Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 126823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
“Courting you?” Harlow echoed.
Attention immediately swung to Raine. Shabina smirked.
“Oh no you don’t,” Raine countered. “Do you see what she’s doing? That’s called manipulation. She’s directing attention toward me so you won’t talk to her about Rainier.”
“Are you trying to outsmart Raine?” Zahra lifted an eyebrow as she passed around chocolate bars.
“For a moment, I may have lost my ability to think clearly.” Shabina went for humor. “Just the thought of Rainier does that to me.”
Harlow rolled her eyes. “The thought of Rainier with you scares me to death. Sam is sweet, but he does have that aura of danger surrounding him. Zale is quieter and gives the impression that he could very quickly go lethal, but Rainier has an altogether different vibe. He doesn’t even try to hide what he is.”
Shabina tried not to bristle or come to Rainier’s defense. Harlow wasn’t saying anything that wasn’t true. Rainier didn’t bother to hide who he was from most people, not unless he was playing an undercover role.
“We don’t know Rainier.” Raine unexpectedly came to Rainier’s defense. “Since none of us do, we can’t fairly judge him, can we?”
Shabina didn’t look at her, but she wanted to throw her arms around Raine and hug her.
Zahra pouted openly. “Well, that takes all the fun out of everything. What are we supposed to do now?”
“Discuss the murder and what could be happening, other than what it appears,” Stella suggested.
“Do we have to talk about the murder?” Zahra protested with one of her most dramatic groans. “We’re going to sleep in tents where anyone can creep in and bash us in the head with a rock.”
Stella glared at her. “That was the assignment, Zahra. We were all going to think of different reasons this killer would have an altar with mixed feathers and flowers, including some from Saudi Arabia. Instead, you were researching bears.”
“That wasn’t my fault. I didn’t understand how the body wasn’t found by a bear when there was blood. Shouldn’t a predator like a bear or mountain lion have scented it? Essentially, even if I don’t want to think about it, a body is meat. Once I looked up what bears eat, I began to worry about all of us here and the scent of food and how to protect Raine. That’s a logical progression.” She was indignant.
“I can see how that would happen,” Shabina soothed. “I get caught up in research all the time. I’m sure Raine does as well. And Harlow must with her photography. We all get sidetracked when we’re interested in a subject.”
Zahra sent her a winning smile. “I did think about the murder and why the bird feathers and flower could have been mixed in with the ones from here. Also, the fact that the body was found on a trail that was overgrown and no backpackers use. It was closed, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Shabina said. “Mainly because it leads to one of the rare bird-nesting sites. The park shut down that trail two years ago. Only a very few avid backpackers ever go that way. It’s steep, with a lot of twists and turns. The trees grow closer together. A small stream crosses the trail in three spots, and it can be very muddy. It’s high altitude, so the snow doesn’t melt as quickly as in other areas. The ground can be very wet for the month of June and even July.”
“But you go there,” Vienna said.
“I discovered the birds nesting there and photographed them. I don’t go often because I don’t want to take a chance of disturbing them, but I was interested to see if the female would lay an egg. They are extremely slow to reproduce. If they do, it’s only one egg and normally only every other year. It’s been a rare opportunity to study them,” Shabina said.
“What kind of bird?” Stella asked.
Shabina hesitated. “It isn’t something we talk about because there are so few left alive. They became extinct in the wild sometime around the 1980s. The last of them were brought in to try to safeguard them and keep the species going. A few have been released into the wild fairly recently. They’re magnificent.”
She sighed as they all waited expectantly. “There’s a mated pair of California condors several miles up that trail. Most of the time they nest in the crevice of a cliff or a cave, but they found a burnt-out hollow in one of the trees. They don’t breed in the wild until they’re at least seven, or that’s the understanding. That’s what’s so amazing about discovering them nesting right here in Yosemite in a burnt-out hollow of a tree.”
There was no way to keep the excitement from her voice. “The adults take turns incubating the egg, changing places regularly every few days. Their wings, from tip to tip, can be nearly ten feet across. Seriously amazing. They can weigh twenty pounds and soar very high in wind thermals, but have such great eyesight they can spot food easily. They can easily fly up to a couple hundred miles a day. It’s the find of a lifetime.”