JUNE 5, 2012
SHIP HAS ARRIVED
I have not been able to write during the
whole voyage, as there was no internet connection. I now have a computer signal from the island. I see the island!!! They say it's 3 miles long.
So much to say about the looooooooooooong
ship voyage from Maine to where ever we are... somewhere south of India, near
Indonesia. I think. I got sick. I read a lot.
Was bored a lot. Didn't
meet anyone really. The people on
this ship are like zombies. Kinda
spooky. I've just been waiting for
today, for when I finally arrive on Jackel Island.
This huge ship cannot enter the shallow
waters, so we're waiting for the smaller boat to take me to shore. They have me in some waiting detention
area. They took yet ANOTHER sample
of my blood.
I have to go... they're coming...
JUNE 5, 2012
ARRIVING ON JACKEL ISLAND
So much has happened.
I arrived on Jackel Island around
3:00. It's now a little after
5:30. Dinner is in a little less
than an hour. This is the first
chance I've had to write, now that it's finally quiet, now that I'm finally
alone.
When I stepped off the smaller boat and
onto the dock, the humidity and thick flower smell (jasmine, I think)
overpowered me. Most of the people
I will be working for were standing on the beach waiting for me.
I met Tom, who's kind of like our
leader. He heads the
Administration department. Well,
it's only a 3-man (or woman) department.
Tom is tall, thin, mid-thirties, outgoing, and made me feel very
welcome. His assistant (and also
his girlfriend) is Darcy. She's
the one who I've been writing to when I was back in the States. She's just a couple of years younger
than Tom, and has crazy wild thick hair, red red lips, and looks very
lively. I can tell we'll be good
friends. At least I hope.
I really like the doctor, doctor Jim. He's so very kind. He's about 50, and it's as if I've
known him for a long time.
Adrian is Chief of Security. I don't know how to describe him. He's quite striking, tho he's twice my
age, at least. But he's built like
a Marine, and he walks with such an air of confidence. Seems he's always smirking. Seems I really notice Adrian.
His assistant is Grady, and this guy is a
flirt. A big one.
There's a cute little boy on the island,
Joel's 9-year-old son. He's half
Asian. He's adorable. Joel (the boy's father) is Tom's twin
brother, but holds himself so differently from Tom. Both these guys are good looking with jet-black hair, but
Tom is all open and friendly, and Joel is introverted and quiet.
I have yet to meet Earl, my boss at the
stables. He wasn't there to greet
me. Darcy told me that Earl said
there was too much work to do.
I followed everyone from the beach along a
short path in the woods, and saw this giant of a man, a black man, chopping
wood. He looked real serene. He said nothing. After 5 or 10 minutes of walking along
the path, we reached our settlement, our camp (called Main Campus), where I saw
all our cabins, our large stone lodge, and a some buildings. Tom pointed out what was what, but
after the 3-week voyage on the ship, meeting all these people, trying to get
the lay of the land... my head is swimming.
Oh, and one more thing before I go to
dinner... I just met Jeremy and Brian.
They knocked on my door about a half hour ago. Two blond boy-men.
Jeremy's 20 years old and a goof, and Brian's 25 and a love with kind
eyes, but he seems awkward and a little shy.
I gotta' go to dinner in about 15
minutes. I'm kind of scared to
open the heavy lodge door and enter a room with about a dozen or more people I
don't know. I really wonder
sometimes what I've gotten myself into, accepting this job assignment.
JUNE 6, 2012
LAST NIGHT’S FEAST
First Dinner on the Island
Wow, what a feast we had last night! I met Tariq, our chef. He's always yelling for people to get
out of his way. Then he put on
this amazing dinner:
We had babi guling, Balinese–style roast
pork, along with cakalang fufu – grilled smoked tuna skipjack fish stuck on
bamboo. Darcy confided to me that
this all this was unusual, that all this was done in my honor, seeing I'd just
arrived. Instead of potatoes like
we’d have back home, Tariq had prepared nasi kuning, a rice dish cooked with
coconut milk. In a large turquoise
dish was gado-gado, a mixture of vegetables, crackers and rice with peanut
flavored sauce. Jeremy called it
salad. I did not try the sambal
goreng teri because Darcy told me it was spicy salted anchovy with
peanuts. She didn’t eat it either,
as anchovies are rather nasty things.
I loaded my plate with fruits – water apple, mango, banana and
jackfruit. We washed it down with
teh botol (bottled tea). Dessert
was pretty – jello-like squares of red, green and yellow clusters called
cendil, a flour-based sweet rice dish cake, molded and colored, served with
fresh grated coconut.
Half–way through the meal, Tom stood and
said words to welcome me. The others
clunked their tea bottles, and I smiled and nodded, hiding my
self–consciousness. When I feel
uncertain, I can hide emotions from people, but not from horses. Horses can always tell.
JUNE 6, 2012
CAMPFIRES EVERY NIGHT
After dinner, there's CAMPFIRES behind the
lodge every night. I really got to
know everyone better last night.
They told me about the supply ship that comes every other Friday. We can make requests when we run out of
stuff like a specific shampoo brand, our favorite toothpaste, a requested DVD,
socks when ours are worn, books, etc.
Everyone gets 20 minutes a day computer time. Darcy told me everyone washes their own clothes and it's
hard to get an available washing machine.
Everyone said what they missed back in the States... Brian misses
Chicago pizza, Jeremy misses California women, Grady misses ALL women, Darcy
misses her bed, Dr. Jim misses his wife... Adrian misses Alaska but prefers
life here on the island. They all
miss their sport teams, snow, local bands, luxurious bathrooms, drug stores,
their favorite restaurants, Christmas, and no taxes.
