Voyage of the Dreadnaught: Four Stella Madison Capers by Lilly Maytree

instead of Stuart's coming from the doorway as he came
through. “Straitens up and makes some changes. So the kid at least
has a mother he can look up to.”
    “ Nobody can change what they don't
feel, Cole.”
    “ Who needs to feel it? Just find out
what's normal and do it.”
    “ You should talk. Right?”
    “ Well, he's right about that, anyway,”
the colonel pointed out. “Doing right is a precursor to feeling
what's right. It's the way one learns to judge between right and
wrong. Good and evil, you might say.”
    “ Are you saying I'm evil, now, Mr.
Colonel?”
    “ Don't get sassy, girlie,” Mason
warned. “And take off those sun glasses. You got people who care
enough about you to try and help figure things out—show a little
respect.”
    “ I don't feel like it.”
    In answer, he reached across the table,
lightly knocked the bill of her ball cap up and snatched them off.
Only to reveal a glaring bruise that circled her left eye and the
bridge of her nose. An audible gasp escaped Stella. Millie said,
“Oh, no!” And Gerald leaped to his feet so fast he teetered before
darting at Cole.
    “ Hey, wait a minute...” The younger
man stood up to his full height and pointed a warning finger at the
ridiculous figure coming at him in his half serape hanging over a
green sweat suit “You just wait one minute!”
    “ Put 'em up!” Gerald danced back and
forth on his feet in front of him and began to circle his fists.
“You woman beater!”
    “ Don't make me pop you one, old man.
You hear me?”
    “ Nobody's gonna pop anybody,” said
Mason. “Sit down, Gerry.”
    About three seconds before Gerald surprised
everyone with a lightning-quick punch that knocked Cole DeForio in
the nose so hard it started to gush blood, and sent him sprawling
backward onto the floor.
     

5
    Somebody hollered, and the men got up to
intervene. But it was unnecessary, as Gerald staggered back at the
realization of what he had done, and sank down onto the nearest
edge of the dining table so he wouldn't slip into a dead faint.
Stella hurried to get a cold cloth to stop the bleeding, as
everyone else hovered around Cole and tried to get him back on his
feet, again. Which wasn't having much effect since he wasn't
responding.
    “ Good grief—” Gerald pulled his
watch-cap off and ran a hand through his thinning brown hair.
“Isn't dead, is he? Didn't mean to do all that. Oh, I
say!”
    “ He's out cold,” Mason pronounced.
“Where'd you learn to fight like that, Gerry?”
    “ Alarming number of people liked to
beat up on me, when I was young, so I took boxing lessons. Don't
know what came over me to hit him so hard. Must have done it in a
blaze of anger.”
    “ I'll say you did,” said Lou Edna.
“Serves him right!”
    “ He's coming to,” the colonel observed
just before the victim moaned and uttered a muffled
curse.
    Suddenly, there were two bells in rapid
succession, and then another two, and the young man struggled to
get to his feet.
    “ You better stay put till the bleeding
stops,” Mason suggested. “It's just Stuart wanting to drop the
anchor outside those narrows and wait for the tide to change,
again. And don't anybody go anywhere,” he added as he started for
the door that led out to the decks. “We're going to get to the
bottom of all this, one way, or the other. You hear me,
Shortcake?”
    “ Pop, I came back—isn't that
enough?”
    “ No.”
    “ Well, I don't approve of any of it.”
Millie returned to the table and stirred three spoons of sugar into
the tea she had poured from the things Stella set out earlier.
“Resorting to physical violence is no way to solve
problems.”
    “ I agree,” said Stella. “Cole, have
you ever thought of taking a course in anger
management?”
    “ Anger management—tell that to Lou. It
was self-defense. She was hammering my gut like she was contending
for some heavyweight championship.”
    “ I don't have an ounce of fat on my
body! Hit him, again, Gerry.”
    “