Island

A Mysterious Disappearance

Keith is missing.

It must’ve happened while he was standing watch.

Right after I joined the bunch sitting around the campfire last night, we had a discussion about whether we ought to take turns on guard duty. Most of us were against it. Why bother, since we’d been on the beach since late morning and hadn’t found any reason to consider ourselves threatened? But then Andrew said that, even if we didn’t seem to be in any danger, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Also, he thought we shouldn’t let the fire go out.

“We ought to keep it going day and night till we’re picked up,” he said. He was packing tobacco into his briar pipe as he spoke. “Don’t need to get caught with a dead fire when a search plane comes along. Besides, we let it go out and we’ll wind up lighting new ones all the time. That’ll get a bit more difficult after my Bic runs out of juice. I’ve stopped using it to light my pipe, of course.” As he said that, he pulled a stick out of the fire and sucked its flame down onto the tobacco in his pipe. He puffed to get things stoked up. Then he explained that the men should take turns staying up to keep watch and feed the fire.

There were three of us, and he figured about nine hours till morning. That meant that we would each have to stand a three-hour shift. (Finally, I get to participate as one of the guys! Thanks a heap, skipper.) Then Kimberly asked why the women weren’t being included in the guard duty. “Do ovaries disqualify us?” she asked.

Which made me laugh. Which won me some points with Kimberly and Billie, but didn’t seem to be appreciated by the others.

There was a general discussion. It stayed friendly, and the decision was made that the women could be responsible for watch duty on the second night, if we’re still here by then. That ended the complaints.

Andrew was supposed to take first watch, men wake up Keith, who would do his three hours and then wake me up at about four in the morning to keep an eye on things for the rest of the night.

With that settled, we all turned in except Andrew, who remained by the fire.

The night was warm and nice. We each made up our beds with assorted blankets, clothing, and whatnot that we’d either brought with us when we came for the picnic, or that Keith and the skipper had retrieved from the water. (Everything was dry by then.) All of us stayed in the general area of the fire. Couples made their beds together. Not Connie and I, though. We helped each other build separate sleeping places—side by side, but with a space between us. Which was fine with me.

She gave me a goodnight peck on the mouth, then we retired to our rag piles.

There was method in her arrangement.

Billie’s bed was only about ten feet away. Once we were lying down, however, I couldn’t see her; Connie blocked my view.

I might’ve been able to see Kimberly in the other direction, but she and Keith had insisted that Thelma share their quarters. It was nice of them. Otherwise, Thelma would’ve had to spend the first night of her widowhood alone.

Kimberly, unfortunately, stretched herself out between Thelma and Keith. Which ruined any chance I had of watching her.

Thwarted on both sides, I shut my eyes and let my imagination take over.

The next thing I knew, someone was shaking me by the shoulder. I opened my eyes. It wasn’t Keith waking me up. And the sky wasn’t dark anymore.

At first, I didn’t recognize the guy squatting over me. It was Andrew, of course. The skipper. But he was wearing nothing except his khaki shorts. I’d hardly ever seen him when he didn’t have on a T-shirt, sunglasses and ballcap. He had a gray fur all over his chest, his eyes looked sort of pale and bare, and he was bald and shiny on the top of his head. He seemed older than usual, and not as tough.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“You tell me.” He didn’t sound angry. Concerned, though. “Why aren’t you up and standing watch?” he asked.

I had to think about that for a minute. Then I said, “Nobody woke me. Keith was supposed to, wasn’t he?”

“And he didn’t?”

“No. He was supposed to, though. Yeah. When he was ready for me to relieve him at four.”

“That was the plan.”

“If he didn’t wake me up, it’s not my fault. I mean, I haven’t got an alarm clock.”

I sat up to see what was going on with Keith. Thelma and Kimberly were sleeping side by side, but Keith wasn’t there.

I gave the whole area a quick scan, and didn’t see him anywhere.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Uh-oh,” I said.

“You don’t know?”

“Huh-uh. I fell asleep right away. You were over by the fire, and Keith was with Kimberly. That’s the last I saw of anybody till now.”

“I never took Keith as the sort to desert his post,” Andrew said.

“If he had a good reason.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know, a bad case of the trots?”

“He should’ve gotten you up three hours ago,” Andrew said, making a point of the three hours part.

A mighty long time to spend squatting in the jungle.

“Maybe he decided to let me sleep…” I looked over at where the fire used to be. Only a smokeless pile of ashes remained. Obviously, nobody had fed the thing for hours.

I suddenly got sort of a sickish feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“What’s the matter?” Connie asked, sounding groggy. With a yawn, she pushed herself up on one elbow. Her hair was a messy tangle, in spite of being almost as short as mine, and her T-shirt hung off her shoulder. She actually looked sort of cute that way. This was the first time I’d ever seen her wake up in the morning.

Andrew explained to her about Keith. “Did you notice anything last night?” he asked.

She yawned again and shook her head. Then she added, “I bet he went jogging or something. He’s such a fitness freak. Probably on the other side of the island by now.”

“Maybe,” Andrew said, but I knew he didn’t buy it. I’d noticed before how he sometimes agreed with his daughters and wife even when they were obviously wrong. It was just his way of keeping the peace.

Anyway, our discussions were getting nowhere fast.

So Andrew went over to Billie, bent down and shook her. She seemed to be quite a heavy sleeper. She moaned and rolled onto her side. She’d gone to sleep in her bikini, and wasn’t covered by anything eke. Looking between Andrew’s legs, I saw that her upper breast had gotten dislodged a little. About half the nipple showed. I kept watching, hoping her entire breast would fall out. But then Andrew turned around, so I had to look the other way quick.

“Honey, go on over and wake up your sisters, would you?”

Connie groaned like it was a chore, but she followed orders. While she was on her way to where Thelma and Kimberly were sleeping, I got to my feet. I checked on Billie. She was sitting up and rubbing her eyes. One of her elbows was in the way, so I couldn’t see much of her bikini top.

I turned my attention to the others. Connie nudged Thelma with her foot and said, “Guys, wake up.”

Thelma, flat on her back, blinked up at her and scowled.

Kimberly was covered to the shoulders by a blue blanket. (It wasn’t the good one that we’d brought with us to spread on the beach for our picnic. Andrew and Billie claimed that one.) Kimberly’s blanket had been retrieved from the inlet. A survivor of the boat explosion, it was missing a corner, had a rip down one side and a bunch of burn holes with dark, chaired edges. I could see her skin through some of the holes.