They don't like the people on the other
side of the island -- the research team, especially Dr. Evan Bronte, some big
shot. I wonder what's up with
that.
JUNE 7, 2012
FIRST DAY ON THE JOB
Yesterday was my first full day on Jackel
Island. I wake to a symphony of a
thousand birds singing outside my cabin window. This place is full of life.
After breakfast in the lodge, Darcy gave me
a tour of Main Campus. The large
stone lodge, called Central Lodge, sits back in the clearing, dead center. To the left and right of Central Lodge,
our cabins and main buildings form a semi-circle. Our cabins sit behind the main buildings -- there's the
Administration Building next to the lodge, the Medical Building (Dr. Jim says
to come visit any time... he'll always have a cup of coffee for me!), the
Computer Building (where we can email folks back home), the Laundry Room...
There are a couple of sheds too.
The Security Team has their own shed (that they keep locked) where they
store rifles and flashlights and a flare gun and God knows what else, and
Tariq, the Chef who's always yelling, has a shed where he keeps extra cooking
supplies. Kane, who's head of
Maintenance (the huge black guy who doesn't say much, but who's always chopping
wood or sharpening his knife), has a shed filled with shovels and brooms and
cleaning supplies, and sometimes a dead animal that he's skinning, not to
mention his special knives. On
either side are our bathhouses -- toilets and shower stalls. Darcy says the men's bathhouse must be
nasty, and Grady sometimes uses OUR bathhouse, pervert that he is. Those were Darcy's words.
My first day on the job was pretty
horrible. I met Earl, my boss who
heads the stables and the horses.
He's mean. He gave me crap
work all day.
EXCERPT FROM NOVEL
I changed into my heavy jeans, yellow
cotton shirt with the v–neck, and sturdy shoes, then went behind my cabin and
followed the short path through the woods. My life was once again changing, but this time, for the
better. I hoped. I thought of my introduction to the
horse world when I was nine years old.
It was just after my parents were killed from the boating accident off
the coast, when I was brought to my Uncle’s house to live on the farm. I remember finding solace and strength
in the horses after being rip
ped from my life and thrown in with Uncle Calvin,
who shook me awake at dawn until my teeth chattered in my head, who’d smack me in
the back of my head when I mixed the horse grain incorrectly. The horses stood unremitting as they
braced the same rough handling and desecration I withstood, and from them I
learned.
The woods gave way to a meadow, and as I
passed the field of flowers, I stopped to look at the stables ahead of me. Low against the mountains’ feet sat a
dark red A–framed barn that settled on a mixture of compact dirt and sand. Tan worn wood showed through in spots
under the Indian–red, giving the structure a beaten surrender to the mountains
that towered behind.
I quietly walked forward and stopped a
short distance from the fence. To
the right of the stables stretched a white horse–fence that encircled a
containment area for the animals.
Immediately inside the area, a tall thin long–limbed man close to fifty
bent scrubbing a water trough.
Beyond him three horses were feeding in the paddock – one white, one
black, and one brown. A breeze
swept by from the meadow, and the white horse looked up.
I watched the bony man work the scrubber
with the vitality of a man half his age.
He wore weathered filthy jeans, scuffed boots, and an open green–striped
collared shirt over a black T-shirt.
“You going to just stand there, or are you
going to help out?” He called over
to me, without ever looking up.
How he knew I was there bewildered me. I slowly approached.
“Hello. I’m…”
“You can start by grabbing the broom that’s
in the barn and knocking down the cobwebs in the corners.” Still, he never looked up. I stood there for a moment, watching
him clean the trough without missing a beat.
“All right,” I said slowly, and backed up.
Inside the stables, sunrays pierced through
the cracks of the wood in sharp angry lines. I smelled hay and wood and horses. I found the broom in the corner and began working on
clearing the cobwebs, ripping them away.
I thought of the horses I had seen at a glance. I couldn’t wait to lay my hand on the
horse’s barrel, and when I did, I could tell how tense or relaxed the animal
was, which would give me an indication of how difficult my job would be in the
upcoming months.
I was done clearing cobwebs soon
enough. I put the broom back and
left the stables, walking outside to the animals. The white horse looked up at me as the black and brown one
continued to feed.
“Done already?” Earl called out, still
working the troughs. “Now you can
wash out the water buckets. Scrub
‘em real good, you hear me? Then
fill ‘em back up with clean water.”
I stood there for a moment.
“What are you doing, catching flies?”
“Where are the water buckets?” I asked
blandly.
“Over there. And the hose is over there.” He didn’t look up from the trough. He just pointed.
When I finished cleaning and filling the
water buckets, he had me muck out the stalls, clean the saddles, then clean
them again because they weren’t polished well enough, and then I had to put out
bales of hay for the animals.
A bell sounded. Noon. Never
thought I’d be this happy for the lunch hour. I looked at Earl who was working out a knot on a
saddle. “Go on, get!”
“You’re not coming?”
“Too much damn work to do here.”
“So should I stay and help you? I pull my weight.”
“I said get!”
I was late entering Central Lodge for
lunch. I’d left the stables filthy
so I had to wash up and change clothes.
It was wonderful seeing Darcy, Brian,
Jeremy, Jim, Tom, Adrian, and even Joel and Grady. Little Derek, of course, too. They were already seated and eating, but called out warm
hellos when they saw me. It was
like I’d known them longer than a day.
I hadn’t even been on this island for 24 hours yet.
Tariq had prepared ayam kalasan, a Javanese
fried chicken of sorts, with some kind of yellow rice, and cut pineapple. I slid into a seat next to Darcy.
“So how’s the first day on the job going?”
Tom asked from the other table.
“Nice!” I lied.
