7. Seven
As the moon rose for her third night on the island, Kat”s survival skills were improving. She had built a shelter using branches and fallen trees, providing some protection from the elements for herself and West. The dense tree canopy above had also helped keep them dry during the heavy rain that poured down earlier.
Despite her resourcefulness, Kat was still struggling to find food. All she had managed to eat so far was a mushy papaya and a brown banana, which she found unappetizing due to its overripe state. But with her source of fresh water and access to coconuts, she was determined to make do until they could be rescued.
Kat felt a sense of comfort in the continuous sounds of the jungle around her, even though some of the animals could pose a threat. They hadn”t bothered her yet, and she was grateful for their presence because it reminded her that she wasn”t completely alone.
For the past couple of days, Kat had been tending to West”s injuries while he remained unconscious. He would groan occasionally, which reassured her that he was still alive and his body was trying to heal itself.
After an entire day of self-pity and wallowing, Kat realized that she couldn’t just sit around waiting for life to come to her, but rather she needed to get out and find her new life. They just had to get off this island first.
He groaned again and she rushed to his side with a coconut full of water, carefully helping him sip it without choking or sputtering. Slowly but surely, and against all odds, Kat was nursing West back to health and keeping him hydrated.
Kat knelt beside West, her hand resting on his forehead to check for a fever. His eyes were open but dull, and he weakly gurgled as she tried to offer him water. She could feel her heart flutter with relief as he spoke, his first words in three days.
Joy flowed through her, not because she wanted West specifically, she told herself, but because she was tired of being alone and proud of herself for saving him.
“You have to drink,” she said softly, lifting a coconut to his lips. “It will help you feel better.”
He struggled weakly, trying to push her hand away, but eventually gave in and drank the cool liquid.
“What . . . what’s wrong with me?” he asked, his voice barely audible.
Kat tilted more water down his throat. “You were bitten by a snake, but you”re going to be okay. You can go back to sleep, I got you.”
His eyes fluttered closed again, and Kat was left in silence once more. But this time, she felt a glimmer of hope that they would make it through this together. She knew working with West instead of arguing with him would be difficult, but not impossible. And for the first time since being stranded on this island, Kat allowed herself to believe they could get home.
West’s head felt like it was about to burst, his tongue a withered raisin in his mouth, and the slightest twitch of his muscles felt like daggers piercing his skin. His eyes protested as he opened one and then another. The slivers of light shining through the canopy sent a shock of pain through his brain. He tried to remember what had happened: thrown from a yacht, stranded on an island, and . . . bitten by a snake, that about summed it up. When he tried to sit up, his world spun, and he would have toppled back if not for two hands steadying him and guiding him down onto a lap that felt like clouds.
“What are you doing?” her angelic voice whispered in his ear.
He tried to speak, but his voice was stuck in his throat.
“Don’t try to speak yet.” She reached for something and helped him to sit a little, handing him what he now noticed was a coconut. “Can you hold it?”
He took it and lifted it to his lips. The liquid hit his throat, cool and sweet. His whole body seemed to quiver with life as the elixir rushed through him, giving him strength and vitality.
He gave her a weak smile in thanks, and she smiled back, encouraging him to drink more. He complied meekly, gulping down the rest of the liquid.
After he’d finished, she rose from her crouched position and walked over to the stream that ran nearby. She filled the empty coconut shell with fresh spring water and returned to him. “Here, you should probably have some actual water.”
He took it and drank eagerly.
After a while of staring out at their surroundings, he felt his body slowly come back to life. The fog began lifting from his brain. “How am I alive? People don’t survive snakebites without antivenom. Not that I’m not eternally grateful,” he added for good measure.
Kat hid from him, a faint blush tingeing her cheeks. “There are quite a few herbs and plants on this island that can be used to create an antivenom, so I made one.”
She stood up and went to fill her own coconut with water, not elaborating any further. West glanced down at his foot and noticed part of her pants wrapped around it, with a dark reddish paste smeared on it.
“And . . . how did you know those plants would do that? Are you a herbologist in disguise?” he prodded her for more information.
She returned to his side, a sweet jasmine scent trailing behind her, blending with the salty ocean breeze. Her wild hair was coming out of its braids in an unruly mess, but she didn’t seem to mind. A smudge of dirt colored her otherwise perfect face and West had the urge to reach up and brush it away. But he remained still.
