Smugglers' Gold (4 page)

Ryder fell into step behind them, feeling no regret per se but canceling his plan to go directly on for lunch.

This job was finished, but he still had work to do.

T
REASURY
B
UILDING,
P
ENNSYLVANIA
A
VENUE

“How was the hanging?” William Wood inquired.

“About what I expected,” Ryder said.

“Was justice done?”

“According to the court.”

“Ah, yes. And are you ready for your next assignment?”

Ryder nodded, asking, “What's the job?”

“Our main concern is counterfeiting, as you know, but that falls within the broader purview of detecting persons perpetrating frauds against the government of the United States. In that regard, we share shared jurisdiction with the Customs Service when it comes to smuggling.”

“Smuggling?”

“Have you ever been to Texas, Agent Ryder?”

“Texas?” Ryder was starting to feel like a parrot.

“More specifically, to Galveston?”

“No, sir.”

“Nor I,” said Wood, “but I've been studying its history. It is a city on an island, also known as Galveston, after the Spanish nobleman who first settled there, Count Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid. He was the sixty-first viceroy of New Spain, during the time of our own revolution against England. Two hundred years before his time, Cabeza de Vaca and his crew were shipwrecked there. They called it the Isle of Doom.”

“Sounds inviting,” said Ryder.

“So it was, despite that gloomy start. French pirates led by the Lafitte brothers planted a colony they called Campeche on Galveston Island in 1815, raiding merchant ships over the next six years. Mexico established a port on the island in 1825 and built a Customs house in 1830. Six years later, Galveston served as interim capital for the Republic of Texas, bankrolled with fifty thousand dollars from Canadian investors. Confederates captured the city in January 1863 and held it until Lee's surrender. Now, it's ours again, after a fashion.”

“And there's smuggling.”

“An epidemic of it, so I'm told. All manner of cargo and contraband passes through Galveston, coming from Mexico, Cuba, Jamaica, and God knows where else. Customs taxes what they can, but some estimates suggest that they're missing more than they catch.”

“And we're supposed to shut it down?” asked Ryder.

“That may be a trifle optimistic,” Wood replied. “But we're obliged to do our best.”

“How many agents are you sending?”

“Only one, for now.”

“Just a trifle optimistic?”

“Don't be too discouraged. Naturally, I would not expect you clean up a port the size of Galveston, all by yourself.”

“So, what
would
you expect?”

“I have a more specific goal in mind for you. A more specific target, I should say.”

“And that would be . . . ?”

“One Bryan Marley, known to some in Galveston as King of Smugglers.”

Ryder frowned. “I never heard of him.”

“No reason why you should have. Marley's a Louisiana native, thirty-five years old or thereabouts. He's been a smuggler for the past twelve years, at least, according to his Customs file.

“During the war, he was a blockade runner operating out of Galveston, bringing supplies to the Confederates. Since Appomattox, he's been back in business for himself.”

“But not alone,” Ryder surmised.

“By no means. He's an admiral of sorts, commands a small fleet of his own ranging across the Gulf of Mexico and into the Caribbean. We estimate he has a hundred sailors under his command, and that may be conservative.”

“Can't say I like the odds.”

“Your focus will be Marley. And his second in command, as well. A character called Otto Seitz. German extraction, served a year in the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville for manslaughter, circa 1859.”

“A whole year?”

“I believe the circumstances were . . . ambiguous.”

“Uh-huh. What kind of contraband does Marley handle?”

“Anything and everything that he can sell for profit,” Wood replied. “He was part owner of the
Wildfire
, a slave ship seized by our navy off Florida's Key West in April 1860, with four hundred fifty Africans on board. Marley himself escaped indictment in that case, although one of his partners and the
Wildfire
's captain were convicted in federal court.”

“I assume he's not slaving, these days.”

“One would hope not. From what Customs tells me, he leans more toward rum, certain tropical fruits . . . and, of course, there's the gold.”

Ryder didn't catch himself in time, before he echoed, “Gold?”

“Not bullion. Coins and other items,” Wood elaborated. “Gems, as well. Some of the items that have passed through Galveston of late suggest Marley or the people he's associated with have tapped into a pirate's trove.”

“What, like Captain Kidd and Blackbeard?”

“Kidd and Blackbeard—or Edward Teach, as he was born—were wiped out during colonial times. The brothers that I mentioned earlier, Pierre and Jean Lafitte, are much more recent, and their progeny have shifted into smuggling for the most part, though they aren't above looting a ship from time to time. In this case, we—or
I
, at least—suspect that someone has uncovered treasure cached by those long dead and gone, moving the goods through Galveston and on from there.”

