Hunter's Prize (3 page)

“Maybe not, boss,” Charlie said as he approached. “Take a gander at what he’s done.”

Denny groaned. So much for the few extra quid. “The window’s cracked, ain’t it?”

Charlie shook his head. “Not cracked. The little beggar left his calling card.”

“What are you on about now?” Curious, he bent to stare at the pane. What he saw fired a rushing sound inside his ears.

“Blast me! Will you look at that?” Heart racing, he ran his finger over the jagged letters of Ceddy’s name etched into the glass.

Charlie scratched the wiggly lines with his thumbnail. “He’s done it now, ain’t he? It’s ruined.” Standing, he tugged on Denny’s sleeve. “There’s still time to do a runner. No one’s noticed yet.”

Denny jerked off his cap and whacked Charlie on the head. “Don’t you know what you’re looking at, you mindless dolt?”

Clutching his reddening ear, Charlie frowned and shook his head.

“Use your loaf, mate. Nothing will cut into glass like that except …” His voice rose on the end, inviting Charlie to finish.

Wheeling, Charlie stared toward the train, the last car glinting on the horizon. “You mean that hulking great rock is a …” His words trailed off, but his eyes bulged from their sockets.

Denny gripped his arm and spun him around. “Where was that silly woman taking the boy?”

“To London for Christmas.” Charlie flapped his hands as if it helped him to remember. “Then somewhere in America. Texas, I think.”

“Ah yes,” Denny said, the satisfying
hiss
befitting his slanted eyes. “I remember now.” He whirled and stared down the tracks. “They’re bound for a place called Marshall.”

Galveston, Texas, December 1904

S
alty spray blasted Pearson Foster as he hurdled the side of the dinghy and hauled the boat to shore. Cold, wet clothes clung to his body, and gritty sand chafed his shivering frame.

Bone-wracking fatigue wasn’t new to Pearson. Neither was the disappointment weighing his heart. The latest promising lead to the treasure of Jean Lafitte had him combing deserted beaches again to no avail—after he’d sworn never to fall for the legend again.

This time he’d been so sure.

If “the Terror of the Gulf” had hidden a stash of gold on Galveston Island, he’d buried it well. The only things Pearson had unearthed in his relentless pursuit of the pirate’s treasure were painful memories and deep feelings of utter failure.

Harsh sea breezes lifted his damp shirttails, waving them like flags of surrender. He couldn’t suppress a shudder and a quick glance at the horizon. Since the terrible day four years ago when the worst hurricane in history swept all he held dear into the sea, he’d kept a nervous watch on any threat of foul weather.

Pearson gritted his teeth until his jaw ached. “I should’ve been here,” he whispered for the thousandth time. If he hadn’t taken a jaunt off the island the day before the storm, he’d have perished alongside his family and the six thousand souls lost that dreadful night. Some days, when loneliness and guilt came in crushing waves, he wished he had.

At times, he tortured himself with thoughts of their final moments. His mother’s frightened face as the rushing water swirled under the door, higher and higher, until it lapped at the eaves … and beyond. His jovial little brother and innocent baby sister fearing that the shrieking wind, splintering houses and uprooting palms, would tear them from their parents’ arms. Hardest to bear, his father’s anguish at the terrible moment when he knew he couldn’t save them.

Jutting his chin, Pearson scowled into the bank of angry clouds, staring down the Creator Himself. As sure as the pounding surf at his back and the shifting sand at his feet, he’d never stop asking why God spared him yet counted his loved ones unworthy. As long as he lived, he’d never trust Him with anything precious again.

“Ahoy, brigand!” Theodoro Bernardi’s familiar voice drifted up the beach followed by his lanky body.

Wincing, Pearson pretended not to hear. He itched to push off again, steer past the breaking waves, and set sail. He’d sooner battle the restless sea than admit defeat to his closest friend. Instead, he put his head down and dragged the boat farther inland, away from the rising tide.

Grinning, Theo hustled to lend a hand, his oversized feet leaving great sucking prints in the sand. “Well?” he asked, the question Pearson dreaded evident in his raised brows.

“Nothing,” Pearson said calmly, as if declining jam with his morning toast.

Theo’s eyes echoed Pearson’s frustration. “Too bad, Pearce. I know you were hopeful.”

Abandoning false indifference, Pearson pursed his lips and sighed. “It was a good lead this time around. I really thought—”

“I told you to wait till I could join you, no? With both of us looking, the outcome might’ve been different.”

