Death of a Songbird

by Goff, Christine

  “They’re Dorothy’s idea,” Lark said, brandishing the walkie-talkie. “Go home, Stephen. Get some rest.”

  “Jacobs still hasn’t shown up. Neither has Teresa. I’ll bet those are your culprits. Are you sure no money was missing?”

  “Why would they break into my house for money? Jacobs had a key to the cash registers.”

  “Good point.”

  Besides, Lark liked Teresa. She didn’t relish the thought that she’d stolen the ledger, then run off with Jacobs. “Maybe Teresa’s just hiding out and took Jacobs with her. He did seem to have a crush on her.”

  “When piglets fly.”

  “That would be one for the life lists.” Lark smiled. “Look, Velof, go home and get some rest. The reservations clerks can hold down the fort while you grab forty winks. I’ll be back around four this afternoon.”

  Stephen smoothed down his hair. “An owner presence is required to make a business run its best.”

  “Tomorrow’s Monday. I’ll be around all day. I promise.”

  The bus ride up to the trailhead was uneventful. Lark’s head ceased pounding, and Jan caught a short nap. Several diehards called out birds spotted through the bus windows along the roadside: a red-tailed hawk, a mountain bluebird, two rock doves.

  At the porta-potties, the hikers disembarked. Dorothy passed out box lunches, and Lark gave the driver explicit instructions to be back around four-thirty that afternoon.

  The first two miles of trail wound through pine, fir, and spruce forest and meandered along the shores of Alpine Creek, where yellow-flowered mimulus, better known as yellow monkey flowers, bloomed in profusion. The sun shone down brightly from a deep-blue sky. The air warmed to a comfortable temperature.

  Lark set a leisurely pace, stopping to point out the birds. Broad-tailed hummingbirds, mountain chickadees, pygmy nuthatches, Townsend’s solitaires, and pine siskins darted in and out among the trees. Several of the birders had lugged along scopes, and Lark allowed time to set up and focus on the various species.

  A new volunteer spotted a three-toed woodpecker, and, ten minutes later, Owens spotted a pine grosbeak. They got lucky just before reaching the stream, when a blue grouse darted onto the path to dust itself.

  Near the creek, Lark noticed an American dipper cavorting in the white water bubbling over the rocks. A lark-sized, mousy-gray bird, the dipper bobbed in jerky fashion, hiding behind the cascade, as though playing a game of hide-and-seek.

  “Wait,” Katherine said. “What’s that?”

  Two black birds on scimitar-shaped wings dove and wheeled overhead, then disappeared around the bend of the cliffs that ran along the other side of the creek.

  “Black swifts.”

  The cry carried back along the line, and some of the stragglers hurried forward to see the aerialists in flight.

  They hiked on, and around eleven o’clock, the walkie-talkie crackled to life. “Lark? Do you read me? Come in, Lark. Over.”

  “Hello, Dorothy.” Lark had taken the lead, leaving Dorothy to bring up the rear.

  “We have some tired folks back here. Is it about time to stop for lunch? Over.”

  “This isn’t the Army,” Cecilia said in the background.

  “Hush.”

  Lark suppressed a laugh. “We’re almost at the meadow. We can regroup there, and then I’ll take any that want to go on. How does that sound?”

  “Sounds good to me. Over and out.”

  It took nearly half an hour to assemble the group. Paul, Katherine, Norberto, and about six others had kept pace with Lark. Jan and Buzz lagged in the middle, and Dorothy and the rest straggled in behind. Lark gave everyone a chance to rest and eat his or her lunch, then asked who intended to climb to Paris Pond.

  Paul, Katherine, Buzz, and six others raised their hands. Norberto raised his and tried pushing Jan’s hand into the air.

  “I can’t, Norberto. I’m exhausted.” She looked exhausted, too. Her blond hair hung limp around her shoulders. Mascara ringed her eyes. The crisp khaki birding outfit of the morning, no doubt courtesy of L.L. Bean’s spring catalog, hung limp and wrinkled on her thin frame.

