Tucson led the huge black stallion from the wharf onto the ferry, and the ferryman swung the gate closed behind them. “Throw off that line, Ned,” the man called to a worker in overalls standing on the dock. The boat shuddered as the engine, under a full head of steam, shifted into gear and the great paddle wheels at the stern began to bite into the water.
Glancing beyond the man on the dock throwing off the rope, Tucson paused to take a last look at the retreating skyline of the Oakland waterfront. Saloons, restaurants and bistros were still going full blast along the frontage road, while vast yards serving the many clipper ships lining the docks swung to north and south of the city. They were quiet and dark at that time of night, and their stacks of storage containers, mountains of lumber and crates of produce threw long, jagged shadows over the oily water of the bay.
The waxing moon and the sweep of stars that had been obscured by the lights of Oakland began to shine and glitter again as the ferry moved further out into the harbor. Not used to riding on boats, the stallion moved stiffly and shook its head nervously as Tucson guided it beneath the overhang and onto the deck.
“Easy, big fella,” he murmured comfortingly, stroking the horse’s neck with his palm. “This trip shouldn’t take too long.”
“That horse o’ yorn sure is a beaut!” the ferryman commented with a grin that exposed yellow teeth. He was big and burly, with close-cropped blonde hair and the stub of a thick cigar stuck in a corner of his mouth. “Don’t see too many like thet around here.”
“It’s not from around here,” Tucson returned. “In fact, it’s quite a ways from home.”
The man looked Tucson up and down curiously, noting the tall, lean but broad-shouldered frame encased in a short-waisted, black leather jacket and dark serge trousers. His gaze passed over the black flat-crowned, wide-brimmed sombrero, level grey eyes, blade of a nose, wide, thin-lipped mouth and craggy chin.
As the ferryman completed his inventory, a look of caution crept into his eyes. “My guess is, you ain’t from around here, neither,” he muttered. Lifting a grease-stained hand, he pointed toward the bow with his thumb. “You kin go on forward, mister. The view o’ the lights o’ Frisco gittin’ closer is right purty this time o’ night.”
Tucson took a gold watch from an inside pocket, snapped open the cover and checked the time. It was just a few minutes short of midnight. “Much obliged,” he said, as he gathered the reins of the stallion and started forward.
He saw that his plan of taking the ferry from Oakland to San Francisco late in the evening in order to avoid any crowds had been a miscalculation. As he moved toward the bow, he and the stallion had to weave across a deck crowded with buggies and carriages. There was a large group of gaily dressed young men and women lining the forward rail, laughing and joking. Coming to a halt beside the port rail, Tucson looked the crowd over as he scratched the stallion between the ears.
They were apparently celebrating something concerning a young man at the center of the group. Dressed in dark evening clothes, he was of medium height, slender, with light brown hair parted and combed across his forehead, and soft but handsome features.
Tucson's attention was immediately caught by the young woman who stood at the boy's side.
Light brown hair the same hue as the young man’s was piled high on her well-shaped head; large green eyes sparkled over an upturned nose, and her full lips were red and moist. She wore an evening gown that was moderately low cut over shapely breasts, and the breeze blowing across the bay pressed the fabric against her body and legs, revealing a slender but well-formed figure. The graceful way her head moved on her slim neck, the precision of her gestures and the deep clear sound of her voice that drifted across the deck toward Tucson, told him that not only was she breathtakingly beautiful, but she had quality and style.
If she’s with that weak-looking boy, Tucson thought ruefully, he’s luckier than he deserves to be!
The other members of the group were similarly garbed, and they toasted the young man with bottles of champagne they had carried aboard the ferry beneath their cloaks. As the strident blast from the ferry’s whistle cut the night, Tucson lost interest in the group and shifted his gaze to the approaching skyline of San Francisco.
