by L. H. Hall
Chapter 23
The Dolphins
The last of
the stars had not faded when Sheba nudged me to let me know she had
brought the breakfast. "You're in a hurry, aren't you, Sheba?" I
asked sleepily.
She answered
with a low bark and lay down. They had not waited for me to select
my choice of meat, as usual. I could hear the pups some distance
away arguing over the other carcasses.
I called the
others, and went to dress the rabbit. Sarah stirred up the fire,
and had it burning brightly by the time the meat was ready to cook.
The others were already having their early morning plunge when Sarah
and I joined them.
We did not
stay in the lake, but a few minutes. Sarah returned to the
breakfast preparations while the rest of us packed the bedrolls. We
had decided the night before to leave as early as possible. By the
time the meat was cooked, we were ready, except for eating, and
extinguishing the fire. Jamie and I had even run down to the next
level with the bedrolls, so we could take one last ride down the
water slide when we left.
Sarah sat,
staring across the lake, as she ate her breakfast. "What are you
looking at?" I asked.
"Nothing. I
was just remembering my dream. On this side of the lakes there was
a beautiful park with swings and slides and all kinds of stuff to
climb on, and over there," Sarah pointed across the lakes, "were
houses, a school and a church. Our parents and all of our friends,
and a lot of people we didn't know were here. There must have been
a hundred kids playing in the lakes. It was so real. I almost
cried when I woke up and realized that we were still alone on the
island.
"I have
dreams like that," Jamie admitted. "Sometimes there are so many
kids around, I have to go into the jungle to think and pray."
"I wish I
could have a dream like that." Debbie chewed wistfully on a bone.
"Me too, but
let's go." Julie finished eating, and after excusing herself,
extinguished the fire.
A few
minutes later we were in Crescent Lake again. We stayed in the
shallows near the jungle and followed the rim of the lake to the
left until we emerged at the point. The lake seemed to be a little
shallower than it had the night before. I assumed the tide must be
out. Probably the water level falls and rises with the
tide. There must be an underwater runoff, or maybe it just seeps
through the sand. We still had another hundred yards to go
after we left the lake before we reached the rim that hid the water
in the cove.
Obviously
the sea was at low tide. The water level was way below the high
water marks on the steep sandy banks. The waves coming in were just
lazy swells like big ripples in a lake. There was not a white cap
in sight. I went down the steep bank to check the depth of the
water and found myself in over my head in a moment. The cove was
deep. I figured they might even be able to run a destroyer in at
high tide. Of course, I did not know how deep a destroyer sat in
the water, either.
It was a
quiet, peaceful place. The sound of the surf could be heard only if
we stopped talking and listened for it. It was the kind of place
people on boats might come for a picnic, or to set up a camp while
they harvested fruit or goats from the island if they knew about
them.
I thought I
understood why the goats had not cleaned up the last strip of
jungle. They had no reason to. There was plenty of food on the
terraces above, and Crescent Lake was too salty to drink, so the
goats did not come down further than the last freshwater lake.
Standing at
the high water mark looking back toward the jungle, no one would
ever imagine that Crescent Lake existed, or that there was an easy
water trail to the beautiful Goat Terraces above. I doubted if it
could be seen standing on a large fishing boat. The goats were safe
unless someone started nosing around the jungle that appeared to
come right down to the beach.
It was so
peaceful that when the sun peaked over the trees, I thought about
making camp deep in the cove. It was large enough; we would have
several hours of its torturous rays. I said nothing, and we moved
on down the eastern beach toward the sea.
As the noise
of the surf grew louder, the jungle on our left seemed to thin out,
the beach grew flatter, and the distance between the high water mark
and the water grew wider. When we reached the entrance to the cove,
the water seemed so shallow, I wondered if there was a channel deep
enough for a row boat to enter the cove. I must have walked two
hundred yards out into the entrance before the water reached my
hips. It was getting deeper, and it was still a half mile or so to
the opposite beach, so I decided probably there was such a channel.
We stood
there, looking out over the great expanse of the sea with all its
mysteries, and all its dangers. "It gives me the creeps." Sarah
remembered our ordeal.
"Yeah,"
Jamie agreed. "So much water in one place. I'm sure glad I'm not
out there again."