  By contrast, Norberto looked sharp. His cargo pants still held their crease. Black boots matched a black T-shirt, and he’d tied a red-bandana burnoose around his head to ward off the sun. Decidedly foreign and dangerous looking, an allure that most women found irresistible. In fact, Lark had noticed that several of the volunteers let their eyes linger on Norberto, while favoring Jan with withering stares.

  “You must come,” insisted Norberto. “The job, remember?”

  “It’s really a sight to see from up there,” cajoled Paul, looking natty in a turquoise jacket.

  “Darn tootin’, girl.” Buzz sucked in a deep breath of mountain air and pounded his chest. “The exhilaration of the climb. We’ll all help you.”

  Jan slumped down on a boulder. “Oh, all right. Give me a few more minutes to recuperate, and I’ll try going a little ways. But I won’t promise I won’t turn back.”

  Lark gave her ten minutes, then insisted they bead out. “It’s only another mile and a half, but the trail’s steep, so it takes a while to hike up.” She glanced at the sky. In the past several hours, puffy white clouds had started banding together to form billowing clouds with streaks of gray. “Elk Mountain attracts afternoon thunderstorms like a magnet. We still have time to make Paris Pond, but we don’t want to dally.”

  She pressed them onward, this time taking the rear and waving good-bye to Dorothy, Cecilia, and Gertie.

  “We’ll be back in three hours.” That would leave two hours to walk out to the bus.

  The group crossed the creek on a narrow footbridge, then climbed quickly. The trail veered sharply left; below them, Alpine Meadow disappeared from view. Soon, sub-alpine fir and Engelmann spruce replaced the pine trees, then gave way to the elfin groves of krummholz that seized the land.

  Before long, the path entered the tundra, a land of extremes, where strong winds and arctic temperatures radically shortened the growing season. The plants that grew here hugged the ground and sprouted protective coverings to shield themselves from the wind. Wildflowers such as snowball, saxifrage, anemone, sky pilot, and king’s crown blanketed the spongy terrain. The climbers huddled into their jackets and bowed into the wind.

  “It’s in here that we might spot the white-tailed ptarmigan and the brown-capped rosy-finch,” hollered Lark. “Keep your eyes open.”

  “Do you have any toothpicks?” Jan asked, walking in front of her.

  “You’re doing great,” Buzz said, scooping his arm in hers and dragging her forward. “Just keep moving.”

  “Wait!” Jan stopped and pointed. “What’s that?”

  Mottled brown with a white underbelly, the bird stood frozen in place among a clump of rocks less than twenty-five feet from the path.

  “That’s the white-tailed ptarmigan.” Paul crept forward, his binoculars trained on the bird. “Does everyone see it?”

  Then, one of the special guest speakers pointed out a flock of brown-capped rosy-finches foraging several feet of the trail ahead.

  “Both species. That’s great. Now that everyone’s seen them, how many of you want to go on?” Lark asked. The clouds had started closing in and were growing darker with each passing moment. “The trail climbs up there, crosses the ridge, and winds down to Paris Pond. The view is spectacular, but the weather looks iffy.”

  “I want to go on,” Buzz said.

  “Me, too,” Paul said.

  Katherine nodded.

  Norberto prodded Jan. “We’ll go, too. We’ve come this far.”

  Several of the others decided to turn back, but three of the volunteers chose to continue.

  “Okay, then listen up. The rest of you start back down the trail. Everyone else, when we reach the pond, we’re only going to have a few minutes.” She glanced skyward. “When I give the signal, we’ll need to head back.”

  “Let’s move out, then.” Buzz’s ent
husiasm overwhelmed her. Not only did he seem more energized as the day went on, he seemed more boisterous and enthusiastic. She wondered if the hike reminded him of his boot camp days and hoped he wouldn’t start calling out time.

  Left, left, left, right, left. I left my wife and forty-nine children alone in the woods in starving condition. Left, left.

  With Norberto half-pulling, half-pushing, Jan made the crest of the ridge. The view opened before them. Paris Pond sparkled when parting clouds permitted the sunlight to pierce through, and Elk Park squatted in the valley below. Longs Peak rose majestically to their right, but it almost seemed as if they were as high as the summit.

  “Oh, look. A hawk,” Buzz said.

