A reluctant camper...
“C’mon, Jenna. It’s just for a bloody weekend.”
Trying to dissuade Quentin from doing anything was like
trying to change myself into a frog. “Why won’t Alan go with you?”
He harrumphed. “Alan doesn’t like to get his feet wet. He’s
fussier than your big ol’ white cat.”
“Churchill goes out in the rain—well, not that he likes it,
but he does.” I took a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll go, but what do I need to take?”
“Bravo!” He nearly danced out my door. “Pack your sleeping
bag and a bottle of insect repellant. I’ll fetch the rest.”
“Insect repellant,” I grumbled to myself as I moved back
inside the house. What in the world had I gotten myself into? Being Quentin’s
BFF had its drawbacks.
Saturday morning rolled around before I had a chance to back
out. Quentin pulled up to my driveway and hopped out of his car like a boy on
an adventure.
“This is going to be such a lark,” he said as he settled his
long, lanky body in my small Honda for the ride to Cumberland Island. “I’ve
been reading about this place forever. It’s absolutely natural. A beach with no
hotels and tacky restaurants. Can you imagine it? Pristine. Like the beaches in
Cornwall.”
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| Photo of Cumberland Island |
“The beaches in Cornwall are not populated because it’s cold
and wet there.”
“They’re promising sunshine here, love.” He’d begun fiddling
with his laptop.
“Yeah, it’ll be hot as hell without air conditioning.”
He glared at me. “Don’t be such a sod. You’re gonna love
this.”
Yeah like I love
freezing on a snowy mountain in ski boots that pinch my feet, another of
Quentin’s bright ideas.
“Hey, listen to what the website says. ‘Cumberland Island,
Where Nature and History Meet. St Mary’s is the gateway to Georgia's
largest and southernmost barrier island.
He exhaled as if
allowing his imagination to soak up the place.
“It sounds
wonderful,” I acquiesced. I’d heard of this wilderness paradise ever since I’d
moved to Georgia. What attracted me was not the wilderness so much as the
horses that lived in the wild there. But, what had me a little nervous was what
other kinds of wild critters might lurk in the underbrush.
We reached St.
Mary’s, a small Georgia coastal town with clapboard houses and fishing boats, a
perfect setting for an Agatha Christie mystery. My GPS took us to the dock
where we were to meet the ferry to go over to Cumberland Island, the only way
to get to that barrier wilderness surrounded by water.
Quentin placed
his red Georgia Bulldog cap on his head and leapt from the car. “Hurry up,
Jenna. We don’t want to miss the ferry.” He seized the two duffels and the sleeping
bags from the backseat. I grabbed my purse full of sunscreen and perfume. Okay,
I never wear perfume, but who knew when I’d be able to take a bath in this wasteland.
We joined a group
people on the dock.
“They said the
snakes are as large as trains over here,” a blond girl told her companion. She
wore a low-cut tee and shorts that hugged her rather meaty thighs.
I tossed Quentin
a look and mouthed, “Snakes?”
He shrugged.
Oh my God. Wonder what else he forgot to
tell me!
“I’d be more
fearful of the shooter,” the man, standing next to the girl responded through
his snaggletooth. Apparently his parents didn’t believe in orthodontics.
Shooter? Did he say shooter or scooter?
Geez.
The girl snuggled
close to the snaggletoothed man. “You think he’s here?” Her voice shook.
“C’mon, Stace, he
won’t be on the Island. He’s probably done escaped to Cuba by now.”
“Sorry to
intrude, but did you say shooter?” I asked.
“Yep. Y’all must
be just now getting here?”
“Right-o. Five minutes
ago from Athens,” Quentin popped in.
Both stared at
Quentin as if he’d dropped from the sky.
“Are you a gen-u-ine
Brit?” the girl asked. She moved a bit closer to Quentin and looked him up and
down. Apparently snaggletooth wasn’t as interesting.
“That I am,
straight off the boat from Manchester. Tell us about this shooter, won’t you?”
The man wrapped
his arm around the girl to protect her from Quentin who didn’t have the least
interest in the fairer sex. “Some lowlife shot a girl and her kid coupla nights
ago. Lest ways that’s what the people in these parts are saying. He up and ran
and the po-lice are still looking for ‘im. I was just joshing little Stacy here ‘bout him a being on the Island.”
The ferry pulled
up. The people unloading looked as if they’d endured an episode of The Survivor, dirty, droopy-eyed, not a
smile among them. They peeled off in twos or threes, dragging their dirty bags
behind them.
Quentin moved
from foot to foot, clearly anxious to get onboard.
