4

Territories

Song is a valuable tool in the proclamation of territorial boundaries.

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

Frankie awoke slowly to the sound of the dawn chorus. She lay still and listened as the forest ticked awake around her. An osprey chirped somewhere over the predawn waters of the lake. The bossy honking of Canada geese floated across the bay. Down on the beach, sandpipers trilled as they scurried through small waves. The liquid twittering of wrens among the ferns grew louder as the light strengthened. Mournful coos of doves, brash clamors of northern flickers, and the melodic interjections of thrushes swelled gradually to a kind of symphony. A crow cawed emphatically, and another replied.

Frankie had first read about the dawn chorus in G. Gordon’s Field Guide to the Birds of the Pacific Northwest when she was seven years old. The book explained that the morning song was not some random musical happening, but rather a process for marking territory. The birds who sounded off earliest were those perched higher in trees and therefore saw the sun first. Some people reasoned that those with larger eyes sang earlier. And the birds continued to sing for other reasons at all hours of the day. Territory, mating, brood rearing, protecting the young—it was all communicated in song. As a child, Frankie understood the practicality of this explanation but found it somehow lacking. There was something more there, surely. It was her first ornithology class that taught her the power of wondering, of seeking an answer beyond what was accepted as true.

“Why else might birds sing?” Dr. Tandy had asked. “Besides finding a mate, marking territory, or communicating with their brood?”

Her classmates had shifted uncomfortably and looked down at their notes as if they expected answers in college, not questions. Frankie raised her hand and tried to think of the right word.

“Um, announcement?” she’d said. “Something like ‘Hello, friends and neighbors. Here I am’?”

Dr. Tandy had cocked her head, regarding Frankie with piercing blue eyes.

“Exactly, Ms. O’Neill. And what else might be going on there? Don’t be afraid to ask the question just because you don’t know the answer.”

Frankie hadn’t been afraid to ask questions after that. She’d been surprised to discover that she was good at asking new questions and seeking their answers, at least when it came to science and especially to birds. Who’d have thought it? Lanky Frankie O’Neill was good at something. For although she’d landed at UW on a full academic scholarship, Frankie had felt like an impostor when she arrived, as if she were there by accident or someone pulling strings. She’d spent her whole life in a small town politely waiting her turn and moving to the back of the line, embarrassed by her height and apologizing for taking up space. In grade school she did her homework during lunch and in high school ate alone or in the company of the ham radio club members, who tolerated her presence because she was quiet and knew how to fix things. She wasn’t used to standing out or leading the pack. But it took only a couple of weeks at UW for her to realize it wasn’t a fluke. She belonged there.

Now Frankie looked out the screen of the sleeping porch into the still-dark woods surrounding the cottage. The house faced northwest, so the morning sun would take some time to appear. Here in the shadow of the woods, the dawn chorus lasted longer and built more slowly. She closed her eyes and listened as the smaller birds joined in. Chirruping robins, twittering tree swallows, peeping goldfinches, zinging hummingbirds, and a covey of quail calling “Chi-ca-GO! Chi-ca-GO! Chi-ca-GO!” as if they were all late for their train.

Frankie swung her feet to the floor and stretched. She’d fallen asleep in her clothes the night before and now wryly congratulated herself for saving time. She pulled on her boots and walked out the screen door and around the side of the house to the woodshed.

Three crows perched on a downed pine and regarded Frankie as if she’d interrupted a very interesting conversation. She noted the duller, browner feathers of the small one—a lone fledgling with its parents, she guessed. Moving slowly so as not to disturb the birds, Frankie retrieved the ax from the shed along with an armload of logs. The morning air was chilly, and she warmed up swinging the ax. The wood was dry and split with a satisfying crack. The crows muttered among themselves, watching her, and then moved off into the woods, yawping conversationally.

Sunshine scattered the clouds and her thoughts cleared. It had rained all night, slowing just before dawn when Frankie had startled awake from a series of images. Judith’s disapproving face in sharp relief. Davis Grant walking away from her at the spring symposium. Father Brash on the altar with his hands raised. Past events and dreams were all tangled together, and she did not try to sift through them.

Inside, she kindled a fire and looked down at the water, which lay flat and placid under the white face of the mountain. The tarnished hands of the old wood and brass barometer pointed to “Change.” A wind line moved across the silver water of the lake like the breath of a large, unseen creature.

