wooden-wheeled cannon from the same period sat on the ground a few feet to his side.
“Any chance this is one of those dead drops?” Charlie asked. “Maybe they hid directions here to the real meeting place?”
“Maybe.” Drummond peered into the mouth of the cannon. It was plugged.
He wandered around the granite pedestal, gazing up at the statue. The soldier would have been unrecognizable even to Civil War buffs because of the raven droppings.
“You know what’s interesting?” Drummond said.
“What?”
“On equestrian statues, if the front hooves are off the ground, it signifies the soldier died in battle. If just one hoof is raised, he died later of wounds related to the battle.”
If they were going to learn anything here, Charlie thought, the soldier would have to tell them himself.
“If all the hooves are on the ground, like this one,” Drummond continued, “it means the man died in his sleep.”
“You think it’s possible they just missed that turnoff?” Charlie asked.
“It’s possible.” With a yawn, Drummond lay down on the granite pedestal, using the horse’s stout left front leg as a headboard.
Hoping Drummond’s nonchalance indicated they were safe, Charlie took a seat beside him.
Ten minutes passed, another raven was the only arrival, and anxiety began clawing at Charlie’s stomach lining. Nudging Drummond from a light slumber, he said, “It’s not like they could have been caught in traffic.”
Drummond shrugged. He still seemed entirely unconcerned.
It no longer offered reassurance. “Maybe we should drive to the next town and call the number in the ad again,” Charlie said.
As the words left his lips, a black Dodge Durango roared down the driveway toward the field. The dust and glare made it impossible to see into the sport utility vehicle. Charlie looked to Drummond.
He was fast asleep.
“Looks like we’re in business,” Charlie said, rousing him.
Opening his eyes, Drummond regarded the Durango with only passing interest, if any-it was hard to tell.
Charlie expected the Durango would park near the pickup truck. But it veered away and drove to the far end of the field, pulling into the farthest possible spot.
“Could it just be someone else?” he asked.
He bet himself Drummond would shrug. He won the bet.
The Durango’s driver’s door eased open. A compact man of perhaps forty edged out. He had a dark brown flattop and wore a mossy-oak camouflage suit. His slow, deliberate movements made his circumspection obvious, even from the monument a hundred yards away. He might just be a hunter. As for his hesitation? He didn’t have a hunting permit? Or maybe he was indeed the Cavalry’s emissary, the camouflage was part of his cover, and his unease was attributable to the fact that he saw no one-the giant statue blocked Charlie and Drummond from his sight, and the lone vehicle in the lot, the rusty pickup, could well have been abandoned here years ago.
Charlie considered leaping up and waving. Intuition held him in place.
The Durango’s passenger and rear driver’s side doors sprung open. Out darted two more men in camouflage. Following Flattop, they dropped onto hands and knees and shot into the high grass.
Through gaps between stalks, Charlie glimpsed the man who’d been in the backseat. He was young, no more than twenty-five, with the slight build and serious look not of a hunter but a scholar. His pistol glinted. Charlie entertained the idea that this was some sort of intelligence analyst, pressed by exigency into field duty.
Then a gust of wind parted the grass, revealing the man who’d been in the passenger seat.
Cadaret.
Shock ran through Charlie like a sword.
“Dad, we’ve been set up,” he exclaimed. “And that’s the best-case scenario.” The worst one he could think of was that Cadaret and his men had intercepted the Cavalry.
Drummond looked up. “That’s a shame,” he said, then tried to get comfortable again against the bronze horse’s shin.
From the Durango’s end of the field came the whipcrack of a gunshot. Its low echo skittered along the top of the grass. The ravens leaped into flight. The bullet stung the bronze soldier’s left elbow, turning the hardened excrement in its crook to a puff of white. The horse’s barrel-thick left front leg shielded Drummond from all but a dusting.
Charlie pressed himself against the inside of the horse’s right front leg, some primitive survival apparatus enabling him to coil himself so he wasn’t exposed to the shooters. A second round splashed dirt onto the pedestal, pelting him like buckshot. Loath to move, he angled his eyes to Drummond.
On three occasions, peril had transformed Drummond into a superhero. He was incited now, but only in the manner of someone whose rest is being disrupted.
26
Their gambit was plain to Charlie. From behind a mound at the far end of the field, Cadaret took a shot every few seconds. His objective wasn’t to hit Charlie or Drummond-although that would have been perfectly acceptable- but rather to hold them in place behind the statue until Flattop or Scholar flanked them. Capitalizing on the rises and dips in the field, that duo had crept to within sixty or seventy yards, still too far to fire with any accuracy. At twenty-five yards, they probably would be able to split an aspirin.
Charlie hoped someone driving along County Route 1 would call the cops. The road was barely traveled, though, and the monument was far enough away that the gunfire might not be heard over an engine. If a good Samaritan heard and came to investigate still, he would find only hunters, as common in these parts as teenagers in a suburban mall. And if he investigated further, he’d die.
Charlie tried to conceive a more proactive solution. Every avenue his mind took ended with the sober realization that outmaneuvering professional killers on a battlefield was even further from his expertise than landing a helicopter.
Then there was Drummond.
“Hear those bullets, Dad? These guys are playing your song.”
“How about we shoot back?” Drummond put forth, as if it were a novel idea.
“We have Mom’s gun.” Charlie patted the Colt in his waistband. “But I think we’re going to need more than that.”
A bullet bored into the horse’s right shoulder and exited its left breast, buzzing directly over Drummond’s head. Drummond hunkered closer to the pedestal but otherwise appeared untroubled.
Charlie was troubled enough for them both: He’d figured the bronze statue was impenetrable. “We need to get down,” he shouted over the echoing report.
Drummond didn’t seem to follow. Rather than take time to explain, Charlie wrapped his arms around him and heaved them both off the front of the pedestal. They flopped onto the ground, putting the pedestal between them and the shooters.
The ground appeared to have received a fresh dusting of snow. In fact it was particles of raven excrement. Lovely, Charlie thought.
Some of the particles had filled the letters chiseled into the face of the pedestal.
GENERAL PIERRE GUSTAVE TOUSSAINT BEAUREGARD, 1818-1893
A bullet chimed the horse’s right cheek, ricocheted, and struck the pickup truck, shattering a headlight.
Drummond appraised the damage with a thin smile and said, “As Churchill put it, ‘There is nothing so enjoyable as to be shot at by one’s enemy without result.’”
Charlie asked himself, How did it come down to this? “Didn’t Churchill have a drinking problem?”
“Give me the Colt, please.”
Charlie saw a glow in Drummond’s eyes. Had a mental association with Beauregard the dog triggered him?