Pearson shook his head. “Once I locked onto the site, nothing felt right. That blasted storm turned this whole island upside down.”

“Then how are you sure you found the spot?”

Pearson fired him a pointed look.

Theo lifted his hands. “Sorry I asked. I still say you should’ve waited.”

Flipping the dinghy with one heave, Pearson gritted his teeth. “Some battles a man has to face alone.”

Theo hooked his neck with the crook of his arm. “Well, you don’t have to drink alone. Let me buy you a stiff swig at Rosie’s to warm your mulish bones.”

Pearson stiffened. “I appreciate the offer, old boy, but my stand on strong drink still holds.”

Questions swirled in Theo’s veiled eyes, but he wisely bit them back. “In that case, I was referring to Rosie’s coffee. A shot of her stout brew should thaw you out.” He thumped Pearson’s chest. “And grow hair on this bald, girlie carcass.”

Pearson chuckled and knocked his hand away. “That’s different. When have I ever turned down Rosie’s coffee?”

Grinning, Theo pointed him away from the approaching wall of rain, guiding him up the beach to the outline of the wagon waiting in the distance.

Pearson understood Theo’s confusion about his ethics. His life was a contradiction that baffled him as well. Consuming rage kept him from communing with the Lord, yet he carefully maintained godly standards. It made little sense, but he couldn’t seem to walk another path. His upbringing by Christian parents had marked him.

By the time the buckboard pulled in front of Rosie’s Café and Theo set the brake, dusk—helped along by the imminent storm—had settled over the island, and the whipping wind had nearly dried Pearson’s clothes. To dry his thick, matted hair would require a bench close to Rosie’s glowing hearth.

Welcoming light from the window drew them past the double doors. Pearson relished the familiar comfort of babbling voices and soft laughter, the mingled odors of good food and men who smelled of the sea. Shouts of greeting melted the lead from his careworn heart. Grinning, he shook hands all around, returning warm smiles and hearty pats on the back.

“What foul breeze blew your ugly mug across the bay?” Cookie cried over the noise. Shoving through the kitchen door, the ruddy-cheeked cook poured a steaming cup of oily coffee from a blackened pot on the counter and slid it across to Pearson. “And after we’d set our hearts on never seeing you again.”

The gathered circle of men hooted, pounding on the bar until the dishes rattled.

“I never meant to come, that’s for sure.” Pearson pinched the man’s scruffy cheek. “But I couldn’t get your handsome face out of my mind.”

The room erupted in catcalls and gales of laughter.

Cool fingers tightened around Pearson’s arm. “What about my face?” Pearl, Rosie’s daughter, had slipped in from the kitchen and pressed against him, the smell of her hair and curve of her neck headier than any sip of ale. Her sultry gaze lingered on his arm while she caressed the swell of his muscle. Pearson cleared his throat, and she pulled her eyes to his, bold appreciation flickering in their depths. “Did you think of me while you were gone?” A slow smile tilted the corners of her plump, inviting mouth.

“You know I did.” He lowered his voice. “Almost every day.”

She pouted her lips. “Almost?”

Beaming, he winked at her mother who had come to stand behind her. “The other days were taken with thoughts of my own sweet Rosie.” He held out his arms to the portly older woman. “Come to me, vixen.”

Startled, Pearl glanced over her shoulder, stepping aside as Rosie coolly slid into her place.

“Don’t fret, little Pearl,” Theo teased, snaking his long arm around her shoulders. “I promise to think of you every minute.”

“A likely pledge, Theo Bernardi. You’ll think of me alongside ten other girls.” She flashed him a shy smile, but her longing gaze slid to Pearson.

Rosie held Pearson’s face with both hands, planting a kiss on his lips. “What wretched folly kept you from us, darlin’?” she demanded, her booming voice rattling the rafters. “The island mourns in your absence.” She tilted her head and winked. “And so does this old woman.”

He grinned. “You know me, Rosie. I’ve been chasing my fortune to the four corners.”

“The four corners of Galveston, maybe,” one of the laughing men shouted to the room. “We’re stuck with the great adventurer while Lafitte’s gold has a hook set in him.” Nodding at Theo, he gave Pearson a wicked grin. “Since your friend here hasn’t offered to buy a round of drinks, I’m thinking old Jean outsmarted you again.”

Pearson cringed, and a blush warmed his neck. Despite his secrecy, word had gotten out that he’d come home chasing another blind lead. Worse, that he’d be slinking off again in defeat. He flashed a look at Theo, who shrugged and shook his head.

