“You talk tough and you make a lot of noise. You set your mind on something and that’s it.” I gave her arm a squeeze. “You’ve got a few good points as well.”
“Do I tell you what to do?”
“Not in so many words.”
“How, then? I expect you to make your own decisions. But once you’ve done that, then I get to decide what I’m going to do.”
I could have said, That’s the same thing, but didn’t. I still had the feeling she was somewhere between loving me madly and walking the hell out of my life.
“This is why I actually believe in the forty days and forty nights,” she said.
“That seems like a long time in these wild, permissive days.”
“Does to me too. But it’s a good, honest test. Separates the wheat from the chaff.”
“Then it’s a good thing. I wouldn’t want to be mistaken for chaff.”
“Never fear. I’m a little self-conscious saying it, but right now I feel…glorious.”
“That’s good,” I said. “That’s good.”
“It is good, and don’t look so troubled about it all.”
“You know why. It’s this business with Dante. Can we talk about that?”
“Of course. See how reasonable I am?”
“I want you to leave. And it’s got to be soon, before anyone knows you’re here.”
“Now see, that’s a dictator talking. How am I supposed to respond to that?”
“Let’s start again from a more tactful place. Will you please go back to Denver?”
“Certainly. Shall I book a flight for two or will Koko be coming with us?”
I stood at the railing and stared despondently out to sea. Somewhere in that gray void, Fort Sumter would be showing off her ruins for the new day. Right here, Charlie Warren had walked up to Richard Burton and asked what he was drawing in his notebook. Erin put an arm over my shoulder and tousled my heavy head. “Cheer up. Interesting days lie ahead.”
“That’s one way to look at it.”
“I’m giving up law,” she said a moment later. “I plan to stay current and take on a case if it speaks to me, but my days working for a big law firm are over. I gave notice on Monday.”
“What are you going to do, then? Aside from writing; I mean in real life.”
“I thought we’d settled that. I’m going to buy half an interest in your bookstore.” She tugged at my sleeve. “I’ve got a feeling there’s a world of books out there at a whole different level than where you’ve been playing.”
“Half a dozen levels, and they all take lots of money.”
“I’ve got some money. If we can get past this bump in the road, ‘ life could be fun again. Will you teach me the book business?”
“From the ground up. So to speak.”
Out on the harbor the sun had broken through and the fort appeared, a tiny black dot in a psychedelic mist.
“Koko’s going out to Fort Sumter today.”
“Have you told her about me?” “Yes, I have.”
“That’s a pretty dreary-sounding yes. I take it she wasn’t thrilled.”
“She’s a funny woman. Sometimes it takes her a while to figure out what she thinks.”
“Tell me about her.”
I told her and she said, “God, she hates me already.”
“How could she hate you? She doesn’t even know you.”
“She’s probably heard how unreasonable I am.”
I pushed at her arm and pulled her back again.
“I think you should go to the fort with her,” she said. “I’ll stay here.”
“What’s that going to accomplish?”
“Archer may call, and you can pave the way for me with Koko. Do you like her?”
“Yeah, I do. She can be difficult, like somebody else I know. But she’s got character.”
“I think she likes you too. If you know what I mean.”
“Erin, she’s twenty-five years older than me.”
“Just a hunch I have.” She smiled wisely. “Anyway, do what you can. The three of us are going to be together for a while and it’ll help if we can tolerate each other.”
CHAPTER 30
The threat of rain blew away and by noon the day was sunny. We caught the two-thirty boat, taking seats on the upper deck in a warm sea breeze. It was a thirty-minute ride, sweeping us past the city’s most elegant waterfront homes and on across the harbor to Fort Sumter. Koko had called her lawyer and her insurance company. The wheels were in motion on her house; there was nothing to do but push ahead. Our pilot droned into the PA system about the notable places we were passing in the city and pointed out sites of Civil War action to the west, but I didn’t hear much of it. I was thinking of the days to come, and where our trail might lead if everything here petered out.
Koko wanted to go north, to Florence. She was hoping some record might be found of the Wheeler family, where Burton and Charlie had spent those few days 127 years ago. Charleston had disappointed her. “I didn’t think it would be this hard,” she said. “These people put so much stock in their history, they keep records of everything, that’s why I knew we’d find at least some evidence of that photographer. Now that doesn’t look so good, does it?”
I told her to cheer up, we weren’t dead yet. But that choice of words cast a harbinger across my path and I saw the Reaper’s face in the white, billowing clouds. Whatever was coming between Dante and me was inevitable now, like a river pushing everything out of its path. If he didn’t find me, I’d find him.
Today the harbor held a deceptive sense of tranquillity. Hard to imagine it filled with gunboats and bursting shells on this quiet day 120-odd years later; harder yet to understand the national lunacy that had led us there. For a moment I wondered what those Rebels, strutting around like peacocks, would have done if they’d known what a disaster they were bringing upon themselves and their sons, but I knew. Destroying themselves was just in their nature.
The fortress rose out of the water and took on color and life, a pentagon of red bricks turning pale with age. The boat made a circle and eased in toward the dock. It had a full load of passengers with both decks crowded, and we sat in the sun until most of the people were off. Two rangers met us on the pier. Koko told them she was looking for Luke Robinson, and we were directed inside the fort, where we found a uniformed man giving the tour.
What remained of Fort Sumter was the outer wall, and under it the shadowy gun rooms with vintage cannons, dark passages that went into black places under the wall, and the brick ruins of the officers’ quarters. Running down the length of the old parade ground was a black battery, a fort within a fort that was obviously of a different era. The ranger was explaining it as we came in. It was called Battery Huger, built as part of the coastal defense system during the Spanish American War. Today it housed the museum, rest rooms, and a small living space for him and his wife. Nearby were the remains of a small-arms magazine that had exploded in 1863, killing eleven men and wounding forty, leaving the wall still blackened and leaning from the force of it.
We waited through the tour, about twenty minutes, then the crowd was sent off to explore on its own. Koko approached the ranger, a lanky man in his thirties with a grand mustache.
“Mr. Robinson?”
“Yes, ma’am, at your service.”
Koko introduced us. “I was told you might know about the time Richard Burton spent in Charleston.”
“Oh, wow, where’d you hear that?”
“In town, at the Library Society.”
“I didn’t know librarians talked about people’s private research projects.”
“I’m a librarian myself. I promised her it wouldn’t go any further without your consent. We’re looking for proof that Burton was here in May of 1860.“
“Good luck. You’re chasing a real will-o‘-the-wisp. We haven’t found a single thing you can take to the bank.”