The Wicked Redhead. Beatriz Williams

      BROAD DAYLIGHT, and the deck of this Rum Row schooner reminds me of nothing so much as a good old church picnic brawl back in River Junction, except that nobody is drunk. You can chew on that irony if you like. I got more vital things to do.

      Anson is all business, you understand. He has done this kind of thing before. He waves me back to the stern, behind some tall stacks of wooden crates, and because I did swear to follow his commands in this fight, I dive right into place, fixing myself a station by which I can watch the deck and fire that gun if I need to. The fear has fallen away from my skin, like it does in a set-to when your blood turns hot and your mind sharp, and only later do you start to shake and cry, only later do your insides curdle up and go cold. Now you’re just nothing but an animal, just a creature bent on keeping alive.

      Seems the attack comes from the starboard side. Sound of bullets firing from my right, sound of bullets whizzing dead ahead. Some of them catch a mast or something, and the splinters go flying. Not twenty yards away, a man cries out and goes down, clutching his side. Idiot standing there in plain sight, no wonder. Anson’s ducked under the starboard rail, holding a rifle. Jumps up, aims, fires, ducks back down, all in the space of a second or two. His flat newsboy’s cap remains on his head, good solid plaid wool. I stare at that cap and pray.

      But aside from Anson, nobody seems to possess the least idea what he’s doing. How to defend against a surprise attack from a shipful of what has got to be pirates, seeking to hijack Mr. Logan’s valuable cargo. Anson shouts out to a couple of Logan’s crew—Take cover! Wait and aim, goddamn it!—and they drop down and clutch their guns, but I can see they don’t know what to do with them. Me, now. I was reared up inside a mountain holler alongside three sturdy brothers, and I can shoot an acorn off a squirrel’s paws if I need. I can shoot a worm from a robin’s beak. I cradle that revolver in my palm like a diamond. Bring it to the level of my eyes and lift the safety latch, while Anson rises and fires again, rifle aimed at a more acute angle now, like to a boat drawing so close you might could count the noses of the men inside. He turns his head over his shoulder and calls out, and this time those two nearby men are paying proper attention. The deck is full of noise, guns firing and men shouting. I don’t know how you stay calm in a circus like that. He counts off on his fingers—one, two, three—and they rise together and aim down and fire, and maybe they hit a few men, I don’t know, because in the next second a small black ball flies over the railing and wobbles across the deck.

      I don’t understand how it doesn’t hit anybody, but it doesn’t. Just wobbles there like an egg while the men carry on, while no one sees it except me, and I scream Anson’s name, scream, Grenade! so loud my throat seems to split, but I can’t even hear myself in that din.

      So I run out from behind my crates toward that thing, that black ball fixing to murder us all, and now Anson sees me, now Anson sees what I’m after.

      He shouts and motions the men back, dives forward and grabs that thing and tosses it over the side, and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t explode a half second later in an almighty boom, right there in midair, smacking everybody backward, even me, straight on my backside on that hard wooden deck.

      I crawl forward, calling Anson’s name, but he’s already picking himself up from the deck, staggering a little, while a pair of hands appears over the side and then a man, skinny and blood-streaked. Anson’s lost his rifle—anyway, you can’t fire a rifle when a man’s that close—so he grabs the fellow by the shirt and hauls him back over the side into the water, and I yell with relief, except I can’t hear anything now, ears all stuffed up with cotton wool.

      Yet already there are more men climbing over, five or six at a time from some rope ladders hooked over the rail, and I lose sight of Anson in the jungle of slinging arms and tangled bodies. Pick myself up and reel back to my crates and look for my gun to fire, but it’s gone. Clean gone.

      Cold wave washes over me. No gun, Gin. Nothing between you and some pirate fixing to murder you, nothing between you and some pirate fixing to murder your beloved. I catch glimpse of Logan, punching at some fellow while another one comes up behind, lifting a knife, and the world just kind of tunnels around me while I hunt for Anson among all those fighting men, all those flying bodies. Start to climb up those crates so I can see the deck better, and that’s when I spot him, some kind of dervish, hauling men back over the side as soon as they pop over the ladders, and so great is his strength, so immense is the animal momentum in those arms and shoulders, the attack starts to falter. I don’t know how to describe the way everything changes. Just that these men are falling back, the center of gravity rolls toward the rail, the attack just thins and starves without new flesh to feed it. Anson’s cap is lost, his hair flashes in the sun. His skin seems to blur into his clothes, and I realize it’s my own eyes blurring. Blink blink. Perspiration stinging the corners. Perspiration slick on my palms. It’s over, it’s over. Men groaning on the decks. Smell of blood. Anson pausing, casting about, chest heaving for air. Picks up a rifle.

      And I am so drenched with relief, so weakened by it, I don’t even notice the fellow who comes up behind Anson, not until the blade of his knife catches fire from the sun.

       14

      ICLUTCH THE edge of a wooden crate. Throat too dry to scream. Each muscle frozen against its ligament. Gun, where is the gun? Anson whips around last second. Grabs wrist. Somebody help. Help for God’s sake. Nobody helps, nobody sees, fists still swinging all over the place, and there comes over me this strange sensation like I am looking upon this scene from somewhere else, I can’t possibly be living inside this present moment, clinging with my one good hand to these wooden crates, standing here on this damned ship on this damned ocean while a pirate fights Anson with a knife.

      When a couple of hours ago I drove across a sunlit bridge in a Packard roadster, laughing a little.

      My fingers slip against the crate and down I go, crash bump crash, sliding along wood, stumbling to the deck. Gun, where is the gun? Anson struggling. Someone in the way, can’t see. Knife flashes. Big hand grabs my shoulder and whips me around, some mad, grinning, red-faced meaty demon, I go down on my back behind the crates.

      The impact knocks away my breath. The man comes down on top of me, fumbling, tearing cloth. God no no no. Gun, where is the gun? Hot stinking breath on my face. Hand forcing my leg. You can’t fight a beast like that on strength alone. You can’t just pitch your feminine muscle against his masculine one. Nature favors the conqueror in these matters; Nature wants the strong to populate the earth. You have but one chance, and that’s what he don’t expect. I force myself limp, gather myself together. Bring my knee up hard and dig my teeth into his neck, I mean I tear his flesh like I am tearing meat from a sparerib, and he screams and falls away, screams a fisher cat scream. I roll the other way, toward the crates, spitting out blood and skin, and there in the crack between two stacks of booze lies the barrel of a Colt revolver.

      Snatch it up.

      Brace myself and heave up to my feet.

      Wheel around the corner of that stack of crates.

      Gun in my left hand. Raise it. Find that silver flash, find Anson’s white shirt, still struggling, knife surging toward his throat.

      Fire.

       15

      THERE ARE two men dead of bullet wounds and another four injured. Anson piles them into the motor launch with the help of the first mate, who jumps in, too. Logan’s left arm and leg are badly slashed, but he insists on staying with the ship. Thanks us profoundly. Tells me I am a damn good shot. I stick the revolver in the pocket of my dress and acknowledge the truth of this compliment.

      I don’t believe Anson and I exchange a single word the entire journey back to shore. The first mate has brought a bottle of whiskey, and he and I take turns. Settle our nerves. Anson just pilots the boat and refuses the bottle. I nudge him with the neck of it. “Come