"Where has the body gone?" Pamela prodded the ground with her foot, at the place where we had left the dead man yesterday.
"Maybe the tide has washed him away." Farid looked out onto the gently rolling sea.
"I don't think so," I said. "The waterline is too far away." The water was some yards out, and its level was at least a couple of feet below us. "And there are no signs that the tide comes up to this level." I pointed at the fat tufts of grass at our feet.
Farid shrugged.
"Do you think there are predators on the island?" Nita eyed the rocky slope behind us with a frown.
"We only saw birds yesterday," Pamela said. "And the island couldn't support anything much larger than a small dog."
"Or rats," Chris added.
Against my will, I searched the ground for gnawed bones. But there were just stones and plants. No sand that could hold a footprint.
"I'm getting back to the camp." Nita turned and left in the direction of our campsite. We followed.
As we ascended, I kept scanning the bushes and rocks, expecting to see a bone or worse. But the vegetation looked as boring as usual. A few white birds eyed us silently from a tall bush a few yards from the path.
"I know you all wonder what happened to the body," Chris said as we reached the campsite. "But first things first. We need to find water, and that's urgent. Let's have another look at the island. Today, I'll go. I also want to check out that weather station that Megan and Pamela found yesterday. Yves and Farid, will you join me?"
"Of course, monsieur." Yves grinned.
Farid just nodded.
"Excellent, and the rest of you..." He looked at Pamela. "You could collect some wood to prepare the fire, one that will make a lot of smoke. We can light it when we're back. We'll be gone a couple of hours."
Pamela shrugged.
"Okay," Chris said, "let's go."
With a wave of his hand, he turned and headed inland. Farid followed. Yves gave Nita a brief smile and joined them.
"There they go," Pamela said, "exploring the wilderness, leaving the women to do their laundry and to cook lunch."
The mere idea of cooking made my stomach growl. "I volunteer to do the cooking if they bring back a steak or pasta," I said, "but I doubt they'll be more successful than we were."
Pamela huffed. "I'd prefer a drink." She sat down at Bruna's side.
The latter was perched on a rock, unmoving. "You don't like Chris, do you?" She kept her eyes on the horizon as she said this, but there was a smile on her face.
Pamela nodded. "You're right. I don't. Do you like him?"
Bruna shrugged, without turning her head. "Feeling responsible and in control gives him a kick. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just manly behavior. And as long as his decisions are okay, and he doesn't order me around, I don't mind him doing the work for me."
Even though I agreed with her assessment, I didn't feel like talking to her—for someone so short, she held her head very high. I walked some steps towards the slope that connected the campsite to the water and looked out over the sea. Bruna and Chris both seemed to be weirdos, and Chris was a macho would-be alpha. But the rest of our troupe was okay. And Farid had something warm and caring about him, even though he was remote, most of the time.
Nita stepped up to me, holding her hands out for balance while trying to avoid the sharp rocks. "I wonder where that body has gone," she said. "It's so weird." She rubbed her arms even though the day was too warm for comfort, and she looked up at me, dark eyes wide open.
"I really don't know. Maybe they have seals or sea lions here. One of them may have got out of the water and pulled the man in?" I didn't have a clue what I was talking about. "They do have seals in Hawaii."
"Gross..." she said. "Come, let's collect some firewood. Chris told us to."
Obeying the man's orders rubbed me the wrong way, but it wasn't as if I had anything better to do, and it made sense to build a fire. I looked at Nita's naked feet. "I think you'd better stay here. Walking the island is dangerous without shoes. There are lots of sharp rocks, and we don't know if there are snakes."
We should at least have taken that dead man's footwear.
"But I want to help." She looked unhappy. "To be useful."
"You are useful," I said. "You're our doctor. Why don't you check on Bruna's burns."
I didn't want our doctor to have to tend to her own feet.
~~~
When the men returned a few hours later, Pamela and I had collected a pile of firewood ready for burning. Chris still had the lighter in his pocket, so the pyre just stood there on a rock shelf and waited under the sun's hot rays.
Chris and Yves each held a plastic bottle, milky and gallon sized.
Chris smiled. "Hey, folks. This island's primary produce must be plastic bottles. We found some more. And guess what? We've found water!" He handed his bottle to Bruna, who was still sitting on her rock.
Yves gave his to Nita.
"There's a small creek up between the two hills." Chris gestured upslope.
They both drank. Then Bruna handed the half-empty bottle to me. The liquid inside was yellowish, with some brown stuff suspended in it. A smell of sulfur rose into my nostrils. We probably should boil the stuff, but we lacked a kettle.
I swallowed the stuff eagerly.
There was a grin on Bruna's lips as she watched me drink.
"Ugh!" Nita exclaimed and passed the bottle on to Pamela. "Tastes awful. I wonder if it's safe."
"I am sorry." Yves spread his hands. "At least it is water. And there is more of it up there."
Pamela drank her share and then glowered at Chris. "Did you pee into this stuff?"
"They've run out of Perrier, sorry," he answered.
Nita giggled.
"And, by the way, we found that weather station you told us about." Chris had his hands on his hips. "We stopped it."
"You stopped it?" said Pamela.
He nodded. "Yeah. We didn't see how to make it work to send an SOS signal. I don't think it has voice radio. So we pulled some plugs to stop its radio transmissions. This will bring some meteorologists here, to fix it."
"Excellent engineering." Pamela nodded and placed her hands on her hips, too, mirroring his stance."And now, I need the lighter to start our fire."
He pulled the thing from his pocket. "Sure, I can do that."
"No need, thanks." Before he could react, she snatched it out of his hand and walked over to the pyre.
I silently cheered for her.
She put a flame to the fine stuff that we had left at the bottom of the pile and blew into it. The fire awoke quickly.
When she was done, Pamela went to Nita and handed her the lighter. "I think that's yours."
I suppressed a grin.
Chris seemed unruffled. "Hey. We had an idea up there." He still had his hands on his hips and looked at us, one by one, with his steel-gray eyes.
When he had our attention, he continued. "At the creek, the bushes are taller, and there's better shelter. It's a five minute hike from here." He gestured uphill, along a small ravine. "We should move camp up there. We'd be closer to the freshwater—"
Pamela huffed.
He pinched his lips. "And, also, we'd be closer to the top of the south hill, from where we have a view in all directions. And we could run a fire on that hill."
Another decision Chris was making for us.
"I think it's a good idea," Farid said before I could object. "We even saw some fruits. They might be edible."
"Okay, let's have a look at it," Pamela said. "Then we'll decide if we set up camp there." Her gaze was darker than her skin.
Chris swallowed, then he nodded.
When we left for the new campsite, I looked back at our fire. The green twigs we had put on top of the pyre burned with a thick, gray smoke that rose into the blue sky, for miles to see. Someone or something out there was bound to see us.
I hesitated, considering volunteering as a fireguard. But I was curious about Chris' creek and the fruits they had talked about. The fire would burn without me. And if it fried some of the shrubs around it, I didn't care.
I didn't care for this island at all. I just wanted to get off it.