Part 1 (2/2)
Just drop in on him. How's the deck? Clear?”
”No one in sight,” said Rainey.
”Fine! Mates an' crew down the Barb'ry Coast, I reckon. Sealers have liberties last sh.o.r.e-day. Like whalers. I've buried a few irons myself, matey, but I'll never sight the vapor of a right whale ag'in. Stranded, I am. So you'll do me a favor, matey, an' pilot me down into the cabin, if so be the skipper's there. If he ain't, I'll wait for him. I've got the right an' run o' the _Karluk's_ cabin. I know ev'ry inch of her.
You'll see when we go aboard. Let's go.”
Rainey led him down the gangway to the deck of the sealer, still cluttered a bit with unstowed gear. Once on board, the blind man seemed to walk with a.s.surance, guiding himself with touches here and there that showed his familiarity with the vessel's rig. And he no longer shuffled, but walked lightly, grinning at Rainey through his beard, with one blunt forefinger set to his mouth as he approached the cabin skylight, lifted on the port side. Through it came the murmur of voices. The blind man nodded in satisfaction and widened his grin with a warning ”hush-h” to his guide.
”We'll fool 'em proper,” he lipped rather than uttered.
The companion doors were closed, but they opened noiselessly. The stairs were carpeted with corrugated rubber that m.u.f.fled all sound. Two men sat at the cabin table, leaning forward, hands and forearms outstretched, fingering something. One Rainey recognized as the captain, Simms--a heavy, square-built man, gray-haired, clean-shaven, his flesh tanned, yet somehow unhealthy, as if the bronze was close to tarnis.h.i.+ng. There were deep puffs under the gray tired eyes.
The other was younger, tall, nervously active, with dark eyes and a dark mustache and beard, the latter trimmed to a Vand.y.k.e. Between them was a long slim sack of leather, a miner's poke. It was half full of something that stuffed its lower extremity solid, without doubt the same substance that glistened in the mouth of the sack and the palms of the two men--gold--coa.r.s.e dust of gold!
Rainey felt himself thrust to one side as the blind man straddled across the bottom of the companionway, towering in the cabin while he thrust his stick with a thump on the floor and thundered, in a bellow that seemed to fill the place and come tumbling back in deafening echo:
”_Karluk_ ahoy!”
The face of Captain Simms paled, the tan turned to a sickly gray, and his jaw dropped. Rainey saw fear come into his eyes. His companion did not stir a muscle except for the quick s.h.i.+ft of his glance, but went on sitting at the table, the gold in one palm, the fingers of his other hand resting on the grains.
”Jim Lund!” gasped the captain hoa.r.s.ely.
”That's me, you skulking sculpin? Thought I was bear meat by this, didn't you, blast yore rotten soul to h.e.l.l! But I'm back, Bill Simms.
Back, an' this time you don't slip me!”
Jim Lund's face was purple-red with rage, great veins standing out upon it so swollen that it seemed they must surely burst and discharge their congested contents. Out of the purpling flesh his scarlet hair curled in diabolical effect. His teeth gleamed through his beard, strong, yellow, far apart. He looked, Rainey thought, like a blind Berserker, restrained only by his affliction.
”You left me blind on the floe, Bill Simms!” he roared. ”Blind, in a drivin' blizzard with the ice breakin' up! If I didn't have use for yore carca.s.s I'd twist yore head from yore scaly body like I'd pull up a carrot.”
Lund's fingers opened and closed convulsively. Before Rainey the vision of the threatened crime rose clear.
”I looked for you, Jim,” pleaded the captain, and to Rainey his words lacked conviction. ”I didn't know you were blind. I heard you shout just before the blizzard broke loose.”
Lund answered with an inarticulate roar.
”And there's others present, Jim. I can explain it to you when we're by ourselves. When you're a mite calmer, Jim.”
Lund banged his stick down on the table with a smas.h.i.+ng blow that made the man with the Vand.y.k.e beard, still silent, keenly observant, draw back his arm with a catlike swiftness that only just evaded the stroke.
The heavy wood landed fairly on the filled half of the poke and caused some of the gold to leap out of the mouth.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”What's that I hit?” asked Lund]
”What's that I hit?” asked Lund. ”Soft, like a rat.” He lunged forward, felt for the poke, and found it, lifted it, hefted it, his forehead puckered with deep seams, discovered the open end, poured out some of the colors on one palm, and used that for a mortar, grinding at the grains with his finger for a pestle, still weighing the stuff with a slight up-and-down movement of his hand.
He nodded as he slipped the poke into a side pocket, and the cabin grew very silent. Lund's face was grimly terrible. Rainey could have gone when the blind man reached for the gold and left the ladder clear. He had meant to go at the first opportunity, but now he was held fascinated by what was about to happen, and Lund stepped back across the companionway.
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