XIV
I would spare as many as I could; spare the leaching, drugged-up flunkies that the Senator held under his spell. But the ones who got in my way were dead. Just as Ellsworth was dead. He was a corpse and didn’t even know it.
Hervey Yarbrough brought the Sniper around for me. It could have been a touchy situation, because when you care for a boat, really care for it, you want no one’s hands on the controls but your own. And even though I said nothing about my concern, Hervey understood.
“Dusky, I want you to know you ain’t got nothin’ to worry about. I’ll bring that pretty boat of yours up here jes’ careful and sweet as can be. Treat her like she was my own.”
“I know that, Hervey. Does it show that much?”
“Naw, but I know how I feel—the idea of somebody else runnin’ my boat jes’ kinda makes my stomach roll. As my daddy said: ‘Boy, there’s three things in this life you should never loan: your boat, your dog, and your wife.’ ”
“In that order, Hervey?”
He grinned a big toothy grin at me. “If it ain’t, it’s dang close.”
The Sniper made the cut into the narrow Cow Key Channel right at sunset. I hadn’t seen her in too, too long, and the sight of her, looking black in the golden angle of sunlight, riding high and sleek across the turquoise slick of horizon, put a lump in my throat. I knew then how the knights of old must have felt when their squires brought their energized, armored war horses to them. The Sniper was ready. And so was I.
Hervey brought her in with the expertise only a lifetime on the sea affords; an eggshell landing, the engines pulled into reverse without any clatter of gears to stop her sternway. Once we had fixed lines and spring lines and had her properly bumpered, I went over my gear and stowed it all in the watertight knapsack I would carry.
“I did jes’ like you said,” Hervey told me as we stood in the new dusk, side by side, at his rickety wooden dock. “I tol’ the folks at the marina that the . . . the . . . ”
“The executor of my will?”
“Yeah. I tol’ them he had as’t me to haul her out and go over her before gettin’ an appraisal for your estate.”
“Good.”
“They was all real sad about your death.” He chuckled softly in the darkness. “Almost got a little teary-eyed myself listenin’ to ’em talk. To hear them tell it, you was half Boy Scout, half God, an’ half fish hawk.”
“All the recent dead are, Hervey. It’s too bad we can’t appreciate people while they’re still alive. Huh?”
“Tha’s the dang truth, Dusky. The dang truth. Makes me want to go inside an’ give tha’ girl of mine an’ the ol’ woman a big hug. This life does have a way o’ slippin’ right through our fingers, don’t it?”
“Yes. Yes, it does.”
Hervey cleared his throat and, with well-practiced fingers, took a fresh chew of tobacco from the Red Man pouch. “I got a feelin’, cap’n, that what you got planned tonight might be a little on the dangerous side.”
“A little.”
He spat calmly into the dark water. “May not look like it, but in my day I was some kinda rough when it come to a fight. Figure I’m still he-coon enough to take care of three or four of them dopeheaded bastards if push come to shove.”
It was an eloquent offer, honestly made. If I wanted help, Hervey Yarbrough was willing and ready. I put my hand on his thick shoulder.
“I appreciate it, Hervey, but I’ve got to do this alone. I’ve been trouble enough as it is.”
He spat again. “Ain’t been no trouble, far as I can see. Well, you’ll be wantin’ to get a little shut-eye before you shove off, huh?”
“I think I’d better.”
I went into April’s room and shut the door. I hadn’t seen her since that afternoon. I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye and thanking all three of them, but—well, any farewell might imply that I might never come back. And I didn’t want them saddled with any additional worry. So, at midnight, goodbyes or not, I would just slip away.
I turned on her desk lamp. A small clean room adorned with the things common to the rooms of teenage girls everywhere: high school pennants, Polaroid snapshots, and little bottles of departmentstore perfume. Snoop that I am, I went through the photographs; stop-action capsules of a single human life in gentle flight. The little girl, the tomboy, the new teenager banking toward womanhood. I noticed something odd: no boys in the photographs with her. And she was a pretty girl: breasts and ripe young body built for love. I wondered about the curious absence of the obligatory adoring male. She was no lesbian—the way she shyly flirted told me that. She was all young woman, strong and sure—and maybe that was it. You see it sometimes in the independent ones, the best of the females—they can’t find a male strong enough to accept them, to complement them. I put the photographs back the way I had found them, amused with the new puzzle of April Yarbrough, the young woman I had known before only as a little girl.
There was a mirror over her dresser. Carefully, I unwound the head bandage and, with the aid of a cheap little hand mirror, took a look at the back of my head. The blond hair was yellow and then rustcolored where Ellsworth had clubbed me. I touched the spot tenderly.
