Holmes walked briskly down the street. "Why, Lestrade himself, of course," he said. "He clearly knows where the brothers are being held and is now rushing to verify they are still secure. Hurry, Watson! The game is afoot!"

Holmes, it transpired, had arranged for a carriage of our own to be kept waiting just around the corner from our inn. It was a nondescript brown vehicle similar to many we'd pa.s.sed on the streets earlier in the day. "Climb in and slump down, Watson," Holmes said, unhitching our horse from its post and patting the creature affectionately on the withers. "It's vital Lestrade not recognize us." He slipped on a porkpie hat and hunched his shoulders, and had I not seen the transformation or been sitting right beside him, I would have never suspected that the man beside me was my old friend. He clucked his tongue and sent our horse down the road, and when he shouted at some roustabouts to clear out of our way, his accent sounded as Cajun as a native's. Our horse was a dusky mare with a placid demeanor, padded shoes, and swift legs, and though the Appaloosa and its hansom cab had slipped out of sight, Holmes had some instinct for where he was going and we spotted them again within just a few minutes.

"I thought for a while he might poison us," I said.

Holmes smiled. "Not prepared for the Cajun spices, Watson? Remind me to tell you of the spices a friend of mine from Tibet uses to accent his yak b.u.t.ter and blood sausages." He slowed our mare to keep more distance from Lestrade. The traffic of Devil's Cape was not as congested at night as during the day, but it was rougher and rowdier, and we were hardly conspicuous. "But I know enough of Jacare to dispose of poison as a concern. He is much more visceral than that-remember the poor sailors aboard the Friesland Friesland. And he knows of me from Moriarty and your own florid accounts of our adventures. A creature of his ego could not allow me to die within his own city without looking me in the eye first. No, his initial plan was to use Lestrade to put us off the scent. Failing that, he wants to encounter me face to face."

"And you him."

Holmes stared at a group of rowdies pa.s.sing around bottles of whiskey and rum. "Just so," he said. "Since Reichenbach Falls, Watson, and the demise of that malignant brain who so long plagued us, I have been eager for a challenge worthy of our efforts. O Jacare lacks Moriarty's subtlety, yet, government aside, he rules this city. Deputy Chief Lestrade is hardly his only puppet, just the most convenient one for this task because our long familiarity with his cousin might have made us set caution aside. If the mayor and chief of police don't kiss Jacare's ring, then they at least lower their heads in his presence and allow him free rein."

We pa.s.sed by closely packed homes and taverns, twisting and turning through the city's maze of streets. Holmes occasionally took a path that branched away from Lestrade's, to keep him from recognizing our approach, but could not do so with as much confidence as he might have in the streets of London. We lost sight of him for nearly five minutes and I saw creases of tension in Holmes's face, sweat along his brow. Should we lose track of Lestrade now, I realized, the brothers Holingbroke would never live to see the dawn. When eventually we spotted him again, we both sighed in relief, and Holmes pressed our calm mare forward. Any exhaustion I'd felt earlier in the night was gone. The thrill of the hunt exhilarated us both.

Lestrade eventually pulled away from the city, heading east toward a ma.s.s of marshlands and swamp that Holmes identified as Bayou Tarango. Of necessity, we dropped even farther behind him, but the route was clearer here, with fewer twists and forks. The ground grew muddy and we pa.s.sed among huge trees swathed in Spanish moss. Insects hummed and chirped constantly and water bubbled in the bog. Mosquitoes and gnats swarmed around us. The swamp smelled of earth and decay, and strange lights flickered in the distance.

Lestrade turned in our direction for a moment, then pressed on.

"One way or another, Holmes, he will soon realize that he is being followed," I said.

Holmes grunted and swatted a mosquito that had landed on his jaw, and in the moonlight I saw a drop of blood roll down his face. "Be prepared for danger, Watson," he said.

I nodded.

He slowed as Lestrade approached a fork in the road, allowing the hansom to gain some more distance from us. For his part, Lestrade seemed to be gathering speed, anxious to reach his destination. He selected the wider path and disappeared beyond a cl.u.s.ter of trees, cattails, and reeds.

Our carriage rolled forward and then Holmes brought us to a shuddering stop. Lestrade's hansom stood at the side of the road, empty.

We moved quickly, climbing out of the carriage, spreading out, peering around in hopes of spotting him.

Lestrade had selected the spot for his ambush well indeed. It was very dark, the moonlight shrouded by branches and hanging moss. Holmes turned his attention to the ground, making out footprints despite the dim light. He spun on his heel, deducing where Lestrade was hidden, but he was too late. Lestrade stepped from behind a tree where he had hidden, nearly knee-deep in swamp muck, and pointed a pistol at Holmes's chest.

