Island Fever - Part Three

          Two days passed. Craig carried the pellet gun with him whenever he went out, looking for more gulls, he said. They seldom spoke but when they did, they sniped at each other in the bleak grayness of the day. Sometimes, she could see him staring at her. Once Craig said, “Wish Kris were here.” Well, she wasn’t, Adrienne thought, and how long before Craig started making passes at her? She read the journals long into the night, looking for clues.

          Another writer named Pat wrote about a big fight between Kris and Craig. Kris regrets ever coming to this island, Pat wrote. Craig insists they are going to get married but Kris is having doubts. Craig thinks it's all island fever. Those two were meant for each other.

          The “accident” was mentioned briefly. Kris fell on the rocks. Taken away by the Coast Guard helicopter. Someone had written that Kris was in a coma on the mainland, but that was the last mention she found. Had Kris recovered or was she buried somewhere in a Maine cemetery? Adrienne was afraid to ask. Anything could set Craig off.

          The wine bottles were emptied on the seventh day. Perhaps she had had too much to drink, but she slipped on a fog-silvered rock coming back from taking the murre decoys back to the boat house. Her hands were covered with blood from a gash in her hand. Craig was up on the lighthouse trying to count terns. She would handle this herself, she thought.

          The first aid kit was in disarray. Things were unmarked. Looking for disinfectant, she opened a bottle and sniffed. It was smelling salts. Bleeding and sneezing, she dropped the kit and everything went rolling. She began to cry.

          Craig came in, took one look, swabbed her head with a pad and placed a band-aid on her cut. “Wash up,” he said. “That'll do. And quit crying. Head wounds bleed a lot, but it looks worse than it is.”

          He gave her no sympathy. Adrienne sniffled around the cottage. She couldn't seem to help weeping any more. Her eyes were red, raw from the salt water and her emotions.

          Late that afternoon, Adrienne climbed the lighthouse to get away though she didn't go through the trapdoor to the top level. It would be too slippery up there with the floor covered with mist. Through the rain she could see the lights in the closest island, but the waves blew up so high over the rocks, the lights flickered on and off. Tears stung her eyes. She longed to be home.

          The eighth day came, the day they were scheduled to leave. Adrienne heard the rain stopping the the night before. When the gray daylight showed through the fogged window, she leaped out of bed and packed all her gear before coming down to breakfast.

          “All packed!” she said. “I am so ready to get off this island.”

          Craig glanced up from his coffee. He had already been out to check the lighthouse and was jotting his bird counts into his log.

          “Ready?” he asked. “Have you looked outside?”

          Fog swirled around the lighthouse. The light went around and around, doing its work, piercing the area around the island. 

          “I’ve already taken the water temperature,” he said. “The waves are still high. I don’t think we’re going anywhere.”

          Adrienne turned to the weather radio. Karl gave the bad news in his unemotional monotone. Marine craft were warned off the ocean. The automated voice droned on and on. The weather was getting worse again.

          “Shut up,” she said. “Damn you, shut up!”

          Craig looked up. “That doesn’t do any good, you know.” His voice was as calm and as unemotional as Karl’s.

          “You can shut up, the both of you!” She began to cry.

          “More tears,” Craig said in disgust.

          “At least it’s something! At least it’s human!”

          “And I’m not?”

          “Barely. Damn good thing you and Kris didn’t get married!”

          “Don’t you even think of mentioning Kris to me! That’s none of your business.” Glaring his hatred, Craig went out the door, slamming it behind him.

          Adrienne dialed up Rose, mostly for the sound of another human voice, but the connection was poor. She could hear excitement in Rose’s voice. “Good news….Kris….out of the coma…Craig.” Then Adrienne lost the connection. Kris was out of the coma? Should she tell Craig? If he was responsible, there might be police waiting for them when they got back. She decided not to mention it to him.

          She went back to her room and unpacked.

          Craig came in later to tell her he had checked the puffin burrows. Most of them were flooded and he had found a couple of dead puffins floating in a tide pool. He said nothing more. It would have been a day of silence, except for the terns and the fog horn and Karl’s droning voice. Craig kept to the kitchen, and no matter how cold it was, she stayed in the sitting room, guarding the phone so that he would not hear about Kris. Late that afternoon, while Craig was out, she tried the phone herself. The batteries had died. Unless the solar panels worked, they were on their own until Jake came with the boat. Who knew when that would be?

That night, Adrienne huddled in her sleeping bag, too frightened to sleep.

She waited the next morning until Craig left the cottage. When she came downstairs, he was off somewhere on the island, sulking, she thought. What was he doing? The fog had cleared off, yet he still hadn’t recorded a lighthouse reading. The forms were still unmarked.

Where was he? She didn’t want him back but she wanted to know where he had gone. The pellet gun was gone. She paced from room to room, went down to use the outhouse and took the temperature reading. She looked at the rubbing alcohol in the medicine chest and considered mixing it with water and drinking it. She needed something to calm herself down. She played solitaire. She ate the last of the chocolate bars. She cried.

She couldn’t go looking for him out on the rocks. That was another “accident” waiting to happen. She didn’t want to see him, but she had to know what had happened to him.

There was only one place to get a good look. She pulled on her rainproof jacket, jammed on her wool hat, hung her binoculars on her neck and edged out the door. She hesitated, looking up at that pale column, towering over her. She opened the door and stared at the metal steps, her hands clenched. She would go up and come right down. She ascended slowly on the damp steps, her footsteps echoing up and down the silo. She reached the first ledge and went around, using the binoculars to scan the island for signs of Craig. Nothing.

