Horizons

by Catherine Hart

  Ike Goldstein was a lovable, stubborn old goat, and lately he’d been displaying that last trait distressingly well, driving his entire family to distraction. Recently, he’d been having recurring chest pains, shortness of breath, and dizzy spells—and adamantly refusing to see a doctor, despite pleas from everyone. Zach’s mother, Sarah, had tried everything from nagging to outright threats, employing every guilt tactic known to Jewish wives and mothers the world over, and all to no avail. Ike insisted it was only indigestion, or maybe a touch of angina, nothing serious enough to necessitate a visit to that “quack,” who knew next to nothing and charged the earth for a lot of worthless advice.

  It had taken a two-hour phone conversation/argument with Zach to get the elder Goldstein to finally relent, under certain staunch conditions. Ike would only consent to tests, which, the doctor had already recommended simply on the strength of Sarah’s description of his symptoms, if Zach would go with him. Zach had agreed with alacrity, instructing his parents to set up an appointment for the first Monday after his arrival back in the U.S. This would give Zach a few days to get his construction team lined up and put someone reliable in temporary charge of the hotel project.

  Zach intended to fly from Las Vegas to Seattle, to stay for as long as it took, to direct construction via fax, or to commute back and forth if necessary—anything to get his father those tests, to determine what ailed him, and to implement proper treatment. Whether it entailed medication for high blood pressure or something as complicated as heart surgery, Zach needed to be there. His father, his brave beloved idol, not only hated hospitals, he held a deep-seated fear of them, feeling that once a person went in they were more likely to come out feet first, especially if surgery was required.

  “I watch television. I’ve heard all the stories,” Ike had said time and time again. “They give you tainted blood, they use instruments that aren’t sterile, they leave sponges inside when they sew you back up. You’re at the mercy of incompetent fools. Once they cut you open, odds are you’re a dead man.”

  To add to this lop-sided equation, Ike had a rare blood type, and Zach was the only member of the family whose blood type matched. Naturally, Zach had already promised to donate as much as need be, if such a demand arose. Ike was adamant about not being infused with a stranger’s blood. And if his mother’s dire predictions, in addition to the doctor’s peripheral assessment, was accurate, there was every chance Zach would be required to do just that.

  Zach, too, had a bad feeling about his father’s symptoms. He could only hope news of the crash hadn’t sent his dad straight into a heart attack or stroke. He had to get home. It was imperative that he reach Seattle as soon as humanly possible. But as things stood now, he was stranded on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere, helpless to do anything but wait to be rescued.

  As he finally came within sight of the camp, Zach’s heart sank to his toes. There they were, his hapless companions, just as he’d left them—a ragged band of unwitting, undelivered castaways. It looked as if they were all still asleep. “The Devil’s Dozen, minus one,” he thought irreverently, including himself in their number. “The Luckless Wonders.”

  If he’d had ten more steps to go, Zach wouldn’t have made it. Not under his own steam. He fell to his knees and sat, head down, panting heavily, hoping he wouldn’t wake the others. He didn’t want to have to give them the bad tidings yet. To see the fear and disappointment on their faces. In fact, he wished he could put it off forever. But this wasn’t something he could hide, like a child who’d broken a toy and didn’t want to confess. This was a matter of life and death.

  He was still hunched there, weaving with weariness, when something lightly bumped his shoulder. He opened bleary eyes to see a brown hand holding forth half a coconut.

  “Here, man, take a drink of this,” Daniels told him quietly. “Wish I had something stronger to offer you, but things being what they are…”

  Zach drank greedily. The milk felt wonderful going down his parched throat. “At least we have this,” he croaked gratefully. “Maybe we won’t die of thirst after all.”

  Gavin sat next to him. “Guess you didn’t find any more than I did.”

  Zach shook his head. “Nothing. No one. No sign that anyone else has ever set foot on this island. And no fresh water, either, unless there’s a source somewhere inland.”

  “Shit!”

  “My sentiments exactly. How are the others coping? Did Alita make it back okay?”

