When Chris fully emerged from the bushes, he raised his arms and grinned. He held two birds in his left hand, and another one in his right. They were the size of small chickens, but thinner, leaner. Their pale gray plumage dripped with blood.

I scanned the man's body, but it looked as if the blood was the birds', not his.

"Barbecue time, folks," he said and threw his catch at our feet. He wiped his hands on his pants, leaving red stains there, too, and then rested them on his hips.

One of the birds had landed at my feet, staring up at me with a red-rimmed, glazed eye. It was snatched away.

"Good man." Bruna turned the animal over in her hands. She had approached me without a sound.

"We have to gut them," Nita said.

"Right." Still holding the bird, Bruna retreated to her spot in the shade. "But first they need plucking." She sat, grabbed some feathers, and pulled. They came free with an ugly, tearing sound. "Actually, you should scald them first... put them in hot water, to make the feathers come off more easily. But since we don't have water, let alone hot water, we'll have to do it the hard way." With that, she ripped another handful of feathers from the bird.

She had an interesting set of skills, that woman.

"And who's doing the other ones?" Nita asked. The tone of her voice made it clear that it wouldn't be her.

It wouldn't be me either, but another topic took precedence.

I squinted my eyes at Chris. "What the hell did you think, walking off just like that? With Pamela disappearing yesterday, did you ever consider how this would make us feel? We were worried."

Were we? Kind of, probably.

He took a step back from me. "Sorry," he said, "but I woke up early, went down to the beach to wash, and then I saw the birds. Yesterday, you said that each one of us is responsible, and I thought this was an opportunity to fulfill my responsibilities for the group."

"And did you ever—"

Farid placed a hand on my arm. "Let's not fight again." He gazed at Chris. "Next time Chris is leaving, he'll tell us." He stooped to pick up one of the birds and proffered it to Yves. "The French are known for their superb cuisine."

The Frenchman shrugged. "Sure." He seized the bird, went to sit in the shade beside Bruna, and begun plucking it, too.

Still miffed at Chris, I kept quiet as I listened to the tale of his hunting, which was accompanied by the ghastly sound of Bruna, Farid, and Yves ripping plumage from skin.

Our managing partner had spent hours sitting still at the south shore, armed with a stick, at a place where the animals were feeding in the tidal ponds. When one came too close, whack the stick went. And then whack some more.

His words.

"And now it's a family barbecue," Chris added with a grin.

"Do you have a family?" Nita asked.

"Sure." He nodded. "My daughter's about your age now. She has moved east, to Boston. My wife... she's gone."

"Gone?" Nita frowned. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Well, not really gone. We had a divorce." He looked at his stained shirt. "I need to have a wash." He walked off towards the sea.

Nita watched him as he took off his shirt and squatted down at the waterline. Then she looked at me. "That must hurt," she said in a subdued voice. "The daughter is on the other side of the continent, and his wife is gone."

I could relate to that wife of his. But, looking at his bent back and his tired face as he rubbed his shirt in the water, I felt sorry for him.

~~~

The birds had a surprising amount of feathers.

Bruna finished first and showed off the result. She held up the carcass, its skin pale where it wasn't stained with blood. Feathers still crowned its head. Dangling it from her hand, she prowled around the fire, studying the ground. She finally found a sharp-edged piece of stone. She knelt and placed the bird belly-outwards between her legs. Then she ripped the stone across the body.

It didn't cut, it just left a bloody tear.

I couldn't turn my eyes away as she continued, scratching the animal's belly, again and again, widening the wound until it split open.

She reached in with her thumbs and pulled it apart.

I turned my gaze away. The sounds of tissue tearing and something wet hitting the ground could be heard over her quick breathing and the crackling of the fire.

"Done," she finally said and held up the bird. Its belly gaping wide-open, bloodied, and empty.

I didn't have a closer look at the stuff at her feet.

She stomped off towards the shrubs, passing Farid on the way. She left the stone with him.

I looked anywhere but at Farid gutting his bird.

When she returned, she had the animal skewered on a blunt stick. Without a word, she went down to the shore, dipped the end with the bird into the water, and moved it back and forth. Then she retrieved it and walked back to us.

Seeing me staring at her, she grinned. "Gotta wash and salt them." She sat down by the fire and began roasting it.

Farid joined her some minutes later. They started talking, quietly, in that language of theirs.

What were they talking about? Had she a back full of scars, too? The collar of her shirt hung low, exposing smooth skin at the back of her neck.

Yves, having finished and skewered his bird as well, joined them.

Chris cleared his throat. "Yves will share with Nita," he said. "Bruna will eat with Megan, and I'll eat with Farid."

"Oui, mon chasseur," murmured Yves. The others were silent.

We owed that man our lunch, and the image of his wife and daughter moving away from him made me bite back a retort about him bossing us around again. And the smell of the meat caught my attention. I moved closer to the fire to have a sniff when I stepped into something squishy.

Giblets. Black flies surrounded them.

Fortunately, a layer of clouds had covered the sun, tuning down the hues of crimson, pink, and aubergine.

~~~

Bruna declared her bird ready. "Get some large leaves," she said and looked at me.

I frowned.

"Please," she added.

When I brought the leaves to her—broad, hand-sized, leathery—she pulled the bird from the fire. Then she took the leaves and used them to protect her hands from the steaming meat. With a quick jerk, she tore it apart.

She handed me the piece that still had the stick going through it and bit onto the other one.

I looked at the reddish, torn meat of mine.

"That's not done," I said, wrinkling my nose.

"It has more water that way," Bruna said between bites.

I had heard too many stories about disease hiding in poorly cooked chicken meat and held mine over the fire some more.

~~~

The bird made for a bland fare, and it didn't fill my stomach. Especially because Bruna had given me the smaller share. But she had earned her part by plucking and gutting.

She now was going through the giblets, shying the flies away.

"What are you doing there?" I asked, intrigued.

She up held two chunks of the stuff before me. "The liver and the heart." She skewered them on a small stick and held them over the fire.

As we sat, the murmur of distant thunder rolled over the hill behind us. The clouds had grown denser and darker, crowding the sky with their dark bellies.

"I think it'll rain soon," Chris said. "I hope this brings us some more fresh water."

A few minutes later, Bruna retrieved her meat from the flames, put one of the pieces in her mouth, and chewed. Then she bit into another one. She eyed me, grinned, and held up the last morsel. "Do you want a piece of the heart?"

"Er... thanks, but I think I'll skip dessert."

"Good. I love heart, and I don't like to share it." She put it in her mouth and swallowed as the rain started to pelt us.

Whose heart was that woman talking about?

~~~

The storm lasted for a few minutes only, and the unfulfilled promise of water left me thirstier than before.