"Nice hat," Lestrade said sarcastically.

Holmes doffed the porkpie hat and sent it spinning into the swamp. "It served its purpose," he said.

"We can drop them games," Lestrade said. "You tricked me good, but I tricked you, too."

"Perhaps."

"Led you the wrong way, didn't I? Got you trapped, don't I?"

"You didn't note our presence until a few minutes ago," Holmes said, "just before you made that last turn. Should we go back to that last fork, I surmise we will find what we seek."

Lestrade flinched. But his pistol did not waver. He stepped closer to Holmes. "You're real smart," he said. "But smart don't matter when you're dead." He took another step. "What's the matter? Got nothing else clever to say?" Another step. "You're smiling," he said. "Why in heaven is that?"

"I'm smiling, Lestrade," Holmes said, "because you're holding the pistol on the wrong man."

While Holmes had engaged the deputy chief's attention, I had carefully drawn my old service revolver. At this cue, I aimed carefully and fired. Lestrade collapsed as though thunderstruck, and Holmes quickly stepped forward and put the policeman's weapon into his own pocket.

"The shoulder, Watson?"

"Villain or not, he is still a police officer and the cousin of a trusted ally," I said, hurrying to tend to Lestrade's injury. It was no glancing wound. He would live, but he had already slipped into unconsciousness and would not wake soon. "Look, Holmes," I said. I held up a small gris-gris gris-gris I had discovered on a leather band beneath Lestrade's shirt. I had discovered on a leather band beneath Lestrade's shirt.

"A symbol of fealty to Jacare, perhaps," Holmes said. "Leave him in his cab. Your gunshot might have been noted and there is little time to lose."

If we had followed Lestrade with caution, then we now moved with reckless urgency. One carriage wheel left the ground as we spun onto the fork that Lestrade had led us away from.

"Open the chest there," Holmes said, nodding at a small wooden chest at our feet.

I did so and discovered two gun belts, each with two holstered pistols. "Good G.o.d, Holmes," I said. "Are my own weapon and Lestrade's not enough?"

Holmes steered the carriage around a deep puddle in our path. "Peacemakers," he said. "I believe those are the types of weapons the Holingbrokes favor. Should Jacare have accomplices close to hand, we might need their a.s.sistance."

We traveled a few minutes more before Holmes pulled our carriage over again. I had spotted nothing to differentiate this stretch of road from any other, but Holmes gestured for me to leave our conveyance behind. "I smell smoke," he said. "And there is light ahead. Let us proceed on foot."

I slung the gun belts over my shoulder and followed him. What we were on could hardly be called a road anymore. The ground was muddy and split by gra.s.ses. I nearly lost my shoes at one spot. Bats swooped and dove amongst the trees around us, feasting on insects.

After several minutes we heard shouts, coa.r.s.e laughter, and screams of pain. We emerged from a cl.u.s.ter of cypress trees into a clearing, the moonlight suddenly bright. Perhaps a dozen men were gathered near a ramshackle house beside the waters of the swamp, jostling each other as they paced along a wooden deck and a long pier, a bonfire blazing beside them near the sh.o.r.eline. They looked like pirates from a century or more earlier, with wide-brimmed hats and vests over loose-fitting shirts. They brandished swords, too, though their guns were modern enough.

It was obvious which man was O Jacare. No matter what else held their attention, the others stepped from his path with expressions of deference and fear. Jacare wore a sweeping, rakish hat with a bandana tied beneath. A single gem, perhaps an opal, gleamed in the center of a patch over his left eye. He had a full black beard that stretched down to his belly, a jade-green jacket, and alligator boots. The sword that hung from his waist glittered with gold and gems.

But more striking even than the figure of Jacare was the sight that held the pirates' attention. A huge, dead bald cypress tree at the water's edge was being used as a sort of gallows, a rope slung over one heavy branch and held in the ma.s.sive hands of a huge pirate, bald and shirtless, nearly seven feet tall. At the other end of the rope, just barely above the water, dangled the twisted form of the Holingbroke brothers, struggling against their bonds and howling in pain and fear as the giant shook them.

As Holmes and I crept closer, I was shocked by the sight of the brothers. They were shirtless, their backs b.l.o.o.d.y from the lashes of a whip. I had seen an ill.u.s.tration of them before, and read of their condition in my medical journal, but my mind had trouble reconciling the sight of them, two upper bodies, nearly identical, sharing a single waist and single pair of legs.

Then I saw something that shocked me even more.