The battered orange coffee pot chugged and wheezed, and Frankie snapped on the radio. It had only ever picked up one or two stations, and now the sound of a Debussy piano concerto wound through the room, comforting and slightly scratchy. She recognized it as one Grammy Genevieve had loved. She sat at the kitchen table and pulled out her manuscript. “Family Ties: The Role of Pair Bonding in Habitat Rejuvenation for the Spotted Owl.”

She flipped open the folder that contained the comments from the most junior members of her thesis committee—Dr. Wood-Smith and Dr. Andreas. Frankie knew their suggestions would be easy enough to address, mostly because they fell in line behind her advisor, Dr. Davis Grant. And Frankie’s thesis was mostly Dr. Grant’s idea. That fact had been made clear during their meeting the previous winter quarter—the start of everything falling apart.

If she’d told her father about it, he would have threatened to call Dr. Grant himself. Jack would also have called Dr. Grant a horse’s ass. He might have jokingly offered her a job at the tavern, then more seriously suggested she call Samuel Ortiz, her old boss at the Forest Service. He would have hugged her and told her how sorry he was, which would have made her feel both better and worse. But her dad hadn’t said any of those things because Frankie hadn’t told him what had happened between her and Dr. Davis Grant.

She stared down at her committee’s editorial letters without seeing the words. She’d read them so many times, she practically had them memorized. But the weight that pressed down on her heart made it all seem pointless and impossible.

There was the unmistakable drone of a motor then. Frankie strode to the lookout, and her binoculars revealed a boat piling through the lake—the old Hewescraft water taxi. Frankie pulled on her windbreaker and descended the twisting trail to the dock. From behind the wheel, Jerry Sewell doffed his hat in greeting, his wild gray hair blowing in the wind. “Mr. Water Taxi Man,” she and Patrick had called him when they were kids—until the day he invited them on a trip up the lake. He’d let Frankie drive and Patrick managed the manifest as they handed off the cargo to a fishing guide at a far dock. On the way home, Jerry shared the cookies his wife, Marilyn, had sent along and told Jack they were fine workers when he dropped them home. He was just Jerry after that.

As the red boat slid in just behind The Peggotty, Frankie caught the bowline and tied it off. Jerry stepped out with the stern line, beaming at her through his shaggy beard.

“Hello there, young Frances!” he called.

He came down the dock, spry as ever, though he was older than her parents, and clapped a hand on her shoulder. In his work pants, flannel shirt, and WSU Cougars hat pulled down over his wild gray hair, Jerry seemed ageless.

“We heard you’d come up the lake. A bit late in the season, isn’t it?” he said.

“You’re one to talk,” she said. “Why aren’t you at home watching football?”

He pulled off his cap and ran a hand through his hair.

“You’re right! I should be working on my dream team,” he said, laughing.

He gestured to the west side of the lake.

“Cooley is doing a cut near Osprey Creek, and they hired me to provision the camp for the month. Running supplies up and such.”

He pointed his hat up the seawall.

“And I’m dropping off some groceries for the Magnusens. One of the sons is coming up for a bit. Tim Junior, I think.”

Frankie followed his gaze to the Magnusen house, set off by itself on the far end of the bay. She tried to think of something polite to say and failed.

“Oh,” she said.

Jerry laughed.

“I guess you expected to have the place to yourself. You O’Neills usually do outlast the rest.”

His face grew somber, and Frankie turned away to study the cargo in his boat, which included several boxes of dry goods.

“That’s all for Tim Magnusen?” she asked.

Jerry blew air through his lips and surveyed the pile.

“Most of it. I don’t know what it’s for. I don’t ask questions. I just run the meter.”

He began to unload, and Frankie brought a pair of carts down the dock. Between them, they shuttled four loads up to the house. Jerry chatted away about his daughter and her grandchildren, who had recently moved back from California to be closer to Jerry and Marilyn.

“Smart as a whip, that little girl. I’m not so sure about the boy. His little sister does all the talking for him.”

Jerry’s familiar prattle was soothing as the radio, and Frankie was grateful for it, knowing he wouldn’t expect her to say much.

The Magnusen house sat apart from the rest as if aloof like the family that inhabited it. Over the years, Ray, Jack, and then Frankie had done maintenance for the Magnusens, who were unfailingly polite and paid promptly. But while the other families became friends, inviting the O’Neills to their barbecues and children’s birthday parties, the Magnusens resided on the other side of an invisible line of class and money. The present Mr. Magnusen, Tim Senior, was the third generation to own the house at Beauty Bay and, Frankie knew, the third to run the Seattle newspaper.

