Out of the Deep (4 page)

“Everything's always my fault,” Bindy muttered.

“Never mind,” Steven told her. “When it's time for lunch, I'll see that you get a decent meal.”

T
he park resource manager, Greg, impressed Jack. He was tall and muscular, with thick salt-and-pepper gray hair, and he looked good in his National Park Service uniform. At every national park the Landons had visited, Jack had felt admiration for the rangers, biologists, naturalists, and law enforcement people who seemed to care so much about the jobs they were doing to preserve the best part of America—its wildlands, history, and natural beauty. He'd started to think he might like to work for the Park Service himself, after he grew up and finished college.

“My office is pretty small,” Greg was apologizing, “so I thought we'd better meet here in the conference room. I didn't know there'd be so many of you Landons,” he added, laughing.

“I'm not a Landon,” Bindy announced, shaking Greg's outstretched hand. “I'm Bindy Callister, a problem child the Landons are stuck with for a while.”

Greg looked a little surprised, but he smiled and said, “Well, have a chair then. You can sit next to me, Bindy Callister, problem child.” When he pulled out the chair, Bindy plunked onto it and grinned up at him.

The Landons seated themselves around the table, with Olivia opposite Greg. Immediately getting down to business, she said, “Just to review the facts, you had 12 marine mammals strand at Isle au Haut a week ago. All of them were dead, or died shortly after stranding, correct? There were 5 seals, including 3 mature animals and 2 pups; 6 porpoises, all mature; and one humpback whale, a mature female 40 feet long and weighing approximately 37 tons.” Dropping her professional manner, Olivia exclaimed, “You must have had some job getting that body off the beach.”

Greg nodded. “Even after the head was cut off and sent to Harvard Medical School for examination, that still left a lot of whale carcass to remove. Fortunately, we had a large group of volunteers helping us do the job, and the weather has been cool for May. If it had been hot and sunny, the smell would have made us all gag. It was bad enough as it was.”

“Where are the other carcasses?” Steven asked.

“In an ice storage unit in Bar Harbor. We'll drive over there later, Olivia, so you can examine them.”

Bindy wrinkled her nose as though the thought of examining dead animals was disgusting. She was just about to say something when Steven gave her “the look,” a forbidding expression he'd perfected with his own kids. It worked on Bindy, too. She kept quiet.

“The first thing that crossed my mind was sonar testing,” Olivia continued. “After that case in the Bahamas where 16 whales and a dolphin beached….”

“Olivia, refresh my memory about that case, will you?” Greg asked. “I know that acute auditory trauma and the intense pain connected with it can really mess up a whale's navigation system. Maybe you didn't hear about it, but just north of here, off the coast of Newfoundland, there were some explosions from an underwater drilling operation that could have interfered with the navigational skills of a bunch of humpback whales. They blundered into fishing nets.”

Steven commented, “Getting tangled up in nets can be as bad for whales as strandings.”

“Definitely. Still, in the 11 years I've been here,” Greg went on, “we've had a couple of whales that were already dead come floating ashore, but we've never had anything like the
mass
stranding that happened this week. It sounds more like the case in the Bahamas.”

Olivia shuffled some papers before she said, “I'll tell you what I've been able to research so far, Greg. The Bahamas stranding involved 16 whales and 1 dolphin.” She went on to explain that just before the whales washed up on the beach, the U.S. Navy had been testing mid-frequency sonar in the ocean, not too far away. The stranded whales were a smaller species that weighed only about 2 tons each, so volunteers could push most of them back into the water. “But 7 of the whales died right on the beach, and none of the others have been seen since then.”

“So they died, too,” Ashley whispered softly. “Except they died out in the ocean.”

Greg asked, “Did you read the necropsy report? I managed to get a copy of it. Biologists examined the tissue and bones around the whales' ears and found that they'd hemorrhaged.”

“Right. Since whales live in a world of sound, they need their hearing for communicating with each other—and for finding their way around, locating food, and avoiding predators. In other words,” she said, explaining it for Bindy's benefit, “they make sounds and listen to the sounds echoing back to them. That's how they tell where objects are in the water.”

Steven added, “It's the same principle as the sonar the Navy was testing—they send out a signal and listen for its echo.”

