The Cay: Chapters 6–13

Then I heard Timothy's frightened roar, “Sharks,” and he was thrashing about near me.

Timothy answered scornfully, “Dere, look, mahn, look...”

Several small islands tucked up inside great banks of coral that made navigation dangerous was what I finally decided on.

Finally, he said, “True, but we cannot fret 'bout it, can we? We’ll make camp, an’ see what ’appens.”

He was making a hut of dried palm fronds.

"Take me with you, Timothy,” I pleaded.

He stood over me and said, “’Ere, touch dem, dey are still alive.” He was almost crowing over his lobster.

We’d always keep a small fire smoldering up by the hut and if an airplane came near, he’d take a piece of burning wood from our small fire to ignite the big one.

His voice now impatient, he said, “Say somethin’ wid d’rock, wid many rock; eeevery rock be sayin somethin'...."

There was a silence until Timothy broke it with anguish. “Wid d’rock, say ‘help.’”

I felt superior to Timothy that day, but I let him play his little game, pretending not to know that he really couldn’t spell.

He had taken more boards from the top of the raft and had made a large trough that would catch the rain.

The squall wind was in the tops of the palms and I could imagine how they looked in the night sky, thrashing against each other high over our little cay.

Big, fat green coconuts. When we’d landed, there were a few dried ones on the ground, but the meat in them was not very tasty. In a fresher one, there was still some milk, but it was rancid.

“Dey look widout cease,” he said. “Dey stare, Phill-eep.”

Timothy replied vaguely, “Oh, many mont', I do recall."

On one end, to the east, was a low coral reef that extended several hundred yards, awash in many places.

To the south, the beach sloped gradually out into the water.

There were submerged coral reefs and great shelves.

The water became deep very abruptly.

My father had told me about “obediah,” or “voodoo,” in the West Indies. It had come over from Africa, of course. Haiti was the worst of all for it but there was some practice on all the islands. It was mixed up with religion and witch doctors.

Recalling everything that had happened, Timothy said, “He came board d'raff, an’ we got separated from all else; den d’young bahss' eyes got dark, gibbin’ us exceedin’ trouble; den we float up dis hombuggin’ Debil’s Mout’...”

"B’gettin’ his own self a lizzard, mebbe, mebbe,” he answered, but there was something conniving in his voice.

Also in that box were the dry matches we had left, a few pieces of stale chocolate, and small things that Timothy had salvaged from the beach or the raft.

It was no good trying to convince him that jumbi did not exist, nor was there any way to find Stew Cat if Timothy had hidden him.

Maybe I was stranded on a tiny, forgotten island in the Caribbean with a madman.

I knew that if I kept going that way, I’d touch or fall over the length of life-line rope that tethered the raft.

But taking my bearing from the stake, I decided to go out into the water, hoping to find the raft.

The skate is kin to the deadly sea ray, but this one was as shocked as I was and swam off to deep water.

Fever! Malaria! I reached over to touch him. His forehead was burning hot.

Every two feet, Timothy had driven a piece of driftwood deep into the coral crevices so that I could feel them as I went along.

The bottom was sandy, but mostly free of coral so that my hooks would not snag.

If you are blind, the sensation of falling can be terrifying.

Then he told me to feel the hook and slip the mussel bait over the barb.

He’d unraveled a life line from the raft to make single strands for the fishing line.

I'd feel my way along his driftwood stobs, find the hole, pry a mussel loose, and then fish.

He’d listen in fascination, almost speechless.

We talked about how the little coral animals might have been building the foundations of the cay for thousands of years.

Timothy was very impressed, and I felt good that I’d been able to tell him something.

I went up about ten feet and froze. I could not move up or down. My legs and arms were rigid.