Survival Page 6

  But somewhere, deep down, he had a sneaking suspicion that the boar was smarter than he was.

  Will glared at the animal. “You don’t think I’ve got the guts to do it! Well, you’re wrong! You’ve got the rest of the night to scram. If you’re still here at sunup, I’m having boar cutlets for lunch.”

  In the morning, he awoke to find his legs numb and tingling. He looked down the length of his body. The boar was fast asleep, curled up on his feet.

  “Aw, come on, boar, get off!” He kicked himself free, struggled upright, and limped around, trying to restore his circulation. The boar followed him like an adoring puppy.

  “You’re supposed to be gone.” Will was half disgusted and half pleased.

  The boar rubbed against Will’s legs, knocking him over with its sheer size and weight.

  “Hey, cut it out, boar! Boar?” Down he went, landing flat on his behind. “I guess I’d better give you a name,” he laughed. “I can’t just call you boar.”

  But what did you call a hairy, squinty-eyed slob with no neck and a bad attitude?

  “I know.” He grinned. “Pig-face.”

  A frown. Pig-face fit to a T, but another name came to mind — Rat-face.

  That made no sense. The face was piggy, not ratty.

  Why did the name sound so right? And so familiar?

  “Rat-face,” he said out loud.

  The boar spit out a mouthful of chewed leaves and delivered a resounding belch.

  And Rat-face it remained.

  In addition to much-needed shelter and supplies, the inflatable lifeboat provided an unexpected bonus with its sun canopy: darkness. For the first time since they had landed on the island, the tropical sun didn’t wake up Luke at dawn.

  He would have slept hours longer — they all might have — if it hadn’t been for the noise. It was distant at first, but it grew louder and louder. The castaways listened intently. It was the buzz of an airplane engine. Could that mean — ?

  “Are they leaving?” Ian asked excitedly.

  “Please, God,” breathed Charla.

  They scrambled out of the raft and looked up for the twin-engine seaplane. But the dense canopy of branches and palm fronds blocked out the sky except for tiny glimpses of bright blue here and there.

  “The beach!” exclaimed J.J., breaking into a run.

  Luke grabbed his wrist and held on. “It’s too dangerous! They might see you.”

  They waited for the slow fade in the engine sounds that would indicate the aircraft was far away. Instead, the buzz remained at full volume, almost as if it were coming from directly overhead. And then, all at once, the noise died out.

  Luke frowned. “That’s weird.”

  “You think they’re still here?” asked Lyssa.

  Charla was confused. “But why would they use their plane if they weren’t leaving?”

  Ian shrugged. “Maybe they’re gone. Sound over water can do some funny things.”

  “We’ve got to go over there and find out,” Luke decided.

  “That lagoon is on the other side of the island,” Charla reminded him. “It takes half the day to get there.”

  “Maybe not,” Ian put in. “We’ve got a compass now. We can estimate the direction and take a shortcut through the jungle. That should save a lot of time.”

  They retrieved the compass, and Ian lined up the needle with north. “I’d say just about due east,” he guessed. “Maybe a few degrees to the south.” He rummaged through the survival pack, coming up with the knife.

  J.J. was highly amused. “They’ve got guns, kid. What are you going to do with that? Floss?”

  Ian took the blade and made a small cut in the bark of a coconut palm. “I saw a documentary on Lewis and Clark on the History Channel,” he explained. “Always mark your trail so you can find your way back.”

  It was much easier going through the jungle, although they were constantly sidestepping dense thickets, some of them thirty or forty feet wide. In less than an hour, they had reached a low bluff overlooking the shore. There they made a left turn and headed south.

  “Hey!”

  All at once, Lyssa pitched forward, landing flat on her face in the underbrush.

  “Must have been those big island joker ants,” snickered J.J., helping her up. “Watch out, they also give wedgies.”

  “Very fun — ” She fell silent in midword, staring at the ground. “I know this sounds crazy, but was there ever a sidewalk here, do you think?”

  “Oh, sure,” J.J. said sarcastically. “They laid it down back when they built the mini-mall — ”

  “Look!” she interrupted.

