by Lopez, Rob
There was a splash several yards off the starboard bow, followed by the faint sound of a distant crack.
“He’s shooting at us.”
Darla called Manny to stop the wheels. The Mississippi Rose drifted back with the current.
Carl focused. “He’s quit, but he’s still aiming. I think that was a warning shot. Long range for that rifle.”
“What now?” asked Darla.
“I don’t know. I don’t think he’ll let us get close enough to hail him. Might have to let him have this one.”
“The hell we are. We need that coal.”
“I know, but we’re not in a position to get into a fight. Those rounds will pass through just about anything on this boat and I’m concerned about keeping everyone safe.”
Jacques appeared on the forecastle with Manny’s Garand rifle.
“Hey, what’s he about to do?” said Carl. “There’s kids on that barge.”
“Jacques,” called Darla. “Just give him a warning shot.”
Jacques appeared to pay no heed, steadying the rifle on the rail and peering down the sights. There was a sharp report from the rifle, and a resounding clang that echoed across the water as the .30-06 heavy round hit the side of the barge just beneath the shooter’s feet. The man with the AR-15 jumped back in shock. Within a few seconds everyone on the barges was running for cover, leaping over the side into the shallow water, wading to the bank and disappearing over the levee.
Carl lowered his binoculars. “Where’d your man learn to shoot like that?” he asked.
“Comes natural for a chef,” replied Darla airily. “Don’t worry about it.”
When the Mississippi Rose docked alongside the coal barge, Aguilar’s engineers leaped into action, filling coal sacks as quickly as they could and passing them in a line back to Manny and Zack, who stowed them away. Darla stood on the roof of the pilothouse, anxiously watching the river for any sign of the Pride of Orleans. Jacques stood beside her.
“Nice shot,” said Darla in a quiet voice, so the others didn’t hear.
Jacques was dismissive. “I missed,” he said.
“Oh,” said Darla. “I just thought that, with you trying to redeem yourself, that, uh, you might not … try and kill anyone again.”
“He was far away,” said Jacques. “It was not personal.”
“Right. So it’s different if you don’t know the person you’re shooting?”
Jacques looked at her like she was being a dumbass.
Darla pulled a face. “Just asking, okay? Don’t get all sensitive on me.”
When they’d taken on all the coal they could carry they set off upriver again, Darla maintaining half-speed, eyes trained on every bend for a glimpse of tell-tale stacks. With the Pride of Orleans not giving out plumes of smoke, she worried about not being able to see them in time to turn around and run. The journey to Baton Rouge proved uneventful, however, and the Mississippi Rose was able to enter the Port Allen canal entrance, stopping before the giant lock gates. Aguilar’s crew went ashore and manually heaved at the winch to open the gates and Darla took her boat inside, the gates clanging shut behind her.
“Shut down the furnace,” she instructed Manny.
Letting the boiler cool was a risk, as they wouldn’t be able to get away in a hurry, but the smoke would have given them away from the river, so it was a risk they had to take. With the boat securely tied up, Darla climbed the ladder on the side of the lock and looked down on her boat. The stacks were about level with the top of the gates, so they were well hidden, providing nobody came too close. The port facilities were deserted, and across the river, three quarters of a mile away, Baton Rouge looked empty and dead. Carl deployed his Coast Guardsmen to different points to create a watch perimeter, then came and stood by Darla.
“We wait till nightfall, then,” he said. “Hopefully, we won’t even see the other boat.”
“Hopefully,” said Darla.
“Are you certain he’ll hang around?”
“I’m not certain of anything. Might not even be Eric that’s in charge, so I don’t know what their priorities will be. They’ve got the whole river, so they can go plundering and raiding wherever they like. On the other hand, they need diesel, and the refineries are all down here. I don’t think they’ll go far.”
