by John Yunker
“I’ll catch up. I needed to talk to you. Privately. You see, I had a rather strange sighting yesterday evening,” he said. “What shall I call this one—a yellow dot?”
Angela spun around. “What did you say?”
“I was looking for you. We finished up early, and I thought you could use a hand with your surveys. When I got about a mile up north I discovered why you didn’t want me tagging along, and how you were able to cover so many circles so quickly.”
“Who have you told?”
“Nobody, yet. Who is he?”
“I can’t say.”
“Why not?”
“I just can’t.”
“You’ll have to report him.”
“There’s no need. He’ll be gone soon.”
“Angela, people know something’s up. And if I don’t say anything and somebody else sees this guy, which is bound to happen, they’re going to think I was in on it, too.”
She could see it in his eyes—he had moved on. He’d found some other naturalist to shadow, and his allegiance would now shift as well, even as he tried to conceal it under that handsome veil of enthusiasm. If he turned Angela in, it would demonstrate his loyalty to the camp, to the penguins. Not to her.
“And there’s no chance you would risk anything on my behalf?” Angela asked.
“It’s not personal, Angela. I’m new here—and I’d like to be invited back next year. If you don’t do it, I will, if for no other reason than to preserve what’s left of our Malbec supply.”
* * *
That day, for the first time, Angela did not visit Aeneas. Instead, she escorted Doug and the others to the South End, where they spent the afternoon weighing and measuring chicks in two dozen flagged nests, nests they’d monitored for more than a decade. She had told Doug that she needed one more day before turning in her companion, and he reluctantly agreed to stay silent. But her one day was passing much too quickly. She needed more time. More time with Aeneas.
“I have to return to camp,” she told Doug, avoiding his eyes. “You work on the nests over by the point.”
Walking the north line, she encountered a penguin dead in his nest. She saw the teeth marks and could tell that a culpeo fox had killed him the night before, not for food but to mark territory. Nothing more than a thrill kill. Bycatch.
Angela looked at the female—sitting on her eggs, eggs that would be abandoned soon, and weaving her head from side to side—and felt herself beginning to cry. She held it in, surprised that she had turned so emotional. The female penguins were never single for long; males in the surrounding bushes were already eying the empty nest. But what Angela had once seen as instinctual head movements she now saw as a creature in mourning.
In the distance, she noticed clouds of dust forming a trail, the sign of a fast-moving vehicle. She made a mental note to remind the guardafauna to post speed-limit signs. Taxis lately had become reckless, trying to squeeze in additional trips before the gate closed. But when Angela mounted the last hill before camp, she saw the source of the dust wasn’t a taxi but a speeding police car, lights flashing.
The police car skidded to a stop at the guardafauna’s gate but only for a second as the guardafauna waved it through. Angela picked up her pace, and then she started running.
The car was going too fast to stop for penguins, and she prayed that none was crossing the road as the car crested the hill. She lost sight of it through the brown dust, but she stayed on the road, dreading the thought of trying to rescue an injured bird, or, worse, having to put one down, which had happened last season.
But either the police were more careful than she thought or the birds more cautious; she didn’t find any injured penguins along the way. Relief turned to fury as she saw the empty police car ahead, its blue lights echoing off tour buses and the darkening hills. Intending to teach the officers a lesson, she began practicing her faded Spanish in her head: Se ponen en peligro los pingüinos. Contacto con sus jefes.
She pushed her way through the crowd. It took her only a moment to ascertain what had happened. There’d been a fight. A tourist, with a bleeding face and hysterical wife, required medical attention. The perpetrator had taken off into the bushes. Police had already begun scouring the colony, disregarding the warning signs and ropes. Penguins on the trail panicked and flapped about.
Angela had a bad feeling, and as the police reviewed tourists’ camcorders, she stood close and watched. She caught a glimpse, on a tiny sun-bleached screen, of man punching man, bloody faces, dust. And one of the men wore a bright yellow jacket.
* * *
She found him on Beacon Hill.
“What the hell happened out there?”
“I was looking for you,” he said. “I thought you might be on the trail.”
“You assaulted a tourist?”
“He nearly stepped on a penguin, Angela. He was completely off the trail, trying to take a close-up photo. I kindly asked him to step back, but he refused. I even said please. But my recidivistic instincts got the better of me.”
“You have to leave.”
“That’s what I was coming to tell you. My ship is on its way. They’re sending a Zodiac. I’ll be gone in an hour.”
She looked out over the water, her mind desperately trying to process everything. The chaos in the camp behind her. This man about to leave her. The anger inside, causing her hands to tremble—or was it fear? She didn’t know what she was feeling anymore.
“Come with me,” he said.
“What?” She turned to face him.
“I said, come with me.”
“Where?”
“To the ship.”
Angela looked into his eyes, wide with excitement, alluring in their depth. She felt her heart stutter as she considered the invitation, the madness of it all. Running away. Freeing herself of Doug. The gossip. The camp. Perhaps it was time to leave it all behind. To start over. To fight a new battle. To have a man in her life instead of more birds.
