Home

As the chiton wrapped its small, oval body around her finger, Elizabeth felt a tingle of warmth. This was only reflex for the mollusk, to grasp on with its soft, orange foot, much the way an infant might wrap its fist around an available adult finger. Still, Elizabeth couldn't help but feel an instant bond with the creature. After all, that simple movement was the closest thing she'd had to a hug in months.

This was a mossy chiton, though much of its "moss," the brown, hair-like filaments that rimmed the mantle on the back of the chiton's shell, had been sheared off, probably by rocks as it was tumbled in the waves that pounded this beach in the spring. It wasn't the first chiton she'd found in such circumstances. As she stroked the eight, v-shaped plates that interlocked to form the chiton's aqua and white shell, she wondered how this animal had come to be tossed by the ocean.

Chitons lived on rocks, surrounded by limpets, barnacles, and mussels. Each one secreted a chemical that eroded the rock just enough to create an indentation that exactly matched the size of the chiton's body, allowing it a strong foothold as it practically became part of the rock. This indentation became the chiton's "home." The chiton left this spot to graze on diatoms and larger algae, then managed to find its way back to its home spot by some still mysterious process. Too bad humans werent similarly endowed, she thought.

Not knowing where this creature had come from, Elizabeth scouted among the rocks uncovered by the low tide until she found one she thought might offer the best protection from the current in case the chiton were sick or weakened by its injuries. As she gently urged it to release her finger, however, the chiton felt quite strong to her. Elizabeth wanted to believe it had a chance as she placed its small body on the rock and watched it slowly flatten out its shell. As with so many others, however, she was aware she would not know the outcome of this life that had so briefly touched hers.

It was a clear morning, though a cold, early May wind was blowing in off the Pacific. Elizabeth shoved her hands back into the pockets of her forest green National Park Service rain coat and hunched her shoulders against the wind. She mostly watched her feet when she walked, looking for other small treasures like the chiton she'd nearly stepped on, making sure to keep a reasonably safe distance from the waves. It was a mile back to the beachhead and another mile beyond that to her trailer. She didn't want blisters from making the walk in wet boots.

The sun rose higher as she walked, causing the waterlogged driftwood trees higher up on the beach to steam. She remembered the first time she had seen this steam rising from the downed giants, how it had surprised and delighted her. Months later, it was still one of her favorite things about this beach.

She trudged up the sand toward one of the trees that was partially blocked by another, and sat beside it, protected from the wind by the root mass of the blocking tree. She leaned back and rested her head against the ancient wood, taking a long, deep breath with closed eyes. Then she reached into the inside pocket of her jacket and brought out a white linen envelope, unopened.

Even though it was her day off, she had stopped by the ranger station this morning to pick up her mail. There had been only this one envelope. She wished the box had been empty instead.

The letter was from her lawyer in Ann Arbor, and she knew what the single sheet of paper inside would say even before she opened it. It would be the notice of the court date for her divorce hearing. She slid her finger under the flap, sliced a jagged opening across the top of the envelope and skimmed until her eyes landed on the date: August 11. Still three months away. Too long and yet not long enough. Her only hope was that she would be able to stop tiptoeing afterward. That she would be able to see further into the future than just the twenty-four hours in any given day.

Being here, on this coast, learning about the multitude of lives that were played out unnoticed on this very shore every day had helped. She was able to draw again, making sketches of urchins and seastars, anemones and sculpins, sea slugs and moon snails. She spent hours reproducing orcas and humpbacks from photographs. She was able to breathe again, too, able to feel some connection to her own body, able at least to enjoy how it felt to be tired at the end of a long day of walking these beaches, hunting among the rocks, researching and writing the educational programs she would present to summer tourists. She knew she was on her way back; the question was on her way back to where?

Her thoughts shifted to Todd. She had been here three months and had not managed to go a day without thinking of him. Usually it was when she found some extraordinary fact about some tiny, "ordinary" marine organism. After fourteen years of marriage her first impulse was still to share every new piece of information with him, even though Todd's enthusiasm for whatever was causing Elizabeth's had been dwindling for years. Had his life changed after she left? Or was he still working the same job, frequenting the same sports bars with the same buddies? Was he dating?

The thought caused an immediate cramp in her stomach. It wasn't the first time she'd thought it, but the response had not yet diminished. She couldn't see Todd dating, dressing to impress a woman, making small talk, sending flowers. Were the women younger than she was? Thinner? More athletic?

She could not bring herself to think about what would happen if he found someone else. It wasn't that she was jealous so much of another woman being with him--they had been failing for quite some time before Elizabeth actually left--but she was jealous of the time that other woman might have.

In fourteen years, Elizabeth and Todd had never found the right time to have a child. First, Elizabeth was finishing her master's degree and trying to build a career. That "career," however, never really materialized and she had bounced from one line of work to another, trying to find the job that would fit. Then, Todd had never quite been satisfied with where they were in their lives. They weren't making enough to be able to afford a child, or Elizabeth's job insecurity was some kind of evidence that she wasn't ready for the compromises that would accompany having a child. Finally, it had gotten too late. No matter how hard she tried, Elizabeth could no longer muster the enthusiasm she had once felt for the idea of sharing a child with Todd. She knew all the arguments they would have about her fitness to be a mother, about money, about discipline. She had simply grown too tired to fight for a child.

But another woman would be younger. At first, she wouldn't know Todd's habit of constant fault finding, wouldn't question whether she wanted a child with him. She would benefit from all of Elizabeth's years of pleading for a child, her years of gradually wearing Todd down. Perhaps Todd would even think it was his idea, would be more amenable to the whole situation because it no longer involved giving in to Elizabeth.

No, she absolutely could not allow herself to think about that.

She closed her eyes again, letting her hands, still holding the letter, fall into her lap. Todd isn't here, she reminded herself.

"Hello," a male voice called.

Elizabeth's eyes flew open.

Fifteen feet in front of her stood a man, probably in his early twenties though Elizabeth knew she wasn't a good judge of age any more, smiling at her. He wore a large backpack, obviously stuffed with several days' supplies, over a UC Santa Cruz sweatshirt, convertible shorts with the legs zipped off, and hiking boots over heavy socks.

"Hi," was all Elizabeth could manage.

"Sorry to scare you, but you're the first person I've seen in two days. Just checking to make sure my voice still works."

Elizabeth smiled, recovered now. "Did you start down at Hoh Head?"

"Nah, Queets."

Elizabeth's eyebrows raised. "How'd you get across the river?"

"Walked inland 'til I found a bridge. I'm headin' up to Ozette. Gonna' skip the lake, though, and just head up to Neah Bay and Flattery. I'd like to be there if the Makah bring in a whale."

"Do you have affiliations with the tribe?"

The stranger shook his head. "Just an interest. Wanna' see it for myself, you know? The whole native culture in modern times thing. I think it's important what they're doing, whether you agree with them or not."

Elizabeth nodded. She hadn't decided for herself yet whether the survival of a human culture outweighed the survival of a species. No, that wasn't even it. The Makah, taking a single whale each spring, were no threat to the whales. It was her own feelings about the killing of any sentient being[?] that got in her way. Did the cultural survival of the Makah justify the taking of a whale? Millions of dollars and years of work had gone into rehabilitating and reintroducing Keiko to the wild following the outcry from children after the Free Willy movie, and here the Makah were shooting a whale. How did this balance out?

"That's a pretty ambitious hike. You been out here before?"

The man grinned wider, lines crinkling deeper around his eyes and mouth. Maybe he was older than she'd thought. "First time. It's a challenge, with the sand and timing the tides, but I figure it's at sea level and mostly flat, so it all evens out."

Elizabeth was amused that he was interested in balance, too.

"Well, I hope you're right," she nodded, standing and brushing sand from her jeans. "Sounds like a great trip."

The man took her cue. "Oughta' be. And I guess I oughta' be movin on. Nice talkin' to you."

"You, too. Enjoy."

Elizabeth didn't stay to watch him go. Instead, she walked in the opposite direction, back toward the beachhead. Several minutes later, however, she turned around. The man was a small figure in the distance. For all the weight he was carrying, he was moving fast. It was early in the season for hiking along the Pacific. The winds were still strong and cold and storms were common. People from the Pacific Northwest would probably know to wait at least another month, preferably two, before heading out here, especially on a sixty-mile trek that covered the northern third of Washington's outer coast. She wondered briefly what this man's story was, before turning back to her own walk, and her own thoughts.

The letter from her lawyer had now been folded and shoved quickly into a back jeans pocket, and with it, all thoughts of Todd, her failed marriage, and her uncertain future had been shoved aside, too.

A line of three brown pelicans swooped low over the water to her right. She stopped, smiling, and watched them pass. The remainder of her walk was consumed only by thoughts of flying miracles and whether she might be able to capture one in her sketch book.



Chapter Two



Todd was here! Elizabeth couldn't deny the feelings of excitement that caused in her body. He was smiling, holding his arms out to her. She felt only love between them, could think of nothing but how dazzling his smile was when he looked at her that way. She let herself melt into him, pushed her face into the sun-warmed Colquhoun plaid shirt he wore, felt his arms wrap around her and the day-old stubble on his chin snag the hairs on top of her head as he rested his cheek against her. She inhaled deeply into his chest, smelled clean flannel and salt air. Elizabeth couldn't remember the last time she felt this alive, this safe. He had come here, to her beach, to be with her.

No, wait. This wasn't now. This was their honeymoon, when they had backpacked on this beach fourteen years earlier. No! It could be now! Elizabeth scrambled back toward that thought, tried to recapture the perception that this was now, that he really was here, loving her now.

It was too late. She already knew, had seen through it. No!

Elizabeth's eyes opened to sunlight. She was alone in her single bed, her body still hungry for the Todd in her dream, the one who saw her when he looked at her. She rolled onto her side, burying her face in the pillow. Why did her mind betray her every night, bringing back thoughts of him when all she wanted was to forget? Dreams were supposed to be the subconscious working through problems, so why weren't hers working? Hadn't she tried to get back to this place with Todd before she ever left him? Hadn't she spent years, reading books, taping Oprah, trying everything she could think of to get back to this place, this honeymoon place, with Todd?

It wasn't that she expected the honeymoon to last. She had learned quickly that the fairytales that dupe women into believing that a proposal of marriage and a white wedding were all that was required to get to "happily ever after" were cruel and false. Getting the man, the thing that seems so difficult before marriage, was so much simpler than keeping the man. Why hadn't anyone told her?

No, all she wanted was for them to grow together. To change, yes, but to keep each other in the loop about what those changes were and what they meant. She wanted to be in love with her husband more often than not, and she wanted Todd to feel the same way about her. So what had gone wrong? When had she realized she wasn't getting enough from the relationship to keep working at it? And why, why, now that she had finally had the strength to get out, did her mind and body betray her night after night, dredging up her love for Todd and her wish for him to love her back?

Elizabeth stomped into the kitchen for coffee. Hurricane Leslie had already been there, leaving a box of open cereal, a bowl of leftover cereal milk, an empty orange juice carton, and a mug of half-drunk coffee on the counter in her wake. She had also, bless her, left a pot of fresh, hot coffee on the warmer. As Elizabeth poured herself a cup, Leslie swung back through for a second pass. She was already dressed and sporting the college backpack she used to carry her lunch and research materials. She grabbed an apple from a bowl above the fridge and watched Elizabeth take a drink of her coffee without first adding her usual four heaping teaspoons of sugar.

"'Nother dream?"

"What?" Elizabeth asked, still caught up in her own head.

"Youre drinking your coffee black. You only do that when you've had a dream about your ex."

"Oh. Yeah, I did," Elizabeth admitted, a little surprised that Leslie had noticed such a small detail about her. But then, despite the velocity with which Leslie did practically everything else, she was a naturalist, too, and showing signs of being a good one, even this early in their internship. "You're getting an early start. What's up?"

"Just woke up with a burst of energy this morning. Thought I'd get into the office and start updating the bear and raccoon display. Your hiker yesterday was just the first of many, and the old display is faded and boring. I want the new one to grab people's attention."

"You're going to make me look bad," Elizabeth mocked.

"That's the whole point of my existence." Then she was gone with a laugh, letting the trailer's screen door slam behind her blond ponytail.

Elizabeth watched her through the window until she'd rounded the curve and disappeared. "Oh, to be twenty-two again," she sighed aloud to herself. But she knew she didn't mean it. Her early twenties were some of the most difficult years of her life, and she really didn't care to go through all that again. Besides, thirty-eight was too young to have regrets. "You're just getting started, baby." The empty trailer did nothing to demonstrate whether it agreed or didn't. Elizabeth added her empty mug to the pile next to the sink and forced herself to walk away without washing it, or any of its companions. She was going to make today a day of firsts.



Chapter Three



Elizabeth and Leslie were the only two interns stationed at Rialto Beach in the Olympic National Park this summer. They had divided the ranger-led activities between themselves, with Leslie taking on campfire programs about coastal birds, marine and terrestrial mammals that frequent this part of the park, and geology, and Elizabeth taking on the under-appreciated seaweeds, competition in the intertidal zone, and identification of animal tracks. So far, their work had been limited to doing research for these programs and updating displays and informational pamphlets in preparation for the heavy summer traffic.

They were working in the park under the auspices of the Student Conservation Association and AmeriCorps. The SCA placed adult volunteers in parks around the country in positions that lasted anywhere from sixteen weeks to a year, and provided free housing, medical insurance, and a stipend for food. If a volunteer so chose, she could also become an AmeriCorps member and receive money at the end of her service to be put toward future education costs or used to pay down student loan debt.

Elizabeth had heard of the SCA more than sixteen years earlier, while she was still an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. She had dreamed, then, of taking a year off after college to spend working in national parks. She had imagined herself working in a different region of the country in each season, maybe removing non-native species in the Everglades in the fall, doing backcountry ski patrols in the Rockies in the winter, clearing and repairing trails in the Smokies in the spring, and presenting interpretive talks on Assoteague Island in the summer. She could picture herself traveling light, needing only a few treasured books and her art supplies, a camera, a journal. What had stopped her?

Credit card debt that couldn't be deferred the way her student loans could while she was an intern was the answer she fed herself, but fear probably had more to do with it. At the time, she wasn't yet used to taking the path less traveled. As much as the thought of wilderness excited her, it also scared her. What if she didn't have what it took to survive out there alone? She was prone to panic. Perhaps she wasn't best suited to solo travel in the backcountry. She was afraid, too, of not having any money coming in. She had started her first job the day after she turned sixteen, and had worked continuously since, holding down three part-time jobs her senior year in college. In some ways, the thought of not having an income was scarier than the thought of dying in an avalanche in the Rockies.

Instead, she had taken an "environmental organizing" job that she soon learned involved working long hours begging other people for money while earning altogether too little money yourself. A year of living with three other organizers in Washington, D.C. to be able to afford an apartment, working twelve hour days, and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every meal for weeks at a time burned her out fast.

She had fled back to Ann Arbor and enrolled in the School of Social Work where she met Todd, an engineer studying in the School of Business. She overwhelmed him with her energy and intelligence, causing him to profess often that he could no longer imagine his life without her. Todd quickly worked her into his Five-Year Plan, as though she were another duck he could put in its row. They were married the same month Todd received his MBA, though Elizabeth still had another year before she would earn her own Master's degree.

Elizabeth's enthusiasm for the outdoors never diminished, though her options for backcountry adventure were severely limited, living as she did in Ann Arbor where Todd had a job that offered excellent pay and good benefits. Todd traveled some for work, but Elizabeth's jobs never required her to do so. And, in the times she was between positions, she could never imagine herself living away from Todd for four months so she could count migrating birds or remove non-native plant species from a Gulf Island in Mississippi for no salary. Todd was very practical, and even more concerned about money than she was. While he had never said he didn't want her to participate in such a volunteer effort, Elizabeth knew that convincing him that such a thing was worth her time and their separation would be difficult. So Elizabeth stayed home.

She had always found great solace in being near the Great Lakes, however, and could often get away to one of them by herself for a day or with Todd for a week or two in the summer. Any of the lakes would do, but her fondest memories were set on the beaches of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, with Lake Superior running a close third, largely because the fact that Superior was so cold dead bodies didn't float worried her. Drowning had always been Elizabeth's worst fear, and she was pretty certain that if ever she did drown, she would want her body to be found and removed from the water that had been her undoing.

When it became clear she needed to leave her marriage, all she could think was to get away to water. Elizabeth had fled first to St. Ignace, the tiny town that was the entrance to Michigan's Upper Peninsula where her family had camped each summer in the Straits State Park when she was growing up. It was January, and too cold for tent camping, but she had found a motel that was open year-round and rented a room for a week. She stayed as long outside each day, staring at the frozen lake and the suspension bridge that connected this town with the Lower Peninsula, as she could physically stand, then heated cocoa in her room, sketched animals from photographs she'd saved from calendar pages, and wandered the aisles of Glen's Market at 2:00 a.m. when she couldn't sleep, since, aside from the casino, it was the only thing open all night. One afternoon, as she sat on a picnic table she'd cleared of snow on a bluff overlooking Lake Huron, Elizabeth remembered the SCA and made a plan.

