"Twenty Paces"

Tom drew.

The flintlock came up two-handed, the brass-banded barrel steadier than his heart. Twenty paces was a long shot for a wet pistol and a shaking boy, and he knew it, and he prayed neither of them knew he knew.

"That's far enough!"

The two stopped. The tall one's fowling-piece did not move from the crook of his arm, but his weight shifted onto his back foot, the way a cat shifts before it springs.

"Easy, lad," he said.

"Who told you?" Tom's voice did not crack, which surprised him. "No survivors — you said you were told. By who? Speak it, or by God I'll send you to ask Him yourself."

A silence. The surf hissed. Somewhere behind the ridge, the drum sounded once, low.

The shorter one — the one with the cord — let his smile widen a fraction. "Spirited," he murmured, as if to himself. To Tom he said, "Boy. That pistol's been in the sea. You know it as well as we do. Lower it before someone gets hurt who needn't."

"Answer the question."

The tall one sighed, the way a man sighs at a tedious bit of business.

"A woman," he said. "On Saint-Pierre. Paid us in good Spanish silver to walk this beach at low tide and see what it gave up. She said no one would be left to give us trouble." He tilted his head. "She was wrong about that, it seems."

Saint-Pierre. The name Marrow had whispered. The name in the packet Tom could not yet read.

The shorter man's hand drifted, very slowly, toward the curved blade at his hip.