We went up those stairs faster than they deserved — as I sprinted by I could tell they were beautifully made out of two-inch cedar — just to get out of the clutches of those swarming no-see-ums. Ah, the wilderness, blessed with beauty and cursed with biting insects. I shivered and raced into the dining room ahead of everyone. Unfortunately for me my entrance coincided with the moment when everyone was taking a break from talking, and they all stared at me as if I was an apparition. The ten seconds it took for Darcy to land at my side was an eternity, both to me and to them. Their curiosity was palpable.
But most of them lost interest and turned back to their meal when I didn’t do a pirouette while standing on my hands. At least, that is, until Martha catapulted into the room, frantically waving her arms around and jerking her body about as if she was convulsing. She gave me a venomous look as if I had been the one to force her to come down here in the first place. Once again everyone was looking at us and I felt an overwhelming urge to stand on one of the tables and announce who Martha and I were. So I did. Not stand on the table, but I just bellowed out the news that I was a zoologist studying buntings and I looked forward to meeting everybody while I was here. I mean, no one else was introducing us. I had to break the ice somehow. I felt Martha clutching at my arm.
“Jesus, Cordi. What was that all about?”
“Just trying to be friendly.”
“You never do that. Ever.”
The building we stood in was a wooden panabode and it was dark, even though the sun was still high in the sky. The windows were small and there weren’t many of them, and it was hot as hell in there. I could see sweat glistening on just about all the diners as the stark electric lights strung from the ceiling made a stab at turning the darkness into light. Six wooden picnic tables filled up most of the space but only two were full — the two farthest away from the hot kitchen. What with the cramped space I shuddered to think what it would be like when every seat was taken. The pungent smell of sweat was covering the smell of the food, but by the looks of it, it was some kind of fish. Actually, it didn’t look half bad and I kind of wished I could smell it.
Darcy motioned us over to one of the tables. “This is the mess,” he said. I surveyed the tables quickly. Two people deep in conversation occupied the one closest to me and I felt reluctant to interrupt, so I chose the other table. It was occupied by a diminutive redhead sporting a shiner that clashed with her hair. She seemed distracted, or maybe depressed. Whatever it was had made her face look sour and pinched. I wondered what could have happened to her. She was so young. Maybe twenty-three. Too young to be embittered, surely? She was sitting alone at our end of the table, as if by choice, and at the far end was a man who was engrossed in a magazine with the headline: “Sex and Lies.” Stocky, plain looking with unkempt, long, straggly black hair and a heavy beard shadow, he didn’t seem the type to be reading a gossip rag.
My thoughts were interrupted by Darcy, who plunked two laden dishes down on the table in front of us, right next to the woman, and went back to get something for himself.
I glanced at the woman sitting right beside me, and said, “Mind if we join you?”
She glanced up and gave me a fleeting smile, and I could see that the shiner was accompanied by some big-time swelling.
“Looks painful,” I said, shamelessly fishing for information.
“I banged into my cabin door,” she said, staring at me, seemingly daring me to contradict her. I wouldn’t have even thought to contradict her except for the pleading look in her eyes that was there only for an instant and then it was gone. So fast I couldn’t really be sure it had been there at all, so I ignored it.
“I’m Cordi. And this is Martha.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said.
Right, I’d already forgotten my earlier episode. I held out my hand.
“Rosemary Nesbitt.” She gripped my hand without much interest. She was obviously somewhere far away and Martha and I had interrupted her.
“So I see you have met Rosemary!” Darcy placed his tray across from us and sat down.
“She’s our resident vet-in-training. Singlehandedly nursed a baby armadillo back to health.” Darcy’s smile was big and broad, but oddly disconcerting. I looked at Rosemary. She was staring at him, the way one stares at something of little interest, but he ignored her and said, “Rosemary is in her third year of vet school and …”
“Fourth and last year,” interrupted Rosemary. She turned and looked at me then. “I’m here helping to vaccinate the female wild horses so they can’t get pregnant.”
I hadn’t heard of such a thing and I said so.
“It’s a small island and the horses can do tremendous damage, grazing the dunes. The herd here is already too big, but no one wants to cull them. This seemed like a good compromise. Give them PZP.”
“PZP?” I asked.
“Porcine zona pellucida. It’s an immunocontraceptive vaccine.” Rosemary sighed. “Anyway, there are a number of island residents who are vehemently opposed to this vaccination. They feel we should be leaving things to nature.”
“Only nature never envisioned horses on this island,” said Darcy. “The Spanish released some horses in the 1500s on the much bigger island to the north of us and now the herd there numbers about two hundred or so. Right, Rosemary?”
It was interesting seeing Darcy’s technique to draw Rosemary into the conversation, but it seemed to work. Her eyes had come afire and she was tracing her hands through the air to punctuate what she was saying. “That island is big enough to accommodate the horses. But this island is too small. They figure the horses got here in the first place by swimming across the channel. No other way they could have come. So now it is crucial to preserve island habitat. The horses are considered exotic or weed species that are not endemic to the area. But that doesn’t seem to matter to some of the islanders.”
“Is that where you got your black eye?” It just came out of my mouth without warning.
She swivelled to look at me and said in a clipped tongue, “I thought I told you it was my cabin door.” End of conversation.
chapter four
Rosemary ate in silence, and when she was finished she got up without a word, nodded her head at me, and went to join the man reading the gossip rag. Darcy and Martha were deep in conversation about something, so I finished my meal and thought about getting up for some more. At that moment the screen door of the mess room squeaked open and Stacey walked in, or rather staggered. She was sweating copiously and her face was an unhealthy pasty grey. I wondered how she had managed the stairs with her gimpy leg and her excess pounds. She looked like a heart attack waiting to happen. She surveyed the room in what I can only describe as controlled panic. Hiding something, but not very successfully. She remained standing at the door and said, “May I have your attention, please?” The buzz of conversation slowly petered out, as she accepted a glass of water from Darcy, who had darted out of his seat to help her.
“As