“Damn!”
It still hurt. No doubt about that. But it was too late to worry about. And too unimportant.
I awoke when I heard the bedroom door open. All was darkness: not a light on in the house. I heard the tick-tock-ticking of the grandfather clock in the living room.
Still half asleep, I reached mechanically for my Randall knife. In Vietnam I had kept it under my pillow. Always. In my dream, that’s where I was—back in Nam where a moment’s hesitation could kill you just deader than hell. The knife wasn’t there, of course. It was back on Cuda Key. And by the time I realized it, the approaching figure was upon me, beside the bed. I reached out, grabbed an arm, swung the adversary around, and pulled the body down on me, taking a strong cross-chest hold on it—and felt the firm heave of breasts.
“April!”
“Jesus Christ, man! You always wake up this way?”
I fumbled for the little desk lamp beside the bed and switched it on. She wore the same soft blue nightshirt she had worn the first night I arrived, and now it was hiked up above her bikini panties in disarray. She brushed stray ropen hair back over her shoulders, unconcerned with exposed tan legs and the dark bulge of hips.
“What are you—”
“Came to say goodbye, that’s what! Lordy, you liked to mash me flat, the way you grabbed me!”
I settled back while she sat on the edge of the bed. I smiled and looked at her meaningfully. “Not much danger of that,” I said.
She blushed and slapped at me. “Well . . . at least you noticed. There for a while I thought all you saw when you looked at me was that barefooted little girl.”
“April, I’m sorry about this afternoon. I should have explained things to you. You have a right to know.”
So I told her. I told her everything, leaving out only names and my new involvement with Fizer’s agency. And as she listened, I saw her face soften and the moisture fill her golden eyes.
“And that’s it,” I finished. “And if you start getting weepy on me, I’ll turn you over my knee. You’re old enough to accept the fact that some people are just plain evil. But I’m going to get them. Every one of them.”
She looked away from me momentarily, gathering her composure, then turned back.
“You shoulda tol’ me earlier,” she said.
“Had I known my rush to recovery was going to upset you, I would have.”
Her eye widened in brief anger. “It’s not jus’ that! Can’t ya’ see I . . . I . . . I care about you?”
She turned away, and I knew that she was crying now. Gently, I pulled her head down to my chest: warm raven hair, scented with perfume. I stroked her head and spoke softly. “April, if there was ever to be another woman, I would want her to be just like you. But you’re too young, sweetheart. You have too much—”
“Too young!” She bolted upright, out of my arms. “Are ya blind or what? I’m a woman now, Dusky MacMorgan! Eighteen or forty-eight—a woman’s a woman. An’ all I’m wantin’ now is a strong man and a bunch ’a strong babies, an’ . . .”
She stared deep into my eyes, and I saw her face change; feeling, as I did, my own body come alive with the scent of her, the nearness of her, the love in her. April leaned down and kissed me softly. The sexuality in the kiss was as strong and tangible as summer musk. Her lips were hot and swollen, and I pulled her down on me, felt her legs and hips swing up, onto the bed, and press against my body, naked beneath the sheet. She trembled beneath my arms, her mouth open and wanting as I slid my hand gently up the undulations of stomach and ribs to the firmness of young, heavy breasts.
“Dusky, oh Dusky, I’ve wanted ta kiss you like this so bad. . . .”
It was all there, everything I could ever want to make my return to the world of the living. A good woman, a strong woman; an eighteen-year-old woman so aware of her wants that she had no time for coyness. I considered it. I really did. For a long, passionate minute, I knew that I could do no better than this April Yarbrough. But I wasn’t ready to rejoin the living; not yet. What had I to offer her save a night of passion and whispered words of love? In a few more hours I would be on Cuda Key, and I could afford no attachments, no woman to live for, no love to inspire within me a fear of death.
I pulled her face down onto my shoulder, kissed her gently on the cheek and whispered, “April, I want you. You know that. But not now, not tomorrow, and not the next day. Now listen to me! I want you to experience a little of life first. Date. Have fun. Go off to college. And then . . . if you’re still interested in a scarred-up old man, well . . . ”
She sat up. I expected her to cry. But she didn’t. She brushed the hair away from my face, letting her hand linger on my cheek, and then she smiled. “Whew! Look at me, will you—the first man I didn’t want to fight off, an’ he turns me down.”
She began to laugh softly; a good laugh. I took her hand. “You understand, don’t you?”
She nodded. “I do. An’ I’m gonna hold you to what you said.” She allowed herself another chuckle, this time bashful. “An’, from the feel of you, you’re sure fire breeding stock—no doubt about that.”