“It was just a simple mix of some plants, a little coconut milk, and my grandma’s secret ingredient.”
“Which is?”
She smiled, unable to meet his eyes. “Spit.”
West looked down at his foot in awe, strangely aroused at the idea of her spit on his foot. He knew her mouth hadn’t been on him, yet it felt oddly intimate all the same.
“My grandma swears by the healing powers of spit,” she continued. “I figured it couldn’t hurt.”
“I’m alive, so she must be right.” He admired her handiwork. “You still didn’t answer my question. You’re not a doctor, at least I don’t think you are, so how did you know how to save me?”
“Stereotypes and clichés aside, I learned with my grandmother from our Indigenous ancestors,” she said, almost with a sigh.
“What?”
“I’m Native.”
“Like Native American?” He stared at her questioningly. “You don’t really look Native.”
She glanced up at him before averting her gaze. “It’s not like you look Irish,” she said sarcastically.
“Probably because I’m no’ Irish.” He smirked at her, speaking in his best Irish accent.
She pushed at him lightly, not wanting him to fall over from his precariously seated position. “That’s why, right there. I got sick of defending myself because I could pass for White, or people thought I was Jewish, or Hispanic. It just became easier to stay quiet and not openly claim my heritage all the time.”
For the first time, he truly studied her: the high cheekbones, the aquiline nose, the darker shade of her skin, and suddenly he could easily see her proud Native features, not that she needed validation from him, or anyone. “Why not? You are who you are. You shouldn’t let others stop you claiming that just because you may not look the part.”
She sighed, staring off into the distance. “That’s easy for you to say. Too many people try to take ownership of a Native culture they know nothing about, claiming their great-great-great-great-whatever was some Indian princess, which isn’t even true. We don’t have princesses. Besides, I’ve spent most of my life feeling like an outsider looking in. I’m used to it.”
“Why?” West slowly rotated his body and shifted his weight, bringing his face close to hers. It had been a long time since a woman had been open with him, not just being who they thought he wanted them to be. He was seeing her for the first time in all her vulnerability—something she had never done with him before. Not that he hadn’t made their relationship more guarded in the first place.
“My grandmother was orphaned at a young age and was put into an Indian boarding school—those places were awful. If you’ve been paying attention to the news lately there have been a lot of mass graves found at those ‘schools.’” She put her fingers in the air to make air quotes on the word schools. “Places that forced Natives to assimilate into White culture.” Kat’s voice trembled. “My grandma was young, and they whipped all the Native out of her. She still, to this day, is a mix of god-fearing Christian with a complicated relationship with patriotism, who occasionally prays to the Creator but, more often than not, can be found in church on Sunday. The only thing she ever fought back on at first was modern medicine. Together we spent years going to the reservation and learning about tribal medicine.”
Kat nudged his shoulder. A mix of sadness and pride warred within her. “You’re alive because she wanted to learn about the old medicine, and I wanted to go with her. That, and I sucked at the tribal softball tournaments, so medicine seemed the better bet for me.”
She smiled wistfully as she remembered her past. “At first, we went to the powwows and I tried it all. Basket weaving, quilting, cooking, and dancing. I was too old to learn the ceremonial drums, so in the end, I took a deep interest in medicine with my grandma. She eventually found some cousins at a powwow, but she always struggled to fit in with them.”
“She sounds like a remarkable woman.”
Kat shrugged. “She could’ve been, but she married a White army man who drank too much and didn’t embrace her true culture.”
“What about your parents?”
“My dad met my mom in college at a person of color community event. I’m still surprised they even went. There was an entire population of five Indigenous people at their large university. Both are mixed with parents who grew up in boarding schools. My dad was raised completely in White society, so I know nothing about my paternal grandmother who passed away when my dad was two, and my dad died four years ago, so all of that culture is long gone, but I mean, it was the seventies. It was easier if you could pass White, and my parents just went with it, never realizing how both their mothers were just married off to these White men. I loved my grandfathers, but the older I get, the more I realize how complicated those relationships were.”
West had never thought about his race or his background that much. He fully recognized that the music he played was rooted in Black culture and that his musicians were mostly Black. And although he enjoyed learning and developing musically with them, he thought little about the implications of race in his daily life. He acknowledged the world’s problems, but as a privileged White man, he didn”t feel it was his place to take the lead on those issues.