She had her electronic application in the following day, having made phone calls to three former supervisors asking for letters of recommendation, and beat the deadline for early consideration for summer programs by a full month. She got calls, and job offers, from two of the four positions for which she'd applied. She would be working here, in Olympic National Park, for six months, carrying her through the summer, then would travel to North Carolina's Outer Banks in the fall, just in time for hurricane season, for another six-month position. This year, Elizabeth was going bi-coastal, and she couldn't have been happier about that.

Elizabeth did find it a little humorous that the first place she ended up on her own was the first place she had visited with Todd after their marriage. They had honeymooned on this same beach, spending a week hiking up the coast and camping in a tent. It had been Elizabeth's idea, but Todd had readily agreed. He was outdoorsy and athletic, and had grown up watching the same Disney nature programs on Sunday nights that she had. The Pacific Northwest held a similar allure for each of them, and when the trip turned out to be a success, Elizabeth envisioned a future filled with similar expeditions.

What she hadn't anticipated was how demanding Todd would find his job. When vacation time did roll around, it seemed he always wanted to do whatever created the least amount of hassle and called for the least amount of preparation. Fishing, reading on the beach, and taking monster long drives with few opportunities for food and potty breaks topped his list of appropriate leisure pursuits. The expenditure of his mental activity had increasingly been reserved for work, and the expenditure of his physical activity for playing golf or racquetball with the guys. Hiking? Camping? Roughing it, alone with his wife? Over the years, these had definitely disappeared from his agenda.

Despite the memories, however, Elizabeth didn't think that being here caused her to think about Todd more than being anywhere else; she wouldn't have been able to get him out of her head no matter where she ended up. In fact, she found this coast every bit as exhilarating as she had when she and Todd had visited, perhaps even more now that she had the time to fully immerse herself in this region and learn its history. When she first began her research, reading field guides that described the intertidal organisms that exist on these shores, she wondered if she had been walking Michigan's beaches her whole life and overlooking wildlife as it was so easy to do here. She had figured out pretty quickly, however, that Michigan's freshwater beaches simply were not host to such an array of organisms. In general, edge ecosystems, or transition zones, that fill the gap between two larger ecosystems, tend to contain a greater concentration of life than that which is contained in either ecosystem that borders it. This coast, with its marine habitat on one side and its forested mountains and valleys on the other, was an excellent example of this. Elizabeth couldn't imagine a richer environment in which to live and work.

She was most surprised at how taken she had become with seaweeds. Leslie had recently graduated with a bachelor's degree in marine science and so had arrived here with a wealth of knowledge about the mammals and birds and other obviously apparent organisms that resided here. Elizabeth, knowing little about anything marine, had readily agreed that it made sense for Leslie to cover those things which she knew best, and had jumped into her own research with interest. And she had found that algae was fascinating. Bull kelp, for instance, the brown plant with the large floating bulb with long leaves growing out from it, was an annual plant that died off each winter and grew back in the spring, growing up to a foot a day! What else grew that fast? Elizabeth had learned some great games that she was anxious to teach kids to play with the plant, but she was fairly sure that most adults would hardly pay the amazing plant any attention at all. The opportunity to discuss this plant, and the many others that inhabited this beach, with people who had never given seaweed a second look unless it was tangling around their feet in the surf, gave Elizabeth some almost perverse joy. Perhaps her true calling was to point out lifes tiny miracles to people who might otherwise walk right past them. It certainly seemed like a worthwhile calling to her.

Today Elizabeth's plans were to pull her research together into an hour-long presentation she could perform for families who stayed in the campground, one that would hopefully entertain both the parents and the children. In her backpack she was carrying imitation Jello made with agar, derived from seaweed, instead of gelatin, which was derived from the skin, bones, and connective tissue of land animals, along with some bull kelp she'd pickled and canned a month ago, and crackers she'd made from dried rockweed. Elizabeth had tasted them all, and while she agreed they required some getting used to, she thought she might be able to use them in her campfire presentations, hoping there might be a few show-offs or otherwise adventurous participants with the guts to try her marine treats. She was hoping today to try them out on the other park staff, however, to make sure she wouldn't be inflicting terrible pain on unsuspecting campers.

Her plans were soon to change, however. When she arrived at the ranger station, she found Leslie happily tearing down the bear and raccoon safety display as she'd promised, and their supervisor, Sam, reading the National Park Service Morning Report on the Internet.

"Anything good, Sam?" Elizabeth asked, preparing for her daily dose of park service drama.

"Just another suicide in the Grand Canyon and a bear attack on a lone kayaker in Alaska."

"What, no drug arrests?"

"Slow news day, I guess. Hey, I'm glad you're here. I have to take a drive up to the Hoh Visitor Center. Thought you might want to ride along, since you haven't seen much of the interior of the park?"

"Yeah, that'd be great." Elizabeth looked over at Leslie, who seemed unaware of their conversation. Had Sam already asked her? Or had he saved himself the trouble as they were both aware that Leslie wasn't much for being trapped in a car for long stretches. She hoped he had asked Leslie and that he wasn't asking her out of some kind of unconscious favoritism. Sam, a few years younger than Elizabeth, had graduated from the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources at the same time she had graduated with her degree in Social Work, and he seemed intent on giving Elizabeth the fullest orientation to the park service he could during her internship.

"Hey, Leslie, in case you get hungry, I brought in my "seaweed delights." I'll drop them in the mini fridge."

Leslie, already acquainted with the "delights" in question, grimaced. "Can you at least try to keep them away from my lunch?"

Elizabeth couldn't detect anything besides Leslie's usual sarcasm in her tone. "Okay, then can you at least try to get everyone else to try them?"

"Are you prepared to pay them? And me, since doing this for you could cost me friends and potential letters of recommendation?"

Twenty minutes later Elizabeth and Sam were in the cab of the park's standard issue green pick-up, heading east up Quillayute Road into the Olympic Mountains, and the largest section of Olympic National Park. There was still a great deal of snow on the peaks in the distance, and Sam turned the heat on. Spring was slow in coming to this peninsula, but there were signs it was on the way.

They had not spoken since they got in the truck. When Sam finally broke the silence, the sound of his voice was something of a shock to both of them. "So what are you doing, here, Elizabeth? I mean, what are you really doing here?"

"I'm not sure I know what you mean," Elizabeth offered, turning to study his profile.

"I mean, I get that you're mid-career, maybe looking for something new, and I know that you and your husband are divorcing. I guess what I don't know is what you hope to get out of this? Why the SCA? Why Olympic National Park?"

"Sam, I answered those questions in my interview. Are you rethinking hiring me?"

Sam laughed. "Definitely not. But I don't want to hear the right answers. You're hired; you're here. I want to know the real, driving force, true answers."

Elizabeth sat stunned a few moments longer, this expectant silence ten times louder than the one it replaced. "I don't know why. I guess because I don't know me any more, and I want to." She sighed loudly, picking her hands up out of her lap and plopping them back down. "I've lost myself before, but never for this long. Never this completely. I'm just now beginning to be able to sketch again. I still can't journal. I'm here because I can't figure out how I got to this place in my life or where I'm going, and I needed a place that would embrace me while I did some excavating and experimenting. If I ever figure out who I am again, I think I can be myself here." She looked desperately back at Sam. "Is that it? Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"Is it true?"

"It's as true as I know anything to be right now."

Sam smiled at her. "Then it's what I wanted to hear. Thank you."

For a moment Elizabeth feared he was going to put his hand on her knee, but he only shifted in his seat. She felt silly. Sam was simply interested in her professional development. She should be glad that someone was.

"You never told me why you left social work," he prompted, apparently planning to make good use of this opportunity for uninterrupted conversation.

"I suppose you won't settle for the short answer?"

"What's the short answer?"

"That I discovered I don't really like people."

Sam hooted. "That's a good one, but, no, coming from you, I don't buy it."

"It's true, on some level. I didn't realize how little tolerance I could have for the problems other people find themselves in. Kind of ironic that I would be here now, telling you how lost I feel, and how disappointed I am that neither my marriage or my work amounted to anything, huh? After two years of life as a social worker, I found myself absolutely racing home after work each night, slamming the door behind me, and dreading having to go out again or answer the telephone. I had this fear of seeing anyone, anyone, even people I loved and thought were friends. It just felt like everybody wanted something from me, and I had reached some point where I had nothing left to give. I just wanted to never see anyone ever again. My impulse to become a hermit had never been stronger." Elizabeth watched the pines outside her window, softening her gaze so they became one constantly blurring tree. "Then I was attacked by the boyfriend of one of the women I had helped escape to a shelter. Abusive men are smarter than you might think. He found my name on a gift receipt for the baby gift I'd given her a few months earlier. He searched my name on the Internet and found me listed as a counselor on the website for the agency where I worked. It was the Friday after Thanksgiving so, when he showed up, I was alone in the office except for an intern who was catching up on paperwork. Before the intern could get anyone to help me, the guy had broken three of my ribs, dislocated my shoulder, and turned my face into a bad Picasso. It might sound weak, but that was all the excuse I needed to get out of the helping people business."

"Sounds harsh. I don't find fault with your decision one bit."

"It was stupid. I should have been better prepared to take care of myself in a situation like that. So, two college degrees, two careers--one saving the environment, one saving people--both failed before I was even thirty. I don't know what it was about those jobs. I so wanted to make a difference, but somehow I let all of my energy drain into the work and kept nothing back for myself. It wasn't sustainable. After that, I swung too far the other way and took jobs that I thought wouldn't require any energy. I called them deadhead jobs, just a place to go and earn a paycheck without any emotional or intellectual investment. Nothing to follow me home at night, while I tried to focus instead on making my marriage a success. As it turned out, the marriage sucked my energy, and in the end, it failed, too."

"So boundaries are an issue for you? Where to define them, how to defend them? All that?"

"Yeah, that's probably as good a way of putting it as any."

They were silent for awhile.

"You've been pretty successful, though," Elizabeth ventured. "Doing what you love and making a living at it. That's gotta' make you proud."

"Yeah, it does. It's kind of an odd life, and for me it's certainly been solitary. But I've been to some amazing places that very few people have seen, and for the most part, I get to work on my own terms. Not a whole lot of supervision, not much in the way of office politics. Room to grow, continual learning."

"And an office with a view."

"Yes, you definitely can't beat that. Don't get me wrong, there are some challenges, too. Funding cutbacks are always an issue and finding the park who will be able to fund you to do the particular kind of work you want to do can be difficult. I've been lucky. And, if you think you can figure out how to conserve a little energy for yourself, I certainly wouldn't turn you away from this kind of work. In fact, Im hoping you'll give it some serious consideration. I think you have the sensibilities, and the skills, to really excel as a nature interpreter. Or to work in research or restoration, whatever you want. I just really want you to make the most of your time here."

"Do you think I haven't?" Elizabeth sounded more defensive than she wanted to.

"No, you're doing great. I just know that a lot is going on for you. I'm worried your energy could get split again and you may not see how good you are at this."

"Thanks, I'm nervous about talking to the crowds. But I have definitely appreciated the work. And I've been present, you know? Here, it's like all I have is 'now' so I've felt totally immersed. Its been wonderful."

"That's what I want to hear!" Sam gave her his most animated smile, and Elizabeth, knowing how much effort it took for Sam to get truly animated, knew how blessed she was to receive it.



Chapter Four



The visitor information and ranger stations in the Hoh Rain Forest were located only about 600 feet above sea level in an area that was one of the lushest greens Elizabeth had ever seen. When they arrived, Sam immediately pointed out the short, three-quarter mile loop trail that led to the Hall of Mosses, and suggested that Elizabeth take her time walking it. She didn't argue, and was soon surrounded by fir trees and listening to the trickling waters of Taft Creek. Even here, at the entrance to this frontcountry trail, Elizabeth was astounded by how quiet the forest was. She realized that her own breathing had become shallow, as if in an attempt to avoid making any noise herself, and that she was tiptoeing.

She always kept her camera in her backpack, and was glad to have it as she encountered Douglas firs, the flat-needled Western hemlock, and Sitka spruce whose trunks and stubby, needleless, lower branches were drenched in moss. The Hall of Mosses, itself, however, was even more spectacular. Here, the trail tunneled under a stand of towering big-leaf maples with moss covering every inch of their branches, surrounding the limbs like hairy, green gloves. Elizabeth vacillated between feeling the place had a slightly eerie quality about it, as though it could be the setting for a Grimms fairytale, and feeling the grove had a feeling of romance. She hated that she was doing it again, trying to understand this new place in reference to things she already knew, stories, movies, other places. She knew the psychology behind it; she was attempting to find the right hook in her memory to hang this particular stand of trees on. This understanding didn't diminish her wish that she could have one pure, unfiltered experience of a place this grand. No comparing it to something else, no breaking it down into its recognizable, categorizable components. Just seeinghearingsmellingfeelingwithoutunderstanding.

Elizabeth breathed deep, imagining she could see the moss growing, covering the path she walked on, covering her own feet, wrapping slowly around her legs. She raised her arms overhead, imitating the branches of the trees surrounding her, and imagined the moss creeping further up, covering her face, arms, dripping from her hands. What does a tree think about all those years standing in the same place, pumping water through its vascular system, breathing out the clean air that I need to breathe in while this moss enshrouds it? Elizabeth wondered.

Then she realized where and who she was and snapped her arms back to her sides. She couldn't help but turn to look quickly behind her. No one had seen. She took one more deep breath before snapping the last of a roll of film, never quite sure she'd captured the true feeling of this place, and finally completing the loop through the spruce and vine maples that separated her from the visitor center.

The inside of the Hoh Rainforest Visitor Center was not easily distinguishable from other national park visitor centers she'd visited. It was the usual, low, one-story log cabin and stone structure used across the country with maps, photos, and gift shop items lining the inside walls. Elizabeth cruised through the racks of books, postcards, and keychains, then stumbled across a thick black binder on a low table next to a single chair. Inside the binder, someone had made a natural history guide to the area, combining photos of each kind of tree or plant with a close-up photo or illustration of its needle or leaf structure, flower, and seed, as well as a description of its salient characteristics, such as how long it lived, where it grew, which stage of succession if generally occupied, and whether it had any unique uses.

Many of the photos looked like they had been taken by this book's creator rather than cut from other resource materials. Elizabeth settled into the chair, pulled the book into her lap, and began attempting to commit its contents to memory.

She was intently studying the bark pattern of the Sitka spruce when the floor beneath her jumped. A loud bang was followed immediately by the smash of glass as picture frames hit the floor and everything inside the room resettled or found itself on the floor. Elizabeth felt every muscle in her body lock. She was paralyzed. Before she could finish rationalizing that an SUV must have crashed into the building, the floor began to grind and the walls shook.

"Earthquake!" the ranger behind the cash register yelled to be heard above the sound of rock scraping rock and the shouts of the handful of visitors in the center. "Move to the door!"

Elizabeth willed her body to stand, but still found herself glued to the chair, the sound of her heart pounding competing with the noise around her. The lights flickered twice before going out completely. The ground bumped two more times, hard, then rolled to a stop. The walls shimmied a few seconds more before stopping, too. It was quiet.

Elizabeth pushed herself up off the chair, extreme pain in her quads and calves slowing her movements. As she crossed the floor toward the light that still streamed in through the door, Elizabeth's whole body shook. She felt tears well up in her eyes, the adrenaline looking for a way out of her body.

When she reached the doorway, she saw everyone else was already outside. Sam was there, too. Where had he come from? He saw Elizabeth shaking in the door and rushed toward her. "Are you okay?"

Elizabeth could only nod, tears spilling against her will over her cheeks. She let Sam put his arm around her shoulder and lead her away from the building toward the center of the parking lot where everyone was huddled, keeping as far away from the trees as possible. She couldn't see. Her brain still wasn't able to make sense of what had happened.

"That was a big one," Sam said, squeezing Elizabeth's shoulder. "Have you ever been in an earthquake before?"

Elizabeth shook her head. Suddenly, the earth rolled beneath her again. She slipped to the ground as though her body had become water, bracing herself against the pavement with both hands. Sam crouched quickly beside her. The aftershock was smoother and over faster than the original quake.

"How many of those will there be?" Elizabeth finally managed to ask, once the ground had stilled.

"There's no way of knowing. Sometimes they go on for weeks," the ranger who had been behind the cash register answered.

"But they're mild, like that one?"

"Not necessarily," the ranger continued. "Sometimes the first quake is actually just a foreshock, and the real quake, the big quake, comes later."

"So it's not like tossing a rock into a pond? The successive ripples dont get progressively smaller until they just fade away?"

"No, with earthquakes it's not that simple."

Elizabeth felt queasy. She had the urge to run, but she didn't know where to go. The sun suddenly burst through an opening in the clouds directly overhead, behind the head of ranger doom. As she squinted up into the light corona around the ranger's head, his face blurred, losing its edges. Elizabeth somehow felt safer. Nothing bad could happen in the Pacific Northwest when the sun was shining, right?

[WHITE SPACE]

"We'll be fine, Elizabeth. I promise. Please, get in the truck." Sam was trying to be kind, but he wasn't sure how long he could continue to be patient.

"How can you promise me that? When the road's going all squiggly and we're sliding all over it in the middle of these friggin' ancient huge trees?"

"We'll get out of these trees sooner if you get in the truck."

