksmen aboard the schooner. By the time he had fully regained his senses, he realized he was rowing out to sea. The huge dark mountains on either side of the Golden Gate loomed.

  Slocum began rowing for his life—and losing.

  24

  Slocum slewed the boat around and tried rowing for land but the current flowing out of the bay was too strong. For what seemed an hour he rowed until he was no longer able to continue. Slumped down over the oars, he fought to get his strength back. To be carried out to the ocean in such a small boat was death.

  “I swear, I’ll never so much as take a bath again,” he muttered, sick of the sight of so much water. The sound of the waves sloshing over the sides of his rowboat drowned out his words. He straightened, gripped the oars and pulled hard, only to crash into something hard enough to throw him forward. He pulled in the oars and turned to see what had happened. If he had hit a rock, he might be saved. That meant he was close enough to land to hail someone on the shore.

  He looked out and saw only blackness. Then he looked up and saw the masts of Lai Choi San’s junk outlined against the night sky. He stared at the white-clad figure on the stern deck and knew she had spotted him. Slocum shipped the oars, turned around in the boat and tried to lift his hands high over his head. They hardly budged.

  “I surrender,” Slocum called. His voice was hoarse, and he knew that Lai Choi San could have her marksmen shoot him where he bobbed on the waves—if she wanted to be merciful. Otherwise, she would let the current carry him out into the Pacific Ocean to die a lingering death from lack of water.

  Two of the Chinese pirate’s crew jumped into the water and swam like fishes to row him alongside the junk. They helped him up and when he got to the deck, he almost collapsed.

  “You seek death?” Lai Choi San asked.

  “Just out for an evening’s sightseeing,” Slocum said.

  “The crown,” she flared. “The jade crown! I want it!”

  “Don’t seem to have it on me,” he said. The two Celestials who had pulled him up into the junk moved behind. Slocum winced as both thrust knives into his back enough to hurt.

  “I will flay the skin from your body. I will make what I did to the woman look tame. Tell me where you have hidden the crown!”

  “I’m still hunting for it, too,” Slocum said. He jumped when both men behind him drove the tips of their knives a little deeper into his flesh. “I tried to find out from the man who has the crown what he did with it, but he got shanghaied. That clipper ship back in the harbor. He’s a new—and unwilling—crew member now.” He jerked his thumb in the general direction of the ship he had just escaped so narrowly.

  Lai Choi San looked from Slocum into the bay.

  “That one?”

  “Can’t tell in the dark. It was a clipper ship with three masts. The man who stole the crown got himself shanghaied. Getting him back proved a mite more troublesome than I expected.”

  “I heard shots.”

  “Reckon that was me,” Slocum said. “A couple of the crew got winged. So did the captain. Last I saw, though, the man who knows where the jade crown is was still alive and kicking.”

  “If you are lying, I will cut out your tongue. Then I will begin the torture.”

  “Don’t doubt it,” Slocum said. “I’m not lying.” The edge in his voice convinced Lai Choi San. She gestured. The junk shuddered under his feet as sails were lowered and the rudder turned enough to direct the ship toward the clipper.

  Slocum propped himself against the railing, marshaling his strength. In spite of himself, he stared in wonder as the junk cut silently through the water and approached the clipper ship. The schooner lay at anchor, and the junk could easily slide right on past. Lai Choi San maneuvered carefully until the junk bumped against the other ship’s hull.

  Slocum expected Lai Choi San’s crew to let out earsplitting screams as they swung over on ropes. They were as silent as their ship in the night. He watched as two of the schooner’s crew died. But there was no chance the Chinese could go undetected forever. The lookout high in the crow’s nest finally sounded the alarm.

  “Where is he? The one who knows?” Lai Choi San hissed like a snake.

  “Doubt he’s above decks since he was brought aboard against his will. Likely they have him in the cargo hold or chained up somewhere.”

  Lai Choi San shouted in Chinese. Four of her pirates pulled back a hatch and dropped down. Slocum stood a little straighter. He heard the commotion from belowdecks on the schooner and wondered who was getting killed. The answer came seconds later when three of the four Celestials popped back up. They stood at the corners of the hatch while the fourth climbed up, a man slung over his shoulder.

  “I should identify him,” Slocum said.

  “Stay here.”

  “I want him alive, too.” Slocum’s mind raced on how he could get Stark away from the pirates and back to San Francisco. Without the jade crown as ransom, Ah Ming had no chance of recovering her pa’s body—his bones.

  “You want the crown for your own purposes. I want it for ransom.”

  This shocked Slocum. He stared at the pirate and frowned.

