Death Island

by Joan Conning Afman

  Was it God who had placed him in New Haven, visiting his mother at the Good Shepherd Home for the Aged, when he saw Paul and that woman holding hands and going into a Japanese restaurant last week? He couldn’t mistake her identity, with her height and that mass of hair. Something was definitely going on, and it couldn’t be allowed to continue. He had carefully planted suggestions about Charlie’s behavior with the Session, but they had brushed them off, saying she was a breath of fresh air, leave her alone. Well, it was up to him, then. He would have to do something, just as he’d done to that slut in New Haven.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The glider was finished! Danny sat around the breakfast fire with Martin and Jake and surveyed the craft with admiration.

  Martin rocked back on his heels. “So you think that thing’s going to get you over the rocks and into open sea?” He glanced sideways at Danny, but Jake answered.

  “It should. I calculated the distance and the weight, plus his weight,” he gestured toward Danny, “and it should fly that far. It will fly that far,” he amended.

  “Pretty chancy,” Martin commented. “And then what do you do, once you’re out there?”

  “Row like hell,” Danny answered. “Jake built oars into the side of the glider. They come off so I can propel the thing.”

  “Food?” Martin asked cryptically.

  “I’ll make a packet,” Danny answered, a little nettled at Martin’s skepticism. “I have a few days to do that. Jake says the pitch has to dry thoroughly first.”

  Jake nodded. “And he has a spear and a net.”

  Martin raised his eyebrows at Danny, who retorted with some heat, “Supposedly there are fish in the ocean. And octopus—”

  Martin threw back his head and laughed. “Calamari—yum! I’d love to see you wrestle an octopus! It would be like making love to four women at once!”

  The tension broke. Jake grinned. “There are worse fates than that.”

  “Like making love to another man,” Martin cracked.

  Jake’s expression darkened, and he clenched his bony fists in anger, but before he could respond, Danny turned to Martin. “I’ve been wanting to ask you,” he said. “Why did you bother with me? You’re such a loner, and you don’t need anyone, but I don’t think I would have made it without you.”

  “Probably not,” Martin shrugged. “Better men than you have died here, from everything from snake bite to sheer terror.”

  “Well, why?”

  Martin lifted a shoulder again. “Sometimes I get hungry for intelligent conversation.”

  Danny regarded him in surprise. “You mean like Plato, Shakespeare? We don’t have any conversations like that.”

  “No, but we could,” Martin said. “It makes all the difference.” He jumped up and glided toward the woods, instantly disappearing into its depths.

  Jake, who had been quiet throughout this exchange, spoke. “You’re as much of a friend as Martin has had here,” he said. “He feels bad that you’re leaving.”

  “He could live in the Village if he’s lonely,” Danny observed. “Couldn’t he?”

  Jake shook his head. “He’s a loner, but a loner who gets lonely. Figure him out if you can. No else has been able to.” He raised a long forefinger. “But don’t ever trust him, Danny. Never.” He stood up. “I’m going back to see Evan for a few days. Cover up the glider so if it rains it won’t get wet and the pitch can dry out. You can use leaves, dirt—”

  “I found an old tarp in the plane,” Danny said.

  “Great. I’ll be back in a few days. Get your food and supplies ready. Then we’ll haul it up the cliff, and if you’re still game, we’ll sail you off the top.”

  “Maybe we should have built a prototype and tried it out first,” Danny said, looking uneasily at the tall red cliffs in the distance. “Maybe I’ve been in too much of a hurry.” Fear gnawed briefly at his stomach.

  “Losing your nerve?” Jake laughed. “We can do that if you want to. You know how to build this now. Go ahead and make another. I’ll come back in a month or so.”

  “No!” Danny was adamant. “I trust your knowledge and experience, Jake. We’ll go in three days, when you get back.”

  “Good enough.” Jake clapped a bony arm around Danny’s shoulder. Suddenly he turned serious. “You might die out there, you know, Danny. You could run out of water or food, broil to death in the sun, never find any other land.”

