Chapter 1
They knew about it by the time I reached camp. It had been plain in the swing of Eve's body, in the adoring way she followed Zell around. When I came to the supper fire, I could see it, too. Eve was different, somehow taller and proud.
Only Elena Marquez missed the transition. She sat alone, legs crossed beneath her. Each time Zell looked her way, she tugged at her skirt, exposing another inch of shapely, tanned leg. But when she saw at last, when she realized the significance of Zell's clumsy stroking of Eve's hip, Elena turned pale. She made a hissing noise and fled into the trees.
Broad back propped against his hut pole, Zell stretched out his thick legs and lounged. Eve caught up a plate and pushed up to the cooking fire, holding it out to Mary.
"Here," she said, "fill this up. It's for Kane."
Without comment, Mary heaped the plate and watched Eve hurry back to her master. Then she offered a scoop of food to Danny. "Here-you're always in a hurry to gulp and run away."
Danny grinned at her. "Not tonight. Am I seeing things, or did the church mouse awaken?"
"Eve? You aren't seeing things. I only hope she doesn't get hurt." Mary's eyes searched him. "Why aren't you going to hide?"
Danny balanced his plate. "Just thought I'd go over and sit with Julie and Ella, if they'll let me."
Mary nodded. "They'll let you."
He sat across from us on a smooth stone. "Get your daily news yet?"
I smiled at him. "It's no longer news, but still surprising. Eve-quoting scripture and holding herself so aloof and unattainable."
Ella said: "People in the scriptures had lovers and babies."
Danny ate well, cleaning his plate, commenting in quick, bright asides about our life here, without rancor, without bitterness. It was as if something dark and menacing had moved back into the shadows.
"You're feeling better, Danny," I said. "It shows. I haven't heard you laugh before-not that way."
Soberly, Ella watched him for a moment. "He looks better, too, with a little meat on his bones; almost healthy."
"Sun, work and food," Danny said. "I'd forgotten what they were like."
Ella was still serious. "Why, Danny?"
He blinked. "Why, what? Why did I run out on sun, food and work?"
I touched Ella's arm, but she ignored me. "You know that's not what I mean. Why are you an alcoholic?"
The bantering mood went out of his face. "I don't know. I've looked, but I can't find the why. Call it a part missing from my make-up; call it a spare wheel normal people don't have. I don't know the reason I crawled into the bottle, and I'm past caring." He stood up, stared over our heads into the darkening sky. "Yes-I'm a long, long way from giving a damn."
After he had walked away, Ella chewed at her lips. "That hurt him."
"Somebody has to make him take a good look at himself," I said.
"You're right," Ella said. "But won't that make him run away from what he sees? Won't he go get drunk again?"
I picked up our empty plates. "He might, but he can't have very much more whiskey hidden away. He might as well get it out of his system, drink up what he has left and get it over with."
Nodding, Ella said, "Then when it's gone, maybe we can help him. He'll need us then, really need us."
I was silent for a while. A vague, formless thought pushed at me. Not a thought, really; not something logical and concrete, a perception, oddly insistent.
"Ella," I said softly, so that the others wouldn't hear, "you always say 'we.' I'm slowly beginning to admit to myself that Danny means more to me than a lost boy who needs a mother. Does he mean something more to you, also?"
Ella stiffened, her eyes wide. "I-I-it's just because of you, Julie. I-I love you and I want to help you. Why-I wouldn't do anything to hurt you. I'd never do that, Julie-never.
I took her hand. "I know you wouldn't, Ella. And I wouldn't hurt you. We're too close for that. If Danny ever gets sober, and the goodness in him comes out-why-why, then if you find yourself in love with him that-that will be f-fine."
"Don't," Ella said. "Don't. I can't think about love. This is a crazy place, a mad world where the old rules don't apply, but I can't think about love. I-I don't want to think about it. Julie, you don't remember it any more, but I'm colored. Even if you didn't want Danny, he wouldn't want me. Not like that; not real and fine. Not like that."
I brushed at my eyes with a hand that was suddenly trembling. "It wouldn't matter to him. Not if he's what I think he is, what I hope he is."
Ella's mouth softened, quivering. "Hey,-here we are, talking all crazy about loving a man, and worrying about getting in each other's way, while all the time, Danny Mixon might be all wrapped up in somebody else."
