“So, you’ve set yourself up as our guard dog,” Kelly said.
“Si. You can all rest easy, except for Earl.” She gave a wicked laugh. “Even in his sleep, the man is as stiff and hard as a tire iron from wanting me.”
“He’s also as strong as an ox,” Kelly reminded her. “He could overpower you. Rape you. Good God, the man killed his own wife! Alita, this is an awful chance you are taking. None of us would want you to get hurt, just trying to keep watch on Earl at night. We could all take turns standing watch, if it came down to it.”
“There is no need,” Alita insisted. “I can handle him. And if the opportunity arises, I will steal his pistola from him, even if I have to trade my body to get it.”
“Good grief, Alita! We’d never expect you to prostitute yourself on our behalf!” Blair exclaimed.
“Never!” Kelly agreed. “I can’t tell you how guilty I would feel if you felt you had to resort to that.”
Again that nonchalant shrug, though Kelly thought she glimpsed pain in Alita’s eyes. “Do not concern yourselves about such a small matter. After all, it would not be the first time I’ve had to do so—for food, for favors, for drugs. Eduardo wasn’t working only for money, comprende?” Their dismay showed clearly on both Kelly and Blair’s faces. “Now I suppose I have given you yet another reason to despise me,” Alita concluded with a sigh. “You consider me no better than a puta. A whore.”
“No! I’m sure your life was not an easy one. Who is to say, that under similar circumstances, we wouldn’t have done the same?” Blair told her.
Kelly nodded. “I, of all people, have no room to condemn you. Technically, I’m still married, though the divorce papers have been duly filed. Which, in the eyes of the law and the church, makes me an adulteress. But frankly, I don’t give a rat’s whiskers. I’d rather have Zach, for as long as I can, than have Brad served up to me bare-assed naked on a silver platter.”
“Not even with a nice shiny red apple in his mouth?” Alita quipped, the corners of her mouth twitching.
“Or with a diamond-studded collar and leash around his neck?” Blair added, surprising them with her risqué contribution.
Kelly pretended to consider this. “Maybe… if it was a choker collar. Around his balls.”
Alita laughed with genuine appreciation.
Blair’s eyes widened. “Whew! You really loathe the man, don’t you?”
“I don’t actually hate him, I don’t think, but I certainly don’t have any love for him anymore. He destroyed that when he wouldn’t accept me for the woman I was. Instead, he tried to make me over into the wife he wanted—someone I simply couldn’t be. And in doing so, he nearly destroyed me as well. His constant harping, his unmitigated conceit, became more than I could stand and still retain an ounce of self-respect. Believe it or not, I may have bailed out just in the nick of time, though Brad will never see it that way. All that matters to him is that, by divorcing him, I may be ruining his chances at a political career.”
“He sounds very egotistical,” Blair said. “Much more so than Anton.”
“Even if he did not concede much to you, Kelly, he must at least have to suck up to his superiors. Or to those people who might influence his career.” Alita deduced thoughtfully. “Let that be your consolation.”
Kelly’s laugh was understandably bitter. “You’ve got that right, Alita. I’m willing to bet Brad has kissed more rear ends than a public toilet. He just would never bend far enough to kiss mine. Not once.”
Blair could not hold back her smile. “Considering where his lips have been, you should consider yourself fortunate, indeed!”
“Hear! Hear!” Kelly raised her coconut shell in a toast. Her friends did likewise. “To womanhood, and being true to oneself!”
“To womanly wiles. Long may they prevail!” Alita chanted.
“To everlasting friendship,” Blair added sincerely.
“Amen!”
“Amen!” Sydney chimed in innocently, struggling on tiptoe to raise her cup to theirs.
The three women chuckled at the baby’s antics. Kelly lifted Sydney onto her lap, making the toddler’s reach easier. “To Sydney, with love.”
Gavin wanted to use the sword to cut down small trees to use as the base for his raft. Zach refused to relinquish the weapon until they had cleared safe paths from the camp to the beach and the pool. “Your raft can wait, Gav. This won’t We can’t afford to have anybody else stepping into some sort of trap. We need to establish at least a few trails we know we can travel safely.”
