PROLOGUE
Thick fog pressed down on the valley, snaking ghostly fingers between the foothills and leaving breath on every leaf. It stuck to the ferns in tiny droplets and hung bridal veils over the pines clustered around the shelf of rock jutting out over the gorge.
Ben Gannon sat on the stony outcropping, his gaze fixed far below on the patches of mist gliding along the narrow river like phantom schooners with torn sails. With a sigh, he pried open the lid of his water bottle and took a sip before passing it to his daughter, Layla, who sat at his side.
“Anytime now,” he said as Layla chugged.
Ben angled a finger at the spirals of mist ascending the side of Mount St. Helens. “See there? Lifting already. Twenty minutes from now, it’ll all be burned off.”
Layla tucked the bottle in her backpack and twisted the strap of her pink binoculars with impatient fingers. “Can I have some jerky?”
Ben nodded and a moment later felt her prying into his pack. He held out his hand as Layla unzipped the bag, and she pressed a piece of jerky into his palm. Popping it in his mouth, Ben closed his eyes and filled his nostrils with the honeyed scent of May-morning air. A fewminutes passed, and when he opened his eyes again, the other side of the gully was appearing between patches of mist.
“This is it,” he said, rising and kicking out the pins and needles in his left leg. Layla scrambled to her feet beside him, lifting her binoculars.
A mild gust of western wind rippled their clothes and the sun broke through, bathing the valley in warm, weak light.
“Spectacular,” Ben murmured, his hands on his hips.
This particular vista, even half shrouded in fog, never ceased to take his breath away. It was a dramatic view of the rolling foothills that flowed around the base of Mount St. Helens like thick green batter poured over a mold. Green, at least onthisside of the mountain.
Odd, that. The contrast between the southwest side and the other, blown to smithereens twelve years before in 1980 and still bare and ugly as a newborn baby bird, while this half of the mountain and their quaint little town of Lake Lumin remained virtually untouched, not a pine tree out of place. They’d had their fair share of ash rain down from the black cloud that covered the entire state, ash that was now compressed into a single, fine layer several inches belowground, but other than that, you’d never know that the town had been a stone’s throw from an eruption the magnitude of Mount Vesuvius.
Just plain dumb luck that the mountain had blown in that direction, Ben supposed as he gazed at the verdant foothills, each brimming with streams, and old-growth firs, animals, and birds.
The fog was higher now, just kissing the upper rim of the valley, and Ben lifted the binoculars from around his neck. Today was the day. He could feel it.
In perfect synchronization, father and daughter scanned the gully from left to right.
From up here, Ben could just make out a slice of Lake Lumin far below, a little crescent of blue-green water behind the pines in the late-morning sun, with a corner of the old boathouse peeping out around a dark grove of firs.
Ben’s gaze left the lake and swept the vista toward the mountain.Adjusting the focus on his lenses with a finger, he scanned a shadowy pocket on the far side of the gully.
There it was. A massive nest at the very top of a gnarled snag amid the living pines. He’d found it weeks ago, but had yet to catch sight of the bird that built it. One of these days. Maybe today.
For several minutes, Ben kept the binoculars trained on the tip of the snag, where large branches and piles of brush had been twisted into a nest the size of a golf cart.
“Bald eagle,” he said under his breath. “Gotta be.”
“She’s not gonna show.” Layla lowered her binoculars and popped another piece of jerky into her mouth. “There’d be hatchlings in the nest already if she was gonna lay this year.”
“Hon, don’t talk with food in your mouth.”
Ben slid the binoculars away from the snag and grazed his sight left along Lewis Ridge, where a hiking trail ran atop the cliff on the north side of the gorge.
“She might lay late this year,” he said. “Happens all the time.”
Layla gave a derisive little snort as she zipped the baggie shut and tucked it into her pack.
When Ben’s line of sight reached the end of the hillside that dropped down toward the lake, he started back again, slowly, patiently scanning the forest in the direction of the nest. If she was out there somewhere, he wouldn’t miss her this time.
Sudden movement on a shelf of rock caught his eye, the glint of sun against feathers, and he whipped his binoculars toward it, shifting the focus with his index finger in a practiced motion that brought sharpness to his vision.
Ben’s heart skipped a beat.
There she was, and she was a stunner. Huge, the most gorgeous eagle he’d ever seen in his life, standing there against the naked rock in perfect profile, her posture proud, white and auburn feathers fluffed in the wind.
“Layla,” he whispered, nudging her with an elbow. “Honey, look.”
