Stranded in Paradise Page 9

  Chapter VII

  Friday, April 24.

  Over on the northern cliffs, a light drizzle awakens Grace, Eva, and Silverleaf from their slumber beneath a tight configuration of several gumbo-limbo trees, their wide, thick canopy serving effectively as a buttress against the briny Atlantic winds. Despite having no mattress, tent, or comfortable sleeping apparatus, the three appear to have enjoyed a good night’s sleep, probably the best rest they’ve had in days. Grace, clearing her eyes, looks around with curiosity.

  “Where's Eddie?” she wonders aloud.

  Eva points to an area a few yards away. “There.”

  Dr. Scott, stick in hand, is dozing on and off while standing propped up against a sparsely covered tree. Grace gets up, tiptoes over to him, and whispers in his ear.

  “Morning, doctor.”

  Startled, Dr. Scott jumps, nearly losing his balance.

  “Morning, Grace,” he finally smiles. “You’re wicked.”

  He looks upwards at the tree trying to ascertain the depth of the drizzle. Reflexively, he hurries for cover from a nearby copper wood tree with its denser grouping of leaves. Grace joins him.

  Silverleaf also strolls over.

  “Morning,” Dr. Scott greets him. “Slept well?”

  The elderly businessman shrugs. “Can’t complain.”

  “How’s the fever?”

  “It’s still there.”

  Eva marches over angrily to Dr. Scott. Her eyes look like destructive laser beams could shoot out of them at any moment.

  “How stupid of you!” she scolds him.

  “Why?” he asks. “What did I do?”

  “You're a sentry, yet you slept like a baby? We were sitting ducks!”

  “I had my eyes open.”

  “Well, you're still alive, ain't you?” Grace interjects.

  Eva throws up her hands. “That's what I get for putting my life in the hands of amateurs!”

  “You know,” Grace points out, “you've got some nerve. Looks to me like it's us who are trying to give you a new life.”

  “You think I need your help to survive?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes!”

  “Ladies!” Dr. Scott shouts.

  “What?” they both yell together.

  Stunned, the doctor remains quiet. Eva glares at Grace.

  “Since you don’t need me,” the mistress-in-exile boasts, “then let's see how far you'll get without me!”

  She storms off. Dr. Scott raises his hand.

  “Wait!”

  Silverleaf shakes his head. “What an impulsive bitch.”

  “Eva!” Dr. Scott shouts.

  “Let her go,” Grace argues. “We don't need her.”

  The flustered doctor grinds his teeth. “What I wouldn’t give to get some peace!”

  “Why don’t you go after her,” Grace suggests. “You’re so in enchanted.”

  Eva, nearly 200 feet away already, reconsiders exiting. Sighing, she turns and begins trudging back towards the group, bowing her head apologetically.

  “I'm sorry!” she looks up and yells to them. “You people need my help as much as I need yours!”

  “Here comes your maiden,” Grace whispers sarcastically to Dr. Scott.

  Suddenly, nearly 100 feet away, Eva’s right foot tugs a thin filament hidden across the trail and disappearing in the bushes.

  “Pwft!”

  A light, almost inaudible sound is heard, like a quickly released rubber band. A booby trap, now accidentally activated, shoots a primitive arrow right into the Bavarian’s abdomen. Screaming, she clutches the arrow’s entrance into her belly, falls on her knees, then to her side.

  The astonished castaways run to her. Silverleaf, surprisingly, is light on his feet. Dr. Scott, the first to reach her, props her up in his arms. Already, she is as pale as primer.

  “Eva!” Scott shouts. “Just hold on.”

  “I've made so many mistakes,” she admits weakly, “none of which I can atone for.”

  “Shh,” he warns her. “Try not to talk.”

  While Grace and the businessman support her, the doctor applies pressure around the wound. It does little good. Blood continues to spurt from the entry wound around the arrow.

  “Can't you pull that thing out?” Silverleaf begs.

  “It's too deep. If I do, she'll bleed to death.”

  Grace, stooping lower, takes her pale, trembling hands in hers.

  “Eva,” she apologizes, “I'm very sorry.”

  “My dear,” Eva mummers, “all I wanted was what everybody wanted. Peace.”

  Tears well in Grace’s eyes. “I feel like a fool. This is all my fault.”

  “No, Grace,” Eva insists. “I'm to blame. Maybe you’re right. I had a million chances and took none.”

  She sees the tears rolling down Grace’s cheeks.

  Eva reaches weakly to touch the Asian woman’s face, but her ebbing strength prevents it. “Don't cry for me, dear,” she manages to squeak out. “Save it for the living.”

  Closing her eyes, Eva takes her last breath.

  The rain starts falling heavily.

  Nearly an hour later, Dr. Scott, Grace, and Silverleaf are standing solemnly in the rain in a clearing on the mountain monitoring Eva's wet grave. They are completely unaware of the yacht Mid-life Crisis approaching in the distance. Silverleaf offers a few prayers in Yiddish. When he’s done, Grace makes a sign of the cross.

  As they turn to leave, they hear a gunshot. Ducking for cover, they quickly turn around but see no one.

  “Shh,” Dr. Scott motions to them silently.

  Seconds later, another shot rings out.

  Silverleaf is beyond perturbed. “He hunts us in this rain?!” he whispers.

  Sr. Scott motions to an unfinished path in the opposite direction. Immediately, they race through the pouring rain in that direction. They hear a third shot ring out. Dr. Scott yells and falls. Looking at his leg, he realizes he's been shot in the left thigh. Grace and Silverleaf run to his assistance and pull him beneath a calabash tree. Dr. Scott glances at his throbbing, aching leg.

