Kaya Stormchild (9 page)

“
What the
-
?!
” gasped
Spencer, staggering backwards in the water. He clutched his head as
if it ached. “Look at the thing! It’s …it’s…come alive!”

“
Just get it,
you idiot!” shrieked Rex from the boat.

With a grunt,
Spencer propelled himself forward, splashing noisily through the
water.

“
Josh,”
yelled Kaya. “We can’t let him have it! “

For a moment
the two children stood transfixed on the beach. The sound of the
shell pummelled their ears. They both felt unable to
move.

Spencer
stopped, too, still knee-deep in the waves. “I can’t!” he gasped.
“It hurts!”

“
You get that
shell, or you’ll regret it for the rest of you life you idiot!”
shouted his companion from the boat.

With a loud
curse, Spencer staggered to shore. He was wearing heavy black
cowboy boots that sloshed water with every step.

“
Back off,
you brats!” he shouted at the children, stumbling forward in his
soggy boots. Then for the first time he recognized Josh. Spencer
stopped abruptly.

“
You!” he
snarled. “The little deaf kid, eh? Liar! You got off easy last
time, but if you know what’s good for you, you’d better scram! That
shell is mine!”

“
It is not!”
shouted Josh, breaking all at once into a run.

Spencer and
Josh lunged towards the shell. The drumming sound was deafening,
but with a huge effort of will Kaya forced herself forward. Her
head was spinning she could barely see. Time seemed to pass in slow
motion. She was aware of Spencer just ahead of her, swaying and
pitching like a drunkard. He seemed about to fall. Josh had slumped
to his feet with his head in his hands, moaning. Kaya felt as if
she were swimming through air. Slowly, very slowly she approached
the shell as if through thick dense water.

Kaya watched
her own hands reach out for the shell. The light from its
shimmering interior burst outwards, like an exploding rainbow.
Gently, she closed her fingers around its smooth, pulsating
surface, as she might cup an injured animal.

Then suddenly,
time lurched into high speed once more. She heard a loud,
deep-throated snarl from Spencer, and felt herself knocked aside by
a powerful blow that took the breath from her lungs. As she fell,
she saw Josh lunge forward and tackle Spencer around the legs. The
man crashed to the ground like a felled tree.

“
I’ve got
it!” shouted Josh. He scooped up the shell and clutched it tightly
in his arms.

“
Run, Josh,
run! Get to the boat!” yelled Kaya.

“
Not so fast,
boy!” came Spencer’s growling voice. He kicked viciously at Josh
from where he lay on the pebbles, causing the boy’s knees to
buckle. Josh cried out in pain and let go of the shell. It rolled
away down the beach, like a ball of lightning, sending showers of
sparks as it went.

Kaya, who had
had the wind knocked out of her, sat up, gasping for air. Spencer
was back on his feet, leaning over Josh. She saw him aim another
deadly kick at the boy with the sharp, pointed toe of his
boot.

A blind fury
seized Kaya. She leaped up and threw herself, screaming, onto the
scrawny man’s back, gripping him tightly around the neck with both
arms, so that Spencer began choking and gagging. He staggered a few
steps. Then he began to swing around violently, trying to shake
Kaya from his back, but Kaya clung to him like a limpet. Tike
snarled and screamed at their feet. He was unable to get his teeth
into Spencer’s ankles through the heavy boots, but twice he managed
to leap up and nip the man’s knees, driving Spencer into an even
greater frenzy.

“
Leave Josh
alone!” Kaya shouted in Spencer’s ear. She gave a final powerful
squeeze with her arms, which were strong from years of padding the
canoe. Then she leapt free. Spencer dropped to the sand,
semi-conscious, his breath coming in thin rasps.

Kaya turned
around to catch sight of the Duchess, not more than twenty feet
away. She was holding the shelll high over her head. Light pulsed
from it like a strobe.

But behind
her, Rex was barreling up the beach. His huge body dripped from his
plunge into the water.

“
Watch out!”
screamed Kaya.

The Duchess
swung around and held up her hand.

“
Stop!” she
said commandingly.

