Plundered Cargo/Chapter 17

PIKE HORN pondered the girl's story of double dealing; of barratry cunningly contrived and a murder done in callous spirit. He tried to match this story with the jig-saw puzzle his own hectic experiences had partially revealed. Pieces overlapped. No sort of conformity could be plotted.

The girl had lived for lonely weeks with her preoccupation of revenge. It was based upon facts the logic of which seemed to her unshakable. Horn on the other hand had the advantage of an open mind. Where his sketchy story of shanghai work and a stormy voyage down to this desolate spot, as shouted at a suspicious Karelia, had left little impress upon the girl, her narrative in turn came to Spike as a complement to a half-solved riddle. He attacked the crux boldly.

“Looky here, Karelia: You say this Hoskin fellah told you he'd report the wreck of the Sierra Park to the owners when he reached that Guaymas place over on the mainland. S'pose ole Storrs was in 'Frisco when that report came through. Any way he could find out that the Sierra Park had been piled up on Sabina Island?”

“Why, the report of the wreck would be posted at the Marine Exchange,” she answered. “But Hoskin said, 'Cap'n Judah's orders,' when my father caught him off course and flooding the cargo hold. Storrs knew, of course”

“All right,” Spike interrupted. “But s'pose, just for the sake of argument, Storrs was playing fair with your father and figured Cap'n Lofgren was goin' to land that cotton at this Magdalena Bay place; he'd know, wouldn't he, that he'd been double-crossed the minute he read that Marine Exchange report about the Sierra Park bein' wrecked on Sabina Island?”

“But Hoskin said—” The man checked her with an impatient shake of the head as he drove home his argument:

“Remember what ole Storrs said this mornin' when you piled over the rail and drilled a hole through his cap? 'I give you my word,' he said, 'I thought your father had sold me out—thought I'd have to fight Skipper Lofgren for what lies under this deck.' “Now what do you make of that?” Spike challenged.

“A lie!” the girl flamed. “A lie—just like that other one when he said he'd never seen me before.” Spike was dogged.

“Let's figure it my way an' see how it works out. Say that Storrs sees your father take the Sierra Park through the Golden Gate and is counting on his landing the Chinese owners' salted cotton at Magdalena Bay. He's all ready with his schooner, the Lonney Lee, to slip down there at an agreed time.

“Then he reads the report of the Sierra Park being abandoned on Sabina Island. Maybe that same night four plug-uglies, includin' your li'l friend Spike Horn, breeze up to the lonely house in the cabbage fields where Cap Storrs is hiding handy to his schooner. He and his gang jump those four. Storrs finds on one of 'em—that's me—a bankbook with a credit for $100,000 dated just two days back.

“'So,' says he, 'you're the boys who hired Cap Lofgren to double-cross me; or you're hired by him to keep me from goin' down to that Sabina Island place an' gettin' my rightful share of the opium.' Words to that effect. So he shanghaies us aboard the Lonney Lee, an' thinks he's got the game in his own hands—thinks he'll get that opium before Cap Lofgren can get back from Guaymas to lift it.

“Doesn't that make sense?” he finished triumphantly.

“Just as sensible to believe Storrs and Hoskin had it planned to kill my father before ever the Sierra Park left the Golden Gate,” the girl stubbornly defended. “Hoskin was Storrs' man. He would follow orders. Storrs would then get all the opium instead of having to divide it.”

“Why did Storrs bring rifles down with him, then?” Horn wanted to know. “Why did he tell Doc Chitterly he'd have to fight somebody at the end of the voyage if he had everything cut and dried with his man Hoskin?”

Horn banged a fist into a horny palm. “I tell you, girl, it's plain as the hands on a clock. This fellah Hoskin's the main wolf—the prime double-crosser. Ole Cap Storrs has got his number by this time, just like I have.”

Karelia Lofgren sat silent for a long time, revolving the weight of the man's arguments. Finally:

“I'll go out and ask Cap'n Storrs for the truth,” she said. Horn gave her a delighted grin.

“Now you're tootin'. I'll go along for company.”

She looked up to where the first pyrotechnical set piece of the sunset was shooting scarlet flares fanwise to the zenith, “Tomorrow, then, Mate. And thank you,” she said.