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Then she carries the rock back down to the beach where theain and begins squir his throat

Anyway, she says to hiuess ItBut this tide and all--you wanna bet there’sfriends on their way? That’s a pretty safe bet, I’d say

She nods and looks out over the shoal again

Okay then, she says, lifting the rock up over her head and bringing it down on his face with a thick wet crunch

The ar, but she knows that happens for a while afterward sos it doice more just to make sure

Then she leaves the rock where it is, like a headstone, and goes down to her fishing net and finds a hthouse, where she cooks it over a fire and eats it with salt and pepper

Then she clioes out on the catwalk and looks far off toward the mainland

She kneels down and puts her chin against the cold ain

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That night, by firelight, she res she stowed there when she first arrived The cooler, the canteen, the pistol with two good rounds left in it Later, she takes the gurkha knife and the pocket stone down to the beach and sits on the sand whetting the edge of it in long s there under the moon for the better part of an hour, until she can taste the sharpness of the blade with her tongue It’s a good blade, a foot long with an inward curve to it It whistles when she swings it through the air

She sleeps soundly that night but wakes herself up just before dawn and gathers her things

She puts the knife and the pistol and the canteen and her panas it down to the beach Then she walks back up to the lighthouse to say goodbye

It’s a sorry thing to leave your hoood to her She feels like a pea at the base of that tallboy tower She climbs the steps one last time to the catwalk and looks at herself in the thousand tiny y, and she takes a band and ties it up in back

Then she reaches in and uses her fingers to pry loose one of the little mirrors and puts it in her pocket as a souvenir of her ti she’s not too fond of But there are secrets that lurk in theup on her Soet queasy gazing into those dark corners

Back at the bottoht behind her so the on’t blow it open and stir things around in there It’s a warone away from it

She stands at the base and cranes her neck to look up at it

Goodbye, you good old tower, she says Keep standin true Take care of whoever settles down in you next, dead or alive, sinner or saint

She nods It’s a nice thing to say, she thinks, like a blessing or a toast or a birthday wish or a funeral sers true if they’re said right

DOWN AT the beach, she strips naked and puts all her clothes and her shoes in the cooler with everything else and shuts the lid as tight as she can, sto up and down on it a few tiins to lift in the current of its own accord--then she swings it in front of her and pushes it over the breakers until she’s beyond them and beyond the swells

She swi far away from the shoal so the current won’t pull her onto the rocks She keeps her arms around the cooler and kicks her feet, and when she’s tired she stops and floats and keeps an eye on theher There’s a breeze that sweeps over the surface of the water, and it oosebu the swi you up like a lizard

She has no way to tell time, but she’s no fast swimmer and it feels like an hour before she reaches the mainland and pulls the cooler up onto the beach and sits on a rock wringing the salt water out of her hair and drying her skin in thebreeze

The beach is deserted, and she opens the cooler and takes out a lass and cliravel turnout overlooking the shore to get the lay of the land There are two cars parked down the road and soainst the horizon she can see a few slugs They haven’t caught her scent, and they’re li around in their randolass again on the two cars One of them is a jeep, and the other is a squat red car with two doors All the wheels seem intact from what she can tell