She opened the trapdoor and climbed to the higher level as the fog horn blared. The rain was starting again. She wiped the lenses on the binoculars and worked her way around, holding on to the metal railing for support from the wind. The terns circled, screeching. Her eyes were focused on the far end of the island when she heard it. The echo of footsteps coming up the shaft.

“Adrienne, where are you?”

He was coming. She scurried around the ledge and slammed the trap door shut. She sat on it, sobbing, rain falling on her face, screaming at the elements, crying like one of the terns circling above.

“Adrienne, don't be an idiot.”

She felt him below her, pushing at the trapdoor.

          

           When Jack entered the hospital room, Kris wasn’t there. He heard noise in the adjacent bathroom and waited. When Kris emerged, Jack could see that he had shaved. He was weak, shuffling his feet a bit, but he was moving.

          “Jack,” he said. “It’s great to see you!” There were some side affects from the eleven month long coma, a little slurring of words. His dark hair had a few gray streaks and his once muscular arms were flabby, his legs skinny under the hospital gown. His skin was pale and wrinkled.

Kris caught Jack’s stare. “A few weeks in the gym and some sunshine and I’ll be fine. I’m just lucky to be alive.”

          Jack hesitated. “I’m afraid I have some bad news,” he said.

          “Craig is still stuck on the Rock?”

       

          “Worse. We lost radio contact three days ago. When I finally got out there this afternoon, we found the bodies. Craig and his volunteer were both dead.”

          Kris whimpered, his eyes filling with tears. “No. It can’t be. Not Craig! How, how did it happen?”

          “No one is sure. They were at the base of the lighthouse. They must have fallen off. The Coast Guards are talking murder/suicide, but why would that be true? I don’t suppose we will ever know but I am guessing Adrienne broke through the railing. You know how rusty it was. And that Craig tried to save her and was pulled after.”

          Kris began to cry. “That’s just like Craig. He saved my life, and had to go try saving someone else.”

          “He was a great guy,” Jack agreed. “and your best friend.”

          “More than a friend!” Kris wailed, his body shaking with grief. “Craig and I were going to Massachusetts after we we finished on the Rock last year! I thought we would go this year, as soon as I recovered. We were going to be married!”

          The island lay in the sunshine of a September morning. The last of the volunteers swarmed around the lighthouse, clearing, packing, watching the few birds left. Few of the graduate students would return. Their professors would send out a new crop the following year.

          Soon the Rock would fall silent save for the fog horn, waiting through winter for the next year’s broods. The terns were on their way to Antarctica for their next summer vacation. The puffins had finished raising their chicks and had gone back to sea, to live solitary lives for the next three years until the cycle of life drew them back.

          The blood stains at the base of the lighthouse had been washed away by summer storms. In a year or two, no one would remember Craig or his volunteer.

          Nature is like that.  

Island Fever – Part Two

          There was no need for the little alarm clock Adrienne had brought. There were no curtains on the windows and as the summer solstice approached, the light shone in as the birds shrieked their joy at the day’s beginning. She had slept snug in her heavy duty sleeping bag, and felt the same joy. The ear plugs had worked.

          Craig fairly flew out the door to chase up the steps to the lighthouse while Adrienne brewed their coffee and got the first reading from the weather radio. The automated male voice told her that though the sun was shining, the day would get progressively darker. Small craft were warned about setting out. She took down the temperature readings the voice reported, taken from various buoys in the area.

          She threw on her heavy jacket and went out to take visual readings. She stopped to use the outhouse. Through the open side she watched a row of puffins watching her. Her bodily functions were a peep show for birds.

She could barely see the nearest island, some twenty miles away. A fine mist seemed to be covering it. She shivered and went on to the boat house. A herring gull who had taken refuge there scuttled out of her way dragging a wing. She unhooked the bucket with the rope attached and picked up the long thermometer. She carried them down the boat ramp. The waves were higher today and splashed against her rubber boots as she leaned over to drop a bucket off the side for some ocean water. She stuck a thermometer in it. As she waited to do her reading, she used her binoculars to sweep the surface of the island. The birds seemed to be hunkering down, not as active as the day before.

          They decided to explore the island before the storm hit. They clambered over the rocks. There were no paths. Craig was a mountain goat, jumping easily from rock to rock, as Adrienne struggled on behind, trying to keep up. They climbed higher and higher from boulder to boulder as the wind howled around them, shouting to be heard. They visited nesting sites. Craig flattened himself on a rock and reached his hand into a burrow, but no puffins were using it yet. Later on, the researchers would go out daily and sit in blinds keeping track of the little guys, but the puffins were just arriving.

          He stopped for a moment and pointed out a piece of marble engraved with an angel.

          “Tombstone,” he said. “Keeper’s daughter.” She had died a century before. Adrienne thought they should put flowers on the grave, but there were none on the Rock. Neither were there bushes and trees, just endless boulders. Ocean storms scoured the rock of anything green except for the moss that clung to the stones.

          They climbed higher. Here the terns would nest, there the guillemots. Each were marked. They reached the farthest point. Far below the waves pounded on the shore, splashing over the rocks. Craig pointed down and shouted, “That’s where Kris fell.” His face contorted. He turned away and began loping across the rocks before Adrienne could ask how it happened.

          The terns wheeled around like children who needed strong doses of Ritalin.

          They finished off the first bottle of wine that afternoon and took a tibble from the second as well. Adrienne began to talk, but Craig said that the glimmer was to be enjoyed in quiet, as a sort of Japanese tea ceremony.  Obedient, Adriennewas quiet, but she felt conversations bubbling up, topics she wanted to discuss. The island was becoming too quiet, despite the birds’ squawks and the incessant fog horn.

