Uncharted (38 page)

Yessir, real men improvised and adapted, but they never surrendered.

Karyn walked around the raft, one brow raised in a skeptical arch. “Will it float?”

“It’s bamboo. Bamboo floats.” Kevin answered in the tone you’d use with a slow child, and Mark grinned when Karyn scowled in response.

Mark glanced behind him, where Susan was still sitting by the fire. With one hand she flapped a palm frond at the flames, but her veiled eyes reminded him of a seacoast in bad weather.

Her eyes made him wonder what insanity looked like. Some of his victims had come close to madness, but he couldn’t say he’d actually made any of them snap. Yet.

“I’ve got a question,” Lisa said, her eyes focused on the shoreline.

Reluctantly, Mark abandoned his memories. “Yeah?”

She pointed to the sea. “How are we supposed to get this raft past those waves? We don’t have any oars.”

Mark barreled his chest with a deep breath, grateful for the opportunity to show off something else he hadn’t learned in college. “It might look like waves come crashing in all the way around an island, but they don’t.” He squatted and used a stick to scribble in the sand. “Let’s say this is our island”—he drew a circle—“and the waves are these long lines moving east. On the western side of the island, you’d expect the waves to come straight in. But on the eastern side, the waves bend because of the shallow water. It’s called refraction.”

Karyn frowned at the drawing. “I don’t get it.”

“There has to be a place on this island where the waves farther out to sea move parallel to the beach. The waves near the shore will look like they’re coming toward us, but if we can paddle through them, we’ll catch the prevailing waves, and they’ll carry us away from here.” Mark caught Lisa’s eye. “I didn’t say it’d be easy. I said we could do it.”

Kevin stepped up, his brow furrowed. “So . . . all we have to do is figure out where the wind is coming from and launch from the opposite shore?”

Mark shook his head. “Actually, we need to push off at a forty-five-degree angle. If the wind is blowing from the west, we need to catch the waves at the northern end of the island. If we went to the oppo- site shore, we might get caught up in the refraction and find ourselves blown back in.”

Karyn laughed. “And how do you plan on figuring out where north is? We haven’t seen the sun since we arrived, and I don’t think anyone’s found a compass.”

Mark shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. All we have to do is find the wind and move at an angle to it. Easy as pie.”

“We have to carry that thing?” Lisa frowned at the raft. “It’s heavy.”

“Not when it’s floating. We’ll put it in shallow water and walk it through the surf until we find the right launching point. Then we shove off, and we’re outta here.”

Mark looked around the circle, suddenly realizing they had come to an important moment.

“So.” Kevin slipped a hand into his pocket. “This is it.”

Mark swiped his palm on his pants, scraping off the last of the sand. “It’s now or never.”

Karyn and Lisa looked at each other, then Karyn squeezed Lisa’s hand. Lisa bent to touch Susan’s shoulder, but Susan didn’t move.

Yet her voice floated up from behind the veil. “I told you I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here.”

38

Lisa blew out a breath between her clenched teeth. She could almost close her eyes and convince herself she was back at home, trying to convince her mother she
had
to get up and go to the doctor. Just like Susan, her mother was prone to fits of stubbornness.

But she’d learned how to handle stubborn people.

She could sense the others watching as she knelt by the fire. “I know you want to stay,” she said, placing her hand on Susan’s shoulder, “but it’s important that you come with us. Think of your home in Houston. Think of your friends. You want to see them again, don’t you?”

The organza rustled as Susan shook her head. “Not like this.”

“Susan.” Lisa injected a note of reproach into her voice. “You’re not going to look like that when we get home—good grief, none of us looks good right now. Look at those bags under Karyn’s eye; look at how Mark’s cheeks are sagging. That’s temporary. It’s because we’re dehydrated.”

Susan’s fingertips crawled to her cheek. “
This
isn’t temporary.”

“That’s nothing a good plastic surgeon can’t fix, and you can afford the best doctors in the country. Heck, you can go to Hollywood and hire a surgeon to the stars. But you’ve got to come with us. You have to get on the raft.”

Susan shook her head again. “I can’t swim.”

“Sure you can. You made it to the island, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know.” For the first time, Susan’s head swiveled in Lisa’s direction. Beneath the veil, her blue eyes widened. “I don’t know how I got here, and neither do you. None of us knows anything about how we came to this place. I don’t think any of us
can
leave.” She turned, wearing a thousand-yard stare as she regarded the sea. “I think the island means to keep us. It doesn’t want us to go.”

“Nothing’s keeping
me
here.” Mark tugged at the waistline of his shorts, then knelt next to Susan. “Honey, I’m not going to beg. Come on or stay behind, but know this—once we’re away, we’re not coming back. If you stay, you’ll starve to death, if you don’t die of thirst.”

She stared through him, her eyes wide and blue and empty. “I’m staying.”

Karyn tugged on Kevin’s sleeve. “Can’t you do something?”

He blew at his bangs, then placed his hands on his knees and leaned toward Susan. “Come on, Susie Q, let’s go. Let’s just forget about the cave.”

Susan’s eyes filled with tears. “You . . . saw. I can’t face that.”

“All your secrets are safe with me.” Kevin extended his hand. “Come on.”

For a moment Lisa was sure Susan would accept. Her hand rose, hesitated, then her fingertips closed on empty air and her hand fell to her lap. “Good-bye.”

