The Shadows of God - J. Gregory Keyes [114]
“Hijack!” he shouted. “B'goddamn but they shot me!”
Crecy drew two pistols and aimed them at the hatchway, just as two men in red coats dropped down, wielding kraft-pistoles. Her and Robert's pistols barked like twin hounds, and both men fell, one shot in the head and the other in the belly.
The next instant a grenade bounced on the deck, fuse sputtering.
Robert was already running that way, his second pistol aimed up, seeking a target in the hatch above. Without breaking stride, he snatched the bomb up and flung it through the lower hatch, into open sky. Crecy, meanwhile, leapt to stand near him, firing up into the hold.
Two guns boomed above. Crecy stood unscathed, but Robert cursed and fell. A lithe form followed the bullets down, an Indian with a tomahawk in one hand and a pistol in the other.
Red Shoes raised his pistol reflexively when Flint Shouting hurled himself from the hold, but the Wichita's weapon spat first. The ball struck Red Shoes’ outstretched hand, scorched up his arm, cracked against a bone in his shoulder, then leapt weirdly to take off most of his right ear. He fell back, feeling almost like he was floating—it was very strange. Everything outside his body seemed preternaturally real—Franklin shouting Sterne!, the hatch slamming shut, Flint Shouting arcing over him like a panther.
I'm sorry, brother, he thought. And in that moment, he knew he could do nothing, would do nothing. It was over.
Then a black hole appeared in Flint Shouting's chest, as Grief shot him, and a much larger one in his belly, in consequence of Robert shooting him from behind. The Wichita looked surprised, and his knees wobbled drunkenly. He made it the next step, and fell heavily next to Red Shoes, the ax dropping from his hand.
The only weapons Flint Shouting had left were his eyes. His flat, accusing gaze fastened on Red Shoes; and Red Shoes could not shake it, could not avoid it.
The hatch slammed down even as Franklin recognized the face glaring down from it.
“Sterne!” he shouted, and fired his pistol. It sang off the metal and rapped a few times around the cabin.
Above, through the closed hatch, he thought he heard laughter.
“Be damned!” Franklin roared, lunging toward the ladder. Someone caught him by the scruff of the neck.
It was Tug. “Don’ go doin’ that. He'll blow y'r head off.”
Franklin struggled for a second, then nodded savagely.
“Somebody watch that hatch. Shoot the bastard if he opens it.”
“I'll do that,” Crecy said. She bent and took the weapons from the dead and not-quite dead redcoats, then stood with both aimed up.
“Robert? Tug?”
“Hit me in the ribs.” Robert grunted. “Just skinned me, maybe cracked a bone. I'll live.”
Tug was in more serious shape, bleeding heavily from between his heart and his shoulder. He had wandered over to stare at the Indian who was dying next to Red Shoes, who might be renamed Redhead at the moment, considering all the blood.
“Flint, m'lad.” Tug grunted. “Why'd y’ go an’ do that?”
The Indian wheezed. “You … saw … my village. Why … ask?”
“What's Sterne up to?”
Flint Shouting coughed up a huge bubble of blood, but then his next few words were clear. “I do not know. I do not care. I helped him escape because I heard he was your enemy. He said he could get me close to Red Shoes. That's all …” He coughed again. The whole conversation, he had never looked at Tug or Franklin, only at Red Shoes. He coughed a third time, and something broke in him. His eyes set. He did not breathe again.
Franklin stood and looked at the ceiling. “They must have smuggled themselves in the grenado crates.” Franklin groaned. “And now he's up there with our munitions.”
“That's not our only worry,” Adrienne said.
“What?”
“That grenado Mr. Nairne tossed from the ship —it got their attention. In a few seconds, we'll be under attack.”
“Tighten up, lads!” Oglethorpe shouted. Once again,