That must be the captain, he thought. He almost waved to the man. After all they were colleagues.
Yes, it was definitely the steamer's captain. You could tell by the way he started screaming, shaking his fist, and throwing his gold-braided hat on the deck and jumping up and down on it.
Finally the fellow went away for a few minutes. When he returned he had two sailors with him, and they both carried crowbars. They started prying at the anchor hooked into their stern rail.
All at once the steamship leaped forward, the anchor flew into the air, and the captain and two sailors and two crowbars all fell bloop into a scrambling mass of arms and legs.
And Daniel Webster steamed off into the mist, quickly absorbing herself from view.
He smelled Roscoe's approach. "Got a little breeze up out here," Roscoe said. "I'll get the boys to run up the canvas. You want to go steer?"
Flagway edged away from him. "Why shur… shut… shertainly."
"Due north after we bust out the Golden Gate. That's where m'brother's got the other ship."
On the way to the tiller Flagway noticed Gabe, still draped over the rail like a suit waiting to be sent to the cleaner's.
Beyond Gabe he noticed the gold wagon again. Well after all it was only the Government's money. Governments did all sorts of things with money, but Flagway couldn't think of any government that had ever done him any good personally. All he really wanted out of life was to get home and go back to helping Daddy in the apothecary shop. Was that so much to ask? Yet the governments of sixteen countries had prevented him from achieving that simple goal for more years than he could count.
Manning the tiller and peering glazedly into the thinning mist, Captain Flagway watched Roscoe's toughs swarm up into the rigging and loose the sails to the wind. He aimed the lumbering ship north into the Pacific Ocean.
Slowly, Gabe lifted his head. The horizon was doing seesaw things.
Vangie said, "Feeling any better?"
"I'm either cured or dead. I think."
"You mean it's all over?"
"I mean, I think the teething ring I lost when I was eight months old has just turned up."
Weakly he turned around and leaned his back against the rail to survey the ship. Roscoe was marching about giving orders to his crew in a voice like a bassoon. Captain Flagway was at the tiller making drunken gestures, flanked by Francis and Ittzy. The gold wagon crouched under its tarp with the broken mainmast across it.
"We made it," Gabe said slowly. "How about that. We made it."
"So far," Vangie said.
"Boy, you are something," he said. "You are really something. You just never give up. Now just what the hell do you mean, 'so far'?"
"We're in the middle of the ocean. So what happens when we land again? Don't you think the police will be waiting to arrest you?"
"No."
"Well, you're probably right about that. Because we'll never get that far. Roscoe and his brother will probably feed us to the fishes first."
"I'm glad the sea air makes you so cheerful."
"When Roscoe throws your dead body overboard, don't say I didn't warn you."
"I probably won't say a word."
"And there's another thing. Isn't the ship wallowing kind of low in the water?"
He shrugged. "Probably the gold."
"We'll never get away with it," she said. "Not in a million years."
"Yeah."
"Did you see the headline in that paper last week when they hanged those murderers? JERKED TO JESUS. That's what they're going to do to us."
He closed her in the circle of his arms. "Yeah."
"Don't think you're going to shut me up by romancing me, Gabe Beauchamps." Then she gave a strangled little cry and stiffened in his arms.
Gabe leaned back a bit to look at her and saw her staring forward. He turned his head, and here came Roscoe and his crew, fanned out across the deck, a little less menacing than the armies of Attila the Hun.
Roscoe was armed with his two enormous pistols, and his men brandished huge knives and belaying pins.
Gabe knew the answer to the question, but he asked it anyway: "What's up, Roscoe?"
"Your time, buster," Roscoe said. He gestured with the guns. "We're taking over."
Vangie, anger and frustration in her voice, said, "I told you!"
"Easy," Gabe told her.
Francis, coming up next to Gabe, frowned at the tough guys and said, "Roscoe, whatever is the meaning of this?"
For once, Roscoe had no trouble meeting Francis' eye. "It means you're shark bait, pretty boy," he said. "You and all the rest of them."
Out of the corner of his eye, Gabe saw Vangie drifting away to the right. Did she have something in mind, or was she just moving aimlessly, out of fear? To keep Roscoe's attention, just in case there was something afoot in Vangie's agile brain, Gabe said, "You can't run things without me, Roscoe, you ought to know that."
Roscoe grinned, sure of himself. "You don't think so, huh?"
"Not a chance," Gabe said, and made himself grin just as easily and self-confidently as Roscoe. "You couldn't find your nose with your hand if you didn't have help."
Roscoe's grin faded. The pistols in his hands leveled themselves more specifically at Gabe. His voice grating with meanness, Roscoe said, "You talk pretty tough, New York boy. But I'm the one with the guns in my hands."
"Oh, Roscoe," Francis said. "Do stop playing at being a big boy."
"We'll see about that," Roscoe said. "You people just move yourselves over by that rail there."
Francis was looking pale but clearly determined not to show any fear. "Why?" he asked.
"We're about to find out," Roscoe said, "just how good you folks can swim."
"Listen," Gabe said, but he never got to finish the sentence, because all at once Vangie made her play.
The movement was just a blur; her years of pocket-picking experience came in very handy when it was her own pocket she was picking. Out came Gabe's knuckle-duster, moving so fast he could hardly make out himself what she had in her hand, and she fired the one bullet it contained.
It was either a brilliant shot or a lucky one. It knocked one of Roscoe's guns right out of his hand.
Gabe whipped the whisky flask from his hip pocket and leveled it at Roscoe. "Drop it, Roscoe," he said, "and don't make a move."
Roscoe was already bending over his numbed hand. Now he dropped his second gun and clutched at his injury.
His crew started to move forward, raising their clubs and knives, closing in on Gabe and Vangie and Francis, with Captain Flagway at the wheel just behind them.
"No!" Roscoe cried, waving his men back with his good hand. "That thing's a…"
"… gun," Gabe finished, and fired one shot into the air.
The crew hesitated.
Francis grabbed a handy marlin spike, and pointed it at the tough guys. "Yes," he said. "And this is a gun."
Ittzy took the explosives book from his pocket. "And this is a gun."
Captain Flagway unscrewed a spoke from the wheel and brandished it, not too steadily. "Yes, and this is a gun," he said.