  “How bad is it?” he asks no one in particular.

  “I can’t tell,” Grace admits, gently rolling up his pants’ leg to examine further. “I’m not a doctor.”

  Moments later, they see Hitler, soaking wet from the rain, sneaking out of the bushes about 120 feet away with his gun drawn. Luckily, they remain hidden and undetected in their crouched position behind a thick hedge of stinging nettles.

  “Look at that lunatic!” Silverleaf whispers. “Why isn't the captain stopping him?”

  Grace shakes her head. “I don't know.”

  “Ow,” Dr. Scott moans. “My thigh!”

  “It seems like this place is bad luck on your legs,” Grace jokes.

  “I'll live,” he hopes. “Hurts like the dickens, though.”

  “So, what now?” Silverleaf ponders.

  Grace looks around. “There's gotta be another path down.”

  “I’m just gonna slow you two down,” Dr. Scott laments. “Carry on without me.”

  “You’re beginning to sound as pitiful as me,” Silverleaf mentions. “We’ll get out of this.”

  Moments later, Grace, Dr. Scott, and Silverleaf, brine-soaked droplets of rain splashing in their eyes, are hurrying down the wet trail next to a steep drop-off. Dr. Scott is being propped up by Grace on his right and Silverleaf on his left. A piece of cloth from Grace’s shirt is tied around Scott’s left thigh wound. Moving as fast as they could, they are hampered solely by Dr. Scott’s injury, the slippery path, and the heavily falling precipitation.

  They stop to let the injured medical practitioner catch his breath.

  “We’ll be down soon,” Grace hopes.

  “We have to keep moving,” Silverleaf advises them.

  He looks at Dr. Scott. It’s clear from his exhausted eyes that the medicine man may be losing more blood than he thought.

  “Are you r
eady?” the survivor from Auschwitz asks.

  “Yeah,” Scott replies. “Let’s go.”

  All three begin descending again. The ground is so muddy that Dr. Scott, growing weaker by the minute, loses his footing. He suddenly slips forwards so quickly the others lose their grip on him. He then goes sliding down a glassine embankment and finally catches himself between two saplings at the edge of the precipice.

  Grace shrieks and runs to his assistance. “Hold on!” she shouts.

  As she approaches, Scott slips through the saplings and, luckily, using his right armpit, catches a branch jutting out from the drop off. Below him, some 150 feet below, are rocks being violently washed by the stirring tides.

  Silverleaf hurries over. Grace lies on the ground and reaches down towards Dr. Scott as far as her arm would allow. Dr. Scott reaches up for her with his left arm. Unfortunately, about two feet separate their fingertips.

  “You’re too far!” she yells to him.

  The doctor points to the hedges next to her. “Try something else!”

  While immediately Grace searches through it for a long stick, vine, or anything that could possibly help them. Silverleaf lies down at the edge of the precipice and tries to reach the doctor only to realize his own arm is shorter that Grace’s.

  The businessman groans. “This isn’t gonna work.”

  Getting up, a spinning beacon of blue light a few hundred yards out at sea catches his eye. Squinting, he notices the Mid-life Crisis sailing in through the wind-ripped rain.

  “Grace!” he shouts. “We have company!”

  She looks to the ocean. Silverleaf waves his arms frantically.

  “Ahoy there!” He yells. “Hey! Over here! Ahoy there!”

  Grace quickly returns to the precipice then turns to her assistant. “Milt! Find me a vine or something! Eddie's slipping. Hurry!”

  “But Grace, a ship's coming!”

  “Damn it, Milton. Bring me a vine now!”

  Silverleaf runs quickly to look for a vine.

  Grace turns to Dr. Scott. “Try to hold on. Help’s on its way.”

  “Who is it?” the doctor asks. “Coast Guard?”

  “I can’t tell. The rain’s too heavy.”

  Silverleaf searches the immediate area for a vine. He tugs on a few think ones snaking around stumps on the ground but discovers they are weak and break easily. Finally, discovering a thick intact specimen winding around a calabash tree, he removes it and brings it to Grace.

  “Help me,” she requests.

  Silverleaf lies down on his stomach next to Grace. They let one end of the thick, twisting vine drop while they grab on to the other end tightly. Because of the irregular shape of the cliff and the vine, it dangles just a few inches out of Dr. Scott's reach.

  “Drop a little more!” he shouts. “It’s almost there!”

  “Alright!” Grace returns.

  The two start letting a little more vine downward.

  “Come on, Ed. Come on,” Grace mumbles to herself.

  Dr. Scott’s fingers touch it. “Almost there,” he informs them.

  “Just relax!” she yells. “Let the branches ago, and grab the vine!”

  Dr. Scott, water splashing in his ears, barely made out what Grace just uttered. “What?”

  “From when I am,” she notices, “it’s holding you back!”

  Dr. Scott hesitates then, taking a deep breath, pushes himself up off the jutting branch and grabs the vine.

  “Good,” Grace shouts downward. “Now hold on. Pull, Milton, pull!”

  Dr. Scott’s fingers start slipping off the vine.

  “It’s too slippery,” he yells.

  Silverleaf tries to ease his mind “Don't worry, doc! A ship's is arriving. We'll be back in Miami in no time!”

  As Grace and the businessman pulls, Dr. Scott strains to catch a glimpse of the approaching ship. With the rain falling in his eyes and hampering his vision, all he could see is her spinning beacon of blue light.