Deathlands 118: Blood Red Tide (18 page)

Oracle watched the flag of truce descend. It hit the deck in a sad, white wad. “Full broadside! Mr. J.B.!”

“All blasters!” J.B.’s voice echoed up the gangway. “Fire!” All eight weapons of the starboard battery discharged canister shot in unison. The
Glory
rocked upward with the recoil. Huge gray clouds of powder smoke obscured everything. “Reload!”

Ryan knelt with his lance in one hand and the other on Krysty’s shoulder. She had stopped her Gaia mantra. The fog of powder smoke slowly lifted. The sight of the shredded remains of the gauchos and their mounts bobbing in the surf was horrible. Despite their size, the giant rheas were hollow boned and, having adapted to water, had waterproof plumage. Their canister-cleaved bodies floated on the surface. Some were still alive and honking piteously. It appeared that gauchos did not know how to swim. Most had sunk into the dark water, weighted down by their silver belts and equipment, in addition to the huge lead balls riddling their bodies. Three men clung to their destroyed, still-buoyant mounts, shouting and crying out in Spanish.

“Mr. Ricky!” Oracle called.

“Yes, Captain!”

“Ask those men if they would prefer to swim back to the quay or take ship!”

“Aye, Captain.” Ricky shouted out in Spanish. The three surviving gauchos shivered in the near freezing water and shouted a response.

“They would take ship, Captain!”

“Did they tell you their names?”

“Gusi, Boca and Gaudiel!”

“Mr. Forgiven, enter Mr. Goose, Mr. Mouth and Mr. Gaudy as lubbers until signed or proved otherwise!”

The purser scratched in the book. “Aye, Captain!”

“Mr. Hardstone, take a few men in the whaleboat and fetch our new shipmates. Take anything of worth off the bodies, man and bird.”

“Aye, Captain!

Strawmaker managed to work his bound body up to his knees.
“Capitán!”

“Yes,
Senor?
”

Strawmaker raised his chin at the bobbing sea of bloody, giant birds. “I know several excellent methods of barbecuing ñandú!”

“Mr. Forgiven!”

“Yes, Captain!”

“Mark Mr. Strawmaker temporary cook’s assistant, South American affairs consultant, ships minstrel and lubber until signed or proved otherwise.”

Forgiven’s pen hovered while he briefly internalized all this. “Aye, Captain.”

Oracle turned his head and regarded the lance in Ryan’s hand. “Make him Mr. Ryan’s responsibility.”

Chapter Sixteen

Ryan’s responsibility for Strawmaker was pretty easy. The troubadour had spent the past forty-eight hours mostly vomiting over the rail and moaning in his hammock while Broiler and Skillet had barbecued, boiled and salted away several thousand pounds of ñandú meat without his help. Ryan had spent that time up in the rigging with Koa. Standing on a rope forty feet in the air, leaning over a spar and hauling up sails by hand in all weather day and night was some of the most dangerous, ball-busting work Ryan had ever engaged in.

The Lantic was bitterly cold and windy but a hard, bright sun had broken out. Ryan smiled despite himself as he balanced in space and hauled up hundreds of pounds of wet canvas foresail with the rest of the topsmen. Koa snarled in outrage and as yet untamed fear. “You like this shit!”

“Reef, Koa!” Ryan laughed. “You’re slowing me down!”

“Fuck you!”

Koa reefed.

Manrape called from the other side of the mast as the crew furled and secured the sail. They were so shorthanded the bosun was up in the rigging. “I see your chicken is up and about, Ryan!”

The one-eyed man looked down and saw Strawmaker stagger toward the rail. He noted that the troubadour wore freshly sewn, stiff pants of ship’s canvas and a bloodstained and patched jersey.

“Hee’th up and about!” Onetongue called out gleefully as he made a shroud taut on deck. “Give u’th a th’ong, Th’trawmaker!”

“Yeah, Strawmaker! Sing something sweet!” Sweet Marie chimed in. “That last one you sang for the sea, and it sounded like two sea lions screwing!”

Strawmaker threw up over the side.

Sweet Marie shook her head. “I swear it’s the only song he knows!”

Coarse laughter followed Strawmaker’s gastrointestinal contortions.

“Ryan, go see to your chickadee,” Manrape ordered.

“Aye.” Ryan shot down a ratline at a pace he was starting to feel was seaworthy and hit the deck.

Strawmaker looked up at him miserably. “
Senor
Ryan...”

