Summer by Summer (25 page)

I opened my hand to reveal the rope ring I’d made. “I swear when we get home, I’ll exchange it for real gold.” I slid it onto her finger.

It fit.

She squeezed her hand closed and pressed it to her heart. “I love it.”

CHAPTER 14

Bray

Outside in the morning light, I could tell something had been dragged along the edge of beach from the jungle. But the wind had left only small indentions in the sand. “No footprints,” I noted.

Summer sipped a cup of coffee I’d heated on the coals. We were too cautious to make a blazing fire this morning.

I turned to her. “I need to see if it’s them.”

“You’re going to the north end of the island?” she said, face pinching into a worried frown.

“I have to, Summer. What if it’s someone else? Someone who could help us?”

She nodded then drained her coconut shell. “I’m going with you.”

Actually, I thought that would be best too. I wasn’t about to leave her here when whoever had come knew there was a campsite and people. We could stay silent in the jungle.

We walked the forest without speaking, making little to no noise. But when we got to the beach, there was no boat. I waited for a time, searching through the trees, scanning one end of the north beach, then the other. Quietly, I moved through the last bit of cover
and could plainly see where the boat had been, its deep grooves on the sand still visible through the approaching tide. I also noticed the cage they’d left behind.

“What is that?” Summer stepped around me.

I shrugged. The end was blocked open, and from the beach, you could barely see the metal contraption. Deep grooves of footprints told the story. Someone, probably several people, had dragged it to its spot along the close tree line. It would take a handful of pretty tough men to get it here if it had an animal inside. And given the flattened bit of sand at the cage door, something had crawled out.

The prints, though they were hard to see in the shifting sand, were deep, clawed, and large. Four giant paws almost the width of the cage. “Bray,” Summer said, latching onto my arm. “What kind of beast came out of there?”

“I don’t know.” I had my suspicions, though. After all, we lived in Florida when we weren’t summering in Belize.

We left the cage and returned to the hut. Summer fixed breakfast.

“We’re almost out of water,” I told her. “I’m going to go to the lake to fill the cooler.”

She stood from where she’d been feeding the fire. “We usually do that together.”

“Yeah. I’m leaving my spear here for you. In case.”

Her hip and her head cocked in unison. “I’ve got a knife. Besides, I’m going with you, Bray.”

I knew she’d put up a fight. “Okay.”

I grabbed the cooler and rope and handed her the spear. For good measure, I slung the fishing net over my shoulder and took the dulled machete I’d been using to hack through the jungle.

“Why are you taking that?”

“Don’t know. Just seems like a good idea.”

We made it to the lake, and Summer slid out of her shoes. When
she headed for the water, I stopped her by placing a hand on her arm. “Let’s not swim today.”

She stared at me for a few moments, then nodded and put her shoes back on. Cooler in hand, I approached the water cautiously. When I dropped it in, I heard the growl.

It rose from somewhere along the water’s edge where brush and plants flourished. The low, guttural roar bounded off the water. Summer materialized beside me, gripping my arm with one hand and the spear with the other. “What is that?” she hissed.

Movement off to the right and a splash forced us into motion. Carrying the cooler, we booked it to the edge of jungle. “It’s exactly what I feared. It’s the reason I didn’t want to risk swimming. I dropped the net.”

Summer grabbed my arm when I turned from the edge of the trees. “You’re not going back to get it!”

I scanned the lake. “Summer, look!”

The long nose came out of the water first, right at the spot where I’d filled the cooler. A mouth full of sharp, jagged teeth. Then a body, a good two and a half feet across at the shoulders, and a long, long tail. “It’s a crocodile.”

Summer dropped onto the cooler. “It’s huge.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, and as if the beast heard us, he turned so we could see the entire length of his gnarled green-and-brown body. His mouth opened wide and stayed that way. I shuddered. It was big enough to kill either of us.

“I’ve seen alligators at home. But they don’t look like this.” Summer remained on the cooler. I don’t think she trusted her legs to hold her.

“Alligators steer clear of people for the most part. Unless you’re in the water after dark, then you might be on the menu.”

“What about crocodiles?”

If I remembered my high school science, crocodiles were a whole different story. “Very territorial.”

Summer grabbed my arm and used it to drag herself to her feet. “That’s what was at the hut last night.”

“Yep.”

“So the boat men don’t know about us.” There was a little hope in her voice.

“No. They must not.”

My arm started to fall asleep from the grip she had on me.

“Why did they have it? Was it the same people?”

I worked my fingers to encourage blood flow. Summer noticed. “Oh, sorry.” She loosened her grip.

“I saw a cage on the boat. I’m guessing they’re trafficking exotic animals.”

“Is that a big business?”

“Huge. I watched a special about it on the Discovery Channel. Dad and I, since we fish and hunt back home, had to take a hunter safety course, and they told us what to watch out for with poachers.” My eyes stayed on the croc. I couldn’t look away. The creature was surreal.

“Poachers and animal traffickers are the same thing?”

“Well, poachers can just be someone who kills an animal illegally. We get quite a bit of that in Florida with the alligators.”

When the croc slipped back into the water, I took one side of the cooler and waited for Summer. She stayed there a few seconds more, staring at the settling ripples. “Will he come back to our hut?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Looks like he may have found his honey hole.”

She twisted her face. “Huh?”

“Sorry. Fishing term. No. I don’t think he’ll come back. But we should still be careful.”

She nodded and latched her fingers around the cooler. “How are we going to get water now?”

“I don’t know. We’ll have to be careful.” The reality of our situation hit home as we carried the cooler back to the hut. With the croc there, I didn’t know when we’d get water again.

