"You fiend!" Qwilleran exploded. "I just had this washed and pressed! I can't wear any of this now."
Koko stood in the doorway, looking impudent—with legs splayed, tail stiffly curled, and ears pointed in two directions.
Qwilleran sat down abruptly on the bed. Could it be that Koko did not want him to visit the Island Experience? The cat knew nothing about the inn, or the women who ran it, or the reason for going there! Or did he? Something was going on in that little cat brain!
Qwilleran shrugged in resignation. No one would believe that a man of his size, intelligence, education, and wealth could be tyrannized by a ten-pound animal. Now he had lost the wherewithal and the incentive to visit the Island Experience.
He brought a bottle of club soda from the refrigerator and took it to the porch to drink while he simmered down. It was calm on the porch. The woods were beautiful after the rain. He saw some yellow flowers outside the screens that had not been there before. When a rabbit hopped out of the underbrush and came close to the porch, Qwilleran remained quiet and motionless. And then he witnessed the incredible. The Siamese came out of the house and ambled toward the rabbit. There was no stealth, no stalking, no hostile posturing. They looked at the visitor, and the rabbit looked at them with his nose twitching. Then he hopped away.
Qwilleran finished his drink and then changed clothes. He put on some lightweight jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and his yellow baseball cap. "I'll be back after a while," he told the Siamese. He found the mosquito repellent and beaded for the nature trail.
There was a wagon in front of Five Pips, delivering a small barroom piano. Lori had unlocked the door for the deliverymen, but the window shades were still drawn. "Hi, Qwill!" she said. "The hotel is lending her a piano. Isn't that nice? She'll be here starting this weekend."
"Have you ever taken the nature trail?" he asked.
"I haven't had time, but I hear it's lovely."
The approach to the trail was mysteriously inviting. The path was thick with pine needles and spongy after the rain. On either side there were tall, straight pines with lofty branches admitting shafts of sunlight, while oaks and graceful birches dappled the path with shade. At intervals, small paths led into the underbrush on the left, each marked by a name painted on a shingle or small boulder: SEAGULL INN ... ISLAND EXPERIENCE. Farther along there was a larger marker: GRAND ISLAND CLUB—PRIVATE, followed by the elegantly simple names of summer estates like SEVEN OAKS and THE BIRCHES. Narrower trails, darkly forbidding, led into dense woods on the right; an occasional sign said KEEP our ... or simply DOGS.
Qwilleran never attempted to identify flora and fauna. Through painful experience he knew poison ivy when he saw it, and he knew which small animals had long ears and which had bushy tails. Otherwise he was botanically and zoologically illiterate. He merely enjoyed being alone in the forest with his thoughts. No one else was abroad after the recent deluge. He was in a small, green, private world of sights and sounds, plus the occasional prick of a proboscis on the back of his neck. The trail went on and on. He climbed over hillocks and trotted down into bosky gullies. At one time he asked himself, Will I be able to write a thousand words about this?
Eventually the fresh, verdant aroma mingled with another—the dark muskiness of marshland. Once more he misted his clothing with mosquito spray. When he passed a boulder marked THE PINES, he knew he would soon reach the sand dune and the end of the trail. He would round one more bend and then turn back.
As he skirted a large shrub, however, he caught a glimpse of an apparition on the path ahead. He stepped back out of sight to assess the situation, then cautiously peered through the shrub's branches. It was a woman on the path ahead ... with fluttering garments of pale green ... and long, lank hair like a mermaid. In a flash of nonthink he imagined a lacustrine creature washed ashore in the recent rain. The notion soon vanished. This woman was real, and she was apparently studying the low-growing plant life. He found himself thinking, Watch out for poison ivy, lady! She would stoop to touch a leaf, rise to write in a book, then turn to the other side of the trail to examine another specimen. It was odd garb for a botanist, Qwilleran thought; when Polly went birding, she wore hiking boots and jeans. This woman's movements were graceful, and her apparel added to the enchantment. He felt like a mythic satyr spying on a woodland nymph.
A sudden scream brought him back to reality. She had been reaching into the ground cover when she shrieked and recoiled in horror!
Without thinking, he rushed forward, shouting inanely, "Hello! Hello!"
"Ricky! Ricky!" she screamed in panic.
"What's the trouble?" he called out as he ran toward her.
"A snake!" she cried hysterically. "I'm bitten! I think it was a cottonmouth! ... Ricky! Ricky!"
