“I’ll take the first one,” Killian said.
At that, Jerricho nodded. He looked at Brenna. “Rooms are below deck,” he said. “The women are packed in pretty tight, but whatever space is available is ours to utilize.”
“Good,” she said in surprise. “Any chance of lying down?”
“Yes,” he said, “Killian and I have one room for ourselves and our weapons. I want you to stay there with us.”
She nodded slowly. “Where’s Jessie?”
“She’s lying down now.”
“Fine,” Brenna said, “lead the way then.”
He led her downstairs, where she realized just how tight the facilities were. But she was thankful for these rooms, and everybody was more than anxious to just crash, yet she heard excited murmurs as everybody discussed what had just happened. They all stopped speaking, as Brenna and Jerricho walked through the hallway, until he led her to a small room. He opened the door and let her inside. “Four bunks are in here. Killian and I are on the left. You take the right.”
She nodded and immediately laid down on the lower bunk.
“I figured you’d want to go high.”
“I want a fast exit, if need be,” she said. “It’ll take me that few seconds longer to get out, if I’m up top.”
He nodded in approval. “Keep up the good fight.”
“How about I just crash and burn?” she said instead.
He laughed. “Good idea.”
He walked to the other side and threw himself down.
“This is what you’ll do for your four hours?”
“Absolutely,” he said, “because four hours will happen so fast that I won’t have any chance to catch up on lost sleep. I need rest too.”
At that, she immediately fell quiet.
He looked over, smiled, and said, “I didn’t mean for you to be quiet.”
“No, maybe not,” she said, “but it’s important for you to get rest, just in case.”
“And you,” he said.
She smiled, nodded, closed her eyes, and said, “I’m okay to just crash.”
Even as Jerricho watched, it seemed like Brenna crashed in front of him. He smiled at that. Their marriage had been short and so many years ago that he didn’t remember ever watching her fall asleep before. It was an interesting experience. Something was just so innocent about that. He was adjusting to who she was now. But he liked this person. He wasn’t sure he’d liked the last one. He’d been smitten, but that’s not the same thing. Then his hormones had been involved and not his brain so much.
Right now was a whole different story. She had held up just fine through this shitstorm. He was proud of her. And with that thought, he let the last few hours of events drift through his mind, looking for areas that he was ignoring or was in danger of missing out on. But even then he couldn’t find anything. And he closed his eyes and slipped into a deep sleep. He slept solidly until a soft knock came on the door. He opened his eyes and heard the door open.
As Killian popped his head around, Jerricho rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and said, “Yep, I’m here.”
“Good enough.”
He sat up, brushed his hair back, and asked, “Any change?”
“It’s completely smooth out there. Are you okay to do a shift?” Killian asked.
“Of course,” he said. “I’m fine.” He sat up and quickly stepped over and waited until Killian stretched out and asked, “Anything to report?”
“No,” he said, “it’s all good. It’s been quiet.”
“Progress and speed?”
“ETA is another eight hours.”
“Shit, that long still?”
“Yes. The captain is back at the helm though. And he’s more than grateful for our help. At the same time I think he’s quite pissed that he got taken. And he’s even angrier that he was in this position altogether, so he is a mix between happy and pissed.”
“Got it,” he said. “In other words don’t take anything for granted.”
“Not at all,” he said. “On the other hand, I don’t think he was involved.”
“That’s good news.” At that, Jerricho headed to the bathroom, quickly used the facilities, scrubbed his face in the cold water, and headed up on deck. That chased away the last vestiges of sleep as nothing else could. Cold crisp wind floated across the water. The captain called out to him. Jerricho smiled, walked over, and shook hands with him. “How goes it this morning?” he asked.
“I don’t want to let down our guard,” he said. “They came upon us so fast, and with such surprise, we didn’t expect anything.”
“Did they announce who they were before they boarded?”
“No, only that they were taking command of the ship.”
“Which is never very friendly,” he said, with a hard look.
“Are you telling me?” The captain was a grizzled old Ukrainian. What he was doing here was a long and funny tale, and Jerricho was happy to listen, as he extolled the virtues of chasing the only woman he had ever loved halfway across the country. As it was, she waited for him at home now, while he did these trips as a thank-you for those who had helped him back then track her down.
“I’m glad you’re on our side,” Jerricho said.
“I’m on anybody’s side who isn’t those assholes who boarded us and shot two of my men.”
Jerricho shook his head.
“Right off the bat, to make us all fall into line,” he said. “Assholes.”
“I have to agree with that,” he said. “That’s a pretty shitty move.”
“But it was also a fairly common tactic. Let everybody know that you meant business, and those who had survived the first onslaught were usually prepared to behave themselves. If they weren’t, then another one got shot. Until they were compliant. Usually, at that point, everybody complied. It still sucks though. Those two young men had families, people who loved them and cared for them.”
Jerricho deliberately didn’t let himself think about the dozen guards who had died in this mess earlier at the corral, but they were on the wrong side of a war that he hadn’t called for. “Did they mention the women?”
The captain nodded. “Said a group of women had been taken from them. And they were determined to get them back.”
“Interesting. So why did they need you then?”
“Hard to find the women,” he said, “though none of this makes any sense, as far as I’m concerned.”
“It usually does later, just not now, because we don’t have all the pieces.”
“Maybe. Can’t say I want them to make sense, if it involves those assholes.”
“And they were heavily armed?”
He shrugged. “They were armed. I don’t know about heavily.”
“Right. I guess that’s a certain judgment call.” He kept asking more questions, but the captain didn’t have a whole lot to say. He’d been knocked out fairly fast. Jerricho stayed in the pilot’s cabin with the captain for another fifteen minutes when the captain looked at him and said, “Hey, why don’t you put on some coffee.”