Warful shook his head. “No matter. I’ll discuss it with you later.”
The giant stepped to the rail and studied the palace through his telescope. He turned his head and said: “Mr. Toucey, can I take the palace with my gunfighters?”
The Frenchman stepped beside him. “How many do you have?”
“These you see around you.”
“You don’t have enough.”
“Then I can use the crew of this vessel.”
“You still won’t have enough. The king’s palace is well guarded and his troops have machine guns and artillery.”
“Can I hire mercenaries in the town?” Warful said.
Toucey shook his head. “No. The only fighting men in Eugene de Montijo wear the uniform of King Brukwe.”
Warful sighed. “Mr. Toucey, your bad news and pessimism have quite destroyed the tranquility of the morning.” He advanced on the Frenchman, who suddenly seemed frightened. “You will accompany me on my reconnoiter of the town and point out the houses of the Jews.” His skeletal face broke into a smile. “My lady wife has her heart set on a Jewish wedding ring.”
“Plenty of wedding rings in the bazaars,” Toucey said.
“Yes, but those won’t do. My wife wishes one taken from the severed finger of a Jewess.”
Matt Battles watched the Frenchman’s face, and his look of horror told him that the little man realized what he himself already knew—that Warful was stark, raving mad ...
And therefore dangerous beyond measure.
Chapter 33
The Iron Handmaidens
Built on a narrow strip of land, Eugene de Montijo was a crowded, noisy town. The crooked, teetering wooden houses, some as high as four stories, looked like dwellings from a fairy tale by the brothers Grimm, and rubbed shoulders with raucous taverns and exotic stores with red or yellow or blue awnings. Set among this clamoring cacophony of color and sound were warehouses with crowded slave pens attached, guarded by bearded Arabs shouldering French-made Gras rifles, scimitars hanging from their waists.
Even this early in the morning, the port’s only street was crowded and Matt Battles was jostled by drunk sailors of a dozen nationalities, swarthy Arab traders and slavers, stiff-collared Englishmen sweating in broadcloth, quick, excitable Frenchmen, stately natives wearing only loincloths, Italians, Germans, Russians, and a few Indians, all talking at the top of their voices, a roaring, bellowing, deafening babel of languages and accents.
The hot air smelled of packed humanity, overlaid with the more languid scents of spices, rum, tobacco, and the blooming moringa trees.
Through this milling maelstrom Matt Battles, Durango, and Warful walked unnoticed, as though men in high-heeled boots and wide-brimmed hats were an everyday sight.
At Warful’s insistence, both Battles and Durango were without their guns, this being only a reconnaissance and not, as he put it, “an armed invasion.”
Marcel Toucey, constantly wiping his face with his handkerchief, pointed out the sights as they walked along the narrow street, including a tavern that he claimed had been built by a famous Barbary pirate, the Dutchman Jan Janszoon.
Gradually the buildings grew fewer and Toucey led Battles and the others into an area where bazaars selling everything from black female slaves to Chinese porcelain lined both sides of the street.
Indian and Arab vendors called out to them as they passed, promising unheard-of bargains, then cursed at them in languages they didn’t understand as they walked past.
“Where is the Jewish quarter?” Warful asked Toucey.
The Frenchman shrugged. “All around you.”
Warful nodded. “Then it will make it a little harder to roust them out, but I’ll do it once I’m king.”
Toucey said nothing, but his face was troubled.
“How much treasure does King what’s-his-name have squirreled away?” Battles asked.
“A great deal, I should imagine, Mr. Battles,” Toucey said. “His family has ruled Eugene de Montijo for two hundred years, and he takes a cut from every business in the port.”
Warful smiled. “What happens if someone refuses to pay?”
“You’ll see what happens very soon,” Toucey said.
After the bazaars petered out, the road rose in a gradual slope and wound through a grove of acacia trees that threw a dappled shade. The trees gave way to an open, grassy area where insects chirped and the full heat of the sun hammered mercilessly.