Even Earl agreed with that, and made it his mission to scout out other areas in search of any additional snares or pits the Japanese fellow might have set.
“What’s the story on this Japanese soldier, anyway?” Kelly asked curiously. “Did he die of a wound, or what?”
Zach had gone back with Earl and Gavin to investigate further. Now, he said, “We couldn’t find any evidence that he was shot. At least there were no bullets lodged in his skeletal frame, as far as we could tell without disturbing the scene too much, or any tell-tale holes in his clothing, which was fairly worn and tattered.”
“So your guess is?” Blair pressed.
“That he’s been dead for years. It wasn't as gruesome as it could have been, as I’d first feared from Gavin’s reaction. The body was totally decomposed, nothing left but dry bones and what remained of his uniform.”
“How do you suppose he got here?” Alita inquired.
“During the War,” Earl said. “World War II. Leastwise, that’s when his uniform and weapons date from. Could be he was sent here as a scout or signal operator.”
“Then where’s his radio?” Gavin queried. “And why would they just leave him here?”
“Maybe he missed the boat, so to speak, when everyone else left,” Blair proposed.
“Or maybe his boat or plane sank, and he swam to the island,” Kelly put in.
“Well, however he made it here, he obviously didn’t make it off again,” Zach noted.
“Do you think he’s not the only one? That there are more skeletons lying around?”
Zach shrugged. “Who knows?”
Kelly shivered. “There… couldn’t be anymore Japanese soldiers still alive on the island after all this time, could there?”
“I honestly doubt that,” Zach answered. “The war ended in 1945, and if the average soldier was around twenty or twenty-five years of age then, he’d be in his seventies now. That’s a hell of a long time to survive being marooned on an island.”
“How do you think this guy died?” Gavin asked.
Zach shook his head. “Hard telling, Gav. Could be he caught some sort of disease, or maybe he was wounded and died of infection. Or thirst, perhaps, if all the fresh water was still hidden underground back then. It might have taken an earthquake or some sort of tremor or violent storm to crack the lava and let the water through to the surface.”
“More recently than his lifetime,” Earl concluded.
“Possibly.”
“Could he have been here for so long that he died of old age?” Blair inquired with a quiver in her voice. “I mean, as far as we know, we’re the first to discover his body.”
“Which would lead to the conclusion that no one ever comes to this island,” Kelly deduced bleakly.
“And we could be stuck here until we die, too,” Alita added anxiously, her panic rising with every syllable. “We could all grow old and die right here on this stinking pile of weeds and rock!”
Blair caught the hysteria. “With no medicine, or doctors! I don’t want to have my baby here! I want a nice, sterile hospital, with anesthetic available if I need it, and help for the baby, and Anton holding my hand and coaching me!”
“Cripes! Some pioneer woman you’d have made!” Earl scoffed. “My granny had eight young’uns right there in her cabin, and lived to the ripe old age of ninety.”
His mockery did nothing to calm Blair, who was sobbing inconsolably now.
“Oh, shut up, you insensitive bozo!” Kelly railed. “You may not mind the idea of spending the rest of your natural days here, but the rest of us have lives we’d like to resume.”
“As soon as possible,” Alita appended angrily. She stalked past Earl, pausing only to punch him hard on the arm as she passed. “You really piss me off, you know that?”
Contrarily, Earl took her swat with good grace. In fact, he stood gazing after her with a smitten grin on his face. “By gum, I think that hot little tamale likes me,” he commented to no one in particular. Then he trotted after Alita, like a hound on a scent.
Gavin let loose a hoot of disbelief. “Ha! That dumb ridgerunner’s been playin’ with himself too much if he thinks a famous star like Alita will give him a spin. Besides, if she really wants a tumble, I’m younger and better lookin’. What’s Earl got over me?”
