I wake up early, sweating more than usual. Drinking does that; and worry. It’s black outside. The moon is down, there’s a heavy cloud cover over the stars, not a shimmer or sliver of light penetrates the darkness.
I think about the events of the past month, how I’ve reacted to them. The conclusion I’ve drawn, particularly after the disturbing information Fred and Marcus gave me last night, is that despite Buster’s insisting that I keep away from this, I can’t; pretending nothing happened and that I won’t get involved is no longer an option. I’m already involved. The question now is: how am I going to end up in all of it? And how do I protect myself?
I’m not going to be able to fall back asleep. I haul myself out of bed and make a pot of coffee. I’m going to have to face the day sooner or later, I might as well begin the process.
• • •
A low fog blankets the water. I don’t have much energy for being out here this morning, my presence doesn’t affect the birds except that I feed them, and if I don’t they can take care of themselves, they don’t need me. The need is mine for them, and from the time all this shit’s gone down—the murder and the events regarding it that have followed—some of the pure joy of watching this marvel of nature has lost its allure. But sitting around my house with nothing to do but worry isn’t good either.
I need to get a life. Exile, either involuntary or self-imposed—mine is both—has its spiritual and emotional growth points, but I’m not Thoreau or Robinson Crusoe. I need to live in the world. I have to get active about resuscitating myself in academia or, failing that, find another line of work.
I tie my boat up, grab my paraphernalia, and wade ashore. Thousands of birds, aware of my presence, flock to the center of the island where I drop loads of feed. I stand back and watch them peck and eat. Ollie and the sandhills have their own area, a marshy spot where the other birds, except for some egrets and other long-legs, don’t flock.
The early light, diffused by the fog, is particularly good today for picture taking. There’s a quality to it that’s almost Impressionistic, reminiscent of Monet’s paintings. I focus on a group of birds, featuring Ollie. Today, I decide as I peer through the lens, I’ll concentrate on feathers.
“Holy Mother of God.” A woman’s voice—low, awestruck.
I spin around so hard I almost fall over my own feet. Maureen O’Hara, the Harvard bird-lady, has snuck up on me, catching me unawares. She’s frozen in place, staring at Ollie through binoculars, her mouth open in an astounded O.
Her focus shifts to me as she sees me glaring at her. She comes a few steps closer, drawn to Ollie as if to a magnet.
“What are you doing here?” I’m flummoxed by this unexpected and very unwelcome intrusion. I slide my body so that I’m between her and the bird.
She ignores my question. Instead, she inches closer, staring at him intently. “Do you know what that is?” she asks, as much to herself as to me.
“Birds,” I snap. My camera hangs from my neck. “How did you get here?” I bluster. “You were told—ordered—not to come on this property.” I’m pissed off; also chagrined for having been busted. “Get the fuck out of here. Now!” I point an accusatory finger at her.
She drops her binoculars down. They hang from her neck. “I followed you,” she answers my question.
“How?” I maneuver to try to keep my body between her and the cranes. She moves in step with me, keeping them in sight.
“In a canoe,” she says matter-of-factly. “Upstream from your place. It’s a good thing I was able to keep track of you or I’d have gotten lost, these creeks go off every which way, it’s worse than the Minotaur’s labyrinth.” She smiles at me disingenuously. “You didn’t think I was going to take no for an answer, did you?”
“Yes, I did,” I say, mustering as much menace in my voice as I can. “You are trespassing, lady. Now haul ass out of here.”
She stares at me directly; no smile. “Or what?”
I stare back at her, trying to be intimidating, although she doesn’t look like she’s easily intimidated. “Or I’ll call the sheriff and have you hauled out of here and cited.”
She actually laughs, right in my face. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yes.”
She takes a cell phone out of her satchel, holds it out to me. “Be my guest.” Another smile—this one downright vicious. “And while you’re talking to him, make sure you inform him that you’re violating the Federal Wildlife Endangered Species Act, so he’s prepared to arrest you and throw you in jail.”
