The Loner: Crossfire

by J. A. Johnstone

  “This woman sounds ... impressive.”

  “If being downright evil impresses you, I reckon she fits the bill, all right,” Frank said. “Ever since Conrad found out about the twins, he’s been looking for them, and the trail led him here to San Francisco. It looks like she made an arrangement with Lannigan, since he’s been trying to kill Conrad. I want to get my hands on him so I can make him tell me if he knows where my grandchildren are ... unless those spies of yours might be able to shed any light on that.”

  Diamond Jack shook his head. “My people cannot look for something they don’t even know exists, and this is the first I have heard about any missing children. You and your son have my sympathy, Mr. Morgan. You have suffered much at the hands of this Tarleton woman.”

  “Conrad more than me, but I’d be holding a grudge against her, too, if she was still alive. I sure don’t want her winning, even though she’s dead.”

  “Perhaps I can be of assistance—”

  “You’ll help get Conrad off that boat?”

  “It can be arranged,” Diamond Jack murmured, “but I must have something in return.”

  “What do you want?” Frank asked bluntly.

  “What happens to Lannigan if he knows where the children are hidden?”

  “I reckon that’s up to him.”

  Diamond Jack smiled. “I would like to see him wind up dead. My men might be able to get to him, but at a high cost. You and your son, on the other hand ...”

  “We’re not members of your tong, so our lives aren’t worth as much to you.”

  “Look at it however you will, Mr. Morgan, but it seems to me you and Browning have ample reason for wanting Dex Lannigan dead, as do I.”

  “I told you, I’m not a hired gun,” Frank said. “But if you rescue Conrad from that ship, I think there’s a good chance the two of us will be taking the fight to Lannigan. What happens after that is up to fate.”

  Diamond Jack laughed. “As a good Chinese, how can I not put my trust in fate? Very well, you have a deal. Before the Nimbus sails tonight, my men will take your son off the ship.”

  “One more thing ... I’m going along.”

  “Knowing your reputation, Mr. Morgan, I expected no less.”

  Chapter 23

  At least a year had dragged by since he’d regained consciousness the second time, Conrad thought. That was what it felt like, anyway.

  But the ship on which he was being held prisoner still rocked gently at anchor, and since the broken-nosed captain had said they were sailing that night, Conrad knew only hours had passed, not months.

  The first time he woke up in that hellhole he had only thought he hurt. The second time he was in more pain. Not just his head, but his entire body ached intolerably. A lesser man would have wanted to curl up and die.

  Conrad lay there regaining some of his strength and trying to figure out a way to escape.

  The second part of that challenge was going to be difficult, if not impossible. The crew member who had been careless when coming down to check on him earlier faced punishment lashes for his carelessness. Nobody wanted to be whipped. The next time that door in the bulkhead opened, there would be at least three men on the other side of it, probably more. They wouldn’t take chances with him again.

  It was possible they wouldn’t unlock the door until after the ship had sailed. Realizing that was enough to goad him on his hands and knees again. He crawled around until he found one of the crates he had encountered earlier. Pulling himself onto it, he sat for a long time and rested from the effort.

  Feeling stronger, he got to his feet and began exploring his prison. There might be another way out. A porthole, maybe. If he could find something like that and force it open ...

  There weren’t any portholes. He felt his way all over the four walls of the chamber and found nothing except the door. The hinges were on the inside, but he had nothing with which to work on them. If he had a tool of some sort, he might work the pins out of the hinges and free the door.

  With that thought in his mind, he stumbled through the darkness back to the crates and fell to his knees beside one of them. He ran his hands over the lid, searching for even the tiniest gap he might be able to force his fingers into. If he could pry one of the boards loose, he might be able to use a nail in it to push the pins up and out of the hinges. What he really needed was a crowbar to pry up a board ...