Then reality sunk in. Penguins in need of counting. A Ph.D. not yet attained. People who depended on her. How could she leave now, after so long? And for this man, this capricious, unreliable drunk of a man?
“We’ll get a new ship,” he said, as if reading her mind, sensing her hesitation. “A ship that patrols only these waters, keeping the trawlers out of the penguin feeding areas. Angela, you’ll do more good for those birds out there than you could ever do counting survivors here.”
“Is that all you think I do, count survivors?”
“Of course not. But at some point you have to ask yourself what’s the good of counting penguins when they’re going extinct.”
“I‘m a scientist. I’m not some warrior.”
“You’re wrong. You are a warrior. And this is a war. Only the battleground has shifted. Those hundred thousand tourists each year are protection enough. If a bus runs over one penguin, you researchers will turn it into a provincial disaster—you said so yourself. Out there, the fishermen kill a thousand penguins a month, and nobody hears a word. You could change all of that. They need someone out there doing what you’ve already accomplished here. Protecting them, instead of counting them. You can’t tell me you’re not weary of diminishing returns.”
“Just leave.”
“I’m going to,” he said.
“I mean now. I don’t care if you swim out of here!”
She was not aware she was shouting, until he got closer to her and she could hear her voice echoing back. For so much of her life she’d kept an emotional distance to prevent exactly these moments—an arm’s length, to prevent getting bitten. She pushed him away, but he resisted. She slapped him, but he kept coming. He grabbed her and hugged her tight until she began to sob. Until she told him about Diesel.
Zero four two two nine.
A number in a log book that would never receive ano
ther notation. A number gone dormant, like most of the log book itself, and the story of her life. Numbers upon numbers of birds that one day left shore and never returned. Diesel had grown into so much more than a number. He’d become a husband and a father; he’d remained her friend. And now he was gone, like all the others.
Aeneas listened patiently, until Angela’s face was dry. She stood back, feeling embarrassed.
“Zero four two two nine,” Aeneas said, quietly, almost like an invocation. And she knew that he understood, that his whales were so much more than numbers to him, too—and at the same time she realized she’d found the one person in the world who understood her, who could read her mind, and he was about to leave.
She stepped forward and kissed him before she could talk herself out of it, until he pulled away. She watched him, with blurry eyes, as he limped away, crested the hill and disappeared toward the sea.
Robert
“It’s like an invasion,” Lynda said.
She and Robert watched the tour buses arrive at the pier, one after another, and empty their cargo. Passengers, eyes squinting, shuffled single file down the steps and up a ramp back into the ship. It was late afternoon, and the Emperor of the Sea’s restless engines signaled an end to its brief visit. Robert sat on a bench, coffee in hand, watching over the circus of street vendors and pedicabs, desperate for last-minute business.
“Looks like they’re preparing for departure,” Robert said.
“I pity the next port of call.”
“For someone from Miami, that’s really saying something.”
Robert should have been sleeping now, while Lynda stood sentry, but he couldn’t sleep without dreaming, and his dreams were more stressful than being awake or suffering sleep deprivation. He drained his coffee and stared out at the Tern.
He knew the crew was getting ready to make a move. Earlier that day, they’d let a fuel truck through, as well as deliveries of food and water. Robert considered preventing the supplies from arriving but realized that this would only prolong the waiting. Not only was he tired of it, but he knew that each passing minute felt like an eternity to Aeneas, with the Japanese already prowling the Southern Ocean, harpooning whales without resistance. Time, Robert realized as he yawned again, was working against the both of them.
He heard the brief whoop of a siren and looked back at the tour buses. A police car had snaked its way through the crowd. Two officers got out and approached a tour guide, a hot little number in tight khaki pants. She pointed them toward a few passengers who held up their video cameras for review. A crowd began to gather.
“What’s going on over there?” Lynda asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Has the makings of an international incident, I’d say.”
“Stay here and keep an eye on the ship.” Robert approached the huddle and pushed his way through. He looked over the shoulder of an officer at a video camera in replay mode. Nothing more than tourists and penguins. Penguins on their bellies. Penguins walking. Penguins flapping wings. A woman posing in front of penguins. Then shouting from off camera. The woman pointing at something, the camera following, refocusing on two men arguing, one in a yellow jacket, the camera too far away to make out faces. The man in the yellow jacket throwing a punch. The camera zooming in, freezing on the man’s face.
* * *
Robert drove while Lynda monitored the phone. The rounded gravel road was surrounded by chaparral and low-lying hills, and if it weren’t for the steady stream of dust-covered vehicles headed in the opposite direction, Robert would have thought they were lost. The angle of the road kept the car on a persistent downward slope, like a boat heading into the wind, making Robert feel as though he had to right the ship every few seconds. But that wasn’t what bothered him at the moment; it was the fact that only one windshield wiper worked, the one on Lynda’s side. Every ten minutes Robert had to stop to wipe off the dust.
“I thought you asked for a new car.”
“I did,” Lynda said. “I didn’t think we’d be off-roading today.”