I play dumb. “What are you talking about?”
She points to Ollie in the center of the flock of sandhills. “Do you know what that bird is?”
I glance back at them. “Sandhill cranes. They’re not common around here, but they aren’t endangered. I know that much about birds.”
“Not them,” she says, pointing directly at Ollie. “Him.”
I turn and look again. “Oh, you mean the white one,” I fake. “The wood stork. Yeah, I know the difference.”
“That bird is not a wood stork,” she says, her voice laden with disgust.
“Sure it is.” I’m tap-dancing around this like I’m Fred Astaire. “I looked it up.”
“You didn’t look hard enough,” she tells me. “Or else you’re lying.”
The best defense is a good offense. In this case, the only one. “Lying? Who the hell do you think you are?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she says dismissively. “You’re breaking the law.” She holds the phone out to me. “Go ahead. Call.”
I back away a few steps. “You’re the so-called expert. If it isn’t a sandhill or a wood stork, what is it?”
“You know full well what it is. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have objected so strongly to my coming out here.”
I’ve been nailed, but I still play dumb. Actually, mute. She answers for me, as I knew she would. “That bird is a whooping crane. Wood storks have dark heads and dark underwings. A blind man can tell the difference.” She looks at me in disgust. “But you knew that . . . didn’t you?”
I hold my hands up in supplication. “Okay. You’ve got me. Now what?”
“Now . . .” She hesitates.
“Go ahead.” I’m finished; maybe it’s for the better—the responsibility of being the guardian to an endangered species has been weighing on me. I already have enough problems without carrying that burden, too. “Call whatever agency you have to call. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, whoever.” I turn my back on her, begin preparing to leave.
“Where are you going?” She seems taken aback at my abrupt capitulation.
“I don’t want to be here when they take him away.” I pick up my bag. “But I don’t ever want to see you on this property again, you hear me? If I’m violating the law, it’s out of ignorance. You’re doing it deliberately.”
I grab the rest of my stuff, start down the footpath toward my boat. “I mean it,” I call back over my shoulder. “If I see you anywhere near here again, I’ll shoot first and ask questions afterward.”
“You’d shoot me?” she asks, truly shocked.
“It’s an expression. I don’t own a gun. You know what I mean.” I start walking away again.
“Hey, wait a minute! Stop!”
Slowly, I turn back to her.
“Listen . . .” She runs toward me. “Can we talk about this for a minute?”
“What’s to talk? I only come here for Ollie. Otherwise, I’m not interested.”
She smiles. “Ollie? That’s what you call it?” She turns and looks at him, feeding in the marshes. “He does kind of look like an Ollie, doesn’t he?”
“See you later.” I’m done with her. “I mean, I won’t see you later. That is one thing I am serious about.”
“Okay, wait, wait.”
“What now?”
She looks back at Ollie again. “Who knows about this bird, besides you?”
“No one.”
“You sure?”
&nbs
p; “Positive. Otherwise, there’d be a jillion of you out here.”
She puts her hand on my arm. Gooseflesh rises, involuntarily. “I’ll make you a deal.”
“A deal?” I look at her distrustfully. “What kind?”
“I won’t bust you. I won’t tell anyone.” She pauses. “If you let me come with you and observe him for the time I’m here.”
“How long is that going to be?”
“Only a few weeks. I have to be back at Harvard right after Labor Day.”
“Just you. No one else.” I take a step back, stare at her—everyone has their angle, I’ve figured hers out. “You want some mileage out of this, don’t you? The big article in Scientific American or Nature.”
She nods. “Exclusivity,” she admits candidly. “Observing this bird under these unique conditions could be a huge feather in my cap. The world of academia can be pretty cutthroat, you need every advantage you can get.”
Her pronouncement brings back a flood of unpleasant memories. “Tell me about it.”