"No," I said slowly, "no, he isn't wrapped up with anyone, with Sako, that was just one of those things. He didn't mean it anymore than she did."
"After he sobers up," Ella persisted, "he might mean it. If he sobers up, that is. If he doesn't tear himself apart when the whisky runs out, and if he doesn't run off and try something foolish."
"We won't let him," I said. "You help me, Ella-and we won't let him."
"And if he straightens out and finds someone else-maybe Sako, maybe Joy or that anxious teenager?"
I tucked my legs beneath me and smoothed my skirt. "If that happens, there's nothing we can do about it, I guess. At least, we'll see him as he really is; at least we'll know the truth."
"If," Ella repeated. "The whole situation is full of ifs. If Kane Zell doesn't care who Danny chooses at the time. And that man is going to care-if for no other reason than to show Danny who's boss."
I nodded, and we went together to clean our plates, and to help Mary Tetson ready the fire for the night. Already, the swift darkness was cloaking the trees around us, and the other women were going to their huts.
Danny was off somewhere in the night, and the Japanese women, tired from their secret labors, slept soundly. Joy Santee sat staring into the flickering fire.
We heard the laughter from Zell's hut-loud and ringing free and unashamed. There in the dark, Eve Short was learning all the things she had wanted so belatedly, so desperately, to know.
"You know," Ella said, "that doesn't sound like Eve at all. It sounds like a stranger laughing."
"It is a stranger," I said. "We don't know her, and I don't think Eve knew her, before this."
Ella was thoughtful, musing without coy shock at the sounds flowing with increasing tempo from Zell's lair. "Julie-maybe it's like they say; maybe good can come out of bad, after all. Zell-that man is an animal, a dirty, deadly animal; yet he's making Eve happy. Isn't that good out of evil?"
"No." I said. "It may be greater evil; in the end. She's awakened now. She's thrown off the shackles of her belief. Zell can kill that, and he will-when he throws her out and takes himself another woman."
"But doesn't Eve realize-"
"No. I think Eve Short, for the first time in her life, is in love. It's a sick love, granted, but after being a slave to a religion all her life she is beginning to realize that the body is something good, not evil as the church says."
Danny had run out of whiskey.
I stood at the edge of the trees, with Ella close behind me, and watched him shake the last few drops out of the final bottle into his gaping mouth. All the tapering off, the stretching out of his supply had prolonged this moment, but now it was here.
The last drink hadn't been enough to quiet him. Or perhaps it had, but his mind, facing the stark fact of no more alcohol, had jumped the gun. The fear was branded upon his face, the frantic craving for one more drink, just one more.
Fascinated, I watched his hands. The tremors were there, faint as yet, but growing stronger with each passing second. They would get stronger still, more powerful, spreading through his body until they shook him apart.
Ella and I hurried onto the beach. He looked up at us, eyes pleading. "Sako," he muttered. "She's out there working the plane again. I wonder-I wonder if she's been through the pilot's compartment. They carry bottles, sometimes. I wonder if she's looked there."
"Danny," I said, "don't think about it."
He snarled at me. "Don't think about it? That's easy for you to say; it's easy for all of you. None of you know, damn you."
Ella tried, too. "Danny, why don't you come into the shade with us, and we'll-"
Suddenly, he was on his feet, trotting away from us, ripping off his tattered shirt, racing for the ocean.
"Danny!" I screamed, but it was too late. He was already swimming, heading for the marker log, puffing and straining as he fought the waves.
No, I thought raggedly, we didn't know the ugly, clawing craving that would drive a man to this, force one more swallow of alcohol-a search that might very him to expend all his waning strength on a search for well be hopeless from the start.
Danny's feet lifted. He plunged under water.
Wetness lapped my feet as I whipped out of shorts and halter. The whiteness of my hips and breasts was startling against the rest of my browned skin. I pushed out into an oncoming wave and rode it until I could myself for the bobbing marker log.
"Keep going!" Ella called, and as I rolled with the next stroke, I saw her dark head moving in my wake. We were together.
My hands clung to the wet roughness of the log for a moment while I pumped air hard into my straining lungs. When the oxygen dizziness came, I nipped my feet high and dived.
I met Danny as he was struggling up through the sun-shot green depths, and took his pawing hand to help him to the surface. Heads touching, we bobbed out into the air. Ella reached for us, grabbed Danny's shoulder, and dragged him to the log. Arms hung limply over the market, eye closed, Danny floated limply, gasping for air, his face white.