  “I know,” Danny admitted. “Believe me, I’ve thought of that. But I have to try. I can’t spend my life rotting away here. I never killed anybody, and I sure as hell never killed my wife.”

  “I’m inclined to believe you,” Jake said. He hesitated. “I didn’t kill anyone either, but I tried to. I do deserve to be here. And I will feel this shame and remorse all the life I have left because of what I almost did in the name of revenge. Thank God I failed.”

  Danny’s mouth fell open. But before he could say anything, Jake had vanished into the woods behind Martin.

  * * * *

  The day of departure dawned as bright, blue and sunny as most days on the island did. Although a few small gray clouds hovered on the horizon, Jake cast a speculative look in their direction and opined that he didn’t see rain in the near future.

  Danny panted slightly as they made their way up the path that led to the flat expanse at the head of the red cliffs. Martin and Jake—with their hard, thin bodies—climbed easily, carrying more than their load of the glider between them.

  “You could just stay here,” Martin said at one point, as they paused at a turn to let Danny catch his breath. “It’s not so bad a life. Better than the gas chamber.”

  “It has its compensations,” Jake added.

  Danny regarded the two men in amazement. Ragged and scraggly, they looked like the castaways they were, men any sane person would run from without a second thought.

  And yet they had given their help and friendship to someone whose avowed intention from the onset was to escape the island.

  “I have to go,” he said. “I have to prove my innocence and reclaim my life.”

  “What life?” Martin mumbled. “In a society that didn’t believe you, sent you here? You think they’re just going to welcome you back?”

  “I was framed,” Danny retorted hotly. “Given time I can prove that.” He shrugged. “Probably there have been more killings since I left. They have to realize I didn’t do the others.”

  “Then why haven’t they sent a rescue team to pick you up?” Jake asked. “They still think you’re guilty, that’s why.”

  Danny looked at him hard. “Do they do that?”

  “They did once. Black helicopter swooped down out of the sky. Four guys with Uzis jumped out and grabbed the guy right out of the jungle.”

  Martin chuckled. “I remember that. The guy was running from the Tribe, and they had almost caught up with him. He was about dying from fright. I was sitting up in a tree watching the whole thing.”

  Danny stared at him, aghast. “You knew the Tribe was after this guy, and you didn’t help him?” He couldn’t believe his ears.

  Martin laughed. “Danny, I may be nuts, but I’m not crazy! I went up the tree when I heard the Tribe crashing through the jungle. Then this guy ran by, sweating like a pig, his eyes bugging out of his head. I didn’t feel great that he was about to be torn apart, but I didn’t feel the necessity to join him in a grisly death, either.”

  “But it didn’t happen,” Jake said.

  “No. That helicopter came down in the middle of them like a gigantic black hornet. The Tribe swarmed all around it, but those uniformed guys came out yelling, guns blazing, and mowed several of them down. The rest of them ran. They got the guy into the ’copter and roared away again. That’s all I know.”

  “Must have been a hell of a show,” Jake commented.

  “Excellent,” Martin agreed. “Much better than TV.”

  Danny thought about what Martin had told them as they resumed their climb up the mountai
nside. So … sometimes the government did reverse its decision, did come and rescue people. That was another option then; he could stay on the island and hope that time—and Charlie—would prove his innocence. But it might be years. This was a dangerous life. Martin was a dangerous friend. He might not live long enough for his innocence to be proven.

  “Here we are,” Jake said. He set down his end of the glider, and Danny and Martin lowered the rest of it to the flat stone surface. Danny gazed off into space. The ocean looked midnight blue, with huge waves knocking wildly against the rim of giant rocks. Even from this distance, there was no sign of land. Danny’s heart sank. He must be insane, he thought. This was certain death.

  “Want to go, want to stay?” Jake sank down on his heels, looking at Danny.

  Danny stood frozen. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think.

  “We could have fun if you stay,” Martin said. “We could build a tree house. And discuss Shakespeare. I hear you play well with others.”

