Stranded (13 page)

Eve wanted to slap herself. What had she been thinking? Just because Jake had saved her life didn’t mean she had to bare her soul to him. She owed him no allegiance. No duty to confess the truth and nothing but the truth. She shuddered at how close she’d come to disclosing her guilt for Ginny’s death.
Fool!
What if Jake had caught on to the fact that there was some kind of connection between her and Captain Emilio?

At the cove, Jake waded out to the deeper water, leaving her to sit in the shallows and splash water over her wounds. She hated salt water. Hated the crust it left on her skin, the sting on her sunburn and now on her abrasions from the cliff. Hated it most of all because it, too, had almost snatched away her life. How was it she hadn’t drowned? Hadn’t been eaten by sharks?

Sobs crowded her chest. She couldn’t stop them. So what if Jake saw her cry. She’d nearly lost her life, nearly cost Jake his. She bawled, let it all out, until the fear and guilt and unanswered questions shriveled to a size she could once again ignore.

She’d tell Jake nothing. Tell him the fall shook her up and she’d jabbered nonsense.

Jake waded ashore and she tensed, but he didn’t ask any questions. Because he’d been put off by her crying? Or because he had no issues with what she’d said? Maybe she’d lucked out and she was off the hook.

At the campsite, Betty and Crystal gaped at them. “What happened?” Crystal exclaimed.

“I set off a booby trap.” Eve sat and told them about the log pushing her and Jake over the cliff and their struggle to climb back up. She was surprised at how calmly she related the incident. No more riding the emotional roller coaster. The cry had been just what she needed to get back on top of things.

Betty frowned when Eve was done. “Mines and booby traps . . . so we were right about the Japanese being here. Crystal says you found a skeleton.”

“Yes, a lone soldier.” Eve described him. The uniform, the trench, the two rusty machine guns at the farthest tips of the fence.

Betty turned to Jake. “What happened that he got left behind?”

“I suspect we’ll find a dozen more soldiers somewhere. Japan must have lost the records detailing they had personnel here. For years after the war, Japanese soldiers were found alive on Pacific islands, unaware the war had ended.”

“What if some are still here?” Crystal’s chin quivered. “They might come after us.”

“No.” Jake shook his head. “They would’ve buried the soldier we saw. I can assure you he was the last one.”

“Why did they set a booby trap up there?” Betty asked.

“Because we were too close to something they didn’t want found.” Jake broke a small branch off the tree and routed the gnats harassing his face. “That last soldier was manning the most important position in their defensive scheme. His hair was gray, which probably means he’d been living on this island for years. He had to have shelter somewhere. My guess is that his unit had a cave nearby for living quarters. It was probably also where they planned to hide if their defensive position got overrun. The booby trap was set up to divert attention from their hiding place.”

He downed a coconut shell of water and reached for another. “I’ll check it out tomorrow. The three of you have given me enough excitement for today.”

Eve blurted out a laugh. “It’s true. All three of us have taken a turn.”

Crystal giggled, then Betty joined in. Jake managed a weary grin.

He plopped down next to Betty. “How’s your foot?” It was swollen, with more colors to it than the fruit piled near her.

“Not good, but at least it’s still there. In fact, I’m grateful all of me is here! Thank you for that, Jake.”

Eve
s
miled. Jake—all-around savior and good guy. Was it just two days ago she’d told Betty there was no such thing as a good man? Savior—okay, she’d grant Jake that. How could she not? But good? No. She still needed more evidence before she could agree to that.

“It’s been over thirty-six years since the war ended,” Betty murmured. “And nobody ever found that lone soldier.”

Eve caught the implication. That lonely old man had died waiting for his country to come save him. How many days? Months? Years? Poor guy, he’d spent his last breath, still hopeful, still patient, still looking out to sea.

She jumped to her feet. “Wait, I just thought of something!”

Looking out to sea.