"Me too."
Julie spoke the sentiments of the rest of us.
"Look!
There are some dolphins." Debbie pointed toward the sea.
"Dolphins."
Sure enough,
a half dozen dolphins were porpoising a hundred feet, or so, off
shore.
"Hi,
dolphins." Julie waved at them. In a moment, six dolphins were
standing on their tails chattering at us.
We all waved
and yelled, "Hi!"
The dolphins
dropped back into the water and disappeared, only to come back out
of the water and momentarily fly through the air, heading west. As
we watched, they alternated swimming and flying and turned into the
cove. We dropped everything and ran after them to where the water
started to deepen. There, the dolphins turned again, and came to
the shore, their heads out of the water chattering at us. One even
hoisted herself half way onto the bank.
Before I
could stop him, taking no precautions, Jamie ran out to them, and
started rubbing one on the back. "Look out for those teeth!" I
yelled. "Those are wild animals! They might want you for lunch."
"No, they
don't. They won't hurt us. They saved our lives. Remember?" He
turned to stroke another one. "Thanks for saving us."
"You can't
be sure, it's the same ones."
"I can."
Sarah went out to pet one. "They wouldn't have come into the cove
and up to the shore if they didn't know us. I think they are
staying around here watching us to make sure we are safe."
"I think
they want us to come and pet them." Debbie started into the water.
"Yeah."
Julie followed.
"Maybe, but
be careful," I relented. What Sarah had said made sense. "No one
can deny they purposely led us back here."
Sheba and
the pups were having a fit, just waiting for me to give the word,
but I calmed them down. They still did not seem to like it, but
stopped barking and eventually relaxed.
The Dolphins
did not even seem to know the dogs were there. They knew the dogs
had to come into their playground to get them, and would not stand a
chance against them in the water.
Jamie had no
fear, and used no more caution than he would have if he were playing
with a puppy. He was right in the water with them. They made no
move to attack him, and showed no fear of him. After a moment the
one who had beached herself slid back into the water, and came up
with Jamie straddling her nose. The others were all chattering at
us like we were old friends.
"I think she
wants to give me a ride." Jamie slid off her nose.
"I had all
the dolphin rides I want!" Sarah backed off.
"Yeah, but
this time she was easy, she didn't hurt." The dolphin had turned
and was lying in the water quietly in front of Jamie as if waiting
for him to get on her back. "I'm gonna try to ride her." He had a
little trouble getting on, but she never moved. It was like she had
been trained. When he had straddled her behind the dorsal fin, she
moved slowly into the cove."
By this time
I had joined them in the water with the animals, who seemed to enjoy
us as much as we did them. Sarah was the next one brave enough to
be taken for a ride. She did not straddle hers. She just hung onto
its dorsal fin, and let it pull her through the water. One by one,
the rest of us joined in the games. Since there was one more
dolphin than there were children, the extra dolphin seemed to be
jealous. She tried to come between us and the ones we were hanging
on to.
Jamie had
found a new game. "Look!" He slid back to the tail of dolphin he
was riding. The dolphin flipped him high into the air and when he
came down in a perfect dive another dolphin was there to swim under
him and repeat the action.
"That looks
fun." I said and slid back to my dolphin's tail. Without warning,
I, too, was flying through the air. Another one was there to pick
me up before I could surface. She came up under me, barely missing
me with her dorsal fin. The girls were a little timid to try it,
but one by one they got the nerve. Julie was the last. She had not
practiced diving much, and was afraid she would belly-flop.
Finally, she too, was getting some diving practice. I was afraid
some of us might collide in the air, but we never came near each
other, or landed near each other. A time or two, I thought my
dolphin purposefully turned so she would not throw me into danger.
The dolphins
never seemed to tire. They were always extremely careful when they
approached us. We had been pulled, ridden and swam all over the
cove without realizing the beaches were getting narrower, and the
water was rising higher. The sun had moved into the western sky
before my stomach began nagging at me. "I am hungry. I wonder how
we tell the dolphins to take us back to shore?"
The playing
stopped. It was as if they had read my mind. We started speeding
toward the entrance to the cove, and in seconds the dolphins were in
shallow water as near our things as possible.