A kaleidoscope of multi-colored lights glittered along the shoreline and threw a sparkling efflorescence over the dark, choppy waters of the bay. Even from that distance, Tucson could see the bustle of the city’s streets—buggies, freight wagons, horsemen, throngs of pedestrians going somewhere—while the tinny sounds of pianos and the brassy blare of trumpets drifted on the night wind. Although it was midnight, the districts along the waterfront were going strong. Back from the water, a series of hills, covered with tall, well-lit, ornate buildings, marched off into the darkness to the west. Tucson leaned his forearms on the rail and shook his head in amazement.
No wonder they call San Francisco the Paris of the West, he thought.
As the ferry passed the mid-point of the bay, the group broke up as the young people started back toward their buggies. Tucson glanced over just as the young woman who had attracted his attention swung around; for a brief moment, their eyes met and locked, and her hand stole to her throat as her gaze raked him up and down. Then, with color mounting to her cheeks, she spun abruptly on her heel and moved quickly toward the carriages.
“Come, Jim,” she murmured to the young man, who rushed to catch up with her.
Suddenly, the blare of the ferry’s whistle shot across the water. Although Tucson couldn’t see the captain in the cabin above the overhead, he could hear him swearing at the top of his lungs. The ferryman Tucson had spoken to earlier rushed forward through the buggies to see what was going on. From the direction of San Francisco, partially hidden by the fog hanging low over the water, a single-sailed ketch was cutting swiftly across the bay at an angle that was guaranteed to make it collide with the ferry. Every timber in the boat shuddered and the buggy horses reared and screamed as the captain put the paddle wheels in reverse to avoid a collision.
“What in gawdamn hell’s that lunatic doin’?” the ferryman shouted. Then he leaned further over the rail and stared hard across the water. “Gawdalmighty!” he burst out hoarsely, going pale to the collar of his overalls.
“What is it?” Tucson asked.
The ferryman pointed at the ketch with a shaking finger. “D’ya see all them slant-eyes in thet boat wearin’ them black pajamas?”
Tucson could make out about six men huddled beneath the sail with another at the rudder as the boat raced toward them. “Yes...” he answered shortly. “So...?”
“Tongs...!” the ferryman muttered; then he glanced behind him at the group of young people who had left their buggies and were crowding back forward to see what was going on. “I reckon the Tongs got some business with somebody on this ferry.”
* * * *
As the ferry came to a halt in the middle of the bay and a grappling hook, thrown from the ketch, bit into the starboard rail, Tucson backed the stallion behind a buggy where it would be safe from any stray weapons. Stepping to his saddlebag, he lifted the flap and pulled out the Colt .45 with blued steel and rosewood grips that was stored there, wrapped in a black leather cartridge belt. After buckling the belt around his lean waist, he bent and tied the holster to his right leg with a leather thong.
By then, the Chinese Tong members were swarming over the rail of the ferry and were landing on the deck. Tucson straightened up and peered over the stallion’s back at the group; six tough looking men stood there dressed in black silken pants and tunics with knives, hatchets and a couple of revolvers in their hands. They faced the frightened crowd of young people milling about in the open space before the buggies and wagons.
The ferryman came forward. “Here, here...!” he cried. “You can’t jest board the ferry in the middle o’ the bay like a bunch o’ damned pirates!”
With the speed of a flash of lightning, one of the Chinese moved toward the ferryman, lifted the hatchet in his hand and struck him across the face with the flat of the blade. The ferryman flew backward, his face streaming blood, and landed heavily on the deck and lay still. As his men positioned themselves behind him, the leader raised his bloody axe and swept it over the group of frightened spectators.
“We onee want one o’ you,” he called in a strong but high-pitched voice. “James Harrison...come on out.”
Tucson watched the boy who had been the object of the earlier toasts shrink back against a carriage wheel in terror. The beautiful young woman beside him went pale and threw herself against him as if to protect him from the Chinese. The leader noticed the action and evidently recognized the young man. He stepped forward and the crowd parted to let him pass. Watching from his vantage point, Tucson couldn’t remember seeing a tougher looking crew than these Tong members. Their black eyes held all the emotion of marbles and the weapons in their hands were worn from much use.
