“I wonder if this is how they initially treated Leia,” she murmured.
“She was here long enough to get past their defenses and to actually became a friend to many of them,” he quietly answered. “We are strangers at the moment.”
“I guess,” she said. “It would be easier if Leia were here, wouldn’t it?”
“Without a doubt,” he murmured. “Not to worry. We’re not here to hurt them.”
“Do they know that though?” she asked. “It doesn’t really feel like it.”
“Maybe not, but, at the same time,” he added, “they’ll see us over and over again, so they’ll have to get used to it.”
They walked up to the old woman’s space, she had a small hut on lower stilts than many others. Katie looked at it. “I just can’t imagine what it’d be like to live here year-round.”
The old woman cackled from behind a post, and then she leaned over and stared at them. She looked at Dave and smiled. “You’re back again.”
“I am”—he grimaced—“and the reason is not as nice as before.”
She stared at him, with that all-knowing gaze, hitting Katie oddly. The medicine woman then studied Katie and back to Dave. “You two are as meant to be.”
He shook his head at her. “I don’t know what that means.”
She smiled and looked at Katie. “You do.”
She flushed. “I’m not sure that I do.”
The old woman smiled again. “You do, but you’re not there yet.”
Not sure what she was talking about but afraid to ask for more details, Katie just ignored that possible romantic subject. “Somebody tried to kill us.”
The old woman’s eyes widened and went almost sightless; they turned nearly black. Then she slowly nodded. “And still the influences affect us.”
“We were wondering if anybody here …” Dave’s voice trailed off helplessly because he didn’t want to insult her by asking if anybody here would have shot at them. That is exactly what his words would do, but he needed to know, nonetheless.
“Maybe.”
Her answer was a surprise. He stared at her. “Maybe?” he asked cautiously.
Katie squeezed his fingers. “Maybe what she meant”—she crouched in front of the woman—“is that money isn’t evil here. They see much in the outside world, when they go to the mainland, and they want more.”
“Yes.” Dave paused. “And it doesn’t take much to twist a young mind into wanting more.”
“Exactly,” the old woman said. “But it’s not necessary for all.”
“No, of course not,” he agreed. “And we don’t want to insult you by assuming or accusing anyone.”
“No,” she murmured, shaking her head. She sighed. “I will ask questions.”
“Of?”
She just waved a hand, and it was almost as if they were being sent away.
Katie looked at Dave, then back at the old woman. “I don’t know what you want us to do,” Katie said quietly. “We’re scared to stay because of this shooter. I was nearly killed.”
The woman looked at her with a frown; then she looked at the ground.
“More people are coming, you know? Including Leia,” Katie added. “This needs to stop.”
“Yes. Go now.” The old woman turned to stare sightlessly in a direction that didn’t include either of them.
Dave straightened and tugged Katie gently to her feet.
She looked at him and frowned. “Is the conversation over just like that, and we’re supposed to leave?”
“Looks like it. She may already know who to talk to.”
“It’s a little odd though,” Katie noted.
“It’s more than odd, but this is the way of the island. Leia was comfortable here, and they were good to her.”
“Until they weren’t. Somebody anyway,” she reminded him. “But we don’t know for sure that it was somebody from the island. Someone may have come over from the mainland, realized something was going on, and decided to capitalize on it.”
“True.”
With a last glance, they turned and walked back through the village toward their boat.
As they got closer, he noted several men gathered around their skiff. “I hope they’re leaving the boat alone.”
Katie looked out to the water to see the men surrounding their boat.
Dave walked closer and called out, “It’s our boat.”
One of the men just looked at him and frowned.
Dave looked back at him. “What?”
But the man shrugged and backed off. Dave untied the boat and motioned for Katie to get in. When he looked up again, he saw the men staring at him. “Are you always this unfriendly to Leia’s friends?”
Hearing the doc’s name, they frowned again, and then one started to speak with animation.
When Dave didn’t understand what they were saying, one of the other men translated. “They’re asking if she’s coming again.”
He nodded. “Yes. She’ll be here in a few days.”
At that, their faces broke into broad smiles, and they stepped away from the boat.
“So does her name open doors for this place?” Katie muttered to Dave.
“Possibly,” he replied. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Not sure we’re supposed to either.” But she gave a bright smile and spoke to the crowd. “Leia is looking forward to coming home.”
The men nodded. “We miss her.”
“Yes. She’s a wonderful lady.”
And, with that, they carefully turned on the engine and pulled away from the dock, heading back around to Leia’s corner.
“That was a very strange affair,” Katie noted.
“Clearly they don’t like outsiders,” Dave stated.
“You can’t really blame them. And Leia?”
“I don’t think she counts as an outsider to them.”
“But is that how they treated her too, at least at first?”
“Not now, but they may have originally. You can hardly blame them. People come here who like to exploit them. If not them personally, then I’m sure many a land developer had his sights on defacing the beauty of these islands into some concrete jungle. You can reverse the damage, but I’m sure it takes years or decades. Still, the loss of all that natural beauty is painful to bear, even in theory, much less before our very eyes. So I’m sure it took a long time for them to become comfortable with her presence.”
“I guess we are safe now, assuming they steer clear of the yacht.”
“I’ll assume so,” he said. “But whoever the gunman was, he isn’t necessarily associated with the island. We have to remember that. Boats come back and forth all the time, and these people all have family, likely many of them on the other side of the mainland.”
“Good point,” she muttered. “So, in other words, nothing is for sure.”
“Often it isn’t.”
*
Their date night had been set aside, with Sam and Dave and even Katie taking shifts aboard the yacht as lookouts during the night, as Sam steered the yacht into deeper waters. The next day, Sam dropped off Dave and Katie once again on the island, where they were stayed busy taking measurements and getting things set up and ordered. And Dave was thoroughly enjoying working with Katie.