Wesley had given her orders to nail me with that rock.
Sitting there by the fire, though, I wasn’t especially worried about myself. The danger to me didn’t seem as important as my duty to watch over and protect the women. I felt very protective of them.
While they were asleep and I was on guard, they were my flock.
I occupied my mind, now and then, with some gallant fantasies about rushing to their rescue. With other fantasies about them, too. I won’t get into that stuff.
Anyway, about an hour into my watch, Thelma came over.
When I first saw her getting up, I thought she might be making an escape attempt. Instead of running for the jungle, though, she stepped cautiously away from the sleeping area, and walked toward me. The leftover rope hung between her legs and dragged behind her.
None of the others stirred. Which convinced me that they were asleep. Kimberly would’ve raised holy hell if she’d seen Thelma up and around. The same goes for Billie and Connie.
Looking back on it, that’s what I should’ve done—raised holy hell.
It’s what I almost did.
My first inclination, when I realized none of the others would be putting a quick end to the situation, was to shout for Thelma to halt.
A shout would bring the whole gang running. (Except maybe Connie.)
But I kept quiet.
No need to wake everybody up. I can handle this on my own.
That’s what I told myself.
It wasn’t the whole reason I didn’t shout, though. There was also the fact that I was curious. What did Thelma have in mind? Why was she coming to me? I wanted to find out.
As she walked closer, I grabbed the ax, stood up, and stepped around the fire so it wouldn’t be in the way if I needed to get at her. I held the ax in both hands, at waist level, to let her see that I meant business but didn’t have any immediate plan to chop her.
Neither of us said anything until she was just a few paces away. Then she stopped and said, “I couldn’t sleep. I mean, I was asleep, but I woke up a while ago and… I couldn’t get comfortable.” She raised her bound hands. “I don’t guess you’ll untie me?”
“No, I can’t.”
She shrugged and winced a bit. “I didn’t think so. No harm in asking, though. You oughta try to sleep with your hands tied together like this.”
“Did you try sleeping on your back?” I asked.
“On my back? Have you seen my back? No, I guess you haven’t.”
I didn’t correct her.
“Wesley whipped me. My back is so sore and tender… everything is. He really hurt me, Rupert. He hurt me everywhere. There is no comfortable position to lie in. It’s a wonder I was able to fall asleep at all.”
“I’m sorry about that,” I said.
“It’s not your fault. I’m the one that was fool enough to marry him.”
I said, “Well…”
“Anyway, that’s all over and done with, now. The thing is, would you mind a whole lot if I just stayed here for a little while? I won’t cause any trouble, I promise. I just can’t go back there and lie down. All I do is toss and turn… it’s just so miserable. Can I stay with you? Please?”
A. She had to be in a lot of physical discomfort. She wasn’t lying about that.
B. What could she do to me? Her hands were tied and I had the ax.
C. I could always shout if she tried to pull a stunt.
D. I was still curious. Did she have some sort of secret reason for coming over? Did she have a trick up her sleeve? Just exactly what would happen if I let her stay? Maybe something interesting, or even exciting.
Not to mention that I really wanted to ask her about a few things.
“Okay,” I said. “You can stay, but just for a while.”
“Thanks, Rupert.” She sounded sincere. “You’re sure a life-saver.”
“One condition, though,” I told her.
Some of her friendliness suddenly evaporated. “What’s that?”
“You have to answer me, no matter what I ask you.”
She blew out some air. “Oh, forget it. I thought you were different from them. You’re just like them, aren’t you? For once, I thought somebody was being nice to me around here.”
“All I want to do is find out a few things. What’s the big deal?”
She took a deep breath and used it to form a long, annoyed sigh. “Everybody wants to give me the third degree.”
“Maybe you’d better just go back to bed,” I said.
“No, no, no. I’ll talk. Whatever you want. Lord knows, why should you be any different from the bitches? What do you want to know?”
“Let’s sit down,” I said.
I went back to my place at the other side of the fire, sat down, crossed my legs and rested the ax across my thighs. I told Thelma where to sit: in front of me but over to my left, facing the fire. That way, we didn’t have the fire between us. Also, it would be easy to give her a nudge with the head of the ax, if she caused trouble.
“For starters,” I said, “did Wesley tell you why he did all this?”
“Did what?”
“Blew up the boat, marooned us here, killed…”
“He didn’t blow up the boat. I asked him all about that. What happened is, he smelled gas and jumped overboard just in the nick of time. He was almost killed. He no sooner got off the boat than it blew sky-high.”
“That’s what he told you?”
“Yes.”
“And you believed him?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
I could only think of about a million reasons. “If that’s what happened,” I said, “then how come he didn’t swim in to the beach? We were all there. He knew we were there. He obviously wanted us to think he’d been blown up.”
“Well, that was the whole idea.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“He had to disappear. He was afraid he’d get all the blame for the explosion. Which is just what happened. You heard my dad. It was all Wesley’s fault.”
“And that’s why Wesley pulled his vanishing act?”
“Sure. Lord only knows what you all would’ve done to him.”
“Yeah, Lord only knows—somebody might’ve called him an idiot.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“Was he afraid Andrew might make him walk the plank? Or keel-haul him? Whip out the cat-o'-nine- tails?”
“There’s no telling.”
“Nobody would’ve done anything to him, not for having an accident.”
“You haven’t got a clue. You have no idea how cruel Dad could be. How vicious. If you knew half the things he’s done… what he used to do to me… and to Kimberly, too.” She shook her head.
I suddenly found myself very interested.
“Like what sort of things?” I asked.
“Do you have any idea how uncomfortable it is, having your hands tied like this?” She held them toward me. “Kimberly made the rope too tight.”
Before turning in for the night, Kimberly had freed Thelma’s hands for a visit to the latrine—then had retied them.
“You knew the right way to do it,” Thelma told me. “When you tied me, the rope didn’t cut in this way. Kimberly did this to hurt me.”
