RDR: NO REGRETS - Chapter 303: A Hasty Escape, Part 2 (Patreon)

Stephen stared grimly at the large ship steadily approaching in the distance, an uneasy feeling spreading through him.

Why would a ship be out on the lake at this hour, especially one that large?

They were sailing close to the shoreline. Ordinary cargo ships had no reason to come this way.

Legitimate freighters followed the established shipping lanes toward Blackwater or other ports.

Smugglers, meanwhile, usually traveled at night.

And the sun hadn’t even set yet.

“Something’s wrong.”

Stephen immediately turned toward the wheelhouse, with Charles hurrying after him.

“Sadie, where are the binoculars?”

Stephen called out the moment he stepped inside.

Sadie had no idea why he was suddenly so tense. She pointed toward a nearby shelf.

“Over there. What happened?”

Stephen didn’t answer.

He rushed to the shelf, grabbed the binoculars, and hurried back outside.

This time, he could see the ship clearly.

Stephen’s expression grew darker by the second.

Then he caught sight of the flag flying from the bow, and his face tightened in alarm.

“Run!”

Stephen immediately shouted at Charles behind him.

“That’s a border patrol ship!”

As Stephen had just mentioned, the U.S.-Mexico border wasn’t far south of here.

Naturally, patrols were common along the border.

Under normal circumstances, they shouldn’t have ventured this far into Flat Iron Lake.

But whatever the reason, one of them was here now.

Their ship was full of wanted fugitives, and several large crates of weapons were sitting in the hold.

Stephen didn’t need much imagination to know what would happen if the patrol caught them.

He certainly didn’t expect those men to show them any mercy.

And fighting back was out of the question.

Through the binoculars, Stephen could clearly see the cannon mounted on the bow.

That damned patrol ship actually had a cannon.

Charles immediately realized how serious the situation was.

He rushed into the wheelhouse and told Sadie to change course.

Sadie’s face changed instantly.

Their ship was already full of the elderly, the wounded, and others in no condition to fight. Even if the entire Van der Linde Gang were aboard, there was no way pistols and rifles could stand against a warship armed with a cannon.

“Where do we go?”

Sadie shouted toward Stephen.

“North?”

“No! North is suicide!”

Rhodes lay to the north, and the place was crawling with enemies.

Even if they somehow made it past Rhodes, things wouldn’t improve much.

Flat Iron Lake wasn’t particularly large. Continuing north would eventually take them toward Flatneck Station in New Hanover.

The Pinkertons weren’t stupid.

Once they realized the gang had escaped by ship, they would almost certainly set up patrols along the shore.

If Stephen and the others landed there, they could find themselves surrounded within half a day.

“West! Head west!”

There was nowhere else to go.

East, south, and north were all out of the question.

Their only option was to force their way west.

The ship slowly turned before pushing west at full speed.

The patrol vessel had clearly spotted them as well and was coming straight toward them.

“Full speed! Come on, move!”

Stephen watched the patrol ship steadily close the distance, anxiety rising in his chest.

There was nothing else he could do.

The vessel beneath his feet was only an ordinary cargo ship. It was already moving about as fast as it possibly could.

The patrol ship was another matter entirely.

That was a genuine small combat vessel.

“Damn it! Why the hell are we this unlucky?”

Uncle, sitting in the wheelhouse with a drink in hand, groaned as he watched the patrol vessel draw closer.

“Don’t worry. It might be faster, but it started a long way behind us. If we’re lucky, we can still get away.”

Sadie kept her hands on the helm.

“Assuming nothing gets in our way up ahead.”

“I swear, ever since Blackwater, our luck has been nothing but terrible...”

“BOOM!”

Uncle had barely finished speaking when a deafening blast came from the distance.

A sharp whistle tore through the air.

“CRASH!”

A massive column of water exploded upward, carrying several unfortunate fish twenty or thirty meters into the air before gravity finally dragged everything back down.

The resulting wave slammed into the cargo ship with such force that it nearly buried the vessel beneath the water.

Even the wheelhouse was flooded.

And one wave was never the end of it.

Before the first had fully passed, the water churned up by the cannonball sent another enormous swell crashing toward them.

Their seemingly sturdy cargo ship pitched violently up and down, looking as though it might disappear beneath the lake at any moment.

The violent rocking wreaked havoc inside the cabin.

For a moment, it felt as though the entire world had turned upside down.

Everyone grabbed whatever they could find to keep themselves from being thrown around.

When the waves finally passed, the cabin was a complete disaster.

People and loose objects alike had been scattered across the floor.

“They fired at us! They’re using the cannon!”

Pearson, who had been hurled into a pile of clutter, shouted in terror.

“We’re not getting away! We’re all going to be fish food tonight!”

“Shut up, you idiot!”

With Juan supporting him, Hosea struggled back to his feet.

Seeing Pearson panicking on the floor, he immediately snapped at him.

“Get up! You’re going to get yourself killed lying there!”

If Pearson didn’t find something solid to hold onto before the next wave hit, there was no telling where he might be thrown.

Even Pearson understood that much.

Once the initial panic passed, he scrambled to his feet on all fours and wrapped both arms tightly around a nearby railing.

“Hosea! Juan! Check if anyone’s hurt!”

Stephen clung to another railing and staggered upright.

He shouted over the chaos.

“Don’t panic! That shot was only meant to scare us! They won’t aim directly at the ship!”

“How do you know?”

Charles stood beside him, both hands locked around the railing.

“One direct hit could kill every one of us.”

“They don’t want to.”

Stephen gritted his teeth.

“They probably think we’re smugglers. They figure there’s plenty worth taking aboard this ship.”