Ryan’s cold blue eye narrowed. Strawmaker flinched. The Deathlands warrior knew the troubadour was yet another test Oracle had thrown at him, and he had very little time to whip Strawmaker into some kind of usefulness.

“Don’t
Senor
me, Strawmaker. I’m a seaman. I work for a living. Save it for the captain, the commander and Miss Loral, and save it until you’re spoken too directly. While you’re at it, I’d shit can the
Senor
and learn sir and ma’am real fast.”

“Ah, I see.” Strawmaker groaned and clutched the rail. “Thank you, Ryan.”

Ryan relented slightly. “I see you dressed for work today.”

“I told the
Capitán
I would work my passage. I am a man of my word.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Strawmaker gagged again but hardly anything came up but a few viscous strands of spit. He coughed and wiped his chin on his wrist. “
Uno momento,
Ryan.”

“Make it fast.”

Strawmaker tottered unsteadily across the rolling deck.

“One hand for yourself, one for the ship,” Ryan advised. Strawmaker grabbed a shroud and pulled himself forward. Ryan suddenly realized where he was going.

Strawmaker shoved his head into the cold water of the open sea barrel to buck himself up. The troubadour erupted backward, screaming, with his long hair sheeting spray.

Wipe clapped his hands. “He made a rainbow!”

Strawmaker managed to grab a shroud and his hand went for the knife at his belt he no longer carried. Mr. Squid’s head bubbled up from the barrel, and the golden eyes stared at Strawmaker in what Ryan thought might pass for cephalopod befuddlement.

“Ryan!” Strawmaker clutched the shroud in horror. “This ship keeps a pet octopus?”

“Pet!” Atlast walked up and brutally poked Strawmaker in the chest with each exclamation. “He’s a member of the crew. A subaqueous specialist!”

Strawmaker looked to Ryan in desperation.

Ryan waved a hand in introduction. “Strawmaker, meet Mr. Squid. Mr. Squid, Strawmaker.”

Strawmaker searched the faces of the surrounding crewmen, clearly suspecting he was the butt of yet another joke. The crew watched poker-faced to see what might happen next.

“I see.” Strawmaker made a show of straightening himself and gave a short bow toward the barrel.
“Hola, Senor Calama. ¿Como estas usted?”

Mr. Squid contemplated the Argentine musician before him.
“Muy bien, gracias, Senor Pajero. ¿Y tu?”

Strawmaker screamed.
“¡Madre de Armagedón!”

Mr. Squid contemplated this. “I believe I am an offspring of it.”

“An eight-armed offspring we are lucky to have, then!” Atlast declared. “Aren’t we?”

Miss Loral appeared, hurling lightning and thunder. “You can all stand around sucking Mr. Squid’s eight suckered cocks or you can finish your watch and get fed! Mr. Manrape and the hard end of his rope can decide for you if you’re all torn up about it!” The crew went back to its work about ship.

Miss Loral pointed at Ryan. “You, you’re wanted in the captain’s cabin.”

“Aye, ma’am.” Ryan smiled. “Ma’am?”

“Aye, Ryan?”

“Captain wanted me to train Strawmaker. Can you find something for him to do while I attend the captain?”

The she-wolf grinned at the minstrel. “I can find something to occupy his time.”

* * *

R
YAN WALKED IN
on another council of war. Doc was there along with J.B. Commander Miles was up out of the med with one arm in a sling and a crutch under the other. Purser Forgiven stood with the book, and Ryan was interested to note that Mildred and Skillet were in attendance. Oracle nodded.

“Thank you for joining us, Mr. Ryan. I will take reports. Skillet?”

“Oh, we got barrel after barrel o’ ñandú, Cap’n. And the crew seems partial to it. But neither me nor Boiler ever salted away poultry.” Skillet pushed back his braids and shook his head. “Dunno how long it’ll save. Was chatting up Strawmaker when he wasn’t puking. Says the land is cattle country for thousands of leagues. Now a few good head of beeves, some pigs if they can spare ’em and some salt if someone’s goin’ shoppin’? That might get us around the horn.”

“Thank you, Skillet. J.B., powder and ammo.”

“You’re short, Captain. That broadside cost you. The good news is that I reckon their outliers saw that and nobody on this side of the earth will want to mess with you. But if anyone does, it better be short and sweet. Or it goes hand to hand.”

Oracle nodded. “Mr. Forgiven?”

“Forgive me, Captain, if this seems like the only song I know, but that ballad is canvas, cordage and wood. No ship in memory has tried the horn in winter without an engine. All the spare rigging we’ve got we took down because it was dangerously worn. They say its storm after storm down there. One or two bad ones, and we’ll be sewing our coats together to make sails.” The fat man shook his head mournfully. “Speaking of coats, Captain. It’s winter and getting colder every sea mile we log south.”