Ryder thought he saw where this was going, but he had to ask. “So, what's the plan?”

Wood smiled and said, “I'd like you to become a smuggler.”

“Oh?”

“Impersonate a smuggler, I should say. Our difficulty, when it comes to Bryan Marley, has been finding anyone to testify against him. The officials he's suborned are well established in the area, and they're adept at covering their tracks. The fences who receive his merchandise are wealthy and protected in their own right. As for Marley's gang itself, Customs persuaded one of them to squeal quite recently, but something happened to him.”

“Something? Such as . . . ?”

“Sharks are common in the sea surrounding Galveston, apparently. This individual—”

“I get the picture,” Ryder said.

“The job is not without its risks, of course.”

“I gathered that.”

“Marley is cautious, a survivor well established at his trade. Convincing him to take you on may be a challenge.”

“Who am I supposed to be?”

“A drifter, disrespectful of the law. Create a simple history and memorize it. Keep details of your jail time vague enough that Marley won't be able to refute them easily.”

“Get next to him, and then what?” Ryder asked. “Buy him a drink and ask him to confess?”

“To testify effectively, you must be witness to his criminal activities.”

“And that means joining in,” Ryder observed.

“To some extent, perhaps. Ideally, you should avoid participation in a felony.”

“And if I'm part of Marley's operation, will a court accept my testimony afterward?”

“There is a precedent for infiltrating outlaw bands.”

“The Pinkertons,” said Ryder.

“Among others. New York City's Metropolitan Police have had some fair results from working in this manner, also.”

“How far is it from Washington to Galveston?”

“About twelve hundred miles, as the crow flies.”

“And how am I supposed to get there?”

“Not by crow,” Wood answered, smiling. “Are you prone to seasickness, by any chance?”

B
ALTIMORE
H
ARBOR

JULY 9, 1865

G
ideon Ryder spent the day after his interview with William Wood preparing for his trip to Galveston. There wasn't much to do, in fact, since he had always lived in rented rooms and traveled light. He packed some clothes and shaving gear into a portmanteau, procured a leather case to hold his Henry rifle and its cleaning gear, then settled with his landlord on the rent. He did not pay to have the small and spartan room reserved for his return, since Ryder couldn't say exactly when—or if—he would be coming back.

Small loss.

He had no friends of any consequence to trouble with good-byes, though Dolly had seemed pleased to see him for a quick roll in the hay before he sailed. Or pleased to see his money, anyway.

The
Southern Belle
was waiting when he reached Baltimore's waterfront, on the Patapsco River. She was a stylish boat or ship; he never fully understood the difference between the two. Three hundred feet in length and painted white above the water line, the
Southern Belle
had three decks and sprouted a tall single smokestack amidships. Its wheelhouse stood atop the upper deck, forward, while its engines drove a single giant paddle-wheel astern. As he prepared to go aboard, mounting the gangplank, some of Ryder's fellow passengers were at the rails on their respective decks, waving and calling down to friends or family who'd come to see them off.

Steamboat traffic on Chesapeake Bay had been pioneered in 1840 by the Baltimore Steam Packet Company, also known as the Old Bay Line. Its vessels were dubbed “packets” for the parcels they transported under government mail contracts, although paying passengers were also welcome. In their two decades of operation prior to the War Between the States, Old Bay Line packets only traveled between Baltimore and Norfolk, Virginia, but their range was expanding in response to competition from the North. Ryder was sailing on a boat/ship of the Leary Line, launched out of New York City, serving ports from Baltimore on south to Norfolk, Wilmington, Charleston, Savannah, Jacksonville, Miami, and around the tip of Florida to Galveston, across the Gulf of Mexico.

Competition between steamboat lines had driven the price of a fare down to bedrock—three dollars for Ryder—but the frequent stops also meant more time at sea, if coastal waters qualified. Seven days and nights aboard the
Southern Belle
, which still beat traveling by train and coach through Dixie, where so many railroad lines had been destroyed by one side or the other in a bid to keep their enemies from moving soldiers and materiel. The trip from Washington to Texas might have taken him two weeks if he'd gone overland—or longer, if he'd traveled all the way on horseback.

Ryder's cabin, when he found it, was located on the second deck, roughly halfway between the bow and stern. It was his first time on a steamboat, and he found the throbbing rumble of the engines two levels beneath his feet a bit unsettling at first, as if the vessel had an epic case of indigestion and was on the verge of heaving up its latest meal. In fact, he understood there was a crew belowdecks, stoking giant boilers, building up the head of steam required to turn the paddle- wheel when they were finally untethered from the dock.