She didn’t move when Connie said, “Guys, wake up.” Then came, “Keith’s disappeared.”

Kimberly threw the blanket aside and sat up fast. Frowning, she swung her head from side to side as she got to her feet. She was still in her white bikini. She looked terrific. She also looked worried.

Andrew and Billie were already striding toward her. (Billie had straightened her bikini top so nothing showed that wasn’t supposed to.)

Kimberly said, “Dad, what’s going on? Where’s Keith?”

“We don’t know, honey. He was supposed to wake up Rupert at four, but he didn’t. From the look of things, he’s been gone a long time.”

Kimberly suddenly shouted “Keith!” toward the jungle. She got no answer, so she cupped her hands to the sides of her mouth and belted out, “KEITH!”

Then we all started yelling his name.

We even tried calling out in unison. That was Billie’s idea. She counted to three, and we all yelled “KEITH!” at once.

Then we waited, but no reply came.

“Do you have any idea where he might’ve gone?” Andrew asked Kimberly.

“No. Are you kidding? He wouldn’t go anywhere, not when he’s supposed to be keeping watch. Not Keith. Except maybe for five minutes, if he had to go to the john. He wouldn’t take off for hours. No way!”

I’d never seen her this upset. She wasn’t hysterical, though. She didn’t cry, but her voice sounded tight and she had a frantic look in her eyes like she wanted to scream for help.

“Something’s happened to him,” she said. “He’s had an accident, or…” She shook her head. “We’ve gotta go and find him.”

We might’ve started a general discussion about the various possibilities, but Kimberly didn’t hang around. She picked up her shoes and started running toward the jungle.

“Kim!” Andrew yelled. “Wait for us.”

Still running, she glanced back over her shoulder.

“Stop!” he ordered.

She quit running, turned around, and walked backward toward the jungle.

“Somebody should stay here,” I suggested. “You know, in case Keith shows up. If he comes back and everyone’s gone…”

“Good idea,” Andrew said. “You wanta stay?”

“No, but…”

“I’ll stay,” Connie volunteered.

“I don’t want you here by yourself,” her dad said.

“Rupert’ll stay with me.”

“I want to help search for Keith,” I said.

The skipper pointed at me. “Stay with her.” He dug into his pocket, came up with the lighter, and tossed it to me. “Get the fire going, Rupe.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

Andrew, Billie and Thelma spent a couple of minutes picking up odds and ends such as shoes, hats, and sunglasses. Then they hurried to catch up with Kimberly.

Before long, they vanished into the jungle. Connie and I stood by ourselves on the sand.

“He’ll turn up,” Connie said.

“I hope so.”

She frowned the way she does when she wants you to know she’s concentrating hard. “What do you think happened to him?”

“He went out in the jungle to take a dump last night, and the local headhunters nailed his ass.”

“Ha ha ha. Very funny. You’re sick if you think that’s funny.”

“Maybe not headhunters,” I said.

“I should think not.”

“Maybe a snake got him. I bet something did. Might’ve been one of those giant spiders I heard about—they’re indigenous to these islands. They have this special venom that turns your blood to acid so you burn up from the inside out.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Really.”

“Get fucked,” she told me, then spun around and walked off toward the water.

“By you?” I asked.

“In your dreams,” she said, not even glancing back.

Not in my dreams, I thought. I didn’t say it, though. I’d already said enough, pretty much.

She went in for a swim, so I built a new fire in the ashes of the old one. When the fire was going good, I fetched my pen and journal and got to work.

The search party still hasn’t returned.

Connie’s been leaving me alone.

After swimming around for a while, she went climbing on the rocks at the point. (Good thing I didn’t leave my journal hidden up mere. She probably would’ve found it and read it, and then I’d be in some real trouble.) Later, she climbed down and swam some more. Then she sprawled out on the sand. She’s acting like I’m somewhere else.

We didn’t exactly have a model relationship before this trip, but it started to really deteriorate as soon as the others entered the picture. I think she considers it a big mistake that she asked me to come along.

Oh, well.

I’m having a good time, mostly, in spite of her.

On the negative side of things, it’s not a good sign that the search party has been gone so long. I’m afraid something bad might’ve happened to Keith.

I sure hope they’re all right.

Shit! What if they don’t come back?

I don’t want to think about that. Besides, it isn’t very likely.

So long for now. I’ve got a few personal matters to take care of while I’ve got the place pretty much to myself.

Keith Turns Up

Oh, man. Oh, shit.

The search party hasn’t come back yet. No wonder. They’re still out there looking for Keith, probably.

I found him.

I didn’t have to look far, either. Just up.

Here’s what happened. Since there was nobody around, and I’d been holding things in for a while, I decided to take advantage of me privacy to answer nature’s call. I took a paperback book with me. Not for reading purposes. I figured I could start ripping out pages from the first half, which I’d already read. (It’s not that great a book anyway.) I went wandering over to the area that our group has been using since our arrival yesterday—in the jungle and a pretty good distance south of the stream. It wasn’t very far to walk, and the foliage in there was thick enough so that you could disappear after just a few steps.

Most everyone had gone in, at one time or another.

It was the first place that Kimberly and the others had searched, too.

But they’d missed him.

I didn’t stop at the first likely trees, but went in a little deeper. After all, no telling when the searchers might return.

I found a good place, and did my business.

I had taken off my swimming trunks to make the job easier, so then I had to put them back on. The problem was, I hadn’t taken off my shoes. When I stood on one foot and tried to slip the other into the leg hole of my trunks, the heel of my Nike got caught and I lost my balance. I hopped and tried to work my foot loose. All of a sudden, though, I was out of control. My shoulder slammed into the trunk of a tree in front of me. The blow turned me, and I landed flat on my back.

Which is when I found Keith.

I’d crashed into his tree.

It wasn’t a palm tree, by the way. The jungle here was full of regular, non-palm trees of maybe a zillion different varieties. This one looked like a normal tree—the sort that has a thick trunk, branches starting about ten feet up, and normal-sized leaves instead of fronds.

Keith was a little higher than the first set of branches.

All I saw, at first, was the bottom half of a naked man dangling almost directly above my face.

