Chapter 9

With six sizeable, strong men sitting around her dining table, Alice at first wondered if she could come up with enough food to get them fed, but she became inventive. There was some venison available and the chickens had been pretty productive lately. She had canned quite a few apples and had plenty of flour and shortening and butter. Coffee was plentiful, as usual. It took some doing, but she had already been working at it, and the house smelled absolutely delightful when the Barkley brothers came in.

Nick smiled again, growing more at ease when the scent of good food came his way, followed rapidly by Alice and her welcoming smile. "It's nice to meet you gentlemen," Alice said after the introductions.

She had already set the table and now she brought out the butter and fresh biscuits. She also had some wild berry jam she set out. Nick was first to say, "Oh, my goodness, what a great welcome."

"The quickest way to Brother Nick's heart is through his stomach," Jarrod told Alice.

"Well, sit down, gentlemen," Alice said, "and I will win Nick over in just a few minutes."

Marty helped his wife get the food out onto the table, filling all the coffee cups while she filled the platters. The men all sat down, and when the food was all out, Alice got the head of the table for her efforts.

It was Nick who raised his coffee cup in a toast. "To the finest cook a man could run into after getting off a train."

"And the finest wife," Marty added.

They ate. They chatted. And when the food was consumed and they lingered over coffee, they started talking turkey.

The sheriff announced, "We've had one lucky break to start with. Mr. Stone's boat was found just after sunrise."

"Where?" Jarrod asked.

"Not that far away," the sheriff said. "Tucked into a cove on state land further into the Napa River. I've got a deputy watching it as well as a state man, and they'll be relieved overnight. If anyone comes for it, we'll be ready."

"And I'm going out there to watch with them," Stone said. "I want my boat back undamaged."

"Plan A," Marty called it.

"What's Plan B?" Heath asked.

Marty looked at the sheriff, who nodded to him to go on. "If the boat is taken out and they get away from us, we do to them what they did to you – take it from them."

"Do you have the manpower for that?" Jarrod asked.

"I've already had it lined up," the sheriff said. "I got local men volunteered to take a boat out as soon as we know who to go after. They've been lined up for a week. We just haven't had a target. Now we have one."

"Got a Plan C?" Nick asked.

Marty nodded. "If they slip through A and B, San Francisco is going to send out a trap. A tempting boat headed this way with several state officers on board to take anybody who tries to take them. We did that once before when I was in charge down there."

"And it worked?" Nick asked.

Marty nodded. "But I'm hopeful Plan A or Plan B will work this time. That time we didn't have those options because we didn't have any connection to who the pirates were. Now we have Jack's boat as that connection."

"It's gonna work," Stone said. "I'd bet my townhouse on it. We'll have these pirates within a week."

"I hope it'll be a lot faster than that," Marty said. "In fact, I'm hoping it'll be tonight or tomorrow night."

"What can we do to help?" Nick asked.

"If one of you Barkley boys can join Jack and the men watching the boat after it gets dark, and one of you joining the local volunteers in town ready to go out and take the boat if it slips away, that will do the trick."

The sheriff said, "I have to stay in town to coordinate all this and let San Francisco know if we need them."

Marty said, "And I'm afraid I still better lie low." He looked at Nick and Heath. "I assume you both know my connection to Jarrod and Jack."

Heath nodded. "We know."

"Well, I'm still not trusted enough around here," Marty said. "We don't want to muck this up with my history. But I have a small boat, and I can help with Plan B."

"With Bob being closer to San Francisco than Jack's boat is right now, we can have him and his boat out to back up the volunteers from town," the sheriff said.

"And the doctor thinks I better plan to rest up a bit more," Jarrod said, "so I'll stay here. That'll leave me available to help Bob if he's called on."

"If the boat slips away, I'll be alerted fast," the sheriff said, "and I'll alert our Plan B volunteers and send somebody down here fast. Either Plan A or Plan B is going to work. I'd bet Mr. Stone's townhouse on it too."

That prompted a laugh around the table.

The sheriff then said, "Get some paper and draw us a picture of your boat, Mr. Stone, so we all know what we're dealing with."

Alice got up and fetched paper and pencil for Stone, then went into the kitchen to make more coffee.

"It's a specially designed sailboat, sits a little lower in the stern than in the bow, and a little lower still on the sides," Stone described his boat and drew a rough picture and showed it to the other men. "A small cabin slightly forward."

"How do you think those pirates got up without you seeing them?" Heath asked.

"It was dark," Stone said. "Jarrod was aft, I was forward. Wind wasn't much and I was tacking. I suspect they came up in a row boat, silent. In the dark, they climbed over and hit Jarrod before he saw them, and then they were on top of me. They were slick."

"They've had practice," the sheriff said.

"And you don't have any idea at all who they are?" Nick asked.

The sheriff shook his head. "Nobody alive has actually gotten a good look at them. But they figure to be out of Vallejo, given where these boats have been hit. We've been keeping an eye out for who's been shipping things out of Vallejo, but there's a lot going on, a lot of business, a lot of shipping. We haven't narrowed it down yet."

Nick and Heath exchanged a look. This was going to be tough. "Pirates," Nick muttered and shook his head.

"We've got three plans," Marty said. "One of them is going to work."

"But if the pirates are only out at night, we're gonna be working in the dark," Nick said.

"But it's a moonless night tonight and tomorrow," Stone said. "There will be a light on that boat if they try to take it out of hiding at night. There will have to be or they won't be able to see what they're doing."

"We had a light on her and that's probably how they found us," Jarrod said. "We just had it aimed forward and didn't see them coming up aft."

"All right," Nick said with a sigh. And he raised his coffee cup again. "Here's to success, tonight."

They all raised their cups and toasted again, and privately, each one of them said a little prayer.