  “You look surprised,” Lai Choi San said. “The emperor has my husband in a dungeon in the Forbidden City. If I do not return with the crown before the summer festival…” Her words trailed off.

  “Your husband’s life is on the line,” Slocum said.

  “Look out!” Lai Choi San shouted in English, then switched to Chinese.

  From the captain’s cabin aboard the clipper ship came three men, all armed and firing. The lead sprayed wildly. One died almost
instantly from a thrown knife, the other two dived for cover but kept shooting.

  The pirate carrying Jason Stark sprinted for the railing, jumped lightly to it and judged distance. With a powerful spring, he landed on the junk’s deck.

  “All hands on deck, all hands!” screamed the schooner’s captain. “Repel boarders! We got pirates!”

  Only one other of Lai Choi San’s pirates aboard the schooner made the leap to safety. The junk banged hard against the other ship’s hull before veering away. The sporadic gunfire from the clipper ship amounted to nothing as the distance increased.

  “Will he come after us?” Slocum asked, watching the other ship recede.

  “He cannot raise anchor quickly enough. And what would he do for one new crew member?” Lai Choi San laughed and waved her hand airily, dismissing such a notion. “Let us see what your jade stealer has to say for himself.”

  Slocum stepped to one side as Lai Choi San went to where Jason Stark had been dumped on the deck. In the darkness he saw a darker pool spreading under the body. His heart jumped into his throat. Even before Lai Choi San rolled Stark over, Slocum knew the man was dead.

  He knelt and looked at Stark’s body. The man had been plugged square in the back of the head by one of the wayward bullets.

  “He is not going to tell us anything,” Lai Choi San observed. She whipped out her knife. Slocum sucked in his breath, sure she intended to use it on him. Then the pirate captain proceeded to cut the clothes off Stark’s body until there was no question he did not carry the jade crown hidden on him.

  The knife vanished as quickly as it appeared.

  “What are you going to do?” Slocum asked. He feared the worst. If the woman’s husband was locked up in their emperor’s dungeon, he was likely to die there. Stark knew where he had hidden the jade crown. No one else knew. No one.

  Lai Choi San studied him for a moment, then bowed slightly.

  “Put this one ashore. Dump the other over the side for the sharks.”

  Slocum worried that the woman meant for him to become chum for the sharks, but either the crew got her orders wrong or Slocum worried for nothing. Two crewmen grabbed Stark by arms and legs and heaved him over the side. The resounding splash told of the man’s watery fate.

  “Why are you letting me go?”

  Lai Choi San stared at him with unfathomable eyes, then said, “There is no reason to kill you. If only he knew where the crown is, the secret died with him.” She spun and walked off, making no sound as she moved. Slocum stared at her back and then was urged to go over the side himself, to his rowboat.

  When the junk passed within a few hundred yards of the docks, Slocum cast off and managed to row ashore. He beached the boat near a dock and scrambled from the rowboat vowing to never again so much as touch a drink of water. On shaky legs, he climbed a ladder and got to the pier. He sat heavily, legs swinging over the edge as he locked his arms over the lowest rail and leaned forward. The junk had disappeared, sweeping past the Embarcadero under partial sail. Out in the harbor he saw the schooner, riding the waves and looking so damned peaceful it made him want to take out his six-shooter and try shooting holes in it. The range was too great, and he was out of ammo.

  Slocum rested and thought hard. Stark had hidden the jade crown but he was not a clever man or one taken to doing things right. His expertise had been in duping the gullible, spinning tall tales and making a few dollars off his lies. The more Slocum thought about it, the more he wondered why Stark had been in the Pole Star drinking when he knew Little Pete, Ah Ming, Sir William and Slocum all hunted for him. If he had a hiding place, he should have holed up there after his other den had been destroyed.

  “He would hide the crown where he thought it was safe, but he didn’t have much time to find a place.” Slocum stood, used the railing for support and slowly felt strength coming back into his arms and back fueled by a potent thought.

  He was not quite sure where he had landed, but it took only a few minutes for him to find the Pole Star Saloon perched on the end of the dock. Rather than going inside, Slocum studied the place. It was built out of what might have been driftwood and flotsam from the harbor. A good, strong wind would blow the place into kindling. The crowd of sailors going and coming made this far too public a spot for Stark to have hidden the crown.

  “He’d want to keep an eye on it,” Slocum said slowly. He pictured the interior of the saloon again. There were a couple windows but looking out across the harbor would not have availed Stark of anything. Then Slocum remembered how Stark had been slumped in the chair, eyes downcast. He had thought the sneak thief was trying not to be seen.

  He was trying to keep something in sight.