I pulled my trunks on, fast as I could, then got out from under him.

He was up there so high that I couldn’t see enough of his face to recognize him. There was no doubt in my mind, though. This was Keith. He’d lost his flip-flop sandals. He’d also lost his trunks. What he still wore was his bright green, blue and yellow Hawaiian-type shirt. It was fluttering in the breeze up there. And he was swaying just a bit from side to side.

I was pretty sure he’d been hanged, even though I couldn’t make out the rope.

Suicide didn’t seem real likely.

Which meant someone had done this to him.

I got the hell out of there.

Connie was down near the shore, stretched out on the sand. Sunbathing, maybe asleep.

I went back to my journal, and here I still am.

I’m still pretty shaky. This stuff is barely legible. It isn’t every day you run into a murder victim. He was a nice guy, too—unlike Prince Wesley.

Now we’ve got two dead husbands. And two widows.

Poor Kimberly. It’s sure going to be tough on her.

I could keep it to myself about finding the body, but that won’t really solve much. I mean, it’s not like Keith got lost in the jungle and if we wait around long enough, eventually he’s going to turn up. All he’s likely to do is rot.

Besides, everybody needs to know we have a killer out there.

One or more killers.

Savage natives?

Who knows?

Maybe one of us did it. Possible, but not likely. Andrew’s probably the only one strong enough to hoist Keith up a tree like that. Unless a couple of the women teamed up to do it. No motive for anything like that, though, as far as I can see.

Oh, shit. The search party is coming back.

Gotta go.

We Deal with It

They came out of the jungle with Andrew and Billie supporting Thelma. She was hobbling along between them, putting almost no weight on her left leg. Her left ankle was wrapped with Andrew’s black leather belt.

Kimberly brought up the rear. She kept turning around and looking back into the jungle.

All of them were flushed and sweaty.

As they walked closer to me, Andrew shook his head.

“No luck?” I asked.

“He could be anywhere out there. No sign of him at all. I take it he hasn’t put in an appearance around here?”

“Nope,” I said. Then I asked Thelma, “What happened to you?”

“I’m such a klutz,” she said. “I slipped and twisted my ankle.”

“Could’ve happened to anyone,” Billie told her.

“We’ll go out looking again,” Andrew said. “Needed to bring Thelma back, and we ought to get some food in us.”

They lowered Thelma onto the collection of rags and towels that she’d shared last night with Kimberly and Keith.

Kimberly kept walking. “I’m going in to cool off,” she said as she passed us. She was scratched, shiny with sweat, dirty, and had bits of green sticking to her skin.

“Did something happen to her?” I asked, when she was a fair distance off.

“There wasn’t any stopping her,” Andrew said. He shook his head as he watched her stride toward the shore. “She crawled into tight places, went through bushes, scampered up rocks. Wore me out just watching her. What a kid—all I could do to make her come back with us. Keith better have himself one damn good excuse if he turns up okay.”

“He won’t,” I said.

Andrew, Billie and Thelma all suddenly looked at me.

“He won’t what?” Andrew asked.

“Turn up okay. I found him. Just a few minutes ago. He’s been killed. Hanged, I think.”

Thelma’s mouth fell open and she started to blink at me very rapidly.

Billie murmured, “Oh, my God.”

Andrew mashed his lips together and shook his head. Then he said in a low voice, “Better show me. You two stay here,” he told the gals.

“What about Kim?” Billie asked.

I turned my head just in time to see Kimberly, up to her thighs in the dear blue water of the inlet, raise her arms and dive under.

“No point in telling her anything until we’re sure,” Andrew said. “Jesus wept. What is there, some damn conspiracy to turn all my daughters into widows?”

When he said that, Thelma started to cry.

Kimberly surfaced and began to swim, her back flashing sunlight.

“Let’s go, chief.”

We hurried. As we went, he asked how I’d discovered the body and was I sure it was Keith. I left out the part about falling down, but told him the rest As for being sure of the identity, I pointed out that Keith was the only guy who had disappeared and the body in the tree was wearing a shirt exactly like Keith’s, so I figured it was a pretty good bet.

“Don’t be smart about shit like this,” he told me.

I apologized.

“That’s my girl’s husband you’re talking about, and he was a good, decent man. Unlike that fuckhead who blew himself out of the water yesterday.”

When we got into the jungle, we had to wander around for a while, but finally I found the right place. The crumpled pages of a paperback book marked the spot, so to speak. That wasn’t Keith’s tree, but it worked as a landmark. I took a few strides away from it, looked up, saw Keith and pointed.

“I reckon that’s him, all right,” Andrew said.

“I think he probably came out here during his watch,” I said. “You know, figuring it’d be a good time to take care of business, everybody else being asleep. Only someone was out here waiting for him.”

“Or followed him when he left the beach,” Andrew added, and gave me a look. I couldn’t see his eyes too well, his sunglasses being in the way, but I knew what sort of look he was giving me.

“If you think I did it, you’re nuts. Why would I do it?”

“You’ve got the hots for Kimberly, so you take Keith out of the picture…”

“You’re nuts!”

“You can’t take your eyes off her.”

“Bull. And anyway, I’m not dumb enough to think she’d fell into my arms just because Keith isn’t around. What kind of a moron do you think I am? And how in hell do you think I could possibly hoist a guy Keith’s size that high into a tree?”

“It could be done,” Andrew said.

“With a winch, maybe.”

“A block and tackle.”

“Have .you seen me running around the beach with a block and tackle hanging outa my trunks?”

“Steady there, chief. Don’t blow a gasket, I’m just speculating.”

“Well you can quit speculating about me. How do I know you didn’t kill him? I bet you could hoist a guy up there without a block and tackle.”

“What’s my motive, Sherlock?”

“You tell me.”

“Shit. He was the salt of the earth, that boy. Shit!” Andrew suddenly jabbed a finger toward the body. “Get up there and cut him down. Kimberly sees we’re gone, she might get suspicious and come looking.”

“You want me to climb up there… ?”

“You betcha, chief. I’m a sixty-year-old man, for Godsake.”

“Sixty?”

“Bet yer ass.”

“You’re in better shape than me, anyway.”

“I know that, and you oughta be ashamed to admit it.” He dug the Swiss Army knife out of a front pocket of his shorts, and tossed it underhand to me.