“So . . . ?” She stares at me.
“Okay,” I say wearily, giving in—what choice do I have? The truth is that I’m not ready, emotionally, to let go of my prize. He’s the only thing going in my life that makes me feel special.
“All right,” I tell her. “You can come down here with me. But only with me,” I state emphatically. “Not by yourself, ever again.”
“That’s no problem,” she agrees promptly. “I’d get lost trying to come here by myself.”
“And there’s one more condition to this shotgun marriage.”
“What’s that?” she asks with a trace of a smile.
“No picture taking by you,” I tell her firmly. “I’m the only one who shoots film of Ollie.”
“Wait a second,” she protests, “I can’t agree to that. I need—”
I put up my hand: a traffic cop’s signal to stop, on a dime. “That’s nonnegotiable.”
She looks dismayed. “Why can’t I take pictures?” she argues. Then she gives me a shrewd look. “You want your own exclusivity, don’t you? To be able to use these pictures for your personal gain someday.”
I hadn’t thought of that angle—I’m naively deficient in the mercenary department. But it’s true—photographs of a lost whooping crane in the wild could be a financial windfall for me. And more important, maybe a way back into the teaching world, through a side door.
“You’re right,” I tell her. “But that’s not my main objection to you taking pictures of him. You can study him all you want. You are the expert, after all. But he’s my bird. He lives on my land, which makes him mine while he’s here. I’m not going to abuse that, or harm him for my selfish desires if I can help it, but that’s how it is.”
“That is selfish,” she says in sharp agreement.
I shrug. “You wanted a deal, here it is. Take it or leave it.” I smile at her. “I suspect you’re going to take it.”
She nods reluctantly. “I don’t have a choice, either. Okay—I’ll agree to your conditions—although I don’t like them,” she hastens to add.
“Life’s imperfect.” I throw her a bone. “I’ll let you use some of my pictures, after he’s gone.”
“Thank you,” she says crisply. “That’s very generous.”
I choose to ignore the sarcasm. We’re a team now, teammates have to get along.
• • •
We stay until mid-morning. I shoot film, Maureen watches the birds, takes notes. When it’s becoming uncomfortably hot, I stow my stuff again.
“Time to go.”
She looks up in surprise, caught in the moment. “Can’t we—?”
“I’m leaving. You come and go with me. You agreed.”
She starts to argue, catches herself. “Okay.”
As we start walking down to the water I see, in the distance, a small jet airplane flying low, coming in for a landing. I put a hand on Maureen’s arm. “Where did you tie up your canoe?”
“Next to your boat. Why?”
If her canoe is next to my boat, it won’t be seen. “I don’t want anyone seeing boats from the air. It could lead to—”
She gets it immediately. “Right.”
We walk a little farther, until we have a clear line of sight across the water to Roach’s property and airstrip. I put my hand on her arm again, hunker down on my heels.
“Crouch down.”
“What—”
I pull her down to my level, reach into my bag for my camera, quickly screw the ultralong lens onto the body.
“What is it?” she asks.
“I don’t want us to be seen.”
She stares across the water through the high reeds. “No one can see us from over there.”
“Doesn’t hurt to be careful.”
“What’s with the camera?”
“I want to see what’s going on. Just hang tight a minute, this won’t take long.”
“What . . . ?”
“I’ll explain later.”
The small jet touches down and taxis along the runway. It’s a Lear. Roach’s—it has to be.
“What is . . . ?” she starts up again.
I’m trying to focus on the plane as it slows down and stops. Then I have it, sharp and clear.
“Please be quiet,” I order her quietly. “I’ll explain in a minute.”
“Who are they?” She can’t stop talking. “What are you looking for?”
I ignore her, zeroing in on the plane.
The door opens, swings down. A figure stands in the doorway, peering out. Sure enough, it’s Roach. He walks down the steps. Two more men follow him off the plane. The three talk for a moment. Then Wallace, the security asshole who almost killed me, comes out and jogs down the steps.
