Stranded (9 page)

Jake helped Crystal climb the last few steps back down to the beach. The kid was nimble as a monkey, but her determination to not spill one drop of the precious water she carried made her footsteps cautious
.
Between her and Eve slowing them down, they’d do well to make it to the stream by nightfall.

“How about if you give the gals their water while I clean up.” He handed his half coconut shell of water to her. Betty and Eve lay asleep, submerged to their waists in the swirling, white coattails of the waves. He waded past them a short distance and sat down. The salt stung the cuts in his feet. He’d have to tear off a piece from his shirt to wrap around them so they wouldn’t get infected.

“Aunty, wake up, we found water! Do you want me to pour it on your head?”

Betty opened her eyes and bolted upright. “Don’t you dare waste it, child! Eve, wake up.”

Beaming, Crystal handed them the two shells. “We scraped all the coconut out so we could bring the water to you.”

Betty took a swallow and grimaced. 

“It tastes awful and there’s sand in it, but it’s real water, Aunty.”

“I can tell. Thank you, sweetie. It’s wonderful to have it.”

“We saw bananas too. Jake’s going to get us some tonight.”

“How far did you have to go?” Eve took a sip from her coconut and made a face. She held the water in her mouth, as if debating whether to spit it out or swallow it.

Jake growled under his breath. He had shed blood for that water. He waited for Eve to swallow it. “The stream isn’t far, but a good ways at the pace we’ve been going. As soon as you finish your drinks we’ll head out so it doesn’t get dark on us.”

“And spend the night in the jungle?” Eve twisted around to confront him. “Why not stay here to help Betty and me recover? We can start out in the morning.”

He should have seen it coming. “We’ll camp at the edge of the jungle, not in it. The stream will give us fresh water, and the bananas a good start on a tough day. No sense wasting time here.”

To his surprise, Eve ended her protest. She turned to Betty and raised her eyebrows. “Well, I guess we should do what the man wants, right, Betty?”

Betty smiled and raised her coconut shell. “Beginning with drinking the water he brought us, Eve.” She directed her smile to Jake. “Thank you, Jake, that was good of you. I’m glad we didn’t have to wait till we got there.”

“You’re welcome.” Inside, he squirmed. Something was going on here. Something beyond cooperation on Eve’s part and gratitude on Betty’s. He rose to tear the hem off his dripping T-shirt. The two women sipped their water as if it were hemlock and watched him sit and bandage his swollen cuts.

Aha! An expectation—that’s what it was. They’d never tell him, but it’d be there waiting for him, a steel trap he’d step into as sure as if he were blind. He huffed. What they needed was a good dose of gratitude that they weren’t stranded on the island by themselves.

Their progress proved even slower than before. Eve refused to abandon her branch and let him help her move along faster. A hand up a steep incline was the most she’d accept. And, sure enough, it was dusk by the time they got to their new campsite.

He glanced from the stream’s trickle of water to Betty’s and Eve’s faces registering disappointment. He shouldn’t have called it a stream. The bed was broad and deep, but the amount of water flowing down its middle was barely a foot wide and only inches deep. They had to practically bury an empty coconut shell in order to fill it with water.

“Not exactly the Hilton,” he said stiffly, “but it’s got running water, no limit on how much we drink, and enough splashes to wash off every bit of salt you’ve got patience to deal with.”

“I’m all for that.” Eve knelt next to the water and splashed it on her face. She winced every time the water spattered her reddened skin, but she didn’t stop.

The tough rind of his exasperation sloughed to his feet. He’d forgotten about her pain in his determination to conquer distance. Barely able to walk, sore feet, sun beating on her sunburn—she had to be in agony. Really, she’d been a trooper. He should admire her resilience, ignore her mulishness.

“Crystal, want to help me with those bananas?”

The trees weren’t far, but his feet were tender from the cuts. Even if he could handle climbing the rough bark, he had no way to cut off an entire cluster of bananas. When they arrived, he hoisted Crystal onto his shoulders. Stretching to her fingertips, she harvested an entire tier of twenty fruit.