          The rain began that night. At first, it was fine mist, almost indistinguishable from the fog that covered the island at night. The wind rattled the panes in the window next to Adrienne’s bed. She got up and looked around for something to stuff in the crack where the two windows joined. There would be no reason to open those windows while they were here. She found a bit of foam rubber and stopped the rattling. In the room next door, Craig snored. She used the piss bucket and crawled back into the sleeping bag. She was so cold. She reached inside the sleeping bag and drew out the gloves and woolen hat she had stowed there to keep them dry and warm, jammed them on and went back to sleep, only her nose sticking out of the bag.

          There was no reason for Craig to go up to the lighthouse that morning. The Rock was fogged in and a film of frost had formed on anything it could cling to. Adrienne pulled on her slicker and slid down to the boat house to take the water temperature. The herring gull was still there, dragging a wing, she observed. She decided to call him Sven and made a mental note to bring him some bread crumbs.

          When she returned to the cottage, Craig was busy with his books She recorded the temperature, 48 degrees, visibility at zero and listened to the droning voice of the weather radio. She decided to give the voice a name. Giving things name made it seem like there were more people on the island. Karl, she thought, naming him for a dull teacher from her high school days. Karl gave no good news. The storm was gathering strength over the East Seaboard. A hurricane in the southern states was moving up the coastline.

           “How will the rest of them get here today?” Adrienne asked.

“They won’t." Rose called from the mainland while Adrienne was outside. The others had reached Maine but the weather had them stuck there. It would be several more days before they could get on the fishing boat and get out to the Rock.

          Craig suggested they busy themselves bringing the murre decoys in from the boathouse. Ornithologists were trying to get the murre to set up a colony on the far end of the island. There were boxes and boxes of the metal decoys, each one a facsimile of the black and white seabirds, and a metal rod stuck to the bottom to affix them to holes drilled in the rocks. Many of the decoys needed to be repainted, a simple job in black and white. Craig found the tightly sealed paint cans with the remnants of paint from the year before. They set up shop in the third bedroom.

          As they worked, they talked about their lives. At first their chatter was about birding but it soon morphed into more personal matters. Craig was single, he said.

“You never married?”

“I was going to, once.”

“Didn’t work out?”

Craig didn’t answer. Adrienne looked up and saw the sadness in his eyes. He shook his head. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

Adrienne quickly changed the subject and talked about her life. She chattered about her awful father, his addictions, his abuse.

“He probably wasn’t as bad as you make him out to be,” Craig said. “Some women need a firm hand, you know.”

            A spatter of rain hit the window. The storm was getting worse. There was no glimmer that afternoon, but they finished up the second bottle anyway.

           The next day passed slowly. The smell of damp paint permeated the cottage. The warmest room was the kitchen so they closed the area by covering the open doorways with spare blankets from the bedrooms and sat at the kitchen table reading. Her bones ached. She took aspirin she found in the medicine chest to take off the edge.

They could not go out and do anything more than take the water temperature. She took some bread crumbs out to Sven, who screeched and gobbled before any of the other sea birds showed up.

Adrienne went up to the top of the lighthouse once but she could see nothing but the fog. The railings were slippery. Once her foot skidded a few inches along the ledge as she screamed. She didn’t look down again. She quickly lowered herself through the trap door.

The rain beat against the window panes. Adrienne explored the sitting room looking for 

something to occupy them. There were no board games but she found a deck of cards. They began to play, finding out what card games they knew, then used the library’s copy of Hoyle’s to learn new ones. The day passed slowly, interrupted only by meals. The solar panels became ineffective as the day grew darker, the lights flickered. To save energy, they turned off the lights and played in the dim light, drinking the third bottle of wine from mugs.

          The games became more competitive. Craig didn’t like losing. Neither did Adrienne. They began to argue about points. Whenever the arguing became heated, they switched to another game. It was too dark to read, they could barely see to play cards. The solar panels no longer generated enough electricity.

          They went to their respective bedrooms early. She took along the journal to make her daily entry by flashlight. When that was finished, she read some more of the old journal entries. Some were amusing, but then she caught another of Kris’s entries.

          “Craig told me not to talk so much. He might be right. But what else is there to do on an island? He can be so bossy.”

          The next morning, rain was pelting against the door. Whenever they went out, water seeped in. Adrienne mopped up the water and put it in a bucket but if she opened the door to throw it out, more rain blew in. She finally dragged the full buckets up the stairs and threw the water down the old bathroom drain, the only part of the plumbing that worked.

          They wore their boots and slickers inside now, to keep warm. They played cards wearing gloves. They drank the fourth bottle of wine in one sitting, for warmth. They tried the short wave radio, looking for news or music, but it didn’t work. She had no idea what was going on in the outside world.

Adrienne no longer initiated conversation. Anything that she said, Craig contradicted. He began to question her expertise as a birder. It was true, she knew next to nothing about seabirds, but test her on Midwest warblers, she retorted, and tried to talk about her adventures in Wisconsin, but Craig always had bigger and better adventures in Costa Rico, Australia. She felt small, meaningless.

Her friends were far away, in another place, comfortable in their warm, well insulated homes. They had hot water and furnaces. What had she been thinking!

From time to time, she caught Craig looking at her thoughtfully. She no longer put on makeup or did anything to make herself attractive. She stopped washing up. Her body took on a rank smell.  

Karl gave no good news. In his monotone voice, he told them the storm was stuck over the Eastern Seaboard. There would be no let up. Rose called from the mainland, almost unintelligible as the phone registered more and more static. The other volunteers had given up. They would not be coming. The next band of volunteers would be coming when they could get through. Jack would pick up Craig and Adrienne as soon as the weather cleared, which should be in two days.

“At least we have Karl and Sven,” she said.

“Who’s Sven?”