"Idiot," Ella said, "you'll drown down there."
Lips against the rough log, Danny muttered it would be better than the DTs.
"Damned fool," Ella said. "He'll drown just trying to make it back to shore, unless we help him. Here-take his other arm and we'll push him back."
It took little effort to pry his fingers away from the log. Kicking, pushing with one hand and stroking with the other, we coasted him through the waves and brought him to shore.
We had to help him stand up, had to prop him between us to slip the shorts onto his wet body. We were unconscious of our own nakedness pressing against him.
He lay quivering on the sand then, fingers twitching, head rolling sickly from side to side. "Shoulda' let me go," he mumbled, "tougher this way."
We stared at his hunched body, then at each other.
"What can we do?" I whispered.
"We may have to sit on him," Ella said. "We might have to stop him from hurting himself. Let's get him into the shade. If you'll go get some fresh water, I'll stay with him."
I snatched up my shorts and halter, worked my damp body into them. "And after that?"
Ella was drying herself with cupped hands. "I've got a hunch Sako has already pretty well stripped the plane, and is holding things out from Zell. Maybe she found a first aid kit."
"Do you think she'll give it to us?"
Ella nodded. "If it was one of the others, I wouldn't bet on it. But Sako-likes us. Try her. If she found a kit, there may be Seconal in it, or morphine."
"Morphine? But wouldn't that be dangerous?"
"No more than the spasms he might go into. Let's take him to the trees now, and you hurry back with the water."
I couldn't find Sako. I raced to the hidden raft, to the signal pile, but I couldn't find her. When I came back with the water, my throat was burning and my lungs ached. But one glance at Danny told me I didn't know what pain was.
The sickness pushed up out of his knotted belly. He retched, gasped, tried to get rid of the stuff in his throat. Only bitter water came out; Ella wiped his mouth. "Hang on, Danny."
"Oh hell; oh hell, hell, hell."
He was between us, and we were helpless. "I know, Danny," I said. "Stay in there and fight. Punch it out, Danny."
The phrases were unfamiliar to me; somehow I'd put them together from half-remembered nights at the Army smokers, from the things my husband used to say, when he trained the fighters. My husband? Had I ever had one?"
His lips peeled back. "I shoulda' figured it out. shoulda' got some coconuts and fermented 'em, or some potatoes, anything-Julie, Ella-you'll do that for me, won't you? Please? Please, dammit."
I put my hand on his forehead. The skin was hot and tight. "Can you swallow some water, Danny?"
"I don't need water. I need a drink. Get me a drink, Julie."
Ella's dark eyes were pain-softened, commiserating. "There are no drinks, Danny."
The shakes hit him hard, then-quick-raw spasms that raced through him. He retched again. His eyelids fluttered and his eyes rolled up.
"I hope he stays out for a while," Ella breathed. "Look at him sweat and shiver."
"What's going on inside must be worse," I said. "I feel so damned helpless."
"All we can do is wait it out. When he comes to again, we'll force water down him. He's dehydrated. If he throws it up, we'll just feed him more-until it stays down."
My fingers knotted together. "Will he-will he die?"
"Who knows? Can you handle him while I go after some broth? I'd better get it before Zell knows."
I nodded, "He's so weak, anyone could handle him. And-thank you, Ella, for helping Danny-and me."
She hesitated. "I'm not so sure I'm doing it for you."
"It doesn't matter. It's only important that he gets well."
"That's right," Ella said, and moved off through the trees.
Here, sitting through what might be a death watch over this man, I had to think about Ella and me-and Danny Mixon. If I loved this man, why was it so? The closeness with Ella might be a primary cause, my wanting the same things she did, the parallel outlook we were developing together.
Was it party because Ella and I were sisters in every sense but the legal definition of the term, and that our unconscious sibling rivalry had grown secretly, keeping pace with our deepening affection for each other?
I listened to Danny's ragged breathing, to the salt wind in the trees, and thought of a simpler answer. I was a woman, and love had come again to me. Ella was a woman, too-separated from her own race by her emotions, cut off from other races because she was what she was. Yet she wanted what all women desire a man who would love her.
