Oyster Pirates (Wells Fargo Trail Book #6) , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - James Walker

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216 pages

English

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The kingpin of the river is about to meet his match!When a shipment of gold bullion worth half a million of ready to be delivered to Wells Fargo, Zac Cobb is sent to protect it from river pirates who have taken over in the Delta. Along with his adopted son, Skip, and his sweetheart, Jenny Hays, Zac first rescues a ten-year-old boy who was caught stealing oysters and has only barely escaped with his life. They bring him with them aboard a stern-wheeler that's bound for Sacramento to transport back a large shipment of gold.But when the river pirates hijack the riverboat on its way back to San Francisco, they take the gold as well as the young oyster pirate and Skip. With the help of his aunt Hattie and Jenny, Zac searches for the boys and the coveted gold. What they discover is high corruption and a cunning man of wealth who is attempting to control all of the river traffic.The river pirates and their wealthy protector's dreams of commercial domination are about to meet their match. And the young oyster pirate is about the learn a lesson about thievery he'll never forget.

Informations

Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 octobre 1996
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441261953
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0202€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Books by Jim Walker
Husbands Who Won’t Lead and Wives Who Won’t Follow
T HE W ELLS F ARGO T RAIL
The Dreamgivers
The Nightriders
The Rail Kings
The Rawhiders
The Desert Hawks
The Oyster Pirates
The Warriors
The Ice Princess
The Wells Fargo Trail, Book 6
The Oyster Pirates
Jim Walker
© 1996 by Jim Walker
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
eISBN 978-1-4412-6195-3
Cover by Dan Thornberg.
In the midst of the story, this book is about redemptive friendship, the kind that builds up another in spite of his or her faults. Lifelong friends do that. This is why it is dedicated to my friends Noel, Mark, Bruce, Mike, Rob, Dave and Steve. Thank you, guys.
JIM WALKER is a staff member with the Navigators and has written Husbands Who Won’t Lead and Wives Who Won’t Follow. He received an M.Div. from Talbot Theological Seminary and has been a pastor with an Evangelical Free Church. He was a survival training instructor in the United States Air Force and is a member of the Western Outlaw-Lawman History Association. Jim, his wife, Joyce, and their three children, Joel, Jennifer, and Julie, live in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Characters
Zachary Cobb Undercover agent and bounty hunter for the Wells Fargo Company. Zac is growing reluctant to take assignments for the company as his relationship with Jenny Hays, his long-time sweetheart, grows more serious.
Jenny Hays Zac’s sweetheart. She has come to terms with Zac’s job, refusing to pressure him further. A patient woman, Jenny loves Zac very much and will not allow herself to think about changing him.
Skip Zac’s ten-year-old charge. Skip’s parents are deceased, and Zac is trying, although not very hard, to find any living relatives who will claim the boy. Skip feels very much at home with Zac and looks to him as a father figure.
Jack A boy of ten pulled from the waters of San Francisco Bay with the body of his dead friend. Jack is an oyster pirate and a thief. He lives in Oakland with his prostitute mother and survives by his quick wits and fast feet.
Steven Van Tuyl The skipper of the Delta King . Captain Van Tuyl is an old hand on the river, a man of experience and leadership.
Rance McCauliff A professional gambler who plies his trade on the riverboats of the Sacramento River. The man’s nature is shady and his contacts suspicious.
Dennis Grubb A pilot on the Delta King . Grubb has a great deal of experience in the river and is known to navigate in the fog by the “feel” of the boat on the river.
Manny A river pirate with a sordid reputation. He has been raised in a God-fearing home, but has long since left his roots to seek his fortune among the worst of society.
William Page A doctor from Sacramento who is fulfilling his agreement with a missionary brother to care for his niece.
Mary Page The daughter of medical missionaries in India. She is entering college and has little experience with handling the kind of men she meets after her kidnapping.
Colonel Princeton The leader of the band of river pirates. Princeton is a Confederate veteran with a grudge. He is brilliant in his planning and ruthless with men.
Robert Blevins A wealthy farmer and merchant. He is bent on controlling the trade in the Sacramento River and is the financing and intelligence behind the band of pirates now terrorizing it.
Hattie Woodruff Zac’s aunt. Hattie is a crusty veteran of the gold fields. Profane and harsh, she has a reputation as a scrapper.
Aunt Mamie Blevins’s aunt. Mamie cares for the riverfront mansion and oversees the entertainment of infrequent guests. She comes from a well-do-to family and has East Coast breeding and manners.
Cliff Cox An agent for Wells Fargo. He maintains his position in the company by way of marriage.