As the leader reached them, the young woman screamed, “No...you can’t take him. He’s my brother. I won’t allow you to take him!”
Sneering derisively, the leader caught her by the hair and jerked her savagely away from her brother. The young man was cringing and sobbing with fear and made no attempt to protect his sister. With casual brutality, the leader swung the young woman around by her hair and tossed her across the deck, where she landed on her rear-end next to the rail in a flurry of petticoats. Then he reached out and dragged the young man forward by his arm. The boy’s crotch and down one leg were stained from where he had wet his pants.
Taking a deep breath, Tucson chose that moment to step forward. Beneath the brim of his sombrero, his grey eyes had shaded to the color of chilled steel.
As he moved into the cleared space, everyone froze. The Tong members crouched and eyed him murderously while they brought their weapons into position. The leader stopped dragging the boy and watched Tucson curiously, not really believing that anyone on the ferry would stand up to them. The crowd shrank back in panic, and the young woman lifted herself onto her hands and stared up at him in disbelief. With a groan, the ferryman regained consciousness; raising himself up on an elbow, he felt his shattered jaw.
Hooking his thumbs into his gun-belt, Tucson spoke into the frozen silence. “You boys have had enough fun for the night.” He pointed with his chin to the young man groveling on the deck beside the Tong leader. “Let the boy go, climb back into your boat and get out of here.”
The spectators gasped in consternation—even the boy momentarily forgot his terror and stared up at Tucson in disbelief. The leader released the young man, took a fresh grip on his axe and moved toward Tucson.
Then he took a second look into Tucson’s eyes and stopped. “We onee want this piece o’ shit,” he said. “Even with gun, you canee get all o’ us. We chopee you up an’ throw you to fishes.”
Tucson responded by dropping into the gunfighter’s crouch, his weight slightly forward and balanced on the balls of his feet, his broad shoulders hunched and his right hand hovering over his Colt. “If you put your hand on that boy one more time,” he rasped, “you’ll be the first of us to die.”
Although he was staring at the leader, Tucson kept the other Tong members well within his peripheral vision, with special attention paid to the two men with guns. Everyone on the ferry waited breathlessly for the leader to give the command to attack. It was as if Tucson had lit a fuse and it was only a matter of time before the bomb went off.
Then it did...
One of the Chinese holding a gun got nervous and couldn’t wait any longer. With a scream of rage, he lifted his revolver and pointed it at Tucson. Tucson had cleared leather and put a bullet into the man’s chest before he even got the barrel level. As the man catapulted backward with blood spurting over his tunic, Tucson shifted position and put another bullet between the eyes of the leader. His skull exploded in a grisly spray of brain and bone then the body just dropped where it stood, falling over the young man who still crouched at his feet. With brains and blood splattered all over him and the corpse weighing him down, the boy gagged and threw up on the deck.
Tucson dived and rolled, coming up on one knee beneath a carriage just as a slug plowed a furrow into the rail next to his head. He aimed for the chest of the shooter, but the man moved and Tucson’s bullet caught him in the throat. Gagging horribly and spraying blood over the deck, the man flew backward, hit the starboard rail and dropped over the side.
A knife quivered in the carriage door at Tucson’s shoulder; he dove across the deck and as he slid on his left side, he pumped two more slugs into two Tong members who were rushing him with knives. The bullets caught both men in their foreheads, and when their heads exploded, it was like a giant watermelon had splattered over the deck.
The last Tong member panicked and ran for the rail; just as he was about to jump overboard, Tucson came up on one knee, aimed and shot him in the thigh with his last bullet. With a scream of pain, the Chinese fell back onto the deck where he lay writhing in agony and clutching his wounded leg.
Tucson came to his feet, rushed to the rail and looked over. But the rudder-man of the ketch had cut the line securing it to the ferry and was far out on the water heading back to San Francisco. With a sigh, Tucson turned back to the scene on the ferry. Besides the Tong member who was groaning at his feet, there were five torn bodies lying in crumpled heaps across the deck in spreading pools of blood, brains and intestines. The group of young people pressed away from Tucson in wide-eyed horror. The boy was struggling out from under the corpse of the leader, and the ferryman was climbing back to his feet.
