Death Island

by Joan Conning Afman

  “My husband and I socialized with them sometimes. They were a very loving couple, crazy about each other, if you really want to know, and there’s no way he killed her.”

  Norma Harris spoke up unexpectedly. “There has been another axe murder Since Danny left,” she said. “Down by the shore. He couldn’t have done that one.”

  She went back to her knitting, as if she hadn’t spoken at all.

  “Copycat crime,” someone else said, from the middle of the crowd.

  “I think Danny’s innocent,” Tracy Bellows, who sang in the choir, said. “He put in some closets for us when we bought that old house that didn’t have any, and did a lot of other woodworking for us, too. I was home with the kids all the time, and he was really good with them, and we talked sometimes. He was a great guy. I’ll help, Charlie.”

  Many people began to talk then, and Charlie knew she would lose them if she didn’t motivate them to act right away. She raised her voice, and the crowd quieted down slightly. “Everybody,” she said. “I am so grateful to those of you who are willing to help.” She turned and patted the stage with one hand. “Here I have the letters to our state and federal representatives, the attorney general and governor. I also have a letter to Pierre LeGrande, right here, and his email and phone number. And if anyone has other ideas, I’d sure like to hear them.”

  “I think we ought to have an official “Free Danny Committee,” Norma Harris said, her eyes still on her knitting. We can meet at my house if you want to, Charlie.”

  Charlie was stunned. Mrs. Busy-body never seemed to approve of anything she did, or wore, or said, and this was the first time she had called her ‘Charlie.’

  “Thank you, Norma,” she managed to say.

  The crowd was breaking up, groups standing and discussing the situation with each other. About a third of the crowd left without speaking to Charlie or picking up any of her materials from the stage. Norma stuffed her knitting into a canvas bag and waited her turn to talk to Charlie.

  “Does Paul know you called this meeting tonight, Charlotte?” she asked, reverting to Charlie’s given name. Her gray hair framed a face that Charlie knew had once been beautiful. Her dark eyes were clear with intelligence.

  “No,” she replied, deciding to be honest. “Paul doesn’t share my convictions about Danny’s innocence, I’m afraid.”

  “Well,” Norma said, “I don’t think he’s going to be thrilled; I’ll call him and do what I can to smooth things over. But after this, I think we should meet at my house. How about next Thursday?”

  “Great!” Charlie said, overwhelmed at Norma’s offer. She had never known her very well, had never sought out her company or initiated a conversation; her assumption had been that Norma was a meddling older woman who would soak up any tidbits she might glean from Charlie and delight in spreading them throughout the congregation. So, in the last few moments, her perception of Norma had changed one hundred and eighty degrees. She now regarded the older woman with respect.

  “I’ll send out emails reminding everyone,” Charlie said. “Thank you so much, Norma.”

  “In the meantime,” Norma said, “I’ll call Paul and try to pour oil on those soon-to-be-troubled waters.” She gave Charlie a little hug and walked briskly toward the door. Her knitting needles stuck out the top of her canvas bag.

  “Those waters are going to need a lot of oil, I’m afraid,” Charlie said with a sigh. “I might as well go home and wait for the lion to come roaring in.” But the prickles that ran up and down her spine had nothing to do with her husband.

  * * * *

  Curious, he wandered down to the church. At least one hundred women and a handful of men had gone into the church, and as far as he knew, there was no meeting scheduled for tonight. But there in the general meeting room a crowd had gathered, and there at the podium stood Charlie Adjavon.

  He didn’t go in, but leaned against the doorframe, watching and listening. She was into her presentation, actually trying to convince everyone that Danny Manning was innocent of those axe murders. Trying to assemble a committee to work on getting him pardoned.

  Katie Manning hadn’t been a slut or a whore, in fact she and Danny had seemed quite devoted to each other, but the state had become frantic about the five unsolved axe murders, and it had been time, well past time, for the murderer to be caught. He had to frame someone, and when he went to the Manning’s home to check on the Youth Group schedule of activities, he had found her alone in the garage, just about to get into her car. Danny’s axe, neatly displayed on the garage wall with his other carpentry tools, had been all too handy. Bye, bye, Katie. Bye, bye, Danny.