The phone rang. Linda answered it, listened, then dictated. “Gordon says a cruise ship reported a fight at Punta Verde between a passenger and an unidentified gringo,” she said. “The man was described as large, heavyset, hostile. And American.”
Robert sped up until the car began to shake. Going to Punta Verde together was a calculated risk. Lynda had volunteered to stay behind, but she would be more valuable here, helping him track down Aeneas, allowing him to cover a larger swath of land. Lynda had instructed the harbormaster to keep an eye on the Tern, to call them in case of any activity. The fact that the phone had not rung yet was a positive sign. And if by chance the Tern did make a run for it, at least Robert knew where it would be headed. If he moved quickly enough, he stood a chance of catching Aeneas on the shore.
After they passed a sign indicating they were ten kilometers from Punta Verde, the passenger’s side tire blew, sending the car veering off the road in a cloud of dirt, rear first, into the bushes.
“Lynda.” Robert tried to cough away the dust. “Lynda, you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Robert punched the steering wheel, got out, and surveyed the damage. Except for the tire, the car seemed drivable—but Robert suddenly felt too tired to rise up from his knees.
“You need a hand?” Lynda asked.
He stood. “What I need is a decent fucking car—one that would have had me there by now.”
“Well, Bobby, they were all out of time machines at the rental lot. So you’re going to have to make do with this one.” She paused. “You want me to get the jack out, or do you want to do it?”
Robert felt as overheated as the car’s anemic engine; he needed time to cool down. Without speaking, he walked into the brush, until he was hidden behind a wall of it. He took a deep breath and looked out over the undulating panorama of scrubland. Not a tree in any direction. For a moment, he thought he might get lucky and see Aeneas somewhere, anywhere. He was due for a break. But as always, time was working against him, so he turned to walk back.
Then he heard a noise behind the bushes, the sound of movement, something large. He froze, then pulled his gun. He took a step toward the sound, then another, then he pointed his gun at the source and waited. Ten feet away, a cat emerged, about the size of a bobcat, with a smaller head and a coat streaked white and brown. Robert lowered his gun, and in a blur the cat was gone again, a large tail disappearing into a bush.
Robert holstered his gun and returned to the car. Lynda had the car up on the jack.
“Need a hand?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I need a time machine.”
* * *
Because it was a tourist attraction, Robert expected the entrance to Punta Verde to be grander. But it was just a gravel road that culminated at a cinder-block toll booth with a manually operated, rusted steel gate. To the left of the booth, three single-story concrete buildings bordered a parking lot occupied by half a dozen cars and four large tour buses. Beyond the gate, the road turned to dirt, narrowed, and wound up a large, dun-colored hill.
“Where are all the penguins?” Lynda asked.
“Maybe they’re taking a lunch break.”
Robert pulled into the lot. Lynda got out and knocked on the door of the largest building, which turned out to be the park ranger station, and she interviewed the man in charge while Robert jogged to the top of the nearest hill. He could see a slice of ocean about a mile away, but no ships. No people. Just dirt and bushes, interspersed with patches of pale green grass.
And penguins. He didn’t notice them at first, but now he could make out little specks of black and white—huddled under the bushes, walking in pairs or small groups in the direction of the water. It was surreal to see penguins here, without a blanket of snow or ice under them. He was tempted to stay longer, but the sun was begin
ning to set.
He headed back toward the parking lot and noticed a small building a few hundred feet behind the ranger station. He peered inside a window and saw a darkened office with no signs of life. Twenty feet back was a Quonset hut, and he knocked on its door hut nobody answered. He opened the door and stepped inside: a row of cots, clothes scatted about, two large plastic water jugs propped on cinder blocks.
He returned to the research office, where this time he detected movement inside. Moving closer, he saw a young man leaning over a map. Robert tapped on the window with his handgun, displaying his I.D.
The young man’s name was Doug. He was a naturalist in training. And he knew all about the man in the yellow jacket.
* * *
Robert saw her a hundred yards ahead, seated between bushes. Her short, messy red hair matched Doug’s description, and her face was windblown to a nearly matching shade. She was oblivious to Robert, and as he got closer, he saw why—she was coaxing a penguin out of its nest with some sort of hook. Then she gripped its head tightly, as its wings flapped and bit at the air; it looked as if the bird would either fly away or take off her index finger. But the woman did not seem at all bothered by the commotion. With one hand holding the bird, she used the other to scribble notes in a journal.
“Are you Angela?” he asked.
“That’s me,” she said, not bothering to look up. She straddled the bird, silencing its wings, returning a sense of calm to the scene. Yet whatever she was trying to do next, the bandage on her left hand was clearly causing her problems.
“You need help?” Robert asked.
“Ever handle a penguin before?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t need help.”
“I’ve got two good hands, at least.”
She sized him up, and he felt oddly insecure that she paused for so long.
“Okay,” she said finally. “Come over here and position yourself next to me, just like this. Now, I’m going to get up and you’re going to slide over and hold her between your legs just like I’m doing. I’ll keep a hold of her head.”