  Half buried in the damp earth was a familiar gray shape. It was broken and crumbling, with weeds and brush coming up through the cracks. But the edge that stuck out of the ground was perfectly straight.

  There was no question about it. This was a slab of poured concrete.

  “Here’s another,” called Charla, kicking at the mud a few feet ahead of them.

  They spread out, digging with their hands and feet. They found slabs extending all the way from the bluff, hundreds of yards into the deepest jungle.

  “Maybe it’s the Walk of Fame,” suggested J.J., “where all the celebrity lizards make impressions of their tails in the cement.”

  “It proves one thing,” said Luke. “The island wasn’t always deserted. People lived here.”

  “And later than the invention of paved roads,” Ian pointed out.

  Charla nodded. “But who builds a road in the middle of the jungle?”

  They all turned to Ian, but for once he had no answer.

  The castaways continued south. It wasn’t long before they spotted the sheltered lagoon where they had witnessed the murder just two days before. To Luke it seemed as if a hundred years had passed since then.

  “Get down,” he ordered.

  The five dropped to a crouch, peering out through the trees.

  Lyssa hovered over Luke’s shoulder. “Can you see anything? Are they gone?”

  There, beached side by side, were two seaplanes.

  Charla was bewildered. “Another plane?”

  Luke stared in disbelief, but the truth was undeniable. The sound they’d heard hadn’t been the departure of the first aircraft, but the arrival of a second.

  “They’ve got company,” he commented.

  J.J. frowned. “Yeah, but why meet here? This island is less than boring. There’s nothing but bugs and bananas.”

  “Privacy,” Luke told him. “These guys are criminals. They’re probably up to something illegal.”

  Ian pointed out a place where the jungle advanced down a coral ramp. There was excellent cover in the dense underbrush, plus it was in spying range of the shore, and a good twenty feet above sea level. It would be nearly impossible for the men to spot them there.

  It took another few minutes to creep down the steep slope. Luke was in the lead, with the others in line behind him, keeping their heads low. They crouched in the vines, peering out over the lagoon.

  The second plane was a single-engine job, smaller than the first one, but with a large cargo hold on its underside.

  “Look!” hissed Charla.

  It was the red-haired man. Instinctively, Luke’s eyes traveled to the thin man’s waist, where his gun was jammed into his belt.

  “That’s the killer,” he whispered to Lyssa and J.J. “The guy he’s talking to must be from the second plane.”

  Four others came into view — Red Hair’s partners and two newcomers. They were carrying the crates that had been unloaded from the first aircraft. Red Hair pried open the first box and rummaged inside.

  “Blankets?” mused Charla in perplexity.

  There was something wrapped in them. It was long and gleaming white — taller than the men themselves. It took two of them to hold it up, and the one clutching the foot-thick base was struggling. The thing tapered in a slight curve down to a soft point at the other end.

  “Let me guess,
” put in J.J. “It’s the world’s largest golf tee.”

  Ian’s mouth formed an O of sudden understanding. “Ivory!”

  Lyssa stared at him. “It’s soap?”

  The younger boy shook his head. “The other kind of ivory. I think that’s an elephant tusk. I saw a show about it once. That’s why people hunt elephants. For their ivory.”

  “But that’s wrong,” protested Charla.

  “It’s also against the law, isn’t it?” asked Luke.

  “So’s murder,” J.J. reminded him darkly.

  They watched as the men unwrapped three more tusks — one the same size as the first, and a shorter pair about four feet long. They then turned their attention to a second case. It was smaller, but more high-tech, with sealing latches and various knobs and indicator dials. As they opened it, a cloud of vapor rose and dissipated into the tropical humidity.

  “I was afraid of that,” Ian said seriously.

  Inside they could make out dozens of transparent jars.

  “What is it?” asked Luke.

  “I think those are animal parts,” Ian told them, “probably from an endangered species — tiger, most likely.”

  “Parts?” Lyssa asked weakly.

