Kelly sighed. “I don’t know, Zach. It sounds like prosperity could make you extremely pompous, and I’m not altogether sure I like that idea. I’m kind of fond of you just the way you are.”
“Fond?” he questioned haltingly. “Fond? That’s a rather lukewarm sentiment from someone who, just a few short hours ago, professed undying love.”
“I do love you,” she assured him. “I just don’t want to see you turn into a money-grubbing rat.”
“That will never happen, darling.” He held up his hand, as if taking an oath. “You have my word of honor. And if I get at all pompous, you have my permission to give me a swift kick in the rear to set me straight again. Does that meet with your approval? Do you have any other objections or suggestions to add?”
“Just one that I can think of off-hand. If you even consider buying me one of those humongous, gaudy, overly ostentatious rings, our engagement is off.”
“Fair enough. With that in mind, I promise to find you the smallest, cheapest engagement ring I can locate,” he teased. “Would one from a bubble gum machine suffice?”
She grinned at him. “Actually, it would,” she surprised him by saying. “As long as your heart is presented with it.”
“My heart is already yours, green eyes,” he whispered, his lips hovering over hers. “You’re holding it in the palm of your hand.”
Chapter 21
Pieces of the first raft, or what looked like it, began washing on to shore toward the end of the week. The minilogs were all the same length, a couple of them still lashed together with vines, and Gavin was sure he recognized the way he’d tied the knots and notched some of the limbs. Then, as if to seal their suspicions once and for all, one of the branches arrived with a boot tied to it by means of the laces. Though battered and waterlogged, the boot was the same type Earl had worn.
“I think we can stop looking over our shoulders and waiting for Earl to pop out at us from behind the bushes,” Zach stated solemnly. “I'd bet my last dollar this boot is his.” His voice held a note of self-condemnation as he added, “I wonder if he’d have made it if he hadn’t been hindered by those handcuffs?”
“Don’t blame yourself for what was his fault, Zach,” Kelly advised gently. “After all, his hands were tied in front of him, and he managed to maneuver well enough to steal the raft and float off on it—so he must have had some measure of mobility, much more than he had before, when his hands were behind him.”
“If he wasn’t such a dumb shit-heel, I could almost feel sorry for him,” Gavin declared. “He screwed up all the way along, and was too stupid to see it. In fact, he was such a witless wonder that a good lawyer could probably have gotten him off on an insanity plea with no problem.”
“What a shame,” Blair said. “Some people just never think before they leap.”
“Too late for him now,” Alita added.
Kelly nodded. “She’s right, but there is still hope for us. We still have a fighting chance, and I’m not about to give up yet. There are too many people out there who need us as badly as we need them, and even though we haven’t seen any search planes lately, I can only pray they haven’t given up, either.”
“I think it’s going to be up to us to plot our own rescue,” Zach said. “Especially now. The navy and coast guard are going to be busy with new emergencies, compliments of the storm. Too busy to bother searching for a plane that went down over a month ago, presumably killing all aboard.”
With that sober thought, they redoubled their efforts toward constructing the new raft as quickly as possible, while trying to make this one stronger, more sea-worthy. They even rigged a mast for this second, more improved model, employing one of the blankets as a sail. All this took two and a half weeks of steady work, but finally the raft was deemed ready. For safety’s sake, and bearing in mind what had happened to Earl, the men decided that a test run in the bay was in order, before an actual ocean voyage was attempted.
The women watched from shore as Zach and Gavin launched the raft on its maiden trial. Even on the bay, the small craft looked pathetically tiny, and it was a very good thing that they’d decided to test it first. It listed to one side, terribly, and the men had to bring it in and add another log to the width to correct the problem. Then the mast wouldn’t stay upright, tending to lean to one side, and they had to make several adjustments before it would remain in position.
