The Gallant (30 page)

“They reckon it’s impossible

to escape from the Tasman Peninsula,” Peter exclaimed. “Only three fellows ever made it, by all accounts, and that was years ago. And I don’t think anyone stole a ship before.”

There was admiration in his voice, and Michael, observing a frown of disapproval on Amos Meldrum’s face, endeavored to reduce his exploit to the chance happening it had been.

“I’d no intention of seizing the ship when I went on board,” he said gravely-“I’m no hero, lad, and the idea did not enter my head. Certainly I would not have chosen the men who escaped with me as my companions, had I been given a choice.”

“Are they such villains, sir?” Oscar asked, evidently not quite convinced.

“They are killers,” Michael told him, with quiet emphasis.

“But you’ve never killed anyone?”

“No, I have not.”

“Mr. Wexford is what they call a

political prisoner,” Amos Meldrum put in, continuing to frown, as if regretting the turn the conversation had taken. “But those villains will be caught in the end-the authorities will not rest until they are.

There will be rewards for their capture posted and, never fear, a high price set on their heads.

They committed piracy as well as murder-they’ll be hanged for sure if they are brought to trial.”

As would he, Michael reflected, with a sinking heart. He had been with them-that would be enough where the authorities were concerned, since he had no means of proving that Haines, with the same ruthlessness that he had displayed when taking the lives of the others, had also attempted to kill him. Haines

… and Josh Simmons, the bloodthirsty little swine who was his willing tool.

He glanced across at Prudence, surprised to see that her eyes had filled with tears. She said, as if guessing his unspoken thoughts, “But they will hunt for you, too, will they not, Mr. Wexford? They will put a price on

your

head, as well as on those rogues’?”

Touched by her concern, Michael smiled at her reassuringly. “Oh, probably they will,” he conceded, with deliberate lightness. “But I don’t intend to be caught, Miss Prudence. And if I can avoid it, I don’t intend to set eyes on those three rogues again. I shall quit Tasmania by the first ship that’s willing to take me.”

“That reminds me,” Amos Meldrum said, his expression relaxing. “I must make a search for Tom Blaney’s papers, as soon as we finish our meal. They’re of no use to me, Mr.

Wexford, but they might serve your purpose very well.” He passed his empty plate across the table. “I could do with another helping, wife.

Harvesting’s hungry work.”

“To be sure it is, Amos,” Mrs.

Meldrum agreed. “You-was Her serving spoon poised over the steaming pot of stew on the hob, she broke off a strangled cry, the spoon falling with a metallic clatter from her hand. The door from the yard burst open, and to his shocked dismay Michael saw Train framed in the aperture, a musket held purposefully in front of him.

He came into the lamplit kitchen, calling out over his shoulder, and Josh Simmons followed, similarly armed but limping, with Haines a few paces to his rear.

Train was the first to see and recognize Michael.

He let out a yell of mingled surprise and indignation.

“Sweet Jesus, look who’s here, Will! It’s Wexford! The bastard didn’t drown after all!”

Haines thrust past him, swearing. “What the devil are you doin’ here, Wexford?” The muzzle of the Adams pistol made painful contact with Michael’s ribs. “An’ where’s Tarr?”

“He’s dead-and you can add him to your score!”

Michael flung at him angrily. “That adds up to three that I know of, Haines. How many more have you murdered? And what’s happened to the Hastings

and her people?” When Haines ignored Will mm Stuart Long

both questions, he asked, in a quieter tone, “Why are you here, and what do you want of these good people?”

“All, now you’re talkin’! We’re here because we ran into a bunch of bloody police troopers an’

Josh did in his ankle when we was tryin’ to keep out o’ their way. An’ we seen lights burnin’ here, so-was Haines looked about him, an odd little smile playing about his lips. “We reckoned we ought to sample the local “ospitality. We could do with a good ‘of meal, an” Josh could do with a woman’s care for “is ankle. What about it, you ladies? You gonna give us what you seem to have given our mate Wexford, eh?”

He leered at Martha, and her husband leapt furiously to his feet. But before he could speak, Train’s musket butt caught him on the side of the head, felling him instantly. With a sob, Martha dropped to her knees beside him, pillowing his head on her lap. Haines snapped shortly, “So it’s to be that way, is it? Josh-Toby, tie the men up! There’ll be some ropes somewhere about, but use their belts if you can’t find any.”