As the hours dragged, Darla checked out her boat, going down into the bilges. With the pump off, it was filling with water again. Setting Zack to work on the manual pump, she explored the nearby boatyard, looking for materials to caulk the leaks. She was alerted by someone whistling sharply, and when she looked up, the Coast Guardsmen were all hitting the deck, looking out onto the river. Keeping her head low, Darla hurried up to them and crawled up next to Carl, who was looking with his binoculars. Darla didn’t need them, however, to see the distinctive shape of the Pride of Orleans, southbound by the opposite bank. She was making full speed.
“I was kind of hoping you’d be wrong,” said Carl, “but here she is.”
“Hunting for us,” said Darla.
“You think?”
“I can feel it.”
“I don’t know about that, but it’s close enough as to make no difference. When she’s out of sight, we could sneak out and head north.”
“It’ll take us an hour to make up steam, and the smoke will give us away if they come back early.”
“Good point. We wait, then. Do you think we’ll be able to slip past her in the dark, if it comes to that?”
“Depends. If they’re lying up and they maintain a listening watch, they’ll hear us. We’re not exactly quiet. Might even smell us if the wind’s wrong. I know I would.”
“Well, let’s hope your boyfriend doesn’t have your abilities.”
Darla looked at him. “How did you know he was my boyfriend?”
“I asked around. I don’t think it’s a secret.”
“It’s supposed to be.”
“We’re crewmen. There’s no secrets on a boat, you know that.”
“No, I don’t. Seems to me there’s been plenty of secrets on this boat.”
“Like what?”
“You want to play detective, I’ll let you find out.”
“I can’t say I’m that interested if it doesn’t affect our chances. I’m more worried about what happens if we do meet that boat on the river. They’ve got a lot of firepower.” He looked down into the lock at the Mississippi Rose. “We need to up-armor your boat. Make it a bit more bulletproof.”
“That’ll slow us down.”
“Speed’s not your best weapon right now. We need better protection.”
When the Pride of Orleans was out of sight, Darla and Carl explored the industrial yards and workshops. They found a sheet metal company with piles of rolled steel.
“This is too thin,” said Carl, feeling the thickness. “This won’t stop anything.”
“What about this?” asked Darla, pointing to a rusty slab of boiler plate in a recycling yard.
Carl examined it. “Not sure,” he said with a grimace. “It could work if it’s angled. I don’t know that I’d trust my life with it, but …”
It looked plenty thick enough to Darla, but she was no ballistics specialist. Getting the others to help her get it to the boat, she had it lowered down into the lock by rope and positioned it in front of the pilothouse at a 45 degree angle, just below the window frame. While she was welding its corners to the rivets, the others began filling flood-control sandbags with ballast, creating a 3-foot high barrier around the rest of the pilothouse and along the saloon where the patients were being fanned cool by the medical staff. Wood piling on the decks completed the reinforced protection and left the Mississippi Rose sitting low in the water. With the work complete, they set rotating watches while everyone else tried to sleep in anticipation of a night’s sailing.
Darla retired to her cabin but found the heat oppressive. No breeze entered the lock, so even with her window open she dozed fitfully, floating in and out of a dream where she
was drowning. A knock on her door snapped her awake.
“The lieutenant says it’ll be dark soon,” came a voice.
For a moment, Darla struggled to work out who this lieutenant might be, then she realized he meant Carl.
“Okay,” she said groggily. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
Rubbing her eyes, she lifted herself up from a mattress damp with sweat. The remnants of the nightmare faded away, but an uneasy feeling remained.
23
The sky was a dark turquoise laced with crimson wisps of cirrus. The buildings of Baton Rouge were already silhouettes across the water and the air was still. Carl stood by the lock house, binoculars in hand.
“The Pride of Orleans was spotted heading north a few hours ago,” he said. “How well does your ex-boyfriend know the river?”
Darla tried to shake off her heavy mood. “He’s worked it a few times.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, just … waking up.”
“Well, we’re in your hands now. What do you want to do?”
