Free The Tourist Trail by John Yunker

alluring in their depth. She felt her heart stutter as she considered the invitation, the madness of it all. Running away. Freeing herself of Doug. The gossip. The camp. Perhaps it was time to leave it all behind. To start over. To fight a new battle. To have a man in her life instead of more birds.
    Then reality sunk in. Penguins in need of counting. A Ph.D. not yet attained. People who depended on her. How could she leave now, after so long? And for this man, this capricious, unreliable drunk of a man?
    â€œWe’ll get a new ship,” he said, as if reading her mind, sensing her hesitation. “A ship that patrols only these waters, keeping the trawlers out of the penguin feeding areas. Angela, you’ll do more good for those birds out there than you could ever do counting survivors here.”
    â€œIs that all you think I do, count survivors?”
    â€œOf course not. But at some point you have to ask yourself what’s the good of counting penguins when they’re going extinct.”
    â€œI‘m a scientist. I’m not some warrior.”
    â€œYou’re wrong. You are a warrior. And this is a war. Only the battleground has shifted. Those hundred thousand tourists each year are protection enough. If a bus runs over one penguin, you researchers will turn it into a provincial disaster—you said so yourself. Out there, the fishermen kill a thousand penguins a month, and nobody hears a word. You could change all of that. They need someone out there doing what you’ve already accomplished here. Protecting them, instead of counting them. You can’t tell me you’re not weary of diminishing returns.”
    â€œJust leave.”
    â€œI’m going to,” he said.
    â€œI mean now. I don’t care if you swim out of here!”
    She was not aware she was shouting, until he got closer to her and she could hear her voice echoing back. For so much of her life she’d kept an emotional distance to prevent exactly these moments—an arm’s length, to prevent getting bitten. She pushed him away, but he resisted. She slapped him, but he kept coming. He grabbed her and hugged her tight until she began to sob. Until she told him about Diesel.
    Zero four two two nine.
    A number in a log book that would never receive another notation. A number gone dormant, like most of the log book itself, and the story of her life. Numbers upon numbers of birds that one day left shore and never returned. Diesel had grown into so much more than a number. He’d become a husband and a father; he’d remained her friend. And now he was gone, like all the others.
    Aeneas listened patiently, until Angela’s face was dry. She stood back, feeling embarrassed.
    â€œZero four two two nine,” Aeneas said, quietly, almost like an invocation. And she knew that he understood, that his whales were so much more than numbers to him, too—and at the same time she realized she’d found the one person in the world who understood her, who could read her mind, and he was about to leave.
    She stepped forward and kissed him before she could talk herself out of it, until he pulled away. She watched him, with blurry eyes, as he limped away, crested the hill and disappeared toward the sea.

Robert
    â€œIt’s like an invasion,” Lynda said.
    She and Robert watched the tour buses arrive at the pier, one after another, and empty their cargo. Passengers, eyes squinting, shuffled single file down the steps and up a ramp back into the ship. It was late afternoon, and the Emperor of the Sea’s restless engines signaled an end to its brief visit. Robert sat on a bench, coffee in hand, watching over the circus of street vendors and pedicabs, desperate for last-minute business.
    â€œLooks like they’re preparing for departure,” Robert said.
    â€œI pity the next port of call.”
    â€œFor someone from Miami, that’s really saying something.”
    Robert should have been