Natural Instincts Read Online Free PDF Page A

than a pond, but I wasn’t going to quibble over names. It was maybe half a mile across and stretched about that far in both directions, narrowing to two rounded coves. Trees lined it without a break, save for the main beach off to my right, where I could see the promised boats waiting. In the middle was an island, grassy on one end, brushy on the other, with several pine trees in the middle. As I watched, a loon swam out from behind it, a low, dark shape in the darker water. His wake made a silent V behind him.
    Ah! Something clenched inside my heart. A loon, a real, live loon! Today wasn’t a total disaster after all.
    I gazed at the bird, feeling a sense of mystery, of power, as though I was seeing something very old. I couldn’t tell its gender since male and female loons looked alike to humans, but this one felt male to me somehow.
    He paused and looked across the water right at my site. He was so big! Far larger than any duck I’d ever seen and more sharply angled where ducks were round. He was wild —no loon would ever dive for breadcrumbs in a park. Never. In the dim light, I couldn’t see any details, just a flash of white on his front in contrast to his dark back. I wished he’d call; something about their voices had always haunted me. I’d only heard him once last night, assuming it had been him. His mate might be sitting on a nest at the water’s edge on the island.
    My memory supplied the facts I’d read in a field guide as I gazed at him. Loons had to nest right on the shoreline because they couldn’t walk on land the way ducks did; their legs were too far back on their bodies to balance their large breasts. Nor could they take to the air from land, or from a body of water much smaller than this one. Like an airplane, they needed a runway. In the air, they could reach seventy miles an hour, and in the water, they could dive to a depth of two hundred feet. They could stay down for ninety seconds, helped by the fact that their bones were solid, unlike most birds, who had hollow bones. They could live to be thirty years old, and they were monogamous.
    I rubbed my aching eyes, glad my brain was working again. That was a good thing.
    Even as I watched, this one dove and vanished below the surface without sound.
    A moment later I heard the grating of a boat being launched from the beach. I turned. Sitting in a rowboat was a dark-haired man in khakis. Hal? I wasn’t sure, but it could be him.
    Focusing made my eyes ache worse. I put aside the rest of my sandwich, drew my feet out of the water, crossed my legs, and rested my elbows on my knees. Then I bent forward and covered my eyes with my hands. After a spell that had lasted all day, I knew I’d be feeling tenuous for another twenty-four hours or so. I also knew I’d sleep like a rock tonight, despite not having been exactly conscious for hours. And if I hadn’t taken that pill, I’d be in way worse misery now.
    Being thrown against a wall by your mother when you were a baby did bad things to your head in a lot of ways.
    Almost burning to death in your bed because your father set fire to the house to kill your mother when you were ten didn’t help stabilize your mental state either.
    And being left tied up for two straight days when you were twenty because you’d gotten involved with a very kinky lady, who’d gotten so drunk that when she’d gone out for more beer, she’d forgotten about you and hadn’t come home for the rest of the weekend, was icing on the cake.
    So why didn’t I speak now? I’d used up my voice screaming. At least, that’s how it felt to me.
    The sounds of oars creaking in their locks and the rhythmic splashing of a rowboat’s hull grew closer. I raised my head and opened my sore eyes. The boat was coming along the shore in my direction, and yes, it was Hal. He was looking over his shoulder at me.
    “Hi, Kyle!” he called.
    Great. I should have eaten in the tent. I’d chosen the rock over the picnic table to discourage