The Royal Handmaid (17 page)

“That’s right,” Benson agreed with a nod. He took another spoonful of the soup and blew on it before sipping it. “As long as the turtles hold out, we’ll eat well.”

“Maybe some of you didn’t hear,” Rena said, “but Travis and I found some wild goats.”

“I love roast goat,” Shep said. “How far away were they?”

“About five or six miles, I’d guess. There’s a good spring too.”

“We found some breadfruit trees down along the shore,” Shep said, stripping off his shirt. The wind ruffled his black hair, and his warm brown eyes sparkled as he smiled cheerfully. “When you roast it, it tastes a lot like bread.”

A murmur went around, and the conversation turned to different kinds of food. Finally Captain Barkley said, “We’ve got to go slowly on the food supplies we brought from off the ship. We need to live off the land as much as possible. That means we’ll have to hunt and fish, and Chip here can help us identify the edible plants.”

“We found some delicious berries,” Rena said. A pixyish notion came to her. “Travis found a way to decide whether or not they were poisonous.”

“How was that?” Dalton asked.

“He told me to eat one, and if I dropped over dead, he’d know.”

Dalton’s jaw tightened. “That wasn’t very funny, Travis.”

“Oh, he was only teasing, and he ate the first ones,” Rena assured him.

Travis saw that Dalton was staring at him with disdain. He had never crossed the tall man, but he knew that Dalton felt superior to him.

“Is there any hope of building a ship, Captain?” Lanie asked.

“I don’t think so,” he responded. “A raft maybe, but we couldn’t all go. We’d have to just send one person with supplies and hope they hit land and could send back help. It would be a dangerous undertaking.”

“Then we’ll just have to wait for a ship.” Lanie shrugged.

The captain began to outline the work that needed to be done, and after the meal he assigned most of the crew to cutting firewood for signal fires. He agreed with Travis’s idea about having three, and they talked about keeping the wood as dry as possible to start the fires with.

The work parties broke up, and Charlie Day moved out with Lars Olsen. “We ain’t never gonna get off this island!” he growled.

“We might someday,” Lars said. “Ships go everywhere. You know that, Charlie.”

“Yeah, but chances are a thousand to one! This is a little bitty speck.”

“Well, we gotta mind the captain, so let’s get started on that firewood.”

Charlie turned and faced Lars. “Who says we gotta mind the captain? We ain’t on no ship now.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean the captain ain’t got no authority over us here. It was only on the ship.”

“But he’s the captain,” Lars said. “We gotta do what he says.”

Day stared at the tall, angular Swede and shook his head. “No we don’t. If we stick together, we can do what we please.”

Olsen dismissed the idea at once. He shouldered the ax and repeated, “He’s the captain. C’mon, let’s go cut wood.”

CHAPTER TEN

“You Must Help Her!”

As Travis moved up toward higher ground, he glanced back and could see the bare summits of the ridges through which he, Pete, and Shep had come. He could even see the faint smudge that marked the three signal fires at the camp far behind him. This was virgin forest, and the silver foliage of a clump of trees he could not identify contrasted with the dark green of the bush. They had passed the coconut palms, which grew near the sea, and now the foliage of the trees was a variegated green, restful to the eye.

“Mighty pretty weather.” Shep turned and waited until the two larger men caught up with him. The wiry man was much faster on his feet than either Travis or Pete, and now his eyes danced as he waited for the two. “You fellows better hurry up,” he said. “You’re mighty slow.”

“I never thought a runt like you could outclimb me,” Pete said. His blond hair was ruffled by the breeze, and his blue eyes matched the sky above as he grinned at the smaller man. “I think you must be part mountain goat.”

Pete and Shep had become good friends, though they were rather strangely matched. At six-three, Pete towered over Shep, yet he felt inferior to the smaller man. Travis, following behind them, listened to their conversation, pleased that they had found some common ground on which to form a friendship.
I wish everyone got along as well as those two.

They had been on the island for eight days now, enough time for Travis to identify the group’s weaknesses. Although
they had worked furiously to create a world for themselves, it was obvious to Travis that trouble lay ahead if they were not rescued soon. He said nothing about it to anyone else, however.