  That thought made him collapse in grim laughter against the crate. If he had a crowbar, he could use it to force the door open and wouldn’t have to attack the hinges. He wasn’t thinking straight. The beatings he had endured, plus the lack of food and water, had taken quite a toll on him. A desperate thirst gripped him. The inside of his mouth felt like sandpaper, and his tongue seemed twice its normal size.

  “Feeling sorry for yourself won’t do you any good, Conrad,” he rasped, speaking the words aloud. “Get back to work.”

  Finally, on the fourth crate he checked, he found a slightly warped board on the edge of the lid. Gripping it with his fingers, he heaved up with all the strength he could muster, but the board didn’t budge. He rested a few moments and tried again, then again and again.

  He lost track of time. He didn’t know if he’d been pulling on the board for fifteen minutes or three hours. He didn’t notice when the board finally shifted a little. He just reset his grip and heaved again.

  The movement was unmistakable.

  Conrad slumped against the crate as emotion washed over him. He was far from being free, but at least he had accomplished something.

  After a moment, he shook his head in the utter darkness and got back to work. With a better grip on the board and the other hand on the crate to brace himself, he put his back into the effort and pushed with his legs. Nails squealed as they slipped a little in their holes. Conrad grinned savagely and heaved again.

  At last the board broke with a splintering of wood, and a piece of it came free in his hand. He lost his balance and wound up sitting down hard on his rear end. He sat there laughing until he remembered why he wanted the board in the first place. Two nails were still in place, protruding about an inch and a half from the bottom side of the board.

  He climbed painfully to his feet. Having spent so much time in the dark, almost airless chamber he was able to find the door much easier, guided to it by some instinct. Working by feel, he wedged the point of one of the nails firmly against the bottom of the pin in the uppermost hinge and tried to force it up.

  Putting pressure on the board wasn’t enough to loosen the pin, Conrad realized after a few minutes. He set the board down and took off one of his boots. When he had the nail back in place, he used the boot as a makeshift hammer and began striking blows against the board.

  Hitting upward was awkward, but the jolts finally had an effect. Conrad thought the pin had moved. When he felt it to check, he found the top of the pin sticking up half an inch above the hinge. He tried to wiggle it out the rest of the way, but it wouldn’t come loose. He went back to using the nail, the board, and the boot.

  A couple minutes later, the pin was in his hand. He clutched it in triumph.

  There were still two hinges holding the door in place, he reminded himself. After drawing in a couple deep breaths, he went to work on the second one. In the back of his mind, he was still aware of the aches and pains in his body, but he didn’t pay much attention to them anymore.

  His freedom beckoned, and beyond that, his children. Those goals were more than enough to make him forget about how badly he hurt.

  Besides, when he got out of there he was going to deal out some pain of his own ... and that made him feel better.

  The fog rolled in before the sun went down, cloaking the city in gloom. Once night fell, visibility shrank to almost zero. From an alley between two warehouses along the Embarcadero, Frank couldn’t see the ships docked at the other end of the long wharf.

  The big hatchet man called Ling Yuan waited patiently next to him. Behind them were a dozen more of
Diamond Jack’s men.

  The tong leader had remained in his stronghold. As he had explained to Frank, he was an executive. He gave orders to warriors. He didn’t take up a hatchet himself.

  That was all right with Frank. From what he had seen of Ling Yuan and the other hatchet men, they could handle themselves just fine in a fight. He wouldn’t have to worry about them, only about rescuing Conrad.

  “The ship is supposed to sail in less than an hour,” Ling Yuan said quietly. “Before then, three Woo Sing soldiers will swim around to the other side and use grappling hooks and cords to get on board. While they cause a distraction, the rest of us will go up the gangplank.”

  “Do you have any idea where my son is being held?”

  Ling Yuan shook his head. “Somewhere belowdecks. Wong Duck’s agents have watched the ship all day. There has been no sign of Conrad Browning. But you and I will find him. The others will keep the crew busy while we search. We must be quick, so we can get away before the police come.”

  “I figured your boss would have the police paid off to look the other way.”

