Crimson Waters. James Axler
accepted payment because his new friends would naturally suspect him of plotting something if he hadn’t—and that what he was really after was some company, however brief.
His skiff, named the Ernie H, was well kept but seemed as ancient as Oldie was. Right now, the little vessel ran on a broad reach across a breeze from the northwest, using a single triangular sail on the mast. Oldie had a pair of oars locked up under the gunwales for calm seas.
He also had an Ishapore 2A longblaster clamped under a tarp by his seat in the stern. It was the reason he’d been willing to take the 7.62 mm rounds in exchange for passage, since the Indian-made rifle had been built to fire those rounds. Though the forestock was secured by windings of bright red copper wire, Ryan had seen how the steel of the barrel and receiver shone with a faint coating of oil. It was a piece both well used and well maintained.
“So truly,” Doc said, peering toward the near ville, “the city is ruled by a council of pirates?”
“Right as rain,” Oldie said. “They started using the place soon as the quakes settled down after the war. Much as they ever settled down, that is. Wasn’t much commerce to raid in those days, but a lot of richies tried to weather the nuke-storm at sea on their yachts. They made pretty ripe plucking.”
The wind died as they approached the mouth of the harbor. Oldie calmly stood and began furling the sail, easily shifting his weight to accommodate the boat’s rocking.
“Pirates did a lot of coastal raiding in those days, too,” he said. He was clearly doing something he did every day. It didn’t take much conscious attention on his part. “These days, too, of course. Anyway, what with one thing or another, this side of the island wound up with a double-cherry natural harbor—if you could call what made it ‘natural,’ speaking rightly.
“Since the quakes and storms and whatnot had pretty much leveled Charlestown, which was pretty much the only town that counted, here or on St. Kitts just off to the north, there—” he nodded his white-bearded chin at a humpy green line lying off on the horizon as he lowered the sail “—the place tended to attract folks. Took hold right quick as a place to trade. ’Course, being as the only folks with much to trade—or at least, the means to insist on getting paid for what they had to trade, if you catch my drift—were pirates, pirates it was as settled it. Some got so successful they decided they could do better by staying put, keeping things running smooth and taking their cut off the top, than by sea-roving. Less work, and a shitload safer.”
“So they sell rum, gaudy sluts and beans to the gangs that bring in loot,” J.B. said. “Good income, if you got the weapons to hang on to it.”
Oldie grinned. “Told you, they was pirates to start with. They may put on airs and strut around cocky, but they didn’t forget their roots. They call their sec men Monitors. People as run afoul of them live to regret it.”
He got out his oars and set them in locks to either side of the bench that ran across the bow, then sat and began to pull with strong, practiced strokes. Muscles bunched and corded on arms left bare by the sleeveless burlap-sack blouse he wore.
“No engine on this thing?” Mildred asked in apparent surprise.
“Won’t have one.” He turned his head and spat into the water. “Don’t hold by the things. Don’t need gas. Get all the fuel I need, growing from the ground or in our sister the sea. And don’t need replacement parts.”
He grinned and thumped the hand-carved wood stump that replaced his lower left leg. “Not since I whittled this one to replace the pin that mutie eel bit off for me. More-ay we call ’em—‘a’ for ass, ’cause those are some big-ass eels!”
Jak scowled suspiciously. “Thought said shark bit off,” he said.
“Did I?” Oldie laughed. “One of them things. See, son, man gets to a certain age, trivial little details just naturally start to slip out of his mind. Great white, mutie more-ay—whichever. It got my leg and I don’t have it any longer.”
Jak lapsed into sullen silence, as the crusty old bastard laughed at him. But Ryan had seen the end of the stump beneath Oldie’s left knee. Something with big jaws and big teeth had taken it off; he knew that much from the marks. If the ancient half-crazed mariner wanted to make a joke out of something like that, good for him. Ryan had to smile in acknowledgment of his balls.
“Sweet yacht, there,” J.B. said, pointing.
J.B. was no nautical man—far less than Ryan, anyway, who’d at least grown up with small boats as a baron’s son in the rich and powerful East Coast barony of Front Royal. But J.B. was a skilled mechanic and tinkerer, not just an armorer. He knew wags of all sort, land and sea alike. He had a feel for them, and an eye.
Ryan nodded. He admired the clean lines of the vessel, although she had a funny prow: straight up and down, not angling up from the sea. She had to run ninety feet over waterline, with a smooth white coat of paint, unlike many of the other vessels in the harbor, whether masted or motor craft. Most were dilapidated and didn’t look well maintained at all.
Ryan also appreciated the machine gun on the pintle mount rising from the foredeck. He judged it was .30 caliber, which made it a Browning 1919. An oldie but goody, even by the time the balloon went up on the Big Nuke. But if it was maintained properly, as he reckoned this one had to be, it would still be capable of dealing out serious hurt. It even sported a splinter shield welded together from thick steel plates. The gun could kill a small craft’s engine, or just shoot the crew out of a larger vessel, without doing much damage to cargo or hull.
“Not bad,” Oldie admitted, “even if she has an engine in her belly. That’s the Wailer. Don’t burn your eyes on her too long, boys and girls. Like about half the hulls tied up here right now, she belongs to the Sea Wasp Posse, out of Ocho Rios over to Jah-Mek-Ya. Biggest, meanest pirate bunch working the Antilles and northern Gulf since that giant-ass ’cane took down the Black Gang some time back. The Blacks were cocks of the walk before that.”
J.B. caught Ryan’s eye and gave him a quick, tight, closemouthed grin. It hadn’t been a hurricane that took down the most feared pirate crew in the West Indies. Although not one but two hurricanes had helped. The real cause of their demise had been the companions.
It wasn’t a fact Ryan felt the need to advertise. Especially not closing in on a place that was the main pirate trading, refitting and recreational port. Odds were, the Black Gang had been NuTuga’s best customers in their time. The Syndicate might not look kindly on people who took that big a bite out of their business.
Quays had been built out into the NuTuga harbor out of broken-up volcanic rock, mostly a dark, rusty red-brown. The tops had been boarded over with planks. Some of the craft, such as the Wailer, were tied up to them. Others rode at anchor in the harbor itself.
As they entered the harbor Krysty pointed off to the left. “What are those?” she asked.
Squinting, Ryan saw what appeared to be half a dozen steel cranes standing by the shore, which was brown volcanic sand shored up by bigger chunks of lava. Four of the arms were swung out over the harbor. Something that looked like a curiously shaped duffel bag hung from a chain from each into the water. A seagull perched on the rounded top of one, bending forward to peck at it.
“Oh, no,” Krysty said in a small voice.
Frowning, Ryan looked closer. Those were humans hung from the chains, waist-deep in water with steel bands under the armpits. Their sun-blackened bodies were nude. At least one seemed to have been a woman.
One twitched. The seagull spread slate-backed wings and flew away. It had been pecking at the victim’s eyes.
“Is that one still alive?” Krysty asked.
J.B. shrugged. “Not much wind stirring,” he said.
“Oh, God—” Mildred emitted a strangled cry. Turning away just in time, she vomited noisily into the harbor.
“Lady got a delicate disposition?” Oldie inquired solicitously.
“She