Free Endangered Species by Nevada Barr Page B

Despite the tic, concern was clear in his eyes ." The drug
    interdiction plane crashed and the pilot was killed," Hull began again.
    This time Tabby was nodding as if she understood, as if she was taking
    the information in.
    "Todd was with him.  We're pretty sure he didn't feel anything .
    Death was instantaneous."
    Tabby sat stone-still.  Anna shifted her weight.  Her right leg was
    going to sleep.  Hull looked at her for help or corroboration but she
    merely shrugged.  Tabby had heard.  There was nothing to do but wait.
    "Todd wasn't with him," Tabby said finally.  Neither Anna nor Norman
    Hull replied.  Tabby looked from one to the other, the emotions on her
    face as readable as those of a very young child: disbelief, rage, fear.
    And something else.  The last one, Anna couldn't read.  It was how she
    imagined a woman's face would look if her heart suddenly imploded and
    she had the misfortune to go on living.
    Another few seconds passed.  Anna started to get to her feet .
    Tabby began screaming, raw gouts of desperation.  Reaching up, she raked
    her fingers down her cheeks.  The nails had been bitten to the quick but
    the force of the clawing left angry welts.
    Anna turned to Hull ." Get that helicopter.  Get her out of here .
    To a hospital."
    The chief ranger nodded, put his Stetson square on his head, and left
    the kitchen.  Anna could hear his boots clattering down if)e wooden
    stairs to the truck where he'd left his radio.
    Tabby's screams sawed out with the regularity of breath.  Ann,,] caught
    hold of her hands but the fingers remained stiff and curled as if she
    were still tearing at her face.  Twice Anna begged her to stop.  The
    screams went on and the moment Anna loosed her hands the rending of the
    flesh began again.
    "Come on, come on, take it easy, we'll get you through this."
    Anna was murmuring the words she'd murmured to a hundred shaken and
    injured people over the years.  She scarcely heard her own voice.
    A coffee cup sat on the drainboard, an inch of cold coffee scummed with
    milk in it.  Anna dumped it and refilled it with cold water .  In a
    sudden snapping movement she threw it in I'abby's face.
    Abruptly the screaming stopped.  Tabby's hands transformed back into
    something resembling human appendages.  Spluttering like one nearly
    drowned, she wiped the water from the front of her dress.
    You can't do this," Anna said quietly ." Much as you want to, you cant
    fall apart now."
    Tabby smoothed her hands over her belly.  The water made the fabric of
    the dress adhere to her skin and Anna could see a pulsing movement as if
    a tiny hand or foot pounded the ceiling for quiet.
    "Oh my God," Tabby said ." Oh my dear God." She didn't cease to weep but
    the tears came silently, mixing with the water Anna had thrown, dripping
    off'her jaws and down the bodice of her dress.
    Anna pulled up a second chair and sat knee to knee with Tabby, ready to
    catch her if she fell.
    They were still sitting like that when the helicopter came.
    NAKED ANNA STOOD on the shore.  Warm wavelets licked at her Nbare toes
    like friendly puppies.  There was just enough breeze so she could feel
    the air moving across her skin.  Dusk had come and gone and the cloak of
    night gave her privacy for this ultimate freedom.  She marveled at how
    different life was without clothes on; better-at least until it grew
    cold or buggy.  For modern Victoriansa culture that kept nudity in
    darkened movie theaters linked always with sex and more often than not
    with violence-to be outdoors and naked was exhilarating, wild,
    dangerous.
    Particularly for a woman alone.
    Anna pushed that thought aside.  It was media-borne and not usually
    true.  Fear sold ad space and so television and the newsplipers
    mainlined it.
    For a long ways out the ocean was shallow, and she walked sixty yards
    before the water came to her waist.  Stars overhead, stars on the water,
    she sank down and let the sea lift her.  The rubber bands