The Island - Part 2 (Fallen Earth) (13 page)

With that done, I set about gathering items I wanted back at the station. I pulled one of
the batteries from under the forward bunk and set it on the cockpit seat next to the bank. Going back forward, I took a screwdriver from the sink drawer and unscrewed the overhead light in the forward part of the cabin. Digging through the lockers, I hunted out the little windmill Dad had made to recharge the buggy. Next to it, I placed a repair kit he kept for doing electrical work.

The station needed light. Joshua’s lanterns wouldn’t last forever. While the cabin light wouldn’t be as bright as the lanterns, I could recharge the battery. I couldn’t refill the propane tanks.

Back inside, I looked around, wondering what I was missing. The truth was, I could have stripped her down to nothing and still needed a thousand different things. From one of the rear hatches, I extracted another of Dad’s inventions, this one little more than a box built to hold a spare battery. Twelve volt plugs mounted on the outside offered power stations like those inside a car. A pair of cables inside hooked to the battery posts, and powered the plugs. He called it his Camper’s box, and used it for everything from recharging small electronics to running a DC television he’d had when I was a kid.

Next to it, lying tucked up in the corner, I found a small first aid kit. That sent me flying back into the cabin where I dug out the bigger kit from a locker underneath the port side bunk. Although I had stocked it well, the two of them combined still made for a pitiful collection of medical supplies. Eleven people depended on what lay inside those two plastic boxes. The thought made me sigh.

Both cases contained only over-the-counter supplies and medicines. Still, we could treat fevers, general aches and pains, sterilize and bandage wounds, plus
handle a host of minor medical conditions.  I laid them out alongside the other items figuring that anything would be better than nothing.

I also hunted down the rest of the ammunition for the rifle. I’d felt overpowered when I’d bought the extra box of shells.
The feeling went the opposite way when I pulled out the unopened box. I wanted a dozen more, not just one.

The last few items I pulled from the boat, I wanted for the hike down the beach. I grabbed a day pack, and stuffed it with a water bottle I topped off from the boat’s supply, another bottle full of cold tea, some ham, cheese and bread from the cooler, and after a moment’s consideration, the last flashlight aboard. The thought of needing the light prompted the addition of a cigarette lighter from the sink draw
er, and about fifty feet of 3/8-inch line I’d seen when hunting for the first aid kit. I had no desire to spend the night on the beach. At the same time, if I ended up there, I wanted a way to build a fire and construct some type of shelter. I had the tent, but had no desire to sleep inside those flimsy walls again. After seeing the claws on the little devil, I would rather scrape a hole out in the sand and tie thick branches together as a cover than be trapped inside a tent.

That thought led to another round of even more feverish digging through lockers and bags until I found the cans of mosquito repellant. I had no idea what else might slither or crawl through the night, but Portsmouth had garnered fame among its visitors for the healthy mosquito population it fostered. Twisted little demons from hell might want my blood. The mosquitoes would damned well have it if I ended up sleeping on the beach.

Tyler, Kelly, and Denise had arrived by the time I’d finished. I pointed out the things I wanted them to transfer in addition to the food and clothing.

“Take anything loose that you think might be helpful,” I told them. “Don’t cannibalize her or anything.  Sooner or later, we’ll leave this island, and may need a working boat to make the crossing, but feel free to raid the lockers.”

I motioned back toward the inlet. “I left some containers on the dock yesterday evening. The big blue jugs have water in them, fourteen gallons of it. The small blue jug is kerosene. I used it for cooking and for a small kerosene lantern. I’ll set out the lantern. It doesn’t give off a lot of light, but it’s better than nothing.”

Kelly waved her hand. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll get everything off, but we won’t strip it down.”

I grinned. “Thanks. I had images in my mind of coming back to an empty hull. Oh, before I forget, there are two coolers inside. The one near the hatch will make breakfast better the next few days. The other one is under the starboard bunk. It’s full of meat. Set them both inside and out of the sun when you get to the station.”

“We’ll be okay, “she insisted. “You’d better get going. It’s noon already.”

She was right. I had a four to six-mile hike in front of me. October nights came early on the island. The prospect of traveling after sundown held neither interest nor appeal.

I grabbed up the day pack and slung it over my shoulder. After a last round of goodbyes, I headed up the hill toward the station. I still needed the diving knife and wanted to talk to Elsie before I left.

Just past the tree that had been split by lightning, I passed Joshua heading the other way and grinned at the sight of his lanky frame stuffed inside the little vehicle. He rolled the buggy to a stop about twenty feet away, but I waved him on. The day was slipping away. He and I could chit-chat later.

When I walked into the station a few minutes later, Elsie had the girls cleaning cabinets while she worked over several sheets of paper laid out on the table in the big room.

“I’m separating supplies,” she said when I walked through the door. “Food stocks go on one, tools on another. I’m putting clothing, blankets, sleeping bags, and camping equipment on yet another.”

She held up a final sheet. “This one will be all the miscellaneous stuff. If I need to break it down further, I will, but by the time you get back, I’ll have a good idea of what we have, and what we’re going to need.”

I looked around. “Where’s Daniel?”

She motioned toward the ceiling with her pen. “He’s upstairs rummaging around. We can’t just sprawl out in here every night. This place, as big as it is, will get cramped soon. Once we get everything here and stored, I’m going to put these kids to cleaning out the rooms on the second level.”

Elsie peered at me over her glasses. “There are a couple of big rooms up there off from the dormitory that will make fine bedrooms. You boys can have the dorm room.”

She paused and waited. I wasn’t sure why unless she expected me to argue over the sleeping space.

“Girls need privacy, you know,” she said finally, “but I don’t know how we’re going to get by with one bathroom for all these people.”

I frowned at her. “There’s not another upstairs?”

