Chapter 8

Jeremy walked down the beach in the darkness. He saw three figures. Gary and Joe were obvious, the third he couldn’t tell, it had to be one of the girls. He got close so he could overhear what was being said.

“So you betrayed me too, did you, bitch?” It was Joe’s voice.

“No, Joe, I well I didn’t have any choice in the matter,” Anabell’s voice cracked.

“Of course not. They put a gun to your head and told you to leave us here,” Joe replied.

“No, it wasn’t like that Joe, you know I’m loyal to you. I mean you’re my employer,” Anabell replied.

“Best not forget that bitch,” he said, grabbing her by the shirt.

“What are you going to do?” Anabell asked.

“Oh, you’re going to make amends, Anabell, for your betrayal.”

“Oh, how?”

“Your going to bring one of those other bitches with you next time and you’re going to help us make an example out of her. If you don’t, I’m going to make an example out of you. If you know what I mean.”

“Yes, of course Joe, I’ll do whatever you want me to.”

“Good, and when I’m feeling better, I’m going to kick that poor kid’s ass. Fuck that, I’ll kill him, kill him with my bare hands.”

“Yes, Joe, of course, I had better be getting back.”

“Good, we’ll see you tomorrow night and don’t make us come looking for you.”

Jeremy moved away and headed back down the beach to the camp. This is going to be harder than I thought, he said to himself. He got one of the discarded logs. It was about 8 feet long and started scraping the bark off one side.

“Is everything all right, Master?” Shannon asked from the side of the hut.

“It will be eventually, I hope,” Jeremy said. It took him quite some time to smooth off one face of the log. He went to work on the other two faces. He saw Anabell returning, but he kept to himself, working the log.

Soon had a basic canoe shape. It wouldn’t take much to capsize it, but he had more work to do, so he scraped a hollow out of the top and set to work building a small fire. It took him about twenty minutes with his fire bow that he had made earlier, and he added more and more to the fire. He used a piece of bark to transfer coals to the hollowed part of the canoe. It was dawn, and he was tired, still working on the canoe. It was nearly finished, at least the boat part was, burning, part scraping, burning, scraping.

It was tedious work but in between times he had started working on paddles. He had two finished. He made an out-rigger out of cane and another smaller fallen tree that he shaped as best he could. He used the ropes the other girls had made to lash it all together. The sun was rising, and he called Shannon and Sunni over. “Shannon, I’m going to go test this boat. Don’t tell the others where I have gone, just tell them that I’ll be back before noon, I hope.”