“Where were these here goats you’ve been telling us about, Travis?” Shep asked. He searched the wilderness ahead, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand.

“Not too far away.”

“How do you propose to catch ’em?”

“Well, I’m not sure. We could shoot ’em, of course, but I’d rather capture several females and a male, and then we can breed ’em.”

“That wouldn’t be bad,” Pete murmured. “Then we could have milk and cheese anytime we wanted—not to mention the occasional roast goat sandwich! But I imagine they’re pretty wild.”

“I hope we can rope ’em, but I’m not much of a cowboy.”

“I am,” Pete piped up. “I grew up on a ranch in Montana.”

“Is that what you brought that rope for?”

“Yup. Out here, you’d better make yourself useful.”

As the three men forged steadily upward into the clean, pure air and the bright sunlight, they finally crested a ridge and then started down. They kept a hard pace until the land began to level off. “See that valley over there?” Travis asked. “That’s where Rena and I saw them.”

“I see ’em now,” Shep announced.

“Can you see that far?” Pete asked enviously. “How many are there?”

“About twenty it looks like,” Shep said, “but I don’t see how anybody could rope ’em. You can’t run as fast as a goat, can you, Pete?”

“I think there’s a better way than that,” Travis said. “Shep, you and I are going to split here. We’ll get around on the flanks of those goats and try to run ’em through that gap. See it, Pete, right over there? It’s like a little door to that valley.”

“Yeah, I see it. So I drop a rope over one of them when they come through.”

“
If
they come through,” Shep said dubiously. “Some of them goats have got a pretty good set of horns. A poor sailor like me don’t need to be beat up by a goat.”

“Shep, you go that way, and I’ll take the right here. Pete, you get down to that gap.”

“Right.”

Pete watched the two as they divided and disappeared to his right and to his left into the underbrush. He made his way forward, fingering the rope, and when he reached the gap that Travis had pointed out, he stationed himself behind an outcropping of rock covered with moss. There was nothing else he could do. He could not see the animals through the gap, so he waited for what seemed like a long time.

“There they come, I think,” he muttered as the miniature thunder of the hooves came closer. He made his loop and held it loosely in his right hand with the rest of the rope in his left. He risked a quick look around to see the animals as they were herded toward the gap.

“Shouldn’t be too hard.” He put his arm back and started swinging the rope when three of the animals burst through. He dropped the rope over the head of the leader, a big male, and threw his weight backward. “Gotcha!” he yelled as the animal cartwheeled over when he came to the end of the rope. Pete ran forward as the animal was getting up and starting to run away. Pete threw himself forward and wrestled the animal to the ground. Pete ignored the other goats passing by and quickly pulled out his pocketknife, sliced off the free end of the rope, and tied three of the goat’s legs together just above the hoof. He heard Travis yelling, and grabbing up the rope, he formed his loop again.

A large white nanny was charging along, followed by a kid. She tried to dodge, but expertly Pete dropped the rope over her neck, and when he hauled her to a stop, the kid ran by but stopped a short distance ahead.

“Come on back, baby goat,” Pete said. The nanny was bucking and trying to get away, but Pete overhanded the line until he brought her up. She tried to butt at him, but he put his free hand on her forehead, holding the rope with his left.

“You got two of ’em. That’s great!” Travis exclaimed, running over to look down at the bound goat that was struggling to get up. “How’d you know how to do this?”

“Used to rodeo a bit. That’s the way we bulldog yearlings. You tie ’em up like that. Never tried it with a goat, though.”

Shep ran over and stopped to admire the nanny. “That’s a fine-looking goat. Look, she’s got fresh milk too, for the kid. I might sample a little of that.”

“Can you milk her?” Pete asked with a grin.

“No, can you?”

“Sure I can. You think a Montana boy wouldn’t know how to milk an animal?”

Travis was excited over the ease of the capture. “We can come again tomorrow and get some more. Maybe bring some of the other guys with us.”

“We’d better see if we can get these home first,” Shep said, stroking his chin thoughtfully with a cautious eye on the big male. “That fellow there doesn’t look like he’s gonna be led too easy.”

Indeed, that proved to be the case. The big male was strong, and he proved to be practically impossible to lead. He darted off in all directions, hauling Travis with him. He seemed tireless.