“You getting the horses in line?” Jim
asked. I didn’t tell him I had no
feel for them yet, as I hadn’t gotten within ten feet of any animal this
morning.
“They’re fine animals.”
“Working here on the island has its own
tempo,” Aidan said, not necessarily to me. “You find it, you hear it, and it grabs ahold of you and
kind of guides you along.”
“Sounds like we should put those words to a
song,” Darcy said, laughing.
As I approached the stables for the second
time, I watched Earl work the horses.
He had command of the black and brown animals, but as he circled the
white horse, the animal eyed him back with ears plastered back, and the animal
kept his distance. I drew
closer. The white horse was
terrified, some past trauma. This
I could see. This animal held no
trust and certainly no appreciation for humans. So it was an abomination when Earl struck the horse with a
leather strap.
I remember the feel of the table edge
banging my hip when Uncle Calvin shoved me aside for not answering him. While he never out and out struck me
hard, nor did he ever leave a visible mark on me, his treatment of me was
bitter and my memory of his company was afflictive. Aunt Priscilla was forever silent and never protected me
from his malice.
I now felt hot liquid behind my eyes, which
I held in. I had an urge to rip
the leather from Earl’s gloved hands.
I hated myself for standing still, as my Aunt had done for so many
years.
“About time you returned.” Earl said as I opened the gate.
“Someone needs to spread manure, and I’m busy breaking this here horse.”
JUNE 8, 2012
WHAT’S IN A NAME
I look forward to our campfires each
night. I look forward to sitting
in the semi–dark with these new people who are becoming familiar to me, perhaps
more familiar than people from my real life back home in Maine.
Last night at the campfire, our
conversation went something like this:
“So why Jackel Island?” I asked no one in
particular.
“What do you mean?” Tom asked.
“I mean it sounds so much like Jackal, the
devil wolf,” I said.
“It’s spelled differently,” Adrian
clarified.
“I know some jackals here on the island,”
Darcy said.
“Oh yeah? Who?” Grady asked.
“Well, you’re the king jackal,” Darcy said.
“Not to undermine this enlightening
conversation, but where on earth are we exactly?” I asked.
“On an island, sweetheart,” Grady said.
“Thank you Captain Obvious!” Darcy said.
“No really… I mean where are we? Why can’t they tell us? Are we in the Indian Ocean, or the
Pacific Ocean? Are we near Java? Malaysia?”
“We’re probably a little off the coast of
New Jersey,” Grady said. “The ship
that brought us all here probably just took a really big loop.”
“We’re not supposed to know,” Brian said.
Where is Jackel Island?
“Does anyone know?” I asked, not sure if I
was out of line. I looked at
Adrian, who was poker-faced. I
looked at Tom and he raised his eyebrows.
“I’ve studied the vegetation and the trees
a bit,” the doctor said, “and it falls in line with Indonesia, but perhaps more
the western part.”
“Why don’t they tell us?” I asked.
“Seeing that we communicate to our family
and friends in the States through the internet and phones, they’d risk word
getting out and unwanted visitors coming to the island. There can be no contamination with the
bio–testing going on here,” Adrian explained. “When the project is over with, they’ll let you know.”
“Do you know where we are?”
“Now why would you ask that?” Adrian peered
at me, cocking his head. I eyed
him back, looking for clues, an aversion on his part. All I saw in his eyes was amusement.
JUNE 9, 2012
CONFLICT WITH
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ISLAND
I asked Darcy what the problem was with
Evan Bronte and his research department.
No one here at Main Campus seems to like them. At campfire, they talk about Dr. Bronte and the research
team as if they're the enemy.
In the middle of this island is 3 miles of
woods. A single path joins our
Main Campus, way on the west side, to the Research Center, which is located way
on the east side.
Darcy said when they all first arrived on
the island, they were all very excited, like they entered a new world. She said everyone got close right away,
except for Sheila and the nurses, who clung to themselves. They didn't see much of the research
department because they were 3 miles away. So Tom decided to invite the 5-man research team over for a
special dinner. Tariq prepared a
feast. So they all gathered in
Central Lodge, and things were going well. Darcy said she found Evan Bronte to be quite charming and
very well mannered. "We all
thought he'd be still and arrogant, seeing he's world renowned in the science
world, but he wasn't, at first. He
even had a sense of humor," Darcy said.
“At first?” I asked.
Darcy said that after dessert came the
cordials, and the men started drinking.
Tom said something about it being easy to be the leader here, because
everyone did their job so well.
Bronte raised an eyebrow, and asked Tom if he truly thought he was the
leader here. Tom looked at him and
grinned and said yes he was. From
there it fell apart. They began to
argue over who was actually the leader.
Bronte told Tom that Tom's father was only a little more than Bronte's
puppet. I can't believe he said
that! Then things got ugly. "Let's just say that when the
research team left, it wasn't all handshakes and hugs," Darcy said.
The next day, Main Campus had no
electricity. Tariq started
screaming that his kitchen wasn't working, and Earl had no power in the
barn. This was all very early in
the morning. None of the lights
worked, and the computers were down.
"The jerk was making a point," Darcy said. No one knew how he turned off their
electricity.
Darcy told me that our Security Team
(Adrian, Grady, and Steve) paid Dr. Bronte a visit. Tom went with them.
When they arrived at the research center, Tom had told Darcy that Bronte
was waiting for them; he was sitting in a chair just outside their main
building. Two guys who acted like
his bodyguards were by his side.
Tom and Grady started yelling, while Adrian
and Bronte remained calm. But
Bronte didn't budge. He wasn't
going to turn the power back on until Tom admitted who the real leader was, and
that his father was a mere puppet.
