Wild Norene/Chapter 1

EÑOR GUERRERO led the way down the dark and narrow alley and softly opened the door. The man behind him waited close to the wall.

A shaft of light pierced the darkness. With it came the sound of strong voices raised in ribald song and the tinkling of a piano scarcely heard above the din.

Feet shuffled, liquor gurgled, glasses rang as they were placed on the tables.

Foul air rushed out, bearing odors of stale tobacco-smoke and cheap liquor. In an instant the clean smell of water-soaked pine was gone, and the breeze that swept up the street from the river and the distant sea seemed instantly polluted.

"The coast, I think, is clear," Señor Guerrero whispered.

He slipped inside, and Captain Bill Adams followed and stood against the wall for a moment while Guerrero closed the door behind them.

Captain Adams had a soft hat pulled down to his eyes and his coat collar turned up in an attempt to pass without being recognized. There was no disguising his broad shoulders, great hands, and massive form, yet the risk was small, for those men in the room who knew him were scattered in the crowd or sitting at tables near the street door.

Adams's lips curled in scorn as he followed Guerrero along the wall to a table in a far corner, at which there were two chairs, both unoccupied. As he sat down he glanced over the room.

There was a bar along one wall, with a crowd of men before it. There were scores of tables to which silent-footed Chinese carried liquor. On a platform in one corner was an old piano, a woman playing it. Another woman stood beside her and sang in a cracked voice.

In another corner were poker-tables, where the players silently eyed one another, speaking in low voices only when it was necessary. There were faro-tables and roulette-tables. And there were women who mingled in the throng, painted women dressed in gaudy gowns.

"It is a place," said Captain Adams slowly and with conviction, "where a man would expect to find a traitor."

Strong men of the sea called Adams king. He was a relic of the days of bucko mates. He had slain a man with a single blow of his fist. He had quelled mutiny single-handed.

His name was a synonym for fear from Valdez to Cape Horn, in Honolulu, in the ports of China and Japan, Australia, and the South Seas.

That name also was coupled with justice, for Captain Adams never gave a demonstration of brute force without good and sufficient provocation.

He always showed his strength at sea, never on land. The usual haunts of sailormen did not know him. He left his ship only to transact business. He was an abstainer, and morally clean.

Because he never appeared in a gathering to refute them, seamen told great tales of his strength and brutality when provoked, thus making his reputation in that regard thrice what he deserved.

Now he bent forward at the table, his keen eyes taking in the scene before him. Guerrero had ordered liquor, and as soon as the Chinese waiter had gone Captain Adams had thrown his in a cuspidor.

"If our suspicions prove true—" Guerrero began. "We'll say nothing until we are certain," the captain interrupted. "It's a bad thing to accuse a man of unless there is an abundance of proof."

"And if we get the proof?"

Captain Adams straightened his shoulders and waited a moment before replying.

"If we get the proof I'll attend to the matter personally," he said. "You are not concerned in it, señor, except that you are a sort of guide for me ashore."

"Not concerned in it!" exclaimed the other hoarsely. "Not concerned in it? When there may depend on it success or failure?"

"Screech, señor, and tell our business to the world," the captain advised. "There are some in this place, I believe, who would be glad to hear."

"I beg your pardon," Guerrero said, and fell silent.

Captain Adams looked over the room again. The woman at the piano had ceased playing and was standing at the end of the platform, talking with some men. She was tall, graceful, and fair, despite her painted face; but there were lines about her eyes and a wistful look was about her lips.

"What a place!" Adams gasped.

"Sailors must have relaxation after a long voyage," suggested Guerrero.

"This isn't relaxation! They spend two months' wages here in a night, drinking vile liquor, trying to beat gambling games that cannot be beaten. I've been a sailor for thirty years, and I don't need this sort of relaxation. And the women—"

"That tall one who was playing the piano is Sally Wood," said Guerrero. "Every one in Astoria knows her. She has a history."

"I don't doubt it."

