“They’re coming over here,” he said.
Now Maxine sat up and looked back over her shoulder.
Luther held up his hand to shield his eyes from the firelight.
Saw a man’s legs standing ten feet away—hairy and thick—that ended in a pair of muddy work boots.
Rufus was struggling to his feet now.
Luther heard his father say, “Hi, there.”
Luther glanced up into Katie’s face, didn’t like what he saw—an intensity, a concentration he didn’t fully comprehend. He was missing something. Events unfolding on some frequency beyond his experience.
His father spoke again, “Evening.”
“What are you folks doing here?”
The man’s voice sounded strange to Luther—southern but not local. Not friendly either. It contained a hard- edged, metallic rasp.
“Just having a campfire,” Rufus said.
“You live around here?”
“We live on Ocracoke. How about you? You visiting?”
The man laughed as if Luther’s father had made a joke. “Yeah. That’s it. We’re visiting.” The man came forward three steps and turned off his flashlight. In the firelight, Luther studied him. He wore a heavily-stained white tee-shirt covered in a thousand tiny rips. The man’s substantial body odor was evident even from ten feet away. He hadn’t shaved in weeks, his jaw covered in a salt-and-pepper stubble. His eyes shone wild and glassy and they didn’t stay on one object for more than several seconds at a time.
“Well,” Rufus said, “we were actually just getting ready to shove off, so—”
“I didn’t say anything about you leaving.”
The man’s statement festered in the air for what seemed ages.
No sound but the surf and the crackle of driftwood in the flames.
Maxine came to her feet, stood behind Rufus.
“Ya’ll best sit down now,” the man said.
Maxine wrapped her hands around Rufus’s left arm. “Let’s go.”
Rufus shot a quick look over at Katie. “Get you and Luther in the back of the truck. Right now.” He turned back to the man.
Katie jerked Luther onto his feet.
“We’re gonna take off,” Rufus said. “I got my kids here. I don’t want any trouble with you. You understand that, right? We were just out here having a day at the beach, and now we’re going home.”
Katie pulled Luther toward the Dodge.
The man said, “You ain’t going nowhere.”
“What’s happening, Katie?” Luther whispered.
“I’ll tell you later. Hop into the—”
“Young lady!”
Katie froze.
“Did you not just fucking hear what I told your daddy? Get your ass back where you was sitting, or by God —”
“Don’t you dare speak to my—”
Luther saw the man swing his flashlight into the side of his father’s head.
Rufus’s knees buckled, hit the sand, blood streaming out of a gash above his left eye.
The man drove his knee into Rufus’s face, and when Maxine rushed forward he caught her with a right hook that snapped her head around.
His mother fell facedown in the sand, out cold.
Rufus climbed back onto his feet.
Luther realizing the warm sensation he felt was piss running down the inside of his legs.
“He hit mom,” Katie said, crying. “Why’d he hit mom?”
Rufus flung a handful of sand into the man’s face and rushed him as he clawed at his eyes, scooping the man under his massive thighs and slamming him down on his back in the sand.
Luther had never seen his father this consumed with rage, watching as Rufus hit the man six times in the face, his knuckles getting bloody.
Rufus finally rolled off him into the sand, gasping for breath.
The man lay moaning on his back, his face a purple wreck.
Maxine was sitting up now, holding her jaw which looked swollen.
Rufus grabbed her by the arms and hoisted her up onto her feet.
“My teeth,” she moaned, spitting a tooth out into the palm of her hand.
Rufus hawked a lugie of blood and helped Maxine toward the truck.
“Get in!” he yelled at Luther and Katie.
Luther grabbed the side of the truck and stepped up onto the rear tire.
Katie let out a brief scream, Luther on the verge of asking what was wrong when he saw the second man standing on the other side of the truck bed, grinning at him.
He was tall and wide-shouldered. Had eyes so vividly green Luther could see their color in the lowlight. Wore a blue linen shirt with a long number across the lapel pocket. Dark stains down the front of his shirt.
“Been watching you all afternoon,” he said. “That was some sand castle you and your daddy built.” His eyes cut to Rufus and he swung a pump-action shotgun toward him. “You can stop right there. I swear to God. You all right, Ben?”
The man Rufus had hit was trying to sit up.
“Motherfucker hit me.”
“I saw. That was embarrassing.”
“I’m gonna kill him.”
“Plenty a time for that.” The man with the shotgun stared at Luther. I want you over by the fire like you was.”
“Sir, we just want to go home,” Rufus said.
The man smiled. “I’ll bet you do.”
“Let my wife take our kids. They don’t need to be a part of any of this.”
The man laughed. “How am I supposed to fuck her when she ain’t here? That make any sense to you?”
The man named Ben rose to his feet, wiping blood out of his eyes.
“Ben, you hear this guy?”
“I heard him. Dumb fuck, is what he is.”
Luther stepped down off the truck and looked up at his father.
“Dad?” he said. “Is it gonna be okay?”
Rufus’s hands shook.
“No, little man,” Ben said. “It ain’t gonna be okay. Get your ass over there like I told you.”
Luther looked at Katie.
His sister had tears in her eyes.
“I’m scared,” he said.
“Come on, Luther.”
She took him by the hand and led him back over to the fire.
They sat in the sand.
The man named Ben started toward Rufus.
“There’s some rope in the truck bed,” his partner yelled.
“Bring it, Winston.” He stopped a foot away from Rufus and Maxine, and shovel-punched Rufus in the gut.
Luther’s father doubled over.
Maxine clutched his back, trying to soothe him.
Winston walked over with the shotgun and a coil of rope that Rufus had used just three weeks ago to stabilize a bureau he’d bought in an antique store in Hatteras for Maxine’s thirtieth birthday.