Finally, when they’d done everything they could, there remained one major obstacle. Even with a large pack of coconuts and foodstuff lashed aboard, it was not enough to compensate for Gavin’s weight on the opposite end of the raft. Unless he sat in the center continually, which made it impossible to row with the oar, and difficult to maneuver about at all without threat of tipping over, the raft tilted up on the lighter end. They debated tying rocks to the underside to even it out, but didn’t really consider that a wise alternative. Moreover, they doubted the rocks would stay lashed in place for long.
“There’s no help for it,” Zach said. “We’ll have to double up on the logs on the weak end, and hope they stay put. Which means you’ll have to keep to the other end most of the time. It’s that, or move the mast over. We should have mounted the mast more to one end in the first place, instead of the middle. I should have known to take your weight into consideration. My only excuse is that I’ve never before tried to build anything that’s supposed to float.”
“Hey! With you helping, this one turned out a lot sturdier than the first one,” Gavin claimed. “I just hate having to take the extra time to revamp the thing. I was all geared up and ready to go, and the sooner I leave, the sooner help will be on the way.” He thought a minute, then added, “When we were both aboard, we didn’t have any problem. Another solution would be for you to go with me.”
Zach considered this, but only briefly, before shaking his head. “No. One of us has to stay with the women. But, if you prefer, I can go and you can stay.”
Now Gavin shook his head. “No way, man. I’m so sick of this island I could spit. Besides, if anything bad happens, I’d rather it be to me. You have a kid at home, waiting for her daddy. I don’t.”
“I’ll go.”
All heads turned toward Alita, their expressions as surprised as hers appeared to be.
Gavin was the first to reply. “Woman, are you crazy? I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, either. Jesus! Your fans would scalp me! Besides, how do we know you’re not pregnant or something?”
Alita tapped her left arm, near her shoulder. “I don’t take those kind of risks, Gav. I got the implants—you know, the birth control they put under your skin. They last for years.”
“Yet you’re willing to take a more dangerous risk on that raft?” Kelly asked incredulously. “I don’t believe this!'
Alita tried out a nonchalant shrug that didn’t quite fly. “Life’s just one big crap shoot anyway, isn’t it?”
“But we’re talking life and death here, girl. That’s a mighty high ante,” Gavin maintained. He tried a rougher tactic, to discourage her. “Besides, just because we had some fun in the bushes doesn’t mean I want you around for the long haul.”
Alita simply wrinkled her nose at him before thrusting it higher into the air. “Tough toenails, amigo. I’m going. You need someone for balance, bal—what is the word I want?”
“Ballast,” Blair supplied automatically.
“Si, ballast. You need another person for ballast, and it might as well be me. Also, I can help you with the sail, and take turns watching for ships. You have to sleep sometime.”
“We should have made the blasted raft bigger, then we could all go,” Gavin grumbled. “We could take our chances together.”
“Bad idea,” Blair said, patting her tummy. “On top of this, I can’t swim, and neither can Sydney.”
“I could go,” Kelly proposed hesitantly. “I don’t have any kids, or an adoring public.”
“Think again,” Zach put in gruffly. “You’re not going anywhere without me, swe
etheart.”
Kelly scowled. “I didn’t say I wanted to go, but…”
“No but about it,” he stated flatly. “As for that little comment about kids, once more I say, think again. According to my calculations, we’ve been here for more than six weeks now, and unless you’re normally irregular, you should have had a period by now, shouldn’t you?”
Kelly stared at him, stunned speechless. The others waited, and could almost see her counting out the days on her mental calendar. “Uh, maybe it’s the stress… of the crash… and all,” she stammered.
“Get real,” Blair told her with a smirk. “You turned as green as grass cooped up in that cave with those smelly fish. And I know you’ve tossed your cookies a couple of times since then. What’s more, you can’t seem to make it through the day anymore without taking a nap or two. Face it, honey. You’ve got a bun in the oven.”
Gavin nodded. “Knocked up higher than a kite.”
"Muy prenada,” Alita agreed with a grin. “Or, to put it another way, more ‘Prego’ than spaghetti sauce.”
Kelly’s hands flew to her flushed cheeks. “Oh, my gosh! I’m going to have a baby!”