Grim thoughts passed through Darla’s mind, but she tried to stay positive. “We’ll wait until it’s completely dark before firing up. Then we’ll slip out. Should be a new moon tonight, but it’ll be low and late. We’ll hug the bank and try and blend with the shadows.”
“What’s the plan of action if we bump into him?”
“You’re the military guy. What do you think?”
Carl sucked in his breath. “Let’s hope we see him before he sees us.”
When darkness came, Manny lit the furnace and began the slow process of building up steam. Darla was alone in the pilothouse. Her hands were moist, and it wasn’t from the heat. Staring ahead at the lock gates was like staring into a void.
When they had enough steam to get under way and the gates were opened, Darla felt the last of her protection leave. Out on the open river, they were exposed and virtually defenseless. Tentatively, the Mississippi Rose headed out.
They cleared Baton Rouge without incident. Ashore there was the occasional pinprick of light as campfires or torches burned. In the sky the stars burned brighter, the Big Dipper low on the horizon and the Pole Star above it. On the river the docked ships and barges were vague hulks and Darla realized that any one of them could be the Pride of Orleans lying in wait. She had no way of knowing until they started to move. Keeping the paddle-wheel revolutions low in the vain hope of sneaking by, the Mississippi Rose crawled along the main channel, keeping a maximum distance from either bank until they were away from most of the stranded shipping. As the water was pumped out of the bilges, the boat became a touch more responsive to the helm, and rounding Mallet Bend, Darla called for Half-Ahead and brought the boat closer to the wooded bank. Now it was simply a matter of praying.
Darla initially estimated a five hour sail to Angola Landing, but though it was difficult to estimate her speed in the dark, she had a sense that the boat was sluggish under the weight of all the improvised armor. An increasing number of bayous emptied into the Mississippi, disturbing the flow of the current that Darla could feel under her fingertips, and the fetid, dank smell of swampland drifted across from the banks. They were now in another world, and as the stars wheeled through the heavens, Darla felt that she’d slipped through a crack in time. Suddenly she was a smuggler, running the Union blockade, looking out for chain booms on the river, and the crack of a musket. Or perhaps it would be war drums in the forests and the swarm of stealthy canoes, knives ready for scalping. With only her imagination for company, Darla traveled the ages until dinosaurs stooped their long necks to drink from the river while hump-backed beasts trailed long wakes in the water, looking to catch prey unawares with their long jaws.
The rising of the moon chased away the fantasies and left just the Mississippi Rose chugging along, the river empty. The sight of an island in the river gave Darla some idea of where she might be, and that confirmed that she had indeed been traveling too slowly. When the first faint glow of dawn touched the eastern sky, she ordered Full-Ahead, conscious that time was slipping away from her.
Chasing the disappearing night, the Mississippi Rose’s pistons pounded away, the frothing water gaining shape as the light improved, the smoke streaming back from her stacks. One more bend and they would be on the last ten-mile straight before sighting the Tunica hills and the Angola headland.
It was not to be. Rounding Morgans Bend and passing Brunette Point, Darla saw the Pride of Orleans two miles ahead, anchored in the chute of Little Island.
Thinking that it might take time for the Pride to fire up her boilers, Darla maintained her speed, hoping to get past the island before the other boat could cut her off. The Pride of Orleans, however, had maintained her pressure, and her large sternwheel disrupted the waters as she headed out. Darla spun the helm and clanged the bell, alerting her crew to the news that they’d been caught.
Turning the boat around, Darla headed back the way she’d come as Carl appeared in the pilothouse.
“Put in somewhere,” said Carl. “We’ll get everyone off the boat before they arrive.”
“There’s nowhere to put in,” said Darla. “And I’m not letting him have this boat.”
Carl looked at her. “Darla, they’re going to shoot the hell out of us. Ground her now before they sink us.”
“I’m the captain of this boat,” retorted Darla, “and I’m ordering all hands to deck. Get everybody down and behind cover.”
