Jake and Eve sloshed down the stream as Crystal stooped to pick up the grass. Their shirts bulged with their cargo, and each carried a pile of sticks and branches heaped to their eyeballs.
Crystal perked up and grinned. Wow, this was going to be quite a fire! She made a pouch in her shirt, scooped in her grass, and ran to join them.
Fruit tumbled out of their shirts, along with dried leaves, twigs, and small branches. Larger branches, some of them the size of small logs, dropped from their arms into a jumbled mound.
So why didn’t they look happy? Jake’s lips were pinched against his teeth, like when he’d been mad at Crystal for climbing the cliff. And Eve had her don’t-push-me face on. Ha! They’d had another fight. Well, Jake deserved it for asking Eve to go with him instead of her. Didn’t he know all Eve ever did was complain and make life miserable for everyone?
“You’re bleeding.” Crystal pointed to Jake’s scrapes from the cliff. They were seeping bright red drops on his forearms and biceps where he’d hugged the firewood. “Your fingers too.”
“I’ll wash off.” He trudged to the stream, sank down in the middle of it, and closed his eyes. Eve waded in upstream of him and did the same thing.
They didn’t get up. They just lay there and lay there and lay there.
“It’s gonna get dark,” she yelled.
“Crystal!” Aunty said her name like Crystal had let out gas or something. “Let them rest.”
Crystal turned her face away and snarled.
Jake opened his eyes and sat up. Water streamed down his face and chest and arms. It turned pink every place he had a wound and dribbled down to join more pink places. His cheeks were bleeding into his beard. With his two facial scars and the dark hollows under his eyes, he looked like Frankenstein’s brother.
“You’re right, it’s getting late.” He squinted at the sky, then stood and ambled to where Eve had put the binoculars. His hands were pink with blood, but after Aunt Betty’s reprimand, Crystal didn’t dare comment on it. Besides, what could he do about it? They didn’t have a towel.
“What we need is a large, sharp rock.” He searched along the bank, and she helped him find one.
“Where do you think we should hit this to get the big lens out?” Jake held out the binoculars to her.
Easy peasy. She pointed to the part of the casing encircling the large lens.
“The metal is strongest around the lenses to protect them. If we hit hard enough to break it there, we break the lens too.” His finger touched a place halfway down the binoculars. “How about here?”
She shrugged. He didn’t really want her advice.
Bam. The casing bent open exactly where he’d pointed. He used the knife to pry out the lens. “Want to try lighting the tinder?”
Her heart leaped. “Really?”
“She shouldn’t be playing with fire.” Aunt Betty’s voice bristled.
“Your aunt’s right.” Jake seized a handful of leaves and dropped them in front of Crystal. “I want you to be smart about this. Be responsible. Fire is not a toy.” He wiped the blood off the lens onto his shorts and handed the thick circle to Crystal. “Here’s how you hold it. Put it right between the sun and the leaves, just like this.”
Crystal didn’t look at Aunt Betty for permission. Heart hammering because Jake had defied her aunt, and that now she was doing it too, she held the glass exactly as he’d shown her.
“Keep it steady. I’ll get some grass and twigs.” Jake patted her head as he got up.
“I see smoke!” Goose bumps prickled over her arms. The wisp hung like a wriggling gray thread, then disappeared.
“You let it go out.” Aunt Betty scowled and reached for the glass.
“Keep trying, Pumpkin. I’ll put some grass and twigs under the leaves to give the fire something to dig into. You can do it.”
Crystal glared at her aunt. “No, I can’t. I’m a loser! That’s what she thinks!” She threw the lens as hard as she could at the leaves, jumped to her feet, and sprinted toward the cove.
She was almost to the water before she heard the thud of running feet behind her. A wail burst through her throat and out her mouth. “Leave me alone!”
“Hey, what happened? Are you okay?”
At Eve’s voice, Crystal plopped onto the sand and covered her face with her hands. “Go away.”
“You sound like you need a friend.”
“Losers don’t have friends.”