The trip back to the campsite was difficult in the dark. The night noises of the nearby rain forest leaped at them like invisible demons. Whoops and cries, snarls and screams, and snapping sounds. He remembered a similar sound in Nam.

“I don’t like it here,” Crystal whimpered. “Something’s out there.”

“You’re okay. It’s mostly monkeys and birds. Nothing for you to worry about.”

His stomach knotted. Just something for him to worry about.

He woke before sunrise. Three dark lumps identified his companions, lying side by side on the dry stream bed, with Crystal sandwiched between her aunt and Eve. He drank from the stream, savoring each swallow, until his belly protested. Then he soaked and rewrapped his feet. When the sky lightened, he stood and grabbed several bananas, pocketing them for later. No sense waking anyone—they’d just worry until he returned. He’d hurry.

The path back to the lighter was easy to follow, trampled almost flat by its four travelers the previous day. He ignored the stinging twitches in his feet and trotted where the path was level. Without the women to slow him down, he’d arrive at the lighter in no time at all. His task would take only a few minutes. He might even get back before they woke, tired as they were.

The silence of being alone poked at the emptiness inside him, opened him to the pain fisted in his soul. The words erupted, unbidden, clamoring.

God, why?

Why take Ginny away from me? Our time was already reduced to months—why steal that from us?

A leaded heaviness halted his steps. It rose to his lungs, locking his air passages, paralyzing his breath.

He closed his eyes and squared off with God. I don’t want to live without her. I can’t bear it. I can’t.

The torrent came then. Flooding his eyes. Roaring down the canyon in his heart. Hollowing a cavern in his soul.

He fell to his knees, and a hush followed. It wrapped him in its folds like a mummy. Tight. Numbing the pain.

At last, he got to his feet. His direction was clear. He had no choice.

He had to go on. The lives of three people depended on him.

A gull cawed overhead. Morning heat wafted a faint perfume off the vegetation. A coven of tiny, flying insects welcomed him into their swarm. He brushed them aside and broke into a trot.

The beach was dazzling after the shadows of the rain forest. Sea and sky winked, brilliant gems of aqua and turquoise, the sun a golden amethyst in their midst. He stood for a moment and let the serenity stretch its arms around him. He could do this.

In the damp sand at the ocean’s edge, salt water soaked through the bandages on his feet, biting his cuts as he walked. He trudged past the large outcrop of rock where Betty and Crystal had watched him rescue Eve. The beached lighter came into view, and he increased his pace.

Was it an illusion, or were the waves tugging the boat into the ocean? He’d meant to pull the lighter farther up onto the beach yesterday but had forgotten with the distraction of helping Eve. Depending on what they found at the elevated end of the island, several days could pass before he returned to repair the boat. In the meantime, he didn’t want the tide to dislodge it and float it out to sea.

His mouth went dry as he neared the lighter. Something in the water had washed ashore during the night. A body. His knees wobbled.

Please, God, not Ginny.

The odor of decomposed flesh permeated the air. The corpse was bloated, swollen by the fermentation of death. Blowflies buzzed frantically about it, covering it in a shroud of shifting black dots. Jake held his breath and threw sand over the corpse to dispel the flies.

It wasn’t Ginny. He released the air in his lungs, gagging as he inhaled the putrid odor with his next breath. The body was a Filipino man—a sailor, from the looks of his clothing. A red gash stretched across the man’s neck, clearly identifying him as the victim of a cruel and swift murder.

Jake’s hair stood on end. He stood stock-still and scanned the beach. Nothing. The body’s presence could mean civilization was nearby, perhaps even on the island itself. On the other hand, the fact that the man had been murdered spelled danger for all of them. And he had left the three women alone.

He needed to hurry. He stepped toward the lighter but stopped. He couldn’t leave without burying the body. Any man was owed that dignity. Fetching an oar from the boat, he dug a hole in the sand near the tree line and dragged the corpse by its clothes to the shallow grave. He planted four sticks at its corners to mark its boundaries. Hastily, before closing the grave, he searched the man for a wallet or other form of identification. Nothing, except a knife slipped into the man’s waistline. Jake took it.

