The Naked Jungle

by Harry Whittington

  “I should have warned you about him.”

  He shook his head. “Nobody could have told me. I had to find out for myself.”

  She was silent a long time. “If he knows he can dominate you, he’ll make your life hell.”

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “How long can you stand him?”

  “I’m all right.” Her mouth quivered. She lay back against the palm, eyes tired. “All I was looking forward to was getting to Sydney. I never got there. I guess that’s the story of my life.”

  He drew in a deep breath. “I’ll get you there. Somehow.”

  He saw the fright clouding her brown eyes. “Be careful.”

  “I’ll be careful. But I’m not going on like this.”

  She leaned toward him slightly. “Don’t arouse him — until you’re sure. It’ll be easier. For all of us.”

  “I’m not going to do anything that will hurt you. Not if I can help it.”

  She glanced over his shoulder. “Here he comes.”

  They worked again, silently and steadily. Krayer walked back into the cleared space, stood beside the tarp and looked down at them. He wore a pleased smile.

  In that moment, Webb discovered Alfred Krayer’s second weakness. The man was an egomaniac. It never occurred to him that anyone would resist him very long, because in his own mind such resistance was futile. Webb knew now what Fran meant: you could lull Krayer into a false sense of security by appearing to obey him. And one of these fine days the brilliant man would get careless….

  Until then? Webb’s hands moved swiftly, plaiting the palm strips into wide, flat squares.

  THIRTEEN

  BY NOON they had the three squares plaited. Krayer brought the fish line from the raft. With the knife he cut off three thirty-inch lengths of string. While Fran and Webb watched, he folded the plaited squares into triangles. Then he worked the thread in a straight pattern through the middle of the triangles. When he had finished the first one, he knotted the line, shoved his hand up into the triangle. This expanded as far as the string would allow, forming crown and brim of an odd-shaped, palm-strip hat.

  Krayer tossed the first hat at Fran’s feet. “If you go out in the sun without that hat, you’ll answer to me.”

  Fran picked up the hat silently and fitted it on her head. Webb was watching Krayer wonderingly. What was the matter with the man? He couldn’t even be pleasant about a hat he’d made of cord and palm strips. There was only the thought of survival — his survival.

  Fran said, “I wish the girls at the Literary Society could see me now.” Krayer’s head jerked up, his eyes cold. “Where did you learn to make hats like this, Alfred?” she asked him.

  “Never mind. I learned. That’s all that matters.”

  “No. Please tell me. I’d like to know.”

  “So would I,” Webb said. “I never suspected a scientist could tie his own shoestrings.”

  Krayer’s head came up. His gaze met Webb’s, but he continued to thread the fishing line through the woven palm strips. “Not only can I tie my own shoestrings, Millar, but given any raw material at all to work with, I can make you a pair of shoestrings.”

  “I’ll file that. It’ll come in handy when I get shoes.”

  Krayer exhaled sharply. “Amusing that I know enough to keep us alive on this God-forsaken speck of coral?”

  “I’m not amused.”

  “Don’t be. I’m singularly without humor where stupidity is concerned. I have no tolerance for it. None.”

  “You must have been a delightful child.”

  “I had no childhood. I was born in poverty and ignorance and superstition. My family went to church twice every Sunday and put money in the collection plate when we were hungry, and they knew damned well we were hungry.”

  Webb moved his shoulders. “They must have hoped for something, believed in something.”

  “They were ignorant and superstitious, believing in the minister as though he were a god. And, so far as I know, maybe he was. At least he got their offering. And I never saw him give them anything for it.”

  Webb stood up. Krayer said, “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know. Not far probably. I’m tired of listening to you. You ran so far from the people you knew when you were a kid that you’re as bad as they were in your way. Worse. They had something. Hope. They were willing to sacrifice for it. A man with hope will do anything, Krayer. A man without it has nothing. And there, my brilliant hat-maker, endeth the lesson for today.”

  Krayer let him get to the rim of the clearing.

  “Millar!”

  Webb stopped, turning. “All right.”