  Danny laughed in spite of himself. “I will almost miss you, Martin,” he said, “but I think I have to go.” He turned to Jake. “Thanks for everything, guy. Thank you, both.”

  “Well, we’d better back this thing up so you can get a good flying start,” Jake said, his tone businesslike. The three of them pushed the glider thirty feet or so back from the edge of the cliff.

  Danny lay down on the glider. Jake strapped him in with the vines he had braided into ropes. The provisions they collected were tied down on either side of him to balance his weight. Jake jiggled the oars, lightly fastened to the sides of the glider. “You should be able to just pull these loose when you’re on the water,” he said.

  “If he’s alive,” Martin said.

  Jake ignored him. “This is pretty light, and the model we made flew very well. You should make it okay.”

  Danny lay against the rough surface, smelling the clean scent of the bark, the sharp odor of the pitch that held the craft together. He felt the glider being pushed along the surface of the smooth rock, heard the raspy sound of wood against stone. Then—a sensation of weightlessness. He heard Martin and Jake yelling after him as he left the surface of the rock, but their words were lost in the rush of air that enveloped him.

  The glider caught the wind and lifted upward.

  Danny leaned slightly to the right, and the glider responded, shifting its course. He leaned back to the left, and it straightened. The ocean in its vast blue nothingness lay ahead of him. He gasped a sigh of relief. A sharp feeling of elation shot through him. He was going to make it.

  He heard the wood began to splinter before he felt the glider shudder and falter. One leg suddenly thrashed in the open air, and he was upside down, the black rocks rushing up toward him.

  Before Danny lost consciousness, he was briefly aware of the sky, still cloudless and brilliant blue, the warmth of the sun on his arms, the ocean with its terrifying depths in the distance, and the shining rocks, black and jagged, beneath him. And he knew, with absolute certainty, that he was about to die.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Danny regained consciousness often enough during the trek through the jungle to register the fact that he was strapped to a rudimentary stretcher, his entire body bound and immovable. He felt spasms of overwhelming pain and heard his own moans and groans as from a distance, owning their reality, but convinced the sounds and feelings belonged to someone else. Martin, Jake and two other men; he swallowed snippets of conversation without actually digesting them.

  “Think he’ll live?”

  “Poor bugger. He might, but he’ll probably wish he hadn’t.”

  “Brain damage? God-awful gash on the head.”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Every bone broken?

  “I don’t think so, but he’s gonna feel like a couple of Sumo wrestlers fell on him. I think the glider hit the rocks first and padded his fall. But he’ll be one sore dude for a long time.”

  “What’dya think—hey, Drew! Watch your step! You almost dropped—”

  “Hey, sorry. We’ve only been here two days. We never planned on no hike through no effin jungle.”

  A short reply. “We appreciate your help.”

  ‘We ain’t stayin’ in that Village you told us about. Me and Clay, we’re brothers—”

  “We just need to get Danny to a doctor, that’s all.”

  “Okay, just so nobody thinks we want to—”

  Danny opened his eyes. Why was he tied to a stretcher, being carried through a jungle, every part of his body throbbing in agony? The pain in his head was so acute it nearly knocked him out again. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a long, low groan.

  “Can’t you give him some more of that herbal stuff?” he heard someone ask. He’s waking up again.”

  Danny nearly gagged as the bitter liquid filled his mouth. He clenched his teeth together, but Jake forced them apart. He swallowed, and the relief was almost immediate. He was conscious only long enough to hear one of the men say, “Wish I’d had some of that stuff around when I was married to Maddy. Woulda shut her up some.”

  * * * *

  “Hungry, Danny?”

  Danny swam fuzzily to consciousness and saw one of the stretcher-bearers squatting beside him, holding a coconut shell and a wooden spoon. He put the spoon to Danny’s lips and something hot and savory with minute slivers of meat filled his mouth. He swallowed. All of a sudden he was ravenous.

  The man grinned. “Thought you might be hungry. You’ve been out for almost a week, off and on.”

  Out for a week? Danny tried to make sense of that, but his mind seemed to be a bowl of mush, as useless as his bandaged limbs.

