“This is downright weird!” Gavin declared.
“Weird or not, it’s food. Manna from heaven,” Zach insisted. He turned to Blair. “Have you ever studied how to dry meat in strips?”
“Like jerky?” she asked. At his nod, she said, “I’ve read about it, but I’ve never tried it. I think it needs to be smoked over a fire, and salted.”
Alita wrinkled her nose. “Sounds like a lot of work to me, especially when we already have fresh food to eat.”
“I suppose so, but I hate to think of all this food going to waste, particularly the pigeons. They’re hard enough to kill with that slingshot, and these have all but landed in our laps.”
“Then let’s preserve the pigeon meat, and bake a couple of fish for dinner,” Kelly suggested. “I can’t say fish jerky sounds very appealing to me, except as a last resort.”
“To me either,” Gavin granted, “but it might be a good thing to take with me on the raft.”
“Okay, I'll try it,” Blair agreed. “But the rest of you have to help.”
Other than what had been stored inside the cave, there was no dry firewood to be had. There was, however, plenty of available seaweed, without having to trudge down to the shore to get it. Kelly also discovered that, as the sun dried small pools of saltwater atop the lava rock, it left behind a deposit of salt, ready and waiting to be harvested.
Their project was soon underway. Together they toted a dozen big flat rocks inside the cave, on which to lay the meat to dry. They cleaned fish, plucked birds, sliced the meat into thin strips. All that remained was the actual smoking and drying by the time the weather began to reverse once more. They moved their venture indoors, lest their providential harvest be waterlogged or blown away, and were soon inundated with the fishy odor.
“Sheesh! This must smell worse than a dockside tuna cannery!” Kelly declared.
“It’s making my eyes water,” Alita complained.
“If there are any cats hiding away on the island, they’ll show up at any moment,” Zach said in a nasal voice, the result of trying to breathe solely through his mouth and not his nose.
Gavin echoed that. “Yeah, the nine-lives dinner bell has definitely been rung!”
Blair, declining comment, bolted for the cave entrance, one hand clamped to her mouth. Much to her surprise, Kelly followed suit within seconds. Zach found them hunched against the outer wall, pale and shaky. He urged them inside again before they got completely drenched. “Sit by the entrance, where you can get some fresh air and still stay dry. Now that we’ve got the gist of how to do this, Gavin, Alita, and I can handle it from here.”
Alita cocked a sassy brow at him. “Thank you so much for volunteering me, Zach. It’s so gallant of you.”
Zach returned the arch look. “You’re so very welcome, my dear Alita. Now kindly can the lip and flip. The bird,” he added, when she just stood there. “It’s burning. Turn it over. Flip it.”
Alita ignored the charring pigeon long enough to flip Zach the bird, in fluent sign language.
The backside of the storm hit with a vengeance, dumping torrents of rain while the wind wailed like a demented banshee. It was as if all the furies of heaven and hell had been unleashed en masse. Trees crashed earthward, sand-littered debris hurled past the cave entrance in a endless, deadly whirl. Even large rocks were tossed about, as if they were weightless bits of dandelion fluff. The earth trembled in awe of this mighty assault. The very walls and floor of the cave seemed to echo this quaking, as did the people huddled within.
“Dear Lord! I’ve never seen anything like this!” Kelly exclaimed in fearful wonder. “And look at the fire, and the lanterns.” She and the others watched in anxious amazement as the madly flickering flames inclined in a severe angle toward the entrance, akin to a plant being drawn toward sunlight.
“It’s as if all the air is being sucked out of the cave,” Blair noted.
“There is definitely an outward draw,” Zach concurred, “but I don’t think there’s any danger that we’ll suffocate, if that’s what is worrying you. Nor, regardless of the unstable sensations, do I think the cave will collapse. To be out in the storm, with no protection whatever, would be a far greater peril.”
“Makes me wonder how Earl is faring,” Kelly said.
“If he’s lucky, he’s not airborne or clinging to a treetop right now,” Gavin stated with a smirk.
“Like the Flying Nun?” Blair suggested.