King Brukwe’s palace stood at the top of the rise, a sprawling stucco brick mansion built in the French colonial style.
Trimmed hedges lined the curved driveway in front of the house, and the grounds were beautifully landscaped, using native plants and flowers. Birds sang and added to the serenity of the palace and grounds.
Therefore, the sight of rotting bodies in iron cages suspended from the roof and the female soldiers standing guard at the arched entrance was all the more jarring.
“That’s what happens to people who don’t pay the king’s taxes, Mr. Warful,” Toucey said. “They’re strung up in a cage and left to dry in the sun.”
The two guards at the arch were joined by two more, and all four women looked at the approaching men with open suspicion and hostility.
Apart from an ammunition bandoleer across their chests, the guards were bare-breasted. Each wore a beaded headband and leather kilts and sandals and they carried British rifles.
Battles figured the women were young, no more than twenty, their breasts, which had obviously never suckled a child, high and firm.
“This is as far as we go,” Toucey said. “Those Amazons are King Brukwe’s Iron Handmaidens and they’ll shoot first and ask questions later.”
Battles looked to the north where army tents were pitched in orderly rows on flat, treeless ground, the French tricolor flapping above the largest.
“Who are they?” he asked Toucey.
“A regiment of French infantry,” the man answered. “The kingdom’s border with French West Africa is only half a mile away at this point.”
Warful seemed troubled. “Why are they there, right on our doorstep?”
Toucey shrugged, a habit of his. “A show of strength, aimed at intimidating King Brukwe. Every so often the French will move troops to the border, to keep the peace and suppress the slave trade, they say. The real reason is to make sure Paris gets its fair share of the kingdom’s spoils.”
“When I attack the palace, will the French intervene?” Warful said.
“I don’t know,” Toucey said. “It all depends on the mind of the commander of the regiment down there. There have been Arab trader tax revolts against King Brukwe in the past, almost bloodless certainly, but still, the French were content to stand aside. They may do it again.”
“Where are the cannons and the Gatling guns?” Battles said.
The Frenchman smiled again. “I don’t know that either, but I suspect the Iron Handmaidens can roll them out very quickly.”
Warful turned to Durango. “We will land the men today, but my lady wife will stay on board until we take the palace.” He smiled. “If you find a married Jewess, bring her to me.”
Now he looked at Toucey. “Where is the palace garrison?”
“You can’t see it from here, but they have a permanent barracks on the other side of the hill.”
Warful thought about that. “I could attack there first and scatter them.”
“There are two hundred of them,” Battles said, stunned at the man’s arrogance.
“They’re blacks,” Warful said. “They won’t stand against white men.”
Even Durango, not the most intelligent of men, looked doubtful when he heard that statement.
And Toucey said: “King Brukwe’s soldiers are Fulani, great warriors. They’ll stand their ground and fight.”
“That, my dear Toucey, remains to be seen,” Warful said. “What a frightened little man you are, to be sure.”
“Mr. Warful,” the Frenchman said, battling to kee
p his voice calm, “the Masai are mighty warriors, but they step around the Fulani. Even the Zulus, bravest of all, have never tangled with that tribe. The Fulani were nomads who converted to Islam centuries ago, and are so light-skinned other Africans refer to them as ‘the white people.’”
Toucey shook his head. “They make unreliable friends and bad enemies.”
“I have a score of my country’s top gunfighters with me,” Warful said. “We’ll kill a hundred of them and scatter the rest.”
“Is that your plan?” Toucey said. “You will not be dissuaded from your folly?”
“Folly?” Warful said, looking down his nose at the little Frenchman. “Perhaps it seems that way to lesser men, but to me it will be the realization of my destiny.”
Toucey wiped his sweating face. “Then I wish to have no more to do with you or your suicidal plan,” Toucey said. “Of course, I still expect my promised share from the gold ship, and I want it soon. My agents will be in touch.” He lifted his hat. “Now I wash my hands of you. Good day to you, sir.”