The dogs,
who had been left in the cove, came out yelping; as though,
something was after them.
A moment
later I was getting some jerky out of the pouch on my belt, with my
back to the cove. Wham! Something hit me hard in the back, and
knocked me down. "What was that?" I spun around angrily, thinking
someone had hit me with a belt. A dolphin was chattering at me from
the cove. A fish came flying through the air at me, and another,
and another.
"It looks
like it's fish for lunch," Jamie laughed. "We'd better get some
wood rounded up for a fire. I'm not going to eat mine raw, like
they do in the Philippines."
While the
others went to the jungle for wood, I cleaned a couple of the larger
fish, which was more than we could possibly eat. "I hope it won't
offend you, if I throw the rest of these back. There's no need to
kill more than we can eat." The dolphins did not seem to mind, but
the poor fish were doomed. None of the fish ever saw water again.
One of the dolphins came so far up into the shallows to catch one
fish in the air; she had to wait for another wave before she could
get back into the water.
After lunch,
we nosed around in the edge of the jungle, but did not find anything
of interest. The tide had been receding for an hour or more, when
we walked down the beach to see what the sea had left. We picked up
a few of the very nicest shells.
"Look at
this, Timmy." Debbie handed me a tiny shell with a hole in it.
"May I have a piece of fishing line to make a necklace."
"I'm sure we
can spare enough string for each of you girls to have a necklace if
you can find the shells, but I don't know how I could drill holes in
anything."
"I've seen
quite a few things with holes already in them." Sarah dropped a
piece of shell she had been carrying..
"Momma would
love this beach." I examined an especially nice conch shell.
"Yeah, mine,
too. Let me see that." Sarah reached for the shell. "She always
complains that everybody beats her to the really good stuff on the
beach."
"Momma just
loves to walk the beach when the tide goes out, but she's so busy.
She doesn't get to the beach often."
"We used to
go all the time, when the girls were in school," Julie remembered,
"but there were so many people, we never found anything really
nice."
"They
wouldn't have to worry about people here." I picked up a large sand
dollar, and skipped it across the water.
"Yeah,"
Sarah returned the conch shell to me. "We walk over more pretty
stuff here in a few minutes than most people find in a year in the
Philippines."
So often
when we would do things, we thought about how much, either, our
mothers or dads would enjoy doing them. That always reminded us of
our loneliness, and took all the joy out of the activity.
I thought
about the dream of my family coming to the island, and my decision
not to go with them. That decision bothered me a lot.
I wondered
if I had been so selfish, not wanting our family to be split up,
that I told God in the dream that we did not want to be rescued.
Could that have delayed our discovery? "God," I had prayed many
times the last two days, "please don't let my selfishness keep us
from being found. I don't want that to hold the others prisoner on
this little island." I could never feel the assurance that I was
not responsible for us not being found. I had talked to Sarah about
how guilty I felt. She said it was nonsense, but it did not help
much.
The dream
had seemed so real. I knew it was just a dream, but I still felt
like they had actually been here, and I had sent them away. I could
not forget the pain in my mother's eyes when I told them I did not
want to leave. I wondered if I would ever forget. I wondered if
the other kids would ever forgive me for sending them away, and
giving God the signal that I did not want us to be rescued. Try as
I did; I could not free myself from the guilt. The only thing I
could do was to keep busy, and to keep my mind on something else.
"Let's go
see what's in the jungle." Sarah threw a shell out into the sea.
"Yeah,"
Jamie agreed. "The beach is kind of boring."
"Oh, I dunno,
the dolphins are out there waiting for us." I had lost interest in
exploring. "It wasn't boring this morning, but we can explore the
jungle if you want. It doesn't seem to be too thick down here."
We turned
inland and moved into the edge of the jungle. Having left the
machetes at the camp, we had to pick our way through a little
underbrush. We climbed a small knoll that ran parallel to the coast
and dropped down into a wide, shallow valley leading toward the
southeast point.
"Look!"
Jamie pointed at some redish, tall, thin, sectioned stalks.
"Doesn't that look like sugarcane?"
"It does a
little," I examined a stalk. "but I can't be sure."
