"Last warning, bastard. Said sorry, now get away. Cut you horrible. Peel face like skinning rat. Fuck off!"
The last was hissed with such fearsome malevolence that the angry father took three tumbling steps backward, tripping over his own feet and nearly falling. A muscle worked at the corner of his mouth, making his lips twitch and jerk. Ryan thought he looked like someone who'd been about to strangle a kitten and found he was holding a panther. From the way the man was standing, slightly bowlegged, he guessed that he must have lost control in his sudden terror and fouled his dark serge breeches.
"Best do like the boy says, mister," J.B. urged.
They left him there, still holding his cudgel, knuckles white, face drained of blood, and carried on with their walk around the streets of Claggartville in the brisk fall sunshine.
Twice they passed sec patrols. The first time they were stopped and questioned. With an infinite, oppressive politeness, the sec boss carefully wrote down their details in a small leather-bound notebook, using a stub of lead pencil — their names and when they entered the ville, that they'd registered at the Rising Flukes Inn, and that they knew the regulations about finding work within three days or they would have to leave.
"Tightest little ville in all Deathlands," Krysty said as they moved on.
They went past a shop selling fruit and vegetables, the contents spilling out on tables over the narrow sidewalk. The owner, a stout man with jolly red cheeks and eyes like small chips of Sierra melt ice, greeted them.
"Morning to ye, outlanders. A merry pippin to crunch? Punnet of blackberries? Lovely ripe pears from the Shens? What's your fancy, fine ladies and fine mariners? Come taste."
Lori reached for the golden pear that the shopkeeper held out temptingly toward her, but at the last moment he snatched it back.
"Why d'you did that?" she asked crossly.
"Show thy jack, lady. Handful of jack buys a handful of good victuals. No jack. No eat. Thy credit runs only with Master Jedediah Rodriguez and the Rising Flukes. And no place else."
"Then stuff it up your fat arsehole, you sad fat bastard," she said, knocking the false smile clean off the plump lips.
The quayside of Claggartville was bustling with action, men heaving casks and bales, pushing small carts with iron wheels over the clattering cobbles. Mongrels slunk around, snapping at one another, cowering from the blows and kicks aimed at them. As they moved through, Ryan and the others could catch the scent of tobacco and liquor.
"Git out th'way, outlanders," bellowed an enormous man in a stained white shirt, who carried a pile of baskets filled with fish on his head.
The ships loomed over it all, masts rocking in unison on the gently rolling waters of the harbor.
"She's a whaler," Doc said, pointing to one called Rights of Man. "There's the ovens on decks there."
"The one painted dark brown?" Donfil asked interestedly.
"Not paint. Blood," J.B. said.
The last ship along the line was another whaler, painted in somber black, with a narrow white stripe running all the way around her, just beneath the rails. False gun ports were etched in white along her sides, and a white flag hung limply from the masthead.
The men working on the dock seemed to be avoiding this ship. It was almost as though there were an invisible barrier erected on the quay. Nothing was being loaded or unloaded at that end of the harbor, and there was nobody to be seen on the deck of the dark vessel.
"Called the Salvation," Ryan said. "Fine name for a sailer."
The seven stood and watched the ship, admiring the elegant lines of her yards and the four slim twenty-eight-foot whaleboats that hung from the davits on either side.
"Everyone stopped," Jak whispered.
It was true.
Behind them, all along the dock, work had ceased as though a switch had been thrown. Every bearded face was turned toward them, staring in a fascinated stillness. The only sound was the sighing of the wind through the rigging and the scream of gulls, circling around a small shoal of herring a quarter mile out into the bay.
"Someone farted?" Jak asked, giggling nervously. "What d'they want?"
"Something about the ship?" Krysty suggested.
"She looks normal enough. Like the others. Sight cleaner than most."
"True, Ryan," Donfil agreed. "But there is something I like not about it."
Krysty nodded slowly. "Know what you mean. Feeling gets me across the back of my head and clear down my spine. Something about the Salvationjust doesn't set right. Can't say what."
"Guess we can go," Ryan said. "Find out later. Mebbe."
As they neared the turning into Try-pot Alley they came across a ragged urchin bowling a metal hoop, striking sparks from the stones. Ryan reached out a hand and took the hoop from the boy.
"What art thou?.." the guttersnipe began.
"One question. Who owns the Salvationl"
The boy spit against the wall. "Everyone knows that, 'cept outlanders. Captain Quadde, of course."
Ryan gave him back the hoop, and they continued on to the Rising Flukes.
Chapter Fourteen
"No work?"
"No work."
"All day in Claggartville... seven healthy outlanders and no work?"
The incredulity of the landlord was going on and on, and Ryan Cawdor was already beginning to find it exceedingly tedious. Ever since they'd returned after exploring the ville he'd been on about work, counting off on his fingers the people that he knew personally who were almost begging in the streets and alleys to find men and women to fill vacancies for all manner of work.
"Rory Starbuck the chandler. Also runs the rope-making works. He could take on a couple of fresh hands with no trouble. The women would be welcome with their looks at Eleanor Goodman's gaudy..." He caught the eye of Doc Tanner and hastily changed his mind. "No, I didn't... There's many taverns'd take them as pot girls or cooks if they had the skill. The Indian could ship as harpooner on any vessel leaving harbor. There's jobs in some shops for... Oh, so many that it makes my head spin."
"Why don't you just spin off and bring us some food?" J.B. suggested, as calm as ever. As menacing as ever.
The supper was baked fish, what Rodriguez called "star-gazers' pie." It had a thick golden crust with the heads of a dozen mackerels protruding through the top, eyes open, staring ceilingward. With it came some fried greens and large potatoes roasted in their skins, with butter oozing over the platters.
They washed it down with bumpers of ale, perhaps the very same they'd seen being rolled in iron-hooped kegs along the quayside.
The piano was being played by a blind man whose forehead was furrowed by a huge scar. He picked at the keys with a soft touch, singing slow ballads of lost love and vanquished honor.
As Rodriguez came across at the end of the meal to oversee the removal of the greasy dishes and dirty glasses, Ryan caught him by the sleeve of his linen smock.
"What is it, Mr. Cawdor? The meal not to thy liking?"
"Tell us about Captain Quadde and the Salvation. What's so terrible?"
The innkeeper tried for a laugh that got lost somewhere between his throat and his mouth, coming out like a strangled yelp. "Terrible?" he squawked. "Why rock the boat asking that sort of question? Won't do thee good, outlander."
"Quadde and the Salvation," Ryan repeated, tightening his grip.
"Not good to blab 'bout it. Don't want to finish keelhauled or having my backbone laid bare by the cat. Let thee find someone else to tell thee about Quadde. Not me."