He had not spoken a word to those men in his command who had descended briefly into the same savagery they were there to put an end to, once and for all. Their vicious solution, the cruelest form of eradicating an enemy, was as bad as the problem it was supposed to correct, just more disciplined in its process than the way the savages went about it.
He sighed thinking about those sins and that awakened him to where he was. He could see his hands now, and then he became aware of something faintly moving in from the water line, a sound over the slight lapping of the gentle surf against the rocky shore.
It was moving in from the right.
He pulled back the hammer on his pinfire—slowly, slowly pulling it to avoid its click on the catch; quieting his breath; tightening his eardrums; peering into the fog thinning itself with the new light.
The beach had expanded with a low tide in the night, and he could just make out traces of footsteps in the sand, heading away from his position. Sam’s! Had his companion left him?
It came closer now, two distinct sounds from different positions on the water that he could not yet see. Couldn’t be Sam, he knew! It would take two shots. Impossible.
Isaac flexed his right thigh to reassure himself that his knife was still there, hadn’t fallen out in the night, a quick pull for him in a desperate, last struggle.
His heart was racing, pushing his pulse into his neck, roaring in his ears, loud enough, he was certain, to give away his position.
Gulls started squawking at something in the distance off to the right somewhere in the fog. And then, another movement to the left, closer now, within a few yards of his position.
He slowly swung his muzzle to the left, expecting the marauder would appear at him in a rush, or perhaps, alternatively, would just be standing there waiting for the fog to draw back and reveal Isaac’s hiding place. And that moment would be the bastard’s last because Isaac would not hesitate to strike him dead.
And then the sound from the right again. More distinct, cautious, water dripping off something.
Then the sun cracked through the thinning mist, and Isaac saw two brown eyes, then four. A mother and her fawn watching him on the beach.
They turned and walked away, leaving hoof prints in a parallel track to those left by Sam. The gulls made a fuss again in the distance, and he could estimate how far away they were now. And then the sun came over the tallest tree on the shore and the rocks gleamed, and Isaac could see the water line below.
More wildlife sounds now—a sea lion calling for companionship and the water lapping below—reminding him he was still alive.
When enough light raked the beach, Isaac slowly placed the hammer back down and moved cautiously to hide behind the canoe. He hoped he would find Sam there, but he did not. The supplies were intact, and his powder was dry enough.
He pulled a piece of salted pork and a rind of cheese and ate them quickly. Although he couldn’t see much behind him because of the brambles, he could watch the beach, and as the fog melted away as quietly as it had arrived, he could see for several hundred yards.
He remembered to wind his watch so at least he would know how much time had passed. Likely it was at least six. After an hour, he quickly moved back to his position by the crest of the spit to look at the beach to the south, which was now visible in the distance. The long boat was gone. The cabins had burned to the ground, and he could see there was detritus on the beach below.
Isaac waited for another hour, scanning the horizon up and down the waterline and into the tree line, watching for any movement. He saw from the footprints that Sam had moved off into the woods at the south end of the small beach. There was a hill beyond, and if Sam had survived his flight, he was likely watching the beach below from a safe perch.
Isaac put himself in Sam’s mind and tried to understand why he would have run.
He hadn’t expected much from Sam, so it didn’t surprise him when Sam met those low expectations. But he decided he would kill him if he ever again showed up on Whidbey.
By ten o’clock, Isaac thought it safe enough to move down the beach to where the long boat had berthed. He kept his musket cocked and untied his side knife in its sheath.
When he reached the smoking remains of the three cabins, he found broken furniture, a few overturned boxes and chests, smashed crockery, and mail-order catalogs from Chicago, all awash in the advancing tide.
Two dogs lay clubbed-dead on the beach. Between the rock foundations of the second and third cabins, he found a path into the woods.
He thought of Whidbey and Emmy and Sarah and Jacob, and knew he needed to head back southwest to the island in case the marauders had moved in that direction. He was comforted that his brother, Winfield and the Crocketts were close by and his home was on the opposite side of the most direct northward waterway route for the raiders’ long boat.
But it was unusual for the Northerners to appear in single boats, he knew. There likely would be others or a larger group of boats somewhere in the vicinity.
He thought about getting into his skiff and departing, but he had to know what was