The stench of the corpse clung to his hands and arms. His stomach roiled at the nastiness of the task. He made a quick attempt to wash the stink off in the ocean, then pulled the lighter to the edge of the tree line.

Burying the sailor had detained him long enough that the women would be awake now. In spite of his fatigue and the sand slipping into his bandages, grinding against the tender flesh of his feet, he made himself jog.

He’d been gone far longer than he’d intended.

Jake stepped into the cone of silence pyramiding the stream bed. Birds, monkeys, everything but insects had fled the premises of the human invaders. Betty, eyes closed, lay curled on the sandy bed where he’d seen her last. Next to her, Eve sat chewing a green banana, her face somber. Crystal crouched over the stream, fingers curled around a coconut shell, three more lined up next to her like children at a water pump.

The knot in his stomach dissolved. Nothing had happened to them. Not this time. He took several breaths, his heart thumping from running back to the campsite. He needed to discover what dangers lurked on the island. Get a supply of bananas, head for the volcano, and spy out the land.

None of the women detected his approach. He shook his head. They didn’t need to do sentry duty, but surely they could tune in to what was happening around them. “I’m back,” he announced.

Betty opened her eyes and jerked to a sitting position. Relief flitted across her face, followed by a scowl. “You were gone so long, I was afraid you’d left us.”

Behind her, Eve stared daggers at him.

“I’m sorry. I thought I’d be back before you woke.”

“You said you could go faster without us, and then you just disappeared.” Betty pushed her hair behind her ears. Her hands shook.

Jake’s conscience crunched down hard. He was supposed to protect them, not scare them. “I’m sorry.” His heart felt the words this time. He stooped and took Betty’s hand. “I won’t go off again without telling you first.”

“Where were you?” Eve demanded.

He prickled at her tone of voice. Okay, he deserved the harshness. He’d scared her too. Crystal’s quivering lower lip made the rebuke unanimous.

“I went to the beach to move the lighter so the tide wouldn’t get it. If we don’t find anyone here, we’ll need to repair the boat to keep going. I thought I’d let you sleep until I returned.”

“What took you so long?” Eve jabbed the question at him as hard as she had the first one.

“I found a dead body.”

The women gasped in unison, and he took perverse pleasure at being able to justify himself before the firing squad. But he was frightening them again. Not what he wanted. “It washed ashore near the boat.” Their eyes widened. “No, it wasn’t Ginny.”

“Was it one of the passengers?” Betty gripped his hand tighter.

“No, but it was a Filipino man, probably a sailor. Before I buried him, I searched his clothes and found this.” He released Betty’s hand to show them the knife he had placed in his belt.

“Is that the stench I smell, the dead man?” Eve’s curled lip indicated her disgust included more than the odor.

“Sorry.” He took a step back. “I guess I didn’t get it washed off.”

“Give me your shirt, Jake.” Betty held out her hand. “I’ll see what I can do with it in the stream.”

He took his shirt off and handed it to her. Crystal gasped. He didn’t have to look at the three of them to know they were gawking at the ragged path of scars etched into the right side of his chest.

“Dog,” he muttered. He turned to walk away, then stopped. “I’m leaving to get more fruit.”

Crystal didn’t ask to join him. Great—no doubt he’d frightened her, as gruff as he’d been. No more growling, Marine. Ginny had told him to boss the troops, court the ladies. He huffed at the practice he was in for.

He was pleased to find riper bananas. He examined the fruit for tarantulas, but the battle against other hungry insects was beyond winning. By the time he arrived back at the campsite, his chest and arms bore the reddened battle scars of their victory.

Betty handed him his sopping shirt while Eve and Crystal selected their bananas. “Smells good, feels good. Thanks, Betty.”

In turn, they thanked him for the bananas. Graciousness abounded as if they were the star pupils at a Victorian finishing school.

He stuffed down all the bananas he could eat, then took his life vest and cut a slit in it.

“What are you doing?” Crystal dropped down next to him.

His heart warmed at her presence. The courting was working. “Watch.” He removed the stuffing from the life vest and cut the rubberized fabric into four equal pieces. Then he placed some of the stuffing on two of them, put his feet on top of the stuffing, and secured the fabric around each foot. He stood and took a few steps.