Warful watched the man go, then turned to Durango. “I’ll see that little man in hell before I’d give him a share of the Lila’s gold. Make sure that the nervous Mr. Toucey doesn’t live out the day.”
The gunman nodded. “I’ll attend to it.”
“I know you will,” Warful said. “You’re my good right hand that smites my enemies.”
Chapter 34
At the Admiral Duperre
After Warful left in the Lila’s jolly boat, Battles and Durango hung around the dock and watched an Arab slave trader load chained slaves into the hold of a wide-beamed dhow.
A sailor with an English accent stopped beside them, watched the scene, then said: “Those poor blighters are bound for the Brazil rubber plantations. They’ll all be dead in a year.”
“Hard work, huh?” Durango said, only half interested.
The seaman nodded. “Hard work and starvation rations take their toll. But they mostly die of malaria or dengue fever. Yellow fever too, poor, doomed bastards.”
The sailor seemed inclined to be sociable, so Battles said: “This is our first time in port. When will we catch sight of King Brukwe?”
“You won’t. They say he’s so fat he can’t leave the palace. I heard he needs a winch to lower him on top of his harem women, and he’s suffocated a few.”
Suddenly Durango was interested. “How many women does he have?”
“The number is kept at fifty,” the sailor said. “The king calls them his Iron Handmaidens, and they’re his bodyguard as well as his wives.”
The seaman inched closer. “Keep away from them women, mate. If they take a dislike to you, they’ll cut your balls off and then impale what’s left of you, ram a stake up your arse, you can lay to that.”
He looked around him, then pushed his face even closer to the Durango. “The very thing happened to a mate of mine, young Charlie Spooner off the old City of Exeter schooner. The poor lad tried to rape one o’ them women and they impaled him. Charlie screamed on the stake for two days and on the third he couldn’t scream no more. He died the day after that, a-thanking God for his deliverance.”
“Good women to stay away from,” Battles said.
The sailor’s face was suddenly serious. “Aye, stay away from them women, says I. And listen, don’t go near the palace, ever. Bad things happen to them as wander up the hill.”
The man’s face cleared and he smiled. “The good news is that there’s plenty of willin’ women in town who’ll let you haul your hawser. Says I, there’s no need to go after them Iron Handmaidens like poor Charlie Spooner an’ get your balls cut off.”
The sailor knuckled his forehead. “Well, good day to ye, gentlemen. All this woman talk has me thinking that it’s time to find a tavern an’ a willin’ wench.”
He stepped away with a rolling gait, as though he were walking a storm deck, then turned and said: “Mind what I told ye, now. Stay away from the palace. It’s no place for a Christian man.”
The crew ferried ashore in the jolly boats and Warful warned them to assemble on the dock at dusk for the return.
After the whooping gunmen dispersed into the town in search of rum and women, only Battles and Durango remained on the dock.
Warful stared at the gunman, then took a Colt from his waistband and passed it to him. “You have a job to do, Durango,” he said.
The gunman nodded. “I’ll find him.”
“And when you do?”
“The moon won’t shine on the Frenchman’s fat ass tonight.”
Warful’s skull face stretched in a smile. “Then go do it.”
After Durango left, Battles said: “What about me, Warful? You want me to kill somebody as well?”
The smile didn’t leave Warful’s face. “Sometimes you have a crude way of putting things, Mr. Battles. No, I don’t want you to kill anyone, at least not for now.”
Warful’s eyes wandered beyond the dock to the sea.
“Ah,” he said, pointing, “look yonder, Mr. Battles. Those dark triangles you see cutting through the water are sharks.”
“I’ve heard of them, never seen one, though,” Battles said.
“I saw a few in the Pacific,” Warful said, “but they didn’t come anywhere near the ship.”
He shaded his eyes with a hand. “They’re hunting close. It must be the time of year when fish shoal in these waters.”
Warful took his eyes from the sea and said: “A glass of rum with you, Mr. Battles?”