“He’s the herring gull with the broken wing that hangs out in the boat house. I’ve been feeding him…”

“You’ve been feeding a gull? You idiot, they eat puffin and tern eggs.”

Craig stood up and went to the storage closet in the old furnace room. He took out a pellet gun, checked it for ammunition, and strode to the door.

“What are you doing?” she screamed.

She chased him down through the deluge, down the slippery ramp to the boat house. He was already there, gun raised and before she could stop him, he killed Sven with one shot. He picked up the carcass and swung it around his head several times to get a good heft and threw it into the ocean.

“Remember why we’re here,” he said.'

Adrienne began to cry.

“Isn’t that just like a woman. Tears.” Craig stomped back up the ramp, leaving Adrienne to mourn her friend.

Island Fever - Part One

             “There it is,” Jack called back from the pilot’s wheel, his words barely audible between the slaps of the little fishing boat bouncing from wave to wave.

“Where?’ Adrienne asked. Craig loped up from the back where he had been keeping an eye on their gear and helped her direct her binoculars. The lighthouse was only a knob on the flat horizon of the calm ocean. Over the next fifteen minutes, Adrienne watched it rise like a phallus out of the sea. Her home for the next week.

And then, there it was, floating up and down on the waves, totally adapted to the wild ocean environment: a puffin. Its black Harlequin tear, its vivid orange beak, and its stocky little body made her chuckle with delight. This fellow had been living a solitary life, never coming to land, making his living on the Atlantic for three years. He was returning to his birth home to join others like him for sex and procreation. Craig, Adrienne and their companions would be carefully monitoring the activities of the puffins and their fellow nesters, the terns, guillemots, and murres on the islands along the northern Maine coast.

It was the opportunity of a lifetime. In the course of the summer, volunteers from around the world came to Maine to tenderly watch and protect the puffins. The Rock, set up with the cooperation of the Coast Guard who maintained the lighthouse, was considered a plum position because of the keeper’s cottage. On other islands, volunteers lived in tents through summer heat and Atlantic storms. Adrienne would have a real bed though it would be cold, she had been told. This far out, the waters were frigid in late spring. This last week in May, she, Craig and the six others who would arrive the next day, were to clean the lighthouse keeper’s cottage and organize the place for the summer’s work.

Only an amateur birder, Adrienne jumped at the chance to live among the puffins for a week. She lived a humdrum life, working at an insurance company. Shy, she lived with her mother. Her only friends were birders, who were not really close but didn’t mind a short, squat little woman in their ranks. She shared her hobby with them, that was all they cared about. She knew she should break away from her mother, go out and get a life, but her mother was an invalid…or thought she was.

             Craig, an ornithologist, met Adrienne on a Midwest birding expedition. He admired her knowledge of warbler calls and she admired the book he had written on the subject. He autographed her battered copy and asked if she would be interested in going to the Rock. They could use a few more volunteers. She didn't have to be an expert on sea birds since their week would be mostly cleaning and setting up duty stations for the summer.

A real adventure at last! Her mother warned of the dangers of planes, boats and lighthouses. She suggested that Craig was untrustworthy, probably a white slaver. Adrienne ignored all her mother’s warnings. She took her two week vacation at the insurance company and set off.

On the twenty mile boat trip to the rock, she was adding dozens of birds to her life list. Gulls, storm-petrels, puffins, auks, murres, gannets and eiders swarmed around the boats. It was spring migration and the sea was alive with avian life. Her binoculars swung from side to side as she tried to catch every one of them.

             Craig laughed at her enthusiasm, then paused for a moment. “I forgot to ask,” he shouted over the sound of the motor. “You aren’t claustrophobic, are you?”

             “No, why?”

             “Some people get island fever. The Rock is only thirty acres, just a pinpoint on the map and when it’s storming, we’ll be locked in the cottage.”

             “Can be a problem,” their pilot called back. “Kris got a bad case last year, I heard, before the accident.”

             Adrienne called back, “What happened to Kris?” but the motor got louder as Jack reversed the motor, stopping the boats progression as they drew near to the landing. Jack dropped anchor some yards off shore. Lithe Craig hauled in the little dory they had been dragging behind them until it was next to the rocking boat. He lumped two heavy gummy bags into it and rowed to shore to get the bigger dinghy stored in the island boat house. Soon he was back, his muscles straining against the current, to get Adrienne and another load of gear. One quick trip, and her wobbling sea legs were on shore on the island, alone for a few moments on the island, suddenly feeling lonely. She shook her head and got to work. As Craig went back to get the last three loads, she lumped as many packages as she could as far as the boat house to get them away from the ocean spray.

The boxes, bags and human cargo unpacked, Jack took off in his boat, dory trailing behind. They would see him tomorrow, when he brought the rest of the crew. Craig and Adrienne were alone with the gear, which they dragged up to the keeper’s cottage. They had boxes of groceries, enough food for eight people for ten days, Craig said, as well as cleaning gear, and scientific equipment. There were propane tanks for the stove and bottled water for drinking. Most important, there were batteries for the short wave phone connecting them to the mainland.

             The keeper’s cottage clung to the side of the lighthouse, a two story structure made of the rock it stood on. Over 150 years old, it had seen its share of keepers, but now the lighthouse was automated. Its light shone night and day. Every fifteen seconds the foghorn sounded, like a teenager beeping his horn for his girl,whether there was fog or not.

             “You didn’t tell me about that,” said Adrienne. 

 

             “You get used to it,” Craig told her. “I brought ear plugs to help us sleep. Besides, it is quieter inside the stone walls.”