“More like the Flying Felon,” Zach quipped.
“For all we know, he could be a phantom by now,” Alita contributed on a more serious note. “A real one—as in dead, deceased, departed.”
“I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not even him,” Kelly said. “Especially not him, at this point in his life. Maybe, given enough time, he’ll see the error of his ways and repent.”
Blair nodded in accord. “And escape having to spend eternity in hell.”
Gavin groaned. “Oh, stop with the evangelistic moralizing. It’s starting to feel like a tent revival in here!”
“Not such a bad idea, under the circumstances,” Zach commented, staring out at the fierce storm. “I think all of us would like to feel a little closer to God at this moment. Not necessarily face-to-face close, mind you, but assured that He’s watching over us.”
The storm finally wore itself out several hours later, and everyone heaved a grateful breath of relief. They also abandoned the cramped, smelly cave as quickly as possible, eager to be back on what they now considered home turf, beneath the old banyan tree.-The return trek was almost as long and hazardous as their trip to the cave had been. This time, they had to skirt fallen trees, heaps of branches and rubble, and sodden quagmires.
Again, they stopped at the pool to fill their coffee-pot/canteen, only to find that the water was strewn with leaves and murky with sand and lava grit. It would take a day or two to settle properly. The water pouring from the spout Zach had rigged was much clearer, however, saving them the necessity of filtering it through a cloth sieve.
Upon arriving at their previous haven, they discovered, to their united dismay, that it was in similarly sad shape. Limbs littered the small clearing, as did a variety of dead and injured birds and bats. The rocks surrounding the fire pit had been scattered. The wind had ripped away a good portion of the leafy overhead bower, leaving half of the original area now uncovered and the ground underfoot soggy. Fortunately, the section still protected was spacious enough to accommodate them in comfort, once they cleared away the clutter.
There was no sign of Earl, or that he had been back here. Nor had they seen him along the way. A quick survey of the beach gave no evidence of him, either. It did reveal that the storm had completely dismantled their SOS and signal fire, which was disheartening, though not entirely unexpected.
When Gavin went to check on his raft, they got their first clue as to what might have become of their missing castaway. Gavin came running, his face flushed with anger. “It’s gone! The raft is gone!”
Zach’s primary response was, “Are you sure you looked in the right place? The storm destroyed a lot of trees and landmarks we’ve become accustomed to.”
“I’m sure.”
“Could it have blown away?” Kelly asked.
“Or floated off?” Blair added. “The tide must have risen far beyond its normal mark.”
“No,” Gavin fumed. “I checked the tide mark, and it isn’t anywhere near the spot. And I doubt the wind carried it off, or there would be pieces of it scattered everywhere. As it is, I can’t find so much as a splinter of the raft or the oar I made, but the rocks I used to anchor it are still there, all pushed to one side in a nice tidy pile—almost as if someone stacked them there on purpose. Someone by the name of…”
“Earl!” came the united cry.
Immediately, Kelly thought better of their conclusion. “Surely not! Surely he wouldn’t be dumb enough to attempt setting off on the raft in the middle of such a terrible storm. That… that would be suicid
al!”
“Besides,” Alita cut in, “he was the only one of us who wanted to stay on the island. Why would he decide to leave now?”
“Because, to use his own words, he was as much a prisoner here as he would have been if the plane hadn’t crashed,” Zach explained, his expression grim. “As for leaving in the middle of the storm, I presume that’s precisely what he did. It’s entirely possible that when the eye hit and the weather cleared, Earl thought the storm was over and it was safe to light out on the raft. He’d have been in a hurry. He wouldn’t have wanted us to catch him in the act.”
“Which would have made him all the more desperate and impetuous,” Kelly deduced.
“Damn!” Gavin cursed, pounding one doubled fist into the other. “Damn that man to hell and back!”
“Which is where he’s at now, no doubt,” Blair said solemnly. “I truly doubt anyone could have survived a tempest of that magnitude on a rickety little craft such as that. Why, the waves must have been several times as high as the raft was long!”