  Charlie, you shouldn’t be messing around in this.

  Chapter Twenty

  Evan and Jake provided a dinner that was surprisingly good—a flavorful stew of meat and vegetables swimming in a rich broth and laced with aromatic herbs.

  Danny, grateful to discover his appetite had returned with a vengeance, ate greedily, even finishing a second bowlful. More mugs of the homemade brew complemented the stew.

  Danny wiped his mouth with his hand and dried it on his shorts. “You guys live an amazingly normal life,” he observed, “considering where we are, and what’s happened to you.”

  Jake grinned as Evan removed the dishes and remains of the meal. He fished under the low table and drew forth a wooden box, spilling the contents onto the table. “We even have poker chips!” he boasted.

  “It’s not such a bad life,” Evan said, returning to his chair. He leaned back and folded his arms behind his head. “We don’t have indoor plumbing or microwaves or television, but we make the best of what we have.”

  Jake’s graying head nodded in agreement. “There are other interesting men in the Village, Danny. We’re the sane killers, the nice guys who got caught up in something they couldn’t control. Like you, I’d guess.”

  “I was framed!” Danny objected with some heat. “I never killed anyone, out of control or not.”

  “Okay, okay, I’m not accusing you,” Jake said. “I’m just saying there are some decent guys here, and we manage to make a satisfactory life of it. I’m trying to say we’d like you to stay. You can’t make it off this island, alive anyway. And, you’ve got nothing and nobody to go back to even if you do make it off. Why not just settle down here?”

  Danny lowered his eyes and fingered a couple of the chips before he threw them into the pile in the center of the table. “Maybe,” he muttered.

  The evening wore on. The game of poker was played with carefully carved hand-made wooden chips. The cards were well-worn but serviceable. Jake told him that Martin had found them in some dead guy’s pocket, someone who hadn’t made it long enough on Death Island to play any games. Mugs of the chilled beer-like drink and the easy conversation made Danny feel relaxed and included for the first time since he had come to Death Island.

  Finally, relaxed and buzzed, he asked the question that had been taunting him all evening. ‘Talon,” he said. “Why is he here? Would he mind if you told me?”

  Jake grunted. “No big deal. He’s a great guy, actually. If I’d been on the jury that convicted him, I’d have sent him back to forest-rangering instead of sending him here.”

  Evan nodded assent. “He’s a throwback to his native Cree origins, though,” he said. “Got a wild side. Nature and animals are a religion with him. He has a quick temper and is determined as hell once he makes up his mind. He had a pet wolf, tamed him from a pup, lived with him in that Ranger cabin he had in the hills. One day a hunter shot the wolf, and Talon went after the hunter. He found the guy skinning the wolf, and Talon strung up the hunter and skinned him alive. Used the guy’s own knife.

  “Ha! I win!” Jake exclaimed as he raked the pile of chips toward himself.

  “Now you can buy yourself that BMW you’ve always wanted,” cracked Evan.

  Jake grinned at Danny. “So you don’t have to worry about Talon. He won’t murder you in your sleep or do you in some other ad
venturesome way, like Martin might.”

  It was Danny’s turn to smile. “Martin’s actually been a friend to me. I think he may have killed Tom, the guy I was dropped here with, though. He seemed to get on Martin’s nerves sometimes.”

  “God could get on Martin’s nerves!” Evan commented. “But it’s more likely Javonne got him. Javonne kills for sport, just because his mind is gone. And he’s an animal himself.”

  Danny grimaced. “He belongs here. The rest of us don’t.”

  “Except for the Tribe,” Jake added. “They’re a really bad bunch of honchos. We’ve had some run-ins with them, but so far we’ve beaten them off.”

  As interested as he was, Danny felt a sudden wave of fatigue sweep over him. He struggled to stand, his arms and legs feeling like rubber. “Think I’d better turn in,” he said. “I wonder what time it is, ten, eleven?”

  Evan shrugged. “Doesn’t make any difference,” he answered. “No corporate meetings tomorrow, no train to catch. Nothing to do but live our lives, one day at a time.”