  Stride long and sure now, Slocum went to the side of the Pole Star and saw a walkway hardly wide enough to balance on. He dropped to hands and knees and looked hard at the wood. A few splinters had been broken off the wood recently. The saltwater and weather had not darkened the wood yet. Crawling, Slocum went along the walkway until he reached a spot where he estimated Stark had been sitting on the other side of the wall.

  Flopping on his belly, he looked over the edge. Nothing. He reached around and began searching blindly for the crown. He came away with a filthy hand covered with slime and rot.

  Not about to give up, he fumbled out his tin of lucifers and struck one. Moving quickly, he thrust it under the planking and looked around. He saw a large hole about where Stark’s feet would have been. Before the match burned his fingers, Slocum followed the line of sight down along the pilings.

  His heart almost exploded when he saw a small package secured to the support. Unable to reach it, he dropped over the side, held the edge of the walkway, then wrapped his legs around the piling. Risking splinters, he released his grip and dropped a few inches. He shifted his hands and found a knotted rope dangling down. He tugged on it and decided it was strong enough to support him.

  Using this, he twisted around and got his fingers around a slick package tied to the piling. Fumbling, cursing, he worked the knots free and came away with an oilskin pouch. Still dangling from the knotted rope and with his legs gripping the piling, he peeled back the oilskin to reveal the contents.

  He had found the jade crown.

  25

  He had to move fast because someone was following him. Slocum tried to guess who it might be and failed since the list of possible trackers was so long. He was out of breath by the time he reached the small museum and ducked into the front door. He pressed himself flat against the wall and peered through the inch-wide opening he left. There might have been movement in the shadows outside or it could have been his imagination.

  “John? What are you doing?” Tess Lawrence stood in the foyer, staring at him.

  “I found the crown, but somebody followed me here. I want to get a glimpse of him.”

  “Does it matter who it is?”

  Slocum started to answer, then laughed. It did not matter one whit.

  “Smart girl,” he said, closing the door and bolting it. “I’ve been so caught up in everything, I stopped thinking.”

  “Oh, never that, John,” she said, smiling.

  “Where’s Sir William?”

  “He’s out talking to Captain Johnson. He’s raising Cain about the way the marines have been used, and the captain is getting a bit tired of hearing about it.”

  “I can imagine,” Slocum said. He looked past her into the gloomy museum. “Are you alone?”

  “As alone as I can be with you here,” she said, coming forward. She pressed her hand against his chest. “You have such a strong heartbeat.”

  “Beating faster now that you’re in front of me.”

  “Sir William won’t be back for a while. He’s down at the dock—” she started.

  “Talking to Captain Johnson,” Slocum finished for her, then cut off any further words with a kiss. Tess flowed into his arms and pressed close to him. Slocum felt the beating of her heart as he reached down to press his hand onto her brea
st. She moaned softly and tilted her head back, eyes half closed.

  “Yes, John. We should celebrate. The crown.”

  “The crown,” he said, hardly thinking about it any longer. He bent slightly and scooped her up into his arms. Her skirts flared as she threw her arms around his neck so she could bring his head down to kiss him again. Their passions mounted as he carried her through the darkened museum toward the curator’s office.

  “Not there, not again,” she said. “There’s a fancy bed at the back of the next exhibit room. A Russian empress’s bed.”

  “Sounds just like what’s needed,” Slocum said. He turned this way and that so Tess avoided banging into any of the glass cases that had been moved back into place in the large room. He found the corridor leading off. He had prowled the museum earlier, looking for ways in and escape routes should it be necessary, but he had never taken a serious look at what was in the room. He did now.

  There was an elaborate four-poster bed on display amid minor items from Russia.

  “Catherine the Great slept in this bed,” Tess said breathlessly.

  “And we’re going to make love in it,” Slocum said gently, placing Tess on the bed. He sat beside her, his hand reaching up under her skirt. He felt her warm calf. He slipped his hand higher. She shivered now, and it was not from the cold. Moving slowly, he worked upward to her warm inner thigh. She sighed deeply and lay back on the bed.

  “That’s so nice, John. I love the—oh!” She let out a gasp when he reached the tangled nest hidden between her legs. His fingers stroked over the now-slippery nether lips and then parted them slightly. He turned on the bed and ran his other hand up to join its partner. Working slowly, carefully, he stoked over her most intimate regions and then slid a finger into her. She began thrashing about on the bed, her legs spreading wider in wanton invitation to him.

  He pushed her skirt out of the way. He had intended to make this a long, slow lovemaking, but she was so aroused that he got hotter by the second and knew he could hardly wait. Getting her skirt bunched around her waist forced her to lift her rump off the bed. As she did so, he pressed his face down into the fragrant jungle and began licking.