For who but ladrones up to no good would be shoving off this late in the day with storm warnings flying above the harbor master’s watchtower?
Up forward, under the meager shade of the furled jib, the three-man crew of the swivel-mounted Gatling gun were swapping dirty stories as they casually eyed the crowd along the quay.
Nobody drifting in and out of the waterfront shops or simply staring at the boats looked sinister. But when one manned a Gatling for as popular a tyrant as Porfirio Diaz, one kept one eye on the taxpaying public at all times.
Hence it would have been tough to just swagger across the fifty feet of cobblestones from the nearest cover to come aboard the cutter via the one gangplank near the stern.
So just as the sun was setting, where the brassy-smelling sky met a bruised-looking sea of smooth but ominously large swells, considering the total lack of any breeze, Longarm nudged Irena Dandolo, who in turn gave the signal on her bosun’s whistle.
That naturally alerted the government men aboard the cutter, just as Longarm had hoped. So the quay began to clear as if by magic when the deck crew swung the multiple muzzle of that Gatling shoreward, like a deadly pepper shaker sniffing for someone to pepper.
Longarm knew they couldn’t see him as he raised the muzzle of the Big Fifty in the narrow slit between a ship’s chandler and a sidewalk cantina. He drew a careful bead on the one aiming the Gatling and blew him over the low starboard rail with a well-aimed buffalo round.
That inspired two of his shipmates to dive over the far side as the others took cover below decks.
That had been the plan. Yelling like a band of Yaqui with toothaches, the eight men and one woman of the Dandolo crew charged across the open field of fire with Longarm, blazing away with carbines or six-guns as instructed, until they were all aboard with only one of their own lightly wounded, mopping up with guns and machetes at close quarters.
The wounded survivors of the other side were allowed to live, as long as they knew how to swim, while El Tiberon Blanco cast off and steamed across the bar into the sunset, people shouting curses and encouragement from the bewildered shore.
The cutter was a distant dot against the sunset by the time a most chagrined Inspector Gomez climbed up into the harbor master’s watchtower to make certain his second in command had not been drinking.
For quite some time Gomez could only rant and rave. Then he heaved a great sigh and decided, “We must wire San Luis Rio Grande and confess they shoved it up my ass while I was bending over. Is more important for to stop that double-thumbed son of a two-headed witch than it is for me to simply go on sounding smart. People such as El Brazo Largo are most expensive for to share this earth with. First he wipes out that artillery column in the Baja, and now he has stolen a brand-new steam cutter from us!”
Chapter 13
The groundswells rolling ahead of the oncoming storm had the stolen cutter bucking pretty good as Irena Dandolo took the helm, set a course with the brass binnacle ahead of the wheel, and called for her crew to set the jib and mainsails.
Longarm, clinging to a steel cable stay as he stood beside her in the cockpit, stared thoughtfully aft, where the twilight sky was swirling mighty strangely, and quietly observed, “That squall line we’ve been promised seems to be coming up the trail behind us, Miss Irena. I know I ain’t no sailor. But is this really the time to be setting all those sails?”
The seawoman laughed girlishly and replied, “I wish for to give us a head start on any marina federate boats following us. I know more about sails than engines. Nobody in my crew knows much more. Is possible the machinery below will stall, or run out of fuel, before we make it to the reed beds of the Colorado Delta. Is better to be far from Puerto Periasco than near it when that happens, eh?” Longarm said he hoped she knew what she was doing. Then he went below via the hatch and ladder ahead of the cockpit to see if her crew could use someone who could at least read.
They could. In the dinky engine room just aft of the mainmast, he caught up with a Mexican and a Sandwich Islander, coping as best they could, by feeble lamplight, as the duckboards under them rocked like a corkscrew. The brass telegraph, in this case a signal device worked by push-rods rather than electricity, was set at full ahead, and the Islander, a big Kanaka who answered to Monakai, had that part figured out. He knew enough about steam engines to have the throttle valve wide open. When asked, neither allowed that the half-dozen dials set at eye level between the upright boiler and compact opposing cylinder engine meant anything to them.
Longarm left things the way they were for the time being as he studied the setup and tried to recall such steam lore as he knew. The vessel was bucking to one side now, and the screw made the hull hammer as if a Navaho way-chanter was beating it for a cure whenever the spinning blades broke the surface near the rudder. So Longarm got a grip on a grab-iron with one hand, and used the other to ease back on the throttle to cruising speed, which might have been six knots in a calmer sea with the screw in the water all the time.
The Mexican, called Bajo, or Shorty, despite his formidable size, quietly observed that Dandolo had signaled full speed ahead.
Longarm nodded agreeably and replied, “She just told me she was afraid we’d run out of fuel oil. You can hear for yourself how that screw’s just churning through air half the time. May as well be using less steam up as we ride out this blow. Let’s see if I can make any sense out of those dials now.”
As he moved along the line of pipes and fittings, Bajo put a big greasy paw on his dirty shirtsleeve and growled, “Hey, gringo, I am in charge here.”
Then Longarm twisted free to face them both, narrow-eyed but still smiling as he quietly said, “No me jades. I mean that. There are times to fuck around and there are times the situation is just too serious for kid games.”
Bajo took a swing at him.
Longarm had figured he might. So his left forearm came up to block the roundhouse blow as his right hand whipped his .44-40 from its cross-draw rig. So Bajo was throwing a left hook as Longarm stepped inside the radius of his swing and cracked him across the mouth with the steel barrel.
That busted the bully’s face up a lot, although Longarm had been careful not to break off any teeth this far out to sea. His aim was to set an example, not to saddle Irena Dandolo with a cripple in dire need of a dentist.
As Bajo cowered back against the engine room ladder, holding a hand to his shattered, bloody lips, Longarm mildly asked the somewhat taller Monakai whether he had any comment.
The big Kanaka shook his head and replied, “It’s not my fight. I know better than to take a punch with a fist at a man who’s wearing a gun!”
Bajo nodded and sobbed, “Was not fair for to use a gun on me when I only wished for to punch you a little!” Longarm said, “I didn’t use this gun on you, pendejo. I mean to the next time you start up with me. I told you not to fuck with me. That was one strike. You fucked with me and I busted your lip. That was two strikes. You fuck with me again and I’ll strike you out for good!”
Then he put his gun back in its holster, adding, “Bueno. As I was saying when I was so rudely interrupted, we’d best see if we can nurse at least a hundred and fifty nautical miles out of this Scotch hardware.”
The water level in the boiler seemed high enough. Longarm took a pencil stub from his shirt pocket, wet the lead with his tongue, and marked the glass before he called the more sensible Kanaka over.
When Monakai proved willing to listen, Longarm pointed to the mark and a valve just above it, saying, “We want water in this tube below that pencil mark and steam above it. I know it’s moving up and down a mite. The rocking of the hull is sloshing the water in the boiler. The idea is not to flood the boiler until there’s no room for the steam, but also not to let her boil so dry we could have us an explosion. The way you get a steam boiler to explode is to let it get so hot and dry a sudden surge of water against hot steel produces more steam, all at once, than the boiler plates or safety valve can cope with. So this tube and injection valve ought to be kept in mind.” The Kanaka said he followed Longarm’s drift. Bajo moved away up the ladder, pissing and moaning about his fool face, as Longarm showed Monakai the reserve water gauge and explained how you had to inject cool fresh water, pumped by steam pressure, into the seawater-cooled condenser from time to time. For while in theory the steam went from the cylinders to the condenser to turn back into boiler water over and over, in practice you always lost some steam forever.