Reincarnations

"I see it." A pole, taller than one of the milepost supports, stabs into the tundra. Stuck to the top of it is what looks like the outer rim of a bicycle wheel. You wonder how it got there, and why. Did birders put it up? There’s a marker like that at mile fifty-five on the Teller road, off to the west: a board in a roadside willow that points straight to the nest a pair of northern shrikes have built. This one is less precise, but it does the job.

You slow. A couple of hundred yards past the marker, a rutted track branches off the Kougarok road. It leads down into a little valley, with a creek chuckling over gravel at the bottom and with willow thickets all around.

"It’s the right habitat for bluethroats," your daughter says. "They like ru

Once upon a time, people lived down here, but not lately. The planking on the house and outbuildings to the right of the stream is weathered and pale. Glassless windows stare blackly, like the eye sockets of a skull. Willows grow right up to the doorways.

You drive as far as you can-half a mile or so-till the track turns to mud as it nears the stream. If you bog down in that, you may never get out, four-wheel drive or no. You stop. The map on the counter at the rental place says the bluethroats live farther down the valley, past the buildings and past an abandoned truck you haven’t seen yet.

"Well." You open the door. "Let’s see what we’ve got."

Your daughter slides out, too. "Oh, my God!" she says.

This may be the right habitat for bluethroats. It’s the perfect habitat for mosquitoes. If a six-legged prophet preached of mosquito paradise, it would look like this. Plenty of little pools and puddles for eggs and larvae. All those willows to shelter the adults. No wind to speak of. And, now, sustenance.

The mosquitoes were bad on the open tundra. You don’t want to believe how much worse they can be. "Oh, my God!" your daughter says again. She yanks the door open and snatches out the repellent. You spray each other once more.

It helps… some. But they’re all over your clothes. And they buzz around the two of you in clouds as you walk down to the stream and then along it. You want to swat, but why bother? Would you swat a raindrop in a cloudburst?

You start to choke. Then you spit, and spit again. "Did you… inhale one?" your daughter asks.

"Not-quite." You spit one more time.

"Be careful here." She seems glad to change the subject. "Your shoes aren’t waterproof." Hers are, bought from some fancy hikers’ catalogue. You wear the old canvas-topped Adidases you always knock around in. They do let in water.

But you say, "My legs are longer than yours." The creek is only ten feet wide. Here and there, rocks and gravel stick up above the water. You cross behind her without getting wet.

The ground is a little better over there. But the willows- hardly any taller than you are-press close to the bank. The air around you is curtained with mosquitoes.

You walk on. A mosquito lands on your ear. You brush it away. A bird darts across the stream and into the willows. It’s here and gone before you can ID it. "Was it-?" you ask at the same time as your daughter says, "It could have been-"

It starts to sing. That lets you get a fix on it. Two pairs of binoculars swing its way.

"Redpoll," you say together, and lower the binoculars with identical sighs.

"Map said they were farther down." Is your daughter boosting her spirits or yours?

"We’ll see." You have to cross the stream again; the willows press right down to the waterline. You manage to stay dry once more. Here in this sheltered place, it’s almost warm. Your daughter takes off her outer sweater and ties it around her waist. You unzip your jacket again.

You go up to the abandoned house to see if a hawk or, more likely, an owl is nesting inside. You give your eyes a chance to get used to the darkness inside, but you don’t see anything. Reluctantly, you decide there’s nothing to see.

Your daughter points. "There’s the truck, Dad!"

"Where?" you say, not spotting it. Then you do. "Boy, that’s about as abandoned as it gets."

How many years has it squatted there? Long enough for rain and snow and ice to have had their way with its paint. Rust covers every inch of the chassis. The dark red-brown blends perfectly with the dirt and with the green and brown of the willows growing alongside. You and your daughter fight through the shrubby willows for a closer look. The side windows are either rolled down all the way or long gone. Cracks craze the windshield and smaller rear window.

Mosquitoes hum all around. You breathe in another one. By now, you have practice at this-you spit it out without your daughter’s even noticing.

"Past the dead truck. That’s what’s on the map." Excitement brightens her voice. The map might point toward buried treasure on the Spanish Main, not bluethroat nests in the middle of the Seward Peninsula.

A lot of maps that said they pointed toward treasure on the Spanish Main really pointed toward nothing. You have to hope this one won’t be like that. People have more incentive to lie about doubloons and pieces of eight than about little thrushes from Asia… don’t they?

You’ll find out. You follow the creek another couple of hundred yards. You stop in a small clearing. "If they’re anywhere, they’re here," you say.

"Sure." Your daughter still sounds more confident than you feel. If she can still believe things will work out for the best in this best of all possible worlds, more power to her.

She raises her binoculars and slowly scans the closer willows, then the more distant ones. You do the same. You’ve come all this way. Long odds you’ll ever get here again. You’d be an idiot not to give it your best shot.

Which doesn’t mean you’ll get what you’re after. Your wife gave it her best shot, God knows. So did your daughter. So did her ex, even if she so doesn’t want to hear that.

You lower the binoculars and look around. Something’s perched in a willow up near the edge of the valley. Your daughter’s already spotted it. You raise the field glasses again and aim them that way. "What do you think?" you ask her.

She sighs. "It’s an American tree sparrow. Right size, wrong bird."

You take a longer look. You sigh, too, because she’s right. She usually is. The ci

You scan some more. You spot a Wilson’s warbler: a little yellow bird with a black cap. The last one you saw was hopping around the magnolia in your own back yard.

After a while, you say, "We ought to head back to the car."

"I know." Your daughter doesn’t budge. "I hate to give up, though."

"So do I. Still, if we were going to find anything…"

"Pish! Pish! Pish!" Your daughter doesn’t say that to you. It’s a noise birders make to lure shy birds out of cover. Sometimes- not very often, in your experience-it works. Birders who do it too much are called pishers. For anyone with even a little Yiddish, that’s fu

Nothing comes out of the willows. Only mosquitoes fly around you. You take a couple of steps in the direction of the car. Your daughter’s stiff back says she doesn’t want to see you.

"Come on," you say. "We’ll bird all the way there. Maybe we’ll find one."

"Maybe." She closes up with you. Then she leans toward the willows again. "Pish! Pish! Pish!"

"Pish! Pish! Pish!" You even try it yourself. Why not? What have you got to lose? "Pish! Pish! Pish!" A fighting retreat.