  “Millar, you’re not lying around on your back. Not on this island. As soon as I can, I’m going to make a fire. We’ll need wood. A lot of it.” He sailed the hat so it fell at Webb’s feet. “Put that hat on and gather all the wood you can find. And keep gathering it. I’ll let you know when to stop.”

  Webb picked up the hat, punched out the crown and pulled it down on his head.

  He spoke slowly. “Suppose we start running this island sensibly, with everybody sharing the work. You want wood. You gather it.”

  Krayer just looked at him. “You don’t learn as fast as I’d hoped.”

  Millar had turned away. He stopped, tensed with the panic starting in him, and turned.

  Krayer walked over to Fran. He pinched the muscle between her neck and shoulder. She cried out and he forced her to stand up, simply by tightening his fingers.

  “My dear, you’ll have to get the wood,” Krayer said.

  Webb started back across the clearing. Krayer calmly released Fran and turned, waiting for him.

  Webb stopped. “All right,” he said. “Forget it. I’ll gather the wood.”

  Krayer’s smile was cold. “I was sure you would,” he said.

  • • •

  Webb had been afraid that gathering wood without an axe on the small island would be almost impossible. But he soon found that the sea was a good provider. The beach was littered with driftwood, sticks that went unnoticed in the sand and grass unless you were searching for them.

  When he got back to the clearing with his first armful of wood, Krayer was wearing the third palm hat and was busy slicing a slit in a four-foot bamboo pole. Fran was plaiting more strips of palm. She worked silently and did not look up as Webb stacked the wood.

  Krayer said, “We’d better have some more coconuts, Millar. You can get back to gathering wood after we have lunch.”

  Webb had started from the clearing. He stopped, glanced back at them. Krayer hadn’t bothered to look up. Fran was watching Webb with stricken eyes. She moved her head slightly, warningly.

  Webb winked at her and bowed deeply. “I was hoping you would suggest that, mighty Tuan.”

  “Just get the food,” Krayer said from under the hat.

  It was harder today to climb that leaning palm. Webb ached all over and his stomach muscles constricted when he stretched out his arms. Cold sweat was beaded across his face by the time he reached the tree top. He tossed down five coconuts and then slid along the trunk, feeling it scratch his chest.

  Krayer had fit the knife in the slit of the bamboo pole, forcing it down into the narrow opening. At the end of the pole, he’d sliced the knuckle so that when the blade slipped through, the bamboo closed again, forming a holding barrier on both sides of the blade. Krayer then wrapped the slit joint as tightly as possible about the knife handle with wet fish cord.

  When he had finished, he held the long harpoon aloft in his right hand. “When we fish now,” he said, “we can use the harpoon as well as the fishhook.”

  He stared at them, pleased with himself for the first time. Webb merely looked at him.

  Fran said, “I wonder if you’d open this coconut? I’m hungry.”

  Krayer’s head came up. He stared at them, moving his gaze from Fran to Webb. In Krayer’s eyes, Webb could see the faint shadow of frus
tration….

  Webb gathered wood for two hours that afternoon. He walked slowly along the beach, sweating, feeling the ragged pounding of his heart. The sweat and desire for a decent meal was depleting him almost as badly as were thirst and bone weariness.

  He saw something move ahead of him in the sand. At first he thought it was his imagination or perhaps the flickering shadow of a low flying bird.

  It wasn’t a shadow. It was dark and almost three feet across. He shook his head, blinking.

  “A turtle,” he whispered to himself. It was the kind of sea turtle he’d heard tales about, but never seen. The monster was waddling toward the water. There was less than twenty feet between it and the surf. Webb sprinted.

  Either the mammoth turtle had the sudden instinctive warning of trouble or it felt the vibrations of Webb’s bare feet on the sand. Suddenly it raised itself on its scaly legs and lumbered toward the waves, its outsized toes making scratching noises on the sun-baked ground.

  Webb was panting and his heartbeats hurt him. The turtle was almost in the water. Webb yelled, hardly knowing what he was doing, but hoping to frighten the turtle enough to make it stop and draw inside its shell.