Amos Meldrum, who had said nothing until now, rose with dignity to confront Haines. “There is no need to tie us up, Mr. Haines. We are simple, God-fearing folk, and we will give you food. And I am sure my wife will attend to your companion’s injured ankle, provided the three of you leave as soon as it is light, which Mr. Wexford agreed to do. We want no trouble, with you or with the law.”

Haines laughed. “That’s a fair offer, mister, an” we’ll take it. All the same, I’ll feel safer if you an’ your lads are tied up, so’s we can relax, understand? Get on with it, Josh-sit “em in their chairs an” make sure they stay in “em. Now, how about some liquor, eh? You got any rum? It’s a long while since I tasted any rum, an” I’m parched.”

“There is a small keg in the pantry,” Amos said. “And a cask of cider. That’s all we have.” In response to a jerk of the head from Train, he resumed his seat and submitted to having his hands tied behind the chair back with his belt. “Mr. Wexford knows where it is-he can fetch it.”

“No “e can’t,” Josh objected venomously.

“Mr. bloody Wexford’s ‘having ‘is ‘ands tied and ‘is feet, like the rest of you!” He advanced on Michael, grinning, but Haines shook his head.

“Leave the bastard be, Josh. He’s on the run, same as us, ain’t ‘e? An” we’re takin’ “im with us when we go. Fetch the liquor, Wexford.”

Bewildered by his attitude, Michael obeyed him. The pantry, from which Prudence had earlier brought the cider she had poured for him, was a small, windowless addition opening from the kitchen. As he crossed the kitchen, he noticed that the old flintlock musket had been removed from the wall on which it had formerly hung, and his flagging spirits lifted. Amos Meldrum, as clearly as

he could, had directed him to the pantry, counting on his being left at liberty, and … He opened-the door, his heart suddenly pounding as he saw the old weapon propped up against the wall to his right.

It would be noticed immediately, were Haines or either of the others to enter the pantry; despite the absence of a light, the glow from the kitchen lamps would reveal it, and … Michael quickly scooped up the gun, seeking for a safer place in which to conceal it. There was no time now, he knew, to look for the powder and shot with which to load the rusting musket, but … he pushed it hurriedly into a small space between a laden dresser and the wall, reminded of the manner in which-it seemed almost a lifetime ago-he had hidden the stolen Adams in the Cascades lumberyard.

He found the small rum keg without difficulty and carried it into the kitchen, meeting Amos Meldrum’s questioning gaze with a barely perceptible nod. Prudence, in response to her father’s gesture, took three pewter tankards from their hooks on the kitchen dresser and set them on the table, and Haines thanked her, with mock politeness.

He took the keg, grinning, and splashed generous measures of rum into each of the three tankards.

Oscar, Michael saw, had been tied

to his chair like his father and brother. He slumped there, barely aware of what was going on, his pretty young wife trying vainly to stem the bleeding from the ugly wound on his face with her apron. Josh, who had found a length of rope, completed the bonds that secured the injured young man’s feet and, with a grunt of satisfaction, accepted the brimming tankard Haines was holding out to him.

William Stuart Long

“God, Will, this tastes good!” he exulted, swallowing his portion almost at a gulp. “Any more where that came from?”

“Course there is, boy-but go easy, will you? We ain’t accustomed to this stuff where we’ve bin. I reckon we better eat ‘fore we do any heavy drinkin”.” Haines turned to Mrs. Meldrum and asked impatiently, “How about it, missus?

Ain’t you got our grub ready yet?”

The little woman, as quietly dignified as her husband, inclined her gray head. “If you will draw that bench up to the table,” she said, “I will serve your meal. I was not expecting to have to feed so many-there is not much of my stew left. But there is a ham and cheese, if it does not suffice. And

bread-and-curd tart.”

Haines thanked her, faintly abashed by her manner. But he swiftly recovered his confidence, and forgetful of his earlier insistence that they should drink only in moderation, he was soon filling and refilling the tankards, while all three men wolfed every scrap of food that was put in front of them, their appetites seemingly insatiable.

