Bride of the Baja by Jane Toombs Page A

pantomimed breaking it over his knee, and threw the weapon onto the rocks at his feet.
    He approached and walked around her, looking up at her—he was several inches shorter—seemingly fascinated by her blond hair. Putting his right hand on his chest, he said, "Chia." When she stared at him he again said, "Chia."
    Of course, she thought. She put her own hand to her chest and said, "Alitha." He tried to repeat the name. "Leeta," he said. She felt a fleeting pang, for Leeta was the name Thomas always called her by.
    "Chia," she said, pointing at him, and he nodded. All this time his face had shown no expression. He seemed incapable, she thought, of either frowning or smiling. But his dark eyes gleamed.
    Chia pointed down at Malloy's body and made pawing motions with his hands. He wanted to bury Malloy. Alitha knelt at the mate's side, seeing a dark circle staining the back of his shirt--there was no question but that the mate was dead. She thought of taking the shirt to wear. No, she couldn't, she'd rather wear nothing at all.
    Alitha looked up at Chia and nodded. When he stared at her, not seeming to understand, she repeated his digging motions. He trotted a few feet away, stopping near the spot where Alitha had intended to spend the night and, dropping to his knees, began to scoop the sand to one side. She joined him, and when, a few minutes later, they reached wet, close-packed sand, Chia took the piece of wood from his hair and she saw that it was a knife with a tongue-shaped blade made not of metal but of some gray, stone-like substance. The short handle was decorated with mother-of-pearl. By the time the grave was four feet deep, the night was darkening around them. Chia stopped digging.
    She followed him back to the mate's body, barely able to see him in the darkness. Chia picked up one of Malloy's legs and, fighting back her repugnance, Alitha took the other leg and together they dragged him to the grave, where Chia rolled him into the burial hole. As Alitha was about to scoop sand over the body, Chia touched her arm. She stopped and watched him.
    Chia walked to the water's edge and, seeing him outlined against the sea and sky, she realized the night had become lighter. Looking over the calm sea, she saw a glowing aureole on the horizon. Chia began to chant, not the harsh cries of triumph he had uttered after he had killed Malloy, but an almost lyrical song of thanksgiving.
    She gasped, for as the boy raised his arms above his head, facing east, the rim of the three-quarter moon rose slowly out of the sea. She could almost believe that the moon had risen not because of the turning of the earth but because Chia had, in some mysterious way, called it forth.
    As soon as the moon's circle was completely above the ocean, Chia lowered his arms and trotted up the beach. Together they covered the body of the mate and, after they were finished, Alitha knelt beside the grave and prayed aloud as she had heard her father do over the bodies of fallen shipmates.
    When she stood up, Chia walked away without looking at her, without making a sign to her. He must expect her to follow, she decided, so she ran after him until she was a few paces behind. He retrieved his spear, then climbed a hillock and then another, stopping finally in a grassy hollow protected from the wind by a rise of ground shaped like a breaking wave.
    Chia lay in an indentation in the ground, and she knew he meant to sleep. Probably he had spent many nights here. For the first time she wondered what had brought him to this island. He certainly didn't live here. Had he been swept ashore by the storm as she had been?
    Alitha found a hollow in the sand and lay down, clasping her knees to her body for warmth, listening to the pounding of the surf. She was no longer afraid of Chia. She’d decided she trusted him. He meant to protect her--he must have killed Malloy to protect her. As she drifted toward sleep, she realized that, after her shock when she had first seen