No Less Than the Journey (4 page)

CHAPTER 4

For the next forty-eight hours life on board the
Missouri Belle
was little different to that of any other Mississippi river-boat. The passengers enjoyed good food and comfortable accommodation during the day and when night fell men adjourned to the casino. Here they gambled their money and flirted with the female croupiers who, with a display of sympathy that convinced all but the most cynical – or experienced – gambler, sweetened the losses made by most players.

Although there were a number of men who did not spend the night hours trying to make a fortune in the casino, their absence provoked no curiosity. Many passengers were working-men, travelling upriver on the stern-wheeler because it was the cheapest form of travel to wherever they were going.

Such men could not afford to risk their meagre capital on the spin of a roulette wheel. Their presence on board was disregarded by croupiers, gamblers – and by those who had boarded the
Missouri Belle
with more sinister pursuits in mind.

The latter would have been disconcerted had they been aware of the number of firearms in the possession of some of
these ‘working-men’.

Aaron had briefed the men in considerable detail before they boarded the stern-wheeler. Now they were all on the riverboat together he ignored them, leaving Wes to carry any instructions on his behalf, while he spent much of the evening and night in the casino.

When questioned about this by Wes, his excuse was that he was taking stock of the other gamblers, identifying those who were rich and likely to be targets for the river pirates. At the same time he hoped to pick out those who were also seeking out the richest men – but for very different reasons.

In the meantime, Aaron also made such progress with Lola that he now did not return to the cabin he shared with Wes until the breakfast bell had been sounded on board the
Missouri Belle
.

After his second absence, when he put in an appearance and changed his clothes in readiness for the new day, he said, ‘Last night was very interesting, Wes.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ Wes replied, caustically, ‘I’m sure Lola has a great many talents to offer a man.’

Looking sharply at Wes, Aaron said, ‘It has nothing to do with Lola – at least, not directly. One of the men we saw with Ira was in the casino last night. He’d been drinking more than was good for a man with something on his mind. He tried to persuade Lola to let him come to her cabin when the casino closed. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, so I stepped in and told him she had other plans. He told me to make the most of her while I could, because it wouldn’t be long before she found out that a Southern private was more than a match in bed for a Yankee general. Now, neither you, nor any of the others on board have mentioned anything about my rank in the Union army, so it must have come from Ira. Such a boast would seem to confirm what we already believe is going to happen.’

Wes agreed. ‘When is it we arrive at the place where Ira wants the
Missouri Belle
to put him ashore?’

‘Soon after first light tomorrow,’ Aaron replied, ‘It’s the ideal time as far as Ira and his friends are concerned. Most passengers will still be in their beds and the crew will be no more than half awake.’

His words gave Wes a moment of near-panic. The thought of fighting for his life against river pirates had never seemed quite real to him before. Now it was less than twenty-four hours away it had suddenly become very real indeed!

‘I hope everyone is quite sure of what they have to do,’ he said, anxiously.

‘I’ve put my orders and anything else I feel should be known into writing, Wes. I want you to take it to Captain Schuster. He is to take care of Ira and those of his men who are on board with him. Tell him to pass on the details to the others before coming to this cabin to speak to me after dark tonight. Everyone will need to be up and fully awake before daylight and know exactly what’s expected of them. Timing is important. I want to catch every one of those murdering sons-of-bitches – dead or alive. Either way they’ll no longer be a threat to decent folk.’

‘How about me, Aaron?’ Wes asked, ‘What
exactly
do you want me to do?’

‘You’ll come with me to the pilot house to deal with whoever comes there to put a gun to the pilot’s head – and we’ll need to get there long before dawn breaks. One of Ira’s men will come there for sure to make certain the pilot doesn’t try to pull the boat back from the bank when he realizes what’s going on. They’ll also have another couple of men down on the boiler deck to keep the engineer in line, but we’ll leave Schuster to deal with them. The main thing is not to scare off Ira’s friends who’ll be waiting onshore. We don’t want to open
fire until they’re all at least halfway up the gang-plank.’ Aaron spoke without the slightest hint of excitement or apprehension in his voice.