The more he was with Kat, the more he was finding he was lacking in a lot of areas, and he didn’t like it. While it may not be his fight, maybe he should be doing more.
“So, what about you?” he asked her.
“What about me?”
“You’re not much different from them. Your parents, I mean. Seems like you’re hiding who you are too.”
“I am not,” she said, anger in her tone.
“Yes, you are. Not once have I ever heard you embrace your culture or who you are. Sounds like you hide behind your Whiteness too.”
“It’s not like that. I grew up in a very blue-collar, middle-class family. I didn’t live the rez experience. I may be that race, but I still don’t grasp all the culture and have had to work hard to learn about a life I’ve missed out on, a life a lot of us have lost. I get weird looks from some people trying to figure out what I am, but to most people, I just always seem tan, have high cheekbones, and a prominent nose. I’m what they call racially ambiguous, and since I didn’t get to grow up in my culture or experience it until high school, I just feel like an imposter. I used to be really proud when I was a kid. But year after year of being told I didn’t look Native wore me down.”
“I’m the last person who should say anything about this, but just be who you want to be, Kat. You’ve clearly worked hard to understand your culture and your people, to get back to your roots. You just saved my life with a bunch of plants, for fuck’s sake, so next time you feel like an imposter, just remember that.”
Kat looked down, and he lifted her chin. She’d mastered the art of hiding, and it had extended all the way to her culture. Hell, she had been hiding behind him for years. He just didn’t know how to help her.
“Promise me you’ll remember how badass you are,” he said.
Kat nodded.
“Good girl.” His hand moved up her face and cradled it in his palm. He was captivated once again by the swirling colors in her eyes.
He could do it. All he had to do was close the distance between them and he would be kissing her. Would she let him, or would she pull away? Her lips were slightly parted, and her tongue glided out to lick her bottom lip. He had the distinct urge to pull on her braids, bringing her even closer to him.
Every inch of her called to him, from the passion in her voice, from her story, to the sincere gaze in her eyes. She had just saved his life, and it all rushed through his mind. Every instinct in his body told him to move closer. The problem was he knew Kat would want more than he was willing to give. He couldn’t bring himself to close the space between their lips; it felt wrong, manipulative.
His heart raced and his breath caught in his throat, the sensation of electricity prickling his skin as their eyes locked and he leaned closer to her.
The unmistakable screech of a monkey echoed through the trees, and his hand dropped away from her face. In an instant, she backed away.
“Have you heard a lot of those?” West pointed up into the tree canopy.
“Here and there. One tried to steal my papaya, which was rather a fun time.”
He tried not to laugh.
“It’s fine, you can laugh at my expense.”
He let out the laughter. “Sorry, I’m picturing you chasing a monkey to get a hold of a papaya.”
She stood up and put her hands on her hips, accentuating her waist, and West’s mouth instantly went dry. “I didn’t chase the monkey. I had to beat the monkey to it. Besides, it was a macaque.”
“So you’re a healer and a monkey expert now?”
She shrugged. “I guess you didn’t watch as much mindless TV on tour as we did.”
What else had they done all those years on tour? She was wrong about him though. Plenty of nights he had read books or watched pointless shows. He had partied, or been with women frequently, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other times when he wished for peace, wished to be alone. He went to tell her something to that effect, but as he looked around, she was gone.
“Kat . . . Kat . . . Kat!”
“Over here . . .” He heard her call out from around a bush. “I’m just grinding up more leaves. You need your bandage changed.”
He tried to stand, but realized he was still too shaky on his legs and fell back down. Soon, she reemerged and sunk to her knees next to his foot.
“I’m glad you wore pants,” he joked as she cut off another piece of them.
She didn’t smile, only frowned as she took the bandage off.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s redder than I hoped. I need to find more natural antibacterial. But you don’t have a fever, so you’re not infected. I guess it’s just red. I’m going to clean this off a bit and then change the bandage. It might sting.”
She set to work, and West felt the burn go through him as she used the knife to cut the dead skin away. She carefully added new herbs mixed with water, and most likely her saliva, and tied the new mixture onto his foot. It stung, but the pain wasn’t too excruciating. She had saved him countless times now, and he felt a deep gratitude, and something else he couldn’t quite name toward her, knowing that she was the reason he was still alive.