  “Fur, claws,” Ian replied, “meat, vital organs, bones — ”

  “Yuck,” was J.J.’s opinion.

  Charla looked as if she were about to throw up. “But why? Who wants that stuff?”

  “In a lot of Asian cities, tiger parts are a delicacy for the super-rich, or even a miracle cure. It was all in the documentary I saw. A full-grown tiger can be worth close to a quarter of a million dollars on the streets of Taipei or Hong Kong.”

  “So what you’re saying,” Luke began, “is that these guys are smugglers?”

  Ian nodded. “Dealers in ivory and illegal animal parts. The men from the first plane — they must buy from poachers around Africa and Asia. Then they sell to the second group.”

  “But why here?” asked Lyssa.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” replied Luke. “We’re totally isolated. In a million years, the police would never catch them making the exchange.”

  “It’s probably a halfway point too,” Ian guessed. “They could be coming from Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Hong Kong, anywhere — even Hawaii.”

  “That could be why they killed that guy,” added Charla solemnly. “Maybe he was ripping them off or something.”

  They watched grimly as the smugglers went over the rest of the shipment. In addition to three more refrigerated containers, there was an entire crate of what appeared to be rhinoceros horns.

  “It’s possible that no animals were killed for those,” Ian mused. “You can cut a rhino’s horn off and it will grow back. It’s actually a type of hair. Then it’s ground up and sold as medicine.”

  By this time, Charla was shaking with outrage. “They probably killed those poor rhinos anyway — just for the fun of it!”

  Satisfied that the shipment was in order, one of the newcomers went over and stepped inside the single-engine plane. A moment later, he reappeared, helping an enormously fat man dressed in an all-white silk suit that gleamed even brighter than the ivory.

  “Mr. Big,” snickered J.J.

  “Yes,” Ian said seriously. “I mean, that’s probably not his name. But he seems to be in charge.”

  Sweat poured in streaks down the man’s face and neck, and he mopped himself with a sopping handkerchief, fighting a losing battle to stay dry. In his free hand, he carried a small suitcase. He was accompanied by the biggest Doberman pinscher Luke had ever seen.

  “What’s up with the suitcase?” asked J.J. “Is he moving in?”

  Then Mr. Big opened the luggage. They goggled.

  “Money!” exclaimed Charla in a strangled voice.

  The bag was filled with neat bundles of bills, packed side by side, end to end, and on top of one another. It was a fortune.

  Suddenly, the big dog stiffened. Then it began to bark, a loud raspy baritone that cut through the jungle like a hot knife through butter.

  “It smells us!” rasped Lyssa, terrified.

  “Let’s go,” whispered Luke.

  Charla jumped up. “You don’t have to ask me twice!”

  Luke grabbed her by the shorts and pulled her down again. “Slowly,” he insisted. “And stay low till we’re well into the woods.”

  The castaways crawled back up the slope. They could still hear the barking when they reached the top and ran into the depths of the jungle. There was a panic to their flight, and they scrambled through the vines, tripping and stumbling as the foliage grew thicker.

  “Slow down!” ordered Luke.

  “But what if they come after us?” asked Charla, who was thirty feet ahead of everyone else.

  “They probably think he was barking at a lizard or something,” said Luke. “Come on, somebody’s going to break a leg.”

  “I’m sorry!” Charla was almost hysterical as she stopped to let the others catch up. “It’s just so horrible! Those poor animals!”

  “Hey! Hey!” J.J. cut her off. “We have no proof that any of that stuff is real. Those tusks could be plastic!”

  “So how come you ran too?” she shot back.

  “The dog probably isn’t in on the hoax.” J.J. grinned sheepishly. “Every year hundreds of actors wind up with stitches because stunt animals don’t know it’s just a movie.”

  “That’s no stunt animal.” Luke was angry now. “And this is no stunt!”

  “Every time it seems like we’ve hit bottom, something even more awful happens,” Lyssa agreed miserably. “Will goes crazy, or more smugglers come, or their dog smells us! How could it be worse?”