“Right. Anyway, it seemed pretty certain that the Navy's sonar testing confused the whales and caused the stranding in the Bahamas.” Olivia picked up the report and waved it. “As things turned out, the necropsies—that means autopsies on animals, Bindy—proved that the sonar had done more than just confuse them, it had actually damaged the whales' ears. Three of them showed signs of bleeding in their inner ears, and one showed signs of bleeding around the brain.”

“That's bad,” Jack declared. “I hope the Navy stopped doing the sonar testing after that.”

Greg looked a bit uncomfortable. Drumming his fingers on the tabletop, he said, “You know, I was in the military myself before I joined the Park Service. Quite often, the military has to walk a fine line between defense measures and environmental harm.”

“Yeah, I read about the decision in this particular case,” Steven agreed. “The Navy said it would protect marine mammals as much as possible—during peacetime. But they also said that national security comes first. And right now, since the war against terrorism began, this is no longer considered peacetime.”

“Correct. And the sonar they were testing is used to detect enemy submarines,” Greg added. Standing up for emphasis, he declared, “However, I am absolutely sure that the Navy has not been testing low-frequency, mid-frequency, or any range frequency of sonar in these waters this week or the week before. I personally spoke to a high-ranking officer in the Navy Department, and he assured me of this. I believe him.”

“Then what?” Olivia asked. “What caused it? Has anyone performed a necropsy so far on any of the dead marine mammals?”

Greg sat down again, looking grim. “Yes. On one of the dolphins.”

“And the results?” Steven asked softly.

“Hemorrhage of the inner ear.”

The room was silent.
Sonar,
Jack thought.

“So the Navy lies,” Bindy blurted. “Hey, everybody calls me a liar, but my little exaggerations are puny compared with this coverup!”

“Bindy!” Steven cried sharply. “That's enough.”

With her forefinger, Bindy pretended she was sewing her mouth shut.

Looking angry, Olivia murmured, “Steven, why don't you take the kids for a drive around the island. Greg and I have a few things to go over, and then I want to examine the dead marine mammals. We'll meet later at the motel—you can take the kids back there after they've had a chance to see the park.”

“Right.” Steven had them on their feet and out of the meeting room so fast, Jack felt like he was being herded by a sheepdog.

 

Jack had jumped into the front seat of the car next to his dad. He didn't want to get stuck with Bindy, who sat in the back with Ashley. Heading south from the Visitor Center, they'd done the tour the way most tourists did—from the inside of their car. Steven drove silently, his mouth clamped in a firm line. Jack was afraid to ask him to stop so they could get out to enjoy the view.

With nothing better to do, Jack started reading the roadside signs. One said, “Wild Gardens of Acadia,” but they passed that turnoff. The next read “Abbe Museum,” and they passed that one, too. The next sign said “Bridge Clearance 12 feet 2 inches.” With interest, Jack studied the bridge that arched above the road. Made entirely of slabs of sand-colored stone, it seemed to have been put together as intricately as a jigsaw puzzle.

He wondered if his dad was going to keep driving aimlessly, or if he had a place in mind to stop and take pictures. They'd already passed a lot of scenic spots. At last he slowed the Taurus and pulled into a small parking place. “Everybody out,” he told them. “This is the place I wanted you to see.”

Red spruce trees towered overhead. As they walked, Jack could smell the salty Atlantic mixed with the pungent tang of evergreen. The sound of waves crashing against rock filled him with anticipation, yet he couldn't see beyond the army of trees, which frustrated him. Jackson Hole had towering mountains, but there was something almost mystical about the ocean, and the sooner he could touch the waves, the better. Ashley, too, seemed excited. She kept dancing on ahead until she disappeared behind a bend in the trail. Jack, Steven, and Bindy trotted along behind. Silently, Jack willed Bindy to keep quiet and move faster.

“Hey—how much farther?” Bindy asked, sucking in a gulp of air.

“Not much,” Steven replied. “It's just down that path.”

