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Nesting Sites

Where a bird determines to locate her nest is the key concern in establishing home territory. Oftentimes the nesting site may be inspired by natural boundaries—such as field, fen, shrubsteppe, pond, or lake.

—G. Gordon’s Field Guide to the Birds of the Pacific Northwest

Mary Frances O’Neill was a young woman of many firsts. First in her graduate school class in the University of Washington’s avian biology program, she was almost certain to graduate with honors. She was also the first female student in the history of Hood River Valley High School to earn a full ride to UW for academics and not sports. She was the first member of her family to complete a bachelor’s degree, let alone a master of science. And she was also the first woman in the history of the family—O’Neill on her father’s side and Healan on her mother’s—to reach the advanced age of twenty-six without becoming a mother. This last, it should be noted, was not an accomplishment universally admired by her kin, many of whom wanted nothing more for her than a marriage with a nice local boy and a steady job at the county.

On this September day in 1998, Mary Frances, who almost everyone called Frankie, was not thinking about her academic, professional, or romantic future. She was focused entirely on getting to June Lake, where she hadn’t been in more than a year.

The truck puttered along the Old BZ Highway north of the Columbia River, hugging the banks of the White Salmon River as it twisted and turned its way through the great dark woods. It was a difficult road, but Frankie knew it by heart—every curve and corner, each patch of rough pavement, and all the road signs, which grew fewer as the highway climbed up into the remote corner of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Here was the bridge at Husum Falls where flashing white water tumbled over the double drop into the river. There was the wide gray face of the dam that held back the once-wild flow of the White Salmon River. She knew which shoulders would be crowded with kayakers shuttling the whitewater run and which would be thick with fishermen casting from the sloping banks for fall steelhead. Then came fields stretching out on either side of the highway giving way to thickening woods as the road climbed toward the little jewel of an alpine lake tucked high in the forest at the foot of Mount Adams. Frankie cracked the window and listened to the rush of the river and the crash of the falls as she crossed the bridge. A kingfisher keened along the riverbank and a Steller’s jay chattered a machine-gun reply. She’d driven this road countless times over the decades with her parents, her brother, her grandparents, and her cousins. This solo trip was a rarity and one she’d been looking forward to for months—clutching it like a lifeline, if she was being honest.

Her thoughts drifted as the trees flashed by, and she forced herself to think of practical concerns—the checklist of supplies she’d brought for her trip, the potential change in the weather during this transitional month of September, and the hour of sunset, which was the most important question of the day. Like most people who frequented June Lake, the O’Neill family never ran the boat after dark. Driving at night was to risk running aground in unseen shallows or colliding with old deadhead logs—remnants from the forest’s timber heyday—that could surface unexpectedly. And even in summer, the weather could change quickly on the lake. Since the boat was the only way to reach the family cottage, it was a key consideration. Frankie glanced at her watch and at the sun now far above the west shoulder of the mountain. She had plenty of time. The knot of anxiety in her chest loosened a bit, and she leaned back against the cracked leather seat.

Traffic thinned north of the dam. A logging truck blew by trailing the sharp, sweet tang of freshly cut trees. After that she had the road to herself. It took more than an hour to reach Mill Three, and a light rain began to fall as she pulled into the marina parking lot.

Mill Three was one of several small logging towns unimaginatively named by the Cooley Lumber Company in the 1920s. The once-thriving settlement was now just a wide spot in the road with a gas station, a post office, and a shabby park next to a small marina where the O’Neills docked their boat. The communities of Mill One and Mill Two had long been reclaimed by the woods, and those who remembered them were all dead.

Frankie cut the engine and looked out over June Lake at a view that seemed unchanged in her more than twenty-five years of coming here. The dark green water caught the muted sunlight that slanted through the clouds and undulated without breaking. Large ponderosa pines and Douglas firs grew close together here all the way down to the water’s edge. The empty halyard on the flagpole slapped in a nearly indiscernible breeze, and the weathered cedar docks rose and fell gently in the shifting water. A mourning dove cooed from within the branches of a big oak, and an osprey chirped sharply from its perch on a piling. Frankie climbed out of the truck and looked up the long, narrow lake. Mount Adams rose to the north with a ring of clouds circling its shoulders, heavy with new snow. Frankie zipped up her sweatshirt and turned toward the dock. The marina was almost empty this time of year, as most people pulled their boats out after Labor Day. An old Century Raven bobbed gently against her lines in one slip. Someone, probably Patrick or maybe Hank, had repainted her name on the side, bright yellow against the black wooden hull. The Peggotty had been named by Grammy Genevieve, who’d been a great lover of Dickens and thought The Peggotty called to mind David Copperfield’s unfussy, practical, and dependable heroine.

