Death of a Songbird (14 page)

The volunteers included Dorothy, Cecilia, and Gertie, along with fifteen or twenty other generous souls from all across the country. Lark was the designated group leader.

Once everyone had assembled, Lark climbed up on the short retaining wall and waited for the buzz of conversation to die down. “Can everyone hear me okay?”

“Speak up,” shouted someone in back.

“I don’t know why I’m your appointed leader,” she said more loudly, rewarded by a thumbs-up signal from the back and a pulsing in her head. “I’m sure it’s only because I know the area, There are certainly better-qualified birders with us today.” Balanced somewhat precariously on the rough wall, Lark repositioned her feet and pulled out a park map. “We’re hiking up to Paris Pond today. We’ll go by bus to the trailhead, hike about four miles in, and climb about two thousand feet in elevation. Everyone needs a sweater and water bottle. And some of you may decide to stop at Alpine Meadow, just before we cross Alpine Creek and start our ascent to Paris Pond.”

A woman near the back raised her hand.

“Yes, Harriet?” Lark asked.

“Is the walk fairly easy most of the way?”

“It’s gentle to Alpine Creek. That’s about two and a half miles in. After that, the climb is steeper, and there are a few places where the path narrows enough that if you have any fear of heights, you’ll be uncomfortable.” Lark scanned the crowd. “Anyone is free to stop and turn around whenever they’d like. The reason we’re ascending to Paris Pond is to give you a chance to spot white ptarmigan and brown-capped rosy-finches.”

“What other species will we see?” shouted a man Lark didn’t recognize.

“We’ll have a fair chance of seeing blue grouse, three-toed woodpeckers, and pine grosbeak, along with the red-naped and Williamson’s sapsuckers. There’s potential for black swifts, and a good chance of seeing the Rocky Mountain subspecies of fox sparrow.” She glanced at her watch. “Okay, we’ll be leaving in ten minutes. Anyone who needs to, grab a jacket, get water, and use the bathroom.”

Lark climbed down off the wall, careful not to jar anything. Her head hurt the worst, but her right ankle was tender from being twisted when she tripped over the book. No sense in exacerbating either by being too active.

Gertie stopped her en route to the bathroom. “I overheard one of the hotel guests saying you had a break-in at your house last night. Is that true?”

“Yeah.” Lark told her about the intruder and the missing ledger.

“What’s Crandall doing about it?”

“Investigating. He said he might question a few people, but he didn’t act like it was a big rush.”

“That figures.” Gertie worried her bottom lip with her teeth, then asked, “Rachel
is
supervising at the Warbler today, isn’t she?”

“That was the plan. She and all three of the kids.”

“Don’t you think one of us should call her, just to make sure she’s up?”

“Trust me, Gertie, if she can run a million dollar advertising campaign, she can handle the coffee shop for a day.”

Gertie flipped her head, making her bob bob. “You know, running the Warbler’s not as easy as it looks.”

Before Lark could answer, Dorothy came charging up the sidewalk. She wore blue jeans, hiking boots, and a bright pink jacket zipped up to her throat. She’d crushed a pink baseball cap over her curls. “Here,” she said, thrusting a walkie-talkie into Lark’s hand. “I have one, too. Consider it a safety precaution. Walk away from me, and we’ll test them out.”

Gladly. Anything to escape Gertie
. Lark went in search of Velof.

The walkie-talkie cracked to life. “Testing, testing,” squawked Dorothy. “Do you read me? Over.”

“Loud and clear,” replied Lark, squelching the volume. Talk about scaring the birds.

“What is that contraption?” Velof asked. He looked saggy this morning himself. Dark circles rimmed his eyes, and one piece of his hair stuck up unbridled.

“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 enthusiasm 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.