Sam and Irene set out together on the leeward side of the island in the late afternoon, carrying one of the empty water cans. They wore swimming costumes, which they’d both packed in their kit bags because a swimming costume didn’t weigh all that much, and they’d certainly expected to go swimming once they reached Australia. Irene’s was a plain, modest suit of navy blue serge; Sam’s was nearly identical except larger and less copious on the chest. The water was warm and clear and remarkably calm, just lapping against the pale sand while the sun glittered on top. Irene marveled at the sight of her feet as she waded out. From the other side of the island, they heard the soft, steady crash of the surf, but here there was nothing but peace, and the fish that nibbled curiously at their toes, and the bright red strawberry hermit crabs that crawled along the reef, scooping up all the smaller creatures. Life grew abundantly here, in the nutrient-rich waters that swelled up the walls of the extinct underwater volcano on which they were perched. Irene plunged her hand in the water and lifted out a wriggling crab.

“Here you go!” she said. “Dinner.”

Sam waded over with the empty can. “Blow me down.”

Irene dropped the crab inside and said, “Now it’s your turn.”

“Me? I’m just looking out for sharks.”

“You’re not scared of the claws, are you?”

“Don’t be silly.”

“You are too. Come on, here’s another one. Just put your hand in and grab him from the top.”

Sam made a fed-up noise and dropped his arm into the water. When it came out, a red crab dangled from his fingers. “Dinner,” he said.

He dropped the crab in the can, and the pair of hermits scuttled over and under each other. Sam peered in, expression of wonder.

“I can’t believe you’ve never been crabbing,” said Irene.

“I grew up in Kansas, for God’s sake.”

“Still. You’ve lived in California for years.”

“Never went crabbing, though. You have to start young with these things. Your dad has to teach you.”

“Well, now I’m teaching you,” said Irene.

Sam looked up from the water can. The sun was heading down. Sam’s face, already deeply tanned, had turned to gold in the horizontal light. He was grinning. He grinned all the time now, like they were on some kind of exotic vacation instead of marooned together on a barren island, supplies running low. Irene smiled back, because you couldn’t help smiling back at a grin like that, Sam Mallory’s grin.

“You’re teaching me a lot of things, I guess,” he said.

That night they cooked the crabs in the small pit they’d excavated from an old guano mine, a scar left in the ground by the American Guano Company some fifty years before. Inside this pit, they made the tiny, efficient fires that distilled seawater into something potable, and now they boiled the crabs in the seawater—the fresh water was far too precious—and it turned out all right. For fuel they dried handfuls of tough sea grass and bound it into sticks. Irene could build a decent fire, too, but Sam seemed to have some elemental connection with the whole business, from first spark to dying flame to ember.