When Carl saw she would brook no argument he left the pilothouse. Darla, thinking hard, called into the voice tube.
“Half-Ahead both.”
Manny replied, “Are you kidding me?”
“That’s an order,” shouted Darla. “Slow it down and make ready on the port wheel.”
Darla gripped the helm tight and steadied her breathing. She figured she had one chance at this and she had to make it count.
The Pride of Orleans bore down at full speed, cutting a bow wave through the dark waters. Figures could be seen moving on the deck, and there was even one standing in front of the tall pilothouse, as if wanting the better view. Darla wondered if it was Eric.
Jacques too seemed to think the same. Settling himself down behind some wood piling at the stern, he propped up Manny’s rifle, took aim and waited. When the Pride of Orleans got to within half a mile, he opened fire, pounding shot after deliberate shot at the approaching behemoth. With the range still so far, Darla wasn’t sure he’d hit anything. The Pride of Orleans certainly wasn’t deterred, coming on at speed. Whoever was standing before the pilothouse didn’t seem bothered either, as the person remained where he was. He was clearly visible in his white shirt, and a horrible thought occurred to Darla.
“Manny, tell Jacques to stop firing. I think that’s Gene up there.”
“What?”
“They’re using Captain Hartfield as a hostage! Stop firing.”
Dry-mouthed, Darla turned around to check her heading. She couldn’t believe Eric would stoop so low, in spite of everything she knew about him. The thought crossed her mind that she should maybe order Manny back up to full speed, because the situation had just got crazier. Running through the different scenarios didn’t come up with a good solution, however, and she knew she couldn’t outrun the other boat.
She had no choice but to stick to her plan.
The Pride of Orleans gained on her and Darla wondered how long to leave it before acting. She didn’t want to let him get too close — she was more worried about getting rammed than shot at — but she needed to hold her nerve.
What happened next nearly made her lose it. A row of flickering flashes lit up the Pride’s deck and the windows of the pilothouse shattered. Bullet strikes tore splinters off the frames and ceiling, and the sound was like a dozen hammers hitting at once. With a scream, Darla dropped down below the level of the sandbags as the pilothouse disintegrated around her. She felt the thuds hitting the boat, and there was shouting down below. Sweeping away the fallen glass from clo
se to the helm, Darla dared to lift her head up. She saw the shooters on the Pride of Orleans. They were standing behind an armored row of police ballistic shields, firing their weapons on full automatic. Pausing only to reload, they hosed the Mississippi Rose with bullets. From the saloon, Carl shouted for his men to open fire, but the sound of the pistols was pathetic compared to the onslaught coming their way, and the ballistic shields made their action futile anyway.
Darla cupped the voice tube. “Manny! Are you ready?”
There was no reply.
“Manny!”
“Mother Mary, forgive me my sins …” came Manny’s voice.
“Forget about that. Are you ready?”
“Ready!? How about you do what you’re gonna do now?”
Darla watched the other boat approach.
“Wait.”
The Pride of Orleans loomed, running at ramming speed. Darla let it come closer, then closer still.
“Full Ahead port wheel,” she ordered, spinning the helm to starboard.
The left paddle wheel accelerated to maximum revolutions, and the Mississippi Rose turned. The Pride of Orleans, seeming to anticipate this, turned with her, but its single sternwheel couldn’t match the smaller vessel’s tighter turning circle. Leaning as it turned, it washed wide.
“Full Ahead both,” ordered Darla.
The Pride of Orleans needed half the river to turn, but the Mississippi Rose was already scooting northward, widening the distance. The way to Angola was now clear, if she could make it.
Lines of tracer bullets lashed out like lasers, punishing the smaller vessel for its impertinence, and Darla kept her head down. She glanced up once to catch a glimpse of who was at the helm of the larger craft. To no great surprise, she saw it was Eric. He was grinning, like he was enjoying this game of cat and mouse. That didn’t horrify her as much as the sight of the person in front of the pilothouse, though.