Only two other boats remained—a sleek Sea Ray and a battered red Hewescraft. The former belonged to one of the other families and the latter functioned as a water taxi and cargo boat. With no road access to the homes on June Lake, the summer residents were dependent on boats to haul people, food, and supplies up the long stretch of water. Some might have found the remoteness of the place an inconvenience. But for Frankie, June Lake had always been the calm center of the universe. It was a comfort to be back here where she felt most herself—a girl at home in the woods and falling in love with birds for the first time.

The sun struggled with the clouds, and the top of the mountain disappeared. The osprey chirped and then circled, dove, and snatched a fish from the water. Frankie shouldered her backpack and carried a load of boxes down the dock. She pulled the cover off the boat, and the Philippine mahogany decking gleamed in the low light of the cloudy afternoon. She smelled the faint scent of varnish and a knot rose in her throat. Refinishing the woodwork was a tedious annual undertaking that her father had always completed in fits and starts. She could picture him here, sanding, wiping the wood clean, brushing on varnish, and reading a tattered detective novel between coats. She dropped her gear in the boat and turned away from the image, returning to the truck to unload the rest of her supplies. In the boat she opened the faded red leather hatch to negotiate with the carburetor. The Peggotty could be cantankerous and hadn’t been driven in months. Eventually the engine sputtered to life and the instrument panel on the dashboard lit up like a memory of Christmas. Frankie let the engine hum in neutral for a couple of minutes. She cast off and pulled away from the dock as the rain increased. The spattered windshield reflected her lanky frame and short dark hair. She pushed her bangs out of her face and flipped on the wipers.

Frankie’s father, Jack O’Neill, had taught both of his kids to drive the summer Patrick was twelve and Frankie was eleven. She’d been thrilled about the prospect of getting behind the wheel, though Patrick hadn’t seemed to care much. When his lesson was over, he went back to his stool in the dock store and the book he’d been reading. But it was different for Frankie. She could recall every detail—the feel of the polished wheel under her hands and the timbre of her father’s voice as he explained the function of each dial on the instrument panel. He showed her how to affix the navigation lights and how to change the wiper blades. How to gas up, where to add oil and coolant. He demonstrated the art of drifting the boat in neutral, forward, and reverse. How to gauge the effect of the wind when landing and leaving the dock. He explained right-of-way, safety, and man-overboard scenarios. He quizzed her until he was satisfied and then put the keys in her hands. Frankie adjusted the choke, turned the key, and coaxed the engine into a stuttering neutral. “Gotta be patient with the gal,” Jack had said. “She’s older than your old man.”

That day Frankie pulled away from the dock and puttered toward the center of the lake. Once she was clear of the log boom, her father nodded at her, and she eased the throttle forward. She watched the bow plow through the liquid green and accelerated until the boat came to plane. “That’s my girl!” Jack yelled over the sound of the engine. He settled into the passenger seat and put his feet up. After that, Frankie became the de facto driver of the family, which suited her just fine. It was Frankie who ran her dad back and forth to the marina. Frankie who picked up supplies in Mill Three for Grammy Genevieve’s store. Occasionally she drove other residents down the lake when the water taxi wasn’t available or picked up their friends at the marina. They gave her big tips, but she would have driven for free.

Her love for the old boat had never left her. Now, in the increasing rain, she felt her heart lift as The Peggotty cut through the water at medium throttle. If it wasn’t exactly joy she felt, it was a lightness compared to the weight on her chest, the tangled mess of feelings she’d been carrying around for months.

The trip from the marina to the north end of the lake took nearly two hours. The water was fast and flat, and Frankie leaned back, steering with one hand. She took the middle channel, watching for deadheads and other debris that came down off the mountain with fall rains. The breeze carried the clean scent of water and evergreen, damp earth and woodsmoke, and blew her hair around her face. She gazed at the high cliff line along the east side of the lake, which marked the boundary of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. When she passed Arrow Point at the halfway mark, she noted the still waters of the small cove there. The blue light of the glacier on Mount Adams glinted in the rain, and the Windy River was a thread of white tumbling down the south chute of the mountain. She slowed at a large tree-covered headland that shouldered its way out into the lake. Rounding the corner into the sheltered cove of Beauty Bay, Frankie felt her heart crack wide open as the houses came into view. The ten Cape Cod–style cottages retained the genteel charm of the 1930s, when they’d been built. Painted in soft hues of blue, green, and yellow, the cluster of houses looked like a toy village from a distance. The summer homes had been owned by the same families for generations and maintained in their original style. The houses and the sandy beach were separated by a long, elegant stone seawall that had been built by Italian masons lured away from the WPA program building Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood. Green lawns ran from the seawall to the porch of each house. It was the perfect spot for the clutch of summer homes, but it was also the only location that would have worked on June Lake. The south bank belonged to the unincorporated community of Mill Three. The sheer cliff of the west shoreline was impossible to build on, and the eastern side belonged to the Yakama Nation.