Tom of course didn't do it, and later told Darcy he never felt such
rage. Adrian had just stood there
holding his forehead with his fingertips, then told Tom to just say what Bronte
wanted, that is was just words and false pride. Adrian said Bronte was just toying.
Well, Tom was furious, and didn't do what
Adrian wanted. Even Grady thought
Adrian was crazy. Before Tom knew
it, he rushed at Bronte. Grady was
by Tom's side in a flash. Tom
threw a fist at Bronte. Adrian
stepped in to protect Tom, but was too late. Tom was on the ground with Bronte's knee on his chest and
his knuckles on his throat, and Grady was held by one of Bronte's thugs. No one got hurt, but wow.
Tom later told Darcy he couldn't believe
the fighting skills of the two body guards, and especially Bronte, who's not
all that big and appears to be just some super science geek. Tom said he's been in his share of
street fights, but these guys were phenomenal. I reminded Darcy that Dr. Bronte had some military training.
Adrian later said that his prime purpose
was to restore power for to Main Campus, and to keep the peace, and that had
Tom over–reacted, adding fire to a bad situation. He and Tom argued for days about how all this was
handled. Adrian thought Tom was
hotheaded, and Tom needed Adrian to back him.
“So what would it take to make Adrian
actually take action?” I asked Darcy.
“I don’t know… probably a hydrogen bomb.”
JUNE 10, 2012
WORKING THE STABLES
"You can start by sweeping out the
tack room”. Earl said when he saw
me this morning. There was no good
morning. “Make sure you wipe off
the counters real good. After
that, put the hay out for the ponies to feed.” I had stood staring at him for a moment.
“Good morning to you too,” I had mumbled
before I turned to go.
“What was that?” Earl said.
“Nothing!” I kept walking.
“Girl, I asked you a question!” But I had left Earl to sweep out the tack room, wipe the
counters, and spread hay in the feed buckets. I heard him say “Christ!” as he slammed something hard on
the stable floor.
In the late afternoon, my clothes were once
again stained with the filth of doing stable chores. When it was close to quitting time, I leaned against the
stable supporting post, wiping the back of my neck with a light blue hand towel
as I welcomed a gentle breeze. I
watched Earl walk a circle around the white pony, who held his ears back,
eyeing Earl’s whip. This pony was
never halter broken. Earl was
attempting to put a halter on this animal when he should have just been trying
to lay a gentle hand on him first.
He was trying to saddle and bit the pony before building trust with
him. I knew that a feral horse was
easier to train than a domesticated animal that had distrust for humans, and
this animal was both. Earl was
giving body language to the pony that the pony had no way of
understanding. The man was
fighting the animal, threatening him with a whip in anticipation of the pony
finally giving up. No actual
communication or bond was taking place.
It was a sin. It was an
abhorrent sin. I had to look away,
and a tear dropped by my shoe making an oval imprint in the dust.
JUNE 11, 2012
I’VE HAD IT!
I think I made a huge mistake coming to
this island. I thought I'd be
training horses, but all Earl gives me is crap work around the stables. Sheila and the two nurses cornered me
and shoved me, telling me to stay away from Grady. As if I'd even CONSIDER Grady. When they shoved me, I fell in the brush and cut my
face. Thin scratches, but
still... When the doctor saw me,
he knew something was up. I
skipped dinner. I've just had it
here. So that's why I took one of
the horses and bolted when Earl was away from the stables.
“My heart pounded, but without further
thought, I mounted the horse. As I
rose on the saddle, my heart lifted and fluttered. I tested this animal by riding her in a tight circle, and
she obeyed with ease. Only minimum
pressure on the bit was required to cue this pony. I surveyed the surroundings once more, looking for the best
escape route. I then quickly gave
the forward command, and the horse and I raced off along the white fence and
beyond, traveling away.
We raced along a path in the woods that led
to the heart of the island. I had
no idea where I was heading; I just knew I was heading east. I bolted away from Earl, from Sheila
and the nurses, from Grady’s looks and advancements, from this place not being
all I had intended it to be, and from my past. I plunged ahead through the fertile trail flanked by
shoulder–high bushes, through this arboretum of wild jungle in this eminently
foreign land. I felt so very
alive.”
JUNE 12, 2012
MEETING DR. BRONTE
The horse and I rode through the jungle's
thick garden of bengal bamboo, wild eucalyptus, and silk–cotton trees under a
canopy of foliage. The sun
streaked through from the sky, riding on rays of mist. I rode eastward at least a couple of
miles until we had come to a field that stretched out for miles towards low
silver–blue mountains, where I dismounted and let my pony drink from a creek.
As I stood in the field, I saw wild horses
in the distance, and I stood staring at them for a few moments.
“I believe they are przewalski horses.” I zipped around. Standing before me was a royal man, as
if he’d be a prince or a king if it were another time. He stood squinting his eyes from the
sun as he tilted his head at me.
The suddenness and firm nature of his presence caused my heart to
race. How had I not heard him? I just stood there with my mouth open,
waiting for my heart to calm down
“I’m afraid they’re very rare and very
endangered,” he said.
I finally closed my mouth and leaned my
head back a bit, studying this man.
His lips were firm, a lawyer’s lip, and he had square green eyes that
danced with life. He looked to me
to be in his late thirties. He had
brown hair, the kind you could tell was lighter when he was a boy. He was
dressed smartly in white khaki’s and a sky–blue button–down shirt, clashing
with the relaxed land. He held
himself sharply and distinctly.
“Excuse me, who are you?” I asked.
He smiled with his lips pressed together, a
condescending smile. He looked to
the ground, but only for a second.
“These animals are native to central Asia,
specifically China and Mongolia.
