She sat down next to me. The side of her face was swollen and discolored by the blow from Thelma’s spear. “How’s it going?” she asked.
“I don’t think there’s much chance of them bothering us tonight.”
“There isn’t… How about you? How are your wounds doing?”
“Connie washed them off for me.”
“Let’s see.”
I leaned back and turned toward her. Looking at my injuries, Billie grimaced. “Must hurt.”
“How about you?”
“I’ll live.” She put a hand on my leg. “Why don’t you go on to bed, now?”
“I’m not that tired.”
“Sure you are. Go on.”
“Why don’t I stay and keep you company?”
“Thanks. But you know what? I’d rather be alone for a while. You know?”
I wanted awfully badly to stay with her—not to keep her company, but because I felt sort of lonely, myself. When it comes right down to it, I’d rather spend time with Billie than with anyone else I can think of.
But she probably wanted time to sit by herself and think about Andrew. I said, “Sure. See you later.”
Then I went over to my sleeping place.
Before you know it, I was out like a light.
Odds and Ends
So much for last night. This is still day four, and I’ve spent the better part of it working on my journal here.
I’m just back from another break.
It’s late afternoon, now. This has been a fairly uneventful day. Thank God.
I already went into how I took the earlier break from my writing and told the gals about the journal.
There are a few other matters worth mentioning.
For instance, we’ve started using the latrine as a toilet. Laid some branches across the hole, to stand on.
Also, Billie and Kimberly, with some help from me, constructed a couple of shelters. We made them like the walls of the latrine, by lashing bushes and fronds to frameworks of sticks. Instead of being walls, though, these are roofs. We set them up on poles, near our sleeping area. The purpose is to have places where we can escape from the sun. I’m using one, now. Though the sun hasn’t been terrible (the heat is fairly moderate, and there’s usually a pleasant breeze), I really enjoy being able to sit in the shade while I write.
Billie and Kimberly also made new weapons to replace the ones that were lost or broken last night.
Connie has spent most of the day by herself. She’s hardly spoken to me since our squabble at the stream. The few times she’s been near me, she has thrown narrow-eyed glares my way.
The good part is, she spent hours fishing. This morning, she borrowed the knife from Kimberly and used it to whittle a special point on the end of her spear. The point is very long and thin, with three barbs carved into its side. They look like small, sharp limbs, and sweep back at an angle away from the tip. The one nearest the tip is the smallest. They get bigger as they go. The obvious purpose for the barbs is to stop fish from falling, off, once they’ve been speared.
It’s a wicked-looking piece of work, though. Sure hope she doesn’t get into a tiff and decide to use it on me.
Anyway, she stood in the inlet for hours, way out where it’s waist-deep. Must’ve taken a long time to get the hang of using the spear. Every once in a while, I heard her yell “Fuck!” Finally, she yelled, “Yes! Gotcha, you bastard!” I looked up and saw her hoisting a big, silvery fish toward the sky on the tip of her spear. Everyone cheered, including me. She brought the fish ashore. Kimberly went running to her with our biggest pot, scooped it full of salt water, and Connie tossed in the fish.
She ended up with four of them.
We’ll be having a real feast, tonight.
That’s about it for today’s events. So far, so good.
We’ve done pretty well when you take all the circumstances into account. Yesterday, we’d had to deal with the killings of Keith and Andrew. Today, on top of that, there was the failure of our ambush to think about and the defection of Thelma—plus all the injuries from last night.
In the injury department, I’m the worst off, if you don’t count Wesley.
Kimberly is probably the most beat up, after me. Her skin didn’t get broken, but she has a horrible bruise on her ribcage, just below her right armpit. She also has bruises on her stomach and right hip from Thelma kicking her.
Billie and Connie have bruises on their faces. The swelling went away, leaving behind dark smudges that almost look like dirt. Billie’s is on the left cheek, Connie’s on the left side of the jaw. Billie got dealt a much meaner blow from Thelma’s spear than Connie got from my fist.
I’m going to knock off now, and help prepare the fish for supper.
The fish was great. Billie fried it up on the skillet with bourbon—her special method. We also passed the bottle around, and had a few nips to help our finny friends go down smooth.
One thing really struck me during the meal.
The size of our group.
Or the lack thereof.
Four of us.
Jesus.
There used to be eight of us. Eight is a fair number of people, a pretty good crowd.
Four is measly.
And I’ve got to say, four looked a lot like three, from where I sat. I’m sort of like a movie camera, you know? I don’t see myself, most of the time. I see Billie, Kimberly and Connie. One, two, three. That’s all.
We’ve been whittled down considerably.
We didn’t talk much while we ate. About the time we finished, though, Billie said, “We’d better do something, tomorrow.”
Connie looked offended. “Hey, I did something today. You just ate it.”
“We should’ve gone hunting,” Kimberly said, “not fishing. Hunting for Thelma and Wesley.” She met Billie’s eyes. Pressing her lips together in a tight line, she shook her head. Then she said, “I just didn’t want to deal with it today.”
“Yeah,” Billie said. “I know. Neither did I.”
“Not after last night,” I added.
Connie gave me a quick, sour glare.
“But we’d better go looking for them tomorrow,” Billie said. “We can’t give Wesley time to recover. He’s gotta be in bad shape after last night. If we find him while he’s still laid up, he’ll be a lot easier to finish off.”
“What’ll we do about Thelma?” I asked.
“Save her,” Billie said.
Connie let out a snort.
Ignoring it, Kimberly said, “Yeah. He’ll probably kill her, sooner or later.”
“Maybe not right away,” Billie said. “He’ll want her around to take care of him, at least till he gets better.”
“You’re both nuts,” Connie said. “He isn’t gonna kill Thelma.”
I decided to stay out of it.
“Why not?” Kimberly asked her.
“For one thing, she saved his bacon last night.”
“You think he’ll spare her out of gratitude?” Kimberly asked.
“He’s got no reason to kill her. She’s on his side, you know?”
“He might not see it that way,” Billie said. “Maybe he just sees her as an obstacle.”
“In the way of what?”
“Why is he doing any of this?” Billie asked. “That’s the real question. In my opinion, he set up this whole operation in order to make himself rich. Most of the family wealth is in Andrew’s name. And mine. With both of us dead, you two girls and Thelma inherit everything. With the three of you dead, your spouses would get it. Connie hasn’t got a spouse…”
” And he killed mine,” Kimberly muttered.
“Right. So that leaves Wesley. He stands to make a pile if he’s the only survivor.”
“I’d bet he’s also got a life insurance policy on Thelma,” Kimberly said. “So you can add that to his take.”