With or without Billie watching, I couldn’t pull a stunt like that.
Connie opened one eye slightly, to see what I was doing.
I said, “See ya,” and started to back away.
Both eyes open, she took a small step forward and muttered, “Yeah, go on and run away like a…”
“I’m just fucking off. Isn’t that…?”
“LOOK OUT!” Billie shouted.
The Hunt (Part Three)
As Billie shouted her warning, a rock the size of a coconut came straight down as if carried over the falls by the stream’s current. I saw it an instant before it hit Connie. It struck the side of her head, then crashed onto her left shoulder.
The way her head jerked when the rock hit it, you’d think she’d been swatted by a baseball bat. Her hair flew. Her face shook. When the rock pounded her shoulder, she was knocked to the left. Half a second later, she dropped under water.
Billie and Kimberly were both yelling, but I’m not sure what they said.
I ducked and grabbed Connie under the armpits and hauled her up. She felt limp. Her head lolled sideways and water slopped out of her mouth. Her eyes were open, but rolled upward so that only the whites showed, mostly. Blood mixed in with the water running down the left side of her head.
I dragged her through the water, over to the place where she’d put her T-shirt. Then I thrust her up and backward, trying to sit her on the slab of rock. I couldn’t get her high enough for that. But she started to slump backward, so I let go of her sides and hugged her around the thighs and hoisted her again. This time, I got her rump up there.
Kimberly arrived. “Stay with her,” she gasped, then hurled herself out of the water and went scurrying up the rocks. She rushed for the top of the falls.
She didn’t have a weapon.
I stood in the water, holding Connie by the legs so she wouldn’t slide back into the lagoon. Before I had a chance to think about what to do next, Billie showed up. She brushed past me and climbed onto the slab. Kneeling by Connie’s side, she leaned over and pinned her down by the shoulders. “Got her,” she gasped.
Kimberly, near the top of the falls, raced out of sight.
I boosted myself onto the rock.
Kneeling on both sides of Connie, her mother and I lifted and dragged her until she was flat on her back. “That’s fine, that’s fine,” Billie said. She sounded almost calm. “You’re gonna be fine, honey. Everything’s fine.”
I wasn’t so sure about that.
Connie was out cold, and bleeding from the side of her head. She was alive, though. Breathing. With so much bare skin showing, you couldn’t miss all the parts of her that rose and fell. Here and there—at the side of her neck, just under her sternum—I could even see her skin throb with her heartbeat.
“What’ll we do about her head?” I asked.
“There’s her shirt.”
I was almost kneeling on it. I snatched up the sopping T-shirt, folded it into a big, thick pad, and pressed it against the bloody side of Connie’s head.
She moaned and started to turn her head away.
Billie put a hand against the other side to hold it steady. “That’s all right, honey,” she said. She began crying softly. With relief, I guess, because Connie had moaned—a good sign. “You’ll be fine, honey.” She sniffed a couple of times. “You had an accident, but you’ll be fine.” With the hand that wasn’t holding Connie’s head, she wiped her eyes. She said to me, “Do you think her shoulder’s broken?”
The top of Connie’s shoulder had a nasty abrasion. She looked as if she’d skidded across a sidewalk on it, rubbing it raw. The shoulder didn’t appear to be swollen much, though, or knocked out of shape.
“I don’t think it’s broken,” I said. “Not that I’ve had that much experience with broken bones.”
Connie squeezed her eyes tight and bared her teeth and moaned again.
Billie clutched the girl’s good shoulder. “You’re gonna be fine, honey.” To me, she said, “Thank God you were with her. She might’ve drowned.”
I shook my head. “That rock was just there, all of a sudden,” I said. “I didn’t have time to do anything about it. If I could’ve pushed her out of the way, or something… I just stood there like a jerk.”
“You were great,” Billie said. “It happened too fast, that’s all.”
“Did it just fall, or what?” I asked her. “Did you see?”
“It rolled off the edge of the falls.”
“By itself?” I asked.
“Not hardly. I don’t think so, anyway. I think somebody threw it—or rolled it. Somebody up at the top of the falls, but far enough back to stay out of sight.”
“Wesley or Thelma.”
“I should think so.”
“How is she?” At the sound of Kimberly’s voice, I raised my head and saw her trotting down the slope.
“She’s banged up pretty good,” I said. “She’s coming around, though.”
“She’ll be fine,” Billie said.
“What’d you find up there?” I asked.
“Nothing.” Kimberly squatted down for a better look at Connie, and her bare arm rubbed against mine. “How are you doing, Con?”
The answer she got was a groan of pain.
“She’s so thick-headed,” Kimberly said, “the rock probably didn’t even dent her.”
Connie murmured, “Fuck you.”
With that, I’m sure we all figured Connie was well on her way to recovery.
“You didn’t find anything up there?” Billie asked.
Kimberly shook her head. “I didn’t do much searching, though. Just took a quick look around, then tried to see if I could find any footprints. Nothing. I wanted to get back and see how Connie was doing. And I didn’t want to get myself jumped. There must be about a million hiding places up there. I didn’t have anyone to watch my back, so it didn’t seem smart to hang around.”
“I could go up with you,” I offered. “The two of us could do a search.”
“Not gonna leave Billie and Con. Anyway, all our weapons are over there.” She nodded toward the other side of the lagoon. “We’ve taken enough casualties for one day. What we’ve gotta do now is get ourselves back to the beach.”
Which is what we did.
We waited a few minutes for Connie to recover some more. Then we helped her sit up. We needed a way to keep the bandage (her folded T-shirt) in place against the side of her head, so Billie volunteered my belt. While I held the bandage against the wound, Kimberly wrapped the belt around Connie’s head—making passes over the top and under the chin, then fastening the buckle.
Then we lowered Connie into the water. We floated her across the lagoon on her back, and helped her out on the other side.
I was only half a help; my belt being otherwise occupied, I needed one hand to keep my shorts from falling off.
We found our stuff where we’d left it. I removed one of the tomahawks from its sling, and used the rope as a belt for my shorts. Then I refilled my pockets. (We hadn’t touched the food yet, but nobody wanted any.) It was agreed that Billie and I would work together on helping Connie back to camp, and Kimberly would take care of whatever weapons we couldn’t manage. I put on my pink shirt, and stuck a tomahawk down the side of my rope belt.
Kimberly ended up in her Hawaiian shin, with her chest crossed by rope slings, a tomahawk at each hip, her Swiss Army knife tucked down the front of her bikini pants, four spears hugged against her side with her left arm,
