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Culhane took it and smiled. "We've got trouble."
"Why didn't you write romance novels? We could just stay at home and make love
to research them and " Then she noticed Santini and actually blushed. "Oh hi,
Father!"
"You must be Fanny. I'm pleased to meet you." He offered his hand as he
crouched beside them behind the cabin exterior bulkhead.
"You're the military expert," Culhane said to Santini. "What now?"
"Wait. If they cross to this boat, we fight them but I don't think they
will."
"The suitcases?" Culhane asked.
"The suitcases? You're worried about your luggage?" Mulrooney squeaked.
"The suitcases," Santini said, smiling, gesturing belowdecks.
"Right," Mulrooney said. "Don't anybody tell me anything."
"You should talk about the books I write. If it weren't for your crazy books,
we wouldn't be in this mess. We wouldn't even be in Brazil. I would have gone
back to Miami after the Russians sank Seacutter."
"Sank Seacutter?"
"Tell you later."
Culhane took his revolvers from Mulrooney, and his other knife. He took the
bag, leaving her the rifle.
The riverboat shuddered, but there was no gunfire.
Culhane peered over the cabin roof. The bandits' boat was locked beside their
starboard side, pushing them, its engines evidently more powerful. Culhane
looked forward. The river split again, forming another downstream fork. And
there were rapids.
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"We're going to work again," Culhane snapped, pushing past Mulrooney.
The rain poured down now, washing off the wide brim of Culhane's Stetson in
rivulets. Mulrooney was soaked, her blouse clinging to her breasts and almost
transparent.
Culhane heard a scream. He ran from behind the cabin bulkhead, and behind the
packing crates aft, Magdelena was bandaging the Japanese, his left arm and
bare chest smeared with blood. "Look "
Bandits were poised by the gunwale of their own riverboat. The gap had closed
to less than six feet. Culhane started to go for his gun, but he didn't make
it. A hail of gunfire peppered the bulkhead near him, Culhane throwing himself
down beside Magdelena and the Japanese. There was more blood now: the Japanese
man was dead, shot through the head. The Brazilian girl was screaming. "This
is crazy this is "
Culhane pulled her close to him, shielding her body with his. "Santini get
some fire laid down to cover us!"
He couldn't hear a response; he could barely hear himself. The deck shuddered
violently under him, and he looked up. The gunfire slackened, then stopped.
Both riverboats were locked together, jammed somehow or perhaps lashed
together by the bandits. Culhane looked ahead. They had gotten into the other
stream, both boats now sucked along in the powerful downstream current, spray
lashing over the bows, the rapids ahead.
There was a shouted curse and Culhane looked to the bandits' boat. They were
boarding. Culhane grabbed Magdelena and dragged her back around the corner of
the cabin. Fanny Mulrooney was still there, clutching the rifle.
"Who's she?"
"Magdelena. A passenger. Take care of her, Fanny." Culhane ran past them,
searching for Santini. A wall of packing crates had been built to shield the
captain and his tiller in the stern, his two remaining crewmen. The third lay
dead on the deck, flanking him, guns drawn.
Santini and Sebastiao were completing another wall of packing crates.
Culhane raced back along the deck, grabbing Mulrooney by the forearm, hustling
her aft, then Magdelena, as well. Where was Helene Chavez, he wondered.
Gunfire ripped through the air from the prow where a half-dozen bandits had
come aboard and from the stern where the captain and his two crewmen were
returning fire. He heard the crack of Sebastiao's rifle.
Culhane started aft.
"Fanny!" He couldn't see her anymore, the rain and the spray of the river
water combining to make a gray veil covering the boat. The roar of the rapids
was deafening. "Fanny!"
Santini was at his arm. "Below! I sent her below with Magdelena Helene Chavez
is down there she's scared to death!"
"She's more sensible than I thought."
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Culhane edged along beside Santini, bullets peppering the packing crates and
the cabin bulkhead, skid marks from spent slugs marking the deck planks, the
deck itself ice-slick with spray and rain.
Culhane held his six-inch in his right fist, settling between Santini and
Sebastiao behind the first pile of crates, the captain and his two crewmen
behind the second. The crates were higher behind Culhane, Sebastiao and
Santini, and the captain's two crewmen were firing over them from standing
positions. Sebastiao put down his rifle and drew his pistol.
"They're rushing us!" Santini shouted over the cacaphony of gunfire and the
roar of the water.
The boat rocked and swayed and bounced. Culhane leveled the six-inch, firing
as the first wave of bandits came over the cabin roof, hurtling themselves
down. Culhane caught one on the fly, and then the fighting was hand to hand,
Santini locked in combat with one of them, gunfire coming from behind Culhane
as he wrestled one of the bandits on the deck between the packing crates.
Culhane heard the boom of a rifle and felt the body over him go limp.
Mulrooney held his rifle in the cabin doorway. "Look out!" From the cabin roof
another of the bandits was aiming a pistol toward her. She started to turn.
Culhane snatched up his revolver from the slick deck and fired twice, the
bandit's body flipping back, out of sight and gone.
Culhane holstered his revolver and ran to Mulrooney, shoving her back through
the cabin door, giving her his four-inch revolver. "Take this just in case "
"I know. Save three rounds for the other two women and myself. Where's Fred?"
As if on cue, Culhane saw her. She had carried the fight to the bandits' boat
itself and was surrounded by a half-dozen river pirates.
"Stay here!"
"Bullshit!"
Culhane shook his head, took back his four-inch, and holstered it.
He ran, half skidding, toward the locked-together gunwales, jumping like a
hurdler, crashing down into a knot of bandits on the far deck, his right fist
hammering out into a face, his left losing itself in an enemy abdomen, his
right knee smashing upward into a groin.
There was a shot, and a man with a machete collapsed inches from Culhane's
right side.
Mulrooney was on the far deck of the riverboat, the rifle to her shoulder.
Culhane jumped from the cabin roof, grabbed on to one of the bandits, and
wrestled the man to his knees.
Culhane's right knee smashed into the man's mouth, knocking him to the deck.
Fred wheeled, her spear hacking across the neck of one of them.
At least eight of the bandits still remained. The camouflaged boat was like
the very tiny car in the clown act at the circus: more and more men kept
coming out.
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Culhane grabbed at the girl. "Fred Me-em-ef!" He pointed to Mulrooney. The
Greek girl nodded and jumped from the cabin roof, using the spear like a club
over the head of one of the bandits as she leaped over the locked-together
gunwales.
Santini, Sebastiao, and the two crewmen, one of them wounded now, were
fighting more of the bandits on the riverboat deck between the walls of
packing crates.
From his vantage point atop the cabin roof of the bandits' craft, Culhane
could see the full extent of the rapids ahead. Walls of rocks, like massive
tombstones, rose from the foam and spray, and in the distance he could see [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]