"I'll bet I
can tell in a minute." My dad used to buy cane sections for us to
chew on and suck the juice out of. There isn't anything as good as
sugarcane to chew on." Sarah tried to break a stalk off. It would
not break. She tried to pull it out of the ground, and it would not
pull. Finally she pulled a stalk over, broke off the little spikes,
smashed a section between a couple rocks, and licked off some of the
juice.
"I sure hope
that isn't poison." I watched her fearfully.
"It is pure
delicious sugar." She licked her lips.
I tasted the
sap. "Now that we have the sugar cane, how do we make sugar?"
"I don't
know?" Sarah thought for a few seconds. "What if we chop it up and
boil it? Do you think that would get the juice out?"
"It might.
Lets try it." I did not have any better ideas.
I ran back
to camp; got a machete, and within a few minutes we had cut the rock
hard outer bark from the sugar cane, and had a canteen cup filled
with small chunks of the soft inner pulp and water sitting in the
coals of the fire. We had not even thought about how we would get
the cup out of the fire once it got hot. It was not long until
water was boiling away. There was less and less liquid in the cup
every minute. When It came time to remove it from the fire we
realized that we had a problem. I finally took two machetes, put
one under the handle, and the other on the other side of the cup,
and carried it that way to the edge of the ocean and let the ocean
water cool it.
We were
disappointed with the outcome. We had a sticky mess, but little
syrup, and it wasn't as sweet as we had hoped. The cane slivers
were delicious and easier to chew than they had been before they
were cooked. It was Jamie's idea to crush the cane in the cup to
get more juice. I found a dry stick two inches in diameter and
flattened on one end to tamp the cane in the cup. In a minute we
had a thick sweet syrupy mess with a lot of sugarcane pulp in it.
We acted
like we were starved the way we kept sticking our hands into the goo
and licking our fingers, but it was the first sugar we had tasted
since we arrived.
Sarah sat
looking at the cup of sticky syrup, or what was left of it for a
long time. Finally she said, "We need something to strain it
through. Maybe when we get home, we can put some holes in one of
the extra canteen cups. Then when we tamp the cane in the holey
cup, he syrup will run through into another cup, but the sticks
won't."
"That's a
good idea," I agreed "but how are we going to handle the hot cup to
take it out of the fire?"
"Momma used
to use a towel or hot pads to take stuff off the stove." Debbie
dipped her fingers into the cup again.
"Yeah, but
we don't have anything like that," I argued.
"One of
those blankets we got up on the mountain has some holes in it,"
Sarah suggested. "We can make some hot pads out of it."
"Then all we
have to do is pack all this sugar cane up to the cave," Jamie
complained.
"No we won't," Sarah planned. "We can come down
here and camp up at the fourth lake. We can bring some buckets to
get fresh water and come right down here and spend a day or two
making syrup, and have fun at the same time. We'll have a fun place
to swim, and if the dolphins are around, we can play with them in
the cove. All we'll have to carry back is the syrup."
"I suppose
that would be another excuse for a holiday from school." I
murmured.
"Well, it
would be nice, but if you want to be an old stick-in-the-mud, we can
have school down here."
"If we come
very often, I'll have to be an old stick-in-the-mud. What is a
stick-in-the-mud, anyway?" I asked.
"That's what
my grandma calls Grandpa when he won't give in and let her do what
she wants. It's like something is stuck in the mud, and you can't
get it out."
"That's
liable to be me, if we come down here too often. Lets go back into
the jungle and see what else we can find."
"I'm
thirsty, and my canteen is empty." Julie tried to get a drink.
"Mine too."
Debbie checked her canteen. "That saltwater made me thirsty all
afternoon."
"Well, let's
run back to the lakes and see how fast we can fill our canteens." I
was thirsty too, and we had used my water to boil the sugarcane.
The
dolphins, who had been watching us and chattering all afternoon,
headed for the cove when we started after water. "They must want to
play some more," Sarah observed.
"Can we play
with them again?" Julie ran ahead toward the fresh water.
"Maybe after
a while, but first, let's check the valley out where we found the
sugarcane. I want to see if there is any water. If there isn't,
we're going to have to be very careful of our water, tomorrow, until
we find some. What we take from here may have to last until we get
back to the cave."