“That’s it, then.” Mark stood and moved to the head of the raft. “If she wants to stay, we’re leavin’ her. Say your good-byes, ladies, because we’re movin’ out.”

Karyn fell on Susan, squeezing her shoulders as she murmured something in her ear, but Susan didn’t budge. Susan’s eyes closed when Kevin bent to kiss her forehead, then he moved to help Mark.

Lisa wrapped an arm around Susan’s shoulders and found the woman as resolute as stone. “Are you sure?”

Susan met her gaze. “No one is waiting for me in Houston. No one is waiting for me anywhere. You guys think I have such a great life—” She released a hollow laugh. “You’re wrong.”

Lisa knew she should argue, but she couldn’t help feeling a measure of grudging admiration for the woman. The princess had always insisted on doing things her way, so if this was how she wanted to die, so be it.

She glanced toward the others. Mark, Karyn, and Kevin had lifted the raft and were carrying it toward the sea. Kevin had tied a bundle onto his belt; it bounced against his thigh with every step.

“Good-bye, then.” Lisa squeezed Susan’s hand and hurried after the others.

Karyn gasped at the first shock of coolness, then shivered. She didn’t remember the water being this cold, but after the humid heat of the island, anything cooler than ninety degrees would jolt her system. She and Lisa waded into the surf and took positions at the beach edge of the raft while Mark and Kevin moved to the deeper, rougher side.

She watched as Mark studied the island’s rustling treetops to gauge the wind. It was impossible to know true direction without enough sun to cast a shadow. But if the wind was now coming from the south, they needed to walk west—which was, as best as she could tell, on the opposite side of the island.

Mark glanced across the raft. “You girls ready?”

“Ready,” Karyn said as Lisa nodded. “Let’s go.”

Trudging through the water, she discovered, was harder than she thought it would be. The water softened the folded cloth around her feet, and the knot of one “shoe” came completely undone. She scooped the shirt up and tossed it onto the raft, but without a protective covering, her scraped foot felt every sting of the sand and every stab of the debris hidden within it.

She knew she couldn’t complain. The others were in the same situation, and none of them had complained a bit since setting out.

The men did not talk as they splashed through the waves; Karyn supposed they were conserving their strength. She felt as though she was running on reserves herself, and at any moment her knees could buckle and send her headlong into the water. Mark might be tempted to leave her behind, but Kevin would pick her up if only for Sarah’s sake . . .

She was about to demand a moment to rest when Mark stopped and again studied the treetops. She wasn’t sure how much of the island they’d circumnavigated, but she
was
sure the palm branches that had been blowing
toward
them should now be blowing
away
. But like flowers that followed the sun, the long green branches of the palm trees were still flowing in their direction.

Mark uttered a curse, then propped a fist on his hip and stared into the gray water. After a long moment he lifted his head and pointed up the beach. “A little farther, I guess.”

Karyn bent to grip her end of the raft and braced herself for continued pain. As they trudged forward, stumbling and splashing, her mind burned with the memory of a story she once heard at church—something about people carrying a big object around a city whose walls eventually collapsed. How many times did they have to complete the circle?

“Hey, Kevin,” she asked, daring to break the silence. “How many times did those people have to walk around that city before the walls fell down?”

His dark brows slanted in a frown. “I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

“Seven,” Lisa called over her shoulder. “The children of Israel walked around Jericho for seven days. And on the seventh day they walked around the city seven times. That’s when the city fell.”

“Should have known to ask Miss Sunday School,” Mark said, grimacing as a rowdy wave splashed the side of his face.

Lisa glared at him. “Maybe if you’d
go
to Sunday school—”

“What?”

She looked away. “Nothing.”

“Come on,” Mark jibed. “Out with it. What sort of person do you think I am?”

Lisa shook her head. “I don’t know what kind of person you are now. Forget I said anything.”

“How can I forget?” Deep red patches appeared on Mark’s face, as if someone had slapped him hard on both cheeks. “Tell me what I’m supposed to learn in church. Would I learn how to build a fire with bamboo sticks? Would they teach me how to build a raft? Maybe the preacher could teach me how to take out an enemy with one blow.”

Karyn couldn’t believe what she was hearing. When Lisa looked at Mark this time, Karyn saw something vulnerable and frightened in her eyes.

“I didn’t mean to insult you,” Lisa whispered.

“For your information,” Mark continued, not letting up, “I
do
go to church because that’s what a community-minded man is supposed to do. But tell me, what good has it done me? Where is God when we need Him? Why hasn’t He helped us? John and David talked about God all the time, and where are they? Dead. Gone. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But we’re
alive
. We’re alive, and they’re not!”

Lisa turned to Karyn, her forehead knitted in puzzlement, but the movement threw her off balance, causing her to lose her grip and spill into the water. Karyn reached out to catch her, but a protruding stalk, powered by momentum, knocked the back of Lisa’s head.

Karyn’s breath caught in her lungs as she grabbed the collar of Lisa’s shirt and yanked her friend from the water. Kevin splashed to her side and helped her pull Lisa’s limp form onto the raft.

Lisa blinked, then grimaced and lifted her hand to gingerly probe the back of her head. “Ouch.”

“You got smacked,” Karyn said, gratefully noticing that the raft floated even with a passenger aboard. “Sorry I couldn’t stop it.”

Lisa squinted at the sky. “Are we there yet?”

Her comment even brought a smile to Mark’s face, and Karyn was relieved when Lisa insisted on resuming her place beside the raft.