How could I hurt Ella? How could I tear away from this lovely, lonely girl, all the tender things she had never been allowed to possess before? I had been loved once. Was it greedy of me to insist upon a second helping? I didn't think so.
A twig snapped beyond us. "Ella," I said.
But there was someone with her-Kane Zell.
Ella's mouth was set, her eyes hard. "He heard Mary telling me to mix some of that sugar cane juice with the water for Danny, and he came along."
I said, "I tried to give him some more water. He can't hold it down. Isn't there anything else we can do?"
Zell laughed. "Yeah-get him a case of booze."
I ignored him. "Maybe the sugar water will work-"
Zell's hand closed on my shoulder, hard and hurting. "Why mess with that drunk, baby? Now if you're lookin for a man-"
Ella helped me. Scornfully, her voice cut at him. "If Julie was looking for a man, you couldn't qualify."
He let me go, his face darkening momentarily. But then he grinned wolfishly. "That goes for you, too high yella'. When you get ready-and you will-you'll have to come to me. Mixon won't make it."
Ella slid a few feet away from him, poised to flee. "I'll never be that ready."
"The hell you won't. Your drawers come off like any other high yella's-quick and easy. You'll come to see me some night."
Ella stared at him, moving farther away, putting distance between them. "The only place I want to see you," she said distinctly, "is in hell."
Breath hissed between his clenched teeth, but Ella darted away into the trees like a frightened deer, running high and fast on her toes.
"Zell," I said, "be satisfied with what you have; be satisfied with Eve Short. Don't force yourself on women who hate you."
"like you and the nigger? Listen, I got you, too-both of you. Maybe you don't know it, but you're mine-like Eve is mine, like everybody on this whole damned island is mine. Ella belongs to me, you belong to me. When I decide to lay you, I'll do it, and both of you will take it and like it."
I couldn't look at him. Instead, I watched the sick sweats come and go on Danny's unconscious face. "What does that prove?" I asked. "That you're bigger and stronger than us? An ape could do the same thing, but it won't make him a man."
"What the hell do I care?" Zell grunted. "I get what I want, any time, any place. I always get what I want."
"You only think you do," I said.
His grin was white and savage. "If there's anything I can't have, I don't want it."
"Poor Kane," I said. "Nobody has ever loved you, have they?"
"Poor Kane? Poor Kane? Hell, I'm right on top of the whole damned world! Don't you go feelin' sorry for me. I got everything I ever wanted, right here."
I sighed. "Not really, because there are things right here that you can't have, that you never had."
"Crap! What's on this island that I can't have if I want it? If you're talkin' about you and that high yella-"
"That's not what I'm talking about."
"Then what the hell are you talking about?"
"What Danny Mixon has right now," I said softly. "He has someone to worry about him, someone to care if he lives or dies."
Zell snorted. "That lousy drunk can have that crap. It don't mean a damn thing to me. I'm boss. You think anything else means much? I got my women and a full gut. Nothin' else counts. Ain't nothin' important, if I can't eat it, wear it, or screw it."
I said nothing, and he glared at me for what seemed ages. "Well, he demanded, "that's right, ain't it?"
"No," I said. "There's respect, friendship and love."
His laugh was choppy, brittle. "I got respect; it's the same as fear. I don't need friends, and love? Another word for a quick lay."
"Didn't your parents love you? Wasn't that different?"
"My parents? That's a laugh; that's a real big yak. Pa was a drunk-a no-good, lousy drunk, just like Mixon there. He never loved anything but a jug in his whole rotten life."
"And your mother?" I asked softly.
He whirled away from me, quick as a startled tiger, and padded into the trees.
"Zell?" I called.
No answer. He was gone. Had I found a soft spot in him? Had I probed an old hurt that had never healed? It was possible. For one moment Zell had seemed shaken and uncertain-but only for that moment. He'd go off somewhere and think about it, and he'd come back hating me.
Then what? Then he would have to prove himself to himself once again, and no doubt, with me. He'd have to humble me, degrade me, in order to regain his superiority.
It would be me. I was sure of that.
Danny stirred, mumbling in some terrible dream. I lay a fresh, water-soaked cloth on his forehead. At least, I had saved Ella Martin from Zell.
And in doing so, I had probably destroyed myself.
Danny rolled over, arms flailing, wiping at his chest in a frenzy.
"Hush," I soothed. "It's all right, Danny. Everything is all right."