‘I have not killed your people. I have never killed a person in my life. I do not know what you are saying, old father.’ ‘Look around you,’ said the chief. ‘See how we are alone here now where once these halls were full of my people.’ The young man looked again and replied, ‘But I did not kill anyone.’ A week had passed since the night of the storm. Seven days without television or video games. Seven days without music, cell phones, or pizza. Seven days away from his comfortable home and his father. Seth began to worry. Until this point, he had been certain that he was simply biding time, awaiting rescue, which would arrive at any moment—another boat, this time closer, motoring around a bend; a plane flying overhead, lower, looking for him on a beach. All he had to do was stay alive during the tedious hours between lost and found. Now a notion began to creep into his mind, slyly, the way a lynx stalks a rabbit—the troublesome thought that after a week any ongoing search for him might be called off.