  The bird glided on the thermals, circling, then swooping in search of prey along the pond’s edge. A dark, rich brown, the golden wash on the bird’s nape and head glittered in the sun.

  “It’s a golden eagle,” corrected Lark.

  “We’ve seen it. Now, can we go back?” Jan asked, plopping herself down on a rock.

  “We have to hike down,” Buzz said. “We’ve come this far.”

  “That argument worked on me earlier, but I’m not going any farther. I refuse to budge.”

  One of the remaining volunteers, a girl named Margo, stepped forward. “We’ve decided to head back. She can go with us.”

  “No. I’m not going anywhere right this minute. I need to rest.” Jan huddled into her jacket and braced against the stiff breeze pouring over the lip of the mountain. “I’ll wait here for the rest of you.”

  “It’s apt to get cold,” warned Lark. “At least go with the others as far as the tree line.”

  “I’m okay. I just need to sit,” she said, waving them away.

  “Suit yourself.” Lark told the volunteers to head back, asking Margo to assure Dorothy and the others that the rest of them wouldn’t be far behind. “Lead on, Buzz.”

  It took forty-five minutes to climb down to Paris Pond and back, and Lark kept expecting the walkie-talkie to crackle to life until she realized they were too far out of range for the signal to carry. To conserve the batteries, she turned it off. Cresting the ridge, they found Jan sitting on the same rock where they’d left her. She was shivering, her lips tinged slightly blue.

  “Are you okay?” Buzz asked, sitting down beside her and rubbing his arm across her back.

  “I’m freezing.”

  “Time to get up and move.” Lark yanked Jan to her feet. Hypothermia was not uncommon, even in the summer, and sometimes all it took to trigger the warning signs was the combination of being tired and a chilly day. Lark chided herself for letting Jan sit there. She should have seen this coming. On the bright side, Jan didn’t seem disoriented. Lark’s bigger concern were the storm clouds moving in.

  The thought conceived, a streak of lightning shot to the tundra, causing the hair on Lark’s body to stand on end. The air around them crackled with static. The retort of thunder crashed around them.

  “Time to move,” she yelled. “Now!”

  “What the…?” Jan cringed, burying her face in Buzz’s shoulder.

  “Shit.” Norberto pushed Katherine ahead of him, starting her down the path. “Come on. We’re sitting ducks up here.”

  The six of them scrambled down the hill as quickly as they could, Norberto propelling Katherine to move and Lark prodding Jan, Paul, and Buzz from behind. The lightning intensified.

  Damn, why hadn’t she paid closer attention to the storm, thought Lark. She had watched the clouds gathering as the storm had rolled in and stacked up behind the mountains. She knew the dangers of the Southwestern monsoons. She just thought they had time.

  When they reached the krummholz, Lark breathed easier. At least there were trees here to draw the strikes, and the birders were no longer the tallest things spiking the landscape.

  “Can we rest?” Jan asked, panting and scrambling for footing on the rocky trail.

  “Just keep going,” ordered Lark. “And tuck your binoculars inside your jacket.”

  The warning was barely issued before the rain started. A sprinkle of large drops pelted the ground, then the skies opened up, and the trail became a river of mud. Lark slipped, her ankle twisting beneath her. Falling, she landed full weight on her foot.

  Ouch!

  Lark tried pushing herself up, gingerly testing her weight on her ankle. A sharp stabbing pain shot up her calf.

  Oh, man. Had she rebroken the darn thing?

  Clambering to stand, she tried bearing her weight on her right foot again. This time the pain was less intense, and the ankle didn’t buckle.

  “Are you okay?” Paul asked, climbing back to where she stood. Rain molded his hair to his head and streamed in rivulets off his face.

  “I think I sprained my ankle. I’m hoping that’s all I’ve done.”

  “Can you walk?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  CHAPTER 14

  It had taken them two hours to descend from the summit. The skies had opened in a gush of water, like God had turned on a faucet. After struggling along for a mile, they sat out the storm beneath a medium-sized boulder, watching the rain pummel the ground. Water puddled in low spots and eddied around stones on the path, creating small rivers of mud.

  “Well, we needed the moisture,” she said, attempting to lighten the mood, easing the weight off her aching ankle.