Eve sped back to the minefield. Why was the Lone Soldier hunched halfway out of the trench? She clambered up the rocky slope on the east side of the field. Why else, but to face the sea? To look one last time for his country’s return—a ship, at first only a dot on the horizon, then growing larger and larger as it hastened toward the men it had left behind.

She stopped at the skeleton, her heart saddened for a moment by the Lone Soldier’s unrequited hope. His bones had been cleaned of every bit of flesh. A few tufts of gray hair adhered ghoulishly to the top of his head. Had he worn a cap? If so, it was gone, blown away long ago. His uniform, though tattered and bleached by the sun, was still intact. It held his bones in position from his neck down to his feet, which were encased in ragged leather boots. Too bad they were too small for any of them.

She brushed aside the long reeds of grass concealing most of the skeleton. The skull lay face down, partially buried in a layer of soil. His arms were spread wide, holding him on top of the embankment. It was as if, in death, the Lone Soldier had accepted his fate and embraced the island on which he had been abandoned.

Careful not to touch the soldier, she searched first near his right hand. Then, inches from his left, she found what she was looking for. Triumphantly, she lifted up the prize.

Looking out to sea
. As she’d suspected, the Lone Soldier had used binoculars.

Crystal dumped her shirt-load of dried grass into a pile near Aunt Betty. “Don’t let it blow away. There’s not much since Jake won’t let me get some from the minefield.” She wanted to kick the pile. When would everyone stop treating her like a little kid?

“Mercy, child, why would you even think of going there?”

“Because the grass is tall and thick. Two trips, just to the edge, and I’d be done.”

“That wouldn’t be smart-brave. One little tug on a clump near a detonator, and you’d be done, all right.”

Crystal turned on her heel and stomped to a spot far away that she’d been too lazy to go to earlier. “
Smart-brave
belongs to Jake and me,” she muttered. “Anyways, you’re not supposed to hit me with it like a stick.” Jake should have let her go into the jungle with him instead of Eve. When had Eve last stood guard, huh?

Grumping loud enough not to be heard, she ripped the parched grass out of the ground and stacked it until she had enough for another load. Eve hadn’t even wanted to go with Jake, so why had he insisted? Because Crystal was just a little kid who couldn’t carry anything bigger than a stinking wad of grass, that’s why.

Jake and Eve sloshed down the stream as Crystal stooped to pick up the grass. Their shirts bulged with their cargo, and each carried a pile of sticks and branches heaped to their eyeballs.

Crystal perked up and grinned. Wow, this was going to be quite a fire! She made a pouch in her shirt, scooped in her grass, and ran to join them.

Fruit tumbled out of their shirts, along with dried leaves, twigs, and small branches. Larger branches, some of them the size of small logs, dropped from their arms into a jumbled mound.

So why didn’t they look happy? Jake’s lips were pinched against his teeth, like when he’d been mad at Crystal for climbing the cliff. And Eve had her don’t-push-me face on. Ha! They’d had another fight. Well, Jake deserved it for asking Eve to go with him instead of her. Didn’t he know all Eve ever did was complain and make life miserable for everyone?

“You’re bleeding.” Crystal pointed to Jake’s scrapes from the cliff. They were seeping bright red drops on his forearms and biceps where he’d hugged the firewood. “Your fingers too.”

“I’ll wash off.” He trudged to the stream, sank down in the middle of it, and closed his eyes. Eve waded in upstream of him and did the same thing.

They didn’t get up. They just lay there and lay there and lay there.

“It’s gonna get dark,” she yelled.

“Crystal!” Aunty said her name like Crystal had let out gas or something. “Let them rest.”

Crystal turned her face away and snarled.

Jake opened his eyes and sat up. Water streamed down his face and chest and arms. It turned pink every place he had a wound and dribbled down to join more pink places. His cheeks were bleeding into his beard. With his two facial scars and the dark hollows under his eyes, he looked like Frankenstein’s brother.