             The cottage was amazingly clean after eight months of being vacant, she thought. Craig pointed out that there was little to dirty it over the winter. There were no animals of any kind on the Rock. Any mice or rats that somehow managed to make it twenty miles out to the lighthouse would immediately be devoured by the birds. The birds left once their breeding season was over leaving the island to be washed clean by winter storms. Salt water scoured away most of the topsoil, leaving only a few grasses behind to fight it out with the lichen in the cracks between rocks.

             Their week long home did need airing out. Everything was damp, and would remain so until mid-summer, Craig said. The Rock slept in fog through three-quarters of the year.

             Craig led Adrienne upstairs to upstairs where they selected their bedrooms and spread out their sleeping bags. There were only three bedrooms, but there were a dozen beds, enough for a sizable crew. The bathroom hadn’t worked since the last keeper left some fifty years before. It wasn’t worth fixing the plumbing for the summer crew.

“Come on,” he said, taking her back outside to show her the amenities. Washing up was done in the rain barrels at the front door and bodily functions would be taken care of in the “biffy”, a toilet with walls on three sides on an overhang attached to the boat house. It had a great view of the ocean, he told her. “We all look away when someone is in there. If it makes you nervous you can tie something there as a warning.”

Most of the crew would be men and they would pee off the rocks, so this would not bother them all that much but Adrienne had always had privacy in her toilet at home.

He instructed her to throw in a cupful of wood dust from time to time. They could take a bucket upstairs for night time use and empty it out in the morning. There was a solar shower bag they could use to heat enough water to bathe al fresco but that would have to wait for sunny days.

             Terns, puffins, gulls, murres, and guillemots swarmed around their heads, screeching out their displeasure. The arctic terns were never quiet, day or night. They screamed and swooped. Adrienne clutched her hat by the brim. She wore one of the “shit shirts” he had told her to bring, extra large men’s shirts to cover their heavy jackets, in case those terns made direct hits. The damp cold was already creeping into the cotton.

             “Let's go,” Craig said. “I can't wait any longer.” He led her to the lighthouse tower. It was time to do their first bird survey. They went through a metal door, and climbed up the stairs, their footsteps echoing as they ascended in the semi-dark. Up, up, they went, pausing at the landings for breath. Adrienne had no sense of the height until they reached the top and went out the second metal door onto a platform. Flimsy rusting railing was all that kept them from falling onto the rocks below. Bits of the railing shattered as Adrienne touched it, peeled off and tumbled down. The concrete walk way showed signs of cracking That was bad enough, but Craig motioned her to a metal rung ladder attached to a wall. He climbed up to the next stage and pushed a trap door open to the light itself. She climbed up to the higher spot, balancing on the slippery, damp bits of iron. They trained their binoculars and worked around the narrow ledge, two strands of rusty metal rods keeping them in place.

             “I wouldn’t lean on them too hard,” Craig said. “And watch that trap door. It would be easy to fall down, and 9-1-1 doesn’t work out here.” They looked down at a big wooden platform below, a helicopter pad. In case of an emergency, they could call the Coast Guard station on the mainland and ask for help.

             “Unless the weather is bad,” Craig said. “Then we’re on our own.” He pointed out the solar panels that would give them light in the evenings, provided there was sun during the day.

             He told her to count the birds swarming around the island. They had to do a morning and evening count of the island species. She was confused. How do you count arctic terns that never sit still, not for an instant, to say nothing about puffins, common terns, guillemots, eider, cormorants, razorbills, all of them in flight. All of them variations of black and white? She did the best count she could, compared it to Craig’s and found her count lacking. He said she would get better with practice.

             “It’s warm today,” Craig informed her cheerfully as they climbed down. “The Rock has brought us here with a sunny welcome.” Adrienne was chilled to the bone. Her gloves and shoes were wet and in the dampness, nothing would ever be dry.

             That afternoon, they worked around the keeper’s cottage. Adrienne scrubbed down the kitchen with disinfectant while Craig set up the propane tanks.

             “What about heat?” she asked.

             “There isn’t any,” he said. “Except for cooking and lights and body heat. There’ll be plenty of that when the rest of the crew arrives tomorrow.”

             Adrienne excused herself and went up to put on the long underwear she had brought. She thought Midwestern winters were cold! This damp chill was terrible.

             Craig inserted the batteries and got the shore-to-shore radio working. He punched in the numbers to reach the survey center on the Maine shoreline. Rose answered almost immediately.

             “Bad news,” she said. “The rest of the crew have been delayed in Chicago. There’s a storm going through the Midwest, and they’re stuck at O’Hare overnight. It will be a couple of days before they get to Maine.”

             The Rock was theirs for the time being.

             “Cheer up,” Craig said, and brought out a bottle of wine. “I brought eight bottles, a different one for each day we’re here. Now there’s more for us.” They sat one of the deck’s benches and drank with gloved hands while they watched the the afternoon sun creating sparkles on the dancing waves, the “glimmer” Craig called it. It was enchanting, the water light show, the brilliant sun, the terns swirling in their millennial dance. Birds everywhere and they never collided. How did they do that? Tears stung Adrienne’s eyes as she thought of the many lives floating around on the sea breezes, as they prepared to raise another generation. God’s creatures.

Suddenly, Craig grabbed her arm and pointed down to the shore. She swung her glasses to the spot and there was a baby seal. Adrienne squealed in delight but as she watched, the pup turned over and she saw the gaping wound in its side.

             It would not be there long. The rapacious birds would soon have a feast.

             Craig cooked grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup and they sat in the kitchen eating while they set up a schedule for themselves. Craig would take the lighthouse schedule for the time being. Adrienne would be in charge of doing the scientific measurements below. She was to check the temperature of the water four times a day, note visibility, and listen to the weather reports on the weather radio. She would do the dishes. Craig was the better cook, so he would do most of the cooking.

