The Sea Wolves Read Free Page A

angled against the swell. Jack heard the two remaining ropes creaking as they were dragged along the railing—as the Umatilla pulled to port, so the attackers’ smaller vessel was being dragged closer to the hull, even as the ropes tipped it toward the waves.
    As Jack approached the third rope, it was under so much tension that water sprang from it and misted in the moonlight. It was almost beautiful.
    More gunfire erupted somewhere behind him, and men were shouting. Good. He hoped the returning prospectors had gotten one of the bastards, hoped the pirates hadn’t killed many more, and more than anything he hoped that his friend Merritt was alive.
    He paused by the rope … and then walked on. Because someone was approaching him from behind. They closed on him like his own lost shadow, and though Jack could not hear, see, or smell them, still he knew that they were there.
    Pausing beyond the straining rope, Jack turned in a crouch, the knife a part of his hand.
    The man was less than eight feet away … the man who had first boarded the Umatilla , but now his dark clothes were wet and there was a splash of blood across his cheek and forehead. He stood casually, as if on an evening stroll rather than a murder spree. He was huge—several inches over six feet tall, broad as a barrel around the chest, and Jack could make out knotted muscles and powerful limbs even beneath his baggy clothing. His crooked nose and the dark circles under his eyes gave him a mortician’s austerity.
    He regarded Jack as a man might look upon a landed fish about to be gutted.
    â€œGet your gold?” Jack asked.
    The man raised one eyebrow. His eyes glimmered, catching the moonlight and reflecting a brutal intelligence. There was no mercy there, but neither was this man vacant. His was a distinct, very decisive sadism.
    â€œSo you’ll be the cause of my raid being cut so short,” the man said. His voice was deep and mannered. Calm.
    The ship was turning harder now, and Jack could hear the tumult of the waters below, and see the masts of this man’s ship dipping left and right as it was battered against the Umatilla .
    â€œI don’t like thieves,” Jack said. His anger scorched, and he sensed the boiling savagery of his enemy.
    â€œWell then, it’s a good thing it’s no thief who’s going to kill you,” the man said, and he flowed forward through the mist.
    The last grappling hook, never tied off, creaked and then ruptured. Shards of metal skittered across the deck and whistled through the air. The rope lashed upward like a freed reptile, strands thrashing at the air as it sprang back over the railing. The big man turned his head to protect his eyes, and then Jack was at him, ducking low and driving with his left shoulder. Even after everything, he had no wish to feel his knife sinking into this man’s gut. Perhaps if he had simply stabbed him—used that moment of surprise to pierce him through the heart—everything else might have been different.
    Striking the man was like hitting a slab of meat hanging in an abattoir. There was no give to his flesh, and no sense that Jack’s attack had caused anything other than mild annoyance. Before Jack could gather himself for another assault, he was lifted by two massive hands. And then he was flying.
    For a moment he thought of that pelican, and his cry of fear and surprise sounded like the bird’s enigmatic grumblings. Then he fell, and his view swirled as he plummeted toward the sea—the pirate’s boat being hauled around and bashed by the Umatilla , the larger vessel crashing through the waves, and that big man on deck, watching Jack as he fell toward his death.
    No! Jack’s mind roared as he struck the waves and was pulled beneath. The cold took his breath away, and he took in a mouthful of seawater, gagging, forcing it out through pursed lips as he was buffeted at the sea’s whim. He recalled those