“Don’t bother denying what I saw with my own eyes, matey,” thefellow pressed. “There’s only one reason you’d pitch that bobbing cork of yours onto rough seas.” He flashed a wicked grin. “And no mistaking the thatch of seaweed on your head, not even from a distance.”

The man’s companion lifted a strand of Pearson’s hair. “Looks more like tentacles to me. With all the time he’s spent in water, the lad’s more sea beast than man.”

Rosie’s glare wiped the smirks from his tormentor’s faces. Swiveling on their bar stools, they rounded chastened shoulders over their mugs.

Lifting her chin, she graced Pearson with a sunny smile. “Don’t mind those two simpletons. They still think the earth is flat. Grab your coffee, and come take your ease by the fire.” Hooking her arm through his, she led him to a table near the hearth.

Sliding onto a bench worn smooth by the backsides of faithful patrons, Pearson scrubbed his weary eyes with calloused palms. “Trouble is, the simpletons called it right. I’m a dolt to keep chasing an old fable. There’s no hidden treasure on this island.”

Rosie and Theo’s jaws dropped as if wired by a single hinge.

Falling into a seat across from Pearson, Rosie gaped. “I never expected those words to come out of your mouth.”

“Me either.” Theo plopped into a chair next to her. “What’s gotten into you?”

Pearson gripped his cup to still his shaking hands. “They’re feeling more and more like the truth.”

“Nonsense, dear boy. You just need something else to think about for a while. Something to whet your appetite … stir your sense of adventure.” A spark of mischief lit the depths of her eyes. Lurching forward, she held up a knobby finger. “And I know just the thing.”

Twisting to search the café, Rosie’s roving gaze jerked to a stop on an elderly stranger hunched over an empty mug at the end of the bar.

“Hoy, mister!” She whistled and waved her arm.

The man’s head came up and he frowned. Slowly, warily, he stole a peek over his shoulder.

“I’m talking to you,” she called.

His throat rose and fell, and he pointed at his chest.

Rosie nodded. “That’s right. Come over here, please. We’d like to speak to you.”

He slid off the stool, nearly toppling, and shuffled across the room. Five feet shy of the table, he stopped and licked his thin lips, so dry theywere cracked and white. His darting gaze swept Pearson and Theo, but the need driving him proved stronger than his fear. Venturing two steps closer, he pleaded with his eyes. “Miss Rosie … you reckon you might allow me one more on the tab?” His trembling fingers fiddled at his pockets. “I’ve come up a little short this week.” His mouth strained at a smile. “Well, I never been tall, truth be told. What I mean to say is my thirst stretched farther than my earnings this month.”

Rosie’s round face softened. “I have a better idea. Pull that chair around, and we’ll serve you a bite to eat on the house.” Resting her arm on the back of the bench, she scanned the room for Pearl. Spying her, she beckoned. “Honey, dish up a bowl of beef stew for our friend here, with a big slice of sourdough bread.”

Pearl stirred from her thoughts and slunk toward the kitchen.

Halfway there, Cookie waved her toward three newcomers sidling up to the bar. “Wait on them fellows first, gal, while I ladle the stew.”

“On second thought,” Rosie called, wiggling four fingers in his direction, “bring a round for the table.”

“Coming up, boss,” he said, spooning meat and potatoes into crockery bowls.

The old sailor’s weathered face relaxed. “Well, thank you, ma’am. Don’t mind if I do.” A new spring in his step, he dragged up a slatted chair and straddled it, crossing his wrists atop the back. “That’s mighty nice of you folks.”

Rosie leaned across the table, her mischievous smile in place. “I want you to tell these gents the story you told me last night.”

He tugged his anxious gaze from Pearl, who watched from the bar as she filled tall glasses with frothy ale. His brows drew to a knot. “Story?”

“You know,” Rosie offered, “the sunken steamboat?”

He withdrew to arm’s length, his eyes wary. “I never said nothing about a steamer.”

“Sure you did. The
Mary
or
Tillie
, or some such thing. She went down carrying a fortune in gold.”

Evidently, when he’d shared the tale with Rosie, his pockets had jingled with plenty of coin to quench his thirst. Whatever he’d told her, he hadn’t meant to let slip. Batting bleary eyes, he gnawed his bottom lip. “You’ve got the wrong man,” he finally blurted. “I don’t know anything.”