Collection 1980 - Yondering (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour

asked, “How long were you out there?”
    “Fifteen days, just a few miles off the equator. It rained once—just in time.”
    Faces of men he knew drifted by the door. He knew some of them but could not recall their names. They were faces he’d seen from Hong Kong to Hoboken, from Limehouse to Malay Street in Singapore or Grant Road in Bombay, Gomar Street in Suez, or the old American Bar on Lime Street in Liverpool. He’d started life as a cowboy but now he’d been at sea for fifteen years.
    It was a rough crowd out there on Beacon Street, but if he did not know them all, he knew their kind. There were pimps and prostitutes, seamen, fishermen, longshoremen, and bums, but they were all people, and they were all alive, and they were all walking on solid ground.
    There were gobs there from the battle wagons off Long Beach and girls who followed the fleet. There was an occasional drunk looking for a live wire who might spring for another bottle, and he liked it.
    “Maybe I’ll save my money,” he said aloud, “buy myself a chicken ranch. I’d like to own a chicken ranch near Modesto.”
    “Where’s Modesto?”
    “I don’t know. Somewhere north of here. I just like the sound of it.”
    Tex Worden looked down at his hands. Under the bandages they were swollen with angry red cracks where the blisters had been and some almost raw flesh that had just begun to heal. In the mirror he saw a face like a horror mask, for tough as his hide was, the sun had baked it to an angry red that he could not touch to shave. He looked frightening and felt worse. If only he could get some sleep!
    He did not want to think of those bitter, brutal days when he rowed the boat, hour after hour, day after day, rowing with a sullen resignation, all sense of time forgotten, even all sense of motion. There had been no wind for days, just a dead calm, the only movement being the ripples in the wake of the lifeboat.
    He got up suddenly. “I almost forgot. I got to stop by the commissioner’s office. They want to ask me some questions. Sort of a preliminary inquiry, I guess.”
    Shorty stole a quick look at him. “Tex—you be careful. Be real careful. These aren’t seamen. They don’t know what it’s like out there. They can’t even imagine.”
    “I’ll be all right.”
    “Be careful, I tell you. I read something about it in the papers. If you ain’t careful they’ll crucify you.”
     
----
     
    T HERE WERE SEVERAL men in business suits in the office when they entered. They all looked at Tex, but the commissioner was the only one who spoke. “Thank you, son. That was a good job you did out there.”
    “It was my job,” Tex said. “I done what I was paid for.”
    The commissioner dropped into a swivel chair behind his desk. “Now, Worden, I expect you’re tired. We will not keep you any longer than we must, but naturally we must arrive at some conclusions as to what took place out there and what caused the disaster. If there is anything you can tell us, we’d be glad to hear it.”
    Shorty stole a glance at the big man with the red face. A company man, here to protect their interests. He knew the type.
    “There’s not much to tell, sir. I had come off watch about a half hour before it all happened, and when I went below, everything seemed neat and shipshape. When the ship struck, I was sitting on my bunk in the fo’c’s’le taking off my shoes.
    “The jolt threw me off the bench, an’ Stu fell off his bunk on top of me. He jumped up an’ said, ‘What the hell happened?’ and I said I didn’t know, but it felt like we hit something. He said, ‘It’s clear enough outside, and we’re way out to sea. Must be a derelict!’ I was pulling on my shoes, and so was he, an’ we ran up on deck.
    “There was a lot of running around, and we started forward, looking for the mate. Before we’d made no more than a half-dozen steps, the signal came for boat stations, and I went up on the boat deck. Last I saw of Stu he was trying