Chap
Over the next few day they spent most of the time exploring. Climbing up and down tree lined hills and valleys. Through brush jungle. It was slow going.
There was an open field of wild grass - close to waist high where hundreds of tropical flowers grew wild all around. It was beautiful. A peaceful, calm place where they rested for about an hour.
'This is the perfect place for a picnic. If we weren't stuck here, that is.' Emma thought to herself as they laid in the grass, heads touching, looking up at the blue cloud filled sky.
Every few minutes one of them would point to the clouds and say, "That one looks like a horse" or "I see a car."
Xxxxx
"Oh, man...I think this is a machete." Dean exclaimed, waving the just discovered tool above his head. His foot hitting the hard handle as he trudged ahead of Emma through the thick vines on the ground.
"How long has this been here? It looks old." She asked, backing away from the thing. "As long as it's usable; I don't care how old it is. We needed this." Dean smiled holding out his hand to help Emma up a steep incline. Swiping the machete at the overgrown vegetation as they proceeded.
Within a few feet, the machete uncovered a human skeleton. "Oh, shit!" Dean gasped in surprise. Emma screamed and jumped backwards. She nearly went tumbling, but for Dean who was still holding her hand. Dozens of birds flew from the surrounding trees from the noise - further startling Emma. She plastered herself into Dean's side, burning her face in his shoulder.
"It's alright. You okay?" He asked, rubbing her back. Emma took a cleansing breath and nodded, "Yeah, just startled."
On further examination of the tattered rags with the bones. Dean figured that 'he' was most likely a pirate. "I guess we know where the machete came from now?" He said. "You okay to continue?" She gulped, but nodded. He tightened his grip on her hand, pulling her forward.
X
Very shortly, they came upon their most exciting discovery yet. A trunk, an old steamer trunk. Getting that back to the beach was a challenge that took them until sunset. It wasn't too heavy, just cumbersome.
Inside the trunk was a large hat box containing a hat. The brim was in tatters; but it could be trimmed and still be useful. It was - at one time - beautiful like those worn in the early 1900's. Like Kate Winslet wore in Titanic. The wide ribbon wrapped around it was faded - by now - to a dull rose color. The hat itself; was cream colored.
Underneath the hat, they found a folded shaving towel and straight razor in another box. "Yes!" they both exclaimed. "Now we can shave." Emma also found a palm size jewelry box with a cameo lid that held two simple 'his and hers' gold wedding bands.
Also inside the trunk were two extra long women's shawls - one, a delicately crocheted ivory lace; the other made of shear cotton with a simple crocheted trim. Underneath all of this was a men's pinstriped dress suit jacket. "See if this fits you." she said, holding it up for him to try on. "The arms are too short - but we can take it apart for something else if we need to."
Beneath the men's jacket was a brass embossed hand mirror - with a crack down the middle, a matching bristle brush and tin shaving cup. "Finally, a mirror!" she said, happily hugging it.
"That's it. Nothing left. We can use the trunk for storage, though. This is encouraging. Who knows what else there is to find." He was so jazzed to have found this trunk; and excited at the prospect of what else they might discover if the kept looking. Exhausted from their eventful, yet productive day, they fell asleep almost immediately.
They'd found another - empty trunk about a week later and debated hassling with moving it. In the end; it was too valuable to leave and they kept it in their shelter to store their blankets and clothing items in.
Xxxx
"How's your hand?" Emma had asked him a few days after they'd found the second trunk. He had just returned from a swim in the ocean. Emma was attempting to make a 'nut butter' cracking nuts in between a two flat stones. It was a tedious task, with little successful results.
"All healed up, Thanks. Guess what I found when I was swimming?" He was holding something behind his back and smiling like the Cheshire Cat. "What?" She stopped her work and waited for him to show her.
In his hands were four oysters.
"Neat. You got' em then? What now? How are we going to get them open? Or cooked for that matter? We haven't got a pot to boil them in. I don't think it's a good idea to use the only knife we have just for these. I know it's an alternate source of food we haven't tried; but, is it worth it?"
Her concern was valid. But, he was up for the challenge.
"Maybe if we crush them between two rocks, like the nuts - they'd open?
"No, that would crush everything. If only we had a pot. I'd just boil them until they opened." she figured.
"We don't though. I went through the trouble of getting them. We have to try. I just need to get them open to try them. We may hate them."
Emma nodded, but was not completely okay with his plan.
"It's not just the knife I'm worried about." "I know."
One by one; Dean carefully opened the oysters spearing them and holding them over the fire for a few minutes. He gave them to Emma to figure out how to make them taste good. She squirted some pineapple juice on them before offering one to Dean.
"Crap! That's so gross!" Was the general consensus between the two of them. "That's DEFINITELY a texture thing!" Emma complained. "It'll take some practice and playing around with more ingredients. We'll have to find some other way to cook those."
"Hold out your hand." He smiled. "Why?" "Trust me?" he slipped two cream colored pearls into her palm.
"Pearls? Pretty. But, what am I going to do with them?"
"Souvenir? Or, save them; and someday you can have them made into some jewelry."""Neat idea. Thanks." she pecked him on the cheek and got up to place them in the jewelry box.
