Alejandro Cruz stood on the shore and counted coins in his palm for the third time. Eleven. Not enough for a boat, not even a leaky one. Across the water, the small island sat low and green, its trees heavy with mangoes and coconuts he had watched swell for two hours that morning. In his shirt pocket, folded twice, was a paper from the town registry. Signed. Dated. Witnessed. The island was his on paper. He just had no way to reach it. He pushed the coins back into his pocket and started up the road. His uncle had died with strong hands and empty pockets because he never signed anything. Alejandro had signed. Now he needed wood, and wood meant a carpenter. He walked past the fine houses on the hill, past a mansion with a blue-tiled tower that threw a long shadow across the lane, and kept going until the road turned to sawdust. The carpenter's yard smelled of pine and hot iron. A young man in a stained apron knelt over a broken chair, hammer in his teeth, fitting a dowel with both hands. He was maybe seventeen. He did not look up when Alejandro's shadow fell across the work. "I need a boat," Alejandro said. "Small. Flat bottom. Enough for one man and fruit." Mather took the hammer from his teeth. "Boats cost money." "I have eleven coins and this." Alejandro pulled the paper from his pocket and held it open. "An island. Mine. Coconuts and mangoes, more than one man can carry in a season. Build me the boat and I pay you in fruit. Every trip. First load yours." Mather wiped his hands and read the paper slowly. A striped meerkat with a dark patch across one eye trotted out from under the workbench and sat by his boot, watching Alejandro like a second, smaller judge. "Paper is paper," Mather said. "I have seen men sign for water." Alejandro swung his pack down and opened one of the waterproof bags. He set a single mango on the plank between them. Golden skin, smooth, still cool from the shade. He had climbed the rocks at low tide and cut it from a branch that hung over the water. He had rowed home in a borrowed skiff with the owner shouting from shore. Mather picked up the mango. He turned it in the light. He pressed his thumb near the stem and smelled it. "How many trees?" "More than I counted." Mather set the mango down beside the paper. The meerkat sniffed once and looked away, satisfied. "Two weeks," Mather said. "Flat bottom, one sail. You help me cut and haul. I keep the first three loads, not one. And if the paper is a lie, I keep the boat." Alejandro grinned and put out his hand. "Start tomorrow." Mather shook it. The deal was struck. Now Alejandro had two weeks of labor ahead, a debt he could only pay in fruit he did not yet own, and a partner who would take the boat if the island failed him.

Two weeks later, Alejandro stood on the new boat's plank deck and watched his island grow from a green smudge into a shape with edges. Mather had built well. The flat bottom skimmed the chop. The single sail pulled hard in the morning wind. Alejandro had three days of food, his machete, rope, the hand drill, and two waterproof bags. He also had a problem he had not said out loud to the carpenter. He had never set foot on the island. He did not know where the fruit trees grew thickest. Three days of supplies could burn away fast in the wrong bay. He steered wide of the east shore. From town he had watched the water there churn white against the rocks. The current ran hard and wrong. He circled south instead and found a strip of sand between two black boulders. He drove the boat up, tied the bow line to a root, and stepped onto the island for the first time. The beach smelled of salt and rotting fruit. That was a good sign. He pushed into the trees with the machete low. Palms rose in tangles. Mango branches hung heavy over vines. But the grove was not one grove. He walked ten minutes and the trees thinned. He walked ten more and hit a wall of thorn. He turned back, sweating, and understood he could spend a full day just circling and learn nothing. He needed to see the island from above. He climbed the tallest palm he could grip and got maybe twelve feet before the trunk shook him off. He landed on his back in the sand. He lay there swearing at the sky. Something moved in the brush. A slim meerkat stood on its hind legs at the tree line, a dark band across its eyes like a mask. It stared at him a long moment, then turned and trotted inland along a track worn smooth by small feet. Alejandro stood up, dusted off, and followed. The track led to a clearing. In the middle stood the wreck of a wooden tower. Beams had snapped and slumped. The roof lay tilted on the ground. But four legs still held, and a broken ladder ran up one side. Someone had built it to watch from. Someone had been here before him. He climbed carefully. Halfway up, on a plank shielded from rain, he found what he wanted. Faded paint. A crude map of the island, with clusters of small circles inked in three places. Fruit. Marked. Counted by a stranger's hand years ago. Alejandro grinned and traced the nearest cluster with his thumb. He climbed down fast. He had his bearings now. But the map raised a colder question he could not put down. If someone had already worked this island, why had they left? And were they coming back?

Alejandro folded the map in his head and started for the nearest cluster of circles. The trail bent inland through vines and low palms. He walked an hour before the trees opened into a grove heavy with mango. Fruit lay thick in the grass. He grinned, filled both waterproof bags, and hoisted them onto his shoulders. Ten steps in, he understood the trouble. Two bags held maybe forty mangoes. The grove held thousands. The next grove was farther. The shore was farther still. Mather wanted three full loads in the boat by week's end, or the boat went back to Mather and the deal broke. Alejandro could not carry a harvest on his back. Not from here. Not before the fruit turned. He dropped the bags and swore at the trees. A shadow crossed the grass. He looked up. A bald eagle sat on a dead branch above him, white head sharp against the leaves. It held something in its claws — a strip of leather, cracked and old. The bird shifted, and the leather fell. Alejandro picked it up. A harness strap. Cut, not rotted. Someone had used pack animals here. He followed the eagle's line of sight through the trees. The bird lifted and glided low over the brush, then landed again fifty yards on. Alejandro pushed after it. The ground firmed under his boots. He hit a flat track, wider than the meerkat path, rutted deep. Wheel ruts. He broke through a wall of vine and stopped. A red barn stood in the clearing. The roof sagged. Hay spilled from an upper window. The double doors hung crooked but shut. Alejandro drew the machete and pushed one door open. Inside, dust hung in the light. Stalls ran down both walls. Empty. But the smell of animal was still in the wood, and a cart sat under a tarp at the far end. Two wheels, a long bed, shafts for a beast. He pulled the tarp off. The wood was sound. Something moved in the last stall. He raised the machete. A girl stepped into the light, blonde, blue-eyed, thin, holding a bucket like a shield. She could not have been more than twenty. "Don't," she said. "They're mine. The horses. I came back for them." Alejandro lowered the blade slowly. "I have paper on this island," he said. "Signed. Witnessed." Her mouth tightened. "Then you have paper on my father's barn." He looked at the cart. He looked at her. The eagle called once outside. "I need to move fruit," he said. "Fast. Before it spoils. You know this place." "I know all of it," Jen said. "And you don't." He held out his hand. She did not take it. But she did not leave either. The cart sat between them, and the harvest waited.