Vows Box Set

Chapter 7: The Wet Season-2

“The wet season officially sucks,” declared Devon as he reached for another handful of trail mix.

Garrett quirked a smile. “Officially?”

“Well we can vote on it, if you want.”

I laughed. “I’ll vote with you, Devon. It sucks.”

Buddy pulled his mouth back from the papaya he was working over long enough to lift a sticky fist in the air and holler, “Sucks!”

Garrett chuckled. “Well, we all know Buddy would vote with Henry regardless, but I’ll make it unanimous. Even though it’s just a few degrees difference, it’s enough with the humidity boost to make it uncomfortable.”

Devon snorted and reached for some more dried breadfruit chips. “Uncomfortable is putting it mildly. Even our clothes are rotting. Rain, rain, go away,” he chanted. “Don’t come back another day.”

“I wish we could get the roof of our shelter right,” said Garrett. “Make it more watertight.”

“Yeah, we’re always waking up in a puddle,” added Devon. “We need to build an elevated bed, so even though we’re getting dripped on, we aren’t lying in it, too.”

“Let’s work on that today,” said Garrett.

“I’ll help so we can maybe get it done today,” I volunteered. “I won’t be able to work on drying fish or anything anyway. Damned humidity has screwed that up until April or so.”

“I hope to hell we aren’t still here in April,” said Devon. “Seriously, it’s been four months. I never expected to still be here. What on earth is taking them so long to find us?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Garrett, you said we stayed aloft just over an hour after the dive, right?”

“Yes, heading northwest.”

“What would you say the speed was?” asked Devon. “How far are we from where the explosions happened?”

“I was reading about that kind of thing in the flight magazines,” I said. “Flight speeds and such. Takeoff speed is a hundred-seventy-five miles per hour, and landing is a hundred-forty-five. I’m no engineer, but wouldn’t our velocity have to have been somewhere between those, considering our low elevation?”

Devon nodded. “Dunno, but it does make sense. So let’s say we were going a hundred-fifty miles per hour, taking it from the low end of that range. That’s not so far, right? They’ll look at least a hundred-fifty miles out from where they got the last signal from the transponder, right?”

“I should think so,” I said. “That’s a linear measurement, though. We need to consider what the square miles would be. If they went out a hundred-fifty miles in a circle from that spot, it would be what?—pi times the radius squared, right? So seventy thousand or so square miles would be the minimum search area they’d have to make to include our location.”

“I’ve read about search areas that are more than a hundred-thousand square miles,” said Devon. “So we’re within range. They’ll get to us.”

“Assuming the zone is a circle going out from the explosion point, and our estimate of the velocity is correct,” I replied. “Maybe they have reason to think certain directions are more or less likely than others.”

“Why would they?” asked Devon. “No reason for them to think they know what direction it would go in after the explosion.”

“Or,” said Garrett, “maybe they have reason to think they’ve found the crash site.”

I raised my eyebrows. “The plane is right out there,” I said, pointing to the southeast. “We’d see if there were planes and boats buzzing around, and they’d certainly have spotted the island from that spot since we did.”

“I’m thinking of the explosions,” said Garrett. “There were two or three from behind us. One of those sounded lower than the others. Plus, there were at least two smaller ones coming from the front. We know the plane decompressed, the oxygen masks dropped and we felt it.”

“What’s your point?” asked Devon. “The plane is still out here, not way back there.”

“Oh,” I said. I sat up straighter as it dawned on me. “There’s a debris field from the explosion, and it’s at least a hundred-fifty miles away from here. It’s right where they would have started their search. s**t, they’ll probably find stuff from both ends of the plane, and they’ll be able to analyze it and know there was an explosion involved.”

“But black boxes are explosion proof. They’ll keep looking until they find them. That’ll be their clue the plane kept going for a while.”

“What if they did find them?” asked Garrett. “I know they’re located toward the rear, so they’ll be more protected in a crash. That’s where the larger bangs were located. Could they have dropped out?”

“Maybe,” I said. “I read that they do need to be located as far aft as is practical, but there’s not necessarily a standard exact location. They may or may not even be in a pressurized area.”

The more I thought about it, the more worried I became. f**k! What if they really did think they’d found the one and only crash site? We could be talking years, not months, before somebody stumbled upon us. I raked my fingers through my hair and tried to keep my voice steady and calm as I continued.

“With the number of explosions we heard, we know that whoever did this had to have had serious access to the plane. We also know that the communications were taken out. Had to have been, or they’d have found us within hours. Someone knew what they were doing and might very well have located one of the bombs right by the recorders.”

“They think we were blown to bits back there?” asked Devon.

“We don’t know for sure,” said Garrett. “We’re just speculating as to why we haven’t seen anything after all this time. Doesn’t mean we won’t.”

“Obviously we need to do more. Draw attention to ourselves or we’ll never be found.”

“Devon,” I replied, “we have been doing things. We sent out our own life jackets after it became apparent the other survivors weren’t picked up. They weren’t found, either. We carve notes on as much driftwood as we can spare and send it out regularly. That’s all we can do.”

“No, it’s not. We can make a big raft that’ll be noticed. Nobody’s gonna notice the bits of wood. Boats aren’t going to go out of their way to investigate little pieces like that.”

“Not this again, Devon,” said Garrett. “We’ve already discussed this.”

“Before realizing that’s our only chance, though.”

I took a deep, calming breath before replying. “That’s all the more reason not to do it.”

“That makes no damned sense!”

Goddammit, I didn’t want to be stuck here anymore than he did. But our first priority had to be staying alive and as heathy as possible.

“People floating in life jackets would be pretty eye-catching, Devon. Nobody found them or the life jackets we sent out later before they all sank. Those bodies floated for weeks. We have to consider that when we calculate the risk-versus-potential reward odds of chopping down a tree we rely on for food. We have to think potential long-term. We have to think about Buddy, and that the older he gets, the more he’ll eat. We have to consider that this year looked like a bumper crop, and while we haven’t gone hungry, we haven’t had any to spare, either. It won’t always be a bumper crop. We don’t even know everything we have to consider. We’ve only just discovered that we can’t dry fish worth a damn in the wet season. That means we need to rely heavier on the trees. They’re a finite resource. We can’t start taking them down.”

Devon’s jaw clenched. “Fine. Whatever.” He turned to Garrett. “Let’s go work out a plan for that elevated bed.” Then he stalked off.

“Don’t take it to heart,” said Garrett, talking softly. “You’re right. Felling mature trees we count on for food is a slippery slope we don’t want to start down. He’s young, but he’s not stupid. He’ll come around with experience.”

I nodded. “It’s frustrating. Just because we aren’t willing to risk our health or even lives on a weak odds gamble doesn’t mean we aren’t just as anxious to get off this island as he is. I think about Sam and what he must be going through every single day. It breaks my heart.”

“Hang in there, Henry. They’ll find us. In the meantime, we actually make a great team. Sometimes it’s hard to see through the personality conflicts, but we’re all good people with good intentions, and I know Devon recognizes that as much as you do.”

“I know.” I shook my head. “Hell, I dealt with students in that age range every day at the university, but I tell you, that’s nothing compared to living in these conditions with one. But yes, he’s a good man. He works hard. We all do.”

Garrett winked. “Try raising a couple teenagers if you want a lesson in frustration.” Then he got up and walked toward the eastern beach, presumably for his morning wash-up.