"Not the sort you think, señor. She lived in Seattle as a girl. A man won and married her. Then he took her aged father's savings and deserted her, left her penniless with a baby—the old story."

"And she turned to this sort of thing?"

"Again, señor, not as you think. She turned to this sort of thing because she can play a piano, and because she gets more money here in a night than she could any place else in a month. The sailors worship her, señor. Sometimes when she plays they throw silver and gold on the platform, showers of it, and she thanks them prettily."

"Pity she wouldn't take her silver and gold and get out of here, then."

"She stays because she needs much silver and gold. Every one seems to know the story. She is laying it by. When she has an adequate amount she intends trailing the man who deserted her, and when she finds him—ah, señor, when she finds him! Such a woman will know how to take her revenge.

"Her child is a girl—she keeps the little one in a school. I admire Sally Wood, señor; she mingles here with the scum of the earth, yet is not defiled. She is a good girl; countless men will tell you so. Countless men would fight for her in an instant to avenge an insult. They know her story, tell it to every newcomer, help her in every way."

Captain Adams showed sudden interest.

"If that story is true, if she is a good girl and can mingle with this sort and keep her goodness for such an object, I pray Heaven she finds the man," he said earnestly.

"There is also another story," continued Guerrero. "There is a man hereabouts by name Jack Connor, a pleasant giant, a happy-go-lucky devil of a sailorman of the usual sort. He is at present out of a place, and is here in Astoria visiting his aged father. He is a favorite of men and women. He drinks with the men—but he has no use for the women."

"Half sensible, at any rate," said the captain.

"Sally Wood, so the story goes, rebuked him on a certain night because he was drinking heavily. The proprietor of this place even lets her do such a thing as that, for it delights his customers to see one of their number the subject of a sermon. Jack Connor treated the girl courteously, but continued drinking. If he had done as she requested she would have forgotten him; since he refused to obey her wish, she loved him."

"Womanly," said Captain Adams. "So she loves him?"

"In her own sweet way, señor. All have noticed it. Her eyes follow him continually when he is here. And he continues to treat her courteously, but that is all. "Jack Connor, say his friends, has little use for women. He respects them—the good ones—too much to ask one of them to share his lot, he says; and the other sort he does not respect enough to consider at all."

"He has the making of a man in him then," the captain decided. "Sailorman out of a job, eh? I need a couple more men."

"A very devil of a fellow, señor; I have seen him. I do not know, of course, whether he would be the man for our business. He has an independent way about him. Speak of the angels—"

Voices near the door had been raised in eager greeting; The throng parted, and through it strode a man the appearance of whom made Captain Adams's eyes sparkle.

More than six feet he stood, with shoulders almost the equal of the captain's. His hair was yellow, his eyes blue, his face boyish. He walked with an easy swagger that betrayed his agility.

Such was Jack Connor.

Friends crowded close to him; voices called to ask him what his drink would be. A bartender, smiling in welcome, brought forward a private bottle and sat it on the bar before him and polished a glass and sat beside it. He and his friends drank.

"Jack, the woman-hater, caught at last!" one of the men shrieked in laughter.

Guerrero tapped the captain on the shoulder.

"The man who is talking, the one with his arm on Connor's shoulder, is his best friend, a sailorman by name Morgan," he whispered.

"Listen!" the captain commanded.

There had come a flush into Jack Connor's face not caused by liquor. He turned toward Morgan menacingly, but still smiling.

"Hold him while I tell the story!" Morgan cried. "It is too good to keep."

"If you open your mouth—" Connor began.

But, laughing, three of them held him. The others in the room had grown quiet to listen.

Morgan ran away a few paces and faced them.

"We were walking down Commercial Street," he said. "A girl passed. Her eyes met Connor's. My friend Jack was done then and there!"

"Love at first sight, eh?" cried another.

"Wait!" Morgan cried. "He insisted on following her. Think of that—Jack Connor, who never looks at a woman! Oh, he did it in a proper fashion! He never took his eyes from her. She dropped a handkerchief—"

"They always do something like that," interrupted another.