Rex paused,
startled, a few feet away. The old woman’s slender, stooping frame
looked almost comically frail next to his massive one.

“
This is not
for you, my friend,” she said in a clear, steady voice. “You don’t
know what you are meddling with here.”

Rex’s flat,
high-pitched laugh scraped the air.

“
A little old
lady, a couple of kids and a slimy-looking dog. Think you can tell
me what I’m allowed to meddle with? Going to send me to my room
without any supper, Granny? Hah!”

He took a step
forward, looming menacingly over the Duchess.

“
Give it
here, you old hag,” he squealed.

“
No,” said
the old woman steadily. “You don’t understand. So much is at stake.
This must go back to its rightful place or -”

But she wasn’t
allowed to finish. Rex whipped a knife from his belt and lunged
towards the old woman.

“
Don’t!”
shouted Kaya

“
No!”
shrieked Josh at the same moment from where he lay on the
sand.

But it was too
late. They saw the old woman crumple to the sand, clutching her
arm. The shell rolled out of her grasp and down towards the water.
Rex was after it in a second. He pulled off his dirty white t-shirt
and wrapped it around the shimmering object. Then, tucking the
pulsating bundle under his arm he waded to the boat, which was
still floating in the shallows. His huge naked belly jiggled as he
clambered aboard.

“
Hurry, you
idiot!” he shouted at Spencer, who was finally staggering to his
feet.

“
And as for
you lot,” he hissed, “I’m gonna make sure you don’t meddle with us
again. Grab that canoe, Spencer! We’re going to take it for a
little ride.”

Limping,
Spencer dragged the red canoe by its rope over to the boat. As if
frozen, Kaya watched mutely as the two men fired up the motor and
sped off down the bay, towing the canoe behind them. The urgent
drumming subsided gradually to a dull, distant pulse, then
disappeared. The shimmering light faded from the air, and with it
all hope ebbed from Kaya’s heart. She closed her eyes and sank to
the sand. She felt drained, as if a plug had been pulled deep
within her, as if all possibility of joy had emptied forever from
the world. All that was left was darkness.

“
Kaya!” a
voice shouted in her ear. “Get up! Kaya!”

She felt a
soft, whiskered nose nudge her cheek. It was Tike. Kaya roused
herself. She opened her eyes and looked at the otter. He stared
back at her impatiently.

“
You can’t
give up, Kaya. You can’t just lie there. You’ve got to help
them!”

With an
effort, Kaya willed her eyes to focus. She got to her feet. Josh
lay ten feet away, clutching his leg and moaning in pain. A stone’s
throw down the beach was the slumped form of the Duchess. Kaya
swallowed hard and shook herself.

“
Josh,” she
called to him, her voice hoarse and strange in her ears, “Don’t
worry. I’ll be back in a minute to help you.”

She forced
herself to take a step along the sand. And another. Then she began
to run towards the Duchess.

The beach, the
sea, the gathering clouds overhead zoomed suddenly into intense
focus. Kaya’s ears filled with the murmuring of the waves and the
hissing of the wind through the forest beyond the beach. All at
once she felt supremely alive, as if she had just woken from a long
sleep.

The Duchess
looked up at her as Kaya approached. The elderly woman’s eyes were
glazed with pain, but she smiled a wan smile at the
girl.

“
Oh, my dear.
What bad luck. But I’m – I’m OK. It’s just a cut…”

The Duchess
was clutching her upper arm with her other hand. Kaya could see
that the sleeve of her dress beneath the tight fingers was drenched
with blood.

“
It’s
a
big
cut,” said
Kaya emphatically. “Here, let me help. I’m going to need to take
off one of your stockings.”

Gently, Kaya
pulled off the Duchess’s right shoe. Then she removed one of her
knee-high nylon stockings. Working with quick, deft movements, Kaya
tied the stocking tightly around the Duchess’s arm, just above the
wound.

“
It’s a
tourniquet,” she explained. “It will help slow the
bleeding.”

Kaya replaced
the shoe. Then she took off the light sweater she was wearing and
wrapped it around the old woman’s shoulders.