“Aye, Mr. Forgiven.” Oracle spread the fingers of his remaining hand on the pile of charts before him. “We have nearly a thousand miles of coast to work with. There has to be something to eat. Failing that we’ll whale. Food I am not worried about currently, nor powder, ships supplies or our enemies. What I cannot out fight, out sail or improvise against is scurvy. Miss Mildred?”

Mildred went into full medical doctor mode. “You haven’t had fresh vegetables or fruit on this ship in weeks. From what little I know about scurvy, the influx of ñandú might help. You can get the nutrients you need from the fresh meat of animals that make their own vitamin C.”

Oracle’s shark eyes stared unblinkingly. “What is vitamin see?”

Mildred did an admirable job of containing her impatience. “You know limes, lemons and oranges stop scurvy.”

“All sailors do.”

“Unlike humans, most animals make vitamin C themselves. So when you eat most animals, you get it. The problem is the meat has to be fresh. I’m afraid that salting away the meat destroys the vitamin C.”

“Miss Mildred, I have spent my life in the Caribbean, where every island was lush with fruits and vegetables and another island is nearly always just over the horizon. In my sailing experience scurvy has always been a horror story passed on by old salts. Are they true?”

“Probably every horror story you heard was true. You need vitamin C to maintain your mucous membranes and collagen, among other things.” Mildred met more blank looks. She shifted gears. “Short version, if you don’t get vitamin C, the body starts breaking down. Initial symptoms include weakness, lethargy and shortness of breath. As it progresses, the skin breaks out in sores and the gums start bleeding. When it gets bad, the teeth start falling out and scar tissue—and every member of your crew has old wounds in abundance—starts breaking open. New injuries won’t heal. Jaundice, bone pain and hair loss ensue. Except for the swelling and edema, you end up looking like a radiation victim. It ends in fever, convulsions and a very unpleasant death.”

Commander Miles’s jaw set grimly. “Captain, I beg you. Turn and fight Dorian, and then the rest of the Sabbaths, until we put them all down in the Old Place or they do us.”

“He has engines, Commander,” Oracle noted. “All he has to do is turn one broadside toward us and blast us into kindling.”

“Better than what lies south.”

Ryan tended to agree. The cabin went silent. Doc suddenly straightened and nearly hit his head. His long fingers tapped the table. Ryan felt a faint ray of hope. He had seen this behavior in various forms many times before. Doc was rummaging through what could be charitably described as the extremely random access memory of his mind. “Captain?”

“Doc?”

“May we fetch Mr. Strawmaker?”

“Why?”

“Oh, well, when I was at Oxford I had a number of fellow students of Argentine extraction. The wealthy Argentines in that day often sent their children abroad for study. I was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of several, and we spent many a morning or evening drinking
maté
in our dormitory or in study group
.
”

“What is
maté?
” Oracle asked.

“A form of tea. One puts on a kettle of water and fills a gourd with the dried herb. You insert a silver straw, often with a gold tip, and pass it around among your companions. I found it stimulating and refreshing and pleasingly social. They swore it was healthful and prevented many illnesses.”

Mildred’s brow furrowed. “I’ve heard of it, Doc. They had it in health food stores, don’t worry about what those were, but they pushed it as an alternative to coffee, supposed to be much healthier and full of nutrients.”

Oracle’s eyes went into unblinking shark mode. “Full of your vitamins.”

“Loaded with them, according to the literature.”

Oracle called up through the skylight. “Miss Loral, Mr. Strawmaker to my cabin, if you please!”

“Aye, Captain! Strawmaker, to the captain’s cabin!”

Strawmaker teetered breathlessly into the cabin. “You sent for me,
Capitán?
”

Oracle nodded at Doc, who continued. “Good Strawmaker, might I ask if your people still drink
maté?
”

“
Yerba
maté?
Of course! Every day! I have a supply in my saddlebag. Why do you ask?”

Oracle leaned across his table. “This
maté,
it stops the scurvy?”

“Forgive me,
Capitán,
but what is this, the scurvy?”

“It is a disease,” Doc tried Latin. “A
scorbutic
.”

Strawmaker brightened. “Ah, the
escorbuto!
In my land some of the
estancias
are vast beyond imagining. A gaucho can spend weeks, even months at a time out upon the pampas and consume almost nothing during that time besides dried meat and
maté!
”