Slagget feigned a tug of his forelock and a scuff of his shoe. “Well gosh, a man with a knife could’ve done a lot of damage. But I know it’s my fault. I rushed the pat-down. I screwed up. I’m sorry.”
Chalk knew better. After the stunt with the mystery knife, Slagget was still on Chalk’s short list for killing. Yet, as he had so recently proven, Slagget was a dead-eye with a gun. As a bleak reminder of Slagget’s prowess, a black cherry tea of blood and bay water still swirled across the deck. A thicker sludge of gore made it clear where the bodies had lain until they were dumped overboard. For the time being, Chalk could not purge Slagget.
Tahereh wisely chose to overlook the slaughter of her men for her own survival. She said, “I don’t believe the gold, or the device, will still be on Deep Banks by tomorrow morning.”
Chalk considered this. Her thought had merit. The watermen’s natural temptation would be hard to resist: to land that treasure back on Smith Island where they could keep a closer eye on it. The islanders had to realize that would draw Chalk along, too. There were women and children to think of. At least Ben Blackshaw knew that Right Way Moving & Storage was a serious band of cutthroats. This was going to be a long night. Una noche Toledana, as an old merc buddy from Madrid called those dark stakeout hours without end.
They trailed the watermen as close as they dared without drawing actual hostility. As Tahereh predicted, the Smith Islanders penetrated Deep Banks Island. They entered by the small channel that opened up to the northwest. The real problem was gauging which way they might leave. From the Palestrina’s charts, Chalk knew that same waterway opened out to the southeast into Tangier Sound as well. No way they could cover both leads unless they split up in the two boats, and there was no way he would do that. He wasn’t sure of Tahereh alone, or how she’d get along with Slagget. And he wasn’t putting Slagget on a boat by himself either. God only knows what kind of play he’d make beyond Chalk’s watchful eye. He’d been pretty bold not six feet away from his boss.
Landing for reconnaissance was a possibility. Chalk did not relish the idea of stepping onto an unfamiliar shore populated by drunken, trigger-happy watermen in the dead of night. That had the hallmarks of an alternate ending to Deliverance. Chalk was brave, but not stupid.
He aired a concern to no one in particular, “Why didn’t those lunatics go in from the other way? From the Tangier Sound side? It’s farther south. Closer to Smith. More convenient. More protected from the storm.”
Slagget posited, “Too shallow for that big boat? Too narrow?”
Tahereh said, “Or maybe they wanted us to see them, knowing we might come in from the lighthouse in the northwest.”
Chalk gave her a look. Tahereh developed her thesis. All the while she was unable to keep from glancing at Slagget’s gun hand. It was like a nervous tic she’d recently and justifiably acquired.
She said, “All the shooting just now? Would they have done it if we weren’t nearby? Perhaps it was a dumbshow of some kind.”
“Sure. Trying to scare us off!” Chalk’s hubris did not serve him well in the Chesapeake.
Slagget said, “I’m sure they don’t get out much. Maybe it’s like their Cinco de Mayo or something. Redneck Independence Day. Some kind of Second Amendment hootenanny.”
“Or they wanted to get our attention,” Tahereh persisted.
Chalk said. “Right. So we would follow them into their territory and get our asses shot off.”
Slagget went off. “How do they even know who we are? It’s practically dark out here. We’re too far off. No, they’re sitting on a fortune, and they drank too much. Got loopy with the smoke poles, that’s all. Tahereh, you know that’s just what your people do whenever there’s a party. Blasting your AK-47s in the air on full auto, like it’s Nickel Bullet Night at the Kasbah.”
“Fuck off, Slagget. My people do no such thing.” Tahereh stared meaningfully at him. His Five-seveN was still snug, and still hot in its holster under his armpit.
Slagget argued, “If those knuckleheads have the balls to mess with us head-on, I’d be shocked. You don’t bait somebody into an ambush by shooting off guns, is my point. It spoils the surprise. It’s antithetical to the very concept.”
Chalk recalled Senator Morgan blabbing about haichi shiki, the Japanese running ambush. Could these marsh monkeys pull off a stunt like that? Could they even think of it?
CHAPTER 49
The islanders steered the Varina Davis down Little Pungers Creek, cut to port, then bore north up the gut toward the heron rookery hollow. Wade Joyce’s deadrise drew more water than Miss Dotsy, and had broader beam. They were forced to stop well short of the shallower spot where Ben and Ellis had landed before. For this afternoon’s work the extra distance to the hollow would require all the manpower they had aboard.
Ben said, “It’s a fair step inland. Sam, please stand watch here in case Chalk cowboys up and gallops in. I don’t expect him to, but I didn’t expect any of this.”
If he could not shorten the distance to the hollow, at least Sonny Wright would lead them to the nearest planked gut to make the going easier. Everyone but Sam the watchman put over the side into the wax myrtle and spartina. They toted shovels along with their shotguns. Art Bailey left his golf club aboard.
Ben and Sonny led off. Everyone followed like obedient lemmings. As the Smith Island Irregulars sloshed toward the hollow, they could hear a few herons still restless on the nests. Rumbling low. Lonesome George swooped over their heads like an airborne picket offering both challenge and greeting.
Nearly there. The acrid year-round stench of the rookery’s guano committed aggravated assault on their nostrils, and made a few eyes water. Ben signaled a halt outside the hollow’s natural embankment. Ellis chuckled out loud as all Ben’s little chickens stopped in their tracks and held quiet.
Ben listened to the late afternoon noises. Tried to hear any interlopers over the rainless wind. He tilted his head sideways. Peeked one eye over the low hill. Only his left eye and ear were exposed if anybody in the hollow took a shot at him. Nothing happened. It seemed that all the bogies were out in the Chesapeake on the Palestrina. Ben waved everyone onward. The men filed over the embankment into the hollow.
Ben pointed to Sonny Wright. Gestured to the berm where he should stand watch. Sonny dutifully trudged up the slope, and faced the water. With Sam Nuttle back guarding the Varina Davis, Ben’s two most likely mutineers were separated for now.
Lorton Dyze looked around the hollow. Visually scouring it for disturbed earth. Ben and Ellis had covered the burial place well. The storm had scattered more debris around the site, perfecting its camouflage.
Dyze eyed Ben. Excited, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other like a small boy wanting ice cream. “Get to it, son!”
Ben rested his Remington against a tree. Poised his shovel over a spot on the ground. It took only two strokes of the spade before he heard a shotgun shell ratcheting into a chamber.
Ben turned just as a different shotgun blasted next to his ear. Herons squawked loud above, took flight in panic.
Tom Fox dropped kneeling into the dirt clutching his bleeding flank.
Reverend Mosby jacked another shell into his smoking shotgun. Pulled the trigger again. This time, a twenty-foot hip shot. Fox’s chest opened in tatters of flesh, bone, and flannel.