She sighed. “Hill William, this place was built over a hundred years ago. It ain’t like houses built these days where everyone has their own bathroom. Besides, water don’t run uphill. It only works down here because its gravity-fed from the cistern.”

I started. “That reminds me. If you have time, get a couple of the guys to check out the other cisterns to see if they’re sealed off or open. We might be sitting on a pile of water stored around in different locations.”

That thought triggered another that had been sitting in the back of my mind. “I’ve been wondering too, with this place like a museum, where’s the curator? Every museum has someone to watch over it. Where’s the ranger station?”

She brightened. “I forgot about that. There is one, over near the marsh not far from the old Pigot house. It’ll be empty. It’s only manned in the spring and summer.”

The excitement that shot through me must have been evident.

“Why?” she asked. “What do you think is over there?”

“I don’t know,” I told her, “but, I’m hoping electricity and water--or at least some way of making both. I can’t imagine stationing rangers out here with a cooler and a propane lantern.”

The old woman looked thoughtful.

“Don’t worry about it right now,” I said. “We can check it out once we’re settled in here. You call the Judge?”

Her head wagged from side to side. “Not yet. My phone is on the boat. I’ll have them bring it up on one of their trips and give him a call then.”

I hesitated and shot a look at the girls in the kitchen.

“Daniel said anything?”

Elsie frowned. “About what?”

I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes. “Well, you know about weird stuff that might happen later?”

Her face turned hard.

“No, he hasn’t.”

Truth be known, Daniel was the biggest reason I’d stopped at the station aside from the need to collect the diving knife. The fact that he hadn’t wandered around uttering words of doom proved to be little consolation given the fact that he could do so the instant I started down the beach. I stifled a sudden irritation at the arbitrary nature of it all.

“Alright,” I told her. “I’d better hit the beach. Whatever else you do today, get everyone in here by dark.”

I turned before she could reply and strode over to the door. The duffle bag I’d brought up the night before still lay propped against the doorframe. I strapped the diving knife to my belt, and threw the other, a folding lock-back knife, into the day pack. I picked up the jacket I’d worn as well. Even though the day had dawned sunny and warm, night would bring colder temperatures. If I ended up sleeping on the beach, the jacket would keep the cold at bay.

The word beach can paint the wrong picture of the strip of sand where island meets ocean on Portsmouth. At times, the edge of what amounts to jungle lies
only a few yards from the high-tide mark, making passage by vehicle both tricky and dangerous at the wrong time of day. Walking it doesn’t present much of a problem, other than sometimes passing too close to the tree line and tempting hordes of voracious bloodsuckers out of the shadows.

Still, the word beach implied the carefully maintained playgrounds that travel agencies liked to promote. I’d seen a dozen signs on my way to the coast, most of them filled with pictures of sleek women in tiny bikinis and miles of open sand. Little of that existed on Portsmouth. Here and there, the ocean front opened to wider expanses, but a good bit of it offered a tiny beach and a lot of swamp. Tidal flats left larger sections open, but that disappeared when the water returned.

The station lay near the point of the island, at the juncture where protective dunes gave way to sea water and the inlet. I slogged across the low mounds of loose sand and passed down onto the hard pack below minutes later.

As soon as I had left the station behind, I stopped and changed out of the dungarees I’d been wearing, opting for a pair of shorts instead. The pants and socks went into the day pack. The tennis shoes stayed on my feet. The sand had a cool and inviting feel to it. I’d have been happy sitting and wiggling my toes in it for a while, but bare feet made little sense on a long walk. Unlike areas swamped with tourists, the beaches along the island had tons of sharp shells, and even broken glass on occasion. Either could slice open a foot and turn a good day into a bad one.

The wind blew at a constant fifteen to twenty miles an hour, keeping me cool despite the warm temperatures and blazing sun overhead. Sea gulls rode the breeze, dipping, diving, and soaring while they searched for bits of food. Pelicans swept low over the waves, plunging in now and then to scoop up the small fish skittering along behind the breakers. Bluefish looked to be working the schools of bait fish as well, occasionally breaking the surface as they raced after mullet and shrimp.

Early fall brought millions of fish and shrimp by the island as they fled south to avoid the coming winter. Within a few weeks, the window would close and both the variety of fish and numbers would plummet. By early winter, sharks, sea trout, and redfish would be left as the main offering
s. Once the biannual migration had passed, surviving off the sea would become increasingly difficult. We could and would, but doing so would grow increasingly difficult as autumn aged.

I pushed most of the thoughts aside and concentrated on finding the camp. If it hadn’t been for the t
wo fishing poles mounted in rod-holders made of PVC pipe, I might have walked right past it. The sight of them rising high above the beach, tips bending in rhythm with the surf
led my gaze back up the beach. A low-slung tent huddled just under the trees. Beside it, a tarp had been stretched tight between branches as a watershed. A man and woman lay on a blanket spread under the tarp. The woman looked to be asleep. The man rose as I approached.

He came out bare-chested, wearing a pair of ragged blue jean shorts and picking his way gingerly across the sand in bare feet. Like Joshua, the man hadn’t shaved in a while. Elsie would never deem him Moses
, though. The thin stubble forming on his face left him looking dirty and disheveled, not like a wild-haired prophet. The hairdo didn’t help much either. It hung long and limp, and looked greasy enough to be slick. 

The distinct odor of smoke came with him, not wood smoke, but the burned tea smell of reefer.

“Hey, Bud.”

I nodded. “Howdy. Name’s William Hill. I came by here yesterday in a boat and saw your camp. I wanted to let you know that there’s close to a dozen people in the old town.”

He squinted against the sun and lifted a hand to shade his eyes.

“We’re going to set up there until the travel ban is lifted,” I told him. “You’re welcome to come up. There’s plenty of room.”