I thought of Luke and Libby. It had never occurred to any of us that we might be putting them in danger. This is how different things can be at three o’clock in the morning.
None of this was at all likely. To be out there in a boat now would mean he had known or anticipated our every move: that he had gotten the boat and made his plans, and all this had been done from the time the Fort Sumter tour boat had arrived back at the marina in the late afternoon without us on it. Not likely, but not impossible either. Thugs like Dante know people like themselves in many towns. He may have lined up some local pal two days ago, and in this town a boat was easy to get.
I looked at the sky and saw nothing. If he was coming at all, it would be now.
I felt the uneasiness filling up my soul. I began to pace along the front of the battery, looking for something I couldn’t see and listening for a sound that wasn’t there.
I stood at the top of the stairs and waited.
At some point I started down. I followed my light around the battery and up to the old wall. There was a wooden barrier at the lowest point; they would have to scale it at the higher wall and come into the fort from there. I was beginning to know the way now, and I moved easily out toward the edge, keeping my light down at my feet and shaded by my hand, so it couldn’t be seen from the water. Fifty yards from the gorge, I stopped and turned off the light.
I saw a soft glow out there, at the base of the wall.
Something moved. Some bump in the night. The squeak of an oar, maybe…
Then I heard a voice. They were out there. They had defied the odds.
I shucked my way out of my coat and got out my gun. Got down on my knees and crawled along a rough surface to the edge.
The rain began. I barely felt it.
I peeped over the edge. They were there on the little beachhead below. Four of them, and Dante had been the first to step out on land. There was no mistaking that overgrown palooka: I had his number even in the dark. He stood outlined against a dim light, then he spoke. “Come on, let’s get that ladder out here, we ain’t got all fuckin‘ day.” No mistaking that nasty baritone: it was packed with authority and gave orders like other men breathe. I heard a brief metallic sound, and by the same dim light I saw an aluminum ladder being slipped hand to hand over the bow of the boat.
I could’ve killed them all then; they were like four fat fish in a barrel just waiting to be shot. I had the gun in my hand, why didn’t I just do it? I could still get all four before any of them could clear their own guns; I had been that fast and my gut told me I still was. I could get them now. I could get them all. Their asses were mine. But at the last second, God knows why, I stayed my hand.
I knew why. I had never shot a man that way. I could kill him, but not that way.
I shrank back from the edge as the ladder bumped against the wall. Who would come over the top first? If Dante came up, my job would be easier. But my hunch told me it would be someone local, a pathfinder who could lead them across the treacherous parade ground to the place where, they thought, we’d all be happily asleep. I heard the ladder shake, saw it move in the dim glow from the boat far below. I slid back on my belly with the gun in my hand, getting very still as a head came over the edge. I had been right, it wasn’t Dante. But I was sure he’d be the next one: it wasn’t in his nature to take up the rear. The pathfinder came head and shoulders over the wall, a little penlight in his teeth, and in that moment I knew how it was going to go. If I was lucky, it would be a replay of Baltimore.
He turned his head and his light went right over my back. He looked down and nodded, then he came over the wall and stood up, waiting.
Again he nodded his head. Coast is clear, boys.
My heart was pumping like a war drum, I could feel my gun hand trembling, I could hear the blood pounding in my ears. The ladder moved: Dante was on the way up. I felt cold one second, giddy the next. I almost laughed out loud, these guys were such schmucks, in their own dumb way as stupid as those kids I had faced down on the street so long ago. I knew what was going to happen ten seconds before each move. The pathfinder would reach down and give the man a respectful hand, leaving them both vulnerable for that moment. I could push them both off the walclass="underline" I could easily get close enough to kick them out into space. It probably wouldn’t be a lethal fall unless Dante landed on his ass, but it was high enough to do some real damage and at least they’d be stunned for a moment. Then perhaps they’d come up shooting, and that was my kind of action; I could kill them all then and sleep just fine tomorrow. And in the heat of that moment, I found myself actually craving it, savoring what might come.
I saw Dante clear the wall. A Confederate defender with a Whit-worth rifle could’ve popped his thick head from a bunker a mile away on Morris Island, that’s what a target he made. There was a moment: I hung back, waiting for some defining motion to egg me on. The ladder bumped again. I knew it was the third man, on his way up, and that was something I couldn’t wait around for.
I stepped up beside them, still a foot back in the shadow. Both were looking over the edge: neither had a gun out and that gave me a huge advantage. I cocked my gun and even in the wind it sounded like the clap of doom. I saw them stiffen. “Don’t move,” I said. “I will kill you both right where you stand.”
In almost the same breath the third guy began to clear the wall. He still didn’t know anything had happened and his moment of clarity came slowly. He said, “Hey,” and that was it, his sudden awareness in a nutshell as I kicked him in the head. He tumbled into space, clawing wildly for something to grab. I heard him hit the sand and the ladder crash over on top of him. All this time I kept my light in Dante’s eyes. “You don’t learn very good, do you, stupid?”
The pathfinder started to back up, away from the edge. “Wrong way, fuck-knuckle,” I said, and I lifted my foot and shoved him off. He screamed, going down like I’d just pushed him off a thousand-foot cliff.
Dante and I stared at each other, primal, mortal enemies. He looked at my gun, then at me. I taunted him. I wanted him to try something.
“Come on, fatso, you’re such a tough guy, come take my gun away from me.”
“You’d like that. You need that excuse. You haven’t got the balls to just do it.”
That was his only try at bravado. I leaned into the light and said, “Is that what you think?” and in that moment I became one with the killer: whatever difference I thought had existed between us was gone now. I was going to kill him, there wasn’t a shadow of doubt in my mind, and in that second he knew it too. I saw it in his face: the born intimidator who had spent his life watching people cringe had never once faced the possibility of his own death. He saw it now.