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Confederates? I don’t believe it. He wasn’t political.
And he sure the hell wasn’t a Southern sympathizer. Wait. You said ‘they’.” Stover’s
jaw went slack. “Dunbar?”
    “It was Dunbar, all
right. He’d been working with the British running blockades for the Confederacy,
but it had nothing to do with politics. He was in it strictly for the money.
After a few runs, he got greedy. Didn’t want to split the profits with an English
captain. When the small steamer made the return trip from North Carolina to
Nassau, he took over the ship. There were about a half-dozen crew members. He
killed most of them and sailed to Havana instead. Took on a crew that wasn’t British.
    “Toward the end of the war,”
Payton continued, “the Union was more effective at stopping the blockade runners.
Dunbar had some heavy loses. That’s when he came back to California.”
    “He wouldn’t dare show
his face around here. He’s still wanted for murder.”
    “That’s why he conspired
with Hennigan to front his next scheme. Dunbar gave your boss what was left of
his fortune to buy arms and munitions. They planned to sell them to a group of
Confederates in southern California, but they wanted to use bonds as payment.
Dunbar wanted cash. So their next scheme was to sell the arms to Mexico for
their war, but that proved to be difficult. The French had blocked the Mexican harbors.”
    “So how did they expect
to make delivery?”
    “The French allowed the coastal
mail steamers to use the harbor at Acapulco as a depot. Hennigan arranged to
load the cargo onto a ship with forged bills of lading. Dunbar’s scheme was to
commandeer the ship that carried the goods so he could slip past the French. They
planned to deliver the munitions and collect the money. Then they’d sail the ship
to South America and unload the gold.”
    “Gold,” Stover repeated.
“Those mail steamers out of San Francisco carry large quantities of gold. I
suppose that was the extra incentive they needed.”
    He nodded. “They expected
to make two fortunes with one excursion. It was Dunbar’s misfortune that it was
my ship he tried to take.
    “We’d left San Francisco
for Panama,” Payton said. “At the port in San Diego, Dunbar and a few of his men
came on as passengers. Just before we got to Acapulco, he made his move. The
night was dark. No one spotted his small ship when it approached. There were
about a dozen men altogether.”
    He let out a hard breath.
“Needless to say, he didn’t get my ship. I shot him in the leg, but he managed
to escape. The next day we hailed a naval vessel with the Pacific Squadron. They
went hunting for him.”
    “Did they get him?”
    “No. They seized his ship,
but Dunbar and what was left of his crew were gone. They made it to shore and escaped
inland. It’s been six months now, and no one’s heard from him. The authorities
figured he died of his wound, but a few weeks ago, they got word he may be
alive and headed this way.
    “Since I’m one of the
few people who knows what he looks like, and has good reason to find him, I decided
to wait around and see if he turns up here. If he does, I’ll catch him and make
certain he stands trial for all his crimes.”
    “You’re going to turn
him over to the law?” A hint of disbelief resonated in Stover’s tone. “You seem
more like the kind of man who takes matters into your own hands.”
    “Thanks for your high
opinion of me.” He hoped the man caught the sarcasm in his voice.
    “I didn’t mean any
disrespect.”
    “No need to apologize. That’s
exactly what I’d like to do, but I do have my scruples. Killing in self defense
is one thing, but murdering a man in cold blood for revenge is hard to justify—especially
to the law. Aside from that, Hennigan and Dunbar had other associates. It’s
rumored that one or two of them were influential in politics here in California.
In order to discover the names of his accomplices, Dunbar will have to be
captured