  They helped Danny back to his bed, and just as he sank onto it with a grateful groan, the door to the cabin burst open. They all wheeled around.

  Talon stood there, panting hard. Blood streamed from his left shoulder, and he struggled for breath. After several coughs, he managed to gasp, “The Tribe!”

  Jake and Evan exchanged alarmed looks. “Where are they?” Jake barked.

  “I was hunting out by the fork of the river, about an hour from here. Five miles, I’d guess. I ran into one of them and had a knock-down, drag-out. I cracked his head with a rock, but they’re coming—”

  “Coming here?” Danny blurted.

  Talon bent over, coughing hard. He straightened up with difficulty. He nodded. “Oh, yeah. They’re headed here, all right, straight as the crow flies. And they’re on the warpath.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Danny had never felt so useless in his life. Jake and Evan sprang into action, and Talon, after Jake had given him a cursory once-over and slapped a bandage on his shoulder, had raced off to warn the Villagers.

  “What can I do?” He struggled to get himself off the cot, but, unable to control his body, crashed to the floor. Furious with himself and at his helplessness, he hauled himself to his feet, biting back the pain with each inch of effort. Jake and Evan had left the cabin, and Danny heard shouts and the echoes of running feet outside. He grabbed the walking sticks Evan had made for him, and forced himself to stand and balance his weight on the canes. He took a step, stumbled, but caught himself before he went down again. He swore, took another step. It hurt like hell. A third, and then a fourth, and Danny felt a surge of strength. He could do it! He was on his feet, and with the aid of the canes he could walk. ‘Shades of Jack Bauer,’ he muttered to himself, remembering how the hero of 24 had always seemed to recover from his horrendous injuries in just a few minutes’ time, no matter how badly he was beaten or even if he’d been shot. He hobbled to the door, feeling steadier with each step.

  Outside, the Village was a flurry of activity. Men darted around like squirrels, but squirrels with a mission. Evan was lighting a fire under a huge tub made of wood and mounted on mud bricks in the center of the communal yard.

  Danny limped out to meet him. “What are you doing, Evan, and how can I help?”

  Evan didn’t argue with him. “It’s animal grease,” he said. “You’ve heard of pouring boiling oil over the invaders at the castle walls? Well, this is our variation on the theme. Feed the fire just enough to keep it boiling hot, and when guys bring you pails to fill, fill ’em.” He handed Danny the carved-out wooded scoop with a long handle he was using to stir the mixture. It had a deep bowl that would hold a lot of the grease, and a narrow spout from which to pour it out.

  Danny took the scoop, which was large and unwieldy. He had to practice his balance with it before he got its heft working for him. He watched Evan run toward the wall where Talon and Jake were piling rocks into pyramid-shaped piles. Danny had noticed the rocks lining the bottom of the walls that surrounded the Village, but hadn’t realized they were weapons.

  Sounds began to emanate from the forest, sounds of branches being broken and trampled underfoot. From what Martin had told him early on, Danny imagined that these were the animals fleeing before the advancing Tribe. Danny’s pulse quickened; under his breath he damned his damaged body. This was a time when he needed to feel one hundred percent, in order to help those who had helped him.

  Then he heard the war cries, faint and at a distance still. The sound was primitive and bone-chilling in its ferocity. Birds flew over the Village in a panic, all headed in the opposite direction of the sounds coming from the forest. The last time they had acted this way was just before Martin and he had run from Javonne. God! It really was like what you read about forest fires in books—the way everything fled in front of them.

  Only this fire would be made up of savage men whose Tribal hobby was wreaking havoc wherever they could.

  Danny saw Martin, who had seemingly appeared from nowhere, at the fence.

  He was sorting arrows into neat piles, and at his feet lay a large, strong bow that could have passed muster with any Indian tribe. Every thirty feet or so along the fence, another Villager was doing the same thing. Danny kicked himself mentally again for being so unobservant. At each station along the wall small squares had been cut out. Slabs of wood that Danny had thought purely decorative slid down into grooves in the fence to provide spaces where the archers could fire their arrows, while remaining shielded themselves.