Disregarding the stares of the crowd, Tucson leaned back against the rail and re-loaded his Colt. Then he slid it back into its holster and moved to the young woman, who still sat on the deck gazing at him as if she couldn't believe what she had just witnessed.
“I’m sorry for the disturbance, ma’am,” he said cordially, as he extended his hand to lift her back to her feet. “But at the moment I couldn’t see any other way to keep your brother from being kidnapped.”
* * * *
As the ferry nosed into its berth at the dock of San Francisco, the ferryman, his jaw held together by a soiled bandanna knotted around his head, opened the gate and threw a line to a dock worker standing on the wharf. Behind the worker, Tucson could see two ambulances with emergency crews, half a dozen uniformed policemen, and a big man standing up front dressed in a suit and overcoat that could only be a police detective.
Once the ferry was secured, the detective stepped aboard, glanced at the bodies littering the deck then raised his hands and addressed the crowd. “All right, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Detective-Lieutenant Frank Connolly, and I’m going to have to ask you to stay aboard the ferry until either I or my officers have taken statements from each one of you.”
He glanced around until his eyes came to rest on Tucson, who stood next to the rail beside the stallion. His lips pursed reflectively beneath his handlebar mustache as the two men sized each other up. He was as tall as Tucson with heavy shoulders and strong-looking hands. Brown hair trimmed short, brown eyes and brown mustache graced a face that was open and handsome in a bluff sort of way. Tucson’s hopes went up when he noted a glimmer of intelligence in the detective’s eyes.
Then the young woman stepped forward. “Good heavens, Frank,” she called in a friendly tone. “You don’t have to be so formal.”
Connolly pulled his eyes away from Tucson and looked at the speaker; then his face lit with pleasure and his mouth stretched in a happy grin. “Cathy Harrison...!” he cried. “I didn’t know you were part of this group.”
She moved toward him with an extended hand, and Connolly took it in both of his. It was clear to the casual glance that he was smitten with the girl. “It was my brother the Tong members were after,” she said, shuddering at the memory. “Jim would have been taken if it hadn’t been for,” she gestured toward Tucson, “this gentleman.”
Connolly was about to address Tucson when the ferry captain pushed through the crowd. “Am I glad to see you, Detective, and your men,” he exclaimed, biting down on the pipe stuck between his teeth. He was of medium height, heavy-set, with a sea cap set at a jaunty angle on his grey hair. “Them damned Tongs think they can get away with anything—even piracy!”
“And your name is...?” Connolly asked.
“I’m Captain Turner. It was me who telegraphed you when them Tongs boarded us.”
“Ah...and we appreciate the promptness of your message, Captain,” Connolly replied. “I’ll need a detailed report of everything that happened.”
“I was up on the bridge the whole time,” Turner said. “I didn’t see nothin’, but I heard a lot of gunfire. Anyway,” he pulled a folded piece of paper from an inside pocket of his sea jacket and handed it to the detective, “here’s my report, all made out.”
As Connolly took it, Tucson stepped forward. “Excuse me, Detective,” he said quietly, pointing to the ferryman who was leaning against the rail, looking like he might pass out. “It might be a good idea if one of your emergency crew took a look at this man fairly soon. He was hit pretty hard with the blade of an axe.”
Connolly’s brows went up; he glanced at the ferryman then turned to one of the uniformed cops. “Joe,” he gestured toward the ferryman, “help this gentleman up to an ambulance and have his jaw looked at...and get a statement if he can speak.”
That interchange brought Tucson into the conversation. Detective Connolly, Cathy Harrison and Captain Turner all looked at him with interest. “And just who might you be?” Connolly asked.
Tucson was bent over untying the thong around his thigh, and the young woman answered for him. “He is our savior!”