Something enormous frothed the water beneath them, some tremendous beast hidden in the muck. The pirate dangled the brothers lower until one's head splashed into the water, and then the beast reared up, trying to take his head in its enormous pale jaws. The pirate yanked them back upward and the creature missed by inches, crashing back into the water with a frustrated hiss and splashing the pier with a white, scaled tail.

I turned toward Holmes in astonishment, but he was using the distraction to run toward the bonfire at an oblique angle, keeping it between him and the pirates. I followed his example.

"Holmes, that creature-"

"An albino alligator," he said. "Quite large. Jacare wrote about it to Professor Moriarty. It lives nearby and he lures it close from time to time for games such as these." He peered past the flames. "Twelve men," he said. "And should the large one drop his rope, it will doom the Holingbrokes. Suggestions?"

I looked at the situation again, recalling my military experience, recalling Afghanistan. It was hopeless on the face of it. Two against twelve, the leader a ruthless criminal overlord. I turned to Holmes. "Yes," I said. "I have a plan."

A heavy hand fell on my shoulder. I spun around and found myself face to face with O Jacare, a smile cutting through the ma.s.s of his huge black beard. "I hope it's a mighty fine plan, Dr. Watson. Cause if I were in your shoes, I'd be sweating, I tell you true."

Jacare and his pirates led us to the dock where the Holingbroke brothers still swayed upside down from the rope, their faces resolute. I'd managed to shift the gun belts away from view under my coat, though that seemed little enough advantage for the moment.

"Heard a lot about you, Mr. Holmes," the pirate said. "Impressive, you tracking me from so far away."

"Elementary," said Holmes.

"You tricked Lestrade into leading you here, right? He dead?"

"Merely incapacitated."

"Like I say, impressive. He ain't dumb. Little less impressive, though, you getting caught."

I cleared my throat. "Holmes lacks your legion of followers," I said.

Jacare turned to me. "This your plan, doc? Get my dander up so I have my men back off and challenge Holmes to a fair fight?"

"I wouldn't recommend it," I said. "A fair fight didn't work out well for Professor Moriarty."

Jacare leaned back and for a moment I was certain he was going to draw his sword and strike me down. Instead, he laughed, a tremendous braying laugh that echoed across the swamp and set the albino alligator back to churning the waters. "I'm not much for fair," he said. "But I like entertaining. Twelve on two, where's the sport in that? We'll make it two on two." He nodded at the huge bald man. "Darce," he said. "Tie off that rope. You can kill Dr. Watson while I murder Mr. Sherlock Holmes."

Darce's fingers flew as he tied the rope to the pier using some complicated sailor's knot. As he strode toward me, I saw that he was even more gigantic than I had first estimated. His muscles bulged as he stepped toward me. He smiled a gap-toothed grin. "You scared?" he asked.

I forced myself to stand straight, raising my fists in preparation. "Are you?" I challenged.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jacare squaring off against Holmes. The pirate had drawn his gleaming sword, but my friend was unarmed and I feared for him.

Letting Holmes's plight draw my attention was a mistake. I didn't even see Darce raise his heavy arm for the first blow. I was slammed backward, careening off the dock to the mud. My chest ached. He charged after me, standing over me and leaning over to punch me in the face. When I rolled to the left, avoiding the blow, he straightened up and kicked me in the ribs. I rolled away, gasping in pain, and this time grabbed at his ankle as he tried to kick me again. It was like trying to uproot a tree, but I rolled into it with all my weight and he toppled beside me to the ground. He growled and snorted and pulled himself to his knees. I punched him in the jaw, but I had little leverage and he seemed barely to notice.

The pirates were cheering on Darce and Jacare, alternately laughing and jeering. I could neither see nor hear Holmes, but took some slight comfort in the fact that his fight evidently had not ended yet.

Darce b.u.t.ted me in the face with his head. The blow split the skin over my right eyebrow and blood flowed into my eye. I swayed, stunned, while the giant climbed to his feet, and could do little but groan in protest as his iron hands lifted me up above his head. Then he took three long steps toward the bonfire and prepared to throw me into the flames. Fearing for my life, I wrenched around, throwing my arm over his neck, and we fell to the mud together. The fall took the wind out of me, and my old war wound from the Jezail bullet throbbed. But Darce's face was in the mud and that gave me a brief moment of opportunity. I struck the back of his neck with great force twice, stunning him, then struggled to my feet. I plucked a heavy branch from the bonfire, wincing in further pain at the heat, and swung the fiery end of it at the pirate's bald head. His skin hissed as the torch struck him, and I shuddered at the horror of it, but I raised the branch once more and hit him again and he lay still.