He thought their job must be a paid preview of Hell.

Before embarking, Ryder had considered the inherent risks of steamboat travel. He had read somewhere, likely the
Daily Morning Chronicle
, that during the forty years after the invention of the steamboat, some five hundred boats had gone down, killing four thousand passengers. In 1852, the federal government had cracked down with regulations on construction and maintenance of steam boilers, but accidents still happened. Only three months earlier, in fact, the Mississippi steamer
Sultana
had exploded near Memphis, Tennessee, killing more than fifteen hundred passengers, leaving hundreds more badly burned. Adding insult to injury, many of those lost were Union soldiers, recently freed from Confederate prison camps.

His cabin, so called, was more of a cubbyhole and made the rented room he'd left behind seem spacious by comparison. Its eighty-odd square feet contained a bunk that he could just about stretch out on, and a straight-backed wooden chair tucked into a desk-type dresser of sorts with drawers on one side and a mirror on top. A printed card on the bunk told Ryder that each deck had its own dining room, smoking lounge, and bathroom facilities. The latter were segregated by sex, with the women's facility forward, the men's located aft. Ventilation and a view of the outside world—or, presently, the backsides of his fellow passengers standing along the rail—was provided by a porthole the size of a dinner plate.

Ryder didn't bother to unpack, just yet. He set his portmanteau and rifle case atop the narrow bunk and made sure that his cabin door was locked before he left and moved along a corridor, known as a passageway on shipboard, toward a staircase sailors labeled a companionway. That took him up and out onto the upper deck, where he could scan the docks and almost see the point where the Patapsco River flowed into Chesapeake Bay. Beyond lay the Atlantic Ocean, and a long run down the Eastern Seaboard to the Gulf.

And then?

The rest, he thought, could wait until he had his feet on solid ground again, in Galveston. Or did an island qualify as solid ground?

He'd find out soon enough, in any case, and then his real work would begin.

*   *   *

S
ailing from the harbor seemed to be a cause for celebration on the
Southern Belle
, though Ryder could not figure out exactly why. He understood the whistles sounding, as a warning to the other boats or ships nearby, but since the steamer came and went from Baltimore at weekly intervals, routine departure on another run did not impress him as a grand occasion for the cheers that echoed from its crowded decks and from spectators lined up at quayside.

Then again, perhaps he simply wasn't getting in the spirit of the thing.

For many of his fellow passengers, he guessed, the
Belle'
s departure signaled the beginning of a personal adventure. Some of them were on vacation, heading off to visit relatives or friends or lovers. Others would be traveling on urgent business, anxious to cash in on profits promised by the end of war. A few were probably Republicans, embarking on a perilous endeavor as officials named by Washington to help administer the late Confederacy. What awaited them when they arrived was anybody's guess, but Ryder doubted that they would be welcomed to the South with open arms.

Fire
arms, perhaps. But that was what the bluecoats stationed in the former Rebel states were for, to keep the peace.

Ryder supposed that no one else aboard the
Southern Belle
was traveling on business quite like his, a secret mission for the government—but then again, how would he know? President Johnson was following through on his late predecessor's plan for readmission of the former Rebel states on relatively easy terms, while his Republican opponents in Congress—lately dubbed “radicals” in the Democratic press—clamored for giving former slaves the vote and passing legislation granting them complete social equality with whites. Johnson was holding firm against that tide so far, but even his plan would demand that southern legislatures ratify a new Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, banning slavery. Lincoln had sought compensation for slave owners forced to release their human property, but members of his own party had killed that provision before passing the amendment through the House in April 1864, and through the Senate nine months later.

There was still, Ryder reflected, ample room for intrigue on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line—and would be, he supposed, for years to come. The hatred spawned by civil war would not fade quickly, if at all, nor would the counterfeiters who had prospered during wartime suddenly give up their trade.

From his hasty education as a Secret Service agent, Ryder knew that a nationwide network of some sixteen hundred private, state-chartered banks were authorized to print paper money and did so, producing a staggering thirty thousand different varieties in all colors and sizes. In 1861, Congress had authorized the U.S. Treasury to print its own “demand notes,” replaced a year later by currency widely dubbed “greenbacks.” The vast array of paper money presently in circulation made America a happy hunting ground for counterfeiters, printing reams of “bogus,” as the operators called it, every month.

While I'm off hunting smugglers. Just my luck,
he thought.