Wes wondered how he could remain so calm when discussing something that would result in the deaths of many men – the outcome of which was by no means certain. Then he remembered what Aaron had said to Schuster when they were all taking passage on the
Northern Star
from New York. He had mentioned his involvement in almost every major battle that had taken place in the recent Civil War. He would regard a gun battle involving probably no more than fifty men as little more than a skirmish.

‘How will we spend today?’ Wes asked him.

‘Once you’ve spoken to Schuster you can spend it how you like,’ Aaron replied. ‘I intend sleeping for much of the day. I suggest you do the same. We’ll be up long before dawn so that we’re wide-awake when things start happening. Now, let’s go and see what’s on offer for breakfast. Right now I could eat half a horse….’

CHAPTER 5

Wes took to his bunk for a couple of hours that afternoon but slept fitfully. He fared no better when he returned that night. Aaron’s relaxed snores did nothing to help.

When he did eventually fall into a disturbed sleep it seemed to him he was shaken only minutes later by Aaron. The US Marshal did nothing to make him feel any less aggrieved when he said, ‘I’m proud of you, boy. Anyone who can sleep that well before a battle is a man I want with me when the action begins.’

‘What time is it?’ Wes asked, not yet fully in possession of his senses.

‘We have about an hour to dawn,’ was Aaron’s reply. ‘Check your guns and we’ll make our way to the pilot house. Pilot Stavros is working the night shift. He tells me he’ll have a Colt tucked in his belt, just in case we can’t cope.’

‘Do you think we’ll need to use our guns?’ Wes asked anxiously, trying hard to keep a tremor from his voice.

‘Perhaps not in the pilot house, but we’ll certainly use ’em when Ira’s friends try to come onboard. Does that worry you?’

‘I’ll manage.’ Wes replied, hoping he sounded convincing.

‘I’ve never doubted it,’ Aaron said, confidently. ‘Ira and his friends are in for a big surprise. If everything goes according to plan, they’ll be out of business once and for all by the time the rest of our fellow passengers are fully awake.’

Wes wished he was experienced enough to share Aaron’s confidence. He hoped, too, that when the occasion arose, he would be able to steel himself to use the guns that had been bought in New Orleans.

River Pilot Stavros was nervous. When Wes and Aaron entered the pilot-house he was struggling to draw his revolver from its place in his waistband.

‘I was beginning to think you weren’t going to show. We’re almost at the landing. In fact, I’ve had to slow down the boat or we’d have been there before it was light.’

‘That wouldn’t have done at all,’ Aaron said, ‘If we’re too early they won’t be ready for us. I want to account for every man of the gang who shows himself and I don’t care whether we take him alive – or dead. One thing we can be certain of is that the first action is going to take place right here, in the pilot-house. They’ll want to be sure it’s them who are in command of the boat on the approach to the landing.’

‘But you’ve said that any shooting up here is likely to alert the other members of the gang who are on board,’ Wes pointed out.

‘True,’ Aaron agreed, ‘So we need to avoid shooting if it’s at all possible. Having said that, if it looks as though there’s no other way, then I expect you to shoot – and shoot to kill, same as I will. But if all goes according to plan Pilot Stavros will edge the boat inshore slowly enough to draw the pirates out of hiding. That way we should get ’em all. Right now we need to hide ourselves so that Ira’s men don’t see us when they come into the pilot house. I’ll squeeze myself into that cupboard over there….’

He pointed to a low cupboard that faced the door, adding, ‘It’ll give me a good view of anyone coming in. You get beneath that table, behind the door.’

Wes realized he was being put in what would possibly be the safest place in the pilot house if shooting erupted, but he accepted that was the way it needed to be. Aaron was far more experienced in this sort of situation.

Aaron pointed to a lantern hanging from a hook in a corner of the pilot house. Despite the already dim light it cast, he said to the pilot, ‘I’m going to turn that down as much as possible. It will help keep us hidden.’

By the time dawn was bringing a faint rose-coloured light to the eastern horizon, Wes had developed cramp in his right leg, the result of crouching for so long in his hiding-place. He was about to say something to Aaron when he heard the scraping of feet on the ladder that led to the pilot-house from the deck outside.