  Ling Yuan grunted disdainfully. “This is possible with some of the authorities, but an annoying number of them are honest.”

  “You speak English really well.”

  “A missionary lady from England taught me, while I was still in China. Before I came to this country.”

  “Is she still over there teaching?”

  Ling Yuan sighed. “No. A local warlord saw the missionary teachings as a challenge to his rule. He had warned the lady and the other missionaries to leave. When they didn’t his soldiers raped the women and killed them, then tortured all the men to death.”

  “What did you do?” Frank asked.

  “What could I do? I was only one man.” Ling Yuan looked off into the fog. “A month later the warlord was found in his fortress, choking on his own entrails. The heads of all his guards had been cut off. He died moments later.”

  Frank looked at the big man and slowly nodded. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Our men will be on board soon,” Ling Yuan said briskly. “Be ready.”

  Frank was ready, all right. He had slipped a sixth bullet into his Colt, into the chamber he usually kept empty so the hammer could rest on it.

  Ling Yuan had his arms crossed over his chest. Without looking at Frank, he said, “Since I came to this country, I have learned to read English. I have read stories about you, Mr. Morgan.”

  “Dime novels?” Frank guessed.

  “Yes. Do they exaggerate your exploits?”

  “By a whole heap.”

  “But you are a gunfighter?”

  Frank sighed. “I never set out to be. But a fella pushed me until I didn’t have any choice but to draw on him. He thought he was fast, but I was faster. After him there was another man, and another, and almost before I knew what was happening, I had a reputation. I had to leave the place where I’d grown up”—his voice grew wistful for a second—“had to leave behind a girl. Since then I’ve never settled for very long in any one place. Tried a few times, but something always happened to make me think it was better to move on.”

  “The life of a true warrior,” Ling Yuan said. “Trouble finds him, wherever he goes.”

  Frank nodded. “That’s about the size of—”

  A sudden shout from the ship, followed a split second later by the crack of a gun, interrupted him.

  Ling Yuan pulled his hatchet from under his jacket. “We go!”

  Chapter 24

  Using the nail and his boot, Conrad worked at the other two hinges until he had the pins out. But the door still sat squarely in its frame, and the lock on the other side held it shut.

  The gap between door and jamb on the hinged side was too narrow for him to get his fingers in it and pull the door loose. He tried prying it out with the nails and made a little progress, but the door was well-fitted and stubborn.

  An idea occurred to him as he stepped back into his boot. He felt his way over to the crate with the broken lid and stuck his hand through the small opening he had made.

  His hand delved through a layer of excelsior, then touched canvas shrouding. He pressed against the canvas to see if he could tell what was underneath it. He felt a long, narrow shape.

  It took a moment for Conrad to realize he was touching what felt like a rifle barrel.

  Excitement leaped through him. He grabbed the piece of board that had broken off and pried up the remaining section still nailed to the crate. With that bigger opening created, he was able to remove another board. He pulled out handfuls of excelsior and threw it behind him until he had uncovered more of the cargo.

  Using the nails in the broken board, he poked a hole in the canvas, then ripped it larger. He cut through the next layer of protection—oilcloth—then plunged his hands into the grease coating the rifles in the crate. He pulled out one of the weapons.

  Of course it was empty, and he had no ammunition. But even so, the feel of a gun in his hands made his heart leap. He set it on the crate, tore off a piece of canvas, and starting wiping the grease off the rifle, as well as from his hands. He had to tear off more canvas, but eventually he had the rifle fairly clean. It felt like a Winchester repeater. He checked the action, and it worked smoothly and easily. The rifle was probably new.

  Conrad wondered if all the crates in the hold contained rifles. He had a hunch they did, and he suspected there was something shady about shipping them to China.

  That wasn’t any of his business, though. He just wished he had a boxful of cartridges.

  That could make all the difference in the world.

  Maybe he could use the rifle to bluff his way past some of the sailors once he got out, he thought. They wouldn’t have any way of knowing for sure the weapon was unloaded.