I laughed with her; innocent, bawdy, bedroom laughter. And then I hugged her tenderly, fought to keep control of my own body, and allowed myself one last kiss.
“You’re leavin’ tonight, aren’t you, Dusky?”
“That’s right, April.”
“Well, I ain’t the type to try an’ stop a man from doin’ what he has to do. So I’ll wish you luck. An’ make you promise you’ll come back to see me sometime.”
“I’ll do that, April. Promise.”
She smiled a girlish smile at me. “Couldn’t use some help, could ya? I’m small but strong. We’re part Indian, ya know.”
I smacked her on the rump. “No! And get out of here before I change my mind.”
And then she was gone: purposeful wiggle of pantied hips, vampish flash of perfect breasts from beneath the blue nightshirt, and soft laughter as she disappeared down the hallway.
I sighed heavily and lay back on her pillow. The room was still scented with her. Any attempt to sleep, I knew, would be useless. Goodbye, April Yarbrough. I hope we meet again. When you are ready, and when I am ready. Soon.
I gave it a few minutes, hardening myself for my upcoming mission, refreshing the memories within me that would bring to surface the stoic anger I would need to succeed.
It didn’t take much effort.
By my Rolex, it was nearly midnight. I climbed out of bed, did ten minutes of stretching exercises, then dressed. Black sweater, dark British commando pants, black watch cap. The cap was tight on my head, and it hurt momentarily.
Outside, the wind had freshened; heavy, late-August storm wind, thunderheads bruised and anvilshaped in the flare of distant lightning. I walked out of the house, across the dirt yard, down to the dock. Someone was standing there, hands on hips, watching the approaching storm.
It was Hervey.
“Looks like you’re in for some weather, cap’n,” he said when he heard my footfall.
“Southeast wind. Probably swing around and hit out of the northwest.”
“Yep.”
The Sniper strained and rolled against her lines like a nervous horse. There was another flash of lightning, a distant rumble, and I could see green pustules of feathering waves on the open sea. The damp storm wind roared and receded in the high palm trees and leached a strange ozone and protein odor from the water.
“I didn’t even hear you get up, Hervey.”
“Well, you was sorta busy at the time.”
“Oh.”
So he knew. And what can you say to a friend who knows you were with his daughter?
“She’s a good girl, Hervey. It wasn’t what you might think.”
He chuckled quietly and produced his Red Man. “Chew?”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
I took the moist leaves, rolled them, and pushed the wad back into my cheek, feeling the sweet taste move across my tongue.
“Funny thing,” Hervey said. “You raise a young’un an’, after a time, you stop seein’ them grow. April there has always been jes’ a little girl ta me. Guess I was blin’ not to see that she’d growed into a woman.”
“A good woman, Hervey.”
“No doubt ’bout that. Always been kinda different, that one. Not like the other young’uns ya see gallivantin’ around in cars an’ drinkin’ wild an’ such. Like she was born old or somethin’. An’ probably too smart for her own good—straight A’s in school an’ never really had to work at it.”
“Hervey . . . ”
He turned to me and smiled; a strange, sad smile. “You got nothin’ to apologize to me for, Dusky. If nothin’ happened between you an’ April, that’s fine. An’ if somethin’ did, well, it’s business ’tween you an’ her. Sorta hope it did, really. Girl’s first time oughta be nice.”
“I wish I could have, Hervey. But I couldn’t.”
“Well, ’least you finally seed how tha’ pretty little thing feels ’bout you. Obvious ta me an’ the ol’ woman all along. We was wonderin’ if you was blin’ or somethin’. You lost you one good woman, Dusky. And ya need another—not a woman to replace her; jes’ a different one. A woman to he’p ya get goin’ again. To give ya some babies and he’p ya make it through the resta your life. No shame in needin’—when you’re ready. An’ when tha’ time comes . . . well, I’d be proud to let you court my daughter.” He shook his head and chuckled again. “God knows, she needs a strong man. She’s some kinda hell on wheels, tha’ girl. I can’t handle her; ain’t smart enough or strong enough. I ain’t ashamed to admit it, neither.”
I slapped him gently on the back. “And I would be proud to date April, Hervey. And I might show up at your doorstep some evening. But I’m not ready yet. And neither is she—and she understands that.”
We both stood silent for a few minutes, feeling the warm blow of storm in our faces. Finally, Hervey said, “Got some hot coffee up ta the house. Let me put some in a thermos for ya. You’re gonna need it.”
“I’ll walk up with you.”
And I did.