His discomfiture forgotten immediately, Wes drew back the hammer on his Colt, the action sounding excessively loud in the confines of the pilot-house and he felt that his heart rate must have doubled.

It seemed an age before the pilot house door was thrown open and two of the men Wes had seen with Ira burst in. Both had guns in their hands and the first man pointed his gun at the pilot and said, calmly, ‘Don’t mind us, mister. Just carry on with what you’re paid to do and you’ll live to tell your grandchildren how you were pilot of the
Missouri Belle
when she was taken over by river pirates.’

The pilot had gone rigid with fear when the two men broke into the pilot house. Now, in a strangled voice, he asked, ‘What’s happening? What are you going to do?’

‘That needn’t trouble you. Just carry on and do what you always do. Take the boat in to the plantation landing up ahead
and berth your boat nose in, no matter what you see there.’

‘Then what?’ the pilot asked, nervously.

‘That needn’t concern you,’ the river pirate, said, ‘Do as you’re told and in a couple of hours time you’ll be taking your boat upriver again, light of a little money – and perhaps a couple of casino girls, but otherwise nothing will have changed …’

‘… I don’t think so, friend. Drop that gun right where you stand. Just so much as a twitch and you’re dead!’

At Aaron’s words the man who had been talking to the pilot looked startled, but for a moment it seemed he might ignore the Marshal’s command.

Aaron was a split moment away from shooting him when, from the other side of the pilot-house, Wes said, ‘You heard him. Drop your guns – both of you – or you’re dead.’

The realization that two men had guns trained on them was enough. Two handguns dropped to the deck at almost the same moment.’

‘Now why did you have to say that, Wes?’ Aaron sounded disappointed, ‘I’d have preferred two dead river pirates, but I guess this will have to do.’

Emerging from his hiding-place, Aaron spoke to the two river pirates, ‘Both of you put your hands in the air and move closer together – over there, by the window.’

As both men shuffled across the pilot-house to follow Aaron’s orders, Wes scrambled from his hiding place beneath the table, wondering what the marshal intended to do. He was not kept in suspense for long.

Aaron walked up behind the two men and without warning raised his handgun and brought it crashing down on the side of one of the river pirate’s head. Before the man had hit the deck his companion had been dealt with in a similar fashion.

‘Do you have some rope in here?’ Aaron addressed the pilot.

‘Yes, sir,’ the nervous pilot spoke in respectful awe, ‘You’ll find some in the locker right by where you were hiding. If you need a knife, there’s one on the shelf just here.’

As Aaron moved off towards the locker, the pilot added, admiringly, ‘Jesus, mister! They never knew what hit ’em.’

Ignoring the pilot, Aaron located the rope and pulled it from the locker, saying to Wes, ‘You tie one and I’ll deal with the other. Stuff a gag in his mouth, too. We don’t want either of ’em shouting out to warn the others.’

Under instruction from Aaron, Wes bound and gagged his man, putting his arms behind his back, bending his knees and securing wrists to ankles. By the time he had done, Wes’s prisoner was conscious, but there had been no movement from the man Aaron had bound.

It was fully light outside now and the pilot asked, nervously, ‘The landing’s about a mile ahead, what do you want me to do?’

‘No more than you would normally,’ Aaron replied, ‘Go in bow first – but take it nice and easy. Ira’s men will have taken the captain prisoner and they’ll make him give the order to lower the gangplank. Keep the boat far enough offshore so that the gangplank is the only way they can board the
Missouri
Belle
. It’s long and it’s narrow. Once they’re on it there’s nowhere for them to go. We just don’t want them jumping on board anywhere else.’

‘I can see something that might just throw your plans offline,’ Wes said, at the same time pointing to where a boat lay off the river bank with half-a-dozen men on board, making a pretence of fishing.

‘Oh hell!’ Aaron ejaculated, ‘I was hoping they’d have all their men onshore. Those in that boat have only to bump against the side of the
Missouri Belle
and they can step on board and be behind our own men. You and me will have to
deal with them, Wes, using rifles.’