“A big gun, Gavin,” Kelly told him, deadpan. As he and Zach stared at her, mouths agape, she said, “I mean that literally, not sexually. She intends to sweet-talk him out of that gun somehow, by hook or by crook. Blair and I both tried to drill some sense into her, to tell her it was too risky, but she’s determined that she can do it.”
“Then, by God, we’ll help her,” Zach decided. “If she can distract him and get him to let down his guard, Gavin and I might have a chance to grab the pistol. It’s worth a try, but we’ll have to coordinate our actions with hers. Maybe set up some type of signal between us ahead of time. In the interim, if she can just string him along…”
Kelly’s lips wrapped around a sly, purely feminine smile. “Oh, she has every intention of doing just that, Zach. She’s not about to give up the goodies until he’s paid the dues, and something tells me that before Alita is through with him, old Earl is going to be tied up in more knots than a Chinese puzzle.”
Chapter 15
The ship was too far out for anyone on board to spot the half-dozen people shouting and waving from the island. “They don’t see us! Use the mirror, Zach!” Kelly yelled.
“The ship is to the east of us, and the sun is too low in the west for that to work. They wouldn’t catch the gleam.” Gavin called from the signal fire. “Zach! The fire won’t light! The damned wood is soaking wet! It won’t even catch enough to smoke!”
Zach swung around, his eyes blazing as he searched for Earl. The man was leaning nonchalantly against the trunk of a tree some distance away, his expression smug as he watched the others exhaust themselves in their useless attempts.
“You lousy son-of-a-bitch!” Zach snarled, advancing on Roberts with ground eating strides. “You doused the wood with water, didn’t you? You’ve been doing it all along!”
Earl grinned. “Yup. And I’ll keep right on doin’ it, too.” He straightened slightly, his hand hovering over the butt of the pistol stuck into the waistband of his pants, the gesture reminding Kelly of a gunslinger’s move in a grade B movie. “So, Goldstein. Whatcha aim to do about it?”
When Zach’s steps didn’t slow, Kelly began to panic. “Zach! Stop! For heaven’s sake! Think what you’re doing!” Even as she shouted the warning, she was running across the beach toward him.
“Zach!” Kelly launched herself into Zach’s back, knocking him to the ground in a flurry of sand.
Reflexively, he tried to buck her off, but she clung to him, pleading all the while. “Please, Zach. Don’t. Please! I don’t want you to get shot. Don’t make me watch him kill you! Please!”
For a few, desperate seconds Kelly’s words fell on deaf ears. Then she felt Zach’s muscles relax as his initial blind fury began to fade and common sense took root. On hands and knees, Zach’s head sagged in defeat. “Damn it!” he grated through clenched teeth. “Damn that man to everlasting hell!”
“I’m sure God’s already got that on the agenda,” Kelly assured him, sliding off of him to the sand at his side.
From his place by the tree, Earl jeered. “You gonna let the little woman fight yer battles, Goldstein? Ya gonna let her interfere in yer business?”
“I’d wipe that smirk off my face, if I were you,” Gavin told him.
“Yeah, you dumb clod jumper!” Alita spat out. Her own eyes were practically spewing flames as she marched toward him.
“Clodhopper,” Blair corrected automatically.
“Whatever,” Alita hissed. Upon reaching Earl, she grabbed a fistful of exposed chest hair and yanked. Hard enough to rip half of what she held from his flesh.
Earl yelped in pain, too surprised to react immediately.
“And to think I was considering giving myself to one such as you! Someone who would betray me so readily!” Cursing him in rapid-fire Spanish, Alita strutted past him,; the enticing sway of her hips exaggerated all the more by her ire, a motion Earl could scarcely miss.
“Hey now! Come back here!” Ignoring the others, Earl bolted after her, his gaze all but riveted to Alita’s backside.
“Geezow!” Gavin exclaimed softly. “If anybody’s in danger of being pussy-whipped, it’s old Earl! And if Alita’s strategy wasn’t working so well, I’d be the first to tell him j so.”