Elizabeth gritted her teeth. She tried to imagine getting back inside and letting Sam continue driving her back toward the coast. The thought made her stomach lurch. With this last aftershock, it had felt like the road was falling out from underneath the truck. Sam had kept good control, but Elizabeth couldn't stand it. She had made him pull over and now she couldn't get back in.

"I'll walk back," she replied.

"That's ridiculous! You wouldn't possibly make it before dark, even if you were walking your fastest instead of stopping to cling to the ground every time it rocks a little bit."

"I'm sorry, but I'm losing it here! The thought of being in a moving vehicle if another big quake hits terrifies me. I feel safer outside. I can't help it if that makes no sense to you. It's just how I feel."

Sam sighed. "I can't leave you here. And I can't walk with you and leave the truck. So what do you suggest, that we just stay here until you feel safe to get in the truck again? Who knows how long that will take."

"I don't know."

She walked away from the truck, down the road in the direction they had been heading. She turned. "What if we played leapfrog?"

"What?"

"You drive a ways in the truck and stop and wait for me to catch up. Then you move forward again. Or you could let me lead, that way you wouldn't have to double back if you got worried."

Sam shook his head. "You're kidding, right? That's insane."

"I'm sure it is. But I can't get in the truck right now. Maybe later, but not now."

Sam checked his watch. It was 2:30 and they still had thirty or forty miles to go. "Alright. We'll try it your way for a little while. But when it gets dark, you're getting in this truck."

Elizabeth smiled. Then she turned and began walking as fast as her twenty-seven-inch inseam and her still cramped leg muscles would allow. The sun was gone again. It had only shone for about fifteen minutes before retreating again behind the thick layer of clouds that had been present all day. Elizabeth began to sweat, but the damp air was still cold. She zipped her raincoat the rest of the way to her chin, unzipped the zippers under her arms, and dug around in her pocket for gloves. At least the cold took her mind off the prospect of the earth moving again.

She felt ridiculous making Sam play this game with her. She was an adult, reasonable, educated. Why couldn't she get this terror under control? Somehow this was deep. Her muscles were all she needed to remind her just how deeply that first jolt had affected her. She could not speculate on when her fear would pass.

When she had learned of her placement here in the Pacific Northwest, she had begun reading about the region's geologic history. She understood the mechanics of it. The Pacific Northwest had been part of a separate continental plate at one time that had been shoved so hard against the rest of North America that the two had melded together. The Olympic Mountains and a line of volcanoes, including St. Helens, Rainier, and Baker, formed along the meld line as a result of the force. The oceanic[?] plate was still grinding away at the edge of the continental plate and being forced underneath it. When the plates shifted, the ground moved.

Sam caught up to her in the truck. "It was a 7.8!" he yelled through the open passenger side window.

"That's big, isn't it?"

"Very. Biggest one I've ever felt. Maybe the biggest one in recorded history around here[?]. Now you've got something to write home about!"

"Yeah, great. Just what I needed."

"You still okay out there?"

Elizabeth nodded.

"You sure you don't want to get back in the truck?"

"Not yet."

"Ok. See you in a bit." With that, he pulled the truck off the side of the road behind her and cut the engine. He had settled into this game and could last as long as Elizabeth could.

By 6:45 the shadows at the edge of the trees were getting long. Elizabeth's hair was soaked from the combination of sweat and moisture from the air, she needed to pee, and she was shaking from the cold. When she saw the beam of Sam's headlights coming up behind her, her shoulders sank in relief. The ground hadn't moved in hours, and her misery was outweighing her fear.

She turned to face the truck as Sam pulled alongside her and stopped.

Elizabeth nearly flew into the truck. "Okay, I cave. Please drive me home."

Sam, noticing the redness of her face, cranked the heat to maximum. "I shouldn't have let you stay out there that long. You're soaking wet."

"I'll be okay as soon as I get to a bathroom!"

"You couldn't find a rock in the woods?"

"Are you kidding? The minute I have my pants around my knees the ground's gonna' start shaking again and then what am I gonna' do? No, thank you. I can hold it as long as I need to. Just drive fast."

"You sure about that? What happens if we have another aftershock?" Sam poked.

"Just drive."

Elizabeth leaned her head back, pulled her jacket tighter around her, and closed her eyes.

The next thing she knew, Sam was shaking her shoulder.

She jerked her head off the head rest, immediately aware she'd fallen asleep and embarrassed. "Oh my God. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to fall asleep on you like that." She wiped her mouth to check for drool. Thankfully, she found none.

"Totally understandable. You've had a rough day. I'll see you tomorrow. Take your time getting in, though, okay? Take a little time for yourself in the morning if you need it."

Elizabeth assured him she was sure she'd be fine as she hauled her backpack out of the bed of the pickup, then raced to the door of her trailer at her bladder's insistence. She had never been so happy to see this place.

Chapter Four



It was black all around, but Elizabeth felt it coming after her, anyway. She ran. She always ran. It never caught her, never rolled over her, but it always, always, chased her. And sometimes, it multiplied. The One Giant Wheel would become several wheels of varying sizes, rolling from all directions at her, past her, behind her, squeezing her. Where was the staircase? It had to be here. Then it appeared. Right in front of her, a staircase in profile that grew out of a white wall that hadn't been there in all the darkness before. She ran toward it, the original black wheel, huge and blacker than all of the rest of the blackness, still trying to run over her, behind her, right on her. A smaller, faster wheel flew at her from the right, rolled past in front of her. Then, she was there. Cowering under the stairs. She turned to look out at the wheels. They disappeared.

Elizabeth woke up, gasping. Her pillow was soaked with sweat. She kicked the comforter off the bed and pushed the light button on her watch.

3:00 a.m.

Had the trailer moved? She didn't think so. Everything was quiet.

She found the phone next to her bed and dialed without turning on the light.

"Hello?" her sister said in Baltimore at 6:00 a.m.

"Hi, Jess. It's me. I had the dream again. You know, the 'someone's gonna' die' dream we used to have."

"The one where we're chased by wheels? I haven't had that dream in years."

"Me, neither. It still feels awful."

"Well, are you okay? I heard about an earthquake there yesterday. I left a message on your machine."

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just have this sick feeling in my stomach. Maybe it was just the earthquake, though. That really freaked me out."

Whenever Elizabeth or Jess had had the dream as a child, they spent the rest of the night lying in the hallway outside their parents' bedroom, holding their stomachs to make the dread there go away, as though their small bodies guarding the door, even after sleep eventually retook them, could ward off whatever evil of which the dream had forewarned. Elizabeth was so grateful for her little sister's voice now, so calm, so mature, laughing as she listened to Elizabeth telling how she'd refused to get back in Sam's truck after the second aftershock yesterday.

"I'll let you go get ready for work," Elizabeth said at last, not really ready to say good-bye. "Hey, Jess, would you do something for me?"

Jess waited.

"Would you call Todd for me? Just check to make sure he's okay?"

"Liz, you know no one ever died after we had that dream. Todd can take care of Todd."

"Please, Jess? I know you're right, but I'd feel better if you'd check for me."

"You know, if he did die, that would make your life so much easier."

"Jess!"

"Oh, you know I don't really mean that. I don't want him dead, but I dont want to talk to him, either."

"How bout email, then?"


[WHITE SPACE]


After three more hours of non-descript, non-memorable dreams, Elizabeth felt more herself. Jess had agreed to email Todd and would call her if she got a scary response or no response.

The trailer had been without power when she arrived home last night, and Elizabeth had gone straight to bed. Now she could see the results of the quake for the first time. The shelf that had held her books above the small desk was now on the floor, the desk's drawers had all shimmied open. The two small, framed postcards that had been here when she arrived, one of pink rhododendrons, one of a cougar peering over the edge of the rock on which it perched, were now also on the floor, the glass in their frames still intact.

Not very impressive for all that bumping and grinding, she thought, although she didn't know what she had expected. Maybe she had overreacted to the whole thing. Out here, away from skyscrapers and freeway overpasses that could collapse, maybe an earthquake was just another one of nature's miraculous processes, something to be fascinated by rather than terrified. If she was honest with herself, however, she knew that thought was only going to last her until the ground shook again.

Elizabeth decided to take Sam up on his offer to be late. She dressed quickly, then ventured out to view the rest of the trailer. Only the least evidence of the quake. A few more pictures on the floor. Yesterday's dirty dishes, still dirty and mostly where the two women had left them. Elizabeth picked up the empty milk carton that had found its way to the center of the kitchen floor, then picked up the two halves on the coffee cup that had split nearly perfectly down the middle after its fall from the counter. A quick yank on the door of the fridge yielded the usual glow of light and a mist of cool air. At least the power was back on. The fridge was nearly empty, nothing highly perishable to be found anywhere. Fortunate Leslie had used up the milk when she did, Elizabeth thought as she slipped out the front door. There had been no sign of Leslie--how had the quake affected her?--but Elizabeth was careful not to let the door slam in case she was still asleep.

She wanted to have a look at her beach after all of yesterday's shaking. There were still some nesting birds using the sea stacks, the tall rock outcroppings rising up out of the sea just off the coast, and she wanted to check on them. The sea stacks and islands that couldn't be reached by foot during low tide were off-limits to visitors, serving as wildlife sanctuaries. The birds that used them, however, would be visible in the binoculars Elizabeth had made sure to grab out of her backpack, along with her ever-ready camera, provided the fog wasn't too thick over the edge of the water.

The park was quiet this morning. They still weren't receiving a large number of visitors, although the numbers had been climbing. Smells of fresh brewed coffee, campfire smoke, and cooking bacon wafted out of the campground. Elizabeth's stomach growled as she hurried toward the beachhead, and down onto the sand.

She couldn't detect any changes to the landscape, not even the changes that might accompany a storm. She had expected to see the giant driftwood trees rearranged or to find one or two of the living trees that grew higher up at the edge of the sand had fallen over. There was no evidence that the tides had been stronger than normal, nothing unusual washed up on the sand. And the birds, all the ones she was accustomed to seeing, were still here. The black oystercatchers, looking to her like fat, black pigeons with sturdy, long red bills, still perched on the rock ledges of the sea stack she knew they had come to share with nesting glaucous-winged gulls, also still abundant in their presence. What had she expected? Certainly not that these creatures would have abandoned their offspring because of a little ground shaking? Whatever she had expected, it wasn't here. Maybe she had been right that an earthquake meant nothing more here than any other force of nature.
Elizabeth took her time walking back, pausing to look into the tidepools in the rocks where her public beach walks would conclude. She never ceased to be amazed at the abundance of life that crowded on top of each other here, fighting for space, slowly edging each other out. Crows were busy pecking at the shells of barnacles to reach the soft flesh inside, while oystercatchers cut the muscles that would enable the shells of blue mussels to close, then snapped the mussel bodies free, gulping them down quickly and moving onto the next. For them, for the next few hours, these rocks were an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet. It was a wonder anything survived out here.

[WHITE SPACE]

When Elizabeth finally entered the ranger office, she found everyone else, with the exception of Sue, whose main duties for the upcoming season centered on collecting camping fees and issuing hiking permits, had already come and gone, off on their individual adventures for the day. Elizabeth quickly remembered the agar gelatin she had left in the mini fridge yesterday. She opened the refrigerator door to find the gelatin still inside, poured into the individual compartments of an ice tray. Only one piece was missing. The rest, now clearly inedible, had a thin, watery film over the top from sitting without electricity overnight. She carried it outside and emptied the tray into the bear-proof garbage can.

"Hey, Sue, sorry about the smell in the fridge. My agar gelatin melted and stunk it up a bit."

"I doubt anyone around here will really notice. I tried a piece of it yesterday, by the way. It wasn't bad, but I've never been really fond of that stuff. You did a great job with the pickles and crackers, though."

Elizabeth lit up. She hadn't found anyone who claimed to be fond of agar gelatin, but it sounded as though all of her experiments were edible at least.

"Thanks, that was really brave of you to try them."

"I'm the guinea pig every summer. Never fails. I should bring you my recipe for bladderwrack soup. Those crackers would look real pretty in it."

Elizabeth grinned. Her newfound love of seaweed would get her to try anything once.

When Sam returned to the office several hours later, he found Elizabeth hunched over the table the interns used as a desk, flipping through notecards and frowning as she scribbled notes from them onto a legal pad.

"Whatcha' doin'?" he asked, settling himself on the edge of the table.

"Trying to figure out how to make seaweed fun."

"How's that coming?"

Elizabeth frowned at his smirk.

Sam slid off the table and seated himself in the chair opposite her, planting his hands firmly on the table.

"No, seriously, I want to hear it. What are you thinking?"

Elizabeth slid her notepad over to him.

"This is a good start. I like how you begin by asking the audience what they know of land plants so that you can then compare them with marine plants. And this kids game where you attach the various plant parts to volunteers should go over well, too. Really visual. Are you going to talk about what the various colors mean?"

"What do they mean?"

"You know, that brown algae is usually found closer to shore in shallower water, and that red algae is usually found in deeper water."

Elizabeth was still giving him a blank stare.

"The color of the plant corresponds to which piece of the light spectrum it gets to grow by and that's determined by the depth at which it grows."

Before Elizabeth could even respond, Sam had flipped to the next page in her notebook and begun to draw a diagram. The table shook.

Elizabeth gasped, "Do you feel that?"

"What?"

"The shaking!"

Sam laughed. "It's just me writing. I'm making the table shake!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, you don't feel it any more do you?"

Elizabeth was slow to shake her head.

"It's okay. It takes awhile to get over your first earthquake. I remember reading about a study done down at USC where the researchers simulated earthquakes for rats or mice, trying to figure out how long it would take them to get used to the shaking. Know how long?"

Elizabeth shook her head again.

"They never got used to it. No matter how often or how long their cages shook, the rodents responded with the same level of anxiety every time. Isn't that amazing?"

"Oh yeah, real amazing. Thanks for that."

"No, it was supposed to make you feel better about being jumpy."

"Which part? The part where you compared me to a rat or the part where you insinuated I'll never be comfortable in a part of the country where the earth moves on a regular basis? I supposedly have a more highly developed brain than a rat. I understand language, so when a person says 'earthquake' I know what that means, and I should also know that that means there will be an end to the ground shaking. And, you'd think that understanding what an earthquake is and why it happens would help mediate my response to it. So, I do in fact plan to learn to be okay living with earthquakes."

Sam smiled again. "It doesn't work like that. It's your rat brain, or your reptile brain, or whatever you wanna' call that primordial part of your brain that's been around since the beginnings of multi-cellular, organized life that controls your fear of the earth moving. Language and rationality have nothing to do with it."

"You seemed to handle it pretty well."

"You didn't see me go flying out the back door of that ranger station yesterday! I was up and out before I could even think 'earthquake.' My chest still hurts from the jolt to my heart. I just recovered a little quicker than you did, that's all."

"Hey, that reminds me. I went straight to bed last night and didn't see Leslie this morning. Do you happen to know if she's alright?"

"I only saw her for a minute this morning, but yeah, she seems to have taken it in stride. You know she's from Monterey, though, so she's probably used to earthquakes."

"You're contradicting yourself. I thought the whole point was that you couldn't get used to them?"

"You caught me. Yes, you're right. I should have said that she's probably made her peace with them. How's that?"

"Better. I wonder if there's been a study done on how long it takes a rat to make 'peace' with earthquakes?"

Chapter Six



"So where on the beach would you like to live?" Elizabeth moved down toward the water's edge.

"Those of you who would like to spend most of your lives living at the deepest edge of the beach where youll be covered by water year-round, with the exception of a few days a year when the lowest tides expose you to the sun, please stand here." A woman wearing a large, floppy brimmed sunhat and her freckled pre-pubescent son hurriedly joined her. A few others in the group shuffled in that direction, as well.

Elizabeth took ten steps away from the water. "Okay, then, those of you who would like to live in the middle of the beach, and spend most of each day covered with water with a few hours out in the sun, please stand here." Most of the group stayed where they were, bunching a little closer together to be counted in this category.

Finally, Elizabeth took ten more steps away from the water. "Anyone who thinks they are hardy enough to straddle both worlds, and spend long hours in the sun and under water, you can stand up here in what well call the splash zone." It was the middle of July, and after nearly two months of leading these public beach walks, Elizabeth was accustomed to having the majority of her groups opt for the two lower locales, and so set out this little challenge to try to convert one or two participants to this upper zone that was perhaps less interesting, but definitely a challenge to inhabit. The freckled boy who had been first to move with his mother to the lower intertidal zone, now abandoned her and joined Elizabeth, grinning. A woman sporting a long, chestnut braid down her back dropped her companions hand in the middle group and joined the boy.

"Great! We have a population. Why did you choose the splash zone?" Elizabeth asked the freckled boy.

"Because it's dangerous!"

Elizabeth enjoyed this part of her job. It was a mile walk from the beachhead where these walks originated to the rocks that would contain the tidepools these visitors were seeking. She knew they were impatient to get to the end where they would be able to stroke the stippled backs of pisaster seastars or poke a tentative finger into the mouth of a green and red Christmas tree anemone. She also knew it was her job to educate the people who chose to make this journey with her, to put the ecosystem in perspective and help them not only gain an appreciation of the individual animals and plants they were going to see, but also of how these individuals interacted with each other and all of the elements of their environment. It was delicate work, walking for long intervals, then stopping to talk and engage her visitors in conversation, trying not to bore them or overwhelm them with technical information, while still trying to fit in her education agenda. Usually, her own enthusiasm kept the majority of her party engaged, and she would often go out of her way to strike up a conversation with anyone who seemed impatient or uninterested in the remarks she addressed to the full group.