How they ended up here on this island I have no clue. And I would like to ask the same of
you. Who are you? You’re not supposed to be here.”
This man had to be from the research
department, as I must have been close to their compound. I simply stared at him, this man who
stood firmly, still wondering how he had snuck up on me undetected.
“Are we playing a staring game?” he asked
me.
“Excuse me?”
“You shouldn’t be here,” he whispered.
“Why not?” I whispered back, mocking. I’d leaned forward a bit when I spoke.
He looked down the clearing. His hair moved in the wind. “The security boundary line is clearly
marked. You people from Main
Campus aren’t to cross the line.”
He looked back at me. “Did
you not see the markings?”
“You’re from research?”
“Did you not see the markings?”
“Are you from research?”
He smiled, but only for a moment.
“Yes, I work in the research department.”
“You’re not the main guy, are you?” I
asked.
“Main guy?” He smiled, his lips pressed. “No.”
I was relieved. From what I had heard from Darcy, Jeremy, and the others,
Bronte was a monster. This guy who
now stood before me was simply odd.
“So what’s with the main guy, Bronte?” I asked.
“Dr. Bronte?”
“Yes, Dr. Bronte, the guy you work for,
right?” I said. “What’s up with
him?”
“What is it you want to know about him?”
“Is he… is he as…” The man tilted his head to
further read me. “Just what’s up
with him?”
“I’m not sure I follow you.”
“Is he like… a bad ass?”
“A bad ass?” The research man was amused. “How so?” He
laughed under his breath.
“Well, I don’t know for sure. I just heard. I never met the guy.
I’m… new here.”
“If you never met him, how would you
know?” I looked out into the
field. “You really don’t want to
cross Dr. Bronte. If he catches
you crossing the boundary line, well, it wouldn’t go too well for you.”
“What do you mean?” I quickly asked without
moving my lips.
“He’s been known to lock people in his lab
and do biochemical testing on them.”
“No way! That’s illegal!
He wouldn’t… No way. Would
he?”
The man nodded, raising his eyebrows.
“You’re kidding me. You’ve got to be kidding me. I know you’re kidding me.”
The man shook his head, his eyebrows still
raised. I looked at him, expecting
him to laugh, but he didn’t. He
looked dead serious. Oh my God,
what the others said about Bronte was true, that he was dangerous, possibly
evil. I didn’t know the extent of
his maliciousness.
“I don’t believe you,” I said, trying to
hide my doubt. But he just gave me
a steady grave look. I
swallowed. “He locks people in his
lab?” The man gave several quick
faint nods. “Biochemical
testing?” The quick nods came
again along with his deadpan stare.
“I think I need to go now,” I said softly.
“Okay,” he whispered back.
JUNE 13, 2012
EARL’S WRATH
Earl sure was mad at me for riding off with
one of the horses yesterday, but I just had to get away.
"What in tarnation is the matter with
you?” Earl yelled when he saw me.
He'd been bent over working with barbed wire, but now stood when he saw
me. “I said, what in tarnation is
the matter with you, for Christ’s sake!”
All I could do was stand there.
From his gloved hand, he angrily threw down the coil of barbed wire, and
when it hit the ground, I jumped.
“You stole one of my horses, Girl!” A vein protruded in his neck as he hollered.
“I brought him back,” I said.
“It’s still stealin’ in my book!” Earl shouted. “I have a good mind to request that you
go back to wherever it was you came from!
Maybe you should consider getting on the next ship that leaves the
island.” I stared at the ground,
burning. “You hear me?” I was starting to feel fire in my chest
and throat. “I asked you a
question, Girl!”
“You’d like that!” I yelled. I balled my hands into fists that hung at my sides. “You’ve been keeping me from the horses
ever since I got here!” We stood
staring at each other, with me breathing hard.
“This is no place for a girl,” he
said. He took his gloves off and
tossed them on the barbed wire.
“Especially a girl like you,” he said under his breath and started walking
towards the stables.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I followed him.
He stopped and turned to me. “You’re soft. Too soft. I
noticed this the moment I laid eyes on you. You don’t have the farm–way about you. There’s not a callous on your
hand. Your hair is soft, your eyes
are soft, your look is soft, you speak softly, except for now, I may add. You’re not cut out for this line of
work.” Earl looked up at the
sky. “I tried. I tried to toughen you up with good
honest hard work, but then you go and take one of my horses on a joy ride.”
I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it,
then blurted, “I’m here to train horses!”
I held my palms up, reaching out to him a bit.
“Oh, are you now?”
“Yes I am! I’m not here to be your… your slave.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Yes!
Yes, that’s a fact.” I was
breathing hard again, and as I looked at him, and he kept my gaze.
“You do got some spirit in you, that I
gotta’ say.” He pushed back his
hair and looked out at the animals.
“Well, the way I see things is that I got some girly–girl who doesn’t
know squat, and I gotta’ find things for her to do. It’s not personal, and I suppose it’s not your fault being
here, seeing they hired you and all.
It’s just that no one asked me.
I’ve been doin’ just fine here.
I don’t need a helper.”
“Well it seems to me you do.”
“Oh, do I now?” He looked back at me.
“Yes, with the white horse. You’re having trouble training this
animal,” I said. “And by the way,
I’m not a girly–girl. I don’t like
girly–girls. And why do you assume
I don’t know squat?”
“’Cause you’re not more than a kid.”
“I’m twenty–two.”
“Like I said, you’re not more than a kid,
and you don’t weigh more than a newborn foal.”
“A person’s size doesn’t matter when they
train a horse, you of all people should know that!”
“Talk to me when a thousand pound beast
comes charging at you. Now get to
work!"
JUNE 14, 2012
ADRIAN’S WARNING
Adrian asked me where I had seen the wild
horses.