Frankie pulled a cart of nonperishables to the root cellar, unlocked the door, and pushed it open with her knee. The air smelled cold and metallic. She unloaded the boxes and returned to the front of the house to help Jerry lift a rowboat off the porch and carry it to the beach. As they walked back down the seawall, Frankie listened to Jerry talking about the logging company contract and felt a growing irritation at the idea of Tim Magnusen at Beauty Bay.

“Did Mr. Magnusen say when Tim was arriving?” she asked as they reached the dock.

Jerry pulled off his gloves and tossed them in the boat.

“Soon, I expect, given that they sent me ahead with food. Oh, heck! I almost forgot your mail and messages. Donna asked me to bring it up.”

Donna was the postmistress of Mill Three. She could be counted upon to forward mail and take phone messages, if somewhat begrudgingly, as Beauty Bay was too remote for a phone line.

Jerry pulled a stack of envelopes and magazines off the dashboard of the Hewescraft along with a paper plate covered in aluminum.

“This is from Marilyn for you. Brownies,” he said, looking shy.

His discomfort made her want to look away, and Frankie forced a smile.

“Tell her I’ll swing by and say hi before I leave.”

“Sure thing, kiddo,” Jerry said. “You keep an eye on the weather. You know it can change real quick up here.”

He gave her a quick hug and started to say something else but shook his head. He pulled away from the dock, looked over his shoulder, and raised a hand. Frankie watched the red boat disappear around the headland. Long after it was out of sight, she could hear the engine, persistent as a mosquito in the dark, echoing across the water.

She felt that heaviness on her chest like a hand pressing down. She pulled off her boots, dangled her feet in the water, and shivered. She should go for a swim and wake herself up, she thought. She remembered long days swimming in the cold alpine lake with her brother and her cousins, the countless hours she’d spent jumping off the dock and climbing out to help unload a boat or sell snacks to fishing guides and their clients. She yearned for those summer days of the past where work and play bled together. But that was all so long ago. She pulled her boots on and walked up to the house, intending to review her committee’s editorial letters. Instead, she dropped her mail and the brownies on the kitchen counter and went back outside.

She followed the trail behind the house up through a sunny meadow and paused at a small circular platform ringed with vertical slats of weathered wood. Grandpa Ray had built the hunting blind in the 1930s for Beauty Bay homeowners. However, since pheasant, turkey, and deer were in season long after most families shuttered their houses, it was never used much and quickly forgotten about. Over the years, the cedar had weathered and grayed, so it blended into the woods around it. Moss climbed the legs and crept into the interior. Frankie took it over the summer she was seven. Her father had given her G. Gordon’s Field Guide to the Birds of the Pacific Northwest for her birthday, and she spent hours sitting in the shelter of the blind watching the avian visitors pass through the meadow. It was her father’s idea to record her sightings on the slats of the blind itself. You could say that Frankie did her first fieldwork in 1979, recording the species she’d seen on the soft gray cedar slats in Magic Marker. She ran her finger along the lists she’d made over the years, which climbed higher as she’d grown taller, though her childish scrawl hadn’t improved much. The last year of record, 1996, had been sparse. She’d hardly been home at all that summer, as she was deep into her fieldwork for her master’s. There was no entry for 1997.

Recalling the crows from that morning, she pulled a pencil out of her pocket and wrote “1998,” then “3 crows: 2 parents and 1 juvenile.” It felt satisfying to document that, like some sort of official record of return and belonging. She climbed out of the blind and set off through the woods listening to the resident birds that hadn’t yet migrated for the season, or would not, like the crows. Walking the familiar curves of the path felt like a homecoming and buoyed her heart. Deeper in the woods, a far-off sound arrested her movement and she felt uneasy. She listened again but heard nothing and kept walking.

The question of Tim Magnusen’s arrival was soon answered. From up in the woods, she heard the growl of an engine on the lake below. When she got back to the house, her view from the lookout revealed the large Sea Ray tied up behind The Peggotty. It was a fifty-two-foot, two-deck fiberglass monstrosity that the family upgraded every year or two. Mr. Magnusen named each new boat Peace-o-Heaven and had the name painted on the bow in gold. Jack O’Neill, prone to colorful hyperbole, had always referred to the Magnusens’ boat as “Moby Dick,” or in more colorful moments, “Magnusen’s Big-Ass Sea Ray.”