With a roar of rage Jack Connor hurled away the men who held him and looked into the crowd.

"Understand me?" he cried. "The young lady—lady, I said—dropped her handkerchief. I ran forward and picked it up. I'm not ashamed of it. I never saw her before—I don't know her name!

"But she's a lady—and not to be talked about in a crowd like this. Understand me?

"I walked down the street with her, talked with her while Morgan waited. She's the sweetest girl I ever saw. I'm not worthy to speak of her, and if I am not, neither are any of you. So we'll drop the subject. Understand?"

There was no answer; no man's eyes met his. He smiled at them again and motioned toward the bar. The men crowded forward.

"He strikes me as pretty much of a man," said Captain Adams to Guerrero in their corner.

Sally Wood, sitting at her piano, had heard. Now she began playing furiously, and some of the men near the platform began to sing, and the noise broke out anew.

Jack Connor and half a dozen of his friends made their way across the room to a table within fifteen feet of where Captain Adams and Guerrero were sitting.

The captain turned toward the wall, his back to the room, and there he remained, talking with Guerrero in whispers, until he heard his own name mentioned. It was Jack Connor speaking.

"The Amingo is the cutest little steam schooner that ever carried a cargo of lumber," he was saying. "I never saw her until she dropped down the river from Portland this morning, but I've heard a few things about her and her skipper."

"Who hasn't?" Morgan asked.

"If all I hear of Cap'n Adams is true—"

"You can bet it is," Morgan interrupted, and the others nodded their heads.

"Then I've got to set eyes on the old sea-dog some time. He's turned some good tricks in his day, but he's getting careless. Must be feeling his age."

Captain Adams's shoulders straightened, but Guerrero warned him and he slouched forward in his chair again.

"Meaning just what?" Morgan asked.

"What's his old scow doing?" asked Connor.

"Lumber, Portland to Mazatlan," said Morgan.

"Oh, she carries a deck-load of lumber, all right," said Connor, laughing. "But what she carries in her hold is the joke."

"Contraband?" one of the men asked.

"Not so loud, friend. We don't want to queer Cap'n Adams's deal. Only he's getting careless. I know what he's up to; and if I know it, what must persons know whose business it is to find out. He isn't carrying opium or chinks, if that is what you mean. But he's got an interesting cargo, all the same."

"Meaning?" asked Morgan.

"Meaning it is none of our business," said Connor. "Only I'd hate to see an old sea-dog like Cap'n Adams spend his last years in a Federal prison."

The face of Captain Adams flushed, then grew ashen as the meaning of the man's words came to him.

This man knew—he knew.

And, across the table, Señor Guerrero muttered a good Spanish oath that has no just equivalent in English and started to rise from his chair.

But Captain Adams gripped his arm so that the bone almost snapped, and the señor resumed his seat.

"Queer old fish, the cap'n," Jack Connor went on. "And that niece of his— What about her? I never heard much of it."

Morgan enlightened him.

"They call her Wild Norene; she is Captain Adams's brother's girl, and she's lived with the cap'n for ten years, since her daddy died. Sails with him all the time. Cap'n taught her to read and write aboard the schooner. Pretty as a picture, strong as a man yet soft as a woman, and wild and untamed."

Connor laughed.

"She needs a man to tame her, maybe."

"Maybe you'd like the job," chuckled Morgan.

"And I could do it if I was in the woman-taming business," Connor answered. "Honestly, I mean. I'll bet I could make her love me—make her promise to marry me. I could tame her so she'd eat out of my hand."

Again Guerrero restrained the captain, whispering to him that he could wait for vengeance—that to betray himself now meant to spoil their enterprise.

Morgan and the others were laughing.

"Why, she won't even look at a man," said Morgan. "She's waiting to find one that measures up to her uncle, Cap'n Bill Adams; and she'll have a long wait, I'm thinkin'."