"Over in the fields by the research
center.”
Adrian’s face dropped. “Over in the fields by the research
center?” he repeated. My face
sobered to match his. I was sitting
on my horse. “Jamie, you’re not to
go over there.” My horse, sensing
my tension, hoofed the path. “I
mean it. I’m telling you to stay
away from the research center. Do
you hear me?”
“I hear you. I’m sorry.”
He bounced his index finger at me twice,
then turned to the calcutta cane.
Ten minutes ago, I was taking a horse ride
through the woods when I came across Adrian cutting cane with an ax.
“Adrian –”
“Hmm?” He didn’t look up.
“I met the research assistant.”
“Hmm?” Adrian stopped with the cane and turned to me. “Who? Which one?”
“I didn’t get his name.”
“Big older guy?” he asked.
“Not particularly.”
“Was he a goofy looking guy?”
“No, not at all.” Adrian creased his eyebrows. “He warned me against Dr. Bronte. He said that if Dr. Bronte caught me in their area, he’d
lock me in his lab and do scientific experiments on me.”
Adrian looked at me dumb–founded for a
second, then let go a laugh.
“That’s ridiculous. He’s
pulling your leg.”
“I don’t know. He seemed pretty serious.”
“Oh Jamie,” he laughed. “I’m afraid this research assistant has
a twisted sense of humor and has pulled a fast one on you.” Adrian’s smile faded. “But listen carefully to me now, you
are not to go over there again, okay?”
“Okay, okay. I won’t.”
“Jamie, I mean it.”
But I was already trotting off.
At night in my cabin, I pondered over what
the strange man told me about his boss, and decided that Dr. Evan Bronte was a
person to avoid, lest I end up in his lab brain dead. Were all the people who worked in research creepy?
JUNE 15, 2012
OUR OWN LITTLE WORLDS
Jeremy continues to call our
research project “Bio–Cement” and Brian continued
to correct him. “It’s
Bio-CMAT!” Grady continues
making crude comments, and Darcy
continues to snap at him. Dr. Jim always hands me coffee when I come
to visit him for our daily chat, and Tariq continues to scurry around
the lounge as we're getting seated for dinner, telling us to hurry the
hell up because the food is getting too damn cold. So all is same-o
same-o.
Last night as I lay in bed listening to the night
crickets, I thought of the strange research assistant I had met in the field. “You people from
Main Campus aren’t to cross the line,” he had said. “You shouldn’t be here,”
he had whispered. He had warned me about Dr. Evan Bronte,
as have Darcy and Jeremy and some of the others.
I am hoping that I can go the entire six months of my stay
here on the island without having to meet this Dr. Bronte. It seems that the research
team stay in their own little world
at the east end of the island, while we stay secluded in our own little
world here on the west side, and that is fine with me.
JUNE 17, 2012
KANE AND HIS "RELIGION"
Yesterday morning I watched the air turned
from black to silver to gold as I headed through the path towards the ocean,
feeling the dew from the jambu bush and red wax ginger as I brushed my fingers
along their leaves. When I
heard the ax, I knew Kane was around the corner. Kane was forever chopping wood for our nightly
campfires. He says chopping wood
is meditative for him.
Kane doesn't speak much, and spends much of
his time alone. He's from
Mauritiu, an island nation off the south coast of Africa. He speaks with some kind of accent I
can't place... not quite British or French... I just can't place it.
Kane is an unusually large man, with mild
African features, and he has a hint of slanted eyes that holds a fixed piercing
gaze. He looks almost Egyptian. Kane is strong and soft at the same
time, intense and mild, keen and fluid.
Adrian told me that chopping wood is Kane's
religion. This confused me. I asked Kane what his religion
was. He said he followed the
Odiwanchi way. I asked what that
was.
“It is a religion of non-religions. It is where a person learns to hear
their heart, to see with their inward eye. Though there are countless claims, no one person knows all
things. Every religion is a
thought or an interpretation that comes from a person, a human being. Sometimes, this thought is shared and
believed by millions of people.
Every person is on a different path. One person cannot tell another person the truth, though he
can tell him his own truth. Truth
must come from within each person.
It is not something that is told or taught, but self-discovered.”
FALLING INTO RHYTHM
As the nights fall into days, and the
days fall into weeks, I have fallen into a gentle rhythm here on Jackel
Island. I can feel the beat of the
island and I flow with it. Waking
to the symphony of birds each morning, I feel a heightened sense of everything,
the feel of shower water on my skin, the smell of the sea air with all its rich
foliage, the awe of blue and white and yellow and violet flowers in the fields
where the wild horses graze, orange and pink sunrises, the weight of humidity
that lingers in the air and fills it, the taste of food where each sensation,
sweet–sour–bitter–salty, is amplified, the mournful call of seagulls by day and
merbau crickets at night, and the tropical sun tingling and dancing in my
pours... I can no longer imagine
not living on Jackel Island. I
want to stay here forever.
JUNE 19, 2012
CLOSE FRIENDS (Brian)
I feel a deep affection for these people on
the island with me. Darcy, Brian,
and Jeremy have become my closest friends ever, each in their own and unique
way. Darcy understands me like no
other, and I confide everything to her, and she to me. Brian, who is only three years older
than I, has the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever known, with perhaps the
exception of Dr. Jim. When I need
compassion, I go to Brian. In a
silly way, he reminds me of the Tin Man.
His quiet disposition gives way to a tenderness of soul, a friend who is
serene enough to truly listen and not judge.
“Brian, does Tariq scare you?” I asked him
one day when it was just he and I sitting in Central Lodge. It was an hour before dinner, and it was
raining hard. “I mean, Tariq being
your boss and all. When you’re
preparing meals with him in the kitchen, does his constant carrying on scare
you?”