We did not
go all the way around the beach, but turned east into the jungle at
the point of Crescent Lake. The underbrush was a little thicker at
that point, but we were able to cut our way through easily, and
within a hundred feet or so it thinned out so we did not have to do
much cutting. We headed at an angle that would take us to the south
coast for a while, but then turned inland toward the ridge. I did
not have any particular reason. I just wanted to see what was up
there. Sheba did not like it. Her hair bristled, and she continued
to whine, but I continued in the direction I was going. I was
stupid, but I wanted to see what was making Sheba so nervous. Sarah
wanted to go the other direction, but she and Jamie stayed behind me
with their machetes ready in case we were attacked. The only thing
I could think of was wild dogs or pigs. Either could be very
dangerous. Sheba stopped; teeth bared, growling deep within her
throat. The pups stood alert, not knowing whether to run or stand
their ground. They were all looking at the same point in the
brush. I could see nothing or hear nothing.
"Can anyone
see what they are looking at?" I asked softly
"No," came a
whispered answer from all of them at once.
"Let's get
out of here." There was a real fear in Sarah's voice. "Remember we
have to take care of the younger ones."
"All right,
Back away really slowly, and quietly.
As we backed
up, Sheba and the pups backed up with us, never taking their eyes
from the spot in the bushes. It looked like they were expecting
something to spring out from between two bushes, but nothing
happened. We backed off slowly for as much as fifty feet before we
turned cautiously and went in a southeasterly direction toward the
beach. We never knew what made Sheba and the pups so excited. As
soon as we changed direction, Sheba was her normal, happy self
again. We made up our minds that in the future we would heed the
dog's warnings, and not get ourselves into that kind of danger.
That experience destroyed any desire for more exploration for that
day.
As we
approached the sea, the terrain to the east started to climb, and we
found a small stream. It did not look like it would be very
dependable if we went a day or two without rain. We hoped that it
would rain if we did not find a better place to fill our canteens.
When we got
to the beach, we were within fifteen or twenty minutes of the
southeastern point of the island. We were all curious what we would
find when we got there, but the next day was the big day for Jamie
so we decided to keep him in suspense. It might be just a drab old
sandy beach, or it might be something really beautiful and exciting.
The dolphins
were there to greet us. They followed us up the beach. "May I go
out and ride one up to the cove?" Jamie ran to the water's edge.
"I don't
know if I trust them that much." I was hesitant. The ocean was
different from the sheltered cove. "What if you get washed out to
sea?"
"They saved
us once," he argued. "You don't really think they would let
anything happen to me now, do you?
"I suppose
it will be all right." I wanted a second opinion. "What do you
think, Sarah?"
"It won't
hurt anything." Debbie joined in. "They are going the same
direction we are."
"Please!"
Jamie begged.
"Let's all
do it," Julie suggested.
"We've got
these belts and the machetes." I was still skeptical of going out
in the open sea. I wouldn't want to take a chance on losing the
belts or hurting the dolphins with the knives."
"Can me and
Jamie and Julie ride, and you and Sarah take our junk?" Debbie
held her utility belt out to me.
"What'll we
do if they take you out to sea and dump you?" I looked for Sarah's
nod.
"They won't
do that, silly." Julie laughed at the idea of not trusting the
dolphins.
"They are
wild animals, you know. You can't really trust them."
"Yes we
can. They're our friends." Debbie argued.
"Sarah?"
She had not seen my questioning look. I had decided they would be
all right, but if anything happened to one of the girls, I wanted
her to have expressed her feelings about it.
"I think
they will be all right. I'm not afraid to trust the dolphins after
this morning. Like Jamie said, they saved us once; they wouldn't
hurt us now."
"All right,
but stay off their tails. I took Debbie's belt. "I don't want you
flying through the air until we all get to the cove."
As soon as
the kids were in deep enough water the dolphins came to them, and
let them mount, and away they went, up the beach and back again,
always within sight and calling distance. Then, without warning,
Jamie turned out to sea for about a hundred yards before he started
coming back in a zigzag fashion. "Hey! All ya gotta do is lean the
direction ya wanna go and they'll turn."
The girls
quite obviously started leaning because their dolphins started
changing directions.
"You sure
surprised me." I slipped two of the three extra belts over my head.
