WEBB CAME AWAKE with the sun in his eyes. He frowned up at the glinting sun rays through the matted vines that laced the trees together and wondered why Krayer hadn’t wakened him at dawn.
He blinked, rolled his head. There was no sign of Krayer in the clearing. The sun must have been up at least two hours. He gave up thinking about Krayer and stretched out again. He had forgotten it was so pleasant to have nothing in the world to do.
He stayed relaxed only a moment and then the thought and the smell and the nearness of Fran struck him. He pulled himself up and leaned against the palm.
Fran was asleep across the clearing. Her face was under the matted roofing of vines where cool shadows must have been like night.
For a long time he remained motionless staring at her. Her tattered dress was high along the firm roundness of her thigh. She was the loveliest woman he’d ever seen, lying with her face in the shadows and her long legs stretching into the sunlight.
To look at her like that was torture. Even her deep regular breathing thrust her breasts against the faded fabric and made him shake in his stomach wanting her. She sighed in her sleep, turning a little, her body pushed out toward him like a warm, early morning invitation.
He pushed higher against the tree, feeling his throat go tight. He looked around again for Krayer and held his breath, listening. The waves lapped against the sand, a bird cried in the jungle. There was no other sound. He could hear her breathe across the clearing.
Get up, he told himself, get up and walk away from here. Hell, he thought, where is the man who could do that? I was born human and nothing more. Having her near all these days and nights, knowing what she would be like, and knowing he couldn’t have her. It was like starting an insatiable thirst inside him.
She’s over there, he thought, wanting me as badly as I want her. And where was Krayer? What did it matter? What mattered except quenching the thirst that was killing him? What if he quenched it in his own blood? He couldn’t think of a better way to die.
His fingernails dug into his palms. No. He couldn’t deceive himself that Alfred Krayer would kill him, not as long as Krayer needed him to survive on this island. Alfred had probably already devised in his mind a torture for them.
He started to get up. He had to get out of here, stay away until Krayer came back.
She sat up, bracing herself on her elbows. Her dark blonde hair was tousled about her sleep-warm face.
She smiled. “Hello.”
He just stared at her. He didn’t answer. There wasn’t anything to say; there wasn’t any need to say anything. “Where’s Krayer?” she said. He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“How long have you been awake?”
“I don’t know. Not long.”
She smiled crookedly. “And you’re still way over there.” She pushed herself up.
“No. Fran. Stay there.”
She pushed her fingers through her hair. He watched her breasts pull up taut when she lifted her arm.
“How much longer, Webb?”
“I’m not going to get you hurt.”
She tipped her tongue across her lips. “I guess there are different kinds of hurt, Webb.”
He looked at his hands. They trembled.
“If you must be hurt,” he said, voice low, “I’d rather do it — not him.”
“Yes.” He watched her hand move along her bare leg toward him. As though she were reaching for him, as though she could touch him across the sunlit clearing.
“I liked watching you sleep,” he said.
She glanced up. “Don’t be nice to me,” she said.
“I’m not being nice. I’m being selfish and crazy and sick in my guts. I never wanted anybody before. I never even knew what it was to want.”
“There was never anything like this, Webb. Not for me.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Do you wish I wouldn’t tell you that?” she said.
“No. I’m glad. I just look at you. I just wonder: would it be like this, would you want me … off this island?”
A smile tugged at her lips. “Anywhere.”
He picked up a handful of sand, balled it in his fist. “I saw you when you got on the plane.”
“Yes. I saw you looking at me. You’d been celebrating. You must have had a terrible hangover.”
He shook his head. “I drank because even then I still wasn’t sure. You know? I was cutting off everything I’d ever known or ever been. As Krayer said, I was throwing over everything. Maybe I was being a damned fool. Looking for something nobody was ever going to find. So I drank, to be sure I got on that plane.”
“I’m glad you did,” she said. She lifted her eyes, staring at him. “When I got the sunstroke, I didn’t want to live. If you hadn’t been here, I wouldn’t have.”
He tried to smile. “I don’t know what I’m complaining about. I got my island … and you. More than I ever dreamed.”
Her voice broke. “I can’t go on like this, Webb. We’ve got to do something. I want to touch you and I can’t even touch you. If I could touch you it would be better.”
He smiled, shook his head. “No, it would be worse.”
She shook her head, pulling herself up on her knees. “No. If once in a while, I could just touch you — ”
A twig snapped out beyond the rim of the clearing.
Millar sprang to his feet, feeling the anger and hatred congealing in the pit of his stomach. He stared around the clearing, thinking, This is what I’ve been waiting for, a moment when I no longer cared if I broke his face or smashed his ribs. And damn his soul, now I don’t care.
As he ran he grabbed up a length of driftwood.
Fran cried, “Webb!”
He didn’t hesitate. He went into the matted foliage, thrusting the vines and limbs aside.
He came directly upon Krayer. He moved so swiftly that the man was just straightening up from behind the wild fern where he’d been crouching.
“You damned, spying — ”
Webb had the driftwood raised. He stopped, staring at the knife glinting at the end of the harpoon.
Krayer’s face was white, his pale eyes distended. He drew back the harpoon. His teeth were bared and there wasn’t a sign of sanity about him.
“Get back,” he said. “Get back.” He brandished the harpoon, jabbing at Webb.
Webb stumbled backward with Krayer crowding him. When he had retreated into the clearing, he stopped, the breath coming fast. He stared at Krayer moving out into the sunlight after him.
His voice was hoarse. “What are you looking for, Krayer? What are you trying to do?”
“Shut up,” Krayer said, speaking through clenched teeth. A pulse throbbed in his temple. Sweat stood on his face. “I know what you two have been up to.”
Fran got slowly to her feet. “You’ve gone insane, Alfred.”
“Have I?” He heeled around, shouting at her. “Well, if I have, it’s because of you. I know about you two. I’ve known. From the very first I’ve known. On the raft. You never fooled me. But now you think you can. Oh, I know how clever you think you are, Fran. You think I can’t see you planning it with him? Think you’ll fool me by being careful before my face, sneaking around behind my back, waiting until I’m asleep, waiting until I’m working.”
They just stared at him. They didn’t speak. He screamed at them, daring them to deny it, daring them to speak at all.
“Oh, you’ve been careful,” he said. “But you’ve overplayed it. You’ve been too careful. I haven’t been fooled.”
Fran stared at him another moment and suddenly laughed.
At the sound of her laughter, Krayer went wild. He began to tremble violently like a reed in a hurricane. His hand shook so badly he dropped the harpoon.
“Stop it!” he yelled at her.
She just looked at him and went on laughing, tears welling deep in her brown eyes, brimming them and toppling down her cheeks.
Krayer clutched up the harpoon, jerked his arm upward over his head and lunged at her.
Webb moved without knowing what he did. He leaped forward, shouting, and as Krayer turned, he brought the driftwood down across his head. Krayer took one more long step toward Fran, stumbled to his knees and pitched forward into the sand.
He struck the dirt on his face and lay still. At first Webb stood stock still, sure that Krayer was unconscious. Then he saw his shoulders move and his hands dig into the sand.
He heard the sob start deep in Krayer’s belly, and he felt an attack of pity for the man that went all the way through him. He and Fran weren’t the only ones being tortured on this island, and he knew he faced a problem without an answer — because there wasn’t anything any of them could do about it.
He turned slowly and strode away, leaving Krayer crying into the dirt at Fran’s feet.