“
Wait here
until I see about Josh,” she said gently. “Tike, you curl yourself
up against her back to keep her warm, OK?”

The little
otter nodded solemnly and immediately pressed his body up against
the Duchess.

Kaya hurried
to where her friend lay on the rough sand. Josh’s leg jutted at an
odd angle.

“
I think it’s
broken,” he muttered between clenched teeth. “Kaya, those jerks got
away! What are we going to do?!”

“
Shh,” said
Kaya, “Don’t think about them right now. We’ve got to fix you up
first. Grandmother taught me about broken bones, only I’ve never
set a human bone. I’ve mended eagle bones and the leg of a fawn,
once, who’d fallen down a cliff…”

She frowned in
concentration, then, seizing the frayed hem of Josh’s jeans, she
ripped his pant leg right up to the knee. A huge angry bruise
marked the place on Josh’s shin where the leg bent at a peculiar
angle.

“
Josh, this
is going to hurt a bit. You’ve got to be brave, OK?”

The boy nodded
grimly. He closed his eyes.

Taking hold of
Josh’s ankle in both hands, Kaya began to pull steadily and
gently.

“
Count to
ten, Josh,” said Kaya.

Josh began to
count, then let out a gasp of pain. The leg straightened. Kaya very
slowly relaxed her grip.

“
Don’t move,”
she commanded. “I’m going to need your belt. Can you manage to take
it off?”

Trying to move
as little as possible, Josh undid his belt buckle and slid the belt
out of his jeans. Kaya had taken two smooth arm’s-length pieces of
driftwood that lay nearby and placed them gently on either side of
the broken leg. Josh handed her the belt. Looping it around and
around several times, Kaya managed to bind the driftwood sticks
together around Josh’s leg, forming a kind of splint.

“
That will
have to do until we can find something better,” she said with a
shake of her head.

Standing up,
Kaya gazed around her. What should they do?

It was already
nearly six o’clock, in a few hours it would grow dark. They had no
way to leave the island and no way to call for help. The Duchess
and Josh were both seriously hurt. If only Grandmother would come!
But Kaya hadn’t told the eagle where she was going. How would
Grandmother know where to look for her?

They needed
shelter. The weather was beginning to change. The blue sky of
earlier that afternoon had darkened to a dull grey. The wind was
rising. Black clouds rolled in from the west, and Kaya smelled rain
in the air. Both Josh and the Duchess would be in shock from their
injuries. She had to get them warm. Kaya would have to work
fast.

She found a
spot at the top of the beach, above the high-tide mark, where the
sand was dry and soft, and began to build a shelter. Luckily, piles
of driftwood lay scattered thickly on the beach to either side.
Kaya hauled and stacked long sticks of wood, piece by piece, until
she had made a rudimentary teepee, about six feet in diameter, with
an opening on the side away from the water. Next she broke off
branches of cedar and fir that grew at the edge of the forest,
leaning them thickly against the driftwood. She stacked green
boughs against the inside of the shelter as well, so that soon the
little house was snug against the wind. Kaya smoothed the dry sand
on the floor with an improvised broom, and went to fetch her
friends.

First she
untied the tourniquet on the Duchess’s arm. The blood gushed from
the wound once more, although less freely than it had earlier. Kaya
waited for a couple of minutes before she retied the tourniquet.
Then she helped the Duchess to her feet and led her to the shelter.
Tike followed close at their heels.

“
The basket
–“ said the old woman. “It must still be on the beach. I took it
out of the canoe. I think I put it behind a rock somewhere
–“

Kaya
brightened. “I thought we’d lost it with the boat!! I’ll go find
it.”

This was the
first good thing that had happened since the fight on the beach.
The girl searched along the rocky edge of the little bay until she
spotted the handle of the wicker basket protruding from behind a
sandstone boulder. She retrieved it just in time. The rising tide
had almost reached it and would soon have floated it out to sea.
Returning to the shelter with the basket, Kaya found the red
checkered cloth and wrapped it around the Duchess. She found the
bottled water and helped the woman take a long drink.