“My name’s Billy
Joe,” snaggletooth said. He held out a big hand to Quentin who took it with a
quick shake and then wiped it on his jeans. “Quentin Pearson and my friend,
Jenna Scali.”
“Pleased to meet
y’all,” Stacy said. “This y’all’s the first time to Cumberland too?”
“That it is.”
Quentin said with a quick glance to make sure I was following along and had not
escaped to parts unknown. He handed me one sleeping bag.
We’d made our way
starboard, away from Billy Joe and Stacy who climbed to the top. The breeze
nearly swiped Quentin’s hat off his head, but he grabbed it in the nick of
time.
The island
appeared over the horizon looking like something out of South Pacific. The sand
almost white with nothing to mar the expansive shoreline. Not a soul in sight.
When the driver
docked, he pointed us in the direction of the campgrounds. Most of the people
onboard went that way. A few stayed on the boat, apparently going to the small
inn somewhere on the other side.
Quentin tugged my
arm. “Let’s get our feet wet before we head to the camp.”
I followed him.
The sun penetrated my thick hair causing my scalp to tingle. Where was my hat?
Probably tucked in the bag with the insect repellent. Pieces of driftwood littered
the sand. But, unlike other beaches, there were no signs of civilization—like
empty beer cans or even pieces of shells.
A figure moved
way down the beach.
“Did you see
that?”
Quentin had moved
closer to the shore. “What, love?”
I headed in the
direction of the shadow. “There, just beyond those dunes. I saw someone.”
Quentin followed.
“Hold up!”
I reached the
place where I’d seen the movement. Nothing. Birds chirped from the trees and
several mosquitoes made a meal out of my bare arms and legs. I slapped them
away.
“Did you see a
wild horse?” Quentin asked. Hoof marks covered the sand.
“I saw a man on a
horse.” I followed the hoof marks toward the dunes.
Quentin panted behind
me. “Probably a ranger, patrolling the area.”
“What ranger? I
didn’t hear anything about rangers and anyway why would he disappear like
that?” I continued to trace the horse’s path.
“Jen, we don’t
want to get too far from the camp.” He pulled on the back of my shirt.
The beach was
covered in low-lying trees, thick with green growth. A man on a horse could easily
disappear among the underbrush.
“C’mon. We need
to get ourselves settled at the site before all the good spots get taken,”
Quentin said.
Reluctantly, I
followed him back.
That night as I
shivered around a ridiculous fire that barely kept a blaze, Billy Joe told
Quentin all about his camping exploits. Bored, I wandered toward the latrines.
Yes, latrines. Basically they were holes in the ground where we were expected
to remove our panties and pee. Yuck. Maybe if I ate and drank nothing, I’d
never have to use those facilities.
I walked back
behind the trees that blocked off the camp and gazed at the moon on the water.
Someone grabbed
me by the arm and knocked me down. “What—“ I yelped.
A deep voice
said, “You saw me today, you nosey bitch…” Eyes glared from the darkness out of
a hairy face. Had I been caught by Godzilla with an southern accent?
I caught sight of the gleam
of a gun when the man grimaced, released my arm, and fell like a tree on my leg.
Billy Joe stood
over him with a large club in his hand. “You okay?” he asked, helping me to my
feet.
I brushed off my
backside. “I think so. What or who was that?”
Billy Joe lifted
the gun Godzilla had been holding and handcuffed him. “My guess he’s our
shooter.”
“Our?”
He grinned,
giving me a good look at his snaggletooth in the moonlight. “Stace and I are
here undercover. We suspected this here fella was hiding on the island. So, we
came a looking. Surenuf, you found him for us. Good job! Don’t know how you snuffed
him out. My guess is he’d been deep in the bush on the island, really hard to
snag.”
“Well, I didn’t
exactly mean to. But, so glad I could help.”
Quentin came
running in our direction. “What the devil…” he said, seeing the shackled man on
the ground.
“Your girl helped
us nab this fugitive. Good thing I was here otherwise he might’ve blown her
head off, too.”
Quentin gasped and
scowled at me. “My lord. I can’t take you anywhere without you getting into
some muddle.”
Billy Joe moved
toward the shore and peered out. “The ferry is on the way back to take our
prisoner. Stace and I will be off with him. Good to meet y’all.”
The goon moaned
when Billy Joe turned him over.
“I’m not gonna
miss that ferry,” I told Quentin on my way back to the site to gather my stuff.
“I’ve had enough of this camping thing. I’m heading home to my cats and my warm
bed.”
We found a cool
little B&B in the town for the night. I settled into a warm bubbly bath and
sighed.
Now that’s my idea of camping.
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