“We may be wrong,” Zach told them, offering another scenario. “Earl might still be holed up somewhere on the island, with or without the raft. If he did take it, he might be hiding it to keep Gavin from setting sail and bringing back help. Or he could be biding his time, waiting for the sea to calm before leaving on it himself.”
Gavin considered this. “Maybe, but other than searching the entire island inch by inch, how would we find him, preferably before he decides to launch the thing or destroy it? The rain and wind have washed away any tracks he would have made.”
“There is no easy way,” Zach stated. “We can search, we can keep our eyes and ears open for any sign of him, but there’s little else we can do.”
“I hope he did set off on the raft,” Alita declared adamantly. “I’d rather he be drowned and out of our hair once and for all, than skulking about on the island with us.”
Kelly nodded. “You do have a point there, Alita. But, either way, we are still without a raft.”
They started all over again, practically from scratch. In fact, for two days, until the wood dried out, they couldn’t even light a campfire, though they still had the coconut oil lamps for light at night. Until then, they were back to eating fruit, a lot of which was now lying about on the ground—squashed, bruised, but within easier reach. While the women set the camp to rights, Zach and Gavin began work on a new raft. They even found something constructive for Sydney to do. Unlike the adults, the tot thought it was great fun to scoop the sand and dead bugs from the pool and toss the muck aside.
On the third day, Zach decided to make a return trip to the cave, on the off-chance that Earl had taken up residence there after they’d abandoned the site. “I also want to take another look around that entire area,” he told them. “It’s struck me odd, ever since we first discovered it, that we never found a rifle. You’d think that Japanese soldier would have had one, wouldn’t you? He was wearing his uniform, complete with sword, pistol, and helmet. So where is the rifle he should have been carrying?”
From the start, Earl had not only claimed the pistol, but the helmet as well. He’d been wearing it the day of the storm, on the way to the cave. It was gone now, too, along with Earl. Presuming Earl has set off on the raft, the others figured he must have taken the helmet with him, possibly employing it as a container for fresh water. Likewise, they assumed he’d used his shirt or trousers or something that would serve as a makeshift pouch in which to carry a store of food—for surely even Earl, hunter that he’d professed to be, would not have sailed without those simple but essential provisions.
Zach returned with no news of Earl, but he was carrying an old, half-rotted canvas knapsack. Contained within its worn interior was a standard-issue metal mess kit and canteen, both a bit dented but otherwise functional. These discoveries were most welcome, providing them with additional utensils, a divided plate, a shallow cooking tray, a cup/soup container, and—saints be praised—an honest-to-goodness water flask with a screw-on cap! In addition to a few faded letters, photos, and coded operations maps, all printed in Japanese, there was another useful item, one they wished they’d had sooner. A field shovel.
In Gavin’s estimation the most valuable item, aside from the canteen, was the old compass, for with it he would be able to navigate on the open sea and know which direction he was headed. “We’ll have to test it out, but it looks as if it still works,” he declared excitedly.
“With the canteen, you’ll have a means of carrying water and not spilling it,” Alita pointed out. “Every drop will be precious, I imagine.”
“Now all we have to do is get that raft built again,” Zach said. “I just wish there’d been a hatchet hidden away in that field pack, but the storm did aid us in that aspect, by putting more broken limbs and branches at our disposal.”
“I take it you didn’t find the rifle, but where in heaven’s name did you find this stuff?” Blair inquired.
“In the cave, stuffed back in a crack in the far corner. It was there all the while. Amazingly, none of us spotted it in all those hours we spent waiting out the storm.”
“Imagine that!” Kelly exclaimed. Her sharp green eyes studied Zach’s face, noting the pleased, almost exultant expression he wore. She could swear he wasn’t revealing all to them. “What else did you find up there?”
He replied evasively, not quite meeting her gaze. “Nothing worth mentioning at the moment. You’ll be glad to know I took the time to bury Harry-Kari’s bones. After all these years of peace with his country, I thought even a former enemy deserved a proper interment—particularly since he’s donated, albeit posthumously, all this worthwhile equipment.”
