Читать книгу The Wicked Redhead - Beatriz Williams - Страница 21

ICLUTCH THE edge of a wooden crate. Throat too dry to scream. Each muscle frozen against its ligament. Gun, where is the gun? Anson whips around last second. Grabs wrist. Somebody help. Help for God’s sake. Nobody helps, nobody sees, fists still swinging all over the place, and there comes over me this strange sensation like I am looking upon this scene from somewhere else, I can’t possibly be living inside this present moment, clinging with my one good hand to these wooden crates, standing here on this damned ship on this damned ocean while a pirate fights Anson with a knife.

When a couple of hours ago I drove across a sunlit bridge in a Packard roadster, laughing a little.

My fingers slip against the crate and down I go, crash bump crash, sliding along wood, stumbling to the deck. Gun, where is the gun? Anson struggling. Someone in the way, can’t see. Knife flashes. Big hand grabs my shoulder and whips me around, some mad, grinning, red-faced meaty demon, I go down on my back behind the crates.

The impact knocks away my breath. The man comes down on top of me, fumbling, tearing cloth. God no no no. Gun, where is the gun? Hot stinking breath on my face. Hand forcing my leg. You can’t fight a beast like that on strength alone. You can’t just pitch your feminine muscle against his masculine one. Nature favors the conqueror in these matters; Nature wants the strong to populate the earth. You have but one chance, and that’s what he don’t expect. I force myself limp, gather myself together. Bring my knee up hard and dig my teeth into his neck, I mean I tear his flesh like I am tearing meat from a sparerib, and he screams and falls away, screams a fisher cat scream. I roll the other way, toward the crates, spitting out blood and skin, and there in the crack between two stacks of booze lies the barrel of a Colt revolver.

Snatch it up.

Brace myself and heave up to my feet.

Wheel around the corner of that stack of crates.

Gun in my left hand. Raise it. Find that silver flash, find Anson’s white shirt, still struggling, knife surging toward his throat.

Fire.