“Can losers be friends with losers?”
Crystal sniffled. “You aren’t a loser. Only I am.”
“I fall off a cliff, and I’m not a loser? Want to go see where it happened?”
Crystal dropped her hands. Wow, would she ever! “I guess so.”
Eve extended her hand, and Crystal let her pull her to her feet.
“Want to see the Lone Soldier too?”
“Huh-uh. I don’t like skeletons.”
“He’s a loser too. The three of us can start a Losers Club.”
A giggle burbled out of Crystal’s heart. “He’s the king of the losers.”
“How about the general? That way we can salute each other. It can be our secret Losers Club signal.”
They crossed the beach to the rocky ground east of the minefield. Eve took Crystal’s hand and swung it as they walked. “Sometimes losers hold hands.”
Crystal smiled up at her. “Sometimes friends do too.”
* * *
Jojo woke with a hangover. He was surprised. When he was with a woman, he was careful to drink only enough to sharpen every sense to its keenest point. He lived off the memory of every minuscule detail for weeks. Only when the urge had him trembling once again, his feet at the very edge of the brink, would he set up another occasion.
The bed stank of sweat and alcohol and years of filthy bodies. He rolled over. The woman’s eyes were swollen shut. Blood crusted her lips. Fresh bruises spotted her body. But there were no broken bones, no missing teeth. Nothing permanent that could give evidence in court should she be foolish enough to go to the police.
He studied her carefully, prompting his groggy memory, stocking his mind with visuals. Then he dressed and left. His hangover was in bad need of attention.
Chapter 25
Rain bombarded Jake awake to a starless sky. Eve, Betty, and Crystal sat up and cried out as if they were under attack. Beyond the cove, the ocean roared its own protest. The wind spattered them with wet bullets and set their teeth to chattering.
“Put your life vests on.” He helped Betty into hers. The vests would conserve their upper body heat. Their heat—he didn’t have a jacket any more. Just moccasins.
His moccasins! He felt under the rock where he stored his footwear. His fingers identified the rough squares of fabric, but the filling was gone. He had laid it out to dry.
“Eve, your moccasins.”
“Got them on.”
They huddled around Betty, shoulder to shoulder, heads down. Crystal’s arm was cold against his.
“Shouldn’t we go to the jungle?” Eve shouted.
“The rain will quit before we get there.”
“You’re a weatherman?” she flung back.
“Look up. The stars are back out. Tells us the wind is blowing the clouds away.”
Minutes later, the rain shut off as if someone had closed a spigot. The clouds rolled westward like army tanks, attacking the volcano, barreling on from there to battle the ocean. In the east, a line of gold split the ocean from the sky, and the stars faded. Shivering, rubbing their arms, the four castaways sat and watched the sun burnish the horizon.
Sadness—every morning it threw its dark cloak around Jake’s heart. Every morning marked another day without Ginny. She should be here. And what about his children—they must think their parents were dead. A week was a long time to wait for news.
“The wood is wet,” Crystal whined. “We can’t light a fire.” Betty put an arm around her.
Whatever Eve had said or done last night with Cr
ystal, it had resolved the flare-up between Crystal and Betty. Good, because he needed a day off. Needed to get away, to be free of the burden of their unrelenting demands. Most of all, he needed space between him and Eve. Her stubborn refusal yesterday to explain the connection between her, Ginny’s death, and Captain Emilio had finished off his patience.
He stood, muscles stiff, bones creaking. Old. Weary. “I’m going to the lighter to get the sail. It will give us some cover and keep the wood dry.” Before they could say anything, he added, “I’m going alone.”
Crystal’s eyes filled with tears. Eve’s eyebrows puckered into a frown. Betty’s lips tugged down at the corners.
He didn’t care.
“Wait, Jake.” Eve slipped off her moccasins and offered them to him. “Wear these until you can fix yours.”
“Here’s some fruit.” Crystal grabbed his favorites from the pile near Betty and handed them to him.
“You deserve time alone, Jake.” Betty’s voice was tender. “We’ll be just fine.”
