After their confrontation with Pyra Quadde, Ryan and Donfil were kitted out with seaboots and marshaled along to meet the first mate of the ship, Cyrus Ogg.
Ryan had once witnessed the impaling of a child-killer in a frontier pesthole, near the old Idaho panhandle. He had been the mildest, gentlest-looking man you could see in many a country mile: rimless glasses behind which merry eyes twinkled; a halo of silver hair, brushed back off a high academic's forehead; neat little hands and feet — hands that had rammed a full beer bottle down the throat of a pretty little girl of twelve summers. Feet that had kicked her upper body so hard the bottle had smashed within her. His even white teeth had bitten at the dying child and... Ryan preferred not to recall the rest of the revolting details.
But at a first meeting there was much about Cyrus Ogg that put him in mind of the Idaho butcher. He had the same fluffy white hair and round, benevolent face, the hint of a smile at the corner of the full, cherubic lips. No more than five and a half feet tall, Ogg looked as though he might just tip the scales at 120 pounds, sopping wet. He wore black pants and jacket, like a deacon out to bless a summer barn raising.
He had greeted the two new recruits to his whale-boat's crew with a nod of the head. "I have heard of both of ye," he said quietly. "Master Ten-from-Ten, the Indian, and Master Deadman, the one-eyed outlander."
"Deadman?" Ryan asked.
"Some come to the Salvationliving and slip into the waters to feed the fishes with not even a prayer to their names. Some come as men already dead and live to walk down the gangplank into Claggaftville town with jack in their pockets and a song in their hearts. Who knows which thou shalt be, Master Deadman. But it is no secret how Captain Quadde thinks of thee." He shook his head. "With a sorry lack of affection, I do fear."
"She'll chill me." Ryan was careful not to even hint at it being a question.
Ogg pondered a few moments, tugging at the lobe of his left ear. "She will, I think. Pyra Quadde is a mystery shrouded in a puzzle, Master Deadman. The finest skipper to sail these waters. Generous in the 'warding of lays to ironsmen and crew alike. Yet there is a shadow that sits 'cross her soul and cannot be denied. Step always to windward of her and jump when she speaks. And who knows what might await thee at journey's end."
It was to be some days before Ryan and Donfil had the opportunity to witness the skillful aspect of the woman's character. But they were treated to a glimpse of her dark side before that first day had run its course through to evening.
Ryan and Donfil had been sent to the workbench, just aft the tryworks, running the strong line between them that would set in the main-line and spare-line tubs in each of the dories.
They talked quietly as they worked, but not of escape or revenge. That was pointless. Unless they could rouse the crew to mutiny there was no chance at all of escape. And such things only happened in the old vids and stories.
The Apache spoke to Ryan of hunting trips as a young man, across the crimson and ocher wilderness of the Southwest, chasing a mutie cougar that had carried off a dozen young children from their rancheria. He told of how a bullet from his buffalo rifle had put the beast down as it darted for cover in a narrow arroyo.
"More than half of a mile," Donfil said, his hand describing the classic rainbow arch of the long .50-caliber bullet.
"Good shot."
"What is your best shot, brother?"
"Like asking me what's the best breath I ever drew. Can't recall. Been too many."
"Those that saved your life, or the life of a friend?"
Ryan straightened a kink in the coil of rope. "Still too many, Donfil."
They worked on in silence for several minutes, only looking up as the first mate walked slowly past, hands clasped in the small of his back.
"Man as quiet as that is either a saint or a demon," Donfil whispered.
"I see him as a dangerous son of a bastard that we gotta watch real careful, Donfil. That's what I see."
Ryan and Donfil were ordered aloft with the rest of the deckhands to shorten sail and reef back as the wind began to blow with a serious intent. Chem clouds, rolling banks of deep purple, lowered over the eastern horizon directly ahead of them. They could see the frail silver of lightning and hear the sonorous drumbeat of thunder, flat and menacing so far out to sea. The rigging was cold, and Ryan found his hands clumsy on the sodden cordage. He and Donfil had begun to climb toward the mainmast when Ogg beckoned them back onto the streaming deck.
"Captain Quadde would not deal kindly with me if I let ye drown on the first day of our voyage. Wear those boots aloft and ye are both dead. Naked toes, my lads. Naked toes."
It was wise advice. Ryan was able to hang on to the loops of ninny-shrouds with his feet, battling the flapping canvas, risking, at the least, broken nails as he fought to give the wind less sail to bite upon. Rain beat on his face, soaking his hair and clothes. A few of the men wore waterproofed coats, but they caught the gale and made the reefing even more dangerous. One man slipped and would have fallen if Ryan hadn't reached across and grabbed him by the wrist, steadying him until his scrabbling feet found a safe purchase once more.
"Thanks!" he shouted, barely audible over the bedlam of the rising storm.
Lighting was all around them as they plowed through the remorseless rolling waves of the Lantic. One burst was so close that Ryan felt his hair stand on end, and his skin tingled with the static electricity all about. The sun had disappeared, and it was pitch-dark, so that Ryan could barely even make out the tiny rectangle of the deck as it rolled far beneath him.
Blinking rain from his eye, feeling it running bitter and salty into the other socket, Ryan could just make out the stumpy figure of Pyra Quadde, stalking about the deck, bellowing out orders to her crew.
The mast was swinging so far that it was like being attached to a wild pendulum that threatened to throw the men far off into the sea at the end of each savage roll.
Ryan couldn't believe the casual skill that the crew of the Salvationshowed, moving across the rigging like ants on a peach tree, never losing a foothold, taking in the sail in armfuls of stubborn canvas. Farther along the spar he could see the skeletal figure of Donfil, arms and legs tangled in the ropes, eyes wide with fear, jaws clamped tight.
After what seemed a thousand years of screaming wind, blackness and stark white light, it was done. Ogg and Walsh called the men down off the frail spars to the sold deck, Walsh speeding the tardy with curses and his rope's end, Ogg, with his deceptively gentle words of encouragement.
While they waited, huddled together and soaking wet, the crew exchanged jokes. Ryan found himself standing between the shivering Donfil and the sailor whom he'd saved from a watery grave.
"Name's Johnny Flynn, outlander. Thou hast me hand an' me heart for that deed o' goodness."
The hand was offered and shaken surreptitiously in the darkness. Flynn was a short man, barely five foot six. His face had an alert, foxy brightness, his smile marred only by a total lack of teeth.
"Do the same for any man," Ryan responded, careful to speak out of the corner of his mouth, so as not to draw attention to himself.
"I'd have been fine and dandy but I broke this shifting barrels yesterday forenoon." He raised the middle finger of his left hand, the joint swollen and purple, the nail crusted with dried blood.
"Why not tell one of the mates?"
Johnny Flynn laughed bitterly. "Sure can tell thou'rt not from these parts. There's good and plenty jack to be made with Captain Quadde. Long as thou dost not rock the boat with her."