Wes nodded his acceptance of the situation. Sensing his uncertainty, Aaron said, ‘I know you’ve never had to kill a man, Wes, but detach yourself from thinking about it – and do it right now. When things start happening men are going to die. If we don’t make sure it’s them, it will be us – that means you, me, and the men with Schuster. I won’t go into what will happen to Lola and the women and girls on board. Keep what I’ve said firmly in mind. When the time comes, don’t think about anything – just shoot! More men have died from thinking than from recklessness or stupidity.’

‘I’ll be all right.’

Wes spoke with far more confidence than he was feeling, but he knew that Aaron was speaking from experience. He would try not to let the US Marshal down.

The ‘fishermen’ in the small boat made no move until the riverboat began nosing in to the bank and the stage plank was being lowered – then it seemed to Wes that everything happened at once.

As the end of the narrow gangway landed heavily on the river bank an alarming number of armed men broke from the cover of the nearby trees and ran towards the steamboat. At the same time the men on board the fishing boat threw their rods into the Mississippi River and rowed in excited disorder towards the
Missouri Belle
, making for a spot just forward of the paddle-wheel, where the vessel was lowest in the water.

As they drew closer, some of the occupants exchanged their oars for rifles and began firing indiscriminately at anyone they saw moving on board the riverboat.

Aaron had left the pilot house and was kneeling by the guard rail, overlooking the river. As the first ‘fisherman’ set foot on the
Missouri Belle
, he was knocked backwards by a shot fired from Aaron’s rifle – and so too was a second of the river pirates.

Meanwhile, as Wes was leaving the pilot-house, one of the men in the small boat fired a shot which smashed a window close to his head.

No longer wrestling with his conscience about shooting at a fellow man, Wes fired and knocked the pirate out of the boat and into the river. He and Aaron’s shots both hit the fourth man – and the fifth.

The sixth and last river pirate in the boat fired off a last desperate shot which, judging from the shouts which came from the deck below where Wes and Aaron were firing, had hit one of the
Missouri Belle
’s defenders. With his last shot before needing to re-load, Wes eliminated the threat posed from this particular would-be robber.

By now, firing had erupted from a dozen separate vantage points on board the
Missouri Belle
. Most came from men who had been briefed by Schuster and were aimed at the pirates attempting to board the riverboat via the stage plank, but their colleagues travelling with Ira Gottland had shown their hand now and a number of small but desperate gun battles were being fought on board the steamboat.

The pirates attempting to board the
Missouri Belle
via the stage plank quickly realized they had not only lost the element of surprise, but were walking into a well-planned ambush. With more than half their number already killed or wounded, the survivors turned tail and tried to escape.

Only a very small number were successful. By the time the remaining survivors disappeared among the trees and all shooting had ceased, more than three-quarters of their number had become casualties. The battle was over – and more river pirates had been killed than had surrendered.

Soon, the bodies of the dead pirates were laid out on the main deck with the wounded prisoners seated behind them, watched over by Aaron’s triumphant ‘private army’.

The men defending the
Missouri Belle
had suffered only a single fatality. Sadly, this was ex-Confederate Captain Harrison Schuster, killed by the very last shot fired from the ‘fishing-boat’ in the brief but furious battle.

Checking the dead, wounded and captured river pirates, Aaron quickly discovered that Ira Gottland was not among their number and when Aaron asked if anyone had seen him, one of the wounded defenders said that after being shot, he had seen Gottland jump from the
Missouri Belle
into the river.

A passenger who had not been involved in the fighting declared that he had seen a man clinging to the side of the fishing-boat as it drifted away downriver, adding, ‘Might that have been the man you’re looking for?’

‘It almost certainly was,’ Aaron replied, furiously. ‘Damn! I particularly wanted him … the action sharpened my brain and I remembered where I had heard his name. He was in the Union army, but he never held a commission. He was a sergeant and with two privates was charged with raping a Southern girl when they raided a farm looking for food. The papers on the case came to me but he was never charged because his unit was involved in some very heavy fighting and immediately afterwards he deserted. Rumour has it that he then joined the Rebel army.’