  He stirred the grease absently, fascinated by the wartime preparations, until Jake, running past, yelled at him. “Danny! Build up the fire!”

  Abashed, he hurried to do so. Looking up, he saw Talon racing toward him.

  “Danny! We can use your help at the wall. That can tend itself for now.”

  Talon took one of the sticks and offered Danny his arm in place of the other. Half-running, half-hobbling, they headed toward the wooden wall that surrounded the small community of 60 or so cabins.

  Danny had not been outside enough to get his mind around the lay of the Village or to inspect the wall. Ten feet high, made of sturdy planks set deeply into the ground, it surrounded the enclave. As he and Talon approached it, he now noticed that every few feet the top was notched, or crenellated, like the walls of a castle fortress.

  Talon followed his gaze. “See the notches set into the planks?”

  Danny nodded. He watched as Talon scrambled up the side of the wall, using the built-in notches, nimble as a cat. He lifted what looked to Danny like a spear—a long, sturdy shaft of wood with a razor-sharp end—from a slanted-in shelf near the top of the wall. “Spears. We keep them stashed up here.”

  “You jab at the invaders through the crenellations. Clever. But won‘t they burn the wall down?”

  “Not so easy,” Talon replied. “They did once, before I came, but Martin came up with a flame-retardant stuff that we smeared all over both sides of the wall. Now it’s virtually impossible to set it on fire.”

  Danny noticed Jake and Evan and several other men engaged in feverish activity along the base of the wall. Trenches had been sunk into the ground and covered with planks. After the men finished raising the planks, Danny saw that the trenches were filled with rocks.

  “Ammunition,” Talon said. “This is what we need you to do, Danny. Stand right here and hand me rocks when I call for them, fast as you can.”

  “Will do.” Danny forced himself to practice bending down, grabbing a rock and hefting it up toward Talon. It hurt, it hurt like bloody blazes, but by God, he wasn’t about to let these guys down.

  As the noises from the forest grew louder, men began to station themselves along the wall. A few balanced themselves on the projecting ledges, as Talon was doing, and others lined up between the spear-throwing stations, ready to hand up rocks. Danny looked around and saw Martin grinning at him as if he almost welcomed the imminent conflict. He supp
ressed a guffaw when Martin thrust a defiant middle finger into the sky, in the world-wide gesture of “up yours!”

  They waited. Now Danny, peering out from one of the slots on the fence, saw smoke drifting toward them like a low, dense cloud, but still at a distance. Tired to the bone, he found himself almost falling asleep intermittently, but with a strength of will he didn’t know he possessed, jerked himself back to consciousness and forced himself to stay awake. Talon stood like a copper-plated statue, his black eyes fixed on the woods for any sign of movement. Danny, increasingly unable to squat or stand as the afternoon wore on, knelt in the grass beside the troth full of rocks. Dusk arrived, soft and gray as a blanket, and the tension that permeated the Village increased palpably. Several men left their posts and began to light torches, which were set around like primitive lampposts, held in place by piles of rocks. The light from the torches made the scene even eerier-looking— unreal, like a movie set.

  Finally the smoke arrived, covering them all with a noxious-smelling ash and making them cough. Danny, peering through a space in the planks, had seconds to take in the astonishing sight of the men of the Tribe, wearing all shades of paint instead of clothing, feathers in their unkempt hair, bearing shields made of wood and decorated with garish symbols, bearing down on the Village with flaming torches. He ducked just as a boulder smashed into the fence and splinters erupted in the spot where his eye had been. The Villagers returned fire with a hail of rocks and arrows. Burning torches soared over the wall, and Danny yelled in fury as one nearly grazed his arm and fell at his feet, still burning. Hardly knowing what he was doing, he grabbed the flaming stick and hurled it back over the wall. He grunted in satisfaction, hearing a yowl, as it found a human target. A torch flew over their heads and hit a cabin, but was snatched away by an alert Villager before it could ignite. Then came a shower of arrows, falling everywhere. Danny flattened himself against the wall.