Pitt sat up on one elbow, forced a smile-it wasn't easy-and said, 'Good morning, group. Up a bit early, aren't you?'
As if on cue, the younger children looked at the oldest, a boy. He hesitated several moments, collecting his words before he spoke. 'My brothers and sisters and I were herding our father's cows on the meadow above the cliffs. We saw your-' he paused, his face blank.
'Helicopter?' Pitt prompted.
'Yes, that is it.' The boy's face brightened. 'Helicopter. We saw your helicopter lying in the ocean.' A slight blush reddened his flawless Scandinavian complexion. 'I am ashamed that my English is not so good.'
'No,' Pitt said softly. 'I'm the one who is ashamed. You speak English like an Oxford professor, while I can't even offer you two words in Icelandic.'
The boy beamed at the compliment as he helped Pitt struggle awkwardly to his feet. 'You are hurt, sir. Your head bleeds.'
'I'll survive. It's my friend who is injured seriously. We must get him to the nearest doctor quickly.'
'I sent my younger sister to fetch my father when We discovered you. He will bring his truck soon.'
Just then, Hunnewell moaned softly. Pitt leaned over him, cradling the bald head. The old man was conscious now. His eyes rolled and stared at Pitt briefly, and then stared at the children. He was breathing heavily. and tried to speak, but the words caught in his throat. There was a strange kind of serenity in his eyes as he gripped Pitts hand, and in a strained effort murmured, 'God save thee-' Then he trembled and gave a little gasp.
Dr. Hunnewell was dead.
Chapter 6
The farmer and his oldest boy carried Hunnewell to the Land Rover. Pitt rode in the back holding the oceanographer's head in his lap. He closed the glazed, sightless eyes and smoothed the few long strands of white hair.
Most children would have been terrified of death, but the boys and girls who surrounded Pitt in the bed of the truck sat silently and calmly, their expressions devoid of all but total acceptance of the only certainty that waits for everyone.
The farmer, a big handsome outdoor-hardened man, drove slowly up a narrow road to the top of the cliff and through the meadows, pulling a small cloud of volcanic red dust behind the tailgate. Within minutes he stopped at a small cottage on the outskirts of a village of white farmhouses dominated by the traditional Icelandic churchyard.
A somber little man with soft green eyes enlarged by thick steelrimmed glasses came out, introduced himself as Dr. Jonsson and, after examining Hunnewell, led Pitt into the cottage where he stitched and bandaged Pitts three-inch head gash and made him change into some dry clothes. Later, as Pitt was drinking a strong brew of coffee and schnaps forced on him by the doctor, the boy and his father entered.
The boy nodded to Pitt and spoke. 'My father would consider it a great honor if he could transport you and your friend to Reykjavik if that is where you wish to go.'
Pitt stood and stared a moment into the father's warm gray eyes. 'You tell your father that I am deeply grateful, and that the honor is mine.' Pitt held out his hand and the Icelander gripped it hard.
The boy translated. His father simply nodded and then they both turned and left the room without another word.
Pitt lit a cigarette and looked quizzically at Dr. Jonsson. 'You're a member of a strange people, Doctor. You all seem to be brimming with warmth and courtesy within, but your exterior seems completely dry of any emotion.'
'You'll find the citizens of Reykjavik more open. This is the country; we are born into an isolated and stark but beautiful land. Icelanders who live away from the city are not noted for gossip; we can almost come to understand each other's thoughts before we speak. Life and love are commonplace; death is merely an accepted occurrence.'
'I wondered why the children appeared so unconcerned when sitting next to a corpse.'
'Death to us is merely a separation, and only a visual one at that. For you see,' the doctor's hand pointed through a large picture window at the gravestones in the churchyard, 'they who went before us are still here.'
Pitt stared several moments at the grave markers, all rising on their individual crooked angles among the green mossy grass. Then his attention was caught by the farmer, who was carrying a handcrafted pine coffin to the Land Rover. He watched attentively as the big, silent man lifted Hunnewell's form into the traditional tapered box with all the strength and tenderness of a new father with a baby.
'What is the farmer's name?' Pitt asked.
'Mundsson, Thorsteinn Mundsson. His son's name is Bjarni.'
Pitt stared through the window until the coffin was pushed onto the truckbed. Then he turned away.
'I'll always wonder if Dr. Hunnewell would still be alive if I'd done things differently.'
'Who will ever know? Remember, my friend, if you had been born ten minutes sooner or ten minutes later, your path might never have crossed his.'
Pitt smiled. 'I get what you mean. But the fact is, his life was in my hands, and I fumbled and lost it.' He hesitated, seeing the scene again in his mind. 'On the beach I passed out for half an hour after I bandaged his arm. If I had stayed awake, he might not have bled to death.'
'Put your conscience to rest. Your Dr. Hunnewell did not die from loss of blood. It was the shock of his injury, the shock of your crash, the shock of below freezing sea water. No, I'm certain an autopsy will show that his aging heart gave out long before his blood. He was getting on in years, and he was not, from what I could determine, a physically athletic man.'
'He was a scientist, an oceanographer, the best.'
'Then I envy him.'
Pitt looked at the village physician speculatively.
'Why do you say that?'
'He was a man of the sea, and he died by the sea he loved, and perhaps his last 'thoughts were as serene as the water.'
'He talked of God,' Pitt murmured.
'He was fortunate, yet I feel I will be fortunate when my time comes to be laid to rest over there in the churchyard only a hundred steps from where I was born and among so many of the people I have loved and cared for.'
'I wish I could share your affinity for staying in one spot, Doctor, but somewhere in the distant past one of my ancestors was a gypsy. I've inherited his wandering ways. Three years is my all-time record for living in the same location.'
'An interesting question; which of us is the most fortunate?'
Pitt shrugged. 'Who can tell? We both hear the beat of a different drummer.'
'In Iceland,' Jonsson said, 'we follow the lure of a different fisherman.'
'You missed your true calling, Doctor. You should have been a poet.'
'Ah, but I am a poet.' Dr. Jonsson laughed. 'Every village has at least four or five. You will have to search far and wide for a more literate country than Iceland. Over five hundred thousand books are sold annually to two hundred thousand people, our entire population-' He broke off as the door opened and two men walked in. They stood calm, efficient and very official in their police uniforms. One nodded a greeting to the doctor, and Pitt suddenly got the entire picture.
'You needn't have been secretive about calling the police, Dr. Jonsson. I have nothing to conceal from anyone.'
'No offense, but Dr. Hunnewell's arm was obviously mangled by gun shots. I've treated enough injured hunters to know the correct signs. The law is explicit, as I'm sure it is in your country. I must report all bullet wounds.'
Pitt didn't like it much, but he had little option.
