I followed the direction of his eye.
'I think they're looking at that bird at our feet,' I whispered back.
'Why? Is that some kind of rare and exotic bird?'
I glanced down. The bird was moderately large, light brown, with a black-and-white mask over its face. It had bits of red and yellow on its wings, and the end of its tail had been dipped in yellow.
'How the devil should I know?' I said. 'It looks like a paint-spattered female cardinal; cardinals certainly aren't rare.'
'Damn,' Michael said, a little more loudly this time.
The bird, whatever it was, took flight The three birders removed the binoculars from their eyes and stared at us accusingly.
'That was a Bohemian waxwing,' one of them said.
'Did you get any photos?' the second asked.
'No,' said the third. 'They frightened it off before I got the chance.'
'Oh, you mean that bird with the yellow-tipped tail?' I asked.
The birders nodded and frowned at us. Madame Defarge looked more kindly on her victims.
'We've seen them around here a lot,' I said.
'They're quite rare in this part of the continent,' one of the birders replied.
'Yes, that's what I was telling Michael,' I said. 'How rare to see so many Bohemian waxwings here. If you just stay quietly where you are, you'll probably see dozens.'
With that, Michael and I fled down the path, until we had rounded a corner and could collapse in gales of laughter.
'Bohemian waxwings?' Michael spluttered. 'That can't possibly be a real bird.'
'I'm sure it is,' I said, peeping around the comer. The three birders had hunched down by the path and were on the alert, scanning the landscape through their binoculars, one looking left, one right, and the third straight out toward the ocean.
'Come on,' I said. 'Let's get out of here, in case the Bohemian waxwing has flown the coop completely.'
We giggled intermittently over the antics of the birders for the next hour or so. But the day got colder and damper, and every time we rounded a headland that I thought would bring us to the end of our journey, we'd encounter another stretch of path. And another flock of birders.
In one place, I spotted the remains of a campsite back in the trees, some distance from the trail.
'How odd,' I said. 'Let's go take a look at this.'
'What's so odd?' Michael asked. 'Looks like someone camped here.'
'Definitely,' I said, using my foot to rake leaves away from a charred spot. 'You can see where they had a fire, right here, and they buried something over there. Garbage, I guess'
'Beer cans, mostly,' Michael said, looking down at the trash-disposal area. 'Someone had quite a party.'
The unknown campers had buried their empties on the side of a hill, and the heavy rain had washed away a good deal of the covering dirt, exposing a vein of silver-and-blue aluminum cans.
'Definitely odd,' I murmured.
'Yes, I should think conditions back in the village are primitive enough to satisfy even the most discriminating masochist. What kind of nut would come all the way over to this side of the island for even more Spartan conditions?'
'Well, I'm sure some people want to,' I said. 'But it's illegal. No camping permitted. To protect the fragile ecosystem on the undeveloped side of the island. And definitely no open fires. Normally, they're very quick to chase off anyone who tries.'
'Maybe they did,' Michael said. 'Whoever did it is long gone.'
Still, I couldn't help fretting as we hiked, and looking for further signs of neglect or environmental damage. I thought of summers past when Dad, Aunt Phoebe, and the rest of their generation would denounce some new change to the island. I'd thought them tiresome, a little cracked on the subject of keeping Monhegan unspoiled. And yet, here I was, fretting about the same thing.
At least until my energy began to flag again.
'Maybe it's my imagination,' I said, stopping to pant. 'But the path around the island seems longer than it did when I was a little kid.'
'Your father used to let you walk around this path?' Michael said, peering over the edge of a precipice to the surf crashing twenty feet below.
'Let us? He'd insist on it. He thought it was good exercise. If we didn't voluntarily hike around the island every few days, he'd drag us along on a nature walk.'
'And he was never prosecuted for child abuse? Amazing. I hope he at least insisted that you learn to swim before turning you loose on these cliffs.'
'Technically, yes; though I don't see what good swimming would do anyone who fell off the cliffs. The undertow could drag away a small submarine, and if the undertow didn't get you, the waves would pound you to death against the rocks.'
'What a vacation paradise,' Michael said, chuckling as we resumed our hike. 'I see why he brought you here; the place is as escapeproof as Alcatraz. He wouldn't have to worry about you sneaking over to the mainland and getting into any trouble.'
'We managed anyway,' I said. 'The sneaking over to the mainland part anyway; we never could find much trouble when we got there. But you can reach the mainland quite easily if you know someone with a small boat. Not in weather like this, of course.'
'Oh, the weather's not that bad,' Michael said. 'Great weather for sitting around by the fire.'
'Sorry. Hiking wasn't that good an idea, was it?'
'Nonsense. It was a great idea,' Michael said, smiling over his shoulder at me before turning and beginning to climb the next hill. 'The scenery's fantastic, and when we get back to the cottage, I'll appreciate the fire all the more.'
If only we could appreciate it by ourselves, I thought, pausing for a moment to enjoy the view of Michael's long legs as he jumped over a small gully that interrupted the path. Perhaps if all the rest of the family went hiking. But no, the weather would soon be too foul for hiking. And anyway, Mother never hiked. Turn her loose in a mall, or, better yet, on a street lined with quaint boutiques and expensive shops, and she could walk combat-trained marines into the ground, but here on Monhegan, there wasn't much shopping, even in the summer. How could we possibly get Mother out of the house? I sighed.
'Tired?' Michael asked, looking down at me. I shook my head.
'Just figuring where we are,' I said. 'It can't be too much farther. I'm sure we're getting close to the village.'
'You said that an hour ago,' he said, chuckling.
'That was wishful thinking,' I said. 'Now that I've gotten my bearings back, not to mention my second wind, I know exactly where we are. Just over the next hill we're going to see a quaint little shack that's been converted to an artist's studio. It's on a headland with one of the most spectacular views of the island.'
'Over this hill?' Michael said. He had reached the top and paused to catch his breath.
'Yes. Look a little to your right. You should be able to see it peeping through the trees.'
'Yes, that's quite a quaint little shack.'
I leached his side and looked down, expecting to see one of my favorite rustic Monhegan landscapes. Instead, I saw a glittering, spiky forest of steel beams and glass plates.
'Wrong hill again?' Michael said.
'No, it's the right hill. I recognize the view, at least what little we can see of it behind that monstrosity. What the hell is it anyway? Some horrible new piece of weather equipment from the Coast Guard?'
'A rather large and very modern house,' Michael said.
He was right, of course; when I'd stared at it a few minutes, the jumble resolved itself into something resembling doors, walls, and windows.
'I wonder how in the world they got permission to build it,' I said. 'The town council is very conservative
