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“Since we knew what diving was about. Since the Three Sisters were in pinafores. Since we quit fucking around,” Holly said sharply. “Always.”
A
“This is a celebration,” he said, looking not at them but down at his empty plate. “I’m getting married tomorrow.”
“To a regular woman?” A
Holly began to laugh.
Hawk turned his face away from De
A
“Congratulations, De
TWO
Mist lay over Amygdaloid Cha
Wrapped against the chill that the forty-eighth parallel would not relinquish even in June, A
“Come on,” A
From the silence of the cha
Now they’ll come, A
A shadowy red form darted between her and the dock where gently rocking boats cradled fishermen. She refocused the glasses. The black muzzle of a little fox came into view. Head tilted to one side, pink tongue lolling, she sat less than twenty feet from the station steps ready to beg for her breakfast like a house dog. “Not you, Knucklehead,” A
Somewhere to the north a power boat growled to life and morning’s spell was broken. Now they wouldn’t come. “Damn.” A
In winter, when the island’s dense foliage dropped its leaves and deep snow made tracking easy, a Winter Study Team came to ISRO-Park Service shorthand for Isle Royale-for several weeks and studied the wolf packs. Only two packs remained, twelve wolves in all, with only one new birth in the past year. The wolves were dying and the scientists didn’t know why. There was some indication that an outbreak of canine parvovirus, a disease carried by domestic dogs, was a factor in the decline, but inbreeding was the guess most favored at the moment.
The Park Service was doing all it could to preserve the wolves, even to the extremely unpopular extent of denying visitors and staff the privilege of bringing their pets to the island-or even within the park’s boundaries four and a half miles out. Still, the wolves did not thrive, did not reproduce.
At least it’s not us killing them, not directly, A
“Tomorrow,” she said to the empty stretch of beach across the cha
The roar of the motorboat grew louder, wrecking what remained of tranquillity. A glossy wine-colored bow plowed up the mist in the cha
During the six months the park was staffed, Lucas Vega frowned on rangers leaving the island on their days off. Superior’s sudden storms had a habit of turning weekends into paid vacations. Consequently, A
“Attitude, A
This Tuesday and Wednesday, she’d promised herself a kayak trip, di
The sun was high by the time she shoved off. By A
Waves, dangerous near the point where shoals broke them, rolled gently half a mile out. A
Northeast was Passage Island with its historic lighthouse. To the south long fingers of land, rock shredded by fifteen centuries of a glacier’s feints and retreats, reached into the lake. In the spring sunshine, the peninsulas were clothed in rich greens and the water in the coves was tropical blue. Gold-colored stone, broken into blocks ten and twenty feet on a side, glimmered through the crystal water. Timber, blown over from the mainland or toppled from ISRO’s own shores, was scattered like jackstraws on the lake bottom. In places the fissured rock and bleached wood gave the disconcerting illusion of sunken ruins. Castles filled only with fishes, turrets pulled down to make playgrounds for otters.
A
When she finally paddled into the wake-riddled bustle of Rock Harbor, it was after five o’clock.