        They sat in the sitting room for a while. He showed her the books past residents had left there, many of them bird books, some novels, even children’s books about puffins and terns. There was a shelf full of journals. Each band of volunteers left daily notes about their stays. Craig told her he wasn’t much of a writer and asked her to take over that task. She immediately scrawled a few enthusiastic paragraphs about their first day, peeking at previous entries to see what was expected of her. Most of the entries were written in tiny, scientific printing, but one entry from the year before caught her eye. It was a scrawl, almost indecipherable. Something about the miserable weather. It was signed “Kris.” Was she the volunteer with island fever? What happened to her? Craig was deep into an ornithological textbook, making notes. She didn’t disturb him.

             If the fireplace worked, it would have been a cozy evening, but she soon excused herself and went off to bed, taking the journal with her. Deep in her heavy duty sleeping bag, she was almost asleep when she caught sight of another Kris entry: “Island fever is getting to us. Craig is grouchy and so am I. He talks about our future together, but after we are married we will have to have time outs, maybe go on separate birding expeditions.”

             So Craig and Kris were a couple. They were going to be married until Kris fell on the rocks.

Badlands Journal -- Part Three

I had assumed that when Helgo reported sensing a second deader in the area, Julius would send the necrological engineer and I out to capture it, as we had with Betty. To be sure, this was done. However, he also sent Marco along with us 'as an added precaution.' My expedition leader's new-found concern for my safety in made me feel even less so. Marco had sat behind us in the ornithopter, the scraping sounds of his knife against the whetstone audible over the howl of the airsteam. My carefully-constructed gambit for freedom crumbled in my mind's eye, for the truth of the matter was that there was no second deader and no way to reformulate a new plan with my co-conspirator.

When we landed near a stand of hoodoos and began setting up our march, Marco announced that he would guard the rear of our little column, and unslung his rifle in a manner that left no argument. Helgo shrugged and set off as if he were tracking a deader. I sighed and picked up the crate containing the net trap and extra coils of rope.

Marco had the habit of talking about whatever popped into his mind. As we marched, he extolled the virtues of hornswill over moonshine. I had sampled both and found nothing redeeming about either. He also gave an unfortunately detailed inventory of the trulls that worked the air docks and aerodromes of Paradise City. He hinted that his endorsements carried substantial discounts and exclusive services with certain ladies.

He paused only briefly after a series of ancedotes involving tavern brawls to address me directly.

“So you think you have the knack, Professor?” Marco said.

“The knack for what?” I said.

“For getting lucky.”

“I'm sure I don't know what you mean.”

“Well, I mean that we go after a deader maybe once or twice a year, and it happens on your trip. Then someone as green as you plays bait and comes out of it alive.” He took a long swig from his canteen.

“Then, on this same trip, we find another deader. Ain't that damned lucky? I've never been on a job where we found two deaders. And here you are, carrying the bait box.” He nodded at the crate in my arms that held the trap.

“The bait box? Is that what it's called?” The last part I directed at Helgo's back with a hint of acid in my voice, though he didn't seem to react.

“Yeah, because we make the bait carry it. And when he opens it...” Marco laughed.

“Yes, I figured that part out,” I said. “And I'll do so again, when the time comes.” Or smash it over your head, I said to myself.

“I ain't never heard of anyone making it as bait twice, professor. Like I said, you must be lucky.”

“You bet Julius I'd survive last time,” I said.

“Yeah, that's because he was giving fifty to one, so I figured why not? This time though, the odds ain't that good.”

We hiked for an hour, Helgo changing our direction about every five minutes as he tracked the phantom deader. I dearly hoped he could find his way back to the ornithopter, because I was thoroughly lost. Finally, he called a halt next to a dry river bed.

“We set up here,” he said.

“It's about time,” Marco said, pulling out his canteen.

“You can help me set up,” I told him. Maybe he would come close enough so I could wrestle the rifle away from him, or wrap him up with the net.

“Nah, that's okay, professor. Julius told me to keep watch, and that's what I'm going to do.”

I set up the netting and frame, while Helgo stamped out arcane symbols in the dirt. Marco looked on. I racked my brain for a plan lure Marco under the net. If I could not, I wondered how long I would have to lie in the sun before waiting for a deader that would never come.

“When it comes, it'll follow the gully,” Helgo said. He pointed down the river bed. “I'll be just down here. Marco, you cover him from the bank.”

“You're not in charge here, corpse-spinner,” Marco said.

“Necrological engineer,” Helgo said absently. “then do whatever the hell you want then, but if you spook the deader, Julius will take the selling price out of your hide.”

“Don't worry, corpse-spinner, Julius said I get a cut of whatever we sell this deader for. I know my job.”

Marco scrambled up the embankment. Helgo had me lay down and he drew a small knife.

“What's your plan now?” he asked.

“I'm working on it.” I said.

“Think faster, or you'll be dead before sundown.”

“Understood.”

“I'll have to cut you.”

“For appearances' sake, I suppose.” I said.

He gave me a tight smile, blackened teeth surrounded by desert-cracked lips. “Just so.”

He drew the knife against my forearm, a shallow cut that burned every time I moved my fingers.

Helgo walked to his spot and took up a chant, rocking back and forth on his haunches. I still had no idea what to do. Marco laid on his stomach in the meager shade of a dead juniper tree, his rifle seemingly pointed not over my head, but at it.