  “She made it back, mad as a hornet. I don’t think she could believe you wouldn’t want a piece of what she had to offer.”

  “Like I had time!” Zach declared, shaking his head in disbelief. “What about the others?”

  “I’m about to explode over here, is all,” Roberts called out, alerting them to his need.

  “Cross your legs and hold your breath. We’ll get to you,” Gavin advised curtly. To Zach, he added, “The woman died.”

  “Which woman?” Zach’s head came up, and he quickly took account.

  “The one we carried down. Jane.”

  Zach’s gaze swiveled to meet Kelly’s. She stared at him from her makeshift pallet. “Jane?”

  “Jane Doe, if you will,” she replied softly, a hint of tears in her green eyes. “We have to call her something. We can’t just bury her with no name at all.”

  “Another nasty little chore ahead of us,” Gavin put in. “I have no idea what we’re supposed to use to dig a grave.”

  “Well, you’d better find something,” Wynne suggested, levering herself to a sitting position. “In this climate, you can’t let a body lie around in the open for long, you know.”

  “Wonderful thought.” This derisive comment came from Frazer, who was now awake as well.

  "Dios mio! Can’t a person get any sleep at all?” Alita grumbled, and peered out through one mascara-smeared eye. “Ach! It isn’t even morning yet!”

  “Oh, but it is, Alita. The very crack of dawn. We didn’t want you to miss the sunrise,” Frazer taunted. “We wanted to see if you’d melt, like the witch in The Wizard of Oz.”

  “Very funny. Go stick your head in the sand and suffocate.”

  “You’ve got your stories mixed, Frazer,” Kelly informed him dryly. “The witch melted when she got water tossed on her. It’s vampires that go up in a poof of smoke on contact with sunlight.”

  “Good grief, Zach!” Gavin exclaimed in mock horror. “She didn’t bite you on the neck out there in the dark, did she?”

  “Ha!” Alita pinned Zach with a malevolent look. “He was dashing down the beach much too fast for that. I’m beginning to think there isn’t a real man among you.” Her head swept to include the steward in her statement. “That should make you a very happy camper, Frazer. It will be like a buffet for you, where you can pick and choose what you like best.”

  “Hey! I resent that remark!” Gavin told her. “I have a fiancée at home, and a couple of other good-lookin’ women in the wings, hoping I’ll change my mind.”

  Alita raised an eyebrow at him. “So? What does that prove?”

  “You are a real bitch, aren’t you?”

  “Hey! Hey! Not in front of the baby!” Blair cut in.

  “Me not baby! Me a big girl!” the toddler refuted on a sleepy whine.

  Blair struggled to her feet and held her hand out to the child. “Well, big girl, it’s time for us to go potty.”

  “No.” The girl’s chin jutted out willfully. “Mommy take me.”

  “Uh… Mommy’s not here right now, pumpkin,” Blair said. “I’ll take you this time, okay?”

  “Take me, too, and we’ll all be happy!” Roberts declared loudly. “I’m gettin’ desperate here, folks.”

  Everyone ignored him, including the child. “Want Mommy!” she insisted. Her face screwed up as she began to cry. “Want Mommy! Mommy!”

  Blair knelt and tugged the girl into her arms, hugging her. “I’m a Mommy,” she choked out past her own tears. “I have a little boy nam
ed Bobby. He’s in third grade. I have a daughter, too. Nancy is just a couple of years older than you. And I have another baby on the way, but I don’t know what its name will be yet. We have to wait to see if it’s a boy or girl. What’s your name, sweetie?”

  The child blurted something that sounded like “Cindy.”

  “Cindy? That’s a very pretty name.”

  The toddler shook her head, making her blond curls bob. “No. Sirdley,” she sniffled.

  “Shadley?” Kelly echoed with a frown.

  “No.” The little girl stamped her foot and repeated the strange sounding name again.

  “Maybe it’s Shirley,” Wynne suggested.

  The toddler pouted.

  “Guess not. What about Susie?” Zach guessed.