"If what I hear is true, she'll have a long wait," assented Connor. "Won't look at a man, eh? If I was in the woman-taming business, I'd make her look at me. Pretty, eh?"

"Like a picture," said one of the men. "I really saw her once."

"I'm getting interested," remarked Connor, laughing again.

"And you're gettin' blamed inconsistent—I guess that's the right word. A few minutes ago you raised blue blazes' because we mentioned a certain young lady in this place, and now you're not only mentioning one, but you're mentioning names."

Jack Connor's face grew sober.

"There's a difference," he said. "There are but two classes of women. One class should never be mentioned by such men as us—they're too good. And the other class—what's the difference? This niece of Cap'n Bill's—this Wild Norene, as you call her—scarcely comes under the first class."

Captain Adams's face grew ashen again and he gripped the sides of the table, but made no attempt to get out of his chair.

Guerrero felt sudden fear; he knew Captain Adams was waiting for this Jack Connor to go so far—then the blow would fall.

"For God's sake, señor," he whispered, "don't wreck our plans! Wait until the other business is disposed of; then we can find this Jack Connor and you can kill him. Hold on to your temper! We can find him easily; he'll be about all night."

Captain Adams's lips were set tightly; he looked across the table at Guerrero and nodded assent.

"This Wild Norene," Connor was saying, "must be the other sort. I don't know what her father was, but we all know her uncle. Bucko mate once, he was! Blackbirder, too. Traded in human flesh! His name's a terror in the South Seas. He's been a smuggler; he is yet. He's pulling off a crooked deal right now! And this Wild Norene has been on his schooner, knows his life and how he makes his money, helps him no doubt; so what sort of a girl do you suspect her to be? Too good to be mentioned in a place like this? I'm sorry for the girl, but—bah!"

They nodded their heads as they picked up the drinks a Chinese had placed on the table.

Captain Adams was looking straight at Guerrero and not seeing him, and a tear was rolling down the captain's cheek.

No man ever knew the pain he suffered in that instant. Like a flash, his life was before him—his life and Norene's. Captain Bill loved his niece, worshiped her. And he realized now, how men regarded her. They measured her by his standard.

But Connor had been wrong.

Adams never had been a blackbirder—never had dealt in human beings. He had been honest, in a way, in his dealings. He had broken revenue laws, smuggled Chinese, carried arms and ammunition to revolutionary armies, and landed them by dodging gunboats; but he had been honest in business dealings.

And Norene, he thanked Heaven, was innocent of it. She did not know the truth.

He had kept her with him rather than placing her in a school, because he thought he could guard her better so. And now it appeared from this man's talk that he had made a great mistake.

But he felt rage at the thought that this man could talk so. He could tame Norene, could he? She was of the sort to be spoken of lightly?

Captain Adams said nothing aloud, but he cursed bitterly in his heart and stored up rage against Jack Connor, the man he had liked at a first glance.

Guerrero was looking across the table at him appealingly.

"I'll not spoil our plans," the captain whispered to him. "I'll wait!"

"Heaven be thanked, señor! I—I was afraid! After we have attended to this other business you'll—you'll kill this man?"

"There are things worse than death, Guerrero. And this is my own affair; keep your nose out of it!"

The men at the other table had risen and were scattering, some of them returning to the bar, some going to the gambling tables, others crowding about the platform where Sally Wood was playing.

Captain Adams heard Guerrero gasp—realized that one of the men had stopped beside him.

"Can I trouble you for a match?" a voice asked.

Adams looked up; Jack Connor was smiling down upon him.

The captain got to his feet, while Guerrero trembled and waited for the outcome. But Captain Adams had lived a life full of experience and could control himself even at such a time as this. He ran his hand in a pocket and handed Connor the match for which he had asked.

"Thanks," Connor said. He lit his pipe and puffed slowly. "Lots of the boys around to-night," he added.

"Seems to be," replied Adams, resuming his seat. Guerrero's fear was unnecessary; the captain was studying the man before him, was not ready to take vengeance yet.