I fumbled it and had to bend down to pick it up.

“Get up there. Haul yer ass. Kimberly comes along and sees him swinging up there with his dick in the wind, she’ll have nightmares the rest of her life.”

I figured that Andrew was probably right about that.

My swimming trunks didn’t have a pocket and I wasn’t wearing any shirt, so I kept the knife shut and slid it down the top of my right sock. Then I started climbing the tree.

It wasn’t my idea of a good time.

For one thing, I was worried about falling. For another, I was on my way up to a dead guy. I’d had about as much experience with dead bodies as I’d had with live gals. Basically, none. And I would’ve liked to keep it that way. (Not about the gals, about the corpses.) If being dead wasn’t bad enough, he was as good as naked. There’s just about nothing I’d rather see less than some guy without any pants on. Especially the front of him, which is the section that was turned toward the tree trunk—and me.

I made sure not to look at him, and kept my eyes on the tree while I climbed. After a while, his bare feet showed up in my peripheral vision.

I turned my head and saw where the rope was tied off. I didn’t look up to see where it came from. Obviously, though, it went upward from around his neck, was looped over a limb above his head, then came down—sort of behind him. It was wrapped and knotted around a limb just a little distance below his feet.

Which meant I could cut him down without climbing any higher, if I was willing to squirm out on the limb. The idea didn’t appeal to me. To get within reach of the rope, I would need to go under Keith—and nudge his feet out of my way. If that wasn’t bad enough, what was going to happen when I cut the rope? He would fall on me, that’s what.

I wanted to be out of harm’s way when I cut him loose.

So I turned my face to the tree again, and kept on climbing.

Even trying not to look, I couldn’t help but see a lot more of Keith than I liked. You just can’t _avoid_ taking glances, now and then, when you’ve got something like that hanging next to you.

For instance, you want to make sure you aren’t about to bump into him, or something.

And you want to know if he’s got something on him that might, say, leap across the gap. I mean like a snake or other beast.

Anyway, it made me feel pretty sick, the way he looked. The whole business disgusted me, especially that he didn’t have any pants on. But then I got up high enough to see his face, and things got a hundred times worse.

I won’t even get into what he looked like.

“It’s him for sure?” Andrew called.

“I think so.”

“Do you think so, or know so?”

“He’s all wrecked up. His face. But I guess I’m sure.”

“Hung?”

He meant “hanged.” Hung meant something very different, also applicable to the situation. I was in no mood to make any cracks, though. I said, “Yeah. But he’s got blood all over his hair and face. It looks like maybe someone whacked him on the head, then strung him up.”

“Go ahead and cut him down.”

“Just a second.”

I checked out the rope. It didn’t look very new, and was a little thicker than an ordinary clothesline. It had an actual “hangman’s knot.” I counted thirteen coils. They were tight against Keith’s right cheek, and the thickness of the knot had shoved his head sideways. From the top of the knot, the rope went straight up to a limb several feet above his head. It looped over the limb, then stretched down behind his back, straight as a rod to where it was tied off on the limb below his feet.

He’d probably been hauled up by someone standing on that lower limb.

Maybe he’d been killed first, or at least knocked out.

“What’re you doing up there?” Andrew called. “Cut him down!”

I wondered if there might be a way to lower him.

If he could be hauled up, why not lowered?

Because, looking down, I could see that there was no extra rope at the lower limb. After tying it off, the killer must’ve cut off any excess.

I hated to just cut him loose and let him drop.

“Damn it, Rupert!”

“He’ll fall,” I called back.

“So what? He’s dead. He won’t feel a thing.”

“Okay, okay.”

I climbed a little higher. Hugging the tree with my left arm, I brought up my right leg and pulled the knife out of my sock. I used my teeth to open the blade. Then I reached out over the top of Keith’s head and pressed the edge of the blade against the rope.

Andrew’s knife must’ve been awfully sharp.

One slice, and the rope popped.

Keith dropped.

It was worse than I expected.

He hit the limb underneath him, all right. But it went in between his legs and slammed him in the crotch. The whole limb shook. He sat there for a few seconds, head hanging. In his bright shirt, he looked like a flamboyant cowboy who’d fallen asleep in the saddle. Then he slumped over sideways. He fell the rest of the way head first.

Andrew let out a grunty noise and pranced backward to get out of the way.

Keith hit the ground with the back of his head. His spine seemed to bend in half. His legs shot down and his knees struck the ground on both sides of his face. For a second, he gazed up at me from down there like some sort of mutant that was half-face, half-ass. Then he tumbled over sideways.

I pushed my face against the tree trunk and sort of trembled for a while.

Pretty soon, Andrew started telling me to quit stalling and climb down—and bring the rope with me.

I did it. I had to climb out on that lower limb to get the rope. My hands shook too badly for me to untie the knots, so I used Andrew’s knife to cut it loose. Then I just let it fall.

On the ground, I gave back Andrew’s knife. He’d already picked up the rope and coiled it.

“What’re we going to do with him?” I asked.

“Kimberly can’t see him this way.” He handed the rope to me, then crouched by the body and took off Keith’s noose. “She’ll want a look at him, though. We can’t get around that. If she doesn’t see his face, she’ll never believe he’s really dead.”

At that point, Andrew pulled and tugged at the body until it was stretched out flat on its back.

“Where’s his damn trunks?”

“The killer must’ve taken them.”

“Look around.”

I did, but couldn’t find Keith’s swimming trunks, sandals, or anything else.

“Wanta give him yours?” Andrew asked.

“No way. Are you kidding? Not mine. You want to go around volunteering pants, volunteer your own.”

He gave me a smirk. “Run on back to camp, then, and grab a beach towel… a blanket…”

“Maybe we should cover him with leaves or something.”

“Do what I told you.”

So I did, even though it seemed like a mistake.

When I came out of the jungle, Kimberly saw me. She must’ve just waded out of the water. She was striding up the beach toward Billie and Thelma, but then she spotted me and broke into a run.

Maybe I should’ve run off. I thought about it, but just couldn’t. She’s too nice for me to run away from.

“You found him,” she said. She must’ve figured it out from the look on my face. “Oh, God. Where is he?”

“Your dad’s with him. He doesn’t…”

“He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“Your dad’s fine.”

“Keith.”