“Good enough.” He took the other two pieces and the remaining stuffing over to Eve and got down on one knee. “May I?”

Eve leaned away from him. “I’ll do it.” She took the materials, all but stiff-arming him. With a few deft movements, she assembled the moccasins and tried them out. “Thanks. Nice idea.”

They exchanged polite smiles.

“But Jake . . .” Crystal frowned. “What about when we’re out on the ocean? You won’t have a life vest.”

Eve put her arm around Crystal’s shoulders. “Don’t worry, kiddo. If he needs help, I’ll tow him by his hair.”

Silence, then a cackle from Betty. Warmth flooded his chest, and he laughed.

Jake led the way over a winding path that skirted the coastline. Every step raised them higher above the ocean until they looked down from steep walls of volcanic rock to the foam of crashing waves below. Trees the size of saplings replaced the palm trees. Beyond them lay the towering rain forest, a green sea that tossed as restlessly as the ocean booming in their ears.

“Can’t we just cut through the jungle to get to the volcano?” Betty sighed. “Seems like we’re getting farther away, not closer.”

“We’d have no way to orient ourselves in the jungle. The layers of leaves are so thick we wouldn’t be able to see the volcano. Besides, the coastline is where we’d find anyone, if they’re here.”

“There’s no one here.” Eve leaned on her staff, swaying slightly. “The beach we landed on was too gorgeous for anyone to pass up living on it.”

“Unless there’s something better. That gorgeous beach was just around the corner from a swamp. No telling what lives in there.”

Betty inhaled sharply and Crystal whimpered.

“Thanks for goosing our imaginations,” Eve snapped.

“Look, I’m not trying to scare you, just asking you to be sensible. You need to be alert to what’s going on around you. This morning I walked right up to you, and until I spoke, none of you knew I was there. I could have eaten you for breakfast.”

“Thanks, that should help us sleep tonight.”

“Okay, you two!” Betty halted. “Let’s start being reasonable by taking turns and rotating who stays awake.”

With age, injury, and a wild imagination to arm them? Jake sighed. But was there any alternative? He couldn’t stay up all night and expect to function the next day. The murdered sailor was a warning that their lives could be at risk. “I agree. From now on, someone always needs to be standing watch.”

Jake stared in disbelief at the wall of rock blocking his way. It jutted straight up from the ground like a black granite tombstone. Where had that come from? Every time the women wanted to rest, he’d scouted ahead for the best route to take. Twice they’d been forced to retrace their steps. Now it looked like they would have to double back over everything. All the way back to their morning campsite.

Crystal, Betty, and Eve, still following the pattern of trailing him in single file, joined him one by one. Betty’s steps wobbled, Eve’s dragged. They sank to the ground as soon as they saw Jake wasn’t moving.

No way did he want to tell them they’d climbed that last, steep incline for nothing. “Ready for a rest stop?”

Eve and Betty answered by shrugging off their life vests and using them as pillows. Before Jake could say anything, they were asleep.

He turned to Crystal. “I’m going to explore how to get around this piece of rock.”

“Can I go with you?” She discarded her life vest and flapped the front of her sweat-soaked T-shirt. “I’m not tired.”

He nodded at Betty and Eve. “Looks like your turn to do guard duty. Do a good job and stay alert. I won’t be gone long.” He winced at the disappointment on her face as he walked away.

On the ocean side, as he expected, the volcanic rock cliff plunged straight down. He turned and trailed the wall inland until the jungle opened its maw and swallowed the wall in vegetation so thick, his stick was useless against it.

The only other option was to go over the cliff. It wasn’t particularly high, maybe fifteen feet, not at all impossible if he could find a way to climb it. He followed it back to their campsite, studying the rock face for footholds. Nothing. The vertical edges were as finely honed as if a straightedge
had sliced down them.

“We hear you, Jake. About time,” Eve called out.

She and Betty were eating bananas they had stuffed into their pockets that morning. Short naps, or had he taken longer than he thought?

“Where’s Crystal?” He frowned that they’d let her out of their sight.

Betty gasped. “What do you mean? We thought she was with you.”