"Help me weave some more mats then," Te' said, happy to see me beginning to enjoy the crafts of her tribe. "We need to cover the whole floor and add a few more layers for extra cushioning."
"Our very own wall-to-wall carpet," I nodded.
As the two of us continued weaving our natural-fiber mats, I looked up at Te' and smiled with a silly grin.
"What are you thinking?" she asked. "You look like a child who's just discovered her first pearl shell."
"I'm just so happy to be with you," I said. "All this nesting makes me realize there's nowhere else I'd rather be in the entire world."
14
After we finished building our carpet of plant leaves, Te' and I made love until we fell asleep exhausted under the warm canopy of our new home. The last thing I remembered before my lids fell heavily over my eyes was the sight of the luminescent figs gleaming like Christmas tree ornaments in the fading light of the setting sun. In the morning, we picked some more fruit from the branches above us and playfully rubbed the sticky pulp all over our naked bodies before going for a cleansing dip in the lagoon.
As I emerged from the surf gazing at Te's sexy tanned body, I could hardly believe my luck. Fate, or happenstance, had landed me in a tropical paradise with the woman of my dreams. We spent the next half hour spearing fish for breakfast, then she placed the catch in a small holding pen we'd built out of large rocks near the shore.
"No fresh sushi for us this morning?" I asked, wondering why she wasn't filleting the fish right away as she had yesterday.
"I thought this might be a good time to teach you the next essential step in your survival skills. I need to teach you how to build a fire. You never know when you might need one. Besides, fresh fish tastes even better when it's grilled over an open flame."
"I was wondering when we were going to get around to that. But are you sure it's safe? I thought you wanted to keep a low profile in case your father came snooping around."
"There's an art to building a fire with a low smoke signature," Te' said. "Just as there is to building one with a strong smoke signal, which might come in handy later. Let me show you how to gather the necessary ingredients."
By now, the soles of my feet had fully healed and all the rubbing on the sandy beach and jungle floor had begun to form a thick, leathery second skin. I was surprised how comfortable it was to scamper across just about any surface without any external protection. More importantly, Teuila's cut had finally closed and she was able to remove her bandage and use her hand freely. Now the only items of clothing either one of us wore was my fading cargo shorts and her tapa-cloth dress, re-fashioned as a wraparound loincloth. It felt exhilarating to traipse about our corner of the forest completely topless, unconcerned about the judging eyes of our neighbors.
Te' led me back into the forest where we began collecting dead twigs of varying thickness. When we had a handful, we returned to the edge of the beach where she dumped the pile in our old sleeping pit.
"There are three things to keep in mind when building a fire you don't want anybody to see," she instructed. "The first is the smell of burning material. We have an onshore breeze today, so at least we're protected from people approaching from the sea. The second is the appearance of the flame, which is why we're building this fire in a pit protected from surrounding lines of sight.
"But the biggest danger is from the smoke, which can be detected from further distances. The trick is to use the driest and smallest materials, so the fire burns more efficiently and doesn't smother. But first, we have to get it started, and for that we need some special materials."
Teuila grasped the shank of her adze and began scraping the blade along the edge of one of the longer branches, producing thin curly strands of dried pulp. Then she picked up the pile of filaments and rubbed them between her hands, breaking them into finer, shorter pieces.
"They look a bit like the strands we used yesterday to make cords," I said.
"You could use this to make rope also," she nodded. "But since this material is drier and more combustible, we're going to use it as a fire starter. But now that you mention it, we’re going to need another three-foot long length of string. Do you think you could do that while I prepare the other elements? This time we’ll need the rope to be a little thinner, so use about half the amount of strands for each side as before."
"No problem," I smiled. "After all the rope we created yesterday, that technique is indelibly imprinted on my brain."
While I lifted one of the fronds lying in the pit and began separating it into thin strands, Teuila chopped the long branch she'd shaved earlier into a two-foot length then chopped a small indent into the side of the branch on each end. Then she picked up a shorter dead branch about one inch in diameter and sharpened one end to a sharp point while rubbing the other end against a nearby rock to create a rounded stub.
"That doesn't look like a very efficient spear," I said, twisting the doubled ends of my palm strands into a thin rope.
"We're not going to use this as a spear," she said. "We're going to use it as a drill."
"A drill?" I said, raising my eyebrows. "But it doesn't have any thread."
My mind suddenly flooded with images of Tom Hanks' character in the movie Cast Away blistering his palms while he rolled a dry stick in his hands trying to build a fire.
"And what are you going to use to turn it? I'd hate for you to damage those pretty hands again."
"Don't worry," Te' said, smiling at me. "My hands aren't even going to touch it. We're going to build a bow to create the necessary friction."
While I looked at her with a puzzled expression, she picked up two pieces of flat driftwood and carved a small notch in the center of each board. When I finished splicing the strands of the palm leaf into a three-inch length of braided string, she took the cord and tied each end around the notches in the stick, bending it to create a tight bow.
"This is going to help us build a fire?" I said, shaking my head wondering how she could use the bow to generate any kind of friction.
"Oh ye of little faith," Te' smiled. "Watch and learn, my apprentice."