“What—?” she begins to whisper yet again.
“Quiet, damn it,” I hiss. I’m shaken by this, more by seeing Wallace than anything else. I force my hands to be steady, so I can shoot pictures without blurring them.
“Do you know them? Is there something wrong?” she asks apprehensively.
“There’s nothing wrong,” I lie, not wanting her to freak out and do something dangerous like make noise, which will travel over the water in echoing sound ripples and cause them to look over in our direction. I do not want James Roach to discover that I’m here.
I wait to see if anyone else gets out, but no one does. I spy on the four of them through the long lens as they cross the tarmac, get into a Range Rover that’s parked at the edge of the field, and drive away.
As I watch them leave I’m wondering: what in hell is Wallace doing here? Roach fired him. I heard him.
We wait, motionless. After I’m sure they’re out of sight, I stand up and stretch my cramped muscles. Maureen stands beside me.
“What was that all about?” she asks, her voice vibrating with nervous energy. “Who are those men?”
“One’s the owner of the property. The first one off. James Roach. He’s a big deal in the government and a friend of the family’s. I wanted to make sure it was him and not someone else.”
“Like who?”
“Like anyone else. He doesn’t like other people using his airstrip. He’s had some problems with that.” I shouldn’t be telling her this, but I have to explain my behavior in a way she’ll buy without arousing any suspicion.
“I don’t think you should let anyone else in on what we’re doing,” she advises me sagely.
“So no one will horn in on your discovery?” I ask pointedly, wanting to deflect her interest.
“That’s exactly right,” she answers unapologetically. “I want to keep it all to myself.”
We wait until I’m sure the coast is clear, then we go down to the water’s edge, untie our boats, and head up the channel. I keep her in front of me, maintaining a watchful eye on the far shore. But there’s no one there to see us.
Back at my house, Maureen maneuvers her canoe to my dock.
“Want to come in for coffee?” I ask.
If I’m going to have to accommodate her I might as well be hospitable—within strict boundaries, of course.
She ponders the invitation for a moment before answering, “Yes, thanks.”
She follows me inside. The coffee’s still hot in the carafe. I hand her a cup.
“Milk’s in the fridge.”
“Black’s fine.” She blows on it, sips tentatively. I take out the ingredients for my red one.
“What’s that?” she asks.
“Devil’s brew. Want to try one?”
She makes a face as she watches me crack a raw egg into the mixture. “No, thanks. That’s nasty-looking.”
I mix it all up, drink it down in two swallows. It helps; it always does.
“Is this your everyday breakfast?”
“Only when I’ve been imbibing the night before. So yes, most of the time.”
She looks around. “It’s quaint, I’ll give you that.”
“Suits me okay.” I don’t need this interloper bad-mouthing my house.
“Reminds me of camp,” she comments. “I assume you have a good smoke detector,” she adds, looking at the wires that run along the walls from my outside solar panels. “You wouldn’t want to fall asleep smoking in bed.”
“I don’t smoke inside and I don’t let anyone else, either, so I don’t worry about it.”
I pour myself a cup of coffee. She follows me out onto the back porch. We sit in the Adirondack chairs. She unlaces her expensive-looking boots and pulls them off, dropping them onto the wooden floor. Then she takes a notebook from her pack, starts scribbling in it.
“What’re you writing?” I ask with curiosity.
She looks up. “Notes from this morning. Technical stuff. Nothing you’d be interested in.”
“Where are you staying?” I continue, making idle conversation.
She closes her book, puts it back in her pack, blows on her coffee to cool it so it won’t scald her lips. “Lighthouse Motel, in Jamestown.”
“That’s thirty miles away. You’re going to come out here at six every morning? You’ll have to get up damn early, ’cause you can’t go to watch the birds without me. If I’ve already left, you’re out of luck.”
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