The dog wagged her tail and leaped onto the bed.
She curled up and lay between Gail and David.
“Shoo her off,” said Gail.
“Not me. I need all my fingers.”
They heard Treece call, “Charlotte!” and the dog’s ears
stiffened. Treece appeared in the doorway.
“Forgive her. That’s her rightful place. It’ll take her a day or two.” He said to the dog, “Come along,” and the dog raised her head, stretched, and went to Treece, who said, “Sleep well,” and shut the door.
The first bark seemed to be part of Sanders” dream.
The second, loud and prolonged, woke him. He looked at the radium dial on his watch: It was 12:10. A faint yellow light seeped around the edges of the closed window shade and flickered on the walls. The dog barked again. Gail stirred, and Sanders shook her awake.
“What is it?” she said.
“I don’t know.” He heard Treece walking in the hall. “It might be a fire.”
“What? In here?”
“No, outside.” He rolled off the bed and pulled on his boxer shorts. “Stay here.” He walked toward the door. “If there’s trouble…”
“If there’s trouble, what?” Gail reached for her bathrobe. “Hide under the bed?”
Sanders opened the bedroom door and saw Treece standing at the front door, naked except for a brief bathing suit. The dog stood beside him. Though Treece filled the doorway, beyond him Sanders could see a glow of firelight and some dark forms.
“What is it?” he whispered.
Treece turned at the sound. “Not sure. Nobody’s said anything.”
Sanders approached Treece and stood beside him, slightly to the side. By the gate there were two men, dressed in black and holding oil torches that sent streams of thick black smoke into the night air.
“Well?” Treece said aloud. He put his left hand on the door jamb and shifted his weight. Sanders saw that the apparently casual change of position put Treece’s hand within easy reach of a sawed-off shotgun that stood in the corner behind the door.
The two torchbearers stepped apart, and between them, walking slowly toward the gate, was Cloche. He was dressed entirely in white, against which his black skin shone like graphite. The firelight sparkled on the gold feather at his neck and on the round panes in his spectacles.
Sanders heard Gail’s barefoot steps on the wooden floor and smelled her hair as she came next to him.
“What do you want?” Treece said, his tone a blend of anger and disdain. “If you’ve business here, state it. Else, be on your way. I’m in no mood for silly games in the middle of the night.”
“Game?” Cloche raised his right hand to his waist and dipped the index finger.
Sanders heard a buzz. Instinctively, he ducked, and there was a thunk against the wooden door frame. A featherless arrow quivered in the wood, six inches from Treece’s head.
Treece had not flinched. He pulled the arrow from the wood and tossed it on the ground. “A crossbow?” he said. “Put feathers on it; it’ll fly truer.”
“Your… friends… are not very prudent,”
Cloche said. “They paid a visit to the government. I told them not to. Now the police are asking about me.”
“And?”
“You know what I want. I know they’re down there-ten thousand boxes of them.”
“That’s myth.”
“Your friends do not think so. They seemed quite convinced when they spoke to Mason Hall.”
Still looking at Cloche, Treece whispered to Sanders, “Go ’round back and make sure nobody’s there.”
As Sanders padded down the hall, he heard Treece say, “You know tourists. They hear stories….”
The kitchen was dark, and the door and windows were closed.
Sanders found the handle of a drawer, opened it, and fumbled with his fingers for a knife. He found a long heavy blade of carbon steel and slipped it into the waistband of his shorts. The cold metal against his thigh made him feel secure, though he knew it was a delusion: he didn’t know how to fight with a knife. But he was quick and strong, and he knew the house. In the dark, against a man unfamiliar with the house, he thought he would be able to handle himself.
He opened the kitchen door. There was no movement outside, no sound except the wind. He closed the door and locked it, then locked both windows. Now, he told himself, if somebody tries to get in, we’ll hear the sound of breaking glass. He went back to the front hall-pleased with himself-and stood beside Gail, his left hand resting on the hilt of the knife.
“…a mystery to me,” Cloche was saying. “Why you should be willing to help the British swine. After what they did to you.”
“That’s not your affair!” Treece snapped.
“Yes, it is. You have as much reason as I to hate them. Look what you lost.”
Sanders saw Treece glance quickly at him and Gail. Treece looked uncomfortable, eager to change the subject.
“Leave it be, Cloche. All you need know is that I’ll not let you get those drugs.”
“What a pity,” Cloche said. “The enemy is there and you will not fight him. Are you worried about your little kingdom on St. David’s? I have no designs on that.”
Treece said nothing.
“Very well,” Cloche said at last. “With you or without you, the result will be the same.”
Two men moved out of the darkness and stood behind Cloche. Each carried a crossbow, loaded and cocked and pointed at the door. Cloche took a small bag from one of the men behind him. He held the bag by the bottom and flung its contents toward the door. Three linen dolls, each with a steel feather-dart in its chest, rolled in the dust.
Treece did not look down.
The crossbowmen fired.
Sanders slammed Gail against the wall and shielded her with his body. Treece dropped onto one knee and, in the same motion, reached for the shotgun. Sanders heard the arrows buzz through the doorway and clatter against the stone fireplace.
Treece fired three times, holding the trigger down and pumping the action. In the narrow hallway, the sound of the explosions was thunderous and painful.
When the echo of the last explosion had died, and all that remained was a ringing in Sanders” ears, he turned and looked at Treece. He was still on his knee, the gun cocked and ready to fire.
Where Cloche and his men had stood, now there was nothing but the two torches-abandoned, burning scattered pools of spilled oil.
“Hit anybody?” Sanders asked.
“I doubt it. They broke and ran when they saw this.” Treece patted the gun. “I don’t think they expected it.”
Sanders felt Gail trembling and heard her teeth chattering. “Cold?” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders.
“Cold? Terrified! Aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Sanders said honestly. “I didn’t have time to think about it.”
Gail touched the knife in Sanders’ undershorts.
“What’s that for?”
“I had it… just in case.”
Gail said to Treece, “Will the police come?”
“The Bermuda police?” Treece stood up.
“Hardly. I told you, they don’t muck about with St. David’s. If they heard anything-and I don’t imagine they did-they’ll pay it no mind. Just the half-breeds shooting each other up. It’s the Islanders that concern me.”
“Why?”