  The turtle had been lord and master along that beach for too many years. A human cry meant less than nothing to him, and the lapping waves meant safety. His toes scratched louder in the sand.

  Webb angled, trying to run between the turtle and the surf, hoping to force him to move along the beach. The turtle poised, lifting its small head and twisting its neck.

  Webb hurled himself forward. He skidded across the sand as the turtle, suddenly frightened, tried to turn, jabbing its head in and out of its shell.

  Webb clambered to his knees and thrust both hands under the turtle, near its tail. He heaved upward with all his strength, feeling the turtle tensing, digging those thick legs into the sand, scratching for a foothold.

  The turtle teetered for a moment and then went over. It landed in the sand less than three feet from the water mark.

  Webb sat on his knees a moment, panting and watching the overturned turtle rock on its back. It was like a huge punch bowl and it kept kicking its legs, frantic and helpless.

  Webb heard the water licking at the sand behind him. The incoming tide would float the turtle unless he could drag him farther up the beach. He got up and ran across the sand toward the jungle. He saw Krayer running toward him and Fran followed a few feet behind him. He remembered the way he’d yelled.

  At the first growth of vine, Webb broke it and ripped the long strands free from the earth and other foliage. When he had about ten feet, he broke the vine again and ran back toward the overturned turtle.

  Krayer and Fran were already there. She looked up as Webb rushed forward, ripping the leaves from the vine as he ran. Her face was flushed under her heat, and the look in her eyes made him suddenly strong and exultant.

  He knew suddenly — and for the first time in his life — how primitive man felt when he dragged home a slain tiger to his woman in their cave. When she looked up at him — as Fran did now — that man had known that the fight was worth it.

  He knelt quickly beside the turtle. In his mind he was thinking, Her look was a kiss, a caress. She’s proud of me. It was a victory — the kind of victory that called for a celebration: close and intimate and wild.

  Savagely he forced the vine through the shell beside the turtle’s left hind leg. This calls for nothing, he told himself. I saw what I needed to see in her eyes. And that’s all there can be. I can’t even look back at her. I’ve got to stay away from her. He had to be careful now, because Krayer mustn’t even suspect anything was between them any more. Krayer would be quick to vent his anger on Fran.

  Webb knotted the vine as well as he could and stood up. He brushed past Krayer and walked away, dragging the kicking turtle across the sand….

  Krayer worked all afternoon trying to build a fire by friction. By nightfall he still had no fire. Using the knife on the end of the bamboo pole they butchered the turtle and cleaned out the deep shell, setting it in the sun to dry.

  Krayer was coldly angry because though he’d worked sparks from the dried wood, he hadn’t been able to make a fire ignite.

  Dark struck suddenly. Webb couldn’t get accustomed to the sudden darkness. He’d remembered the twilights as being long and lingering twilight down here. But he supposed that had seemed true because they’d had lights so the blackness wasn’t so starkly awesome.

  In the darkness, Krayer spread half the tarpaulin on the ground beside the fallen palm. Webb watched as Krayer placed the harpoon carefully at his side.

  Krayer tossed Webb the other tarp.

  “I think you’ll sleep there across the clearing, Millar. Beside the piles of palm strips.”

  Webb stood with the tarp in his hands. “You even going to tell me where I can sleep?”

  “Nothing exists without order.” Krayer’s voice was calm. “I think it will be better if I know where you are.”

  Webb hesitated. It seemed to him that he could feel Fran’s gaze on him, her soft brown eyes caressing him, telling him it didn’t matter. Nothing Krayer said or did mattered. It was almost as if her hands touched him and her voice spoke to him.

  “Sure,” he said.

  With that same intuitiveness, he sensed the chilled smile on Krayer’s mouth as he said, “Fran, you’ll lie down here. Now.”

  There was protracted silence. Webb sprawled out beside the palm. He heard Fran lie down on the tarp beside Krayer. There was nothing now but silence, and Webb lay very still, hating the silence.

  Sweat popped out across his forehead. First, he heard Fran writhing on the tarp, then her tense, whispered, frantic, “Don’t, Krayer.”

