Kimberly had said it would be "an easy hike" to the lagoon.
For her, I suppose it was.
The rest of us had to stop a few times along the way.
Our last halt was called by Kimberly, which surprised me. Had she finally gotten worn out enough to need a rest?
Nope.
She sat on a rock. As she waited for the rest of us, she set her spear aside, took off the tomahawk hanging by her hip, and slipped out of Keith's gaudy shirt. When we arrived, she said, "We're just about there. I'll go on up. You guys wait here, okay? I want to take a look around."
"You shouldn't go alone," I said.
"I'll be in plain sight. Just up there." She turned her head and nodded toward the higher rocks. "I want to make sure the coast is clear."
We agreed to stay behind,
Kimberly climbed the rocks to the right of the stream. Just below the top, she scurried part way up the face of a large slab that was at about a forty-five-degree angle. Then she sank to her belly and squirmed the rest of the way.
She lay flat, her head up. For a long time, she didn't seem to move at all. Then her head made small, slow turns from one side to the other.
The three of us watched her from below, and said nothing for a long time.
After maybe ten minutes, though, Connie muttered, "What the hell's taking her so long?"
"Maybe she sees something," Billie said.
"Maybe she just wants to make sure nobody's there," I suggested.
"This is stupid, waiting around."
"A few more minutes won't hurt anything," Billie told her. All patience and calm. "Just relax."
A few more minutes passed. Connie spent them sighing and shaking her head and rolling her eyes upward.
It annoyed me. "You late for an appointment?" I finally asked.
"Fuck you."
Billie said softly, "Cut it out, Connie."
"He doesn't have to be such a fucking wise-ass all the time."
"Would you please watch your language?"
"Oh, yeah. Take his side, why don't you?"
"I'm not taking any sides. I just think you should settle down, all right? You're not improving the situation. And it seems like all I've been hearing out of you lately is 'fuck' this and 'fuck' that. You wouldn't be talking that way if your father was around."
"Well, he isn't." She said that in a very snotty fashion.
"No, he isn't." Billie said that in a sad way that made me get tight in my throat.
And Connie suddenly started to cry.
Her mother tried to put an arm around her, but Connie shoved it away and blurted, "Don't touch me. Leave me alone." She turned her back on both of us, and buried her face in her hands. She didn't make much noise with her crying -- just a gasp or sniffle now and then. But she was crying pretty good. I could tell by the way her back and shoulders kept jumping.
As much as I sometimes can't stand Connie, it hurt to watch her crying. It sort of made me want to cry. It also made me want to comfort her. I knew better than to try a thing like that, though. So I kept my distance and silence.
She'd finished crying, but still had her back to us, by the time Kimberly climbed down.
Kimberly frowned at her. "You okay?" she asked.
"Fuck off," Connie muttered.
Which didn't seem to faze Kimberly. "Sure. Whatever." She turned to Billie and me. Crouching in front of us, she said, "Doesn't look like anyone's up there. We shouldn't count on it, though. We'll have to be really careful, and watch our backs."
"Wesley might be too weak to attack anyone," Billie said.
"Good chance of it," Kimberly agreed. "But there's no telling what Thelma might pull. I think she'll do anything to save him."
"Stands by her man," I said.
Kimberly came very close to snarling. "What a gal," she muttered.
"We shouldn't blame her too much," Billie said. "She never could see straight, as far as Wesley was concerned. She probably still refuses to believe he killed Andrew and Keith. If she's even . . . still in the picture."
Kimberly slipped the rope sling over her head and adjusted the tomahawk so it dangled by her right hip. "I'd say it's ten to one she's still alive. And on his side. If she attacks, though . . ." Shaking her head, Kimberly squeezed her lower lip between her teeth. Then she said, "We have to defend ourselves. I don't want her hurt, though. Not if we can help it. She's still my sister.
"You're my sister, too," she said, turning her head to look at Connie. "I'm not going to leave you sitting there, no matter how much you might prefer to spend the rest of the day sulking." She took her spear and stood up. "So get on your feet, all right? It's time to go."
"Sure," Connie muttered. "Your wish is my command."
"You better believe it," Kimberly said, and smiled.
I'll have to quit writing, pretty soon. I went to work as soon as we got back to the beach, this afternoon. They let me stick with it while they prepared dinner. Then I took a break to eat, and came back to the journal. I'm going to run out of daylight before I run out of things to write about yesterday.
I'll be backed up pretty good.
What I really need to do is stop trying to write about every damn thing that goes on. Well, actually, I'm not writing about everything. I've been leaving plenty out. There are a million little details that I haven't mentioned, and some might even be important.
You don't know what's important until later, sometimes.
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost. For want of the shoe, the horse was lost. For want of the horse, the battle was lost. I don't know what's coming, so I might not even mention the lost nail. Does that make any sense?
Maybe that's why I try not to leave out any details that I think might turn out to be important. Since I don't know how things will turn out . . .
Maybe if I stopped wasting time and paper with stuff like this, I'd get further.
I'd better cut down somewhere. At this point, about half of my notebook is filled up. I've been writing on both sides of each page, but it looks like I might run out of notebook before I run out of story -- at least if things keep going on for very many more days.
I'll try being more careful about what I include. And from now on, I'll write really small.
What if I end up running out of paper because I spent too much space writing about running out of paper?
Life and its ironies.
Back tomorrow. I hope.
--------—
Day Six
---------
The Hunt (Part Two)
Here we are, at the start of our sixth day as castaways.
It's dawn.
We agreed for me to take the final watch of the night, so that I would have daylight for working on my journal. A few minutes ago, Kimberly woke me up to relieve her. She has just gone over to her sleeping place. Billie and Connie appear to be sound asleep.
It is very pleasant and peaceful, sitting here alone by the fire at sunrise. I hear the gentle swishing sounds of the waves. The fire crackles and snaps. Off in the jungle, a few birds are squawking.
I'd better get down to business.
Yesterday, and our hunt for Wesley and Thelma.
When I left off, we were just about to reach the lagoon.
We climbed the rest of the way, and found ourselves standing within a few feet of its shore.
The lagoon turned out to be larger than I'd expected -- maybe fifty yards across and twice that size in length. I'd also expected its entire shoreline to be in sight, but there were so many curves and points and coves that fairly large portions of the lagoon and its banks couldn't be seen from where we stood.
It was a lovely sight, though. The surface was so still that it had hardly a ripple except where the waterfall splashed down directly across from us.
The water of the falls looked like a curl of silver where it slid over the rock edge about ten or fifteen feet above the lagoon. It hung down the face of the rock, shiny and transparent. At the bottom of its drop, it splashed softly.