“We’re going to have a baby,” Zach corrected gently. “So, what do you think? Are you mad, glad, or indifferent?” He didn’t have to wait long for her reaction. She literally threw herself into his embrace, her arms wrapped so tightly around his neck that she was practically choking him.
“Oh, Zach! I’m thrilled! Elated! Delirious with joy!”
With a laugh, he lifted her off her feet and spun her in circles. “Me, too. I just wish we could be married right now. don’t want our little papoose to be born on the wrong side of the blanket.”
“All the more reason why Gavin and I had better shove off tomorrow morning,” Alita announced decisively. When Gavin would have argued further, she faced him defiantly. “Just shut up! I’m going, if I have to swim alongside the whole way! Hollywood has waited long enough, and I’ll be damned if I let someone else have my turn at fame and fortune in the movies! I’ve earned it, I deserve it, and by heaven I’m going to demand it.”
Amid hugs and kisses, tearful goodbyes and last minute admonitions, Gavin and Alita set sail with the outgoing tide early the following morning. The others stood on the shore and waved until the tiny craft was no longer in sight. Finally, with mixed feelings, worry warring with excitement, they returned to their camp. Already, the site seemed too quite, almost forlorn.
“So this is what empty-nest syndrome feels like,” Blair commented sadly. “Can’t say I’d recommend it.”
“Me, either,” Kelly agreed with a sorrowful face.
Zach tried to reassure them, and himself. “They’ll be alright. We’ll see them again. It’s only a matter of time. The weather is fine, the seas are calm. They couldn’t have picked a better day to set off.”
A day went by. Then two. Blair occupied herself by weaving more baskets. Kelly helped her watch over Sydney, and began plaiting a wide panel out of pandanus leaves. “What’s that going to be?” Blair asked curiously.
Kelly shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t particularly care. It’s just something to do.”
Zach began carving wooden blocks for Sydney. He fished, and somehow managed to beach a big sea turtle. The meat was tough, but tasty—a welcome change from fish and pigeon.
On the third day after Gavin and Alita’s departure, Kelly finally found a use for her woven mat. She anchored it between two of the support posts beneath the banyan tree. Along a second abutting side, facing the fire, she hung a blanket. Combined, the two items formed crude walls, separating and shielding her and Zach’s sleeping area from the rest of the campsite.
Zach was impressed. “I wish you’d come up with this weeks ago, when privacy was really at a premium.”
“Hey, hotshot architect! You were supposed to be in charge of this project, if I recall correctly,” Kelly reminded him. “I hope you’re not going to prove as lax about your promises in the future. And if you value your hide, you won’t make any comments on how I could or should have done it differently or better.”
Zach held his hands up in a plea for clemency. “I wouldn’t think of it.” He surveyed her work with a swift glance, and said, “Actually, you didn’t do half bad, but I’ve got to say that this is going to give the term shacking up a whole new meaning for me.”
From the shelter of the leaves, a raucous voice squawked, “Shacking up! Shacking up! Awk!”
Kelly glared upward. “Of all the birds that croaked off during the storm, Frick had to survive! I’m telling you, Zach, if I ever get my hands on him, he’s a goner!”
The days became a week, and still no sign of rescue or their friends returning on the raft. Either would have been preferable to the eternal waiting and worrying.
“They’ve got to be out of drinking water by now, or close to it,” Kelly fretted.
“Unless they found some on another island or managed to collect some rainwater,” Zach said.
“A few clouds wouldn’t be bad, to shield them from the worst of the sun. Maybe a light shower or two. But I hope they didn’t encounter any storms,” Blair brooded.
Kelly sighed. “I hope we discover something soon. This is so nerve-wracking! I keep imagining them out there, dying of thirst. Or worse yet, being attacked by sharks.”
“I suppose you saw Jaws and both sequels,” Zach presumed.
Kelly gave a morose nod. “Several times over. If I’d known then what I know now, I would have avoided those films like the plague.”