It was clear to Elizabeth, and most of the people she met on this beach, that she loved this work. She was sure now that she had been born to live in a place just like this, straddling the narrow edge between two larger worlds, illuminating its small wonders for herself and for others. There was still so much to learn! This one summer would certainly not be enough to satisfy Elizabeth's thirst for immersion here. She had already begun discussing with Sam her options for returning next season, either as an SCA intern again or potentially as a GS-4, the National Park Service rank for a summer-hire park ranger.

After she had asked each group their reasons for choosing their particular piece of the intertidal zone as home, and discussed the animals with whom they might share each home, Elizabeth allowed her group to complete the last leg of the walk to the rocks. She had already given hints on how to interact with the delicate tidepools to minimize damage to the inhabitants and the environment, and she would hang around the rocks for about an hour now, answering questions and pointing out anything of interest that she discovered. Participants were free to stay as long as they wanted, and the walk back to the beachhead and parking lot was done at each persons leisure.

Some days, Elizabeth was amazed at how quickly people left the tidepool area. After spending an hour walking the mile to get here, she would have expected people to want to stay, to "get their money's worth," even though it was a free public beach walk. But some people came, poked around a bit, called everything by the wrong name, and left within minutes of arriving. Hurricane Leslie attributed this kind of sightseeing to summer tourism mentality, in which families felt the need to go, go, go, and see, see, see, or to the ADHD/MTV/video-game/low-attention-span/high-need-for-constant-stimulation environment that pervaded American culture, her choice of explanation usually decided by the average age of any particular beach walks participants. Elizabeth, however, usually attributed their swift departure to some failure on her part. Somehow in the hour-long mile she hadn't sparked a high enough level of interest, hadn't spoken the right phrase that would open this world up to her visitors, hadn't taught her companions how to really see what this place was all about. Sam had warned her that she was being too hard on herself, saying she couldn't expect to teach people to appreciate this particular ecosystem if somewhere along the way those people hadnt already learned to appreciate nature for natures sake. But Elizabeth still wondered. After all, these same people had stopped at this beach, had waited around or made a special trip to participate in a ranger-led walk, and had actually made the trek in the sand and the wind. What was missing when they got here that caused them to leave so quickly? Certainly it wasn't a paucity of wildlife that caused them to leave. The spiny urchins, aggregating anemones, blue mussels, seastars, feather dusters, acorn barnacles, crabs, snails, and sea slugs that could be found here were so dense you couldn't find a better display unless you went to an aquarium. But, maybe, that was the problem. Maybe Leslie's short attention span theory was right. Maybe these people had seen some of these things once in a fish tank somewhere and so weren't impressed to see them here in the wild. It broke Elizabeth's heart.

Today, however, her crowd seemed to be sticking around. Two feet away from her, a girl who appeared to be about ten years old, was pointing to a tube worm.

"What kind of plant is that?" she asked, getting Elizabeth's attention by whispering, "Ranger! Ranger!"

"Let's try an experiment first. Do you want to?"

The girl nodded.

"I want you to very slowly put one finger into the water and touch one of its arms very gently."

The girl looked unsure.

"It's okay. You won't hurt it if you move slowly and it can't do a thing to hurt you."

"Is it slimy?" the girl grimaced.

"Why don't you touch it and see."

The girl did as Elizabeth asked, one finger dipping quietly into the water and toward one of the red, feathery arms. Suddenly, the arm she touched, and all the others, disappeared, sucked quickly back into the brown tube from which they had extended.

The girl grinned quickly up at Elizabeth. "Cool! What was that?"

"It's called a feather duster tube worm."

"It's a worm?" the girl cried, not quite sure it was as cool as she'd thought.

"Mm hmm. Inside that tube there is a sea worm. It uses those little feathery arms you saw to wave water into it's tube so that it can suck out tiny little plants [and animals?] that we can't see, called plankton, to eat. It has little photosensitive spots on the end of each arm that act like eyes. They see shadows. Can you guess why?"

"So they don't get eaten?"

"Exactly! And there's something cool about that tube it lives in, too."

"It's like its house?"

"Yes, and just like a human house gets built by humans, that tube worm built its house, too. It eats pieces of sand and spits out the best pieces mixed with a kind of glue that it makes with its body and glues the sand around itself to make the tube."

"Can I touch it?"

"Sure."

The girl's finger gently stroked the side of the tube. "It's soft!"

"Surprising, huh?"

The girl grinned and nodded.

Elizabeth moved quietly away. Watching lights go on in children's eyes was her favorite part of this job.

She heard a large scrape behind her. A boy was attempting to climb the largest rock, his feet now three feet above the sand, a tiny pile of crushed shell protruding from under his right shoe. "Please be careful of the barnacles!" she yelled to make sure she caught the boy's attention.

She hadn't. Elizabeth crossed the ground between her and the boy quickly. She didn't see the adults with whom this boy had arrived. "Excuse me, but you're crushing barnacles and that was one of the reasons I asked that no one climb the rocks," Elizabeth said to the back of the boy's orange T-shirt.

"I'm not hurtin' nothin'." The boy's head swiveled to find her.

"Really? I don't think the barnacle whose shell you just crushed would agree."

"What's a barnacle?"

"Come down, and I'll show you."

The boy reluctantly jumped backward from the rock, landing next to Elizabeth with a determined pout on his face.

"These white volcano shaped shells are barnacles," Elizabeth said, pointing to a large cluster of the creatures, all still unharmed.

"Those things? Those aren't alive." The boy prepared to resume his climb.

"Look here." Elizabeth pointed to where the boy's shoe had been on the rock. "Do you see that white and yellowish slimy stuff that kind of looks like the inside of a Cadbury egg at Easter?"

The boy nodded.

"That's the barnacle's body." She had his attention.

"When a barnacle is born, it floats around free in the ocean until it finds a rock or something else hard, like maybe a whale's skin or the bottom of a boat, someplace where there are other barnacles already living and where it would like to live. Then it glues its head to that hard place and begins to grow this white shell around its body to protect it. So, if its head is glued to the rock, where do you think its feet are?"

The boy shrugged.

"Well, if you're head were glued to this rock, where would your feet be?"

"Up in the sky?"

"Yes! And if you're a barnacle, you have eight feet and no hands. So how do you eat?"

"With you're feet?" the boy asked, beginning to warm to this idea.

"Yep. You stand on your head and you wave your eight feet in the air so they bring food into your shell for you to eat. Wanna' see some barnacles eating?"

"You can't see them eating."

"Sure you can, you just gotta' know how to look. Come on."

Elizabeth led the boy to a wide tidepool that had no one peering into it. The edges were lined with the white shells of barnacles. Elizabeth got down on her knees and bent over the pool, motioning for the boy to do the same until his face was reflected next to hers in the water. "Yep, there you go!" Elizabeth was still delighted to see these eight feathery legs, the size of eyelashes, dancing in and out of the barnacles shell in unison. It was hypnotic. "See, if you look real close, you can see tiny little legs coming in and out of the shells."

The boy was quiet for several moments. "Oh yeah! I see em!"

"See these ones over here that are out of the water? They have those little white plates inside the opening to their shell? They close those once the tide goes out so their bodies don't dry out. Then, when the tide comes back in, they open those plates, stick their feet out, and it's dinner time." The boy took the time to look at the closed shells to which Elizabeth was pointing, then went back to watching the legs move under the surface.

"I gotta' go show my dad," the boy said, pushing himself up and disappearing in a cloud of sand before Elizabeth could push herself off the rock.

Elizabeth laughed. These beach walks certainly kept her on her toes. As she dusted sand from the knees of her pants, her eyes landed on a small boy, about two years old with wild, wavy, black hair and an open face. He reminded Elizabeth of her nephew, Brendan, and she felt the familiar twinge of regret, both from being so far away from the child she loved and from never having a child of her own. This boy held an empty clam shell up to his father who had carried him here in a child carrier on his back. The father bent down and oohed and aahed over the boy's treasure before handing it back to his son, who immediately threw it hard into the sand and dashed toward the water. A line of gulls screamed into the air despite the fact the boy posed no harm to them. The boy stopped suddenly to watch these birds now circling above his head, then searched out his father's face and pointed into the air, opening and closing the space between his index finger and thumb.

"Yes, birds," the father called. "You surprised the birds." The man repeated the hand gesture his son had made, opening and closing his index finger and thumb, but corrected him slightly by making the gesture next to his mouth to simulate the beak of a bird opening and closing. Elizabeth had seen few other children sign, despite growing evidence that a baby could begin to learn to communicate this way starting as early as about the seventh month.

"How long has your child been signing?" Elizabeth couldn't help but ask.

"A little over a year now. He's learning to talk, but this is still useful. Between the words he can say and the words he can sign, he really gets his point across."

"My nephew was a little younger than your son the last time I saw him. The first time he signed 'please, eat,'" Elizabeth circled one fist over her heart, then squeezed her fingertips together and tapped her lips, "to me, I almost cried."

The man laughed. "Yeah, signing is definitely one of the more polite ways of getting what you want. Unfortunately, by the time they get to this age, they're learning that screaming and throwing things is more fun."

"I'll bet. He looks like he keeps you busy."

The man nodded. "Wouldn't miss it for anything, though. He's amazing." He stopped to take a good look at Elizabeth, noticing the gray hairs he hadn't seen before in the wispy strays that escaped from under her straw ranger hat. "Do you have any?"

Elizabeth blushed. "No, haven't gotten there yet."

"Well, you're obviously good with kids. If you get the chance, having one of your own changes your whole world. For both good and bad, but let me tell ya', the good certainly outweighs the bad." The man's gaze had returned to follow his son who was following a sanderling down the shoreline. Distracted by the bird whose short legs moved fast enough to keep it just out of the boy's reach, the boy didn't see a wave that slipped further up the sand than the rest. It washed over the boy's feet, soaking his pants halfway to his knees. The boy stopped and turned to look out at the water, then down again at his feet. He danced a little jig, bouncing from foot to foot, to watch the residual water splash under his sneakers.

"I better get him before he's totally soaked," the man said to Elizabeth, before calling to his son, "Josh, come out of the water!" and trotting down the sand toward the boy who looked quite happy where he was.

When Elizabeth turned back to the tidepools, she realized she was the only one left. The rest of her visitors now stretched in a long, broken line down the coast back toward the beachhead. She started back, too, the screams of a child being lifted out of the water erupting behind her.

The sun was shining today with only a few high white clouds dotting the horizon, but the perpetual wind that buffeted this coast still tore at her hat and clothes, raising the occasional goose bump on her now tanned arms. She stopped to pick up a piece of bull kelp, nearly ten feet long, with an air bladder larger than her fist. Taking wildlife of any kind from these beaches, with the exception of a small handful of unoccupied shells, was prohibited, but she was allowed to pick up seaweed to use for educational purposes in her campfire programs. She had one tonight at seven in the campground amphitheater. She looped the long brown stipe of the plant around her neck in two loose rings, tossing the air bladder with its tangle of yard-long leaf blades over her shoulder to drape down her back like a stole, and letting the holdfast end bounce gently against her waist as she walked, one small pebble still clutched in the plant's gnarled, green grasp. She pulled a plastic bag out of her pocket to pick up other, smaller samples of seaweeds as she walked. The plants needed to be anchored to a rock in order to live, and once they had broken free and were washed up on this beach, they were already in the process of decomposing. After her campers had had a chance to look at and touch them tonight, Elizabeth would bring these plants back to the beach in the morning so they could fulfill their final purpose of returning nutrients back into the intertidal zone.

As she neared the beachhead, she saw Sam waiting for her. This was an unusual occurrence.

"I see your fashion sense is maturing here," Sam joked, pointing at her bull kelp adornment.

"What's up?"

"Do you have a minute? I'd like to talk to you about something."

The two rangers walked to one of the nearby driftwood logs and sat, looking out toward the water. "I've been thinking about what's best for you in the long run, and what's best for the park service. And, I have a proposal for you," Sam began.

"Why does this make me nervous?" Elizabeth squinted at him from under the brim of her hat, trying to get a read on where he was going before he actually got there.

"Well, probably because it involves making a change this summer that I'm not sure youre going to be all that comfortable making."

"What?"

"I know you're happy here, and you've been doing a great job. You and Leslie seem to get along great and you split everything up so nicely, I haven't needed to give either of you any supervision. I get great feedback from visitors about your walks and campfire programs, and you know I'd love to keep you here as long as possible."

"So why is there a but coming?"

"Because the more diverse your skills and basic knowledge, the more likely your overall chances of getting into the National Park Service as a ranger when your internships are done. I want your chances to be the best they can be, because I think this is a good fit for you."

"Me, too."

"Good, then maybe you'll consider a move. Fire season is really heating up right now. We've got blazes in California and Colorado, and a lot of people from Washington have been pulled away to help manage those fires. It would mean cutting back some on the programs we could offer here, but I think you could be helpful if we moved you into another park, a forest park, where you could help fill the gaps left by some of the people who've gone to fight the fires. You'd learn more about forest management and fire suppression, and those skills would go a long way to improving your fitness for the service."

"And you want it to be me who leaves and not Leslie?"

"To tell you the truth, it doesn't matter to me who goes. But honestly, right now Leslie's chances of getting a GS-4 next season, or a GS-5 and going full-time as soon as her summer here is over, are really good. Much better than yours. She's got all the right education--and it's recent--not to mention a great deal of volunteer work and internships that demonstrate her skills. Your education is more oblique, your work history not exactly tailor-made to prepare you for park work. You have more to gain from taking this opportunity than Leslie does."

"And you think it would make that much of a difference?"

"It would show your versatility, widen your skills and knowledge base, and expose you to more rangers like me who will want to give you glowing recommendations. Yeah, I think it would make a big difference."

"When do I leave?"

Chapter Seven



Elizabeth had a difficult time concentrating as she led her campfire program that night. She knew the program by heart, and she was sure her participants weren't aware that her mind was elsewhere, but the oomph had gone out of her presentation. Just as she was getting confident here, accustomed to the rhythms of life on this beach, she was leaving.

She would be driving to the other side of the state to join the staff of the North Cascades National Park on Thursday, still four days away. She would only be there two months, as her commitment to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore was scheduled to begin September fifteenth, and she would even be gone for one of those weeks while she took care of her divorce in Michigan next month. It would give her an opportunity to spend some time in the mountains, and she would have time to visit one of Washington's dormant volcanoes, Mt. Baker, along the way. She could see Sam's point about why she should go, and she even had a few reasons of her own for why it was a good idea.

She only had one reason for wanting to stay: because she finally felt safe here. She was in the process of figuring out who she was now, separate from Todd, separate from all of her other work, separate from the people who populated her life up until just a few months ago. Here, she was learning about what she loved, not just about what she could tolerate as she had in so much of her work before. She was engaging in work about which she was passionate, and for the firs time ever, it wasn't draining her. She was learning that she had enough energy for it and for her, and there was liberation in that realization. Finally, she was becoming the woman she had always imagined but had never been able to achieve. Her worry was that somehow this was all tied to this place, and if she left this tiny strip of land on which she had discovered so much, to work in the middle of an enormous forest, that she might get swallowed up again, lose the delicate balance she had worked so hard to achieve.

She hadn't mentioned any of this to anyone yet. She didn't feel right saying such things to Sam, and she hadn't really had an opportunity to talk to Leslie yet. She wasn't sure she would talk about it with her, as Leslie was so young, and had been focused for so long on achieving her career goals, Elizabeth was unsure whether she could even relate to what it was Elizabeth was going through. Leslie had been a great listener whenever Elizabeth had needed to vent about Todd or the divorce, apparently no stranger to heartbreak herself, despite the brains that got her here and the golden blond hair and California surfer body that wrapped the whole package up so nicely.

Elizabeth made a mental note to call Jess as soon as she could find the moment their schedules might mesh enough that Jess would have time to talk and be able to focus. Living in two different time zones and having such different work hours made hooking up for meaningful conversations difficult. Jess was her best shot, though, at working through this tangle of emotions.

Elizabeth always ended her program by making her agar gelatin, orange-flavored tonight, rockweed crackers, and bull kelp pickles available to anyone who wanted to try them. The children would usually hang around another ten or fifteen minutes after the program's end to try their hand at blowing into the horn she'd made of one of the shorter pieces of bull kelp she'd found that day. By cutting the air bladder bulb in half and cutting off the holdfast at the other end, she made a trumpet of sorts that would sound, sometimes quite strongly if the musician got the technique just right, when someone blew into the smaller opening at the bottom of the stipe. She sometimes wondered what other campers thought of the odd, discordant noises coming out of the amphitheater after dark, but had never received any complaints.

Elizabeth packed up the props she'd used and headed home alone. As she approached the trailer she shared with Leslie, her flashlight illuminating the ground a few feet in front of where she walked, she saw five pairs of eyes glinting at her from the lawn. Then there was a commotion as the mother raccoon herded her youngsters back up the tree in which they lived above the interns trailer.

