The Tourist Trail Read Free Page A

between the waves. She looked up, half expecting to see a boat cresting the hill, then heard a scream. Her own. The penguin had bitten the skin between her thumb and forefinger.
    â€œDoug, take hold of the beak,” she said, trying to remain calm.
    Doug fumbled with the bird’s wings, finally grabbing onto the head and prying the beak apart. Angela snatched her hand back. The bird squirted out beneath her knees and retreated to its nest.
    Angela’s fingerless ragg glove was shredded, and blood was beginning to bubble through the crevices and soak through the fabric.
    She started up the hill, toward the sound. Doug followed.
    â€œWhere the hell are you going?” she said.
    Doug froze.
    â€œWe’re not done measuring,” she told him. “Stay here. Don’t let that bird go anywhere.”
    Angela stomped up the hill, angry with herself for making such an amateur mistake, for letting emotion get in the way of science.
    The first thing she saw as she crested the hill were whitecaps blown backward. She felt her body pushed forward by the stampeding wind, a breeze that had rolled off the Andes and gathered speed over hundreds of miles of nothing.
    Then she saw him.
    A man prostrate on a flat stretch of rocks that extended two hundred yards away from the beach. The remnants of an inflatable boat. It looked as if the boat had exploded, sending him and his belongings in all directions.
    She hurried over sand and mussel-covered rocks, the sound of crunching shells in her ears as she neared him. He was facedown, a large man in a fluorescent yellow jacket and an early beard. The waves washed over his legs. She grabbed his arms and pulled him, as best she could, away from the water. And it was then that the body stirred and opened its eyes. He came to, as if from a deep sleep.
    â€œWhat?” he asked.
    â€œYou were in the water.”
    â€œGoddamn piece of shit,” he said, looking around. “The engine flooded. Wave tossed me.”
    Another wave crashed, dragging him across the mussels into Angela’s shins, nearly taking her down. He spit out salt water and looked up at her, confused. She helped him to his feet, and he leaned on her until they reached sand. She saw smears of blood on his jacket and arms and neck. She sat him down, pawing at his clothing, looking for the source.
    â€œYou’re hurt,” she said.
    â€œI’m wet.”
    â€œYou’re bleeding. You need a doctor.”
    â€œNo doctors.”
    â€œBut you’re bleeding.”
    â€œThere are people looking for me. People who wish to hurt me. Do you understand?”
    She drew away from him. He had the look of a merchant marine—a reddened face that rarely saw sunscreen and lines on his forehead and cheeks from a life spent squinting. He appeared to be in his early forties, and fit. His thick, dark hair could have used a haircut six weeks ago. He looked her up and down in a deliberate way, as if he only just noticed her.
    â€œYou’re the one who’s bleeding,” he said.
    She glanced down to discover the source of all that blood. Her ragg glove was saturated and dripping. She felt the sting of salt water. She remembered Doug and glanced up the hill, relieved to see it empty.
    â€œLet me look at it,” he said. She offered up her hand and he gently peeled back the moist wool. “How’d this happen?”
    â€œPenguin.”
    He looked up at her. “A penguin did this?”
    She nodded. Though his face was sunburned and rough, his eyes were calm and steady, and for a moment Angela forgot the pain in her hand.
    â€œAnd I thought I was having a bad day,” he said.
    Now was the time to return to camp and notify the authorities. Report what she’d seen, stitch her wound, document items recovered, note coordinates, date, and time. Normally that was what Angela would have done. She detested all nationalities of tourists and trespassers.
    Yet this man was neither. He