The pirates stared at me in stunned disbelief. With Darce vanquished and Jacare engaged with Holmes, they were unsure what to do with me. I knew, however, that that advantage could not last long.

I looked at Holmes. He stood on the end of the pier, holding off Jacare with a board he had pulled from the deck. His jacket had been sliced open just over the left elbow and blood streaked his arm. My first instinct was to draw my revolver and shoot the pirate lord, but I stopped myself. If I missed, I could hit Holmes. And the other pirates' indecision would soon evaporate if I began shooting at their master.

Jacare swung his cutla.s.s at Holmes, who stepped to one side, precariously close to the edge of the pier, and blocked the blow with his board, which shattered into splinters.

"Skillful," Jacare said admiringly. "You learn kung fu?"

"Baritsu," Holmes answered shortly, eyes watching the pirate carefully.

Making up my mind, I pulled Darce's sword from his belt. "Holmes!" I shouted, rushing forward and sliding the weapon to him along the pier.

Holmes crouched and grabbed the sword by the hilt just as it was about to tilt into the swamp. "My thanks, Watson," he said. Then he raised the blade to Jacare. "En garde," he said.

The huge, pale alligator splashed the water again and I was drawn once more to the Holingbrokes' danger. I rushed to the rope that held them and began pulling it, trying to figure out how best to get them down.

The brothers watched me groggily, nearly unconscious from the beating and the strain of being held upside down.

I made little progress. Slippery from the mud, my hands kept losing purchase. I pulled off my coat and wrapped it around the rope. The pirates moved closer, drawing blades and guns, still not quite sure whether to murder me now or later.

Holmes and Jacare continued their duel, the blows from their swords ringing out like bells. "What the h.e.l.l are you waiting for?" Jacare called out to his men. "Kill the doctor."

I sighed, certain I would never see England again.

"Those belts!" cried out a raspy voice.

"Throw us them belts!" said another. I looked in surprise to see the Holingbroke brothers, all four arms outstretched, reaching for the gun belts I still had slung over my shoulder.

With no time to think, and the pirates closing in, I did what the twins asked.

I had occasionally indulged myself in the past by reading stories of Western gunslingers in the penny dreadfuls, always a.s.suming that their feats were greatly exaggerated. The circular Holmes and I had seen in Piccadilly Circus had described the Holingbroke brothers as the greatest marksmen of the Wild West, and again I a.s.sumed hyperbole. But I have rarely seen anything move so fast as those Siamese twins. Even beaten, exhausted, and hung upside down, they s.n.a.t.c.hed the belts out of the air and drew the Peacemakers in less time than it would take me to blink. All four pistols rang out repeatedly, like thunder rolling across the swamp. I turned around, wiping blood from my face, and saw to my eternal amazement that all the pirates around me had been shot dead.

"I got six, you got four," said one of the brothers.

"I got five," the other said.

"No, we both shot that last one, but I shot him first. You want credit for shooting a corpse now?"

"I shot him first."

"Nope. It's six to four, me," the first brother said. "Don't take it too hard, I think you got whipped more than me, too."

"I think you got hit in the head harder," the second brother said. "Affects your counting." He turned to me. "Hey, doc! You mind helping us down?"

I looked at Holmes, still locked in combat with Jacare. They'd moved from the pier to the deck, and his back was up against the ramshackle building. He'd been wounded again, a gash along one cheek, but I could see him smiling in the firelight, and he shook his head at me when I began to raise my revolver toward his opponent.

Without the pirates surrounding me, helping the Holingbroke brothers down presented little challenge, and soon they were sitting in the mud, rubbing at the wounds the ropes had burned into their legs and watching the duel.

"It's over," Holmes said to Jacare, blocking another blow. Holmes was clearly not as skilled in swordplay as his opponent, and made few attacks of his own, but he managed to ward off the worst of Jacare's a.s.saults, and continually maneuvered himself over to the pirate's left side, using his opponent's eyepatch as an advantage.

"Maybe so," the pirate said. "Maybe I should have killed you straight out, but it seemed like a waste."

"Surrender," Holmes said.

"Nah," Jacare answered. "T'ain't my way." He raised his sword for another blow.

"You have a very interesting accent," Holmes said. "It took me a while to place it. Your method of hiding your secrets is a bold one."

For whatever reason, this last comment rattled Jacare, who bellowed and charged at Holmes with all his speed.

Holmes dropped his sword, bent down, and kicked Jacare at the side of the knee. The pirate howled in agony, fell, and splashed into the water.