"Nice to see you, too," she called as she scanned the tree quickly with her light. Three raccoons bunched together on a fat branch, looking down at her, the other two out of sight. "Better get inside before mama yells," she whispered to the trio, before heading up the stairs and into her own home.

Leslie sat on the ugly gold couch just inside the door, her feet propped up, reading a book about manatees.

"Good program?" she asked as Elizabeth entered.

"Yeah, it was okay. The mama raccoon and her babies were in the yard when I came home. She didn't let them stay and play, though."

"Yeah, I guess she doesn't approve of us."

"I'm gonna' have a bowl of cereal. Want some?"

"No, thanks, I just finished off a bag of potato chips."

"One of these days we have to start eating like adults," Elizabeth sighed, looking into the ubiquitously empty refrigerator for the milk.

"Who says?"

"Well, one of us is on the verge of forty and has to worry about things like a non-existent metabolism and osteoporosis and hot flashes."

Leslie snorted. "You've got a while before you have to worry about hot flashes."

"I hope you're right." Elizabeth emptied a box of Capn' Crunch into a bowl, and popped a crunch berry into her mouth. "Hey, Leslie, can I talk to you a minute?"

"Sure, what's up?"

"Did you talk to Sam at all today?"

"Yeah, about you transferring? He mentioned that you were considering a move and we talked about what kind of schedule we would be able to juggle between him and me."

"How do you feel about that? Are you okay? I don't want you thinking I'm abandoning you, or if you want to be the one to go, I'd be fine with that, too."

"No, it's fine. Like Sam said, it would be a good opportunity for you. And it doesn't really affect me that much, it just means maybe doing one or two more programs a week. Sam's going to pick up some of the slack, and some of your programs we're just going to have to get rid of."

"So you think I should go?"

"Definitely. You've proven yourself here, your programs are really strong. Go try something new while you've got the chance. Just leave me your recipes for those awful seaweed thingies you make."

Elizabeth plopped into the purple chair across from Leslie. "I'm not so sure. I feel like I'm just getting the hang of it here. You know, I'm answering more questions with actual information and less, 'well, thats a good question; Im not really sure how to answer that,' and the thought of going off somewhere new half-way through the season really kind of scares me. What if I can't handle the new stuff?"

"You're being silly. You can do anything they ask."

"And you know this how?"

"I am all knowing!" Leslie wiggled her eyebrows at her. "I've been your roommate and your teammate for four months, if you had any major deficits, I'm pretty sure I would have seen them by now."

"So I can't count on you to talk me into staying?"

"Sorry, I'm looking forward to having this place to myself!"

"Oh dear God, you're right, I have to stay. Who's going to make sure there's a path through all your stuff to the door in case of emergency? Who's going to actually go to the store so that you can continue to live on potato chips and bananas?"

"Go pack."

Elizabeth sighed. "I don't want to."

"Yes, you do."

Chapter Eight



The water coming over the side of the boat was icy and as black as the sky overhead. There were no stars, no lights on the horizon, just wave after wave that bounced the small vessel, seeming to toss it into the sky before catching it and tossing it again, but the sea never actually let it go. Elizabeth could feel the harness tying her into the boat. It didn't make her feel safe, though she tugged at it repeatedly, as if checking to make sure it was secure. She was alone, and sobbing. She wasn't sure she had always been alone. The pain in her chest led her to believe there had been someone else, but there was no one anywhere now. She was shivering and weak from cold and fear. The water around her feet was rising fast. Every wave brought more. The boat was definitely tilting now, "listing" Elizabeth corrected even through her terror. I am going to die! I am going to die. She tugged at the harness. Another wave broke over the rail, broke over her head. Her lungs filled with ice. There was no scream. And then there was. A choking, coughing scream that started at her toes. She had often wondered whether she would scream as death overtook her or accept it with some quiet simplicity. She screamed until her lungs had emptied of scream. The boat was on its side now. The mast flat in the water. She was in the water, still tied to this boat that was going under. She couldn't feel her hands as she tugged at the harness, trying now to break herself free from it. Her legs kicked wildly, her head arched toward the blackness she still called sky even as some force was pulling her under. Calm down! Figure this out! She couldn't. Her fingers were working, pulling, tugging, trying to remember how to unhook the harness. The water covered her head. One giant gulp. Pulling her down. No scream. No scream. Cold. Black. Down.

Chapter Nine



At 7:00 a.m. on Thursday, July seventeenth, Elizabeth said good-bye to her coast. The morning fog had not yet lifted and a seal had hauled out onto the beach, not far below the parking lot where she parked her loaded car for one last look. She did not want to disturb the sleeping animal and walked down the beach in the opposite direction. She had the urge to cry, but no tears came. Maybe losing her marriage had used up all the tears she had. This thought made her even sadder. Surely she could muster tears for this beach? She couldn't. It frustrated her even more.

She looked down the beach in both directions, at the bases of the sea stacks still visible below the fog, at the driftwood logs, at the spruce trees[?] that lined the upper bank. She was waiting for something, but she didn't know what it was. What could this beach give her that it hadn't already?

A rock. Elizabeth had never collected anything from this beach to keep for herself. She reached down now and picked up a flat, perfectly rounded, oval stone. It was the perfect size for a brooch to be warn at the base of the neck. This rock wasn't flashy. It looked like most of the ones around it, dark gray, with tiny flecks of darker gray scattered throughout. It was smooth and cool and fit perfectly in her hand. Panic rose in Elizabeth's mind momentarily as she realized she didnt know what kind of stone this was. How had she been here nearly four months and never learned the name of the stone that made up eighty percent of this beach? How could she possibly drive away not knowing?

She was going to drive away not knowing. She still wasn't sure exactly why. She had changed jobs frequently in the last fifteen years partly because she didn't know what she wanted, partly because she couldn't stand to stay anywhere for too long. So here she was, finally knowing what she wanted and where she wanted to be, and she was changing jobs and leaving to get it. It seemed like some unsolvable koan[usage? spelling], or at least like someone's bad idea of a joke.

Elizabeth rubbed both sides of the stone between her fingers, memorizing its feel. Was she hoping to absorb its energy or infuse it with her own? She wasn't sure. She kissed it lightly and slid it into the watch pocket of her jeans. The seal was still drowsing on the beach when she passed back by.

She had had to make some difficult choices in deciding how she was going to leave the Olympic peninsula. The Puget Sound, which isolated this peninsula from the rest of Washington, cut deep into the state, making it necessary to either drive well south to skirt its southern edge in order to then be able to drive north toward the Cascades, or to drive to a ferry terminal and take a boat across the Sound. Both had their appeal. If she drove around the Sound, she could take a detour and see Mt. Rainier, the volcano that watches over Seattle from the South. She would, of course, then also get to see Seattle, or at least its skyline, as she took I-5 north toward the mountains. If she took a ferry, she would be taking a more direct route north, but she could detour and see Cape Flattery and Neah Bay, at the northernmost tip of the peninsula where the Makah lived.

After much discussion with Sam and Sue in the ranger station, Elizabeth decided to take the ferry. She would be traveling on two-lane highway much of the way across the peninsula, but she would miss the traffic that could back up around Seattle. Plus, she was sure she wouldn't have the guts to venture off the freeway into Seattle, and she'd already seen its skyline in several movies. Sue recommended taking the ferry from Kingston to Edmonds, the small town where she grew up. The boat only took forty-five minutes to cross the Sound there, the water was usually quite calm, and the town charming.

Elizabeth was expected to begin work in the Cascades on Monday morning, which gave her four full days to get there--at least three more than she needed thanks to Sam's generosity. Between Rialto Beach and Cape Flattery, most of the coast was inaccessible except by foot, so she would need to drive inland, skirting the edge of the Olympic National Forest and the Olympic mountains, before she would eventually hit the northwestern border of the state and turn west again toward the Pacific.

Elizabeth was still getting used to traveling alone. Most of her trips as an adult, even in college, had been made in the company of men. She had always dreamed of being a solo traveler, watching other single people as they set up camp or ate alone with a book and deeming it somehow romantic. Now that she was actually doing it, however, the romance was lost. Didnt the very idea of romance involve a second person? She ended up singing aloud to herself, badly and mostly only the choruses of songs because she couldn't remember anything else, to keep herself alert.

The scenery this morning was anything but boring, however. As always, she found herself comparing the forests through which she drove with other forests she'd experienced. She decided these trees and the narrow, sometimes twisty road through them reminded her of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, up near Copper Harbor on Lake Superior. In Elizabeth's mind, this wasn't an odd comparison, since Copper Harbor and her destination, Neah Bay, had latitudes with only one degree of separation. Perhaps different species of trees grew in the Midwest than in the Pacific Northwest, but the [quality/angle of] light filtering through them would be the same.

Highway 110 played footsie with the Soleduck River, skirting it first on one side, then crossing over it as it bent around Lake Pleasant, and following it on the other side until the town of Sappho. Here Elizabeth turned off 110, which continued east along the river through the Olympic National Forest to the northern edge of Olympic National Park and Lake Crescent, the third deepest lake in Washington state. State route 113 then carried her north toward the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Pacific waterway dividing the United States from Canada. Here, SR-113 became SR-112, the first road ever to penetrate the northern Olympic Peninsula. Elizabeth had her first glimpse of the strait at Clallam Bay, an historic port town that still boasted a good size population for this neck of the woods. The eastern edge of the bay was marked by the Slip Point Lighthouse, and Elizabeth decided Slip Point would be a good place to stop to eat the picnic lunch she'd packed.

The sun was shining and only a light breeze blew off the water. Elizabeth shared her picnic table overlooking the bay with a gull who had no fear of her and was obviously accustomed to playing the waiting game with humans.

"Sorry, Buddy. Don't you know a fed bird is a dead bird?" she said as she stuffed the last of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into her mouth. The bird didn't flinch. "I could tell you all kinds of stories about what the preservatives in human food do inside the stomach of a little guy like you. It's not pretty, for you or for any of your neighbors."

The gull continued to eye her as she bit into a Fuji apple. "Look, the tide is going out. There are probably tons of clams just waiting for you to drop them on a rock and slurp them up. Or mussels? There must be mussels. Why don't you go take a look?"

Elizabeth ate the apple, locked into a staring contest with the bird. It looked as though the bird might win. "Bent on destruction, are ya'? As soon as I leave, you'll be on to someone else. You're mama should have taught you better. Someone should have taught her better."

The gull took two steps closer.

"Oh, all right. I don't have any stories about what an apple might do to you. They'll probably never let me become a park ranger because of this." Elizabeth bit the last chunk of flesh from the apple's core, then spit it into her hand and tossed it at the bird's feet. It was gone in one smooth motion of the bird's head. "Hope it was worth your time and my career."

The road to Neah Bay was gorgeous. It veered away from the water only briefly between Sekiu Point and Kydaka Point, then hugged the coastline. Every once in awhile there would be a break in the trees to the north, and Elizabeth would get a breathtaking glimpse of the strait.

The Makah Indian Reservation was located at the northwesternmost tip of the United States, on a portion of the land the Makah once used as their winter home. Elizabeth had learned from Sam and Sue of the archaeological dig on Cape Alava and Lake Ozette, a few miles south on what was now Olympic National Park land, that had unearthed Makah artifacts dating back 2,500 years. A mudflow had partially buried the Makah village at Ozette five hundred years earlier, which preserved the thousands of recovered artifacts extremely well. Some of these artifacts were housed now at the Makah Cultural and Research Center whose museum was open to the public, and Elizabeth was looking forward to visiting.

The museum was easy to find. Elizabeth paid the small entrance fee and was surprised to realize she had its halls mostly to herself. The number and array of artifacts displayed was somewhat dizzying. There were examples of basketry, old and new, tools, and paraphernalia used in fishing, whaling, and sealing. In the back, there was a full-size replica of a longhouse, and a room that contained four cedar dug-out canoes. The wall-size photographs displayed around the canoes were of modern Makah using similar canoes out of the coast, helping to reinforce the idea that although many of these artifacts were very old, the people and the culture were still very much alive.

Elizabeth spent several hours reading the placards explaining how the various tools were made and used, the weaving techniques, the whale bones that still displayed harpoon hooks embedded in them and how such relics had revived the Makah's interest in their own cultural heritage. She ran her hand lightly along the side of one canoe, and tried to imagine the courage it took to take one out to sea. The men who carved and crewed these floating masterpieces were obviously much braver than she.

She ended her visit by poking her head into the gift shop where there were books, prints, and cards available alongside jewelry, carvings, and baskets made by Makah artisans. Elizabeth wished she were in different financial circumstances and could afford to take home a piece by each artist.

Elizabeth's gaze was drawn almost immediately to a black-and-white drawing on the wall. It wasn't in the coastal Indian style she would have expected. Instead, it was a modern rendition of a pacific gray whale skimming just under the surface of the water, only feet away from a dug-out canoe with eight men, dressed in T-shirts, paddling furiously in pursuit. Elizabeth was examining the expression on one of the boat occupants faces, when a female voice startled her. "That was done by my grandson."

Elizabeth whirled. Behind one of the display cases sat a woman in her sixties or seventies quickly weaving a basket. How had Elizabeth not seen her before? "It's fantastic. I love that it's a modern scene. This one person, here, in the front," Elizabeth said pointing, "has such a look of awe on his face."

The woman nodded, her hands not pausing. "Yes, that's him."

"That's your grandson?"

"Yes. He's one of our tribal whalers. He painted that picture to show respect for the whale who gave its life for ours that day."

"I had heard the hunt was successful this season."

"Yes. We received two whales this spring, very successful. We have been granted a quota of five per year, one for each village that was merged to create this reservation in 1855, but we have never taken that many in one year."

Elizabeth looked back at the painting. "This is a Pacific gray whale, right?"

"Yes. That is the only one we are allowed to hunt during its migration in the spring and fall."

"Has your grandson been involved in the hunt since the first one? 1999 was it?"

"He was in the chase boat the first year. He moved into a canoe the next year, and began studying painting with one of the tribal elders that same spring."

"It would appear he has a passion for both."

The woman nodded again, her hands weaving and weaving. "The return of our hunting practice has been good for us in many ways."

Elizabeth moved over to the counter where the woman sat. "Has the controversy increased visitors to the reservation?"

"In the beginning. Now the extras just seem to come in the form of protestors. No matter how many court battles we win, no matter how many representatives of the U. S. government or the International Whaling Commission speak out on our behalf, the protestors keep coming and coming."

"That must make it difficult for your community, to be mixed up in such a complex issue."

"All Indian issues are complex. We are just surprised that in this case the United States has agreed to uphold one of our treaty rights and it is the people, and not the government, who we must continue to fight. We don't want to fight anybody. We just want to return our culture, and our pride, and our health back to our community."

"I hadn't planned to buy anything today, I'm on such a tight budget. But I think I would really like to buy your grandson's painting."

The woman grinned up at her, her face melting into a soft, doughy pillow of wrinkles. "That is a good choice. Would you like an unframed print or the framed one?"

"He's done such an excellent job with the matting, I'll have to take the framed one. It wouldn't do the work justice, otherwise."

"I'll wrap that up for you. Do you have far to go?"

The woman set her basket on the floor, pushed herself out of her chair, and deftly removed the picture from its hook. As she passed Elizabeth, she smelled sweet, but Elizabeth couldn't name the fragrance.

"I'm going to the North Cascades to work for the rest of the summer."

The woman wrinkled her nose. "Awful hot and dry up there this time of year. I would miss the ocean."

Elizabeth sighed. "I will, too. I've been down at Rialto Beach for the past four months, and I've really come to love this coast."

"Hang this over your bed to remember us by."

Elizabeth smiled and nodded.

"My grandson will be pleased to hear you enjoyed his work so much. He is only a young artist, but we have high hopes for him. He has started working in whale bone, too."

"Carving? I wasn't sure that was legal any more?"

The woman had lifted several large sheets of brown paper onto the counter and was busily taping them around the framed print. "It is legal for sale within the United States only. There is a ban on international trade in whale arts."

"Are any of your grandson's carvings here?"

"No, he is not ready yet. He is still apprenticing." The woman checked the soundness of her wrapping, pinching one corner to test the thickness and tapping the center to test the paper's tautness. "He will be in today, in about an hour, to relieve me. We are a cooperative and each artist is required to staff the shop. Today just happens to be one of his days. You should stop by and talk to him. If you show your receipt at the door, they will let you come back."

Elizabeth dug around in her wallet for the credit card she felt so guilty using to make a non-essential purchase. "That would be nice. I was planning to go out to the trail to see Tatoosh Island and the Cape."

"You should go out tonight, to see it at sunset when the light is the most beautiful. Begin walking around eight, it's a half-mile to the end of the trail, and you'll make it quickly. That will give you a good show, but still give you time to get back to your car before dark. You should have dinner at the Smoke Shack first, it's just over that a way. Follow the smell of smoked salmon. Can't miss it. My grandniece runs the place. Good food. Good prices."

"Thank you. That sounds nice. Any suggestions about what I should do for the next hour or so?"

"You look like a smart girl. You probably can't get yourself into too much trouble on such a small reservation in only an hour."

Elizabeth smiled and signed the receipt the woman slid across the glass to her. "Thank you for your help. It was really nice talking to you."

The older woman nodded and smiled. "I'll tell my grandson to expect you."

