But as he looked at the scab Hunter was disturbed to see that it was a strange color. Not reddish like most scabs. This was green.

He rolled his sleeve back down. And forgot about it again.

Sanjit stood at the edge of the cliff. The binoculars didn’t show much detail. But it wasn’t hard to see the plume of smoke. It was like a massive, twisted exclamation point over Perdido Beach.

He tilted the glasses upward. Far up in the sky the smoke seemed to spread out horizontally. Like it was running into a glass ceiling. But that had to be an illusion.

He turned to his right and focused on the yacht. His view traveled from the bow to the stern. The helicopter.

Choo was trying to fly a kite for Pixie. The kite wasn’t really taking off. It never did, but Pixie kept hoping and Choo kept trying. Because, Sanjit reflected, as grumpy as Virtue was, he was a good person. Something Sanjit wasn’t sure he could say about himself.

Peace was inside, keeping watch over Bowie. His fever had stopped spiking. But Sanjit knew better than to think this was a permanent improvement. They’d been up and down like this for a long time.

He stared at the helicopter. Not a chance he could fly it. He was going to have to convince Choo of that. Because if Sanjit tried to fly the chopper he’d get all of them killed.

And if he didn’t then Bowie might die.

He was too lost in his dark thoughts to notice that Virtue was running toward him.

“Hey, there’s a boat coming.”

“What?”

Virtue pointed at the sea. “Right there.”

“What? I don’t see anything.”

Virtue rolled his eyes. “You really can’t see that?”

“Hey, I didn’t grow up searching the savannah for lions.”

“Lions. That’s right. That’s what I spent most of my time doing: looking for lions.”

Sanjit thought he could almost make out a spot that might be a boat. He aimed the binoculars. It took a while to pick out the boat and he found it by first locating its wake.

“It is a boat!”

“They don’t call you Wisdom for nothing,” Virtue said dryly.

“There’s people in it,” Sanjit said. He handed the binoculars to Virtue.

“It looks like maybe a half dozen people,” Virtue said. “I can’t see them very well. I can’t even tell for sure if they’re heading this direction. They might be aiming for one of the other islands. Or they might just be fishing.”

“The town burns up and suddenly we have a boatload of people on their way here?” Sanjit said skeptically. “I’m going to guess they aren’t fishing.”

“They’re escaping from Perdido Beach,” Virtue agreed. “Running from something.”

“The fire.”

But Virtue shook his head dolefully. “No, brother. Think about it. There’s a fire, so do you jump in a boat and head for an island? No. You just go where there’s no fire. Like to the next town.”

Sanjit fell silent. He was a little embarrassed. Now that he thought of it, it was obvious. Choo was right. Whatever they were doing in that boat it wasn’t about getting away from a fire.

“What do we do if they come here?” Virtue asked.

Sanjit had no easy answer. He stalled. “They’ll have a hard time landing. Even with no surf they’ll never get off that boat and up the cliffs.”

“Unless we help them,” Virtue said.

“What they’ll do is come around and try to get in by the yacht. If they go the right direction, they’ll come around and see it. Pretty good chance they’ll end up drowning if they try that. Crushed in between the yacht and the rocks. Even with no surf. It’s too tight.”

“If we helped them they could make it,” Virtue said cautiously. “It’ll take them a while to get here. That’s not exactly a fast boat. And they’re still a long way off.” He looked again through the binoculars. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Don’t know what?”

Virtue shrugged. “It’s not good to just decide you don’t like people, not even give them a chance.”

Sanjit felt the hairs on his neck tingle. “What are you saying, Choo?”

“I don’t know. I’m not saying anything. They’re probably fine.”

“Do they look fine?”

Virtue didn’t answer. Sanjit noticed that his jaw was tight. Brow furrowed. Lips pressed into a thin line.

“Do they look, fine, Choo?” Sanjit repeated.

“They could be like, refuges, you know?” Virtue said. “What are we going to do? Turn them away?”

“Choo. I’m asking you. Do they look fine to you? Crazy as it sounds, I kind of trust your feelings on things.”

“They don’t look anything like the men who came out of the jungle to our village,” Choo said. “But they feel like them.”

“Where are we supposed to land?” Diana asked.

The islands, which she’d been watching for what felt like days now, were finally within reach. The motorboat wallowed before bare cliffs that might have been one hundred feet high.

“There has to be something, like a dock or whatever,” Bug said. He was nervous, Diana knew. If his story about this island turned out to be a fantasy Caine would make him wish he were dead.

“We are about out of gas,” Tyrell said. “Maybe, like a gallon or whatever. I can hear it sloshing around, you know?”