Fortunately, with their preoccupation over Gavin and Alita’s plight, the next couple of days were fairly calm. The most traumatic event was when Sydney got her fingers caught in the claw of a large coconut crab. Zach pried her loose. Kelly bandaged her fingers and dried her tears. Blair cooked the offending creature, and it turned out to be the most delicious meal they’d had in all the time they’d been on the island. They all went out the next morning in search of more of the appetizing rascals.
Which was precisely what they were doing when they first heard the distinctive whop-whop-whop of helicopter blades. Zach, who had located a crab hole at the base of a coconut tree, tossed aside his shovel and raced out onto the beach. Within seconds, he was joined by Kelly, Blair, and Sydney. Clustered together, they all frantically searched the sky.
“Where is it?” Kelly wailed, upon failing to sight it.
Blair shaded her watering eyes against the glare of the sun and railed, “Curse these contact lenses anyway! Whenever I need to see something, they blur or make me tear up. I can’t see a bloody thing!”
“There!” Zach pointed at a tiny silver speck nearly out of range. “There!”
Kelly thumped him on the back. “Quick! Light the signal fire, Zach!”
Contrarily, now that the wood was dry, the lighter wanted to malfunction, much in the way a car tends to flood when the driver is in a rush. After several false starts, during which Zach wondered if they’d depleted the butane at precisely the wrong moment, the flame flared. The dry coconut husks that formed the base of the stack caught like tinder, and within mere seconds, the entire underside of the large pile was ablaze, licking hungrily at the larger pieces of driftwood atop it. Even as a fledgling fire, long before the flame would be visible from afar, smoke bellowed upward, beckoning in the breeze like a flowing gray banner.
“Oh, please let them see it!” Kelly prayed aloud. “Please I let them find us!”
Blair was hopping up and down excitedly, resembling a rotund rabbit. “They’re coming closer!” she shrieked. “It looks like they’re heading straight for us!”
Indeed, the minuscule speck in the distance had become noticeably larger, the noise of the rotor louder. Kelly and Blair began waving their arms at it. Sydney, thinking it a game of some sort, did likewise.
“Save your energy,” Zach advised. “They’re too far away yet to see or hear us, though they can probably see the smoke.”
Kelly dashed towa
rd the path to camp, calling as she went, “They’d see a blanket, wouldn’t they?” It only took a few minutes to collect the blankets and scoop their most important possessions, including her tote bag, into them. She arrived back on the beach, dragging it all behind her, as Santa might have hauled an overstuffed toy sack, Zach spotted her and ran to help.
“Good grief, woman! What all have you got there?”
“Everything we might want to take back with us,” she huffed, “including your precious turle shell.”
Zach laughed. “Afraid you might miss your ride out of here?”
Kelly gave a vigorous nod. “I’m not leaving anything to chance.”
Zach grabbed one of the blankets, and began waving it over his head like a flag. The helicopter had advanced toward them considerably in the short time Kelly had been gone. She estimated it was halfway to them now, from where it had been when they’d first seen it. With Sydney tugging at a flapping corner and trying to help, Blair and Kelly hoisted a second blanket and began awkwardly flinging it up and down.
The chopper kept coming, getting larger with each anxious minute. Then, much like a plane might tip its wings in acknowledgment, it sort of wagged its tail section from side to side in a single, deliberate motion.
“They’ve spotted us!” Zach yelled exuberantly. “This is it! This is really it! We’re being rescued!”
While Zach continued to wave and shout, Blair and Kelly dropped their blanket, joined hands with Sydney and each other, and launched into a joyous impromptu jig. “We’re saved! We’re saved!” they chanted giddily, while Sydney piped repeatedly, “Ring-a rosie, ring-a-rosie.”
Then, emotionally overwhelmed, they collapsed onto the sand and sat there, tears of gladness and relief streaking their faces. “Oh, God!” Blair sobbed happily. “We’re going home! I’ll see my babies again!”
Horizons Page 23