There was a time at the university where I heard about a psychology experiment. Doctor Johansen postulated that when stressed in an otherwise boring situation, the mind overreacts to new stimuli. She placed a subject in a room empty but for a chair, and told them they would be called on shortly for the “actual” experiment. In one group, the subjects waited for fifteen minutes in a normal room. In the other group the room temperature was increased as the subjects waited. The two groups then tried matching pairs of cards flipped in quick succession. While there were certainly some subjects from the heated room that struggled, fitting her hypothesis, many more did not. Unfortunately, the next round of departmental budget cuts came at the same time as a second experiment was proposed, so Doctor Johansen was never able to fully explore her idea.

Perhaps, I thought, there was something there. The question was just a matter of whether Marco was the right kind of subject. After I felt a sufficiently long time had passed, I got out my field journal and began writing. Helgo certainly noticed my movements, but kept chanting. After a few minutes more, Marco called out.

“You're going to spook the deader! Quit moving.”

I pursed my lips and waved dismissively at him like he was a know-nothing undergrad, something my departmental head marked me down for on my last performance evaluation. I stood up and began walking around the trap, tapping my pencil against the framework and shaking my head.

“Helgo, make him get down!”

“You know, I can think of several improvements on this,” I called out, pushing on the rickety framework.

“Helgo!”

The necrological engineer seemed to take no notice. I turned my back on Marco and gave the frame another push, causing it to sway.

There was the sound of tumbling rock and swift footsteps. I was about to make another quip when the world went white and I fell to the ground. Pain blossomed in the back of my head. Above me, the shadowy outline of Marco stood.

“Stay down!” his rifle butt rose for another strike.

“Deader!” Helgo shouted.

Marco looked up. I rolled, knocking the frame over. Marco cursed and thrashed, unable to raise his rifle against netting designed for creatures of unnatural strength. It was only a single data point, but I was now inclined to believe Doctor Johansen's hypothesis.

We flew back with Marco bound up behind us on the cargo rack, deader-style. We landed short of camp and left him on the rack while we prepared our caper.

“We need to get in and out quickly,” Helgo said.

“I wasn't planning on lingering,” I said.

“Then you get the stone, I'll get Betty.”

My stomach lurched. “Why don't you get the stone, and I'll get her instead?”

“Because she's powering the whole camp now. You trying to unplug a deader would be like trying to handle hot coals with your bare hands. It'd raise all kinds of hell if you tried taking her out of the grid instead of me. I just need five minutes to get her out quiet-like”

I thought of suggesting to just leave her, but a twinge of guilt hit me at the thought. Maybe I couldn't prove it, but I was beginning to suspect she was once human. Maybe Helgo was just going after her to sell her on the open market, but I could fight that battle later.

“Point taken. I'll see to getting the stone.”

As we approached the camp, I planned my route to Julius' tent. He had his crew on watch of course, but vigilance had become lax over the past weeks; those on guard tended to walk the same paths. Despite this fact, visions of all the ways I could be discovered flooded my head. I put them aside as best I could and wiped the cold sweat from my forehead.

I crept though the shadows towards Julius' tent while Helgo slung Marco's old rifle and went around the other side of the darkened camp toward the humming generator. With his black coat and hat, he melted into the shadows within seconds. Across from me, I recognized the guard as Vince, a tall lanky man whom none of the others would play cards with because he cheated. He stared blankly at the shadow in which I was hiding. I froze, avoiding direct eye contact, even though the phenomenon of feeling being watched had been debunked in the psychology department for decades.

Vince stared for what seemed like hours, but he eventually turned and paced to a new position towards the south end of camp. I made my way forward, past the tents filled with sleeping gunmen to Julius' tent. I peeled back the flap and peered in the darkness. I could just make out Julius' form on the cot, chest rising and falling with even breaths. I entered at a crawl, feeling my way forward and to the sides with light touches to avoid obstacles.

I first checked the footlocker, on the off chance Julius would have laid the gun there, but all I felt was its bare surface. If he had placed the gun in the locker, all was lost. The creaking of the locker's hinges would surely give me away. However, I couldn't see Julius being out of arm's reach of his weapon. Step by step, I made my way to Julius' cot, feeling under it, around the edges. All bare.

My heart hammered in my ears, and I felt like I was about to pass out from taking silent, shallow breaths. I took a moment to steel myself, and reached out. My hand was seized instantly, and a blinding light appeared in my eyes.

“Hello, professor,” Marco said, “Miss me?”

* * *

It seemed to me the purpose of a firing squad was to diffuse the responsibility of murder among a group to save the delicate sensibilities of an individual executioner. At least that is how I would record such thoughts in an academic paper. My actual thoughts centered around Julius being too much a coward to pull the trigger himself. Such was my state of mind as Julius told his crew to take aim.

Helgo, sat to the side with his harmonica in hand. A rope ran from a steel collar at his neck to Marco's hand. 'I always got a knife you don't know about,' Marco said of his escape. Since he didn't have to worry about stealth, it was a simple matter for him to run ahead of us, warn the camp, and play body double in the cot while Julius and the others waited in ambush. Helgo was caught a few moments after he reached Betty.

Too valuable to kill, perhaps my execution was more for Helgo's education than my punishment. Helgo's face had that same impassive quality to it as our first meeting, but I thought there was something about him that seemed a bit diminished. I was seeing the breaking of a man, I realized.

Facing my own impending death, it seemed I was noticing many things for the first time. All of life's mysteries seemed simpler now, the purpose of life, under all our pompous pondering and searching for greater meanings, is to draw just one more breath. Finding purpose and meaning is just a way to keep ourselves distracted while our lungs inhale and our heart beats. If we didn't have these distractions, perhaps we'd just get in the way of life's purpose and end it prematurely.

“Last words, professor? Last chance to ask for forgiveness,” Julius said.

“No regrets, Julius. Just let me die with some dignity.”

Julius pursed his lips and nodded. “Indeed, professor, indeed. Just to show you I don't take it personally, I'll give you a small boon.”