  He took the rifle with him and leaned it against the wall beside the door as he went back to work trying to pry it loose with the nails in the piece of board he held. The nails were small enough to go in the gap around the door, but when he used them to lever the door out of its frame, they bent. Biting back a curse, he tried to straighten them. He still needed that blasted crowbar ...

  His muscles suddenly stiffened and his head came up as somewhere above him, gunshots sounded. The reports were muffled by decks and bulkheads between him and them, but they were unmistakable.

  A ruckus was going on, and he couldn’t help but think it had something to do with him. Maybe Turnbuckle had figured out where he was and sent in the police.

  Or maybe that big Chinese hatchet man, his guardian angel from Spanish Charley’s, had shown up unexpectedly again. If that was the case, Conrad hoped the man had brought some friends with him. Not even the formidable Ling Yuan—that was what Carmen had called him, wasn’t it?—would be a match for the entire crew of the ship.

  Conrad wanted to be in the middle of it, not locked up, hidden belowdecks. He pried harder at the door, but still to no avail.

  He heard the slap of footsteps hurrying toward the door and backed away, holding the broken board in his right hand and using his left to pick up the Winchester.

  A man called, “Bring a light! Plant yourselves in front of that door! Nobody gets to Browning!”

  The sailors were going to stand guard out there. Realizing that wouldn’t help him, Conrad focused on getting them to open the door. He lifted the rifle and slammed the butt of its stock against the panel. He hit the door hard, twice, and let out a yell.

  “What the hell!” a sailor cried. “The Chinks already got in there somehow!”

  That told Conrad who was behind his rescue attempt.

  “Get your guns ready!” another man ordered. “Malley, unlock the door and get out of the way!”

  Conrad backed off again, having a pretty good idea what was about to happen. A key rattled in the lock, then one of the men shoved hard on the door, thinking it would swing open.

  It fell into the room, landing with a crash on the deck.

  Th
e racket hadn’t even had a chance to echo in the companionway when Conrad hurdled over the fallen door, slashing right and left with the piece of board in his hand.

  The protruding nails made it a vicious weapon. They tore across the face of a startled sailor, causing blood to spurt and drawing a howl of pain from him. The flat side of the board thudded into a second man’s head, staggering him.

  After being locked up in the dark room for so long, Conrad’s eyes were almost useless to him in the lanternlight. But he could make out some dim shapes and had the advantage of knowing nobody was his friend. He tore into them, pressing his surprise.

  “Look out, he’s got a gun!” That was enough to make them forget the captain had ordered them to keep Conrad alive. A pistol roared deafeningly in the narrow confines of the corridor.

  Conrad dropped the board and used both hands on the Winchester. He rammed the barrel into a man’s belly, then slashed the stock across the sailor’s face when he bent over in pain. He saw three men down, and only two still on their feet, making him realize his vision had improved.

  One man held a pistol, and fired again. Conrad felt the hot breath of the slug as he leaped forward and crashed the rifle butt in the middle of the man’s face. Bone gave way under the impact. The man slumped against the wall with blood pouring from his ruined nose and mouth and slid to the deck. The pistol slipped from his fingers.

  Conrad snatched it up and turned toward the last sailor, only to see him fleeing for his life. The lantern he carried bobbed and weaved as he ran toward a ladder at the far end of the corridor. Conrad could have shot him in the back, but he held his fire. More interested in getting out of there, he headed for the ladder, too. The sailor scrambled up it with the dexterity of an ape and disappeared through a hatch. Enough light spilled down through the opening that Conrad was able to see where he was going.

  When he reached the ladder, he dropped the empty Winchester and tucked the pistol into the waistband of his trousers. He hated to abandon the rifle, but needed both hands to climb. Looking up he saw the sailor with the lantern already climbing another ladder on the next level. His prison really had been buried in the bowels of the ship, Conrad thought.