"Why? How?"
"By letting
the girls go out in the open sea. Just a few weeks ago you were
panicked by it."
"I didn't
have the peace in my life that I have now, and we hadn't made
friends with the little whales that saved our lives. I am as
comfortable with the kids out there as I am when they go to the
jungle bathroom with the dogs."
"I wish I
were."
"Relax,
worry wart. Do you remember saying that God gives you the answers
to questions you don't have the answer to?"
"I
remember."
"I think He
gave me an answer like that when I prayed for one."
"About the
kids out there riding the dolphins?"
"No, silly.
About getting the syrup from the sugarcane, and how to strain it and
all that stuff."
"Yeah,
that's possible, but why do you think it?"
"I kinda
felt like I ought to be the one to do it, but I didn't know how. I
asked Jesus, and suddenly I had the answer. When it boils, all the
water turns to steam. If we let it boil long enough, all that'll be
left will be the syrup."
"How do you
know that?"
"Momma told
me about the water turning to steam. That's what the smoky stuff is
coming out of a teakettle, but Jesus made me remember it about the
syrup."
"Do you
think maybe that would help us get salt out of sea water faster?" I
wiped the perspiration from my eyes.
"Do you mean
boil it 'til all the water is gone?"
"I guess
so."
"I think it
will work. Sure it will. When I boil meat in salt water, there's
always some salt left in the pan to wash out.
"I'm going
to try that tonight. I'm going to put my canteen cup full of sea
water in the fire. When the water boils out, I'll fill it up again
until bedtime, and see how much salt I have in the cup."
"It'll
work. I know it will"
"You've got
a lot of confidence."
"Didn't you
tell me that if I needed to know something and Jesus gave me the
answer, I would be confident?"
"Yes, I did,
Sarah. I am glad you are starting to hear His voice."
"I feel so
good and so warm when I feel Him near me." Sarah crossed her arms
and squeezed herself. "Sometimes its almost like my own daddy is
wrapping his big arms around me to keep me safe and comfortable."
"I know."
When we got
to camp, I added wood to the coals and put a canteen cup of sea
water in the fire. Then Sarah and I joined the others who were
waiting for us in the cove.
I jumped
into the water and was about to climb on a dolphin who was waiting
patiently for me, when another one sneaked up behind me. She caught
me with her nose and flipped me up over the other one to land on my
back with a big splash. When I got straightened out and on my feet
again, they were both chattering away like they were laughing at me.
"I think
they're mad at you 'cause you didn't ride up here on them." Jamie
sailed by on his ride.
About that
time I was flying through the air again, but this time I landed in
the deep. One came up under me, and I went for the ride of my
life. The dolphin swam full speed straight out of the cove into the
open sea at least a half mile. Then she whirled around so fast, I
almost fell off, and we headed back to the cove. It was fun, but I
must say, it was more fun heading back than going out. When we got
back, all the kids and the dolphins were laughing at me. There, she
slowed almost to a stop until I relaxed. Then, without warning she
took off again. I slid back to her tail, and she flipped me. I
must have flown through the air at least fifty feet that time.
Another one was there to pick me up. They were all still laughing
at me.
"All right!
All right! I'm sorry! I should have trusted you, and let you carry
all that dumb stuff up here."
The one that
had taken me out to sea, stood on her tail chattering for a few
seconds, and settled down. They must have accepted my apology. The
tricks and teasing stopped. After that, they waited for me to slide
back on their tails before they would flip me.
They
definitely had a sense of humor. If we were in the water, and not
on another dolphin, we never knew when one might flip us
unexpectedly with her nose and laugh at us, but never did one
intentionally hurt us.
Even a new
and joyful experience like playing with the dolphins grows tiring.
When Sheba stood on shore, barking to let us know she had brought
our supper, we were ready to do something else. That is, all except
Jamie, who continued to play with them until supper was ready. I
think even the dolphins were ready for a break, because when Jamie
came to supper, the dolphins left the cove and we did not see them
again that night.
"Do you
think maybe these dolphins were trained to play with people, and
escaped from their trainers?" I took a bite of meat."
"Why would
you ask that?" Sarah had a puzzled expression on her face.