“Helgo,” Julius said, “play the man a dirge.”

Helgo raised the harmonica, and let out his first chord. The breathy notes came out in a slow cadence, powerful, defiant. Like a great airship clawing its way up from the ground. It was a touch too much from the Badlands for my tastes, but under the circumstances I appreciated Helgo's interpretation given his limited repertoire.

“Ready,” Julius said.

The staccato of bolts sliding back penetrated into my bowels, and my legs went numb. Were it not for the rope securing me to a dead juniper tree, I would have collapsed.

“Aim,” Julius said.

His crew, the men I'd shared food and drink with for the past two weeks sighted over their rifles. Some muzzles were aimed at my heart, others at my head. I caught Vince's eye staring at me over his gun barrel. It wavered then dipped as he took a lower aim. The mouths of the barrels grew bigger and seemed darker. I took in another sweet breath of air and held it. I closed my eyes.

The shots sounded like a single cannon, and a giant's hammer crushed my chest. My breath whooshed out. Funny that I hadn't even heard Julius give the order to fire. So this was death. Then I took in another lungful of air. That wasn't supposed to happen was it? Then the cries of alarm reached my ears, and I opened my eyes.

The camp was on fire. A black column rose in the air at the far side, taking on a mushroom shape. Julius, gun in hand, was waving his men toward the explosion.

“Fan out, watch the perimeter!” He pushed one of his crew who stumbled around as if lost. “South side – go, go!” He turned to Marco.

“Secure the 'spinner under cover, then spin up a 'thoper and give us cover.”

“What about him?” Marco pointed at me.

“Leave him.” Julius said. He ran towards the chaos.

In that moment, Helgo pulled at his boot heel. A small knife appeared in his hand and sank itself into Marco's neck. The other man collapsed, gurgling.

“I always have one more knife too,” he said to Marco.

A shadow moved though the smoke near the site of the explosion. Shots rang out.

There was a tug at the ropes. Helgo held the knife in one hand and sawed at my bonds while still playing the harmonica. The tune was the same as the dirge but he played now at a blistering speed. Doubtless some notes were missed, but perhaps the music only reflected the chaos around us.

The ropes fell, and Helgo jerked his head in the opposite direction of the gunfire. There was a shout behind us, followed by the buzz of a bullet passing my head. I looked back to see Julius, legs wide, teeth bared, revolver in a two-handed grip taking aim.

We ran into the brush as another bullet whizzed by. Helgo ran ahead in a lopsided gait, picking a path through the broken terrain to our 'thopter, still keeping up his tune on the harmonica. The sounds of gunfire fell behind us, though the snaps and crashes of Julius' pursuit remained.

Helgo's twists and turns in our flight seemed to come at random; I could only but follow him, lost as I was in this blasted place. His harmonica sang in jerky notes as we ran, I could hear him gasping between phrases. He finally came to a halt before a large boulder, collapsing on all fours with his chest heaving.

“Get up,” I said, “He's right behind us.”

“No,” he said, “Stops now.”

There was a crash behind us, and Julius barreled though a dead bush into the clearing. His face was caked with sweat and red dust, and had the slack expression of someone on the point of physical collapse. If Helgo had made it just a bit further, I thought, we might have made it.

Julius' revolver swung up towards me. I leaped at him, reaching out to knock the gun away. There was a blinding flash, and a roar in my ear. I hit him, and we fell to the ground. I fancied for a moment that I had knocked him senseless and I had him pinned, only to be flung violently backward as he wedged his feet between us and pushed. I landed on my back near Helgo. My chest felt as if crushed in a vice; hot needles rang in my ear. I moved to rise, but Julius was quicker.

“Stay down.” Julius said, bringing the pistol up. At the distance between us, he could not miss.

“My deader's gone. Blew up in that explosion you rigged somehow, professor. Even for killing Marco, I would have made it quick,” Julius said. “not now, professor, not now.” The look in his eye convinced me that pointing out I was tied up during these events would do no good.

“And Helgo?” I said. Julius' eyes flicked to my companion.

“Oh, I got plans for him. I've been too lenient, that's all.” Julius smiled in a way that frightened me more than his gun. Helgo raised his hand and extended his middle finger.

“I'll cut that one off first, corpse-spinner,” Julius said. “But first,” Julius centered the revolver on my head and thumbed back the hammer. As the cylinder rotated, I caught a glimpse of the bullet that would kill me.

Helgo's harmonica let out a trill and Julius fell to the ground. He tried to rise, but the figure on his back grabbed him about the head and twisted back and forth as quickly as a dog might shake out a wet coat. There were several popping sounds, and Julius spasmed. The gun barked, and to this day, I believe my oddest experience in Badlands is that the bullet hit none of us.

Betty rose from Julius' body. She gripped the corpse by the hair and dragged it through the sand towards us. Julius' gun skittered across the ground with its owner, limp fingers tangled in the trigger guard. Helgo kept playing as he knelt down and retrieved the revolver, tucking it in one of his long coat's pockets.

“I thought she had blown up.”

“Nah, just backfed the power grid when she jumped out.”

“I thought you needed five minutes to get her out.”

“That was for getting her out quiet and clean. Loud and messy just takes a second. I keyed her for Back in Black when they jumped me. Come on, let's get to the 'thopter.”

“Right, what about her? Do we need to tie her up?” I said.

“They're pretty docile once they start eating. I wouldn't worry about it.” There was a popping sound, and I turned. Betty had one of Julius' severed fingers her mouth, her jaw working mechanically.

Maybe deaders had consciousness, maybe they even had souls. Maybe I could convince my peers of my suspicions, but Betty's dietary habits would make that job all the harder.