In the 1960s, the Magnusen family, newspaper scions of Seattle, had made noise about wanting to build something more modern but had never followed through. None of the other families saw fit to change anything. So as the years passed, the houses, their wooden docks, and the elegant stone seawall endured. The trees grew tall and broad. With no automobile traffic, the birds and wild creatures flourished here.

The O’Neill family, scions of nothing, had gained a foothold at June Lake thanks to the mysterious machinations of Frankie’s grandfather, Ray O’Neill. Ray had emigrated to America in the 1930s along with thousands of Irish who’d crossed the Atlantic looking for a better future. Her devilish grandfather, with his sunny disposition and gift of gab, had landed in Hood River and talked his way into a job as an errand boy for Charles Stevenson, the local timber baron. On the Stevenson payroll, armed with his bright blue eyes and genuine love of people, he charmed everyone from the town housewives to the gruffest of lumberjacks and the small coterie of businessmen who controlled the then wild corner of Oregon. And if they didn’t like his stories and jokes, those men appreciated Ray’s talent for procuring the best Canadian whiskey during Prohibition. When Prohibition ended, Ray opened the River City Saloon in Hood River. The thirsty lumberjacks and rivermen patronized the tavern along with local law enforcement, who’d always been among his best customers.

The origins of the cottage were murkier. Ray never confided the full story, not even to his wife, Genevieve, but it had something to do with a backroom poker game with the developer of the Beauty Bay Resort, which had gone from investment scheme to full-blown boondoggle and eventually resulted in the construction of these few summer homes along the lakeshore.

Whatever the case, when Frankie’s father, Jack, was just a boy, Ray had gained possession of the caretaker’s cottage and the seasonal employment that came with it. Much smaller than the other lakeside homes, the O’Neills’ cottage was a compact single-story perched on a rocky outcropping above the lake—a location deemed subpar by the developer. Jack and his sister, Dorothy, spent summers at the lake with Genevieve. Ray came up during the week, leaving the tavern in the hands of Hank Hansen, the responsible young Dane he’d hired. And when Jack married Judith and had his own kids, they’d spent summers there too.

Frankie couldn’t remember a time in her life without the lake, the snug cottage on the cliff, the stretch of wild woods, and the constantly changing face of the dark green water that mirrored the mountain, snowy through summer. She and Patrick grew up helping their grandparents with the dock store and doing maintenance for the summer people. Now, glancing up toward her family’s place, she could almost see her grandparents waving from the lookout, though they had been gone for some time.

The rain intensified as she neared the shore. The wind churned the lake into a rough chop and pushed the prow of the boat. Frankie nudged her way into the shelter of the dock, landing with practiced ease. She tied up and stood for a moment taking in the silent houses. Birds flitted through the trees, and a pair of slender deer disappeared into the woods. Retrieving a dock cart, Frankie pulled her cargo to the bottom of the trail.

In the 1980s, Ray had installed a small electric trolley for Genevieve, who’d begun to tire of the steep climb. Frankie and Patrick had made a game of racing up the adjacent trail as their diminutive grandmother chugged up the hillside on the trolley. Now Frankie sent her books and supplies up the trolley and walked to the top of the headland as the rain darkened the air around her. At the summit, a large boulder marked the border between the woods and the cottage, its craggy green shoulders gleaming with wet moss. The pale yellow clapboard cottage was tucked in there like it had grown out of the forest floor. The back door stuck slightly as Frankie unlocked it and shouldered it open. She stepped into the mudroom and breathed in the familiar scent of woodsmoke, lemon, and peppermint. She found the breaker box in the dark and flipped on the power. The overhead light snapped on and cast a warm glow on the bottle-green walls of the low-ceilinged kitchen.

There sat the deep sink her mother had bathed her in when she was a baby and the ancient Wedgewood stove that had been the origin of Genevieve’s wonderful baking. She could almost smell the ghost of an apple pie, the hot sugar and cinnamon of sticky buns and quick breads. The refrigerator, a squat white box that dated from the 1950s, hummed to life. Frankie carried her perishables in from the trolley and put everything away. In the living room, she pulled kindling, paper, and logs out of the woodbox and soon had a fire blazing. She stood in front of the woodstove warming the backs of her legs as she considered the room. The couch and two armchairs had come from Bergen’s Furniture in Portland—far fancier than anything the O’Neills could afford. The Bergen family owned one of the cottages and gave Ray and Genevieve these castoffs back in the 1950s when they were refurbishing their lake house. Forty years later, the O’Neill family continued to refer to them as the “new” couch and chairs. Her grandfather’s record collection was shelved near the couch and his old turntable perched between a pair of speakers. A large wooden coffee table dominated the seating area and was strewn with books, magazines, a cribbage board, and a half-completed jigsaw puzzle.

