How easy it was to follow the rules! Never write a letter to anyone. Make no phone calls. What could be simpler? Don’t talk to anyone. I only spoke at Clint’s store, and only about business and trivia. No women exc. whores if you have to. I thus far hadn’t had to. Two drinks every day before dinner, otherwise none. The hard part was remembering to take the drinks. Sometimes I forgot them. I never had more than two, and only drank them because it was part of my decalogue. Three meals every day. Invariably. Exercise regularly, swimming and calisthenics, keep in shape. Plenty sleep, sunshine. No problem there. Don’t go anywhere exc. movies. The nearest movie was on Key West, and I had no desire to see it. Or anything else. When in doubt, do nothing. Five words to live by — but I could have dropped all but the last two. Because I couldn’t remember the last time I had been in doubt.
I worked up a good sweat rowing, so as I drew close to my island I put up the oars and uncapped a jug of bottled water and took a long drink. Before I got going again I had a good look at my island — when you row you see where you’ve been, not where you’re going. I reached for the oars, then stopped abruptly and looked over my shoulder again. There was something large and white at the far end of my island, the opposite end from the shack. This was unusual, as most driftwood and flotsam washed ashore at my end. I couldn’t make out what it was, and after a few minutes of rowing I stopped and had another look.
It was a boat. And it hadn’t washed ashore at all. Someone had steered it there.
Why?
This was a threat, I thought. A very real threat. No one had ever come to my island before. No boat had so much as approached it, let alone landed there.
Until now.
Why?
It could possibly be Gaines, I thought. Maybe the old wino hadn’t died, maybe he had gone away somewhere, and had now decided to return and take possession of the shack again. That would be a problem, but not an impossible one. I would have to kill Gaines, of course. Then I would either bury him somewhere on the island or put him back on his boat. Anything buried can be dug up. I would kill him by holding his head underwater, I decided, and then I would put him on his fucking white motorboat and take it a few miles out with my rowboat in tow. Then I would sink his boat with him on it and row back to the island.
Nothing to it, if it was Gaines. But suppose it was someone else?
I tried to imagine who it might be. Clint had guessed that the state owned the island, which seemed possible. If so, they might have sent some nuisance to make sure that I wasn’t running a whorehouse or a gambling casino there. Any official attention would be a pain, but I could probably get around it.
If the state didn’t own it, the actual owner might be interested in finding out who lived in the shack. He might want to sell me the island, or rent it to me. That was all right. Or he might have decided to build on it, or to sell it to someone else. That was not all right. If it proved to be the case, I had a problem. I could kill this man, whoever he was, but it wouldn’t be as simple as killing an old wino. I would have to work it out very carefully.
I resumed rowing. Other possibilities suggested themselves. Someone might have decided to be neighborly, and a few impolite words and phrases would put a stop to that. Or there might be rumors in circulation about the bearded religious fanatic with a store of buried pirate gold. That, I thought, was all I needed. Start killing the ones who showed up and the rumors would only grow. Behave oddly and the rumors would be reinforced. How, then, could I handle that sort of visitor?
This was a threat. Worse, it was an unclear threat.
I was in doubt.
When in doubt—
I breathed deeply, relieved. When in doubt, do nothing. That was the answer. I would do nothing until the doubt cleared, and perhaps the threat would turn out to be no threat at all, and if it was I would worry about it and handle it when the time came.
Meanwhile, what? Stay out on the water? That wasn’t doing nothing, that was marking time, wasting time.
I leaned on the oars and pulled toward shore.
There was no one in the boat. I landed at that end of the island so that I could check the boat first off. I did, and it was empty. I beached the rowboat and began walking slowly across the sand. There were footprints leading from the boat along the perimeter of the island toward my shack. The man had evidently walked in the water so that his footprints would disappear, but here and there one remained.
I think Defore was wrong. I think Robinson Crusoe must have torn his hair out when he saw that fucking footprint.
I followed, slowly, carefully, silently. Whoever had come to my island had taken the trouble to try to conceal his footprints. Thus he wanted his presence to be a surprise. And thus he had undoubtedly watched for my appearance in the rowboat and would know I was already on the island. Even so, it seemed sensible to approach him as cautiously and silently as possible.
I studied every tree, every clump of growth. I stopped once to pick up a rock the size of a hen’s egg. He might have a gun, or a knife. He might plan to kill me right off.
He was on my island. My island.
I covered sixty yards before I knew where he was. Then I was able to see the string of footprints cutting across from the shore to the door of my shack.
There were no footprints leading away from the shack.
He was in my house.
Obviously I had to kill him. Whoever he was, whatever had brought him here, I had to kill him. He was in my shack. He was on my island, in my shack. Sitting there, the filthy bastard, and waiting for me. In my house, the bastard.
I moved inland so that I could approach the hut from the rear. There were no windows in the hut, but it was possible that he could see me coming through a crack in one of the boards. There were as many cracks as there were boards. I had an advantage, though. The sun was beating down on the back of the shack. It would be at my back and in his eyes. I dropped to the ground, moved forward on hands and knees. The less I showed of myself, the less chance there was that he would be able to see me.
Once I got close I would be able to stop moving, and once I stopped moving he would never see me.
And sooner or later he would show himself. He would know that I was on the island but he wouldn’t know where, and sooner or later he would decide to come out and have a look, and then I would have him. He might even wait until dark. Fine. My night vision was always good, and a diet rich in fish coupled with a life without artificial light had made it that much better. Let him wait until dark. Let him sit in the dark, alone and afraid, while I came down on him.
On my island. In my shack—
I stopped, my eyes on the hut, my ears concentrating on every sound. Birds made noise in a tree off to my left. I waited for a long moment, then scampered over to a clump of cover a few yards ahead.
A voice roared, “Hey!”
And, from the shack, something arced high in the air and looped lazily end over end toward me. It landed on the ground not ten yards in front of me and sent sand flying.