“You’re right, it’s getting late.” He squinted at the sky, then stood and ambled to where Eve had put the binoculars. His hands were pink with blood, but after Aunt Betty’s reprimand, Crystal didn’t dare comment on it. Besides, what could he do about it? They didn’t have a towel.

“What we need is a large, sharp rock.” He searched along the bank, and she helped him find one.

“Where do you think we should hit this to get the big lens out?” Jake held out the binoculars to her.

Easy peasy. She pointed to the part of the casing encircling the large lens.

“The metal is strongest around the lenses to protect them. If we hit hard enough to break it there, we break the lens too.” His finger touched a place halfway down the binoculars. “How about here?”

She shrugged. He didn’t really want her advice.

Bam.
The casing bent open exactly where he’d pointed. He used the knife to pry out the lens. “Want to try lighting the tinder?”

Her heart leaped. “Really?”

“She shouldn’t be playing with fire.” Aunt Betty’s voice bristled.

“Your aunt’s right.” Jake seized a handful of leaves and dropped them in front of Crystal. “I want you to be smart about this. Be responsible. Fire is not a toy.” He wiped the blood off the lens onto his shorts and handed the thick circle to Crystal. “Here’s how you hold it. Put it right between the sun and the leaves, just like this.”

Crystal didn’t look at Aunt Betty for permission. Heart hammering because Jake had defied her aunt, and that now she was doing it too, she held the glass exactly as he’d shown her.

“Keep it steady. I’ll get some grass and twigs.” Jake patted her head as he got up.

“I see smoke!” Goose bumps prickled over her arms. The wisp hung like a wriggling gray thread, then disappeared.

“You let it go out.” Aunt Betty scowled and reached for the glass.

“Keep trying, Pumpkin. I’ll put some grass and twigs under the leaves to give the fire something to dig into. You can do it.”

Crystal glared at her aunt. “No, I can’t. I’m a loser! That’s what
she
thinks!” She threw the lens as hard as she could at the leaves, jumped to her feet, and sprinted toward the cove.

She was almost to the water before she heard the thud of running feet behind her. A wail burst through her throat and out her mouth. “Leave me alone!”

“Hey, what happened? Are you okay?”

At Eve’s voice, Crystal plopped onto the sand and covered her face with her hands. “Go away.”

“You sound like you need a friend.”

“Losers don’t have friends.”

“Can losers be friends with losers?”

Crystal sniffled. “You aren’t a loser. Only I am.”

“I fall off a cliff, and I’m not a loser? Want to go see where it happened?”

Crystal dropped her hands. Wow, would she ever! “I guess so.”

Eve extended her hand, and Crystal let her pull her to her feet.

“Want to see the Lone Soldier too?”

“Huh-uh. I don’t like skeletons.”

“He’s a loser too. The three of us can start a Losers Club.”

A giggle burbled out of Crystal’s heart. “He’s the king of the losers.”

“How about the general? That way we can salute each other. It can be our secret Losers Club signal.”

They crossed the beach to the rocky ground on the other side of the minefield. Eve took Crystal’s hand and swung it as they walked. “Sometimes losers hold hands.”

Crystal smiled up at her. “Sometimes friends do too.”

* * *

Jojo woke with a hangover. He was surprised. When he was with a woman, he was careful to drink only enough to sharpen every sense to its keenest point. He lived off the memory of every minuscule detail for weeks. Only when the urge had him trembling once again, his feet at the very edge of the brink, would he set up another occasion.

The bed stank of sweat and alcohol and years of filthy bodies. He rolled over. The woman’s eyes were swollen shut. Blood crusted her lips. Fresh bruises spotted her body. But there were no broken bones, no missing teeth. Nothing permanent that could give evidence in court should she be foolish enough to go to the police.

He studied her carefully, prompting his groggy memory, stocking his mind with visuals. Then he dressed and left. His hangover was in bad need of attention.