Two in the Field Read Online Free PDF

electronics worked and the glass began to lower. Water shot in as if from a pressure hose.
Mistake!
I pushed the “up” button but the window kept lowering. Then I was blasted sideways as the glass gave way. I grabbed for the wheel. I tried to pull myself toward the opening. I took a gasping breath and my mouth filled with water. Panic seized me then. I thrashed around like a great fish, trying to climb to the open window, trying not to breathe the cold water that enveloped me.

 THREE 
    A resonant
caooooooo, hoo, hoo
. Then a deep rolling cadence, like distant thunder, a rhythmic booming that built to a fast climax.
    Tom tom tom tom tom tom tomtomtomtom!
    After a pause it started up again. Underlying it was a sort of cooing, like pigeons, but more staccato. My head reverberated to it, pain licking behind my eyes and temples.
    Christ, I hadn’t felt this bad since …
    Could it be?
    Raising my head with an effort, I discovered that I was lying in high grass. Its gentle swaying and rustling increased my vertigo. The circle of sky above me was the grainy pearl of dawn. My clothes were damp and I was shivering. My arms and legs seemed to work okay, but when I tried to stand up my balance failed and I toppled back. I tried to take stock. My brain was on fire, my eyes swollen nearly shut, my sinuses a clogged mass. But at least I was breathing air, not water.
    How had I escaped?
    A new burst of booming. I crawled in the sound’s direction but managed only a few feet when my arms sank into muddy ooze. I pulled free with a
slurp
and fell back into the grass, exhausted.
    Next thing I knew, the daylight was brighter. The booming came again, startlingly close, and this time I made it to my feet and peered through the tips of the stalks. A dozen birds the size of chickens were gathered on a nearby rise. They were yellowish brown and spotted with black. As I watched, one abruptly broke into the strangest dance I’d ever seen. It began as a soft-shoe routine: he executed clever little foot pats while ducking and circlingand bobbing. Suddenly he stood erect as plum-colored sacs inflated like balloons from his neck. Tail fanning wide, wings drooping, he bobbed maniacally.
    Tom tom tom tom tom tom tomtomtomtom!
    By the time it finished, his sacs were deflated. He let out some chicken-like cackling, sprang high in the air, spun around like he was having an epileptic fit, then strutted and preened as if winding up a Vegas lounge act.
    TOM TOM TOM TOM TOM TOM TOMTOMTOMTOM!
    The sounds threatened to fragment my skull.
    I was looking for a rock to scatter them with when the shadow of some larger creature—hawk or hunting owl—passed over. The birds on the knoll became feathery mounds that blended with the trampled-down grasses. I caught a glimpse of a distant winged shape just as it dipped from sight. Staring at its vanishing point, I felt a strange tug. My previous journey in time had begun with a bird that faded before my eyes; another had led the way to Mark Twain; yet another had saved my life in the Elmira graveyard, and on Russian Hill I’d heard drumming wings while staring down the barrel of O’Donovan’s pistol.
    Was this bird pointing the way?
    Had I come back again?
    Trying not to be carried away by wild hopes, I looked around for portents. The day promised to be a scorcher. Did this sunlight and warming air belong to the nineteenth century? The dew was gone from the grass, and my jeans and cotton shirt were dry. One of my running shoes had vanished, doubtless jerked from my foot in the car. I stepped gingerly over the grass and hopped on the remaining shoe through patches of thistles. Exhausted by the effort, I reached the edge of a swampy pond ringed by cattails and bulrushes. Ducks and mud hens moved on the turgid surface. The relentless drone of locusts added tomy sense of displacement. A poplar at water’s edge offered the only shade on this side, and I headed for it, needing to lie down. Mosquitoes swarmed in dense