Elizabeth carried the package to her car and shuffled her duffel bags until there was room for the print without fear of the glass being smashed in the trunk. Then she walked to the edge of the road, trying to decide her next move, and finally crossed to the other side. The museum sat right across from the waters of Neah Bay on the northern edge of the Makah Reservation. There was a marina and boat launch inside a breakwater that protected this part of the coastline from the harsh waves Pacific storms often brought to this peninsula. Despite Elizabeth's fear of open water, her years of exposure to the Great Lakes had encouraged an interest in boats. Sailboats, in particular, since they were the more environmental choice, but she sometimes found herself slipping into fantasy about what it might be like to vacation aboard one of the multi-story yachts she occasionally saw moored in one of the marinas she visited. She couldnt fathom the money required to purchase such an extravagance, let alone to purchase the fuel to actually move the boat from place to place, although Elizabeth wondered if behemoths like that weren't really intended just to remain at anchor, or cruise the harbor, and intimidate the owners of the other, sleeker, smaller, less ostentatious vessels. Elizabeth also enjoyed reading the names people chose for their boats. Her favorite came from a sailboat she'd once seen moored at the marina on Mackinac Island in Michigan, "Off-site Meeting." While she disliked the idea of a boat having a name even remotely related to the business world, she appreciated the mind that had a healthy enough disdain for that world to give his boat such a wonderful code name to which to retreat.
The boats in the marina today weren't especially flashy, but they were a pleasure to look at. Boats, like solo travelers, had an allure for Elizabeth that she didn't quite understand, but that she enjoyed indulging in. She walked the docks, nodding and smiling, as though she belonged here, at the boat owners who did belong here. A golden retriever trotted up to her from behind for a quick tail wag and a hand nuzzle before trotting down a gang plank and jumping onto the deck of a double-masted sailboat whose captain was busy flipping burgers on a grill. Was he hungry or home? Elizabeth wondered.

Elizabeth heard the familiar croaking call of a Great Blue Heron and looked up just in time to see a juvenile fly overhead and then east along the beach. The nest must not be far from here for the youngster to be unaccompanied.

When she had walked the length of the marina and chosen her favorite boats, based solely on their appearance and names as she knew nothing beyond these standards by which to judge, Elizabeth realized she had spent more than ninety minutes here lost in her own thoughts.

She returned to the museum, showed her receipt for the print, and was indeed allowed re-entry. Again, she found the gift shop empty except for a man with black hair that fell just to his shoulders, as if to accentuate their broadness and apparent strength. The man's back was to her as she entered, so she could not tell his age with any accuracy.

"Hi, I'm looking for George Arnold," Elizabeth said quietly to announce her presence.

The man turned quickly, smiling. "You found him. Are you the one who bought my painting?"

Elizabeth nodded.

"My grandma said to expect you. I'm glad you like my work."

"I do, very much. That painting captures a scene, and an emotional response to it, that I don't think I've seen anywhere else before."

"I doubt very many people of our generation have experienced anything like that, so it's good if it's original."

"Of course, you're right. I was thinking of asking you what it was like to be out there, that close to an animal so large, but then I realized that the look on your face, on the face of you in the painting, that probably says it better than words."

George's smile turned to a grin. "I hope so," he said dropping his gaze to the floor and actually dragging the toe of his right shoe back and forth across the floor. The bashful movement stood in stark contrast to the powerful, youthful body of this man.

"Do you have a special job in the canoe?"

"Nah, I just paddle. Joe throws the harpoon and Al shoots the gun. The rest of us just try to get the two of them close enough to do their jobs, without getting so close that we all die. My cousin is one of the ones who jumps in the water to tie the whale's mouth shut so it doesn't sink. Lots of honor in that job, but I don't swim so good. So I just stay in the boat."

"Well, if you don't swim that well, it must take an awful lot of courage to get in the canoe in the first place. They're gorgeous and all, and I'm sure they're functional, but there's not much to them. I would never have the guts to get in one of those things."

George dropped his gaze again. "Wanna' see some pictures? I got some right here of the last whale we brought in." He ducked below the counter and reemerged with an envelope of photographs. He flipped through them quickly, then spread out four on top of the glass counter for Elizabeth to see.

"This one, is the whale obviously," he said pointing to the top right. "It was a good whale. We got enough meat that we'll be able to bring it out of the freezer and feed everybody that comes to Makah Days next month, and that's after each family got their share."

"This one," he said tapping the photo to the left, "is of all the men on this hunt. See that's me grinning like an idiot down in the front."

Elizabeth smiled.

"These bottom two are of the men cutting the whale up for distribution, and the scientists taking their measurements and their samples."

"Scientists take these measurements every time?"

"Yes, we are required to report to the National Marine Fisheries Service the dimensions of each whale, its sex, the dimensions of any fetus if it's a pregnant female, and then they take tissue samples to analyze. We have our own scientists who do research on the whales, too. Not exactly part of the old customs, but an important part of our ceremony now."

"You and your grandmother obviously take a lot of pride in this. Has it brought the benefits to your culture that you had hoped?"

"Yeah, I think the elders are happy with the results. We aren't suddenly wealthy or healthy or even well-fed, but we feel a connection with the old ways now that we didn't necessarily before. It gives us hope, especially for the young ones and for the future. That's what it's really for. Hope and spiritual well-being. The whale spirits are giving us strength and we feel that."

"I'm glad to hear that. And I hope that what you're doing here, fighting for and making use of your treaty rights, I hope that inspires other native nations and gives them hope as well."

"We do get a lot of support from all the Indians who come here or that we meet off the rez. Its a good time to be indigenous." George showed no sign of embarrassment now.

"Well, I sure appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. Your enthusiasm and your," Elizabeth hesitated as she searched for the right word, "humanity shows up in your work and I'm really glad I got a chance to meet you." She raised her hand to shake his, "You know, I'm sorry, I didnt even take the time to introduce myself. I'm Elizabeth Montgomery. I mean, I'm Elizabeth Wellstone." Elizabeth blushed.

"Around here, it's not a good thing when a person doesn't know their own name."

Elizabeth blushed deeper. "I'm in the middle of a divorce. My husband's name is Montgomery. I'm still getting used to calling myself by my maiden name."

George grinned. "Maybe you need a naming ceremony."

"Yeah, that probably couldn't hurt. Do you guys do ceremonies for outsiders or is that only a privilege of birth?"

"Well, that depends on how much you're payin'."

George teased back. "Round here, we get our ceremonies for free. But you could probably find somebody who'd be happy to wave some feathers around you and dance around a fire and name you Water Moccasin or Light That Never Goes Out or just about any name you can think of, if you paid 'em. Then they'd be tellin' the story of how they put one over on the white woman who didn't know her own name every where they went forever. It would make a good story."

"Well I've probably been the subject of too many of other people's good stories in my life. I think I'll pass this time."

George nodded. "I'm sure I'll hear about it if you change your mind."

"Your grandmother recommended the Smoke Shack for dinner, and I'd like to go out to the trail to see Cape Flattery at sunset. I don't suppose you could recommend a place to stay tonight that isn't already all booked up with summer tourists?"

"Do you have a tent or do you need a room?"

"I have a tent, but I'd be happy for either one."

"Well, since you appreciate good art, I can let you in on a little secret. If you can find Hobuck Beach Park, you can camp just above the beach for ten bucks. Almost nobody knows about it, so I doubt you'll have any trouble getting in. I'll even call over there and make sure before I send you off looking for it."

George was as good as his word. Within five minutes he had confirmed with Vonda at Hobuck Beach that there was room for Elizabeth, and drawn her a map of how to get there. "I'll keep the map when Im finished as an accompaniment to my painting. Then when you're famous, I'll be able to say, 'I knew you when'."

George only grinned.

It was not yet 5:00, so Elizabeth opted to set up camp before heading over to the Smoke Shack. George's map was perfect and within minutes Elizabeth was shaking Vonda's hand and being told to take her pick of sites.

Despite the high summer tourist season, George was right. This campground was nearly deserted, and Elizabeth did in fact have her choice of sites. She chose one in the shelter of a row of Douglas firs, and set up her two-person tent, staked it securely, and unrolled her sleeping bag in the space of ten minutes. She decided to leave her food locked in her car to keep the raccoons at bay. No need to make more headaches for herself.

The Smoke Shack was doing a steady business when Elizabeth arrived just after 5:00. From the conversation around her it seemed many of the patrons were locals, although there did seem to be a fair number of tourists, as well. Elizabeth ordered Combo Plate #3 from the walk-up window, then took a seat at one of the picnic tables. She hadn't realized how much she'd missed food cooked by someone else until she'd sat smelling the aromas drifting out of the Smoke Shack for ten minutes. When the food arrived at her table, she was ravenous. Growing up in the Midwest, she hadn't learned to appreciate seafood the way coastal residents did. The smoked salmon she'd ordered, however, nearly melted in her mouth and had a richness she hadn't expected. Paired with an ear of roasted corn, a hefty biscuit, and a foil-wrapped baked potato split down the center and dripping with butter and sour cream, Elizabeth found the meal to be the best she'd eaten since she'd arrived in Washington.

When she had cleared her plate, she sat a few minutes considering the state of her stomach. It was still screaming that it was hungry, though Elizabeth knew she had eaten so quickly her stomach probably hadn't had time to register that it was full. If she sat here another fifteen minutes, or better yet, if she left, she would probably feel perfectly satiated in no time. She couldnt stick it out, however. She studied the menu again, then headed back to the walk-up window and ordered Combo #1, a smaller meal of the same alder-smoked salmon paired this time with a side of fries and another biscuit.

The woman behind the counter couldn't contain her surprise. "You're still hungry?"

"I haven't had a proper meal in months, and the first one tasted so good, I just had to have more."

The woman nodded, rang up the order, and appraised Elizabeth's narrow, bony shoulders and skinny hips as she dug in her wallet for money. When Elizabeth had reclaimed her seat at the table, the Makah woman turned and gave special instructions to the cook.

This time when she delivered Elizabeth's food, she set two plates in front of Elizabeth, and commanded, "You eat all this. A woman needs some softness to her body and you ain't got none," before marching back into the shack.

Elizabeth was too startled to say anything before the woman was gone. On one plate in front of her was the food she had ordered, plus a second biscuit and extra packets of butter and honey. The second plate was buried under an ear of corn and a pile of beans. Elizabeth scooped a forkful of beans into her mouth and was amazed at the smoky, bacon flavor. She made a mental note to find out what time the Smoke House opened the next day, so she could stop in for one last meal before heading east toward Puget Sound and her ferry off the peninsula.

Elizabeth let the conversations around her wash over her as she steadily cleared her plates. When she had scooped the last of the beans onto her fork with her biscuit and then popped the last, crunchy bite of biscuit into her mouth, licking the honey from her fingertips, she was decidedly full. If she didn't want so badly to see the Cape at sunset, she could have easily waddled back to her tent and fallen immediately to sleep.

She pulled a small pile of dollar bills from her wallet, tossed the empty styrofoam plates in the trash, and dropped the money in a jar labeled "TIPS" on the walk-up window's counter. The Makah woman's back was turned, so Elizabeth called to get her attention. "Thank you very much. Everything was delicious!"

The Makah woman spun to face Elizabeth and grinned. "Good. And you are full?"

"Couldnt eat another bite! What time do you open tomorrow?"

"Around eleven."

"Great, I'll see you then," Elizabeth waved and headed back to her car.

It was only a short drive to the Makah Air Force Station, then a turn north and an equally short drive to the parking lot at the trail head. Elizabeth draped her binoculars around her neck and slung her camera bag over her shoulder, and started down the half-mile trail.

It was a boardwalk trail, complete with railings in most places, through the woods to the water's edge. There were small square or rectangular decks built at regular intervals with benches to sit under the trees. Elizabeth found it to be one of the most well-maintained trails she'd ever visited. The sun was sinking into the western horizon, slanting sideways through the trees, and increasing the magic of the place. She passed only one couple, both younger than she and holding hands on one of the benches, on her way to the final platform.

Here, at the end, was one last, multi-level series of decks overlooking the Pacific Ocean and nearby Tatoosh Island with its lighthouse, built in 1855, the same year the Makah made their treaty with the U. S. government that sacrificed the majority of their tribal lands and protected the Makahs right to continue whaling for subsistence and cultural purposes. Looking at the lighthouse, Elizabeth had a difficult time reconciling its modern appearance with the fact that it was quite old and the Makah had suffered many generations of cultural disintegration and loss since its completion. How amazing that the tribe would build and maintain this beautiful trail that ultimately led to a view of a monument to their subjugation.

The light was also a monument to the numbers of shipwrecks that had occurred along this treacherous, rocky coastline, going back hundreds of years. For all of its danger, however, it was breathtakingly beautiful. Twenty-five yards below, waves pounded upon the rock cliff that supported this overlook. White water swirled and foamed around the exposed rocks at its foot, occasionally hitting at just the right angle and with sufficient force that spray shot ten feet into the air. This cliff was pocked with water beaten caves that, in Elizabeth's mind, only added to the danger of this area. She imagined herself, swirling in the deafening surf below, searching for a way to safety. She felt her body slam into the rocks, felt them scrape against her skin until she bled. Felt the surf knock her again and again away from any safe hold.

The thought made her dizzy. Elizabeth shook her body to remove the horrible fantasy from her mind, and tried to focus instead on the sunset. The light now was composed entirely of deep oranges and purples, brilliant, and almost too dazzling to be real. She remembered her camera and steadied her elbows on the wooden railing as attempted to capture the spirit of this rock on film. She feared she hadn't quite got it, that the frame was too narrow, that she was too distant to really do justice to the surf, the lighthouse, the rock, the island, the coast, the sunset. A full roll later, she lowered the camera and commanded herself to absorb these sights, the smell of the ocean and the trees, the sounds of the waves, directly into her body so no matter what materialized on film, she would be able to carry this place with her.

She hated to leave and promised to come back the following morning, before her meal at the Smoke Shack, for another look. Whether or not she actually made good on it, Elizabeth knew that such a promise was the only way she was going to be able to drag herself from this spot. The sun had nearly dropped into the ocean and the trail back, while quite safe, would be dark if she didn't start back right away.

As she turned her back on the cape and headed into the trees again, a loneliness Elizabeth hadn't felt in weeks ambushed her. It wasn't a loneliness for Todd or for anyone in particular, just for someone. Elizabeth sighed aloud, but the trees seemed to absorb the sound even before it had fully escaped her body. She didn't pass anyone on her way back to the car, the kissing couple no longer occupying the bench on which she had encountered them before. The darkness settled around Elizabeth's shoulders and the trees seemed to hug in tighter, too, pushing at the loneliness that was trying to wrap itself around her body and her mind. As she reached the head of the trail at the parking lot, she whispered, "Thank you," up into the trees, then dug in her pocket for the keys.

There was no traffic on the roads as she retraced her path to Hobuck Beach. Elizabeth pulled the flashlight from under the passenger seat, locked the car, and found her way back to her tent. Two green eyes glowed at her from in front of the tent's door. A black mask encircled them, the animal's hands empty and planted firmly on the ground.

"Hello," Elizabeth said quietly. "Sorry, I didn't bring anything for you."

The raccoon stared at Elizabeth a few seconds longer before ambling away out of the circle of light Elizabeths flashlight cast. Elizabeth was relieved that the animal's exploration of her campsite had been limited to the outside of her tent. The raccoons along this coast had no trouble with zippers, and could have easily been rooting around inside her tent and sleeping bag had it so desired. As she opened the tent door, the fabric was covered with moisture from the night air. The wind that had blown in so strongly all day, had apparently settled after sunset, leaving everything wet to the touch. Luckily, her sleeping bag still felt dry as she pulled off her boots and the sweatshirt she had thrown on over her T-shirt for the walk to the cape overlook. As she snuggled into the sleeping bag, she realized how tired she was. She would sleep well tonight.

And she did. A perfectly restful, relaxing sleep. There were dreams, too, but these dreams were too vivid to recall, too enchanting to wake her, too magical to require analysis in the light of day. These dreams were the kind that did their work at night, changed the person they visited profoundly but inexplicably, and then evaporated.

When Elizabeth awoke to the sound of her tent snapping in the wind which had returned along with the sun, she felt blissful in a way she couldn't remember feeling before. As though all of her wishes had been granted in her sleep and there was nothing left to want or need. Any trace of the isolation and loneliness that had followed her home had been banished, replaced with an all-encompassing feeling of wholeness. Her body felt languid and loose, not stiff as she had anticipated, despite a night of sleeping on the ground without a mattress. She unzipped the door of her tent and crawled out into piercing white sunshine that made the beach look brand-new. It was an early light and not yet warm, but Elizabeth felt it wrap around her body anyway. She stretched and smiled out over the ocean, watching a line of five pelicans glide low across a wave. She took off her socks, tossed them into the tent, and closed the door.