Tucson unbuckled his gun-belt, wrapped it around the holster then offered it to Connolly. “My name’s Tucson,” he said. “Here is my gun. I’m the man who killed these Tong members.”
Taking the gun-belt, Connolly extracted the Colt and examined it with keen interest. “Blued steel,” he murmured, “sight filed off, barrel shortened, rosewood grips that have seen a lot of wear.” He worked the hammer several times, careful to keep the gun pointed out over the water. “Action smooth as silk.” He shot an accusatory glance at Tucson. “This is a gunman’s weapon, mister. We don’t like gunfighters in San Francisco.”
“Frank Connolly...!” the girl cried angrily. “This man just saved my brother from being kidnapped by the Tongs. I won't stand here and listen to you insult him. You should be thanking him!”
Connolly’s bluff features turned red and his eyes fell before the girl’s fiery gaze. “All right, Cathy,” he muttered. “Don’t get yourself into an uproar. I’m just trying to do my job. And by the way,” he added, looking around, “just where is your brother?”
“He’s sitting in our buggy,” Cathy answered. “He was terribly traumatized by the incident, so I thought it would be best if he rested before speaking to anyone.”
“Maybe you could go get him so we can find out just why the Tongs wanted him,” Connolly suggested.
“Certainly...” she said, then spun on her heel and moved aft toward the carriages.
Connolly watched her for a moment, then swung back to Tucson. He opened his mouth to speak, then he shifted his attention to the ferry captain. “That’s it for the time being, Captain,” he said. “You can go on home for now. I’ll get in touch if we need any more information from you.” The captain nodded and walked away, and Connolly turned again to Tucson. “Walk with me, Mr. Tucson,” he said, as he tucked Tucson’s re-holstered Colt beneath his arm. “Stay with me while we look over the bodies.”
A coroner in a white coat and spectacles was busy examining the corpses. “How are they looking, Jeff?” asked Connolly, as they stopped beside him.
“They look dead, Frank...!” the coroner returned sourly. “Each man was taken out with one shot.”
Connolly’s brows went up and he glanced sideways at Tucson. “One man takes on six, and under the pressure of the fight, stays cool enough to kill with one shot each.”
“I only shot that Tong member in the leg,” Tucson pointed out, gesturing to the man still seated on the deck being bandaged by an emergency worker. “I thought maybe you’d like to question one of them as to what this was all about.”
Connolly’s reply was cut short as Cathy returned, leading her brother by the hand. The boy was pale and disheveled, with blood, brains and urine staining his evening clothes. The detective looked him up and down, sighed, then asked, “What was going on here, Jim? Why are the Tongs after you?”
As they all gazed at him, the boy turned red and stared down at the deck. “Jesus, Frank...!” he muttered. “I don’t know why they wanted me. I don’t have anything to do with the Tongs.”
It was obvious to Tucson that the boy was lying, and a glance at Connolly told him that the detective thought so too. “All right...” Connolly sighed heavily. “Jim, I’ll have to ask you and Mr. Tucson here to come with me down to the station where we can discuss the situation in more detail.”
“Absolutely not...!” Cathy’s slim foot stamped down on the deck. “Jim is too upset right now for you to be able to question him adequately tonight.” As Connolly started to object, she flashed him a dazzling smile that silenced him. “I tell you what we’ll do, Frank. Why don’t you come by the house tomorrow morning for breakfast, and you can ask all your official questions then.”
Tucson almost laughed at the array of emotions that passed across the detective’s face; but in the end, his desire to see Cathy Harrison again won out. “All right...” he agreed grudgingly. Then his thumb jerked toward Tucson. “But you’re coming down to the station with me.”
“Not at all, Frank,” Cathy cut in smoothly, linking her arm with the detective’s and turning him toward the wharf. “Mr. Tucson is coming home with us. Do you think I would allow the savior of my brother to spend the night in some dank, dark cell? Mr. Tucson will be on hand tomorrow morning at our house when you come by for breakfast.”