Elna picked up the backpack that had formerly belonged to Archer and slung the straps over her shoulders. The weight of it seemed to surprise her, and she had to lean forward to keep her balance. “What did you guys put in here? Ten thousand scalpels?”
“I don’t know,” Malin said, shouldering his own pack. “Archer cleared shelves with her arm. There’s no telling what we got.” He felt a twinge of sadness to think of her. He’d barely known the woman, of course. Still, she’d been alive a couple of hours ago, and now she was lying at the bottom of the bay.
We almost made it out of there with everyone, he thought. Almost.
Then again, it could’ve been worse. The fact that he and Elna had accompanied the Marines in the first place was pretty crazy. He gazed at the ship and saw morning sunlight shining through a small hole in the mainsail.
“If she’s still afloat tomorrow morning, we’ll know the damage wasn’t too extensive,” Raymond said.
“Well, hopefully, we’ll never need to sail off the island ever again,” Malin said.
Raymond and Elna headed up the fishing dock. Malin started to follow them, but something caught his eye. A faint shifting shape in the water on the horizon to the northeast. He might have thought it was an optical illusion, some trick of sunlight on the bay, but when he squinted he could make out two distinct vertical lines. Masts on a ship, one big, one small.
He was still studying it when he heard a familiar voice from behind him.
“Oh my goodness, when did you guys get back?”
Norman was coming from the direction of the causeway. In his sweatpants and stained long-sleeve shirt, big wooly beard erupting from the lower half of his face, he was looking more and more like a wild man of the woods. But he was also a sight for sore eyes. The young Marine named Mac was walking with him.
“It’s a miracle we didn’t get swiss-cheesed,” Elna said. “We fled under a hail of bullets.”
Norman approached Elna and gently took the backpack from her shoulders. Elna didn’t resist. “Lady, you look like you’ve been through heck. I’ll carry this for you now.”
Malin noticed that Norman had one of the pairs of binoculars hanging from his neck. “Hey, Norman, hand me those for a second, would you?”
Norman pulled the strap from around his neck.
“I just want to take a look at something,” Malin said. “Thanks.” Raising the binoculars to his eyes, he peered out across the bay.
Now, he saw it clearly. A ship coming from the northeast. With its many sails, it looked like an old schooner. It was much too far away to make out any of its crew. Did it belong to the militia? If so, where could they have been hiding the thing, and more importantly, where they heck had they found it? It looked like something looted from a nautical museum.
“Looks like we’ll have visitors soon,” he said.
He handed the binoculars to Norman, and Norman took a look. “Wow, that ship’s gotta be a hundred years old. They’re definitely headed this way. Who’s sailing the thing?”
“I think it’d be wise to assume the worst,” Malin said. “Maybe the militia coming for revenge? I don’t know where they got the boat, but they’re coming.” He traded an anxious look with Elna. “How much time do you figure we have? How long does it take a boat to sail across the bay?”
“It took us a little over two hours,” she replied. “Wind’s against them, like it was us, so they’ll be going slowly.”
Mac spoke up then. He seemed like a quiet young man. Though he was built like a high school football player, he had a gentle voice. “We got another enemy coming. A mercenary group. Could be them.”
“Of the two enemies, which is worse?” Malin asked.
“Mercenary group,” Mac replied. “Hands down. It’s not even close, sir.”
“Got it.” Malin refrained from saying what he was thinking: We’re screwed.
“Let’s get back to the guesthouse,” Elna said. “They’ll be here by noon. We’d better figure out what we’re going to do.”
“Isn’t there some way we can stop them from coming onto the island?” Malin asked.
He was moving at a brisk pace up the winding road toward the guesthouse, Elna, Norman, and Mac following. Glancing skyward, he estimated they had a couple of hours to noon. Not enough time to prepare. It was all happening too fast.
“We have weapons,” Elna said. “We could stand on shore and fire on the boat. Of course, they will return fire, but if we can punch enough holes in the old wood-hull schooner, maybe we can sink it.”
“I blocked the road,” Mac said, “but that was for the militia. I don’t think there’s much we can do to stop a boat from coming ashore, and we sure don’t want to trade shots with the mercenaries out in the open.”
When they reached the guesthouse, Malin saw the Dulleses sitting on the porch, picking over a bowl of wild berries, looking rather glum. Malin felt bad for them. They were especially vulnerable under the circumstance.
“Hey there, Joe, Rita,” he said, trying to temper his voice so he wouldn’t scare them. “Would you guys please follow us to the lobby? We need to have a group meeting.”
“Oh no,” Rita said, grabbing Joe’s hand. Her little puff of white hair seemed to be getting thinner with every passing day. “What’s happening now?”
“We have some unwelcome guests headed for the island,” Malin said. “We’re going to make plans. Where are the others?”
“More?” Joe grumbled. “Does it never end? We’re just one small island. Can’t they all go somewhere else?”
“Most of the other people went to check on the injured,” Rita said, heaving a deep sigh that made her small, bent frame shudder. “We’ll head to the lobby in just a minute.”
“Thanks.”
Malin wanted to offer some words of encouragement to the couple, but he didn’t know what to say. And he wasn’t willing to lie, not