  She got her answer when they followed Ian’s trail back to the inflatable raft. The contents of the survival pack were scattered all around the lifeboat and the surrounding jungle. Precious supplies were opened and strewn every which way.

  “Look!” Charla pointed down. There, amid the dozens of sneaker prints, were animal tracks.

  Ian squatted to examine them. “Boar,” he concluded.

  “Uh-oh.” Lyssa rummaged through their gear. “Whatever it was, it took the mac and cheese.”

  “That’s impossible!” Luke exploded. “It was freeze-dried and vacuum-packed! It didn’t smell any different from the first aid kit. There’s no way a pig could be smart enough to go through all this stuff and decide that was food!”

  His fellow castaways stared uneasily back at him.

  Their last meal — their safety net — was gone.

  * * *

  “I don’t know which one of us is the bigger pig,” mumbled Will, crunching uncooked pasta.

  Beside him stood the boar, its snout pumping up and down as the two savaged the freeze-dried macaroni and cheese straight out of the package.

  “You know, Rat-face, it’s a lot better when you boil it,” commented Will to his new companion. He picked up a fistful of orange powder and crammed it in after the macaroni. “The cheese is supposed to be hot and gooey. If I ever get out of here, I’ll come back and bring you some.”

  Rat-face obviously thought it was just fine the way it was. The animal never missed a swallow as it tore at the plastic bag with one sharp tusk.

  “Hey, stay on your own side!” snapped Will. “After this, it’s back to bananas, you know!”

  The theft of their last meal changed the castaways’ approach to food. No longer could they depend on eleventh-hour runs for coconuts and bananas to stand between them and malnutrition. They needed protein. They needed vegetables. They needed well-balanced meals.

  The equipment from the survival pack helped. Suddenly, they had pots and pans. They could fish and cook what they caught. Even durian seeds were tasty when roasted over the fire.

  Two forked sticks with a crosspiece allowed a pot to be hung over the flame by its half-hoop handle. This enabled them to boil taro, a native root, which resembled a cross between a yam and an overloaded electrical junction box.

/>   “You know,” said J.J. in genuine surprise, “this isn’t half bad. It’s almost like mashed potatoes.”

  “It gets very soft when boiled,” Ian agreed. “But you have to cook it well to kill off a poisonous chemical that could be fatal to humans.”

  J.J. spit a mouthful halfway across the beach.

  “It’s fantastic,” beamed Luke, digging in. “The only thing that tastes better than food prepared by your own hands is food prepared by somebody else’s.”

  Taro was plentiful; the fresh water to boil it in was very scarce. While it seemed to be raining constantly, it never rained for very long. No matter how many coconut shells the castaways set out — now over a hundred — the yield was never more than an inch or so.

  Ian tried rigging a still — something he had seen on National Geographic Explorer. They boiled a pot of seawater under a three-sided plastic tent made from a rain poncho. The water vapor rose as steam, recondensing on the sides of the tent. Then the droplets ran down the inside of the plastic and collected in three bowls on the ground. The salt was left behind in the pot. This was fresh water.

  “Seems like a lot of work for a dribble,” commented J.J.

  “You got a busy social calendar?” laughed Lyssa.

  “I could have,” sighed the actor’s son. “In California.”

  “That’s why you got kicked out of California,” Luke butted in. “You were having too much fun.”

  J.J. glared at him, but had to admit Luke wasn’t exaggerating much. His reputation as a wild Hollywood brat had grown almost as large as his famous father’s movie career. Gossip columnists used to call to ask about Dad. Now they wanted the details of J.J.’s latest escapade. It had been a great source of satisfaction to him. His brow clouded. Until Jonathan Lane had chosen CNC in the hope that it might straighten out his flaky son.

  “How could you do this to me?” he screamed at his father in tortured dreams every night. But the next morning he always awoke knowing that he’d given Dad a lot of help making the decision.

  Their social calendars may have been blank, but the castaways had plenty to keep them busy. Two patrols per day — morning and afternoon — were dispatched to comb the jungle for signs of Will or his camp. They all took turns searching, with Lyssa leading the group every time.