Slagget choked out, “We gotta get clear.”
There was a loud roaring noise to punctuate his suggestion. An instant later a small missile shot out the cockpit windscreen. With its guidance system damaged and locked onto nothing, it curveted wildly through the air, and splashed with a hot hiss in the Chesapeake.
Chalk complained, “Aw crap! A Stinger! Could’ve used that.”
Two of the crash survivors could hobble away under their own steam. Of the other two, Tahereh supported one as he limped. Chalk and Slagget dragged the last man between them. They assembled behind a low mound of dirt. Round after .50 caliber round of tracer fired into the sky. Bullets spun along the ground past where they huddled.
The man they dragged was badly broiled along his legs and feet. He turned his sooty face to Chalk and said, “Sorry, chief. Kinda blew that one.”
Chalk smiled like an understanding uncle. “Nonsense Farron! They say any landing you can walk away from is a good one. Dude.”
Then Chalk drew his pistol, shot Farron twice in the face.
Chalk continued, “Unfortunately, he wasn’t walking anywhere with those burns. We gotta di-di on out of here! Anybody notice the natives aren’t exactly rushing to investigate all this Guy Fawkes Day bullshit? It’s a total setup, and I’m not hanging out to get my nards shot off.”
He scrutinized the man Tahereh had helped to walk. “What’s the story, Petunia, can you hump it?” The man glanced at Farron MacDonald’s corpse, then back at Chalk, nodded briskly, and slapped Tahereh’s helping hand away. He gave his best, “Hoowa!”
Chalk said, “Good boy. Let’s boogie.”
The six made their way back down the airstrip as quickly as possible toward the boat. As they went, previously sound fuel tanks in the plane’s wings heated, warped, and blew. More ammo of all sizes banged and whizzed into the sky. The odor of burning meat tainted the oily air.
Chalk took in the sabotage of the airstrip as they hurried along its length. He muttered, “No doubt about it. Somebody’s screwing with me. Someone who knows me a little too well. Dick and the rest of them, they’re all in on it together. Not good.”
Chalk assessed his three remaining survivors along the way, ready to unburden himself of any more gimps or laggards. They all made it to the Palestrina. With some pushing and shoving, the new men scrambled aboard much worse for wear from the last eight minutes’ ordeal.
Only Tahereh seemed bucked up about the crash. It had helped her position. With the sudden reduction of Chalk’s able-bodied personnel, she knew she was still needed. So she was still alive.
CHAPTER 54
Wade Joyce guided the Varina Davis up the Tangier Sound side of Smith Island. They would make better time that way, and avoid swamping the low punts porpoising in tow. The water was calmer than before. Still, no one relaxed. They all knew a retreating storm could wind up again for a final knockdown punch with little warning. Ben counted on it.
Everyone looked toward home as they rounded north. Though nobody said it, every man felt sure that something was going to die tonight. Even if there were no casualties, even if dawn found the treasure finally safe, Smith Island was not going to be the same. Any eyes that looked again on their home of so many generations would be seasoned by battle. Smith Island would not simply be the place where they lived. As in the old days, it would once again be a bastion they’d defended together.
For now, and in spite of the bloody work ahead, Ben savored his welcome behind the Islanders’ social palisades. Tonight he was the captain of an expeditionary party; at once sailing them into a golden future, and back in time to their crimson past.
After such a violent day, Ben knew that dealings with Chalk and his men might not play out in complete accordance with Holy Scripture. Ben studied Reverend Mosby closely. Their shepherd wore a thoughtful frown as if he were reconsidering what he was about to do. Whatever his contemplations, he never stopped oiling the lock on Barking Betty, the mammoth market gun.
Ben took the minister’s presence, not to mention his cold dispatch of Tom Fox back on Deep Banks Island, as assurance of the rightness of their cause. Mosby’s actions confirmed what Ben believed, that this single band of raiders could be of two minds and two hearts. Instead of falling down before evil, they could rise up and vanquish it, still loved by the Lord though blood might stain their hands. Or so Ben hoped. The very existence of God, let alone His relevance and blessing, were not foremost in Ben’s mind. Not when he thought of LuAnna, whom he truly worshipped.
Lorton Dyze watched aft over the punts. He nudged Ben. “Gonna be some fun tonight,” he said.
Ben thought Dyze was just passing time, until the old man nudged him again and pointed to the south just over the horizon where Tangier Island lay. There was a glow of fire, and little lights spinning off high into the evening air. It reminded Ben of the nighttime images of Baghdad in Gulf War One, the bombs, the tracers, the flares, the mechanized death-dealing. Ben thought how funny it was that death sometimes came with a bright light, proud like a child, look at me, here I come, demanding notice. Personally, he was used to a less flashy kill.
Smiling, Dyze shook his head. “No idear what that all is.”
Knocker Ellis said, “Doesn’t seem warm enough for Fourth of July.”
Dyze said, “I reckon it’s Crockett and his Tangier boys looking after things.”
Satisfied with that, the Smith Islanders turned as one, faced forward into the night.
Dyze said to Ben, “So, the two of ye gonna to get round to it someday soon?”
Ben knew Dyze was talking about LuAnna. He said, “Soon.” He caught himself before he added, if she makes it.
An old man could be a bother, but a wise old man was a true vexation. With Dyze’s question, the real prospect of losing LuAnna crashed in again on Ben. He covered, saying, “Ready to be godfather of a Blackshaw someday?”
Dyze raised his eyebrows. Ben could not determine what the next noise was at first. It sounded like something between the tick-tick-tick of a solenoid popping from a near-dead car battery and the creak of a rusty sign blowing in a Smith Island flaw. Then he realized it was Dyze shaking and holding his sides with phlegmy laughter.
Ben said, “I take that as a yes? And her father’s gone. Bet she’d like you to give her away. I assume you’ll be at the wedding.”
“Ye set a date?”
Ben said, “No, but pretty soon.”
Ben was trying to settle Dyze down before the wheezing ancient ruptured himself. Dyze’s laughter died away too quickly for Ben’s liking.
The old man gave Ben a small smile. “Oh, I reckon I’ll be along one way or t’other, doncha know.”
With that, a chill enveloped Ben. Reverend Mosby on the other hand puffed up at the prospect of a holy sacrament to redeem himself from the damnable work he had done that day, and the blood he would shed come dark.
As word of Ben’s wedding went around the boat there was a newfound lightness that had nothing to do with gold. The precious metal was simply plunder to these men. A gilded adventure forged in midnight iron and fire. They all knew money came and went. Even vast sums of it meant little to men who had no fear of hard work. On the other hand, Ben and LuAnna walking the plank was a joyous nod toward tomorrow, provided the bomb and Chalk left them any shard of a future.
Ben sensed that now they had stopped being a ragged bunch of Smith Islander Irregulars. And Community was such a weak word, the parlance of barrio playground grant-proposals. This crew had coalesced as a people, like ancient Spartans forming ranks with a bond of blood running among them.