Molly scooped up our bucket of sand dollars, looped it over her forearm. With her free arm, she hooked mine. ‘Come on, Hannah. I’m in the mood for a walk, aren’t you?’ And we marched lock-step along the beach, splish-splash-splish, carefully staying below the water line.
‘You! Ladies! Come back!’
Keeping me firmly in her grasp, her hip snug against mine, Molly leaned over and whispered in my ear, ‘Keep walking, Hannah.’
I could feel the guard’s eyes burning a hole in my back. I imagined him drawing his weapon and taking careful aim. When nothing happened right away, I dared to look back. He stood precisely where we’d left him, waving an arm about while shouting into a cellphone, presumably requesting instructions from the mother ship. ‘Too bad he’s not using the radio,’ I said to Molly as we scurried around a rocky outcrop and out of the security guard’s line of sight. ‘I’d love to listen in.’
‘My radio’s back on the Zodiac,’ she reminded me.
‘Silly me.’ I collapsed against the trunk of a palm tree, slightly out of breath. ‘What do we do now?’
Molly flashed a wicked grin. ‘Well, Hannah Ives. Since we are now standing on private land in clear violation of El Mirador’s property rights, we are already felons. So I vote we go exploring. I used to know this place like the back of my hand. Come on!’
Molly tucked the bucket containing our sand dollars into a thicket of sea grape, then hiked off over the dunes, moving quickly through a stand of waist-high beach grass with me hot on her heels. Before long the sandy trail gave way to a narrow, twisted path of jagged limestone, making me wish I were wearing sturdier shoes than flip-flops.
Ahead of me, Molly trudged doggedly on. The path zigzagged crazily up a long hill and wove through a stand of palms where it split. Molly took the fork to the right and continued up the hill. When I emerged from the trees, my breath caught in my throat.
Molly had stopped on the edge of a headland that extended out over the sea. Balanced on a large flat rock, she twirled in a circle, arms flung wide like Maria on her hilltop in Sound of Music, and I half expected Molly, like Maria, to burst into song.
She paused in mid-spin to motion me over. ‘Take a look at the view!’
It was truly spectacular. Hope Town’s historic red and white striped lighthouse clearly visible in the east. The sprawl of Marsh Harbour to the south. Dusty yellow clouds to the south and west where smoke from recent slash and burn wildfires hung over Treasure Cay. Scotland Cay, green and lush, to the west and, to the north, the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. Next stop, Greenland.
‘There used to be a house up here called Three-Eighty,’ Molly told me while I was still trying to take it all in. ‘Blew completely away in Hurricane Floyd.’ She hopped down from the rock. ‘But they had a snore box on the Sea of Abaco side, down in a little cove. I wonder if it’s still there?’
Before I could reply, Molly practically skipped down the path we’d just come, but this time when she reached the fork, she turned the other way. Soon we were scrambling down a rocky trail, grabbing at bushes and holding on to tree trunks to keep our feet from flying out from under us. ‘Where’s Daniel when you need him?’ I said as a branch slapped across my cheek.
Ahead of me, Molly had reached the beach. ‘It’s still here!’ Triumph in her voice.
When I burst out of the undergrowth and joined her a few seconds later, we were standing on another pink sand beach at the base of a tiny cove. Behind us loomed the headland, dark and dense with vegetation. I squinted into the foliage. ‘Where?’
Molly had her hands pressed together like an excited child. ‘See that speck of green over there?’ She pointed, but I still couldn’t make it out. ‘That’s a corner of the porch. Let’s have a look.’
Although its paint was peeling, and morning glory and love-vine had reached out to claim it, the cottage was, indeed, still there. Of typical island board-and-batten construction, its windows closed and dogged down tight, the little house huddled in overgrowth, defying decades of often savage weather. I twisted the toggles that held one of the windows shut and tugged on the handle, but it refused to budge. ‘Damn. Must be hooked on the inside.’
A woman after my own heart, Molly performed a similar test on the two remaining front windows with a similar lack of success. Undaunted, she moved around to the left side of the house while I nipped around to the right.
Where I found a door. With a big padlock. A shiny, heavy-duty, spanking-new Brinks. ‘Molly!’
She was at my side in a flash. ‘Well, what do you know!’
I grabbed the lock and jiggled it, but it was secure. I bent down for a closer look. ‘Wish it were a Sergeant or a Master Lock. I could pick one of those with a couple of paper clips.’
‘Do you have any paper clips on you?’
Since we were wearing only our bathing suits I started to giggle. I pointed at Molly’s hair, stiff with sea salt and standing out from her head in punk-like peaks. ‘Or, I could use a couple of hairpins.’
Molly patted her head, then began to laugh.
‘If nobody lives here, why the locks?’ I asked a little bit later as we sat together on the porch, our bid for membership in the Breaking and Entering Club temporarily tabled.
‘Family named Kelchner used to own this property. Maybe they still do.’
I shook my head. ‘Nope. I’ve seen the maps. Mueller’s development company owns everything to the west of Hawksbill settlement, all the way out to the point. Where we were standing up there? I think that’s the ninth hole.’
Molly reached out and gave my knee a pat. ‘Guess we better be getting back.’
But neither of us made a move to do so. Sea, sand, sun and sky… inertia was a powerful thing.
One grows accustomed to the sounds of the tropics: birds chittering, seagulls jeering, lizards scurrying and locusts keening. It’s when you don’t hear anything that you notice. All of a sudden, the silence, as they say, was deafening. ‘What was that?’
Somewhere over our heads, rocks clattered and all nature stopped to listen. Someone was stumbling down the same path we had.
Molly sprang to her feet. ‘Let’s get out of here. Quick! I know a short cut.’
The only way out that I knew was back the way we had come, and already they were closing in.
‘Down there!’ a man’s voice yelled. Whoever he was, he had not come alone.
A mini avalanche of rocks. A cry of pain. A curse.
‘Shut up, you moron! They’ll hear you.’
Molly had already reached the beach. She ducked into the mangroves, as dense in places as the briar hedge that grew up around Sleeping Beauty. I followed. Shielded from view, we fought our way along the perimeter of the bay, breaking out at last on to the beach of the adjoining cove.
Where Molly’s Zodiac bobbed quietly at anchor.
I bent over, resting my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath. ‘You are a genius.’
‘Local knowledge,’ she panted.
We ran into the water, splashing wildly. I’d swum halfway to the Zodiac before I remembered the bucket of sand dollars.
‘Leave them!’ shouted Molly. Holding on to the side of the inflatable with both hands she kicked her feet and surged upwards, straightened her arms like pistons, and propelled her body neatly into the boat.
‘It’ll just take a minute!’ I turned and stroked steadily toward the beach where I scrambled ashore and retrieved the shells. A few minutes later I was back at the Zodiac, handing the bucket of souvenirs over the side to Molly.
My re-entry to the Zodiac was far less dignified than that of my septuagenarian friend. After three attempts, I managed to hoist myself over the gunwale where I balanced ignominiously on my stomach, planning my next move. Eventually, I managed to swing one leg over and roll into the boat, flopping to the floor, panting like a fresh-caught grouper.