“Well, he used to scare me a lot at first,
and he still does kind of.” Brian
adjusted his shirt over his large stomach and pushed back his curly blond
hair. “But mostly, Tariq is just
full of hot air, kind of like Earl."
We were both half–laying half–sitting on
the same couch at opposite ends with our knees bent, our sneakers touching in
the middle of the couch.
“Why?
Does Earl scare you?” Brian asked.
"He used to, at first,” I said. “But I’m getting used to him.”
I lightly kicked Brian.
He kicked me back. Then we
kicked each other about twenty times.
JUNE 20, 2012
JEREMY
Jeremy is like a little brother to me. He's totally oblivious half the time,
always mispronouncing words and facts, not getting it when people became
annoyed with him, childish, immature, not aware of boundaries or personal
space, but totally lovable and would do anything for anyone he considered a
friend. Often after work, I go to
the beach and find Jeremy sitting on a rock playing his tin whistle. I sit next to him and listen, letting
the mellifluous sounds wash the stable grime off me. Yesterday, he stopped playing his song and matched his
whistle to a seagull’s cry in perfect pitch, making me giggle uncontrollably.
After I stopped laughing, I extracted a worn photo of my father from my pocket
to show Jeremy, only a huge wind gust snatched the photo from my hand and
soared it bouncing along the sand towards the sea. Jeremy flew off the rock and ran to get it back for me, but
the wind carried my photo further out and further out until it finally landed
into the sea. I screamed. Without thinking, Jeremy ran into the
water as the waves crashed into his teen–thin body, and he thrashed about,
grabbing at the moving square glossy paper that glittered in the sun. After several minutes, he came back to
me holding the dripping and ruined photograph of my father.
“Here. Sorry!”
JUNE 21, 2012
DEREK
I really get a kick out of nine–year–old Derek, not just because he's always giving
me his treasures from the island, but because he always seems to be bouncing
up to me when I least expected it to show me a conch, a butterfly, a unique twisted limb from the woods, an interesting bug, a colorful flower, discarded snake skin that lays like torn tissue paper
in his hand, a tortoise shell,
bamboo… and he gives these items to me as gifts. I didn’t have the heart
to throw them away, but I didn’t know
what exactly to do with
them. I didn’t have space in my
small cabin, and I figure it
wouldn’t be good for a tortoise shell or snakeskin from a dead
reptile, bugs, or tiny insects inside
tree limbs to lay where I slept. So I keep a little “Derek Garden” outside just behind my cabin with all the
treasures he gave me. As I
lay Derek’s recently dead butterfly
against a teak tree, I thought of all
the gems inside the tree knot that
Boo Radley gave to Gem and Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird.
One night at our
campfire, Derek presented a live
banyan tree frog to me in his cupped hands. When he passed me the frog
and I tried to take it, the frog slipped out between our hands and jetted in the woods in one huge
desperate leap. Derek
looked terribly upset. I was touched and pulled him to sit in
my lap, which he respectfully refused, telling me he stopped sitting in
laps ages ago. “Well Jamie, I’m not too old for
laps,” Grady said from the fire pit, to which Darcy said, “You’re such a creep of huge magnitudes!”
JUNE 22, 2012
The Doctor
I visit the doctor as often as I can. He
always welcomes me affectionately. “Jamieee!” he says when I enter the Medical doors, the last syllable of my name ending on a lower note. Then he pours me coffee into the dark green mug.
My visits are either a medical need like the
monthly blood test I need to do, or more frequently, a social visit. Derek
comes to visit the doctor frequently, as does Tom, Darcy, and Brian. Derek
and the doctor have a special grandfather–grandson bond, with Jim giving him sweets
he orders just for Derek, and Derek swinging his legs as he sits on the exam table, telling the
doctor all about his fishing adventure, wonders he finds on the island, or how Adrian is teaching him silat. Of course,
we all visit the doctor when we need medical attention – a stubborn splinter,
a headache, stomach problems, a nasty
cut, sunburn…
As we sip our coffee, we tell each other about how our day is going, how we grew up,
and what we miss from home. Jim confides in me that he misses his
wife terribly, so much it has become
a physical ache. When he describes her
to me, his face softens and becomes sad, where
his lips smile but his eyes don't.
He writes to her every
day from the computer room. He says after he returns home from Jackel Island, he will never leave her again.
I told him about the kindness I remember from my mother and father, and then
the harsh contrast when I was forced
to live with my Aunt and Uncle after my parents were killed when I was nine.
“Did your
Uncle ever draw blood when he hit you?”
“No, I can’t say that he ever did. And it wasn’t
like I was bruised really either. It was just a lot
of shoving and pushing and yelling and ignoring.”
I picked at my thumbnail. “I don’t know…” After some silence, Jim reached over to pull my
one hand away from the other.
“Do you stay in touch with them?” he asked.
“No, not really,” I said. “I sent them Christmas cards
for a while, and my Aunt responded, just signing both their names. There was never a note, just their names.”
“Do they know you’re
here?”
“No.”
“They must have been proud of your accolades
with your work with the horses in
the States, weren’t they?”
“I don’t know. I suppose, I guess… maybe a little.”
“Well Jamie,”
Jim said, setting his clay coffee mug down, “I
am proud of all you’ve done. I truly
am. And until my time is up,” he said, touching his finger on the table with the words until,
time and up, “I’ll send you a
Christmas card every year.
With a note.”
JUNE 23, 2012
TARIQ, our cook
I am no longer
afraid of Tariq, at least not totally.