Michael watched them covertly, waiting for drunkenness to set in and, perhaps, manifest itself in a slackening of their vigilance. Train was already lolling, head in his two big hands and elbows on the table, his speech slurred and his language becoming increasingly obscene, and Josh Simmons’s narrow, bony face was flushed, as he continued to take great gulps of the rum and hiccup loudly when he emptied his tankard. But Haines kept his head, for all the liquor he consumed … and, for his own cynical amusement, he kept Prudence at his elbow, plying her with tidbits from his plate and stroking her dark curls with every appearance of affection, as if she were some small, petted dog.

Michael trembled for her when Haines, his meal finished, took her onto his knee and started to question her as to the cause of her infirmity.

“Was you born like this?” he asked her, his arm drawing her closer when the girl attempted to shrink from him. “There. I don’t mean you no harm. It just seems sad, a pretty young thing like you to be the way you are.”

Both Amos Meldrum and his wife were showing ominous

signs of strain, but when Mrs. Meldrum sought to intervene, Haines pushed her roughly away, repeating his assertion that he intended the girl no harm. Young Peter, driven to fury by this treatment of his mother, yelled out in protest-whereupon Josh, swearing unpleasantly, got up and staggered unsteadily across the room, to silence him with a brutal blow across the mouth.

He, at least, was drunk, Michael decided, and Train was not far from lapsing into befuddled sleep.

Before much longer, they would empty the rum keg, and he could offer to bring them the cider. He met a terrified, pleading glance from Prudence and, sensing the danger she was in, was hard put to it to retain the iron control he had imposed on himself. But to

act prematurely was, he knew, to court disaster. Up till now, to his own

surprise, all three of his fellow absconders had acted as if he were still one of them, in equal peril from outsiders-or settlers, like the Meldrums-and therefore bent, as they were, on escape. While they had not shared their liquor with him, they had left him free to move about the kitchen, instead of being bound, hand and foot, as were Amos Meldrum and his sons.

No doubt Haines had a reason for doing so; certainly none of them trusted him, and a false move would bring a bullet from the Adams or a rifle butt smashing down on his head, but … He saw Josh go back to the table and tip the last drops of rum into his tankard.

“It’s finished, Will,” he said plaintively.

“The bloody rum’s finished. Ain’t there any more?”

“There’s a cask of cider in the pantry,”

Amos Meldrum offered. His eyes sought Michael’s, as Prudence’s had done, a mute plea in their depths. “It’s good stuff, home brewed. I made it to sell, but if you want it, you’re welcome.” Then, fearing, perhaps, that he might have appeared too eager, he added sourly, “If it will start you on your way out of my house and off my land, take it and go! You know where I keep the cask, don’t you, Mr. Wexford?”

“The night’s still young,” Haines reminded him.

He continued to stroke Prudence’s dark head, the expression on his lined brown face half tender, half lascivious as he looked down at her.

William Stuart Long

The warning had its effect. “I’m getting to hell out o” here!” the big man grunted. He started for the outer door at a shambling run, ignoring Josh Simmons’s frantic efforts to stop him and leaving his musket on the bench. Bravely, at her father’s bidding, little Prudence scrambled to her feet and retrieved it, while Martha, taking a knife from the table, no less bravely set about freeing the captives.

The battle, such as it was, seemed to be over, and even Haines was ready to accept defeat.

“All right, Wexford,” he managed, in a choked voice. “We’ll go an’ we won’t trouble none o’ you no more. You ain’t a killer, are you? Don’t want my death on your conscience, do you?”

Michael kept the muzzle of the flintlock pressed firmly into his back. “It

wouldn’t in the least concern me, Haines,” he returned indifferently. “I’d as soon kill you as turn you in.”

“You’re one of us,” Haines reminded him.

“Turn us in an’ you’ll be signin’ your own death warrant. I trusted you, Wexford, don’t forget that. I should have listened to Josh an’ hogtied you with the rest.”

His admission was too much for Josh. “That you should, Will!” the little man accused him furiously. He was beside himself with rage and frustration and, in that moment, Michael sensed, more dangerous than Haines had ever been. Mrs. Meldrum still faced him with the musket she had seized, but it was wavering, and her face had drained of color. Probably, Michael thought despairingly, she had never fired a musket in her life, and Josh, evidently coming to the same conclusion, brushed her contemptuously aside.

He had the long bayonet in his hand now-the one he had kept in his belt-and he was screeching incoherent threats.