The bow and stern lines were secure and the fenders out. This relieved Frankie of the neighborly obligation to run down and catch the boat and make small talk. It was bad enough that he was here at all. Let Tim Magnusen do whatever he’d come to do and leave her in peace.

A person climbed out of the boat and set a cooler on the dock. Small framed, with curly red-gold hair, Frankie thought it was a child. But then the figure turned and revealed a woman about her age. The woman glanced at the houses on the bay and then back to the boat. She zipped up her windbreaker and stepped toward the gunnel of the Sea Ray. Frankie waited for Tim to emerge, but he didn’t appear to be in any hurry to disembark. The woman sat on the cooler, leaned against the piling, and waited.

This was not Tim’s sister, Crystal Magnusen—a year older than Frankie and all blond hair and bangles. Frankie remembered the single time Crystal had invited the O’Neill siblings to one of her parties in high school. She and Patrick had watched, amused, as the girls grew screamy drunk on wine coolers at the bonfire Frankie built for them. They all ended up in the water—some skinny-dipping on purpose and others falling in. Crystal and her friends were disappointing. Frankie had expected them, as city kids, to be more sophisticated.

The woman tipped her head, and as her gaze swept the ridge, Frankie blushed and stepped away from the lookout, feeling like she was spying. She went inside, poured herself some coffee, and returned to the kitchen table.

She pulled open her notebook and tried to read but found herself distracted. Waves hit the beach and the dock clanked against the pilings. Grammy Genevieve’s wooden wind chimes tok-toked in the breeze. Frankie realized she was waiting to hear the voices of Tim Magnusen and this woman, who must be his wife, as they walked up the dock. Half an hour later she returned to the lookout, and the woman remained sitting there. What the hell was Tim Magnusen doing aboard the boat? Not engine trouble, she hoped. She swore softly to herself as her mind followed that possibility. If the Peace-o-Heaven had a mechanical problem, she’d have to ferry Tim to Mill Three to use the pay phone. And the marina repair shop was closed for the season, so getting anyone out to fix it would be unlikely. So she’d be stuck taking Tim Magnusen and his wife down the lake to their car, and perhaps coordinating a tow for the boat, which would mean getting a crew up from Hood River or Bingen. She groaned. The last thing she wanted was to be drawn into a maintenance adventure with the neighbor.

Crows called from behind the house and the wind switched and blew down off the mountain. There was movement below. The woman, standing, was clapping her palms lightly and singing. Her voice was high and sweet, and the song carried up the cliff to where Frankie stood. She listened, unable to catch the words. There was something familiar about the melody.

She heard a man’s voice and the singing stopped. Tim Magnusen strode down the dock toward the woman. He crossed his arms over his chest and gestured at the boat. His voice drifted up the hillside.

“. . . going to wait out here all night?” he asked. He sounded annoyed.

The woman walked toward him, and Frankie could see she stood more than a foot shorter than Tim, who’d retained the lithe athlete’s build Frankie remembered. The woman reached up and put a hand on his chest. Her voice rose and fell as she spoke. Tim’s face relaxed then and he dropped his arms and turned toward the beach. The woman called after him, and he stopped and turned back to her. His face lit up with laughter at something she said. Then he walked up the dock, his footsteps echoing off the water.

The woman returned to the cooler and resumed the song and the soft clapping. A spark bloomed in Frankie’s chest, a feeling of deep, inexplicable longing. The woman stood then, and a small figure climbed down out of the boat. Blue jeans, red sweatshirt, and the same auburn curls as the woman. A little boy. The child dragged a backpack out of the boat and stood in front of her. He spun in a circle, raised his hands in the air, then brought them down and clapped three times. The woman mirrored his motions, still singing. Then she lifted the pack onto his shoulders, and they walked up the dock together toward the seawall and out of sight.

Frankie returned to her notes feeling relieved that she wouldn’t need to interact with Tim Magnusen and his family. Later, when she was heating a can of soup for dinner, she realized she was humming the tune she’d heard the woman singing. What was it? Familiar and mysterious at the same time, it haunted her, twisting in and out of her mind all evening as she fell asleep to the sound of the wind in the great trees above the house.