  There was the sharp crack of the back of Krayer’s hand across her mouth. This was followed by the silence that wasn’t silence at all. It was thunder and terror and flesh sounds, as she fought him without fighting him, submitted to him without submitting.

  Webb’s throat was tight, aching. He couldn’t stay still any longer. He jumped up and stumbled through the foliage out to the beach. In the open stretch of sand, he suddenly ran. He knew it wasn’t going to help; no matter how far or how fast he ran, Krayer’s laughter was going to follow him all the way.

  FOURTEEN

  IN THE FIRST full flush of dawn, he heard Krayer yelling his name. But he stayed where he was, meaning to ignore Krayer. Any damn fool who’d get up at this hour on an island was more than half crazy anyhow. He smiled bitterly to himself. It was different if a person hadn’t slept at all.

  The fact that he hadn’t slept brought all his thoughts forcefully back to Fran. The truth was that she wasn’t out of his mind for more than a moment. He’d never known anyone could fill all a person’s thoughts, tormenting him because he wanted her badly enough to cross hell barefoot to have her.

  “Millar!”

  Webb decided the bastard must be feeling better this morning, or else what had happened last night had stirred all his glands. He sat quietly aware that he’d lost all fear of the man. Alfred Krayer had been wrong. At first, Webb had been afraid to fight back. The pain and the memory of pain was strong inside him. But now it wasn’t strong enough. He knew now what Krayer could do, what Krayer would attempt. But now he was going to be ready for him. As long as he kept Krayer at arms length he could batter him senseless. And that’s what he would do. If Krayer thought he could keep Fran by force, then it was up to Webb to take her by force. That seemed to be the only law left on this island.

  He couldn’t go on abjectly like this. He might as well have never left home. Back there he’d been surrounded by laws and restrictions and threats he no longer believed in. He’d as soon die as go on living like that down here — and wanting Fran made it all worse. He had to have her or life wouldn’t be worth living anyhow.

  “Millar!”

  There was strident anger in Krayer’s tone. Anger. The man was made of white cells of anger. Webb knew what Krayer would do. If
he didn’t answer soon, or show up, Krayer would vent his small-minded anger on Fran. She would pay.

  The hell with it. He answered Krayer.

  When Webb walked back into the clearing he saw that Fran was still sleeping. She was pressed as close to the canopy of vines and the raft as she could get.

  Webb felt his heart pound over his hollow stomach. He felt Krayer’s sardonic gaze on him and he dragged his eyes away.

  Krayer was kneeling over a small heap of splinters as he worked his two sticks for friction. There was still no fire, but now Krayer had dug a small hollow, banked it in and set up two pronged sticks with a green limb across the fire pit.

  He’ll get the fire, Webb thought. He’s just nuts enough that he’ll stay right there until he does….

  By ten o’clock there was a small blaze in the fire pit. In the hours Krayer had worked over it, Webb had gathered more wood and back tracked the turtle until he found where its eggs were buried.

  Using the first-aid tin, Krayer cooked three eggs and hung turtle steaks from the cross sticks. At noon the three of them sat down to eat steaks and eggs with coconut milk to drink.

  Krayer said, “Do you understand now? As long as you do what I tell you, I’ll keep you alive.”

  Webb glanced at him, wondering if this were the moment to tell Krayer to go to hell and let the fight follow? As though reading his thoughts, Krayer reached out for no apparent reason and pulled the harpoon nearer to him.

  Fran lifted her head. She looked directly past her husband. Webb grinned inwardly. It looked as though Krayer’s rule was already hitting snags.

  Fran’s voice was level. “The turtle steaks were so good, Webb. I never thought I could eat a turtle egg. But I did.” Her smile was gentle. “I loved it. I feel like a human being again. I don’t know what we’d have done if you hadn’t gotten all of it.”

  Webb heard Krayer’s sharp drawn breath. He shrugged and didn’t look at Fran. He didn’t have to look at her. He could feel her gaze on him, and it was like a caress — a caress he couldn’t return, couldn’t even acknowledge.