The female was almost as bad, and when they had covered less than a quarter of the way, they finally put two leads on the big male. Travis and Pete each took one and found they could control him that way. Shep led the nanny, who by now was more placable, and the kid followed along, bleating pitifully at times.

When they were close to home, Travis shook his head. “This is a hard way to serve the Lord.”

“Sure is,” Pete panted, struggling with the goat, which
never seemed to give up. “Come on, you ornery critter. If you don’t behave yourself, we’ll have barbecued goat for supper!”

****

Rena submerged herself in the stream and came up gasping, for in contrast with the heat of the sun, the water felt colder than it really was. She tried to wash herself, but without soap it seemed rather fruitless. She ducked her head under again, then came up and tried to comb her hair out with her fingers, but it simply stuck together. “Oh, just think of all the soap I’ve thrown away!” she whispered. Her voice sounded loud in the glade, and she looked around quickly to be sure she was alone. She and the other women had made this their bathing station, but it was close to camp. So close, in fact, that once she thought she could hear the faint voices of two of the men arguing over something.

Finally she waded out of the stream and attempted to dry off with a piece of canvas she had brought for a towel. An image of hot water, fragrant soap, and fluffy washcloths and towels filled her mind, but she shook her head of such thoughts and got dressed. She looked at her thin dress and wondered,
What will we do when our clothes wear out?
Looking down at her feet, she thought with anguish that it would be even worse when her shoes wore out. Then she noticed that her calves were tanning and her arms also. She had fashioned a bonnet of sorts out of a piece of the ship’s canvas. It looked ridiculous, she knew, but it kept her face from burning under the tropical sun.

As she walked back toward the camp, she was met by Meredith, who was on her way for her own bath. “You’d better hurry and settle the argument,” she said, shaking her head in disgust.

“What argument?”

“It’s Dalton and Jimmy. Jimmy took a can of meat from the storage tent, and Dalton’s giving him grief for it. They’re like children. I give up on them.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Rena said. She walked quickly into the camp, catching the ever-present smell of the woodsmoke, and found Dalton and Jimmy glaring at each other and talking heatedly. Dalton’s face was blistered red with sunburn and his nose was peeling, for he had ignored Karl Benson’s advice to take the sun in small doses. As Rena hurried up to the pair, she heard Dalton say, “I’m telling you, Jimmy, you can’t go eating food from our stores. It’s not fair for the rest of us.”

“What’s going on?” Rena asked quickly. She put a smile on her face and took her stand beside the two men. “What are you two fussing about?”

“All I did was take one little can of meat from the stockpile. Abby hasn’t been able to eat the fish we’ve caught, or anything else, for that matter.”

“Well, she’s just going to have to eat like the rest of us!” Dalton flared. His face was fixed in a frown, with lines of stubbornness around the edges of his mouth that Rena had learned to recognize. He was usually a smiling man, but she had discovered that he could turn angry quickly if crossed. Now she put her hand on his arm and said, “What harm would there be in letting Abby have just one can, Dalton?”

“We can’t make exceptions, Rena.”

“Come along. I need to talk to you.”

Dalton hesitated, then shrugged. “You mind what I said, Jimmy.”

Dalton allowed himself to be led away, and when they were out of earshot of the others, Rena reached up and touched his face. “Your poor face. You burn so terribly.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“I know it must be painful. Your skin is peeling off in strips.”

“Jimmy’s spoiled. He and his wife have to take their lumps just like the rest of us.”

“I think we have to be careful, especially about Abby. She hasn’t been well the whole trip—even before the wreck.”

Dalton gave her a cynical sneer. “If you’d discovered the
theft instead of me, you would have been peeling their hides the same way I was. You’re bossier than I am.”

“I guess you’re right,” Rena agreed. She put her hand on his arm and said, “I know it’s harder on Abby.”

“No harder than on the rest of us.”

“I really think it is.” Rena sobered and shook her head. “She’s been babied all her life. You know how her mother and father took care of her. Why, they practically didn’t let her feet touch the ground until she was six years old. Carried her all the time. And then Jimmy. He’s much the same way. Abby’s not as tough as you are. You have to be gentle.”