There are times when an after–work pony ride in the late afternoon on the sand by
the ocean will fall into early
evening, and I miss dinner. The first
time this happened, I had tip–toed into the kitchen during campfire to ask for a grilled cheese
sandwich, thinking that would be easy for
him to make. Tariq was finishing cleaning up the dinner plates. When he saw me, he sounded off about how I was late for a dinner
he labored over. “What da matter with you? Why you
miss dinner? This is not good!” I had stood there waiting for him to pause so I could ask for
the sandwich, but he never stopped
complaining to me. He just
continued yelling, and while carrying
on, he went to get a plate of leftovers
that he had prepared for
me. “Missing dinner is no
good! It’s jahst no good!” he hollered as he handed me my covered
plate. He had kept it warm.
Later, in my cabin, when I had
uncovered the dish Tariq had prepared for
me, I discovered that he had placed a
pink lotus flower diagonally across the plate and over the food.
Another
time, on my day off, I had planned to go on a morning pony ride into
the woods to see the wild horses on
the east side of the island, with intentions of spending most of the day out by
myself. I told Jim. Jim told Tariq. Brian came to my cabin door early
that morning with a picnic lunch that
Tariq had prepared for me.
Brian relayed a message from
Tariq, stating if I didn’t eat it all
and brought back any food uneaten,
there’d be hell to pay.
JUNE 24, 2012
Tom, our Leader
While Jim
is like a father to me, Tom is like a big brother and is most protective of
Darcy, Derek, and even me. Jeremy
too, or anyone he considers weaker.
One time, Grady was being hard on Jeremy, calling him a girl, telling
him he needed to bronco up, until Tom finally told Grady to knock it off. While Tom is tall and thin and somewhat
solid, Grady, like all the men in Security, has a marine body and is very
trained in hand-to-hand combat.
When Tom stood up to him, Grady looked at Tom in disbelief with his
mouth open, but he said and did nothing to Tom, and stopped teasing Jeremy.
When
administration matters arise, which occasionally calls for a meeting at Central
Lodge, Tom is most professional and takes charge well, not in an over–bearing
way, though not weak–mannered either.
His leadership is a comfort to me, but sometimes I felt that Adrian is
equally in charge, a strong force in the background.
At our
campfires, everyone lets their armor down a bit, Tom most of all, and he tells
us animated stories of his rebellious teen years, stories that surprise as well
as entertain us. He tells us with
a boyish eagerness that is quite charming and captivating.
Tom got in
his share of high school fights.
Coming home a bit bloodied with ripped shirts would engage his
father. Joel (Tom's twin brother)
once asked his brother “why all the fights?” and Tom had responded “I just can’t
stand it when people are wrong.”
Joel
remembers a time when they were in second grade, and fourth graders were
verbally picking on them. Joel and
his brother were tall and thin for their age, and one of Joel’s attackers was a
stocky ten–year–old. Joel only
reached the other boy’s chin, and the third boy had a reputation as a
contentious bully. Being called
names and shoved a bit didn’t bother Joel much; he just tuned them out. But it incensed Tom to no end, and at
seven years old, Tom swung fists and pulled at the three fourth graders,
attempting to land each of them in the mud under the swings, to which he
surprisingly succeeded.
One
evening in Darcy’s cabin, she and I got our hands on several bottles of red
wine and proceeded to get drunk, a rarity for me but not so much for
Darcy. Tom came into Darcy’s
cabin, and to his surprise, found us drinking. He quickly caught up with us, his two gulps to every one of
our sips. When the bottles were
empty, Tom revealed that as a teen, he had hated his father and believed him to
be an evil man, claiming that his father slept with a couple of neighbors’
wives, took business bribes, and unethically adjusted financial figures. Darcy stroked his short black hair as
Tom looked off in the distance with a hardened face.
JUNE 25, 2012
JOEL
Joel was an enigma to me. Like Kane and Tariq, Tom’s twin kept
mostly to himself. Only a good eye
would be able to tell Tom and Joel apart in a photograph. Seeing either of them move or change
facial muscles was a dead give–away, as they held and carried themselves
radically differently. Tom was
animated and gregarious; Joel was subdued and an introvert. I used to think that Joel was a bit
cold and aloof and I worried for his only son, Derek, but I later learned that
with Joel, it was just shyness. I
could now see a sweet side to Joel which was passed to Derek by blood, only
Derek didn’t know enough to hide this quality in himself yet. Being sweet was not manly, or at least
Joel didn’t think so, apparently.
Joel was an absolute genius with computers
and anything mechanical. He took
apart and fixed my Nook. When he
handed the tablet back to me, Joel asked me something I’ll never forget.
“Listen, ahh… if anything were to ever
happen to me and my brother… heaven forbid I mean, could you look after my
son? He takes to you, and you’re
so good with him.”
I was proudly astounded, though I wondered
why his offer wasn’t passed to Joel’s wife, or his father.
“Why Joel, of course I will. I don’t take this lightly. I… I’m touched that you asked me this.”
The whole time we spoke, Joel stared at the tablet
that each of us held between us.
JUNE 26, 2012
KANE
Never
again did Kane and I exchange so many words
as we had that day when we sat on the log together and he told me of his spiritual
way of looking at things. But
since then, we now have this non–verbal bond
which I strongly feel every time I pass him in the woods, in our camp’s clearing, by the water basin, or in Central Lodge. I often think of all he had to tell me that day, of seeing
with your own human heart instead being guided by learned stuff. As he works his maul ax,
I sometimes see his little mouse peering out of his pocket. Giant man with little mouse.
JUNE 27, 2012
XXX
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JUNE 28, 2012
XXX
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JUNE 29, 2012
XXX
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JUNE 30, 2012
XXX
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