Frankie had always felt comforted by the beloved cottage, but now her scalp prickled. She felt the edges of something nameless but threatening and familiar. She pushed it away and returned to the business of unpacking.

The first bedroom exhaled a cold draft as she opened the door. The room was lined with white beadboard and furnished simply with a double bed, two bedside tables, and a dresser. This room had belonged to her grandparents. The other belonged to Judith and Jack and was also simply furnished. Frankie knew she’d sleep on the porch, like always, but stored her pack in Genevieve and Ray’s old room.

Outside the rain had lightened. Pulling the nonperishables off the trolley, Frankie carried them to the root cellar. She hesitated outside the adjacent pump house, then opened the door and flicked on the light. Standing in the doorway, she breathed in the familiar scent of her father’s world: sawdust and turpentine, the tang of cold metal, and the faint, eternal smell of cigarettes. She scanned the room, taking in the workbench, the stool she’d perched on to talk to her dad while he was working, the postcards tacked to the walls. Everything was the same, exactly as she’d left it, she told herself. But before she finished the thought, she knew it wasn’t true. Nothing was the same at all and there was nothing she could do about it. She’d told herself coming up here alone would be a good thing, but it only made her feel lonelier and more adrift than she’d been all summer—all year, if she was being honest. For everything had begun to unravel last Thanksgiving, hadn’t it? She felt the now familiar stab of panic in her belly.

She turned to shut the door and flicked off the overhead lights. In the waning daylight, she glanced up at the rafters above the workbench. She could almost see the glint of the bottle there, feel the cool glass in her hand, taste the heat of it, the burning in her throat, and the blessed forgetfulness that would follow. But no, she wouldn’t. She would not.

She pulled the door shut and went back into the house, crossed through the living room, and stepped onto the screened-in sleeping porch. Two enormous ponderosa pine trees grew close together just off the house. Their tops moved in a breeze that was undetectable below. Down at the water, the wind had dropped, and the lake lay flat. In the diminishing light, it shone like a dime.

Frankie lowered herself onto the daybed that had been hers since she was a child and pulled off her boots. Leaning back, she stretched her long legs in front of her and gazed up at the understory of the big pines. She closed her eyes to listen to the roll call of the woods.

The drowsy yank yank yank of a nuthatch.

Bell-like peeping of goldfinches.

Tok tok tok tok tok of a downy woodpecker.

The eponymous chicka-dee-dee-dee-dee of the chickadees.

“Oh dear me!” cried the golden-crowned sparrow.

And out of the deep woods behind the house came the Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! of the crows. Always the crows.

Listening to the bird chorus almost made her want to get to work—a feeling that had eluded her for some time now. Work, which had been her mainstay, had disappeared with everything else. But she was tired, just so tired. She stayed where she was, listening to the familiar avian symphony around the little house.

Birdsong, wind in the trees, the rhythmic lifting and clanking of the dock in the waves, the water lapping the shore. Sounds as familiar as her own breath. It was a comfort to hear them, as she’d hoped. But the feeling wouldn’t last; she already knew that. The last weeks of effort to get here had felt, briefly, like she was moving toward some solution. But now she knew it had all been a distraction—vacating her apartment, selling her books, distilling her belongings down to her backpack and several boxes, and catching a ride home to Hood River with a field team on their way to Bend. It was all just a way to keep herself from thinking about the impossible corner she found herself in. Everything she was running from rose in front of her here at this beloved old place. Because she was not a girl at home in the woods and falling in love with birds for the first time. She was twenty-six, homeless, and staring down a host of uncomfortable new firsts in her life.

She was unemployed and unemployable. She was facing potential legal action. Bereft of friends and allies, she was out of options, out of ideas, and out of places to go.

Her throat caught and she tried to find her breath.

The rain began in earnest again, and she could hear the light patter on the metal roof. She scooted down until her head lay on the pillow. She’d just rest for a minute or two and then she’d get to work, she thought, closing her eyes.

The rain was a living thing. In her mind’s eye she could see it moving through the woods like a beaded curtain, down the hillside, across the meadow, and over the sleeping bodies of deer there. In a rain like this they would curl their dun-colored bodies deeper into each other’s flanks, mothers and yearlings and new fawns all burrowing together. The rain would travel over the pitch of the roof and down to the lake itself, dimpling the surface of the water like pebbles thrown by the hand of an invisible giant.

The thought of the sleeping deer made her feel so lonely. She ached to talk to her father, the one who always helped her figure things out.

She fell into a fitful sleep. She saw Jack O’Neill standing by the back door of the cottage. He shrugged on his red-and-black plaid jacket, smiled reassuringly, and beckoned her to follow. But he disappeared into the woods, and she lost sight of him. The path became dark and unfamiliar. She was lost on her home ground and didn’t know which way to go.