The sand was cool on her feet and still damp from the night air. She walked toward the water, shivering slightly in the wind as it grazed her bare legs under her shorts, and let one long, shallow wave swallow her feet and ankles, on its rush up the sand. When the ocean inhaled, the wave withdrew, cutting rivulets between and around her feet, sucking her toward the ocean, too, pulling the sand out from under her so that she sank deeper into the beach. She watched the foamy water run, still tingling from the cold shock of it. When the next wave came, she skimmed her foot quickly across the top, kicking water several feet into the air. The wind blasted several drops right back at her. Elizabeth tasted salt on her lips. She had an urge to just lie down on this beach, and let the waves roll over her here in the shallows. She couldn't explain this urge, and it seemed to grow in strength the more she resisted it. Instead, she walked back and forth in the waves, kicking, dragging her feet, standing still to resist the ocean's seemingly urgent need of her, resisting, giving in, feeling the water as it moved around and over and under her skin.

Her mind was empty of its usual thoughts, no chatter, no worry, not even any questions or discoveries. No recognition of the cold of the wind or the waves. Just quiet joy at the sheer sensory overload of this beach in this light on this morning.

She had no idea how long she played there. It was the gradual realization that she was hungry, ravenous really, that slowly woke her from this water trance. Her movements slowed, and she realized the sun was quite a bit higher in the sky, and warmer, now than it had been when she arrived. She said a mental good-bye to the beach, and headed back toward her tent, still flapping in the breeze. She shivered again, as she marched up the sand, which was now dry. Her legs were numb from the water, so she couldn't determine whether the tingling in them came from the sand that blew into the backs of her calves as she walked, or simply from warm blood circulating through their veins again.

Two hours later she was again parked outside the Smoke Shack, trying to decide what to eat. She decided to ask for input from the woman behind the counter.

"Oh, honey, how hungry are you today?" was the response she received.

"Oddly, I'm starved."

"Well, then, we just got in a nice batch of pork ribs that we've been smoking for the past twelve hours. We're adding a slab of those to our Combo #3 today for just two dollars more."

"Sounds like a deal. I'll have one of those. To start," she added with a slight smirk.

"Well, I dont think we'll run out any time soon, and we'll be here all day. You eat as long as you want."

This special combo meal was all Elizabeth could handle today. The ribs were so tender they just fell off the bone, and they, too, seemed to melt in her mouth. Maybe there really was something magical about this place that made the food taste better, the light brighter, her sleep sounder. She couldn't believe she was actually going to get in her car and leave it all behind.

When she got up from the table to dispose of her plate, the Makah woman stopped wiping down the picnic table next to hers. "So what do you say? Full?"

Elizabeth laughed and grabbed her stomach. "Stuffed to the gills! Those ribs were amazing."

"Back for more tonight?"

"No, I have to leave. I'm heading over to the North Cascades for work, and if I don't get a move on, I just might never leave this place."

The woman straightened up. "Don't go nowhere." She dropped her cleaning cloth, and disappeared into the shack. When she returned, she carried a small brown paper bag, rolled over twice at the top, which she handed to Elizabeth. "Take these brownies for the trip. They're fresh this morning."

"You know my weakness! What do I owe you for them?"

The woman shook her head and waved her hand vigorously. "No, no. Just take them. I would hate to think of you getting hungry. I've seen you eat!"

"Thank you! That's very kind. If I can manage to get through this way, before I head to the east coast, I'll stop back in for some salmon."

The woman nodded. "You do that. Have a safe trip."

With that she bent back over the table and resumed her work.

Elizabeth emptied her wallet into the tip jar and carried the brownies, still warm, back to her car. She really was stuffed, but couldn't resist looking into the bag. The smell of warm chocolate teased her nose, and Elizabeth broke the top brownie in half, carefully reclosed the bag, and savored every crumb of the brownie in her hand.

When she had finished, she knew it was time to get on the road. Stopping to walk to the overlook would only make leaving more difficult, so she pointed her car back toward SR 112 and retraced her path off the reservation, back toward Clallam Bay, where she stopped only long enough to use an ATM machine, and then blazed new ground as she reached Pillar Point and continued on toward Port Angeles.

When she stopped for gas, she congratulated herself on making good time and for getting moving again, then stopped to consider how much sightseeing she wanted to do today. Her goal was to make it to the ferry in Kingston, then spend the night across the sound in Edmonds. The ferry ran late into the night at this time of year, however, to accommodate the hoards of tourists who flocked to this part of the country to make use of the few months each year when sunshine could reasonably be counted on. Between this town and the ferry dock, Elizabeth had a choice of stopping at Dungeness Spit or taking a slight detour and partaking in the more touristy Port Townsend, the Bed and Breakfast capitol of the world[?]. Dungeness Spit was, at seven miles long, the longest natural sandspit in the world, with a lighthouse open to whichever members of the public managed to walk out to the end to visit it. The light was maintained by a historical lighthouse preservation society whose members were allowed to sign up for a week per year in which they could stay on-site, assist visitors, and participate in any maintenance or preservation projects that were currently underway. Port Townsend, with over 100 operating bed and breakfasts, had once been the nation's second busiest port, behind New York City, and was now preserved as an historic Victorian district with walking home tours, antique shops, and an active arts community.

Elizabeth couldn't bring herself to pass up seeing the spit, but knew she was in no position to make a seven mile hike out to the lighthouse and return in time to make her ferry. She decided she would drive to the Dungeness Recreation Area, see what she could see from the beach or her car, and then spend what was left of her afternoon and evening exploring Port Townsend.

The spit was located on a point that jutted into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and was a slight detour from the main highway. When Elizabeth finally found its entrance, she was met by ranger in the parking lot. There was an entrance fee to walk down to the beach, but it was small, and Elizabeth willingly paid it. She was handed a map and shown to the wooded path that led down the side of a bluff to the water.

Before she had reached the beach, she found an observation deck that looked over the length of the spit, and the bay it both created and protected, all the way to the lighthouse. Elizabeth dropped a quarter into one of those mounted, coin-operated, long-distance viewing machines posted near the far railing. After several moments fiddling with the focus knobs, Elizabeth had an excellent view of the light, only a few years younger than the one she had just visited on Tatoosh Island, built in 1857. The spit was narrow, and apparently covered by water during very high tides or storms which cut the lighthouse off from the mainland. A familiar pile of drift logs lined the easternmost edge of the spit, pushed here by the pounding surf from the west, and Elizabeth could make out a widely dispersed line of hikers, thinning the closer to the light she scanned, coming and going along the seaside. The inner bay stood in stark contrast to the ocean, which rolled along the length of the spit in white water. The bay was still, a feature being taken advantage of by two great blue herons fishing along its perimeter. A sea kayaker paddled slowly across its surface.

Elizabeth focused her own binoculars, but couldn't get the same clarity she had achieved with the viewer. She caught sight of what she thought was a seal or an otter splashing out of the water and waited. A few moments later, the creature's head surfaced, then submerged, and the animal flung its entire body out of the water for just a moment. Elizabeth gasped.

"What'd ya' see?" a female voice behind her asked.

"I'm not sure!" she said, turning to find a ranger with her own binoculars in her hands. "Maybe an otter jumping out of the water?"

"Where?"

Elizabeth pointed.

"I think I saw it jump twice, but I can't figure out why it would do such a thing."

The ranger was quiet for a few minutes as she trained her binoculars on the spot Elizabeth had shown her. Then she exploded, "You're right! It is jumping! And there's a second one, just maybe thirty yards away, that jumped just after the first."

"Youre kidding. Jumping north or south of the first?"

"South."

The women waited again.

"I saw it!" Elizabeth said at last. "How amazing! Is that some kind of communication do you think? Or maybe just some kind of game?"

The ranger shook her head. "You got me. Who knows what goes through a seal's head."

"You could tell they were seals?"

"Pretty sure. For one thing I think they're too big to be otters. I've seen otters on the protected side, but not usually in the surf like that."

"How long have you been here?"

"Only since June. I'm a volunteer, camping my way around the country by serving as camp host."

"Really? I'm volunteering with the Student Conservation Association this year. I was at Rialto Beach down in the Olympic National Park since April, but they're sending me to fill in in the North Cascades during fire season. Then I'm heading down to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore in September."

The women talked about the various life experiences that had drawn each of them to their respective volunteer positions, then moved onto the challenges of doing this kind of work. The Dungeness ranger, Naomi, was in her fifties, a widow, and a new grandmother who had decided after the birth of her first granddaughter that it was time to spend what energy she had left protecting the wild places still surviving in pockets of America. This was her third park in the past eleven months. She hoped to find one place in particular where she could put her talents to the best use, but was still enjoying exploring the country on her own and testing herself in each new place. After more than hour, Elizabeth sadly said she had to be moving on.

"Aren't you even going to go down to the beach?"

"I don't think so. I spent yesterday at Neah Bay and Cape Flattery and it was all I could do to make myself leave. I'm not doing justice to this place just viewing it from afar, but, believe me, if I want to make it across to Edmonds tonight, I'd better be making myself move now."

Elizabeth photographed Naomi framed on one side by the white-capped water of the strait and on the other by the bay and the tiny lighthouse in the distance. Then she headed back up along the path the way she'd come, listening to unseen songbirds flit in the trees overhead.

Naomi had recommended that Elizabeth take one more detour on her way back to highway, this time to drive along the bluff that overlooked the spit and bay. The directions she'd given were easy to follow, and the view turned out to be well worth the few minutes it took to get there. The left side of the road was lined with stately, square houses that looked like they were setting themselves against the wind, hunkering down to weather any storm. The right side had an unobstructed view over the water. At the end of the street, Elizabeth found a house operating as a Bed and Breakfast with a sign out front announcing a vacancy. It took all of her concentration to keep driving past the house's driveway toward the plans she'd already made for her day.

Chapter Ten



When the road split, continuing south and east toward Highway 104 toward Kingston, or curving north around Port Discovery to become Highway 20, Elizabeth turned north. Port Townsend occupied the tip of yet another small peninsula, this one bounded on the north by the Strait of Juan de Fuca and on the east by Admiralty Inlet. She followed the highway all the way to its end where it became Water Street, apparently the main downtown drag. As she'd expected, the street was lined with small specialty shops, the sidewalks were lined with tourists, and the curbs were lined on both sides with parked cars.

After twenty minutes of searching, Elizabeth found a parking spot, several streets up in front of a furniture store. The bench outside the store actually caught her eye before the empty space in front of it did. Upon closer inspection, Elizabeth found the bench even more charming. Made from branches that appeared to have been stripped of bark and tumbled in the sea for months, the bench had an organic feel unlock any shed ever seen before. The branches were not cut and nailed together, but rather seemed to be woven with other branches to create a high arched back and a wide seat with arms at either end. The artist had adorned it by placing small rocks at the highest point of the arched back, three in a line, held in place by the knotted and gnarled limbs that appeared to have grown around them.

Elizabeth decided to test it out before looking at the price tag. It was surprisingly comfortable. She knew she had made the right choice, however, when she leaned over to read the tag that dangled from the bottom of the left arm. It cost more than a month's salary at her highest paying job. Elizabeth sighed and pushed herself back to her feet, then hurried away before the salesman who had just extricated himself from another customer could waylay her to discuss the bench's finer details.

In town, she nosed around a few antique stores, and was glad that she knew little of antiques and had no place to store such a purchase today. It made her browsing more painless. When she found herself in a glass blowing shop, however, her luck ran out. True, she knew little of the art of glassblowing and she had nowhere to display or store such fragile items, but that didn't stop her heart from beating fast at the sight of bowl, apparently shaped from a single, square piece of glass that shimmered in pinks and blues with splotches of bright red staining it randomly. Or at the sight of a glass frog, green with red eyes, and one of its long legs draped off of the ledge on which it sat. Or at the sight of any number of other decorations in the most dazzling of colors. Who knew she had such a fondness for blown glass?

When she found her way to a display that showcased earrings and other jewelry made of glass, her wallet practically leapt into her hand. She was absolutely going to have to buy something. There was a pair of earrings that nearly screamed her name. Made of a deep emerald green with flecks of gold, they spiraled in a freeform twist to end suddenly, nearly three inches from the end of the wire from which they hung. They were completely impractical as Elizabeth no longer had a social life and earrings of that size would certainly not meet the park service's regulations. Still, she asked to see them and spent several minutes holding them alongside her face in the display mirror. In another life perhaps she could pull them off. They set off her green-flecked brown eyes well, and with her long, wavy hair pulled off her shoulders would balance out her features nicely. She put them down, anyway, changing tactics. She really didn't have the resources, but if she started her Christmas shopping very early this year, buying gifts for other women in her life, perhaps she could justify these to fill her own stocking this year? After all, with Todd out of the picture, she was the only Santa she had left.

She chose a pair of elegant aquamarine drops for her sister Jess, then a pair of purple ovals that seemed to have a film of oil casting a rainbow over them for her mother. A geometric lapel pin in dusty rose seemed just right for her mother-in-law. Wait. Soon to be ex-mother-in-law. That didn't matter, Elizabeth decided. She had always gotten along well with her husband's family, and as long as they continued to be receptive toward her, she intended to keep doing so. She purchased the three pairs of earrings and the pin, tried hard to avoid thinking of the money she was spending, and walked out of the store feeling quite buoyant. After that, she allowed herself to browse through a kitchen store, knowing it had little probability of tempting her, but forced herself to pass up a used book store. An antique lace shop, a quilt store, a kite shop, a candle boutique, these she deemed safe. A chocolate shop (she reminded herself of the free, delicious brownies waiting in her car), a nature store, and an art store most certainly were not. Still, she had been wanting to try some new watercolor pencils. Perhaps she could go in, ask only for those, and leave without looking at anything else? No, she knew better than to risk it. Instead, she walked her new treasures back to her car, thinking the whole way up the hill of brownies.

She drove through town again, and this time followed signs out to the furthest point, Point Wilson, where yet another lighthouse stood, this one quite the youngster with a birthdate of 1879. This was Fort Worden, where the movie An Officer and a Gentleman, had been filmed, and in the summer the light and the Commanding Officers quarters were open to tour. The barracks, apparently, were also used to house conference goers. Only in the Pacific Northwest, thought Elizabeth, where "casual" and "rustic" were words to live by would a person pay to stay in a barracks.

She pulled the other half of the top brownie out of its paper bag and ate it sitting on the lawn under the light. Then she ate half of the second brownie, before finally convincing herself to get up and go climb the stairs to the top of the lighthouse. The view to the north and east was of Whidbey Island, a long skinny stretch of land at the foot of which the Admiralty Inlet emptied into the Puget Sound, and to the south was of Nordland and Marrowstone Islands. To the west, the still snowcapped Olympic Mountains rose up to dwarf everything else in sight. Elizabeth used up another roll of film before getting back into the car one last time.
She wasn't stopping again until she hit Kingston, which by her estimate was still nearly two hours away. The sun was dropping fast now, and Elizabeth was hungry, in spite of the brownies. She would just have to wait until she got there to eat, however. Perhaps the ferry would have a snack bar, and if not, she had groceries in the trunk and knew she was in no danger of starvation after the huge amounts of food she'd eaten in the last twenty-four hours.

One of the things Elizabeth had always appreciated about living in the north was the late hour at which the sun set in the summertime. Today's light lasted long enough that she only had to turn on her headlights fifteen minutes prior to reaching the ferry terminal. Once there, however, she learned that it would not last long enough for her to see the Puget Sound from a ferry by daylight. The line was so long, there would be a two-hour wait before she could board. There was, however, a small row of shops lining the entrance to the terminal, and Elizabeth had had time to notice first a pizza restaurant and next an ice cream shop. What more could a girl want?

She locked her car, pulled a jacket out of the trunk, and sat on the curb outside the pizza parlor while she waited for her pepperoni and jalapeno pizza to cook. She checked her watch. Too late to call Jess who would undoubtedly be asleep at this hour, even on a Friday night. The only people she knew on Pacific Time were Sam, Leslie, and the rangers she'd just left at Rialto. She hadn't been gone long enough to justify a call to any of them, even Leslie who'd barely had a chance to get used to having the trailer to herself.

Elizabeth wandered next door to check out the ice cream flavors. Then she had a wicked idea. When was the last time she'd had dessert before dinner? She left the shop with a double waffle cone with chocolate chip cookie dough on the bottom and black cherry ice cream on top. She reassumed her position at the curb and had only two inches of cone left when her name was called from inside the pizza parlor.

She slurped the rest of the ice cream while she balanced the pizza box in one hand with her large soda balanced on top of that. Then she carried the pizza to a picnic table overlooking the water. It was getting chilly and the pizza cooled off fast. Elizabeth only had room for two slices, anyway, and shoved the rest in the back seat of her car until she could refrigerate it at the hotel.

The white, multi-level ferry was brightly lit as Elizabeth finally drove across its ramp and followed the crew members' waving arms pointing her where to park. She had never seen such a large car ferry before, and was amazed that it had two decks for automobiles, topped off by two observation decks, each complete with rest rooms, vending machines, video games, chairs and tables for eating or working, and long bench seats perpendicular to the windows to provide an excellent view. There was a small snack bar on the top level, though by now, Elizabeth was stuffed. After she'd explored all there was to see on the inside decks, she ventured out to the outdoor observation platform. A strong wind blew across the railing. Elizabeth surmised that the people standing out here were, like her, tourists. She could see all the way across the water, to the lights that she supposed must be the boat's destination city of Edmonds, and to another ferry, lit as brightly as this one, carrying passengers to Kingston. A quick walk to the rear observation deck yielded a stunning view of the Olympic Mountains with just a slash of purple sunset backlighting them against a quickly darkening sky.

