Callum Drift's Arc

Chapter 4 of 6

Morning light hit the crooked shelter on the beach. Four of them now, but three crewmates still lay somewhere on the island. Callum stood at the tide line and looked inland. He wanted to run and find them. But he had no idea which way to go. Two days of searching had taught him one thing. Guess wrong, and you waste days on the wrong shore. "We split up and cover more ground," Callum said. He turned to Harper. "You take the compass. I go the other way." Harper knelt over her backpack, checking the axe blade against her thumb again. She didn't look up. "No. We tried that already. Marian and I walked in circles for a day before the compass saved us." She snapped the pack shut. "You go stomping off with no clue, you lose yourself too. Then we're down another body." Callum's jaw tightened. "I can't just sit here." "You won't sit," Harper said. She stood and pointed at the fire, at the trees, at the sky. "They came to your smoke once. Let's give them more of it. Big smoke. The kind you see from anywhere." He stared at her. Then at the fire, still glowing in its ring of stones. She was right. Running blind had cost him two days already. They gathered green leaves from the brush behind the shelter. Wide, curling leaves, still wet with dew. Callum piled them by the arm's load beside the fire. Marian took a bundle of them for herself and carried it into the shelter. Callum fed the fire dry wood until the flames climbed. Then he dropped a heap of green leaves on top. The fire hissed. White smoke boiled up, thick and slow. It rose past the treetops and spread against the blue. He added more. The column grew taller. From a ridge, from a far beach, anyone alive would see it. Inside the shelter, Marian worked on Rowan's leg. She wet the leaves and pressed them flat against the swollen skin. Rowan hissed through his teeth. "Hold still," she said. "These draw out the heat." She wrapped a long leaf around the wound and tied it with a strip of vine. Her hands moved sure and quick, the way a trained hand moves. "I've dressed worse than this. You'll keep the leg." Rowan let out a shaky laugh. "Good. I'm fond of it." Callum fed the fire through the afternoon. The smoke never thinned. He watched the ridgeline and the far end of the beach. At dusk it came. Down the shore, a small light answered. A single torch, waving side to side. Then a voice, thin across the sand. One of the missing crew. Callum stood. He knew now which way to go. Not a guess. A place, marked by a moving flame. "Harper," he called. "They're on the south shore. All of them, maybe." Harper shouldered the pack. "Then that's where we walk."