Chapter Two

Kate turned her head in the direction Bonnie was so pointedly focused on. “What is it? What do you see? One of the rare birds you came here to spot?”

“Oh, it looks like a rare bird, all right. But not one I wanted to see. Or, more to the point, not the kind of rare bird we want seeing us.”

Kate didn’t quite understand. She knelt beside Bonnie and peered through the low-hanging tree branches at the top of the ridge. An old, faded red pickup truck rumbled along a crude road in the field below.

Bonnie leaned in close to Kate’s ear and whispered, “That’s the big tract of land where bird-watchers aren’t welcome. It belongs to someone named Artie Best, and it’s called Best Acres. The Joanie’s Ark Web site made it very clear we’re to keep our distance from it. They didn’t say why, exactly, but speculation on the Web is that the landowner is as disagreeable as the day is long.”

Artie Best. Kate didn’t know him personally, though she’d certainly heard a few stories about the man people in town referred to as “the bird wrangler.” Not bad stories, really. At least not the kind you’d use to scare friends at a sleepover. But the tales weren’t exactly heartwarming either. Mostly they were about about how ornery and solitary Artie Best was, and that his past was a total mystery. That was the story Kate would have loved to hear.

As it was, she did know two things for certain about Artie Best: first, that he lived in a large, old house in the middle of a huge stretch of land between Copper Mill and Pine Ridge, and second, that he loved birds. He took them in. He healed them. He protected them. He seemed to love birds much more than human beings.

“Don’t worry, we’re not on his property. We’re just on the edge.” Kate didn’t know why she was whispering. Even if his truck hadn’t already bumped on out of sight, Artie Best could never have heard them hundreds of yards away on the ridge. She straightened up and, cupping Bonnie’s elbow to lend support, turned back toward the road where they had left Bonnie’s sunny yellow Volkswagen Beetle.

Looking down from a stand of bushes to watch Artie Best driving his truck across his fields made Kate uncomfortable. She felt as if they were being rude or sneaky, as though they were spying on him. It was important to Kate to be a good neighbor to Artie, and having gotten so close to his private property without realizing it made her want to have a detailed map of the surrounding land before they went poking around any farther.

“I didn’t realize we were so close to private land,” Kate said. “I think maybe we’d better call it a day, bird-watching-wise, until we get a better map.”

“No problem,” Bonnie said. “It’s been a full day already. I’m hot and tired. I could do with a midafternoon snack. I always used to grab a bite to eat when school let out.”

“I know just the place in Copper Mill,” Kate offered.

“Sounds like a plan,” Bonnie said as they found level ground. She took a step toward the road, then looked back at where they’d spent an unproductive afternoon. “I need some time to process my concerns about the birds anyway. I can’t quite decide what to make of it.”

“You sound awfully worried,” Kate noted as they made their way across a shallow, grassy drainage ditch. “Is it possible it’s just an unusually quiet day?”

Bonnie moved to the back of her Beetle, chucked her backpack wearily into the trunk, and sighed. “Like I said before, quiet is normal. Silence isn’t. There’s something wrong out here, Kate. Something very wrong.”

Kate could see that the wheels in Bonnie’s mind were turning. “Do you have any idea what?” Something was amiss in a place where, in just one week, crowds of bird-watchers were planning to gather. Knowing that tourism was important to Copper Mill, this was especially troubling to Kate.

As they got into the car, Bonnie said, “There are lots of reasons why birds might abandon an area. Probably more than I can even list just off the top of my head.” Bonnie put her hand to her head, leaving a streak of dust in her bright blonde hair. “But I can tell you this for sure: When all the birds desert a place as thoroughly as they seem to have deserted this one, it’s never a good thing.”