He stuffed the fruit into his pockets, sat, and put on the moccasins. The morning sun removed the chill from his skin. And maybe his heart was just a little warmer too.
“Thanks.” He stood and jogged away from them. Maybe he’d come back after all.
* * *
A fire glowed in the dusk when he returned hours later. A dollar to a donut, Crystal had lit it, with Betty and Eve hovering over her like clucking hens. How had they done with the supply of fruit? It was too dark to get more. And he was bushed. His discovery today had been worth the time and effort, but all he wanted to do now was sleep.
“Jake!” Crystal’s grin in the firelight confirmed his guess. “I got the fire going. We dried out the wood, and Eve got more twigs and leaves. And fruit.”
With bare feet? He dropped the folded canvas and rope and lowered his tired body next to Crystal’s. “Atta girl, I knew you could light it.” A glance at Eve’s feet revealed she was wearing his moccasins. “Did you find my filling?”
“No. I took some out of my life vest.”
“Good. I could use your jacket—someone’s jacket,” he corrected himself, “to make torches tomorrow. I want to explore that tunnel in the trench.”
“I thought you were going to the volcano top.” Eve didn’t try to hide her irritation.
“I changed my mind.”
“Then I’ll go by myself. I want to get off this island.”
“Can I explain my reason tomorrow? Tonight I—”
“No.”
Why had he held onto her shirt when the log bowled her over the cliff? “Okay.” He refrained from making his sigh audible. “Here’s why. Today makes five days we’ve been on the island. We’ve seen no passing ships, no planes overhead. The only sign of civilization has been a murdered man that washed ashore.” He flinched at Crystal’s gasp. Oops. “And now, with the discovery of the Lone Soldier, I realized that what we actually discovered is an island so long deserted that an enemy from four decades ago died. Forsaken . . . forgotten . . . abandoned . . . This island exists in a vacuum. No one—”
“Jake.” Betty’s protest roused him. What had he said? In his exhaustion, he’d shared his soul, not his mind.
He straightened the slump of his shoulders. “I want to explore that tunnel. Get what facts I can on what happened to the Lone Soldier and his companions—how they lived, how they survived. With that information, I’m ready for what we find from the top of the volcano.”
Across the fire, Eve frowned. “I don’t see the connection. There’s no reason for the tunnel to have priority over the volcano.”
He shrugged. “Then go.”
“Please, Eve, wait for Jake.” Betty grabbed Eve’s hand. “What if I’d been alone when I went into the minefield?” The fire flickered shadows onto Betty’s face, emphasizing deep lines around her eyes and mouth that hadn’t been there on the cruise ship. She turned to Jake. “Would there be more booby traps above the minefield?”
“I wasn’t going to risk it. Safest path is through the jungle.”
Eve’s cheek muscles twitched. “I’ll wait one day, nothing more.”
He shrugged again. Did he even want her along? He’d accomplished a big task today with no one to distract him. Chances were, she wasn’t going to be happy with what she found from the volcano top anyway.
* * *
He couldn’t sleep. He’d spent the day with Ginny, talking to her, recounting their years together, wondering with her how the kids were doing at the Point. Now that he was back with flesh-and-blood humans, the ache for her returned. If he’d been alone on the island, would he have found happiness with her ghost? Had the Lone Soldier fought loneliness with the aid of invisible loved ones?
Rolling onto his back, he stared up at the stars. He’d prayed today too. The emptiness was bearable when he took it to God. But the prayer and the remembering didn’t remove the pain. The ache had become his second skin, squeezing him, crimping the hollow space inside where his heart had been. In daylight he could keep busy, keep his mind distracted. At night, memories waited at the door for body and mind to yield to them.
“Can’t sleep?” Betty lay nearby. She didn’t sound any sleepier than he. Behind her, Crystal bent over the low flames of the fire, the faithful handmaiden determined to keep it alive. Eve sat facing the cove, silhouetted by a sliver of moon.
“Yeah, having a hard time.”
“Thinking of Ginny?”