Before I could think of a good way to answer, she dodged past me and raced for the jungle. She must’ve seen where I came out, because she was headed straight toward it.

“Wait!” I yelled. “Kimberly, don’t! Just wait!”

She didn’t stop. She had too big a headstart on me, so I didn’t try to chase her down. Besides, what was I supposed to do, tackle her?

Andrew shouldn’t have sent me back to the beach. I’d warned him not to. But he’d insisted.

Anyway, I still had a job to do. I took my time, though. Walked slowly to our camping area, picked up a blanket, answered a few questions from the women, then made my way back to the jungle.

When I got there, Kimberly was sobbing in her father’s arms.

He was just in his white briefs.

He must’ve heard her coming, and had enough time to make Keith less indecent. He’d covered the lower parts with his own khaki shorts, and he’d draped a white handkerchief over the poor guy’s face.

While he was busy consoling Kimberly, I went ahead and covered the body with the blanket. Then I reached under and plucked out Andrew’s shorts and hanky. I stood off to the side, holding his stuff, and waited for them to get done.

The Funeral

After Kimberly stopped crying in her father’s arms, she insisted on giving Keith a close inspection. (All our worries about covering him up seemed a little absurd.) Andrew tried to stop her, but she ignored him and pulled the blanket off and crouched beside the body.

She was awfully grim. She didn’t say a thing, but she didn’t cry, either. She actually lifted Keith’s head, turned it from side to side, and searched through his hair with her fingers. (I think she was trying to figure out what killed him.) After a while, she unbuttoned the front of his shirt. She asked us for some help, so we lifted him into a sitting position and Kimberly pulled his shirt off. She put it on right away, over her bikini top, but didn’t fasten the buttons.

Then the three of us, working together, wrapped Keith in the blanket. Andrew wound the rope around it, so that the blanket would stay put. The result was a tidy, man-shaped bundle. Tidy except for the fact that Keith’s feet stuck out the end.

Andrew slung Keith over his shoulder. With him in the lead, we made our way back to the beach.

Billie, Connie and Thelma were waiting for us at the campsite. They were all pretty much in tears. When we showed up, they gathered around Kimberly, shaking their heads and sobbing, hugging her and muttering. Kimberly seemed to be taking things pretty well. She was grim, but didn’t fall apart. Something about the way she stood there, being really brave and wearing Keith’s festive shirt, got to me so that I choked up, myself.

We had a discussion about what to do with Keith’s body. Since we don’t expect to be castaways for any great length of time, we didn’t want to dispose of it in any sort of permanent way. We wanted it handy and easy to recover.

We let Kimberly make the final decision. She chose to bury Keith (store him, more like it), over where the rocks jutted out to the south side of the beach. The place was close enough so we could keep an eye on it and get to the body easily in case of rescue. It was also far enough away so that the thing wouldn’t exactly be living with us. I’m hoping we won’t be able to smell it.

Bad enough that we can see it.

Not the body. It’s out of sight. But every time I turn my head in that direction, I can’t help but look at the pile of rocks covering it. Not to mention the cross. Kimberly made the cross out of driftwood, this afternoon. She stood it up at the head of Keith’s “grave.” It’s gnarled and twisted and as white as bleached bones.

That’s getting ahead of things, though.

First came the decision about where to put Keith. Then we all trooped over there, Andrew marching in the lead with the body slung over his shoulder. (Thelma came with us. Her ankle injury had been pretty minor, and she was able to hobble along okay without help by the time we had our funeral procession.) Kimberly picked exactly the spot where she wanted the grave to be. Then Andrew and Billie and I helped her to clear some rocks out of the way.

Thelma stood by and cried like a maniac.

Connie didn’t help, either, but acted strange; she stood rigid and watched, had this far-off look in her eyes, and rubbed her upper arms as if she was cold. Personally, I don’t think she was grieving over Keith. I think she was scared witless.

After we’d cleared a depression in the rocks, Andrew and Kimberly loaded Keith inside it.

Then Billie said, “Someone should say something.”

“Let’s bow our heads,” Andrew said. We did. In a low and steady voice, he said The Lord’s Prayer. Knew it by heart, which came as a surprise to me. I wouldn’t have taken him for the religious sort.

While everybody still had their heads down, I broke into “Danny Boy.” God only knows what possessed me. I’ve got a pretty good tenor voice, but I’m not a guy who goes around singing in public. It was a sappy thing to do. The guy’s name wasn’t even Danny.

But I’d liked him, and I felt so sorry for Kimberly…

When I got into “Danny Boy,” the waterworks were a sight to see. Everybody cried.

Even Kimberly teared up. After the song was done, she came over to me, wet-eyed and sniffing. She put her arms around me and hugged me.

I’m hoping she’ll do that again sometime, under more favorable conditions.

Fat chance.

She was too overcome with emotion to know what she was doing.

Anyway, I’m glad I went nuts and sang “Danny Boy.” She wouldn’t have hugged me, except for that.

When it was time to finish the burial, she asked everyone to leave. “I’ll take care of it,” she said. So we all left her there.

Away from the rocks where Kimberly was working, Andrew called the rest of us together.

“I don’t want anyone to go straying off alone,” he said. “Keith didn’t have an accident. He was murdered.”

Thelma let out a high-pitched, squealy sound. She seemed embarrassed by it, and plastered a hand across her mouth.

Connie started to shake.

Billie, frowning with concern, put an arm across Connie’s shoulders. “It’s all right, honey,” she said.

“We think it happened out in the jungle where we found him,” Andrew went on. “Someone knocked him on the head, and then hung him. That’s how we figure it.” He glanced at me.

“It was probably just one person who did it,” I added. “I mean, the sneaky way it was done.”

“Somebody strong enough to hoist Keith’s body fairly high up in a tree,” Andrew said.

“What’ll we do? Billie asked.

“I’m not sure yet. Need some time to think things through. Let’s figure on a pow-wow later on. For now, we’ll probably be all right as long as nobody goes off alone. I don’t think the killer’ll come after any of us out here on the beach in plain sight.”

“What about… when we need to relieve ourselves?” Billie asked. “Do you want us to do it right here on the beach?”

Connie joined the party. “Not me. Huh-uh.”

“We’ll work something out,” Andrew said. “For the time being, we can keep on using the same area as before. But not without an escort. Let me know, and I’ll go with you.”

“Oh, charming,” Connie said.