"They're
wild animals. You don't just go up to a wild dolphin, or any other
animal, and jump on its back and go for a ride. It's totally
unrealistic."
"They aren't
wild!" Jamie was indignant at the suggestion. "They're our
friends."
"I know." I
argued. "That's what is so unrealistic. Why?"
Debbie wiped
her mouth on her hand. "I think they are the ones that saved us."
"Yeah, I
think so too; but even so, why would they be so tame and spend hours
playing with us?
Sarah had
not said anything, or acted like she even wanted to get into the
discussion. She just sat there listening, and I would bet she was
praying about it. "Sarah," I asked, "what do you think?"
"I do not
know. I hadn't thought about it until you asked the question." She
spoke slowly, thinking about what she would say next. "I agree that
they are the ones that saved us. You're right. It is unrealistic
for wild animals to act that way. Maybe they know we are just kids
and feel responsible for us. Maybe they have adopted us. That's
the only explanation I can think of."
"You may be
right, but answer this question. Why did they treat me so rough
when I got into the water a while ago? It was fun, but I was scared
to death she was going to dump me out there in the middle of the
sea, and leave me."
"Silly,
Timmy, you're really silly." Julie put her canteen down, laughing.
"She wouldn't do that."
"I think
it's because you didn't ride up the coast with us." Jamie filled
his empty dish with sand and scrubbed it.
"Neither did
Sarah."
"Yeah, but,
I'm a girl, an' I'm littler than you."
"Do you
think they care about that?"
"I don't
know, but I'm glad they didn't throw me as far as they did you when
you came back into the cove."
"I think
they knew it was you who didn't trust them." Jamie shook the sand
from his dish.
"It's my
place not to trust'em. I gotta look out for your safety. Besides,
how could they know that?"
"Animals can
sense things like that. Daddy always said not to be afraid when I'm
around strange animals, 'cause, they will smell it." Debbie chewed
the meat off a small bone. "Maybe they smelled your fear."
"I wonder if
they smelled my fear when I was flying through the air?"
"Did you
notice? There was a dolphin right where you landed before she ever
threw you." Sarah threw a bone to Prince. "If she hadn't moved,
you would have hit her."
"I didn't
know that, but I knew I was picked up almost as soon as I hit the
water."
"As
unrealistic as it may be, I think we can trust the dolphins to take
care of us when we are in the water. Maybe even more than we can
trust Sheba in the jungle." Sarah's faith in the dolphins was
without reservation.
"I wonder if
they would take us on their backs to someplace where there are
people." Julie's question was a ray of hope to all of us.
"I don't
know." I seriously considered her question, and decided it would
not be wise to try. "They brought us here. It's a very long way to
another island. "Remember we couldn't see any land from up on top
of the mountain even with the big telescope. It must be over a
hundred miles to the nearest land. I don't think they would take us
that far. It would be too dangerous for us, and they would get too
tired."
About dark I
let the water boil until the cup was dry. I had taken breaks during
the afternoon to keep it filled. The inside of the cup was covered
with a thick film of salt. I had gotten as much in one afternoon as
I did in three or four days at the salt rock. "Look, Sarah." I
showed her the salt. "Maybe we can make salt and syrup at the same
time,"
"We'd even
get more, faster, if we boiled it in a bigger pan. Maybe we can
bring that big pot that we sometimes use for a stool down here and
leave it just for that. It's too big for anything else. I've
always wondered why Mr. Wilcox had it."
"I hope I
don't have to carry it down here." Jamie unrolled his bedroll.
"That thing's heavy."
"Two of us
can carry it, and we can take turns." I carefully folded the salt
in a leaf and deposited in the pouch with my jerky. "We can get it
down here. It won't be too bad."
"Maybe it
will float and we can ride a dolphin and pull it." Debbie helped
Sarah make the bed.
"That's
thinking." I patted her on the back. "But maybe the dolphins will
think differently." It was a light night. The moon was
high overhead before the stars added their brilliance to the dark
canopy. After the last few nights on the dark, terraces, it was
nearly too light to sleep; and the sound of the surf, that we
weren't used to, did not help much either. It had been a long,
exciting day. We were tired, and soon entered into the world of
dreams.
Copyright 1995
by
Leonard H. Hall, Sr.