Russ Korth Henchman of Colonel Princeton. The man is quick on the draw and has a desire to prove himself with every man he can find. His rival in the group of brigands that report to Princeton is Manny.
Contents
Cover
Books by Jim Walker
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
About the Author
Characters
Part I: The Boys in the Boat
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part 2: The Heist
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Part 3: The Chase
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Author’s Note
Part I
The Boys in the Boat
Chapter 1
Robbie pulled at the oars while Jack stripped off his trousers. The bell on the buoy clanged with each swell. The fog made going difficult, but the tide was out, and if they were going to get at the oysters, they would need to do so within the hour.
Robbie continued to pull toward the sound of the bell. He leaned back and strained his wiry body, tightening it against the black, glassy water. If they could find the ringing floater, they knew where to go from there. They had been to the oyster beds a number of times. The bar of sand jutted out from Alameda and pointed straight at the lights of San Francisco.
Oakland and the two boys’ homes, if you could call them homes, lay at their backsides. The shanties they occasionally slept and ate in were nothing more than rickety shacks on the backs of derelict buildings. The slightest spark would set flame to much of the part of Oakland they lived in.
There was one good thing, though; if Jack and Robbie stayed out all night, no one would care. There would be no questions. Jack’s mother was what they called a woman of easy virtue. He had heard the term and seen her smirk many times when she used it. The man they were living with now was not his father. Rarely had Jack seen the man “out of his cups,” as they said. Jack had never seen his real father and didn’t know who he was. He doubted his mother did either.
Stealing oysters from the beds of other folks seemed to be the only way the boys could make do for themselves. They were both too lazy for selling apples on the street and too proud to beg. Jack had used what he’d come up with the week before to buy some food and the dark wool sweater and cap he wore. Even in the summer, the chill on the bay went right through to the bone. There had even been some usable pearls that fetched more in the way of money than copper coin. His mother had taken those, but with the money from the oysters and the pennies he’d already saved, he had bought the sweater from a sailor who needed a drink. It was a fine one, too, all ribbed and scratchy.
Jack pulled off the sweater and folded it carefully as he watched Robbie bend back on the oars. Robbie was older, even if he wasn’t smarter. He said he was fourteen, but Robbie was never sure of much, even his own age. Jack knew he himself was ten, though. His mother had been almost sober when she had him and even remembered the day maybe not the exact day, but at least the month. The San Francisco Bay was too chilly for Jack to stay in the water for long, but it would be long enough. He leaned over the side and ran his hand in the water.
“That is cold,” he said.
“You the one that’s got to go,” Robbie said. “You knows that. I can’t swim a lick.”
“I’ll go, all right. T’ain’t rightly deep ’nuff over them beds for a body to do much in the way of swimmin’. I can feel them oysters with my feet when we gets over the place.”
“How you go and put yer head down there in that water, I’ll never know.”
“T’ain’t hard none. You just can’t go to thinkin’ ’bout it much. Just do it and do it real quick like. That water’s too durn cold for a body to get much in the way of greedy on one night. With this here fog, we ain’t likely to get old man Riley comin’ after us.”
“I seen his new skiff yesterday,” Robbie said. “It sure is pretty like, painted yeller and green. He gots two sets of oars on it and mounted hisself a four-gauge shotgun on the bow. It be a fearsome sight, that thing.”
Jack looked overhead. The stars blinked through the low fog on occasion, and behind Robbie, Jack could just barely make out the lights of the big city. “With this here fog, I don’t think we’re gonna see old Riley.”
“You better hope not. That man catches us, we is dead.”
“Who’d ya get the boat from tonight?”
“Old Bill give it to me. ’Course, fer fifty cents I can’t rightly call it givin’. At what we gots to pay out just to do this, you better reckon on bringin’ up a bunch of them rocky boogers from down there.”
“You ever think much abouts what yer gonna be when you get all growed up?” Jack asked.
“Nah, can’t rightly say as I have. Mostly I guess I’m just too taken in with the notion of how hard it be to grow up at all.”
Jack shivered, his bare skin shaking in the fog. “I been thinkin’ about being a pirate when I gets able, a real pirate, not just a boy one.”
Robbie continued to pull on the oars. The sound of the bell was getting closer. He chuckled. “You is so fulla them dreams and stories of yourn. When you sets me down and tells ’em, I faint lose all sight of things.”
“Did I tell you the one about the green dragon?”
Robbie grinned. “Only about ten times. That’s one of my favorites, though. How you come up with stuff like that?”
“It just comes.” Jack waved his hand over his head. “Out of the top of my noggin, I reckon. That preacher on Fourth Street been teachin’