He swallowed. “Yeah.”
“It helps to talk.”
“Been talking to her all day.”
“I thought so. Talk to me now.”
He sat up. Half-reluctant, half-eager.
“She was a lovely woman, Jake. I appreciated her kindness. She was the only one on the cruise who bothered to talk to Crystal and me the first two days.”
“She loved people.” That was why he’d chosen the small cruise ship. She’d have gotten to know every passenger, their hopes and dreams, their heartaches.
“Where did you and Ginny meet?”
“High school.” He chuckled. “She beat me out of being valedictorian by one point.”
Crystal stopped poking the fire. “Tell us about your first date. I bet it was so romantic!”
“Romantic blunder was more like it.”
Betty cackled. “Sounds like a story. Tell us.” She scooted closer to the fire. Eve joined them, so he got up and settled into their circle.
“It wasn’t really a date—more of an accidental get-together—but I liked thinking of it as a date. It was 1955, the summer before our junior year in high school. We knew each other before then, of course, but neither of us was dating.”
“Why?” Crystal asked.
“Because I was self-conscious of my scars, and because Ginny would only date a Christian.”
Eve’s head jerked toward him. “What kind of prejudice is that?”
“It wasn’t a matter of prejudice. She didn’t want her faith compromised.”
“He’s right,” Betty interjected. “My husband wasn’t a Christian, and I found my faith compromised time after time. Frank’s stance was that we each were free to act as we believed.”
“Seems sensible to me.” Eve wrapped her arms around her legs.
“Was it?” Betty’s voice fell. “I eventually gave up my faith.”
“You shouldn’t have—you don’t have to give up who you are just to be married.” Eve’s words vibrated with indignation.
“It’s not that simple. Differences—big ones, important ones—push you apart.” Pain crumpled Betty’s face. “But we want to hear your story, Jake. Please, go on.”
It was hard to crank up the enthusiasm after Eve’s fuss. He cleared his throat. “That summer, there was a carnival in town for the Fourth of July. I can’t remember why now, but I was alone when I ran into Ginny and her friends. The two girls Ginny had started the day with had met some guys from our class and had paired up. That left Ginny as an unpaired extra, which was awk
ward for everyone. So when I came along, the two couples latched onto me and asked me to join them. Ginny went along with the impromptu arrangement only because she knew how uncomfortable it’d be for everyone else if she didn’t agree.
“We had a wonderful time. I’d had a crush on her since the beginning of high school, so I was thrilled to get to spend time with her. She let me pay her way on the various rides, but only after she whispered she had a job and would pay me back later.”
“So what was your blunder?” Betty asked.
“Ginny was so lovely, and when we did something fun, she’d look at me and we’d laugh and smile at each other. This went on all evening. When she congratulated me for winning the state wrestling title for my weight class, I felt like a hero in her eyes. I was just sure she liked me and was having a great time. Then she agreed to let me take her home, and I was even more confident. It wasn’t until we got to her door that I realized she’d let me drive her home so she could pay me back the money I’d spent on her. She kept insisting I take the money, and I kept refusing, and then, well, I kissed her.”
He took a deep breath, reliving the moment. “I’ll never forget the expression on her face. She pushed me away like I’d violated her or something. ‘What’s the matter?’ I said. I felt pretty stupid. I thought we’d had a good time and she’d want me to kiss her.”
“That’s what feminism is all about!” Eve’s eyes blazed across the fire at Jake. “Men forcing themselves on women—men feeling they have the inherent right to dominate—men assuming there’s an invitation where there’s really an invasion.”
Jake’s mouth fell open. “It was just a kiss, Eve.” He glared back at her. “Boy-chases-girl was the cultural norm back then. Ginny was—”
“I’m not looking for a social studies lesson, Jake. Which, by the way, you have all wrong. Men dominating women is not a cultural norm—it’s a male norm, for all cultures and all times.”
“Stop it! Stop it!” Betty clapped her hands over her ears. “We have enough problems on this island without you two squabbling.”
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