  Her tiny face puckered.

  The others joined in, taking turns.

  “Shelby?

  “Sally?”

  “Shelly?”

  The girl screeched, garbling her name yet again.

  “Damn! I can’t understand what she’s saying. It doesn’t even sound like English to me,” Gavin admitted in frustration.

  “That’s because you Yanks have distorted the language so badly,” Frazer told him. “She’s a little Aussie. Came across on the flight from Sydney yesterday with her folks.”

  “So, can you understand her?” Alita asked.

  “No,” he admitted ruefully. “Guess we’ll just have to dub her Sheila, which Down Under means a good-looking female, and have done with it.”

  Everyone grimaced, including the baby.

  “That would be like naming her Girl, or Lassie,” Zach objected. “Might just as well say, ‘Hey, Kid!’ Let’s call her Sydney.”

  The child seemed to brighten at that.

  “Is that your name, honey?” Kelly inquired gently. “Is it Sydney?”

  “No,” the child replied blandly.

  “But it’s a nice name, don’t you think?” Blair put in quickly. “Can we call you Sydney?”

  The girl smiled, showing off a row of gleaming new teeth. “Uh-huh,” she nodded.

  “Okay. Sydney it is.” Blair took the toddler’s hand in hers. “C’mon, Syd. Nature calls, and I can’t wait much longer to answer.”

  “Me, either!” Roberts bellowed. “Hey! Y’all deaf, or what?”

  Zach pinched the bridge of his nose with forefinger and thumb, trying in vain to ease the throbbing in his head. “That’s one minor problem solved. Only about six hundred and ninety major ones to go—including what to do with our big-mouthed, small-bladdered felon.”

  Chapter 6

  The question of what to do about Jane was turning into a mini-debate.

  “If we’d known she wasn’t going to make it, we could have left her on the plane. It would have facilitated identification later,” Frazer said. “They’d have matched her seat position with the name on the roster.”

  “They’ll just have to figure it out from who is missing from their assigned seats,” Zach replied. “I’m sure not going to carry her all the way back up that mountain, just to make it easy for some airline official.”

  “Don’t look at me, either,” Gavin protested. “I wouldn’t go back up there for all the rice in China.”

  “Wait a minute,” Kelly put in. “Weren’t you the guy who wanted to stay up there and man a signal fire?”

  “I’ve changed my mind. A fire on the beach will do just as well.”

  Kelly grinned. “You know you’re only perpetuating the myth that black people are afraid of ghosts, don’t you? What was it your ancestors supposedly called them? Haints, or haunts, or something?”

  “Spooks?” Roberts suggested with a gruff laugh, deliberately rattling the links of his handcuffs, which bound him once more to the palm tree.

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass what they’re called, or what I’m perpetuating,” Gavin insisted adamantly. “I’m not into hanging around a bunch of dead bodies. If I wanted to do that, I’d be an undertaker, like my Uncle Calvin.”

  “I vote for a burial at sea,” Zach said. “Neat, easy, no worry that an animal might come along and dig up the body. We could float her out far enough for the current to carry the body out to sea.”

  “No need to dig a grave, either,” Alita pointed out.

  “No.” Kelly expressed her disapproval. “If we do that, the rescue team won’t have a body to match to dental records or whatever. That could be important as a means of identification. Besides, think of her family. Surely, they’ll want the body exhumed and transferred for a proper burial in her hometown.”

  “Besides,” Blair added, “there shouldn’t be any animals on the island to disturb the grave. At least nothing larger than a lizard or a bird.”

  Zach graced her with a dark look. “You and that textbook brain of yours could really become annoying after a while. I’ll bet you drive your poor husband nuts.”

  Blair returned his gaze with one of superiority. “Actually, Anton is smarter than I am. He’s a professor at Laval University in Quebec.”