“I changed your diapers, babe. But don’t worry, I won’t peek.”

“This really sucks,” Connie said.

Andrew suddenly looked steamed. “You’ve got two sisters whose lives have been blown all to hell in a matter of less than twenty-four hours. There’s an asshole out there who’ll probably try and kill more of us the first time he gets a chance. What we do not need at this particular juncture is any kind of adolescent shit from you. We know you’re deeply inconvenienced by all this, but…”

“Go to hell!” she blurted. Bursting into tears, she whirled around and ran toward the water.

Thelma, by the way, was already on her knees, sobbing into her hands. This had happened at about the time Andrew made the remark about the two sisters whose lives had been “blown all to hell.”

Billie scowled at Andrew and shook her head. “That was really uncalled for, do you know that?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but went hustling after Connie.

I was the only member of the group still standing, in Andrew’s presence. He seemed to be glaring at me from behind his sunglasses.

“I didn’t say anything,” I told him.

“Don’t be a smartass,” Andrew said. And stalked off himself.

I was left on my own, so I got my bag and came up to my tower. (Violating the new rules about straying off, I suppose, but nobody called me on it.) There was a lot of journal to catch up with. Instead of going to the place I’d found yesterday, I picked a spot in the rocks where I had a view of our beach.

When I arrived, Kimberly was still busy on the other side of the inlet, picking up rocks and gently arranging them on top of her husband. After she finished with that, she took care of making the cross. (I’ve been keeping an eye on her while I write. The others are down there, too, but they haven’t been doing anything worth mentioning.) For a while now, Kimberly has been sitting on the beach. She is still wearing Keith’s bright, Hawaiian shirt. Her legs are out in front of her, her knees drawn up, her arms around her shins. She seems to be gazing out at the water. A breeze is stirring her hair, and fluttering the shirt a little behind her back.

She looks so beautiful and alone.

I wish there was some way to make things better for her.

The important thing, now, is to make sure that the killer doesn’t get any more of us.

Pow-Wow

We ate supper early. Billie did the cooking again. It was a mixture of noodles and beef from some foil packets that Andrew and Keith had gathered out on the inlet, yesterday. We also had some canned peaches, and bread from a loaf that had gotten through the explosion with its cellophane bag intact. We drank stream water, pouring it into our plastic cups from a pot that we passed around.

None of us had eaten anything all day, as far as I knew.

I, for one, was pretty hungry.

We sat in the sand around the fire, eating, passing the water pot around, and not saying much. Everyone seemed pretty upset.

Afterwards, Billie asked me to help her with the dishes, and I agreed. Glad to get away from the group, for one thing.

The “dishes’ were a mix of things: a couple of metal pots rescued from the bottom of the inlet by Keith, plus plastic plates, cups, knives, forks and spoons that we’d brought ashore for our picnic.

We didn’t want to mess up our beach with food scraps, so we carried everything out to the north point—leaving the beach behind and stepping carefully from rock to rock until we reached the very end (forty or fifty feet below the place where I like to work on my journal). We went around the tip, just a bit.

There was nothing to see on the other side. Just more water, beach and jungle.

Billie sat on a rock and dangled her legs in the water. She washed her dishes by bending forward and dipping them into the water between her knees. When I knelt near her and tried to scoop up some water in a pot, she shook her head. “Just put it down. I’ll take care of washing these things. I just wanted you along for the company.”

“I’ll help.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. There isn’t enough here to worry about.” She had brought a rag with her. Also, back on the beach, she’d scooped up some sand in one of the pots. While I watched, she rubbed the dishes with sand, wiped them with the rag, and leaned forward to rinse them with a dip in the water.

She didn’t seem to be in any hurry.

I sure wasn’t.

I liked being out there with her. For starters, Billie is great to look at. She had some major cleavage showing, and her breasts wobbled and shook because of the vigorous way she was washing the dishes. And then there was the way she kept bending forward to rinse things…

It wasn’t just her looks, though. Also, she’s a cool lady. She has always been very nice to me (too nice, if you ask Connie), she treats everyone decently, she has a sense of humor, she isn’t prudish (she’s almost immodest), she doesn’t fly off the handle every two seconds, and she seems to have loads of common sense.

Unfortunately, she didn’t pass on many of these traits to her daughter. Connie has some of Billie’s looks, but apparently didn’t inherit much of her temperament.

Anyway, it was very nice to be out there on the point with her. I tried not to stare at her all the time.

Each time she finished cleaning an item, she twisted sideways and reached up and handed it to me. I made a neat pile on a slightly higher rock.

We were almost done when she gave me a plastic fork, looked me in the eyes and said, “I have a feeling it might be Wesley.”

Her words took me completely by surprise, but I knew right away what she meant.

“It’s occurred to me, too,” I said. “He blew the boat on purpose?”

“Some kind of timing device, so he’d have a few minutes to swim clear before she went up.”

“I’ve seen that sort of thing done in some movies,” I said.

“And so, I’m sure, has Wesley.”

“Do you think he’d have the guts?”

“Never underestimate the guts of a weasel,” she told me. She patted the rock beside her, so I sat down. “I haven’t mentioned this to Andrew, yet. Not to anyone else, either. Wanted to see what you thought of the idea. You’re not an actual member of the family, for one thing. And you’re a good, sensible guy.”

“Well, thanks.”

“Look at the whole deal as an elaborate set-up,” she said. “Whose idea was it to give Andrew and I this boat trip for our anniversary? Wesley’s. Who made all the arrangements? Wesley. Who came down in advance to look things over? Wesley. Who picked this island for our little picnic yesterday? Who stayed on board while the rest of us came ashore? Who got blown up—supposedly?”

“He might’ve actually chosen this island as the place to stage the accident,” I suggested. “Maybe he toured around last week till be found a nice, uninhabited one.”

“Exactly,” she said. “He would’ve needed not only a deserted island, but one that’s out of the way—where we’re not likely to get found immediately.”

“Or at all.”

“And while we’re on that subject,” Billie said, “he could’ve left a trail of false information to make sure nobody misses us—or knows where to come looking.”

I nodded. I’d been nodding fairly regularly since the start of our talk.

“I bet he even came ashore,” I said.

“Here?”