“As long as we’re still inside their patrol zone, they won’t want to sink us outright.”

The men aboard those patrol vessels wanted money.

And where did that money come from if not the smuggling boats constantly moving across the lake?

If Stephen and the others hadn’t been in such a unique situation, simply stopping and paying them off might actually have worked.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option.

If they were caught, the bounty on their heads would be worth far more than any bribe.

So everyone aboard had no choice but to run.

“Whoosh!”

“BOOM!”

The lake had barely begun to settle when the patrol vessel behind them fired again.

This shell landed even closer.

Clearly, their pursuers were running out of patience.

Another series of violent waves rocked the ship.

Everyone inside was tossed around like dumplings boiling in a pot.

“Damn it! Do those bastards think cannonballs grow on trees?”

John was clearly furious at having to sit there and take fire without being able to shoot back.

Clutching the edge of a window, he snarled, “Aren’t they worried about wasting money?”

Everyone knew artillery fire was expensive.

Every shot cost money.

“The military pays for the shells.”

Hosea gave a bitter laugh.

“But whatever they take from us afterward goes straight into their own pockets.”

“They clearly think they’ve got us.”

The difference between public money and personal profit wasn’t difficult to understand.

Hosea was old and frail, and being thrown around like this was taking its toll.

Juan and Kieran held him between them to keep him from being hurled across the cabin.

“What worries me is that all this cannon fire is going to attract even more people!”

Held firmly between the two men, Hosea managed to raise his head.

“If the people at the port across the lake notice us, they’ll come around and cut us off!”

“Good news!”

Sadie had tied herself into the driver’s seat and was gripping the helm with both hands.

“We can see the shore!”

“And the bad news?” Stephen shouted back.

“Two more patrol boats are coming straight at us!”

Everyone’s heart sank.

One vessel was already enough to kill them at any moment.

Now there were two more?

Stephen and Charles supported each other as they made their way toward Sadie, then quickly looked through the window.

Two small patrol boats flying the same flag were racing toward them.

They were almost on top of them.

“That’s not bad news.”

Stephen suddenly laughed.

“That’s good news!”

He slapped Sadie hard on the shoulder.

“Go straight at them! Get us as close to those two boats as you can!”

Sadie understood immediately.

Those two vessels were small.

They didn’t have cannons.

And if their cargo ship stayed right beside them, the larger patrol vessel behind them wouldn’t dare fire freely.

It couldn’t exactly start shelling its own men.

Even the U.S. military wouldn’t deliberately fire on its own men.

Sure enough, as Stephen’s ship drew closer to the two smaller vessels, the larger patrol ship behind them visibly slowed.

Its crew was clearly reconsidering whether to keep pursuing.

Stephen couldn’t have cared less.

This was their chance.

Sadie pushed the throttle as far as it would go.

The cargo ship reached its maximum speed and charged directly toward the two patrol boats.

“Vessel ahead, listen up! This is the West Elizabeth Port Security Force!”

“You have entered the Blackwater harbor security zone! If you refuse to stop, we will take enforcement action!”

A voice carried across the water from one of the approaching boats.

Stephen couldn’t help smiling.

“How considerate of them.”

Then his expression hardened.

He placed a hand firmly on Sadie’s shoulder.

“Go straight through.”

There was no other choice.

They either broke through or died trying.

Seconds passed one after another.

It was only a matter of minutes, yet for everyone aboard, it felt like the longest stretch of their lives.

“BANG!”

One of the smaller patrol boats failed to get out of the way in time.

Stephen’s cargo ship slammed into it head-on.

In an instant, the much larger vessel tore a huge hole through the little patrol boat.

“CREEEAK!”

A horrible grinding sound filled the air.

Their cargo ship simply kept going, crushing its way over the smaller vessel.

The initial impact lifted the bow upward.

With so many people and so much cargo aboard, their ship quickly came crashing back down, forcing the smaller patrol boat beneath the water.

The entire vessel shook violently.

Everyone aboard was thrown around yet again.

“Sadie! See that bend ahead? Once we get through there, we’re safe!”

Stephen struggled to point toward the channel winding southward ahead of them.

It was the waterway leading toward New Austin.

Sadie fought the helm with all her strength, turning it as far as it would go and steering directly toward the bend.

Once they made it around, the pursuers behind them would lose sight of the ship.

And under state law, those patrol forces had no authority to enter another state without authorization.

If they could just cross that line, they would be safe.

The cargo ship shot forward like an arrow released from a bow, racing desperately toward freedom.

One hundred meters...

Fifty...

Ten...

They made it!

The moment the bow disappeared fully around the bend, Stephen finally let out the breath he had been holding.

His strength left him all at once, and he collapsed onto the floor.

Only then did he realize that his clothes were completely soaked.

Whether it was lake water or his own sweat, he couldn’t tell.

“Are we... safe?”

Ms. Grimshaw sounded almost unable to believe it.

“We got away?”

“Yeah... we made it.”

“BOOM!”

The words had barely left his mouth when another cannon blast thundered behind them.

“CRASH!”

This time, it wasn’t a warning shot.

Unwilling to watch such a valuable prize escape at the last moment, the patrol crew had finally decided to sink them.

If Stephen could have seen the scene from above, he would have watched the shell trace a perfect arc through the sky before striking the stern of their ship with terrifying accuracy.

The stern, which had seemed so sturdy, shattered under the impact.

The force of the shell drove the entire ship violently down toward the water.

“CRASH!”

The vessel slammed hard into the lake.

Another wave rolled over the deck.

And the ship carrying all the hopes of the Van der Linde Gang slowly began to sink beneath the water.