Dead water - Barbara Hambly [119]
“Reinforcements,” said January grimly as the men on board began to shout and wave to the outlaws on the Silver Moon.
Caught between the steamboat and the smaller vessel on her makeshift raft, Mrs. Fischer half sat up, dark hair flying in the wind, and looked back toward the steamboat. Before she could make up her mind to turn back, one of the men on the skiff whooped and brought his rifle around. There was a puff of smoke. Mrs. Fischer sank slowly down, holding her side. A moment later she rolled from her fragile square of boards into the opaque flood.
There was a flash of black, a ribbon of red unreeling into the water, and she was gone.
TWENTY
“Get in the engine-room!” Thu waved to the newly-released slaves and the deck-hands clustered in the promenade. “Get the women in there. . . .”
“Hold the doors as long as you can,” panted January. “They'll try to take the pilot-house and run the boat to shore. . . .”
“There's guns in the purser's office,” said Thu. “I can break in the case—Tredgold's got the key. We've got only a few minutes before they figure it's worth it to shoot a nigger or two.”
'Rodus grinned, a slash of white in his dark face. “Never thought bein' worth a thousand dollars to some white man would come in handy.”
“You gonna see how handy it is when you end up bein' sold in Texas, brother,” snapped Thu, not unaffectionately, and loped off to unlock the office door.
January sprang up the steps and along the upper promenade, going first to the Ladies' Parlor—where he found every woman and child on the boat, with the exception of Rose, huddled together under the protection of Jim, Andy, and Winslow. He yelled, “Get to the pilot-house!” and raced down to Hannibal's stateroom. Rose, Hannibal, and Quince had already gone. Rose, like January, had guessed that the outlaws had to take either the engine-room or the pilot-house, and when January mounted to the hurricane deck, he found them already in the little cupola, Hannibal stretched out on the lazy-bench only barely conscious and Rose trying to get the other women—including one Irish and two German deck-passengers and their children—to be quiet and stay still. The room was tiny, and with twenty extra people jammed into it, there was barely room for Mr. Lundy to cling to the wheel.
“Blame you, what the hell you have to send 'em all up here for?” The pilot's buzzing voice sharpened with annoyance, though January guessed he actually knew perfectly well. He was barely to be heard over the screaming of the Irishwoman's baby and Melissa Tredgold.
“Too hard to defend three places,” January answered. “They killed Cain and three deck-hands and threw them overboard like dead dogs. Any captive's going to end up a hostage.”
Mrs. Tredgold slapped her daughter with a blow like a gunshot, and the girl screamed even louder.
“I'll give 'em a list of who they can have with my compliments. . . .”
Jim—clustered with the little group of men outside the door—shouted, “Here they come!”
January yelled, “Let's go!” Their ammunition was gone, so the little gang of men who'd gone up—January, the three valets, Byrne the gambler, Mr. Tredgold, blanched and shaky with shock, and even Mr. Quince—caught up logs and canes and threw themselves across the dozen feet or so to the top of the stair, to stop the attackers before they swarmed onto the hurricane deck itself. Those who followed unquestioningly—and January had one terrible moment of fear that nobody would—soon realized the strategy he didn't have time to explain: that bunched together on the narrow stair, it was almost impossible for the attackers to fire or, if they did, to aim, whereas if they were able to fan out over the hurricane deck, they'd be in a position to rip the pilot-house itself apart with cross-fire.
Swinging his makeshift club of firewood, January dodged to one side as Levi Christmas fired on him almost point-blank. The stinging heat of the ball whiffed his arm, then he fell on the outlaw before