“Not true,” Quincannon said. “I told him why — Pauline Dupree.”
Rideout stiffened visibly. He said nothing for nine or ten seconds while the wind wailed and one of the horses let loose with a mournful whicker. Then, warily, “What about Pauline Dupree?”
“It’s a long story. One that may well be advantageous to you, financially and otherwise.”
“It’s late,” Foster said, “and Mr. Rideout is in need of rest. You can tell him your tale tomorrow—”
Rideout said, “Shut up, Caleb,” without looking at him. Then, to Quincannon, “Advantageous to me, you said?”
“If your business in Stockton included a meeting with Gus Burgade.”
“Who?”
“A barrel of a man wearing a buffalo coat. An emissary of Miss Dupree’s.”
“Emissary? The hell you say!”
“Then you did have such a meeting. At which you turned over a large amount of cash to him. Correct?”
“By Christ! What are you trying to sell me?”
“Tell, not sell. I am neither a blackmailer nor an extortionist, though I can’t say the same for Miss Dupree.”
There was another short pause. “I don’t believe it,” Rideout said then, but his voice lacked conviction.
“I believe I can prove it to you. Shall we step in out of the rain, sir?”
The rancher turned abruptly to the buggy, shook off Foster’s attempt to help him, and drew himself inside. Quincannon followed. Though it was a relief to be shed of the storm, his clothing was saturated and he felt the night’s chill deep in his bones. The rain pelting down on the calash hood was loud enough to make conversation almost as difficult as it had been outside.
Rideout noted it, too. “It’s too noisy to converse here,” he said loudly. “Suppose you come along with me to my farm. I can damn well use a drink while I listen to what you have to say.”
“If it wouldn’t be an imposition.”
“Imposition, hell. You were hoping I would invite you, to save spending the night in that rathole of Adam Kennett’s, else you wouldn’t have brought your valise along.”
Quincannon didn’t deny it.
The coach rocked as Foster climbed up into the driver’s seat. Rideout shouted up to him, “Move out, Caleb!”
“Now, Mr. Rideout?”
“Now. And don’t spare the horses.”
The Concord jerked into motion, wheeling away from the landing and onto the muddy levee road. When they reached the ferryman’s shack, the muscular tender emerged with his bug-eye lantern. The black scowl he wore testified to his displeasure at having to make two dangerous crossings of Dead Man’s Slough on such a night as this. As did his grumbling remark that “the wind is a she-devil tonight, the current flood fast” — the most words Quincannon had heard him speak at once.
Rideout put an end to his protestations with a gold coin that flashed in the light from the bug-eye lantern. The ferryman had the apron down and was making ready with the windlass when Foster drove the Concord buggy down the embankment.
The horses were even more skittish now; Foster had some difficulty coaxing them onto the rocking barge. He set the brake and then swung down to hold the animals’ harnesses while the ferryman hooked the guard chain, cast off the mooring ropes, and bent to his windlass.
Impulse prodded Quincannon out of the carriage, to stand braced against the off-rear wheel. He disliked being closed inside a conveyance in such situations as this, preferring to be in a position to observe the proceedings and to offer assistance if needed. And he couldn’t get any wetter than he already was. He scanned as much of both shores as could be made out through the deluge. He thought he saw someone moving on the road near the town wharf, a dark shape like a huge winged vulture, but he couldn’t be sure; very little was distinct in the rain-soaked night.
Progress was slow, the barge rolling and pitching on the turbulent water. They were less than halfway across when Quincannon heard a singing moan in the storm’s racket — wind vibrating the ferry cable, he thought, or the strain on the scow produced by the load and the strong current. Suddenly, then, the barge lurched, made a dancing little sideslip that almost tore loose his grip on the buggy’s wheel.
The ferryman shouted a warning that the wind shredded away. In the next instant there was a loud snapping noise and something came hurtling through the wet blackness, cracking like a whip. One of the cables, broken free of its anchor on the north bank spit.
Swirling water bit into the scow, drenched Quincannon to the knees as it sluiced across the deck. The ferryman was thrown backward from the windlass; the drum spun free, ratcheting. He shouted again. So did Foster, something unintelligible. The barge, floating loose now and caught by the current, heaved and bucked toward the slough’s confluence with the dark sweep of the river.
The terror-stricken horses reared, and one’s hoof must have struck Foster; he screamed in pain, staggered, lost his balance, and was gone into the roiling slough. Quincannon felt the deck canting over, the buggy beginning to tip and slide away from him. Rideout had the door open now and was trying to struggle out; Quincannon caught hold of his arm, yanked him free. In another few seconds the carriage would roll and the weight of it and the horses tumbling would capsize the scow. There was nothing to be done but go into the water themselves, attempt to swim clear while they were still in the slough.
The ferryman knew it, too. He yelled a third time — “Jump, jump!” — and dove over the guard chain.
But Rideout fought against going overboard. Clawed desperately to free himself from Quincannon’s grasp, to cling to the side rail, all the while shouting, “I can’t swim! I can’t swim!”
Quincannon was bigger, stronger, younger, and there was no time left for such concerns. He wrenched the farmer around, locked an arm about his waist, and hurled both of them off the tilting deck.
23
Quincannon
Rideout’s struggles grew frenzied as the icy water closed over them. Quincannon nearly lost his grip on the rancher’s slicker, managed to hold on and to kick them both up to the surface and away from the danger behind them. The barge was tilted in the opposite direction; the screams of the horses rose above the storm sounds as it went over, spilling carriage and animals into the slough in a huge foaming gout. The roaring noise this generated had the volume of a thunderclap.
Rideout continued his panicked flailing and sputtering, which left Quincannon no choice in this matter, either. He pulled his right arm free and rapped the man smartly on the chin with a closed fist, a blow that put an abrupt end to the struggle.
The current had them, but it was not half as powerful here as it would be if they were swept into the river. The waterlogged chesterfield was a heavy weight that threatened to drag both of them down; Quincannon ripped the buttons loose, then shucked the right arm out of its sleeve, shifted his grasp on the unconscious Rideout, and worked the left one free.
Quincannon could move more easily then in the churning water, and not a moment too soon. Something bulky and misshapen swirled toward them; he saw it just in time to twist himself and Rideout out of its path. Blasted tree limb torn loose by the storm, a large one sprouting mossy branches. The miss was so close that one of the branches scratched the back of his hand as the limb spun by.
Once it was gone he made an effort to get his bearings. There, over to his left — the faint light at the ferryman’s shack. He took a firmer grip on his burden and struck out in that direction.
The wind and the current battled him at every stroke, bobbing the pair of them like corks. Once an eddy almost ripped Rideout away from him. Quincannon’s right leg threatened to cramp; the cold and exertion numbed his mind as well as his body. The bank, the light, seemed far away... then a little closer... and closer still...