Summer

Bray started getting sick three days after we found the croc. We had been rationing our water, and the cooler was still half full. Enough to last us a couple more days, but not too long. On the first day of his illness, I noticed he seemed weaker than normal, and then his skin started looking gray. By late morning, he’d broken out in chills. From my calculations, we’d been on the island for over two weeks, and both of us had escaped illness until now. “Let’s get you inside,” I told him when I noticed him napping in the late morning. Bray never napped in the morning. We’d often nap in the heat of the day, but never this early.

He stumbled in and started to fall onto his bed.

“Nope.” My grip tightened on him and I led him to the bedroom. “If I’m going to have a patient, I want him up off the ground.”

He nodded and let me take him to my room.

I helped him pull the shirt from his body. Beneath it, he was slick with sweat. We had our fair share of sweat here, no doubt, but this was different. A cold sweat. As soon as he stretched out, the chills started again. I tried to gauge his fever, but really couldn’t tell how bad he was.

“Where does it hurt?” My eyes scanned him from head to toe.

“Everywhere.”

“Do you feel like you’re going to throw up?”

A glassy eye opened and looked at me. “Yes. Can I have your shirt?”

I swatted at him. “You’re not
too
sick.”

A light smile tilted one side of his face. I assembled all the medical items we had. Our lip balm was long gone, but I kept an oyster shell full of coconut oil nearby. I had fresh water, a pan in case he puked, and lastly, I shook sand from the tarp and dragged it inside.

Bray’s hands clutched his arms as he shivered, the muscles covered with gooseflesh. I stroked a hand across his head. My palm was slick when I drew it back. “Poor baby.”

“So cold.” I grabbed his shirt to put it back on him, but it was soaking wet. The breeze on the front porch would dry it quickly. Back inside the room, I tested Bray’s temperature again. Placing my hand to my own forehead told me he was feverish, but not drastically so.

“Okay, I’m going to cover you in the tarp, but if your temperature goes up, I’ll have to uncover you.”

He nodded, eyes closed and lined with dark circles.

I started to cover him, but he looked so miserable there, lying in his own sweat. “Bray.” I shook his shoulder a little. “Bray, I’m going to bathe you first, then cover you, okay?”

His teeth were chattering, but he managed to mumble, “You’ll get no complaint out of me.”

My instinct was to use the sea water, but I knew it left the skin sticky and sometimes irritated, so I scooped a small amount of the fresh water from our cooler. When I entered the room and stripped off my shirt, he was already on his side facing the window. I doused my T-shirt in the water and began on his back. When the cool cloth made contact, he arched and sucked a breath through his teeth. I knew he didn’t want to complain, but cool water when you’re already chilled isn’t fun. I wiped down the mattress before turning him over, and then continued with my work. The fresh water was drying faster
than the sweat, and by the time I’d finished he was no longer shaking. I pulled the clean tarp up over him. Stretched out on his back, I dunked my shirt once again, this time wringing it with more force. I folded and placed it against his forehead.

“My mom used to do that for me when I was sick.” I whispered the words, so they wouldn’t disturb him in case he was close to sleep. My thoughts turned to my parents, what they must be going through with us missing.

He mumbled something back at me, but it wasn’t audible, so I sat still and watched him breathe.

When each inhale and exhale was long and deep, I slipped from the room. The sunshine outside scorched my eyes, so I paused on the front porch. The lagoon pushed a salty breeze to me, and I lifted my hair from my shoulders to let it cool the sweat I’d accumulated working on Bray. It was strange how sweat was just a common, normal part of our world here. We didn’t usually give it much thought anymore. But Bray’s sick sweat had been different. And I hoped he was through the worst of it because I hated to see him so miserable.

I scrounged through the canned soups we’d collected at the kitchen and chose a chicken broth for him if he got hungry later.

But later came and went and Bray slept on. I’d been sitting in the swing finishing up my latest story when I heard him cry out. I bolted upright and realized I must have gotten lost in the story, because the sun had been high in the sky and now it was nearly dusk. Long shadows stretched from the palm trees out over the water. I dropped my pencil and paper and ran into the hut.

He was drenched in sweat again and the chills rocked him from head to foot. I stripped the tarp away. His skin was cold and clammy and pale-looking. This was getting worse, not better. The fever was gone, but his flesh felt like cold leather. I cleaned him as quickly as possible with another small pan of fresh water. After I finished, I tucked the tarp around him, but he continued to quake. I didn’t
know what else to do. I knew that people could go into shock if their body temperature dropped and couldn’t rise. This sent a spike of fear through me causing me to shake his shoulder. “Bray, how can I get you warm?”

His lips were blue when they parted. “Do, do you have any paper left over?”

“Yes.”

“T-t-tuck it around me under the tarp.”

That’s right. I remember him telling me paper was a great insulator. I ran around the hut gathering all the paper I could find. It stuck to his body like a mummy suit. “Could you drink a little hot broth? It might help.”

He shook his head. “No.”

“I could help you. I can make a bamboo straw —”

The more forceful shake of his head stopped me. “No. Can’t keep it down. Just need to get warm.”

I paced back and forth a couple times trying to figure out if I could somehow bring a little of the fire inside. We just needed a heat source. Then, I realized.
I’m
a heat source.

I pulled the tarp back and stretched out beside him, then tucked us both under the crinkly fabric. Instantly, heat began to pour off me.

“Th — thanks,” he mumbled, teeth chattering. “But I’m not that kind of guy.”

“Very funny. Just shut up and get warm.” Bray angled on his side and laced an arm around me. He pulled me close, and I was so aware of him, his body, his essence, that I closed my eyes. It wasn’t long before he was sound asleep. Me, on the other hand, I was wide awake and right beside the man I loved. Fueling him with my heat.