The marshal nodded. “I could use one.”
“Then let’s find a reputable tavern, if such exists in this town.”
The Admiral Duperre faced the docks and was frequented by clients of the better sort, mostly ships’ officers and local businessmen. A few pretty African women in low-cut buba blouses and tight, wrapped skirts, sat at the bar and showed off their charms, but the customers ignored them, or at least pretended they did.
The rum, served in crystal, was Jamaican and of good quality. Battles built a cigarette and for the first time that day began to relax. Only the ominous presence of Hatfield Warful prevented him from fully enjoying the exotic sights, smells, and sounds of his surroundings.
As it happened, Battles’s pleasure was short-lived.
There was a sudden commotion in the street and men’s voices were raised in anger. A rifle shot racketed, then another.
Dee O’Day backed through the tavern’s open door, his right hand clawing for a gun that wasn’t there.
His face wild, he looked around him, and saw Warful and Battles.
“What’s amiss, Mr. O’Day?” Warful asked, rising to his feet.
It took O’Day a few moments of mouth movements, his throat bobbing, before he could answer.
“Luke Anderson killed a woman. He’s been arrested and they’re trying to round up everybody who was with him.” O’Day, a frightened man, stepped to Warful. “That includes me,” he said.
Chapter 35
Murder and Hostages
Warful jumped to his feet, his face moving.
“Damn you, O’Day,” he said, forgetting the niceties. “What the hell happened?”
O’Day tried to answer, but the words jammed in his throat. Warful gave him his glass of rum.
“Drink this, then tell me,” he said.
O’Day downed the rum in a gulp, then rubbed a nervous hand across his mouth before speaking.
“We was at a saloon just around the corner,” he said. “Luke was real horny and soon found himself a dove. She took him upstairs and time passed. Then we heard screams. Next thing we know, another dove with blood on her hands runs into the street and hollers for help.”
“Where is Anderson now?” Warful said.
“The soldiers took him.”
“Women soldiers?” Battles asked.
“No, they were men, black men, or almost black. And now they’re looking for me, damn them, even though I had nothing to do with the murder.”
&nbs
p; O’Day flared his anger at Warful. “And I don’t have a gun. You told us to leave them on the damned boat.”
Warful thought for a moment, then said: “Get down to the dock. Wait for me there.”
But before O’Day could move, three soldiers burst into the tavern, a young woman with bloodstained hands in tow. She spotted O’Day immediately, pointed at him, and screamed something in a language Battles didn’t understand.
The soldiers, dressed in the blue coats and red breeches of regular French infantry, surrounded O’Day with fixed bayonets and motioned him toward the street.
“Damned if I do!” O’Day yelled.
He ran at the nearest soldier, brushed his rifle aside, and made a dash for the door.
He almost got there.
Just as O’Day was about to run into the street, a soldier fired his Gras into the gunman’s back. O’Day threw up his arms, staggered a step, and crashed onto his face. He groaned once, then lay still.
Now the rifles swung on Battles and Warful.
“Don’t move,” Battles said to Warful. “Don’t even blink.”
A few tense moments slid past; then the soldiers put up their rifles, grabbed O’Day by the arms, and pulled him away.
The smoke lingered in the closeness of the tavern, and the echoes of the gunshot rang in Battles’s ears. He sat at the table and, his voice unsteady, said: “Damn, I need this drink.”
The gunmen, most of them drunk, were at the dock by dusk. All but Durango, who had other business at hand.
By now the talk of Anderson’s arrest and O’Day’s death was all over town, and several of the gunmen, conspicuous in their boots and hats, had been roughed up by roaming gangs of irate citizens.
Lon Stuart spoke for the rest when he said: “I say we go back to the ship, get our guns, and come back and hooraw this damn town.”
The other gunmen muttered or cursed their agreement, but Warful said: “That won’t bring O’Day back or release Anderson from custody.”
“Then what do we do?” Stuart said.
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