Ryder was still uneasy with the plan outlined by William Wood. His former duties with the Marshals Service had been more or less straightforward: guarding federal judges who'd been threatened in performance of their duties, tracking fugitives who'd been identified by other officers but managed to elude them. He had never tried to infiltrate a gang of any kind, or even thought about it heretofore. Ryder had told his share of lies, but never had occasion to pretend that he was someone other than himself, much less a hunted criminal.

First time for everything.

The trick would be ensuring that it didn't prove to be his
last
time.

Going in, he had a physical description of his target, Bryan Marley, and a short list of red-light establishments he patronized in Galveston. Beyond that, Marley was suspected of assorted crimes ranging from theft and smuggling contraband to murder, but he'd never been indicted, much less tried and convicted. Bagging him depended on whatever evidence Ryder could collect, if any, and his own survival to present a case in court.

The
Southern Belle
took its time steaming out of Baltimore Harbor, into the Patapsco River. From there, Ryder knew, it was 39 miles down to Chesapeake Bay, then another 173 miles to the boat's first stop at Norfolk. Call it 2,300 miles from start to finish, by the time they reached Galveston on the Gulf of Mexico, with the
Belle
making an average 18 miles per hour between stops.

The prospect of a week on board was daunting, but at least he felt no stirring of seasickness yet. In fact, the grumbling in his stomach now reminded him that he'd skipped breakfast to be early for the sailing, and he wondered how long it would be before some kind of food was ready in the dining hall. It wouldn't hurt to see if any serving times were posted, then he could explore the boat for safety features, means of disembarking in a hurry, any kind of firefighting equipment. Just in case.

If something happened to the
Southern Belle
, he didn't plan to be among those lost at sea. Enough danger awaited Ryder at the far end of his journey without drowning or becoming food for sharks. He wanted to survive, at least until he went ashore at Galveston.

Beyond that, only time would tell.

*   *   *

L
unch service aboard the
Southern Belle
began at noon, five hours after leaving port and six hours before the steamer's stop at Norfolk. Ryder's stomach was protesting volubly by then, which might have been embarrassing except for all the talk and clatter in the dining hall, accompanied by steady rumbling from the engine room below. There was no system for assigning seats at any of the round tables designed to serve four diners each, so Ryder took one in a corner of the room, his back against the nearest wall—or bulkhead, as they called it on a sailing vessel—with three empty seats around his table when he first arrived.

The dining hall began to fill up shortly after Ryder took his corner seat, couples and larger parties fanning out to empty tables, leaving Ryder on his own. He didn't mind the solitude—in fact, preferred to eat alone if possible—but soon the other seats were taken and his luck ran out. A portly fellow crossed to stand before his table, nodding to the empty chair directly opposite and asking, “May I?”

“Go ahead,” Ryder replied.

The new arrival had a drummer's look about him: thinning hair slicked back, a waxed mustache and easy smile, ruddy gin blossoms on his cheeks and bulbous nose. He wore a broadcloth coat over a silver satin vest and white shirt with a black string tie. His hands, atop the table, looked like hair spiders. Underneath his jacket, on the left side near the armpit, a small pistol in some kind of a shoulder holster bulged against the fabric.

“Arnie Cagle. I'm in ladies' corsets,” he announced and snorted laughter at his own bon mot. Ryder obliged him with a smile and introduced himself as George Revere, the alias he and Director Wood had finally agreed upon in Washington.

“You kin to Paul Revere?”

“Not that I ever heard.”

“Now, when I say that I'm in ladies' corsets—”

“Let me guess. You sell them?”

“You got it right in one. Other foundation garments too, of course. Your basic camisoles and crinolines, garters and drawers, the latest—”

“May I join you gentlemen?”

Ryder glanced up to find a well-dressed woman of about his own age standing several paces from their table, studying the drummer with a look of mild amusement on her heart-shaped face. It was a good face, somewhere short of beautiful, but certainly attractive, underneath a small green feathered hat that rode atop a frothy pile of auburn hair. She wore a blue silk dress, high-necked, with wide pagoda sleeves, the hem of her wide paneled skirt grazing the carpet of the dining hall. Ryder had no idea if she was wearing anything from Cagle's stock beneath the dress but gave his mind freedom to speculate.

Cagle was first to rise, wearing an unctuous smile and saying, “Please, by all means, grace our lonely company.”

Ryder kept quiet, trying not to roll his eyes.

Cagle stepped back to help the lady with her chair, adjusting it until she thanked him, granting leave for them to sit. “I'm Irene McGowan,” she announced. “And you are . . . ?”

“Arnie Cagle,” said the drummer.