“Don’t, there’s a …” Drew began.

“Let’s hope its appetite is appeased for the moment.”

Will stepped to the rail, took a careful look around, and launched out in a long, shallow dive that carried him almost halfway to the tender. The two younger brothers watched with stilled hearts, Eliot shouldering the L. C. Smith, determined to fire at the first suspicious shadow he spied gliding under these lovely, limpid, terrible seas. Will was to the boat in two strong strokes. He appeared to leap over its transom, as though springing from solid ground, and eased past Nat, who seemed oblivious to his presence. In a moment, the anchor was weighed, and that was when Nat perversely chose to stop rowing. He slumped in his seat, his head falling to his knees, his shoulders heaving. Will pulled him off the thwart and took the oars.

At first, Nat would not get out of the tender. He sat, sobbing quietly to himself, but Will at last cajoled him to come aboard and tell them what happened. He flopped down on the afterdeck, legs spread, hands lying limply between them.

“Goddammit, why didn’t you shoot, Eliot?” was all he said.

“There was nothing to shoot at. We never saw a thing.”

The tears streaking his older brother’s face shocked Eliot. He could not remember seeing him cry, even when he was little. Their father had taught them that tears did not become a boy, but Nat was the only one to take the lesson to heart.

“Because you weren’t looking,” he said, choking. “If you’d been looking, you would’ve seen it and shot it before it … Aw, Christ …”

“Nat, all I did was go forward for a second to help out,” said Eliot, feeling a sudden stab of guilt. “No shark could’ve come in that quick.”

“This one did. It sure as hell did.”

Some quick-acting alchemy transformed Nat’s grief and shock into rage, and he snatched the shotgun from Eliot’s hands, took aim at the spot where the tender had been anchored, and fired both barrels, the slugs geysering.

“Like that! That’s all you had to do, and then he’d still be here!”

“You’re saying it was my fault?” Eliot cried out. “You son of a—”

Will took hold of Eliot’s arm and with a shake of his head told him to keep still.

“Want something to drink, Natters?”—soothingly. “Wish I had another bottle of that rum. How about a cup of coffee?”

Nat motioned that he did not want anything.

“All right, then. What went on? Last thing we saw of Artemis, he was about to get into the tender. What happened? We need to know because we’re going to have to tell his wife. What did he call her? Euphy? Euphrenia, I guess. We’re honor-bound to tell her. You realize that, don’t you?”