  The only one with any humor left was Buzz. He drew in a breath and puffed out his chest. “What a bunch of sticks-in-the-mud. This rain just adds to the adventure.”

  “Stick a sock in it, Buzz.” Jan tucked back a drippy strand of blond hair. “Look at us. We look like a soggy band of refugees.”

  After the rain let up, Lark led, limping her way out of the forest. Alpine Creek lay dead ahead. She could hear it rushing over the stones impeding its path.

  Rushing! Not burbling like normal, but roaring like a technical river made only of rapids.

  Reaching the willow tangles, she scanned the opposite bank, wondering where Dorothy and the others were. She yanked the walkie-talkie out of her pocket, turned it on, and hit the Talk button. “Dorothy, are you there?”

  Two steps more, and she reached the path through the willows to the bridge. Rounding the corner, she stopped dead. The others plowed into her, like dominoes on the shove. Ahead of her, where the bridge crossed Alpine Creek, lay a chasm. The bank had washed away, leaving only a divot where the bridge had once been. The ground dropped away in a sheer wall.

  “Where’s the bridge?” Jan’s hysterical voice pierced the summer afternoon. A yellow warbler flushed from a nearby bush.

  Lark inched forward, gimping on her sore ankle, afraid that the land might fall away beneath her feet Against the opposite shore, the bridge lay collapsed and broken on the rocks.

  “It looks like it’s collapsed. We’re not going to get back across this way.”

  “Why not? We can climb down there,” Buzz said.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “The ground’s unstable. It’s been undercut by water.” Lark knew the trail. Upstream, the creek cascaded down a waterfall, too steep and slippery to traverse. Downstream, the creek ran below steep cliffs of granite. Without ropes and carabineers, they were stuck.

  Turning up the volume on the walkie-talkie, she pressed the Talk switch and tried paging Dorothy again. “Come in, Dee. Where are you?”

  “How can this be happening?” shrieked Jan. She raised her arms above her head, then slapping them hard against her sides, she whirled on Lark. “This is all your fault.”

  “Now calm down, little lady,” Buzz said, stepping in between them. “Lark has no control over Mother Nature. We’re talking mud slides here, probably caused by a flash flood. It happens, especially with a rain like the whopper we just rode out. The creek swells up, the current undercuts the bank, and the land above it scoots way. We’re just lucky no one got hurt.”

  Jan glared at Buzz. “Who asked you?”

  The radio crackled to life. �
��Come in, Lark. Over.”

  “Dorothy?” Relief flooded Lark’s voice. “Where are you?”

  “About a mile from the bus. With the rain, I decided we should go ahead and start back. Over.”

  Lark tamped down the feelings of abandonment welling up. “Look, we need help up here. The bridge is washed out.”

  “Repeat. Over.”

  “I said, the bridge is washed out. It’s gone.”

  “Oh my,” Cecilia said in the background.

  A long silence followed.

  “Dee, get the others down to the bus first, then send up some help.”

  “That’s right, we’re headed down to the bus. Over.”

  Lark slapped the radio against her hand and tried again. “Send help.”

  “I copy. Over.”

  The radio protocol was killing her. “Did Margo and the others catch up to you, yet?”

  “Yes, they’re here. Over.”

  “Good.” One less thing to worry about. “Do me a favor?”

  “Ask them to bring a helicopter,” Jan said.

  “Hurry!”

  “Ten four. We’re about an hour from the bus. Over and out.” Dorothy clicked out, and Lark turned off the walkie-talkie to conserve the batteries. It was after four, and the sun was dropping behind Elk Mountain, casting long shadows across the meadow and valley floor. The clouds swirled back in on a strong wind, dropping a steady drizzle.

  Jan and Norberto retreated to the rocks with Katherine. Buzz ambled off on a mission, determined to find a way out. Lark hunkered down in the shelter of a small pine tree next to Paul.

  “If the winds don’t let up, they’re not going to get a crew in here tonight, much less a helicopter.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.” Worry lines etched deep in Paul’s forehead, crow’s feet crinkled around his eyes.

  Lark scribbled an SOS in the mud. “I think we should tell the others to be prepared to spend the night.”

  “Before you do that, we have to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “I know why Esther was killed.”