“It’s better to wait for the sunrise. We barely have any oil left for lanterns and we should preserve our batteries. In the morning we’ll look, but right now let me take you to bed.”
“To bed as in…?” I leaned into him, inviting him for a kiss.
“Follow me and you’ll find out.” He kissed the words into my lips.
ChapterTwenty-Three
At the picnic table, over fruit salad and cups of coconut milk (undeniable proof that I was a changed woman), Hunter and I discussed where we should start our search.
“I assume I’d be okay if a snake bit me again, but I think I’d rather avoid it if I can,” I said.
“I’ll search the black rocks alone, and you can explore the surrounding area.”
“Or we, and by that, I mean you, could try to remove all the twisting beasts out of the way first, and we can look together. Didn’t you say you have some special stick to catch them?”
“It’s broken.”
“Well, what about this?” I pointed at his three-pronged fishing spear. “You can hit the snakes with that.”
Hunter arched an eyebrow. “We are not killing snakes.” He stepped around the fire pit and dropped his used mug into the tub with water. “Let’s look in the shed and see what we can find.”
On the way there, we foraged in the jungle until we picked two long, sturdy branches. Inside the shed, we collected two ten-gallon buckets with lids, a gardening hand trowel, an extra hammer, and a large shovel.
At the rocks, Hunter began searching for nasty creatures. I stayed in the knee-high water, in a ready-to-missile-out-of-there position, in the event a rogue snake escaped and swam to me. I assumed the snakes knew how to swim, at least for a short distance, otherwise Darwin’s law would have taken care of them in the last two hundred years. And it was great that it didn’t because we wouldn’t have figured out the riddle.
The bucket sat on a lower rock, and, using the sticks, Hunter tried to pick up a snake and drop it into the container. Each time he pulled one up, it fell. At first, Hunter cursed under his breath, but by the end he shouted all kinds of profanity, jumping backward like a mongoose in a dance with a cobra.
Twenty minutes later, we had only one snake secured under the lid. Hunter tossed the stick, shifted between rocks, and bent. He cursed, then rose back up, gripping two snakes by their necks, their bodies twisting over his arm. He opened the lid and shook them off into the bucket, then shut the lid back down. Blood dripped off his arm.
The crushing panic knocked the breath out of me. I rushed to him, but I stopped by the bucket as he opened it and dropped another snake.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Never been better. Grab another one of these buckets from the shed. Take this one to the beach.”
I grimaced when he handed me the bucket. The top was secured—I hoped—but my breakfast threatened to make a second appearance.
“Please don’t catch any more until I’m back,” I said. “Rest a bit.”
I returned as fast as possible with another ten-gallon drum, and Hunter repeated his bare-hands-catching technique. Nine snakes later, Hunter checked the area for more but couldn’t find any. He extended his bloody hand to me and helped me climb the rocks. Both of his arms and ankles bled, and the spot between his thumb and index finger had bloody holes.
“Hunter, you got…” I counted all the bites, “six doses of?—”
“I’ll be okay.” Hunter pressed his back against a wall. “I just need a minute.” He closed his eyes and exhaled heavily.
“You aren’t okay.”
“Nah, just give me a few to rest.” He slid down and dropped his head to his knees.
I took the third bucket to the beach and then climbed over the rocks where Hunter was. “You should’ve listened to me and brought your fishing pole. Snakes are nasty animals.”
Hunter didn’t answer, just groaned from pain or maybe from my nagging. I sat next to him and stroked his back. Lazy waves lapped over the rocks with a steady pulse, and the warm breeze carried the scent of the salt. We remained there for some time, Hunter resting while I stared into the sea, the blue, cloudless skies above promising of a nice day.
When the blood stopped running down Hunter’s legs and hands, we started by throwing the smaller stones into the sea. Some of Hunter’s wounds started bleeding again. With all the manageable rocks out of the way, we studied the area. Nothing looked out of place, and we tried to think of where Captain William Thompson may have hidden the fortune.
“You think it could be under this enormous stone?” Hunter pointed at two giant stone slabs. I shrugged and handed him the hammer and the large screwdriver.
No matter how many times Hunter smashed it, the block stayed in one piece. He dropped the tools, positioned his back against a rock wall, planted his feet on the stone, and pushed. The slab gave in and moved a fraction of an inch. I joined him, and together, we forced it off its spot, but not far enough to easily see what was under it. The water spilled from under the slab each time a new wave hit.