The trip was a quick forty-five minutes, and she waited until the captain announced their arrival before heading back inside and down to the lowest level where her car was parked.

Sue had told her about a hotel and convention center just a block south of the ferry dock, and that's where Elizabeth planned to stop first to check for vacancies. From the ferry dock, she could see little of Edmonds, but she easily followed Sue's directions and found herself within minutes checking into a room at the hotel. She carried in only one duffel, and the pizza she planned to eat cold for breakfast, then fell quickly asleep on the bed, suddenly more tired than she had realized.

Chapter Eleven



After a breakfast of cold pizza and soda from the machine at the end of the hall, Elizabeth felt ready to begin another day. It was Saturday, and she was only a few hours drive by freeway from the North Cascades Olympic Park. She still had time to sightsee, if she wanted to make use of it.

She left her car parked at the hotel, as she was warned by the desk clerk that street parking was hard to come by on summer weekends, and walked into town. She found herself back at the ferry dock, which according to signs posted at the road, was situated between two beaches the town had designated marine sanctuaries.

On the opposite shore, the Olympic Mountains loomed over the water, appearing so much closer than they really were. On this shore, north of the ferry dock was Brackett's Landing, its small parking lot filled to the brim and a police officer quietly writing tickets for vehicles parked illegally around the edges of the turnaround at the end. The short, sandy beach ended at a jetty with a paved walkway out to its terminus, of which Elizabeth decided to make use. From there, Mount Baker, the volcano that sat little more than one hundred miles to the north of Seattle could be made out on the horizon, a looming white shape that she had at first mistaken for a cloud. She planned to arrive there by tonight, and hopefully camp in the national forest so she could do some early sightseeing on the mountain in the morning before reporting for duty and settling in the national park just next door.

On the other side of the jetty, the sand beach continued for at least a mile under a short cliff that supported railroad tracks, a passenger train blowing its whistle as it slowed near the edge of town and prepared to stop at the station just across the road. The beach was lined with scuba divers in various stages of undress, either preparing for a dive or coming in from one. A woman, red-faced from the exertion of climbing out of the water at the end of her dive, plopped onto a picnic table next to where Elizabeth stood surveying the scene.

"Is there much to see out there?" she asked the diver.

"That depends. Supposedly, yes. It's an underwater park where the city has submerged boats to create artificial reefs, and yeah, compared to other places, there is a lot of life down there. Problem is, visibility is terrible today."

"What's terrible?"

"About two or three feet in front of your face. By the time you've seen something, it's probably too late to do anything about it in the event it's dangerous. Luckily there's not much dangerous down there."

"Is that because the water's so dark?"

The woman managed a smile, despite the fact she was still breathing hard. "It's mostly because of the seaweed. These definitely aren't the blue waters of the Bahamas, but there are times of year, when the seaweeds die off, when visibility is definitely better."

Elizabeth considered that. "But that would mean you'd be diving in the wintertime. You don't actually do that, do you?"

"I've only been diving for a year, and I only made it out here once last winter. But, yeah, the water temperature stays in the mid- to high-fifties here year-round, so there are people out here just about every weekend."

Elizabeth shivered just thinking about it. "Do you ever have problems with the ferries?"

"Rarely. Classes are supposed to dive only north of the jetty, and hopefully anyone certified is smart enough to stay far enough away that the engines don't bother them. But I have heard of a couple of divers who got disoriented and got chopped by the engines."

"Okay, then. You've definitely talked me out of ever wanting to try it."

The woman laughed again. "Despite the way I look right now, it is great fun. If you have any inclination at all to try it, I say don't hesitate."

"Don't worry, you didn't just crush my dream of diving. I'm scared enough of being on top of the water, I really have no desire to spend any amount of time under it."

"Yeah, I was pretty scared, too. One of my boyfriends was an avid diver, spent all his money and his time on the sport, so I had to learn if I wanted to get to know him better. Diving is nothing like swimming, which I don't do especially well. As soon as you get over your fear of sucking in air underwater, then it's just a matter of getting used to the gear, and that happens pretty quick."

"Is your boyfriend with you today?"

"Nah, I spent enough time with him through diving that I figured out pretty quickly that I didn't really like him that much. But by that time, the diving had took."

"Don't you have a partner when you do this?" Elizabeth asked, scanning the waterline to see if someone else might be emerging.

"We were supposed to dive as a foursome today, but one of the group came down with the flu at the last minute. We decided to go out with just the three of us. I started getting tired and not feeling well myself, but the other two didn't want to stop yet. So I came out alone to leave them buddied up."

"Wow, that sounds kind of scary. Did they at least follow you back to make sure you'd be okay?"

The woman shook her head.

Elizabeth decided to let the matter drop. These risks belonged to her companion and were none of Elizabeth's business. "Do you need any help getting that gear off? It looks kind of heavy on land."

The woman's shoulders collapsed. "You are an angel! I sure could use some help, I'm too weak right now to be good for much. I don't know what's wrong with me. I just started feeling lightheaded and nauseous, and didn't want to be down there anymore. I'm Gail, by the way."

"Well, Gail, your face is pretty red. Just tell me what to do and where to start," offered Elizabeth, scanning the equipment attached to this woman's body and trying not to appear as clueless as she felt.

After half an hour of struggle, Gail was finally freed from her gear and returning to a normal color. Elizabeth asked if she needed her to call anyone for her before she left, but Gail declined, saying she would be happy to wait for the other divers in her team.

Elizabeth said good-bye and headed back toward the ferry dock. If she continued south, she'd been told she would find first the Edmonds Beach Ranger station, which should be staffed today, then the marina, several excellent seafood restaurants, and Marina Beach, the third marine sanctuary and an excellent place to have a picnic or take a low tide walk. If she turned east, she would find herself on Main Street.

Elizabeth turned east and began up the street toward what she could only assume was the heart of town. After her spending sprees of the past two days, she vowed to keep her purse strings tightly closed, and to do plenty of "just looking." She passed all the usual, a bank, a diner, a nail salon. Then a renovated, single-screen movie theater showing a film that had been released several months ago, but which she hadn't yet seen. She would consider coming back for the early matinee, if the day didn't get away from her. There were specialty stores offering gifts for pets, stationery and papers, travel guides and paraphernalia, boutique gifts, garden supplies, resort wear, toys, wine, and even native arts. Elizabeth did an excellent job of moving through those she found to be of interest quickly and without touching anything. If she didnt touch it, she couldnt possibly buy it.

When she had exhausted the two streets that seemed to comprise the bulk of the town, Elizabeth decided to stop at Clare's Pantry for lunch. A Monte Cristo sandwich, fries, and a soda later, she decided to skip the movie, whose start time was still nearly an hour away, and walk back to the hotel to pick up her car. She needed to get away from "civilization" fast, so she could stop eating so much. The sooner she was back in a park with only limited services around, the better.

The drive out of town was the most congested she'd experienced since she had arrived in Washington months earlier. Once she reached the freeway, the congestion only worsened. Everyone, it seemed, who lived in the greater Seattle area, and perhaps many who lived elsewhere, had somewhere to go. Sam and Sue had warned her of this, and she tried to relax and not let the traffic raise her blood pressure too much.

She turned up the radio and tried to focus on reading the traffic signs, which announced places whose names she enjoyed wrapping her mouth around, Mukilteo, Tulalip, Stillaquamish, Squalicum. Even here, where the roads were crammed with eight lanes of traffic moving north and south, this was still the greenest state she'd ever visited. Huge pines lined the freeway on both sides, wildflowers or flowering shrubs often growing at their feet. And every fifteen minutes it seemed she was crossing another river, or at least a tributary or drainage basin[?]. To the right now, she caught glimpses of the Cascade Mountains, her destination, as she left the Olympics behind on the left. It was something of a miracle, or an oddity, or maybe even some terrible mistake, that there should be so many people, in so many vehicles, out here in what had so recently been wilderness. Elizabeth fervently hoped as she passed through these developed areas of the state that they had sound development plans that would preserve what was left of the region's natural beauty.

She followed I-5 North, through Everett, Marysville, Mt. Vernon, Burlington, all the way to Bellingham, just a few miles short of the Canadian border. Then she veered east onto Highway 542, the only major throughway to Mt. Baker and the Mt. Baker Snoqualmie National Forest. Elizabeth knew she was taking a risk by hoping to find a campsite available without a reservation on this narrow, switchback of a road that had only one destination. If the campgrounds and motels were all full, she'd have to backtrack fifty-eight miles to the interstate to find a place to spend the night. She was in the mood for adventure, however, and took the turn onto what was known as the Mount Baker Scenic Byway with high hopes.

Even though it was a bright, warm day in July, tourist season was just getting into full swing in this neck of the woods. Many of the trails and scenic areas at the highest elevations in this national forest often were not free of snow and open for visitors until mid to late July. Elizabeth's timing couldn't have been more perfect.

As the highway veered away from the interstate, it offered views to the north of the Coast Mountain Range in Canada, as well as a glimpse of Mt. Baker in its full 10,778 feet of glory. Elizabeth was tempted by hand-painted signs near the road advertising U-Pick raspberries and by an advertisement for Mt. Baker Vineyards, with its gift shop and tasting room. However, she wasn't quite as tempted by the Nooksack River Casino, as she wasn't much of a gambler. Twenty-five miles down the road she decided to stop for gas, just to be on the safe side, since this was the last station on the highway. She made note of a sign pointing toward Silver Lake that displayed a camping symbol, then continued on another five miles to a scenic turnout with a partial view of Mt. Baker. She grabbed her camera, loaded it with a new roll of film, and used this turnout as the beginning of her volcano photography session. When she was going to have an opportunity to develop all of these rolls of film was anyone's guess, but she wanted to capture these places as best she could while she had the chance. Even though the North Cascades were right next door, she had no way of knowing whether she'd be back this way before she left for the east coast.

Nine miles further up the road, she found the Glacier Public Service Center, the main communication center for rangers to aid park users in planning hikes and camping. Elizabeth didn't need any permits for the sightseeing she planned to do, but decided to stop to find out which areas might still be closed due to snow and to inquire about which campgrounds would be good bets without a reservation.

A handwritten chalkboard inside the station announced that all areas of the park were now open, by just two days, and warned visitors to be careful of bears, raccoons, and other animals who might approach in search of food. The ranger at the counter suggested Elizabeth try Douglas Fir National Forest Campground, just two miles up the road, since they accepted reservations but did not require them. If they were full, there was still the chance that Silver Fir Campground, ten miles further up the road, might still have vacancies.

After picking up a map of the area, Elizabeth drove to the Douglas Fir campground. It was small and somewhat primitive, with pit toilets, but modern enough to have running water safe for drinking. The camp, built by the Civilian Conservation Corp in the 1930s, was set up along the North Fork of the Nooksack River, with the majority of the campsites abutting the water, a picnic area, and boat launch. Nineteen of the twenty-nine sites were reserveable, but a sign at the entrance directed that if there was no ticket attached to the small wooden number post near the road, the site it marked was available on a first-come, first-serve basis. The river sites were all occupied, but as Elizabeth looped around toward the back of the campground, she found one site, only a few steps away from the outhouses across the road, still available. She backed the car into the site, checked out the tent pad, and decided it was as good a place to spend the night as any.

After registering at the park entrance and putting up her tent, Elizabeth decided she would drive further up the road to check out Nooksack Falls, and then return to a restaurant she'd passed a mile back and treat herself to one last dinner out. Something about eating cold food alone at her campsite, or cooking for one over a fire, did not appeal to her today. She made herself a promise, too, that henceforth, whenever she saw a solo traveler eating alone, she would offer to let them share her meal. Perhaps other solo travelers really did find their adventures, and their solitary eating habits, romantic, and they might turn her down. Then again, they might secretly be wishing for companionship, too, and be glad of the offer.

It was not far to the falls viewpoint. The Nooksack River plummeted one hundred feet here, and viewing platforms with sturdy metal railings allowed for some stunning views. Elizabeth leaned over the rail, balancing her elbows, and snapped picture after picture, attempting to capture the rainbow that arched across the water at the foot of the falls. When she moved to the other end of the platform, she realized that the angle of the sun allowed her to see a full rainbow, arching a full three hundred and sixty degrees, floating in the mist that hovered just a few feet above the falling water itself[?].

This same mist drenched the railing and the platform, along with Elizabeth and all of the other visitors who crowded each other to look over the edge, but in the sunlight it was a welcome part of the experience.

It was still early, but Elizabeth decided to head back for dinner. She would save the rest of this scenic drive for tomorrow morning, and use tonight to catch up on her rest.

The parking lot of the restaurant she'd targeted was nearly half-full when she arrived. She hoped that was a sign the food was good. There was no wait for a table, and the hostess who greeted her showed her immediately to a small table for two right in front of the window. Seeing as it was her last real meal for the foreseeable future, Elizabeth decided to splurge one more time. She ordered an appetizer of stuffed jalapenos, then the bacon cheeseburger topped with ranch dressing and onion rings. She finished the meal with a slice of chocolate pecan pie, which she ate very slowly so as to find room for every crumb. Now she could only hope that her stomach would shrink back to its normal size relatively quickly so she didn't spend the next week starving while she became reaccustomed to living on cereal and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Back at the campground, she walked to the picnic area with her sketch pad to do some quick field sketches of the river. It had been awhile since she'd done any landscape work, and it was a relaxing endeavor. Elizabeth worked hunched over her pad atop a picnic table until the light had sunk so low in the sky her eyes were beginning to strain. She closed the book with a sigh, sat a few minutes longer listening to the sounds of the night bugs coming to life, and walked back to her campsite. It was barely nine oclock, but she decided to call it a night. Her only other option was to try to write letters by the light of her lantern, and she'd been so bad with her correspondence up until now, she didn't really see a point in improving her track record so late in the season. She'd wait until she'd been at the new job awhile and had something to report before writing anyone. Besides, everyone she knew was probably too busy with their own lives to wonder about hers.

Chapter Twelve



Artist Point, at 5,140 feet in elevation, on the twentieth of July still had patches of snow cover, not on the asphalt parking lot that was the turnaround point for the Mt. Baker Scenic Byway, but around the edges, obscuring ground cover in some places, with wildflowers poking their buds through in others. To the south, Mt. Baker's snow-capped form towered over the other, non-volcanic mountains. At 10,778 feet, it dwarfed Mt. Shuksan to the east by more than 1,500 feet. From this parking lot Elizabeth could take a trail and hike to the top of Table Mountain, whose elevation was five hundred feet higher than where she currently stood taking in the views. She decided against it, however. She still wanted to walk the half-mile loop trail around Picture Lake a few miles back, and drive Glacier Creek Road to one last view of Mt. Baker. She wandered out onto the trail just long enough to scoop a handful of snow from the grass and shape it into a ball. She tossed it gently into the air, and watched it land, creating a small crater in the melting snow. She wiped her wet hands on her jeans and headed back to her car.

Two miles back down the road she passed the Heather Meadows Visitor Center, at which she had stopped on her way to Artist Point, and three miles beyond that she parked next to the road near Picture Lake. Even from here, standing at the hood of her car, she found herself capturing the most amazing "wilderness" photographs of snow-capped mountain peaks rising above the opposite shore of this small, blue lake that still had a thin layer of ice along one edge. This park did such an excellent job of bringing its visitors to the heart of the wild, there seemed to be no need to stray from the road.

Elizabeth did force herself, however, to walk the short, paved path that circled the lake. Few others bothered, and as she looked up toward the road at the line of parked cars with their occupants taking photographs from open windows or from the shoulder of the road, she was stunned by how sheltered she'd been in her adventures. Here she was, spending a year working in national parks, trying to learn about herself and create a new life in the wilderness, and she had yet to take a risk. She had yet to let herself even experience wilderness.

The beach at Rialto had been an edge, a narrow ribbon of sand and rock and driftwood that she could safely travel and pretend to know. True, she had experienced her first earthquake there, but that wasn't really a risk she had taken consciously. There was also the minute threat of a tsunami, but she didnt even know when the last tsunami had hit the west coast of the United States. Again, not really a risk she could claim to have assumed willingly. And, here, today she had never been out of sight of the car in which she'd been quite safely ensconced for the majority of the past four days. Didn't she owe it to herself to push her boundaries just a little bit further than these?

She knew she didn't want to waste her year, getting to the end of it and realizing she hadn't really tried anything terribly new or seriously stretched herself in any way. That was the story of the last fifteen years of her life. It was time for a change.

She practically raced back to her car. She found the journal she had bought and hardly touched in the last four months and hurriedly found her way to the picnic table perched between her car and the lake. She sat cross-legged on the table top for nearly an hour, scribbling so fast she had to stop every once in awhile to shake out the cramps in her hand. This, she knew, was an epiphany, and she needed to record it. Thoughts this powerful didn't present themselves to her with great frequency, and she didn't want to let this one and its implications for her life slip away. If she tried to forget now, the journal would haunt her, her own words goading her to consider her choices more carefully.

When she finished, Elizabeth felt such a surge of energy she was sure she was about to explode. She had crossed some bridge, one she hadn't even known was there, and now she needed to get moving with the life that waited for her on its other side. She decided to skip the nine-and-a-half-mile, unpaved drive up Glacier Creek Road, and begin her journey right away to the North Cascades. That was where her future was about to begin.

Back to iMusings