Free The Killing Sea by Richard Lewis Page B

scooped water out of the hull before she set the sail again. The boat headed for a cluster of small hills rising from the distant shoreline. She couldn’t recall if Malibu, or however it was pronounced, had such hills, but that didn’t matter. Wherever she landed, there were bound to be people who would help.
    Did they know yet about the disaster that had swept Tiger Island?
    She and Peter shared another coconut. He drank the slightly sweet milk, sipping between bouts of coughing.
    â€œWe’re almost there,” she said. “We’ll get you to a doctor and then I’ll go back and look for Dad. Lie down. You need to rest.”
    Peter didn’t argue. He curled up around the sail post. Sarah adjusted the leaves over him, protecting him from the sun.
    The blue of the sea changed back again to shades of mottled brown. The boat bumped into an object. A man, floating facedown. She seized the closest arm. Cold and pudgy. With a shiver, she let go. Several more bodies bobbed into view, another man and two women. The man was shirtless, the women partially nude. The last one had her arm over something. The boat’s bow wake rolled over her, and her arm slid off the bundle. A small girl.
    Sarah put a hand to her mouth to stop from crying out. She no longer thought a boat had sunk. She was beginning to suspect the truth. The boat sailed through the awful flotsam of several more bodies and other odd debris. A round yellow water tank. Cushions. A floating fridge. An upside-down table, with a body crumpled on top of it. The body stirred and croaked for help. Sarah let the sail flutter and paddled back in a hard circle to come alongside the table. She helped the woman slither into the hull. Her sarong and blouse were ripped, her head-dress skewed. Once in the hull, the woman didn’tmove, breathing shallowly and licking her cracked lips. Sarah began to cut open a coconut to give her something to drink.
    A sharp flare of life returned to the woman’s dried-out gaze. She seized the machete from Sarah’s hands and in seconds had chopped open the coconut. She guzzled the nut, shaking it for the last remaining drops. “ Terima kasih ,” she said to Sarah, thanking her. She seemed to have no curiosity at all about why a white girl would be sailing a small fisherman’s boat hardly bigger than a canoe. The woman squatted to eat the meat, and when that was done, she picked up one of the banana leaves draped over the front of the boat to stare for a moment at Peter. She carefully replaced the leaf and gave Sarah a brief, sympathetic look. She said something that Sarah didn’t understand.
    â€œI need to find a doctor for him,” Sarah told her.
    The wind had shifted. The boat would land well south of the hills. The shore drew nearer. Sarah eyed the shoreline, a long stretch of gray sand, surf foaming at its edge.
    The banana leaves stirred, and Peter sat up. The woman shrieked, a hand clasped to her throat as she stared with fright at Peter.
    â€œOh,” Sarah said, with sudden understanding. “He wasn’t dead, just sleeping.” She put her handstogether and rested her cheek on them to illustrate. “Sleeping.”
    The woman relaxed and studied Peter. She scooted forward on the hull’s floorboards and gave him a hug. He was drowsily confused at first, but then leaned against her. She felt his forehead, her brow furrowing at his fever. She said something to Sarah, clearly a question, but Sarah could only shrug and say, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re saying.”
    Several minutes later there came into view a man pedaling a children’s stern-wheel boat, the kind she’d played on during summer camps at Cloud Lake. This particular boat, done up in bright yellows and reds, had a smiling fiberglass Mickey Mouse standing behind the seat as a Venice gondolier. The driver’s right cheek was swollen with an ugly purple bruise. His unblinking