“You set us free on the beach,” the captain muttered, “so we owe you our lives. Then ya saved the Connie from the slavers, so we owe you half the cargo. Put them together, and much as I hate to say it, you want to stake a claim on the Connie I have to agree, on my oath I do.”
“Bosun!” a sailor shouted in shock. “Ya giving away the Connie?”
Jones turned on the taller man, and he backed away. “That’s ‘captain’ to you, O’Malley. And if I say die, you say how-often-sir, natch?”
“Yeah, I understand, Captain,” the man mumbled, lowering his gaze.
Turning, the short man scowled darkly at the companions, then spoke to Ryan directly. “Say she’s your ship. What’s the deal? We work as crew or get marooned?”
“No,” Ryan said, cutting the air with his hand. “We came here by accident and only want to leave.”
“Soon as possible,” J.B. added bluntly.
Captain Jones snorted. “Ship broken, eh? Waddaya need, wood, canvas, rope? Got plenty of that. Take what ya want.”
“We need shine,” Ryan said, resting a boot on a layered fold of canvas. “Couple of gallons of wine would do, even beer, or some copper pipe to make our own. Get us that, and the Connie is yours.”
The sailors murmured among themselves while Jones chewed over the amazing request, his face going through a variety of expressions.
“Any alcohol or juice in the lanterns?” Dean asked, gesturing at a hanging lamp.
“Juice in a lamp, boy? Don’t be daft. It’s fish oil,” Jones said as if it were obvious. “Smells bad down below, but gives good light. Got lots, if that’s any help.”
Jak shook his head. “No way.”
“Shine to fix a ship,” Jones said, cracking his knuckles. “Black dust, we’ve got nothing like that on board. Drunk sailors fall overboard. Now the ville had plenty, that’s what they gave us to celebrate finishing the work. We drank every drop and woke up in chains. More fools we for trusting villagers. If ya don’t walk wood, then ya ain’t worth spit, as Captain Fallon used ta say. God rest him.”
After a moment, Jones continued. “Now Lord Baron Kinnison has got lots of predark machines, some of them even work. He’d have that copper ya need. But I can’t take no man there. Oh, I thought about it. There’s a powerful reward for outlanders. But once he knows ya got rapidfires, he’ll skin ya alive to find out where they come from! And I can’t risk the lives of any man who saved my crew. That’s the first thing I’m paying you back. Your lives.”
“Mebbe we could reason with him,” Krysty asked. “Cut a deal.”
“With the lord bastard?” A sailor laughed, then abruptly stopped to grasp his ribs. “Better chance of arguing cold to fire,” he finished, wheezing for breath.
Mildred knew the man had broken ribs, possibly a punctured lung from the sound of his breathing. But she could do nothing until some sort of treaty had been negotiated. Politics was always getting in the way of medicine.
“No, can’t take ya there,” Jones went on, crossing his arms, displaying a wealth of crude tattoos. “Got plenty of shine at our home port, Cold Harbor ville. Shine so strong it’ll knock the stink off a mutie. Probably make your other eye fall out.”
Instantly Ryan felt the red anger well from within, the unbridled urge to chill everybody. But then he saw the sailor holding back a grin, and forced himself to be calm. Fireblast, the runt had been testing him! In spite of himself, Ryan was starting to like the man. He was hard and direct. Somebody they could trust, for a while, at least.
“If that’s what melted you down to this size, pee-wee,” Ryan shot back, “then it’ll do.”
Jones sputtered in rage while the other sailors burst into laughter. The short captain grabbed the curved butt of a flintlock, paused, slowly took his hand away and reluctantly cracked a grin. “Okay, Ryan, you want shine, then by God, I’ll drown ya in it! We’ll take ya to our home port, pack the hold with the oldest shine, best in town, steal it from the gaudy house if needs be and take ya back here. Then you’re on your own and we’re quits. Fair Steven to the nine. Agreed?”