“Not until we get that gun away from him,” Zach advised on a frustrated breath. “He’s got the upper hand right now, and reveling in it, which makes him doubly dangerous.”
“We can’t let him provoke us like that again,” Kelly added miserably. “We’ve got to play it cool, no matter what the provocation, until we can disarm him.”
Zach and Kelly were walking along the beach, just the two of them.
“You saved my bacon back there, Kelly.”
“Maybe.”
“There’s no maybe about it. A couple of more steps, and Earl would have drawn on me.” Zach still couldn’t believe he’d come unglued to the extent that he’d rushed an armed man the way he had. He hadn’t even had the sword for defense. “If Earl would have shot, at that range…”
“But he didn’t, and the more I consider it, even if he had, I'm not sure that rusty old antique would have fired. For that matter, how do we know it’s even loaded? Or that the bullets are any good after all this time? So, you see, I may not have saved you at all.”
“On the other hand, that old pistol may be in perfect working order. In which case you did come to my rescue, very valiantly I might add. That was your intention, wasn’t it—behind that flying tackle and all that screeching?”
“Well, I couldn’t just stand there like a stump and watch you tempt fate. That was a pretty dumb thing for you to do, Zach.”
“I agree. But when Earl admitted to dousing the firewood, and dared to act so damned smug about it, something snapped. There was that ship, with no way to signal it. And my ailing dad waiting in Seattle. And Mom and Becky. And me figuratively knocking my head against a stone wall all this time, trying to convince myself that we can stay alive ’til we’re found, that it won’t be too late, that sooner or later a plane will fly by and we’ll signal it and all be rescued. And all the while, Earl was sneaking around behind our backs, sabotaging our chances.”
“I know,” she put in glumly. “I’ve had to re-align the coconuts in our SOS sign for three days running, and I’ll bet it’s not birds or lizards or the wind messing it up, either.”
By now, they’d traversed several miles of shoreline on their solitary trek. Kelly hadn’t come this far along the eastern coast before. “Shouldn’t we be heading back now?” she asked.
“Not yet. Since we’ve already come this distance, there’s something I want you to see.”
“Your etchings?” she teased.
He laughed. “Not precisely what I had in mind, but if that’s what turns you on, I’ll gladly grab a stick and draw a few in the sand for you. Would you prefer an architectural rendering or a still life?”
“A self-portrait of you would do nicely, thank you.”
“That might take some time.”
“From all indications, that’s what we have most of around here.”
“Then let’s put it to good use,” he suggested.
He took her hand in his, leading her on for another half mile or so. “There.” He pointed ahead of them. “What do you think?”
At first Kelly didn’t see anything unusual, just more beach, shaded by palm trees. Or so she thought. Upon closer scrutiny, she discovered that the sand was not dark because it was shadowed, but because the granules underfoot were actually black! In the few places where the sunlight struck directly, they shone like tiny pieces of polished onyx.
“How fantastic! Black sand! I’ve never seen such a thing! How did it form? Why here, of all places?”
Zach grinned. “Neat, isn’t it? There are only a few places like this in the world. The conditions have to be right for it. Basically, you need hot lava flowing into the cooler ocean, and a rough enough surf to pulverize the cooled lava into minuscule fragments.”
Kelly scooped some into her hand. “It looks like millions of black diamonds, all heaped together!”
“Don’t I wish!” Zach exclaimed, laughing. “I’d never have to worry about funding for a project again. I could build the Taj Mahal, or its equivalent, if I wanted, and never borrow a dime from anyone else.”
“I could quit buying lottery tickets and build my own house, with everything exactly the way I want it.” She grinned up at him. “Of course, I’d hire the very best architect. Would you help me design and build my dream house, Zach?”
“Would you let me live in it with you?” he countered with a look more serious than she’d expected.
“Wow!” Kelly’s eyes widened. “That sort of came from left field, didn’t it?”
“It happens that way sometimes, so I’m told. How about it, Kelly? Did your first experience with marriage make you totally gun-shy, or would you be willing to give it another try? With me?”
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