  A younger man walked up to Jake and put his hand lightly on his shoulder. He looked down at Danny. “I’m Evan, Jake’s partner.” he said. “You’re in the Village. You’ve had a rough time of it. We’re trying to make you comfortable.”

  “Where is this?” Danny croaked, shifting his eyes from one side of the room to the other.

  “Our place,” Evan answered casually. “Mine and Jake’s.”

  Danny’s thoughts stumbled around like a mob of drunken sailors as Jake continued to spoon soup into his mouth.

  He tried to fit his words into a coherent sentence.

  “Thank you—” he began, but Jake shoved the spoon in his mouth again, and he had no choice but to swallow.

  “No need for thanks.” Jake’s tone was crisp. ’You’re lucky to be alive. You got pretty smashed up, but Evan here, he’s a doctor of sorts, and he’ll get you well again if anyone can.”

  A doctor of sorts? Danny gazed at Evan. A good deal younger than Jake, he had a lean, tanned, intelligent face with a stubby nose and dark brown eyes. Straight brown hair hung shaggily around his out-sized ears.

  Jake continued to spoon-feed him until the shell was empty. “Good,” Danny managed to grunt. The word seemed unfamiliar to him, and he struggled to remember if it were indeed the right term.

  Evan chuckled. He patted Danny’s shoulder, although with all his bandages and padding, he couldn’t feel Evan’s touch. “Don’t strain yourself,” he said. “You’ll be a little better every day. There’s plenty of time to talk.” He gave Danny an encouraging grin and walked away. Following him with his eyes, Danny noticed that the young man had a slight limp. He looked back at Jake and raised his eyebrows. “How?” he croaked.

  “Horse kicked him,” Jake said with a shrug. “Evan was a vet.”

  Danny wanted to laugh, but a sudden spasm revisited such pain on him that he caught himself mid-chuckle. He was suddenly overcome with exhaustion. He might close his eyes for just a few minutes, and then try again to figure everything out.

  * * * *

  The long days passed in a haze of waking and dozing, as Danny was carefully tended by Jake and Evan. He became slowly aware of the crude log cabin that was Jake and Evan’s home. Danny’s bed rested at the far end of a large, all-purpose room. What cooking Evan did took place outside. A woven
rug, of some fiber Danny couldn’t identify, lay on the plank floor in the center of the room. There was a coffee table with several chairs grouped around it. Compared to the cabinetry Danny had made in his woodworking and construction business, the furniture was serviceable and sturdy, but wouldn’t earn any rewards for craftsmanship or style. At the far end of the room the guys had hung animal skins from ceiling to floor. Danny guessed that Jake and Evan’s sleeping quarters were there, allowing them a measure of privacy.

  A small room jutted off the back of the house at Danny’s end. He thought this must be a supply room, as there seemed to be shelves filled with various containers.

  There were different sizes of pots—some quite large—and an assortment of jars. Although everything was made of unfinished wood, the place was neat and clean, and somehow welcoming. There were even several pots of flowers placed around the room. The hominess of the place added to Danny’s growing comfort.

  Day by day, gradually, he felt better. He still slept a great deal of the time, and his dreams were haunted—bits and pieces of things that swirled through his subconscious like an unending collage. Little by little, he came to recognize the faces of two women who surfaced like regular visitors in his night-world. One morning he woke, remembering their names.

  “Katie,” he said aloud. “Charlie.” He still had no idea where they belonged in his life. He puzzled constantly about them, along with everything else.

  There were visitors from the Village, sometimes one man alone, sometimes a couple would come, eager to see the crazy guy who had dared to build a glider and sail off the high face of the red cliffs.

  One day Evan ushered in a visitor. “Martin’s here,” he announced.

  Danny struggled into a sitting position. Evan tucked a couple of rough, grass-stuffed pillows behind him.

  “’Lo, Danny.”

  “Hey! Long time no see!”

  Evan brought a chair from the center of the room for Martin, who dropped into it with a grunt of thanks.