“Decent of you,” Kelly murmured, still not satisfied, but willing to let it pass for now.
It wasn’t until later, lying next to Zach in the dark, that she hissed, “Okay, buster. Fess up. You’ve been as twitchy as a bug on a hot rock ever since you got back from that cave. What gives?”
“Was it that evident?” he queried. “I was hoping no one would notice.”
“The others might not have, but I did. Now, are you going to tell me, or do I have to wring a confession out of you?”
“Kelly, you wouldn’t have believed it!” he whispered excitedly. “I almost didn’t, and I saw it with my own eyes.” He hesitated, and she jabbed a finger between his ribs to prod him. “What? What did you see?”
“Gold. The old guy discovered gold, right there in the cave. He’d been digging at it, using his rifle as a pry bar. I suppose his shovel wasn’t strong enough to hack away at the rock, so he used the rifle barrel, instead. It was still there, stuck in a deep crevice—the same one where I found the field pack.”
Kelly eyed him skeptically. “Oh, give me a break, Zach! Do you really expect me to believe this outrageous fairy tale? That ‘there’s gold in them thar hills’?” she drawled in imitation of an old western line. “More likely, you found a stash of Saki and got yourself looped. Let me smell your breath.”
“I’m not drunk, sweetheart, and I’m telling you the God’s honest truth. It’s not all that inconceivable, you know. There are precious metals to be found in this part of the world. In fact, we’re not that far removed from Fiji, and I know for a fact that gold is one of their leading mineral products.”
“I still say you’re getting all enthused over nothing. It’s probably just fool’s gold, or some other shiny substance you’ve mistaken for gold.”
“Maybe,” he allowed, “but I’m planning to stake a claim when we get back to the States. Better than that, I’m going to see if I can buy this whole blasted island, if I have to hock my underwear to do it.”
“Gold fever,” she muttered in disgust. “Just listen to yourself, Zach. One whiff of what you only suspect might possibly be gold, and you’re ready to bankrupt yourself. That’s an awful lot to risk on a chancy proposition, don’t you think? Are you going to throw poor Becky’s college tuition into the pot, too? Her entire inheritance?
“Furthermore,” she went on, before he could reply, “I’m willing to bet that soldier had the same idiot notions you’re having now, and that’s probably what got him stuck alone on this island for all these years. I can just see him, hiding his discovery from his fellow soldiers, then deliberately missing the boat or plane or whatever transportation the others used to get off of this place. He probably hid out in the jungle until they all left, hording his find. And where did it get him, Zach? Nowhere. He died a lonely man, all for greed and dreams of riches, because no one ever came along and he had no way to get himself away from here to spend his wealth—if that’s what it really is.”
Zach frowned at her. “Are you through preaching at me? Can I get a word or two in edgewise here?”
“Fine. Go ahead. Convince me otherwise, if you can,” she murmured.
“You might give me a little more credit for intelligence, babe. I’m not going to go off half-cocked.” He reached into his pants’ pocket and drew out several small objects. Even in the dark, with only the moon and stars for light, they glittered enticingly. “I’ve taken a few samples, which I intend to have analyzed before I do anything rash. In the meantime, I’d like to keep my potential strike under wraps, at least until I can file a legitimate stake.”
“Don’t want to chance any claim jumpers getting in ahead of you?” she mocked. “Is that why you didn’t tell the others about it?”
“I’m not being stingy, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he alleged. “I just don’t want anyone shooting off his or her mouth and blowing a fantastic opportunity to smithereens. Once I’ve gotten the assayer’s report, and have negotiated a claim on the property, I fully intend to cut Gavin, Alita, and Blair in on the deal.”
“What about me?” Kelly inquired. “Don’t I get a piece of the pie, too?”
Zach’s smile would have rivaled that of a pirate. “You, my fair-haired beauty, will be amply rewarded. Between your share and mine, if all pans out, we’ll be able to honeymoon anywhere our hearts desire, for as long as we wish. We’ll make oil barons looks like paupers by comparison.”
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