  In the end, they buried Jane a short distance away, a few feet inside the treeline, near a huge palm that jutted out at an acute angle. This landmark, they figured, would make relocating the spot fairly easy. The location was also beyond the tidemark, and sheltered enough that the wind and rain would not uncover the remains. The men dug the hole, using broken coconut shells as tools. The women gathered tropical flowers to throw atop the grave. Wynne led a short, touching ceremony, including in her prayers those who had perished in the initial crash. It was a subdued group that returned to the campsite to contemplate their own fates, and their guilty feelings of relief and wonder at having so narrowly escaped Death’s jaws themselves.

  Breakfast consisted of coconuts and bananas, a fare that was fast becoming monotonous. Gavin kept gazing skyward, his expression anxious. “Shouldn’t we be seeing or hearing some signs of a search?” he worried. “Surely they know something is wrong. They’ve got to be looking for us by now.”

  “I’m sure they are,” Frazer said. “But this is a big ocean, with thousands of islands. And who’s to say we weren’t blown off course in the storm? It might take a while for them to find us.”

  “In the meantime, we’re just going to have to fend for ourselves,” Zach stated flatly. “And the first order of business should be another attempt to locate fresh water. It rained yesterday. You’d think we could discover at least a puddle or two.”

  “The sand would have soaked it all up,” Kelly bemoaned.

  “Here at the beach, yes,” Zach agreed. “But in there,” he gestured toward the verdant interior, “the ground is hard. Rocky. Look at all the foliage. The flowers. Even the birds must be getting water from somewhere.”

  “Maybe you can get one of ’em to tell you where,” Roberts commented facetiously. “Parrots are supposed to be able to talk, aren’t they?”

  “They learn to imitate human speech,” Blair told him. “As do parakeets and cockatoos, all of which are abundant here, it seems. However, I doubt they’ve ever encountered people before, especially those who use the sort of language to which you are prone.”

  Roberts smirked. “You think you are so damned smart, huh? Let’s see how high and mighty you are when you’re sippin’ water from a friggin’ birdbath.”

  “Beggars can’t be choosers. I’d drink from a urinal right now, and consider myself lucky,” Gavin avowed.

  “Shouldn’t we be arranging some sort of signal device?” Kelly inquired, changing the subject. “Like a pile of wood for a bonfire?”

  “Or a message in the sand, like they do in the movies?” Alita contributed.

  “What would yours say?” Frazer asked on a laugh. “Send caviar and champagne?”

  She glared at him. “I was thinking more of the word ‘help.’ ”

  “Try SOS. It’s universal,” Wynne suggested. “And it appears the same if you read it upside down.”

  Zach was impressed. “Wynne, old girl, you’re my kind of woman.�
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  It was decided that they should arrange a signal on the shore. The letters would be formed of coconut shells, this being their most ample source of ready material. Also, a bonfire would be erected, using driftwood, tree bark, dried coconut shells, dead palm leaves, and anything else that looked as if it might burn.

  While the others set themselves to these tasks, Zach and Gavin went off to explore the northern end of the island again. They returned hours later, more dirty and sweaty than ever.

  “We climbed far enough to be able to ascertain that there is no harbor hidden below the rocks,” Zach related dejectedly. “It was the only place left along the shoreline that I hadn’t been able to investigate last night.”

  “If there’s no port along the shore, there’s probably no settlement of any type inland, either,” Gavin reasoned.

  “You’re right,” Blair concurred. “For most island inhabitants, fish is their main source of meat. They’d at least have fishing boats, proas or some such, and nets to seine the shallow waters. They’d no doubt leave these near the shore, where they’d be handy.”

  “So we’re really alone here,” Kelly murmured, loathe to face that dread fact. “All on our own, until someone stumbles across us and comes to our rescue.”

  Zach nodded. “That’s about the size of it. No phone, no pool, no pets. Left to our own devices.”

  Kelly gave a wry laugh. “It’s really sort of funny, in an ironic sort of way. How many times, when life got so hectic I wanted to chuck it all, did I fantasize about running away to a deserted island? Somewhere with nothing but sand and surf and sun, where I could laze the days away and not be bothered with the daily hassle. As you said, Zach, no phone, no television, no fax machines or computers.”