“Weeks? We ain’t got enough food for weeks!”

“I know that. We’ll put in at the Ozark Islands and get us some more grub there.”

“How?”

“Huntin’,” said Hawk. “Or trappin’. Or stealin’, if we hafta.”

Tim’s dark eyes lit up. The thought of becoming robbers excited him.

The long lazy day wore on. Tim listened to the creak of the ropes and the flap of the heavy gray sail as he lay back in the boat’s prow. He dozed, and when he woke again the sun had crawled halfway down toward the western edge of the sea. Off to the north, though, ominous clouds were building up, gray and threatening.

“Think it’ll storm?” he asked Hawk.

“For sure,” Hawk replied.

They had gone through a thunderstorm their first afternoon out. The booming thunder had scared Tim halfway out of his wits. That and the waves that rose up like mountains, making his stomach turn itself inside out as the boat tossed up and down and sideways and all. And the lightning! Tim had no desire to go through that again.

“Don’t look so scared,” Hawk said, with a tight smile on his face.

“I ain’t scared!”

“Are too.”

Tim admitted it with a nod. “Ain’t you?”

“Not anymore.”

“How come?”

Hawk pointed off to the left. Turning, Tim saw a smudge on the horizon, something low and dark, with more clouds over it. But these clouds were white and soft-looking.

“Island,” Hawk said, pulling on the tiller and looping the rope around it to hold it in place. The boat swung around and the sail began flapping noisily.

Tim got up and helped Hawk swing the boom. The sail bellied out again, neat and taut. They skimmed toward the island while the storm clouds built up higher and darker every second, heading their way.

They won the race, barely, and pulled the boat up on a stony beach just as the first drops of rain began to spatter down on them, fat and heavy.

“Get the mast down, quick!” Hawk commanded. It was pouring rain by the time they got that done. Tim wanted to run for the shelter of the big trees, but Hawk said no, they’d use the boat’s hull for protection.

“Trees attract lightnin’, just like the mast would if we left it up,” said Hawk.

Even on dry land the storm was scarifying. And the land didn’t stay dry for long. Tim lay on the ground beneath the curve of the boat’s hull as lightning sizzled all around them and the thunder blasted so loud it hurt his ears. Hawk sprawled beside Tim and both boys pressed themselves flat against the puddled stony ground.

The world seemed to explode into a white-hot flash and Tim heard a crunching, crashing sound. Peeping over Hawk’s shoulder he saw one of the big trees slowly toppling over, split in half and smoking from a lightning bolt. For a moment he thought the tree would smash down on them, but it hit the ground a fair distance away with an enormous shattering smash.

At last the storm ended. The boys were soaking wet and Tim’s legs felt too weak to hold him up, but he got to his feet anyway, trembling with cold and the memory of fear.

Slowly they explored the rocky, pebbly beach and poked in among the trees. Squirrels and birds chattered and scolded at them. Tim saw a snake, a beautiful blue racer, slither through the brush. Without a word between them, the boys went back to the boat. Hawk pulled his bow and a handful of arrows from the box where he had stored them while Tim collected a couple of pocketfuls of throwing stones.

By the time the sun was setting they were roasting a young rabbit over their campfire.

Burping contentedly, Hawk leaned back on one elbow as he wiped his greasy chin. “Now this is the way to live, ain’t it?”

“You bet,” Tim agreed. He had seen some blackberry bushes back among the trees and decided that in the morning he’d pick as many as he could carry before they started out again. No sense leaving them to the birds.

“Hello there!”

The deep voice froze both boys for an instant. Then Hawk dived for his bow while Tim scrambled to his feet.

“Don’t be frightened,” called the voice. It came from the shadowy bushes in among the trees, sounding ragged and scratchy, like it was going to cough any minute.

On one knee, Hawk fitted an arrow into his hunter’s bow. Tim suddenly felt very exposed, standing there beside the campfire, both hands empty.

Out of the shadows of the trees stepped a figure. A man. An old, shaggy, squat barrel of a man in a patchwork vest that hung open across his white-fuzzed chest and heavy belly, his head bare and balding but his brows and beard and what was left of his hair bushy and white. His arms were short, but thick with muscle. And he carried a strange-looking bow, black and powerful-looking, with all kinds of weird attachments on it.

“No need for weapons,” he said, in his gravelly voice.

“Yeah?” Hawk challenged, his voice shaking only a little. “Then what’s that in your hand?”

“Oh, this?” The stranger bent down and laid his bow gently on the ground. “I’ve been carrying it around with me for so many years it’s like an extension of my arm.”

He straightened up slowly, Tim saw, as if the effort caused him pain. There was a big, thick-bladed knife tucked in his belt. His feet were shod in what looked like strips of leather.

“Who are you?” Hawk demanded, his bow still in his hands. “What do you want?”

The stranger smiled from inside his bushy white beard. “Since you’ve just arrived on my island, I think it’s more proper for you to identify yourselves first.”

Tim saw that Hawk was a little puzzled by that.

“Whaddaya mean, your island?” Hawk asked.

The old man spread his arms wide. “This is my island. I live here. I’ve lived her for damned near two hundred years.”

“That’s bull-dingy,” Hawk snapped. Back home he never would have spoken so disrespectfully to an adult, but things were different out here.

The shaggy old man laughed. “Yes, I suppose it does sound fantastic. But it’s true. I’m two hundred and fifty-six years old, assuming I’ve been keeping my calendar correctly.”

“Who are you?” Hawk demanded. “Whatcha want?”

Placing a stubby-fingered hand on his chest, the man replied, “My name is Julius Schwarzkopf, once a professor of meteorology at the University of Washington, in St. Louis, Missouri, U. S. of A.”

“I heard of St. Louie,” Tim blurted.

“Fairy tales,” Hawk snapped.

“No, it was real,” said Professor Julius Schwarzkopf. “It was a fine city, back when I was a teacher.”

Little by little, the white-bearded stranger eased their suspicions. He came up to the fire and sat down with them, leaving his bow where he’d laid it. He kept the knife in his belt, though. Tim sat a little bit away from him, where there were plenty of fist-sized rocks within easy reach.