Gatewood made no effort to launch his attack on the sailor’s word, contenting himself with planting a kiss on the cheeks of each of the blond sluts, half bowing to them, an unworried smile on his lips.
Kahla shuffled a couple of steps across the deck, as though he were testing out the footing, the rapier held loosely at his side, point trailing.
“Fuck’n get on with it!” someone yelled in a flat Yankee drawl.
A number of the watching whores started to giggle and clap their hands, eager to see some action.
Gatewood waved the enormous saber with a great flourish over his head, bowing and smiling, gradually edging a little closer to his much smaller opponent.
“Three to one on the colonel,” shouted a stout man who had dragged a chair out to give him a place in the front row. At those odds he didn’t get many takers, showing where the mood of the passengers lay.
“Take him up, Jak,” Ryan whispered, slipping a small bundle of folded notes to the teenager, who grabbed them and wormed his way through the crowd, keeping an eye on the fighters. He did the deal with the gambler, who looked surprised to have any wagers in on Kahla.
“Are you ready to meet your death, my tiny amigo?” Gatewood called, closing in, making Kahla step back toward the rail of the boat.
“As ready as you,” said the small man in a high, squeaky voice, like a pompous mouse, which brought a ripple of laughter around the deck.
Without any further warning, Gatewood was on him, swinging the massive saber with his enormous strength, bringing it hissing down, aiming at the neatly parted hair.
But Kahla wasn’t there.
To a gasp of shock from the watchers, he had ducked under the murderous blow and jinked sideways, pinking his opponent in the top of the right thigh with his whiplash rapier as he moved past him. He continued to stand with his back to the crowd, the blade trailing on the planks again. A tiny bead of crimson dripped from it onto the white wood.
“Touch!” Doc called out delightedly. “Tapped his claret for him.”
In that split second the whole atmosphere changed as the knowledgeable passengers realized that the duel now had a whole different scenario.
Gatewood also backed away, cursing, rubbing a hand at the small wound. “A mere nothing,” he said with a sneer, but his face had grown pale, his eyes flickering nervously from side to side. Ryan noticed beads of sweat on his forehead.
“The next will not be nothing,” Kahla riposted, his confidence visibly grown.
What happened was so fast that even Ryan couldn’t be certain just what he’d seen.
The crowd behind the little Mexican jostled and pushed violently, and there was a volley of curses, followed by a woman’s scream.
And the thin metallic sound of steel snapping.
“Someone broke his blade,” J.B. hissed. “Stamped on it. Bastards. I didn’t see who”
Time froze.
Kahla was holding the hilt of his fencing sword, with only a couple of jagged inches left of the blade. His jaw dropped, and he saw his death advancing.
Gatewood grinned wolfishly, moving fast, the saber half lifted.
Ryan reached for the SIG-Sauer, but the sailor was swinging around with his Taurus. “No blasters,” he shouted. “I’ll chill the first man draws a blaster. It’s only swords and”
For once in his life Doc reacted with lightning speed, drawing his own rapier from its ebony sheath and throwing it toward the trapped man. “Take it,” he called. “And use it with honor.”
The Toledo steel caught the burning rays of the dying sun, glinting like a flash of molten blood, spinning across the deck. Diego Kahla snatched at it, dropping his own sabotaged sword, flashing a smile at Doc.
“Cheating!” someone roared, possibly the man in the chair. And the sailor spun toward Doc, finding himself looking down the muzzles of five blasters.
“No cheating,” Ryan yelled. “Swords!” The officer nodded slowly and thoughtfully, then reluctantly lowered his own weapon.
It was Gatewood’s turn to back away, driven toward the rail by the weaving web of deathly steel.
Kahla used the perfectly balanced blade like the master he obviously was, cutting the bigger man three, four times, across the arm, the knee and on both sides of the face. Blood streamed over the white suit, invisible on the crimson vest. Gatewood was breathing raggedly, trying to keep up the guard of the heavy saber. But his strength was being sapped, and the end was coming.