“Yeah. He must’ve brought in a bunch of supplies and hidden them somewhere. For his own use, you know? Whatever he’s got in mind for us, I’ll bet his plan doesn’t include screwing himself out of stuff to eat and drink.”

“And what,” Billie asked, “do you suppose his plan might be?”

“What do you think?” I asked her.

“I asked you first.”

“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “For starters, Wesley wouldn’t do any of this if he really loved Thelma.”

“I agree. And he didn’t. I think he could barely tolerate her.”

“So why did he marry her?”

“She’s very rich. As are we all, thanks to Andrew.”

“Yeah. Okay. Is mere a way that this business of marooning us might make Wesley rich?”

“Sure. If he’s the only survivor.”

We looked at each other, and we both grimaced.

“What would he inherit?” I asked.

“What wouldn’t he?”

“Jeez.”

“So that’s his plan. Kill us all.”

“Maybe,” I said. “He’s gotten off to a great start—killed the toughest male in the group.”

“I don’t know about that.” She smiled. “Andrew’s a pretty tough hombre.”

“He’s probably next on the list.”

She shook her head. “Won’t let that happen.”

“We’ll have to talk to the others about this.”

“That’ll certainly endear us to Thelma. We’d better leave her out of it”

“Talk to them one at a time,” I suggested.

“Yeah.”

“We might be completely wrong, you know. I mean, this is all guesswork—sort of farfetched, too.”

“But it all fits,” Billie said.

“Yeah. The only thing is, sometimes things are the way they seem. Maybe Wesley did get blown up with the boat.”

“And Keith was killed by… ?”

“A restless native?”

A corner of Billie’s mouth turned up. “Maybe Gilligan did it.”

“Or the Howells.”

Billie smiled and shook her head.

I suddenly felt a little guilty for kidding around about Keith’s death. Getting serious, I said, “In a way, it doesn’t matter who did it. What matters is that it happened and the killer’s probably still out there. Whether he’s Wesley or someone else, it’s pretty much the same deal.”

“Except I’d sure like to know who we’re dealing with.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Me, too.”

“It isn’t quite as scary when I think of Wesley out there trying to knock us off. At least he’s not a complete stranger. If it’s not him, it might be someone ten times more dangerous.”

“Better him than some sort of deranged jungle-man.”

“I’ll say.”

“So, what are we going to do about our theory?” I asked.

“You don’t see any major holes in it?”

“No. I think there’s every reason to believe it is Wesley—except that maybe he was blown to bits yesterday.”

“Or maybe he wasn’t.”

“Nobody found any bits,” I admitted. “Which doesn’t mean he wasn’t blown up…”

“I’ve picked up one lesson from many long years of watching crappy TV mysteries,” Billie said. “Here it is: if the body isn’t found and identified beyond a shadow of a doubt—then the person ain’t dead. It’s almost always a ruse, and the ‘dead’ guy is up to no good.”

“I’ve noticed that, too,” I said. “But that’s TV. TV ripping off Agatha Christie. Or maybe… is there a Holmes story where a ‘dead’ guy is a perpetrator?”

Billie frowned at me. “I wouldn’t know, Rupert. Do you think it is or isn’t Wesley?”

“Might be.”

She slapped the side of my arm, but in a sort of playful way. “Don’t be difficult.”

“Sorry.”

“What I’m getting at… should we tell the others about our suspicions?”

“We’d better.”

“Good. That’s what I think, too.”

“But maybe we’d better bring it up in front of everyone,” I said. “Including Thelma. Otherwise, what’ll happen if he is the killer, and she runs into him?”

“You’re right,” Billie said. “We’d better let everyone in on it.”

With that settled, we gathered the dishes and returned to the beach. I was all set to work on my journal. Before I could get started, though, Andrew called everyone together for a group discussion.

We all sat around the fire.

Everyone seemed solemn except for Connie, who gave me dirty looks from the other side of the fire. Odds are, she’s put out with me for disappearing around the point with her mother. She probably thinks we were making out.

“There are things that need to be said about our situation here,” Andrew began. “And we need to make some decisions about how to proceed. This time yesterday, our only real concern was how long we might have to wait before being picked up by a rescue party. Now, Keith has been murdered. That changes…”

Thelma raised her hand like a schoolgirl.

Andrew gave her a nod.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “About Keith’s murder and… about Wesley.” Her chin trembled. She pressed her lips together. After a couple of seconds, she went on. “Doesn’t anybody find it funny that Keith got killed so soon… It was just yesterday the boat exploded and… you know. Wesley. What I’m trying to say… you all think the boat was an accident. But maybe it wasn’t, though. I’ve been thinking about all this, you know? Maybe somebody blew up the boat on purpose. What I mean is, maybe Wesley was murdered, too. Not just Keith. Maybe they blew up the boat to kill Wesley and strand us here. Maybe the idea is, they want to pick us off one by one. Or maybe they only just want to kill off all the men.”

“If that’s the plan,” Kimberly said, “they’re halfway home.”

I didn’t much like the sound of that, me being part of the remaining half.

“What ‘they’ are we discussing here?” Andrew asked. He seemed a little annoyed. “I’m not aware of any ‘they.’”

“Whoever’s behind all this,” Thelma told him.

“You think we’re the victims of a conspiracy?”

She stuck out her lip. “You’re just so sure Wesley got careless…”

“If he didn’t blow up the boat by accident,” Andrew said, “then why did it explode?”

“I don’t know,” Thelma said. “Anything’s possible. Maybe it got hit by one of those rocket things. Or somebody might’ve swum up to it underwater and attached a bomb to it. You know?”

“Who would do such things?” Andrew asked.

“Drug dealers? Maybe we’ve stumbled onto a nest of drug dealers, and they need to eliminate us. Or maybe there’s a secret military base on the island.”

“Maybe it’s Dr No,” I suggested.

Nobody seemed amused. Not even Billie, who sort of cringed when I said it.

“We’ll have no more of that,” Andrew told me.

“Yes, sir.”

“All I’m trying to get at,” Thelma went on, “is that in my opinion I think Wesley didn’t get killed because he did something stupid on the boat and blew everything up. I think he got murdered, the same as Keith.”

Staring toward the fire, her voice very calm, Kimberly said, “Has it occurred to anyone that maybe Wesley isn’t dead, at all?”

Billie’s eyes latched on mine.

“Suppose he arranged for the boat to explode—after he got off it?”