"Sailorman?" asked Connor.

"Yes. Came down from Seattle to meet a friend of mine who's skipper of a German bark. Going to sign on with him," the captain replied.

"Astoria isn't the port she used to be, but she's still some port," said Connor. "Lots of queer fish float in here. There's a funny old tub in the river now. Notice her?"

"Which one?" Adams asked. Guerrero felt the fear again.

"The letters on her stern spell 'Hester,’" replied Connor. "But that's a joke. I know her. Once away from the river she'll be the Benito, and there'll be guns on her, and her sailormen will put on uniforms; then she'll be a Mexican gunboat. Her skipper is Garza, cap'n in the Mexican navy—or what they call their navy—and he's a secret service agent, too."

"Why the disguise?" asked the captain.

"That's another joke. Ever hear of Cap'n Bill Adams? Of course you have, since you're a sailorman. Cap'n Bill's old scow is in the river now, and the gunboat is watching her. Old Bill must be losing his cleverness."

"Why is the gunboat on his trail?" the captain asked.

"Nobody knows exactly, but there are suspicions. It wouldn't be the first time Bill Adams had carried arms and ammunition marked sewing machines. But nobody dares tackle Adams without getting the goods on him first. Believe me, they'd better not! Have a drink? No? Much obliged for the match."

Connor hurried away toward the bar. and the captain's eyes met Guerrero's across the table.

The señor was vastly troubled.

"We must get away to-night," he whispered. "Great Heaven, every one seems to know!"

"Remember what the fellow said—nobody tackles Adams without getting the goods on him first. And they haven't got the goods on me—yet!"

"But the man for whom we wait—"

"That man thinks we sail to-morrow evening. If he does what you think he'll do, we can attend to him and get away before daylight. I can get outside the three-mile limit before that old scow of a gunboat catches me."

"Sit as you are," said Guerrero. "I am watching for your man. When he comes in— Ah! He has arrived."

The captain did not turn.

"And the other?" he asked.

"I do not see Garza yet. We have been watching him closely, and one of my men will trail him here. Your mate is to meet Garza here to-night and tell him the cargo is aboard and when you are to sail."

Captain Adams's hands gripped the sides of the table again.

"I hate a traitor and know how to deal with one," he said. "What is Riney doing?"

"Is that his name? He's looking through the crowd. Now he has seated himself at a table. There's no doubt of the man's guilt."

"Riney had been my mate for two years, and there is doubt of his guilt until I hear from his own lips words that prove him to be dishonest," said the captain. "You don't suppose he can recognize me if he looks over here?"

"Sit as you are. You are in the shadow. I am watching."

Riney, Captain Adams's mate, appeared nervous. He arose and went to the bar again, then resumed his seat at the table.

In the corner of the room men were wildly applauding Sally Wood's music. She ceased playing when she saw Jack Connor standing near the plaform [sic], and walked over to him.

"You've been drinking too much again," she accused. "Why do you?"

"Now, Sally, I'm not in a mood for a lecture to-night. You've been playing too much; you look tired."

"I get sick of it at times."

There was agony in the woman's voice. Connor looked down at her with sympathy in his face. It was not sympathy she wanted to see there.

"It is pretty hard on you," he said. "Why don't you give it up? Let the scoundrel go!"

"Not until I find him and punish him. He took my father's savings, remember. My father didn't—didn't have quite enough to eat for a year before he died." She looked away, biting her lip to keep back the tears. Soon she turned toward him again, trying to smile.

But Jack Connor was looking away toward the opposite side of the room. An expression of unbelief was on his face.

In that opposite wall was an open doorway, twice as wide as an ordinary door, that led to a cheap café and restaurant where sailormen ate and painted women sometimes took their meals. Framed in it for an instant, beckoning him, he had seen the girl he had met in the street while with Morgan, the girl whose handkerchief he had picked up, mention of whom he had prohibited in this sorry resort.