“What do you mean?” Thelma asked.

Kimberly grimaced at her. “I’m sorry. It has to be said, though. I think there’s a chance that Wesley’s alive, and that he might be the one who murdered Keith.”

Then she spelled it out. The whole scenario, just as if she’d been listening to Billie and I out on the point. She used nearly all the same reasoning, but presented her argument in a more logical, concise way than we’d done. About the only thing she left out was my theory that Wesley visited the island in advance and hid a cache of supplies for his own use.

Through the whole thing, Thelma sat there looking stunned, betrayed, aghast.

When Kimberly finished, Thelma said to her, “You’re out of your fucking mind.”

“If she is,” Billie said, “so am I.”

“Me, too,” I said.

Thelma turned her gaze to Connie, looking for an ally.

“Don’t ask me,” Connie said, then went right on and added, “All I know is that I’ve always thought Wesley was a pig…”

“Constance!” Andrew snapped.

She flinched, but went right on. “So it wouldn’t exactly come as any big shock if he pulled something like this. I mean, I don’t wanta hurt your feelings, but I thought you were nuts to get involved with him in the first place, much less marry him.”

Andrew glared at her.

“Well,” Connie said in a whiny voice, “she asked.”

Thelma looked as if she’d been slapped silly. She turned to Andrew. In a sad, pathetic voice, she said, “Dad?”

“You know good and well how I felt about Wesley. But I’m on your side in this.”

“There aren’t sides,” Billie put in.

“Whatever. Thing is, it makes a cute theory—Wesley set us all up and faked his own death. But I’d say it’s too cute. He didn’t have the smarts or ambition or guts to pull off a stunt like that.” Andrew stuffed some tobacco into the bowl of his pipe.

“Maybe we never knew him,” Kimberly said.

“You didn’t,” Thelma blurted. “None of you knew him. He wouldn’t… do something like this. You don’t know how sensitive he could be.”

Andrew took a burning stick from the fire. As he sucked the flame down into his pipe, Billie said, “I think most of what we saw from Wesley—including you, honey—was false. I don’t know that we ever saw an honest emotion from the guy.”

“Slick Wesley,” I said.

“You shut up,” Thelma snapped at me.

After a few puffs on his pipe, Andrew said, “There’s the matter of the rope. It didn’t come from our boat; I would’ve seen it. Which leads me to the conclusion that the rope was on this island before we got here. More than likely in the possession of the fellow who used it on Keith.”

“And that lets Wesley off the hook?” Kimberly asked.

“In my opinion.”

“Suppose he had the rope in his luggage?”

“He didn’t.”

“How do you know?”

Andrew blew out a pale plume of smoke, then said, “I inspected his luggage.”

Thelma’s eyes bulged. “You what?”

“Settle down, honey. It was as much for your protection as ours. Just wanted to see that he hadn’t packed anything worrisome. Drugs, a firearm…”

“Dad!”

“Who else’s stuff did you search?” Connie asked. She looked ready to blow her lid.

“Nobody’s. Just Wesley’s.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“It isn’t any wonder that he felt like everybody was always against him,” Thelma said. “I just thought he was being overly sensitive, but…”

“We’re not against him,” Andrew said.

“Like fun.”

“I’m not, anyway,” he told her. “I’m saying the rope didn’t come from the boat. If it didn’t come from the boat, where could Wesley have gotten his hands on it? He’s innocent. Keith was murdered by a stranger. A stranger who had access to that rope.”

“Wesley might’ve brought in a load of supplies last week,” Billie pointed out.

“That’s right,” Kimberly said, nodding eagerly. “If he set things up to maroon us, he almost had to lay in supplies for himself.”

That was my idea, of course. But I was happy to let them take credit for it. Seemed as if I’d already opened my mouth once too often.

I had to open it again, though. With a look at Thelma, I said, “Whether it’s Wesley or some stranger, there probably is a bunch of supplies hidden somewhere on the island. I mean, the rope came from somewhere, right? Tomorrow, we oughta go and try to find where the stuff is being kept.”

“What we oughta do tomorrow,” Connie said, “is climb into that dinghy and haul our asses out of here before we all get killed. I mean, isn’t that the smart thing to do? Just leave? Whoever this guy is, he won’t be on the dinghy with us. We just trot ourselves over to a different island, where there isn’t some lunatic trying to wipe us out. I mean, you look out there and you can see those islands.”

“They’re farther away than they look,” Andrew pointed out.

“So?”

“We’d run out of gas before we got anywhere close to them. Then we’d be stuck on a dinghy with limited amounts of food and water…”

“But nobody trying to kill us,” Connie pointed out.

“We’re a lot better off here, believe me. We’ve got everything we need to sustain life. We could spend our entire lives here in relative comfort, if it came to that.”

“Swiss Family Collins,” I said. Couldn’t help it.

“God save us from that,” Billie said.

“Wesley’ll murder us all first,” Connie said.

“It’s not my Wesley!” Thelma cried out.

“Well, whoever!”

“Stop it,” Andrew said.

I’ll have to stop pretty soon, myself. Gotta hurry things along; it’s almost too dark to see what I’m writing.

The upshot of the pow-wow was that either Wesley or a stranger killed Keith and might be after more of us or all of us. We won’t try to get away in the dinghy tomorrow, but we might keep it in mind in case things get worse. We’ll probably spend tomorrow exploring the island. We are posting double guards tonight: first Andrew and Thelma; then Kimberly and Billie; and finally me and Connie. Obviously, nobody is supposed to go off alone.

After the pow-wow, we all ran around and gathered a whole bunch of firewood. We also picked up rocks to use as weapons. Then I had a chance to sit by myself and start writing. I’ve been at it for a long time. Almost done, though. If I don’t hurry, I’ll have to finish tonight’s entry in Braille.

While I’ve been working on the journal here, Thelma has been pouting. Connie has been sitting by herself, over near the dinghy, gazing off into space. Andrew, Billie and Kimberly have been putting together a nice little arsenal: aside from a pile of throwing rocks, we’ve now got spears, clubs, and makeshift tomahawks. We’ll be in great shape if we end up in a pitched battle with Fred, Wilma and Barney.

I shouldn’t joke about it. I like the idea of having weapons.

What’d I’d really like, though, is maybe an M-16.

Oh, well. Castaways can’t be choosers.