“Good. I'm not much of a hiker, although I've played one on TV. Hah!” Bindy laughed at her own joke. “Did I ever tell you about how I did this one show where I was supposed to take a fish off a hook, but I said to the director, ‘I can't do it 'cause its little fishy eyes are staring at me!' and the director told me I had to for the scene, you know, so then I go, ‘Well, it's against my religion because I'm a vegan, and vegans don't touch flesh.' Technically, I wasn't actually a vegan, but my mom was, so I figured it half counted. So then the director yells to the prop guy to get a rubber fish and that's what I ended up pulling off the hook—a wet fake trout that still grossed me out, 'cause one of its glass eyes fell right into my hand. Whew! How long is this trail?”

“Just a little farther,” Steven replied. “We're almost there. I wanted to take you through the back trail so you could get the full effect.”

“So you might want to save your breath,” Jack added.

“Hey Jack,” Ashley called out, “turn around and look at that mountain.”

Jack glanced behind him, then twisted to the left and the right. Puzzled, he asked, “What mountain? I don't see any mountain.”

Ashley grinned. “Back home in Jackson Hole, we'd call it a bump in the road. Here, it's named The Beehive. I saw a sign.”

After a minute Jack saw what Ashley was pointing to. “That?” he exclaimed. In Wyoming, the Landons lived in the shadow of the 13,770-foot-tall highest peak of the Grand Tetons. Back there, this little Maine “mountain” would hardly qualify as a molehill. “How high is it?” he asked his dad.

Steven checked his guidebook before he answered, “520 feet above sea level. And that one over there, Gorham Mountain—” He pointed. “The book says it's 525 feet high. But the really big one here on Mount Desert Island is called Cadillac Mountain. It stands all of 1,530 feet high.”

“Wow!” Jack exclaimed sarcastically.

When all three Landons began to laugh, Bindy scolded,” You guys are mountain snobs. Mountains have feelings, you know.”

“Oh, come on…,” Jack began, but Bindy broke in with, “And I have feelings, too, like hunger. I don't suppose there are any restaurants up ahead?”

“Hello—it's a national park,” Jack snapped. “There are no restaurants on the beach. Besides, how could you be all that hungry when you had five oatmeal bars less than two hours ago?”

“Sheesh, it was just a question. Chill out, Jack-o. If I get too hungry, I'll bite my nails.” A beat later she added, “That was a joke, in case you didn't catch it. Besides, I can't help it if I have a healthy appetite.”

“If you exercised more you'd—”

“Jack, could I talk to you for a minute?” Steven broke in.

Sighing, Jack fell back into step next to his father. Steven didn't have to say a word, since Jack already knew the drill: Be nice, be supportive, and above all, don't provoke the foster kid. But what about when the foster kid provoked him?

It took a moment for Steven to speak. A layer of pine needles muffled their footsteps, as if they were walking on blankets. The two of them swung into an easy rhythm, pulling low-hanging branches back in tandem. “You doin' OK, Son?” his father finally asked.

“Yeah,” Jack shrugged. “Just tired, I guess.”

“It was a late night for us all. Don't let your tiredness get the better of you, though. Understand?” When he reached out and ruffed Jack's hair, Jack managed a weak smile. It wasn't his dad's fault that they'd gotten “The Mouth” for a foster child. Well, no matter what, the one thing Jack could take comfort in was that foster kids didn't stay in the Landon home forever.

From behind, he noticed that Bindy didn't move anything like Ashley, who hopped over rocks and ducked boughs as nimbly as a deer. Bindy's gait, in contrast, seemed almost awkward, as if her round arms and legs couldn't quite swing in rhythm. It was hard to believe she had ever been in movies. Jack suddenly remembered that the girl in
Melissa's Dream
hadn't moved like that—the character named Amanda was a gymnast who could walk on a balance beam while talking to Melissa. One more clue that Bindy was faking. Could he ever believe a word out of her mouth?

Steven hitched his backpack full of camera equipment farther up on his shoulders. “Hang on, Bindy, it's just about a hundred yards more. One thing you should know—even though Sand Beach will look like it has real sand, it's actually quite different from what you'd find anywhere else in the park. You can see that on either end, Sand Beach has rocks like the rest of the shoreline of Acadia, but along the crescent—”

“Uh-uh,” Bindy interrupted. “Can't get a tan on those rocks, that's for sure. You know, a tan is mandatory on the West Coast. Everyone in Hollywood keeps their skin bronzed and their teeth white, although I think their smiles look like a bunch of piano keys with lips. So fake. Plus, everyone in Hollywood has to be stick thin. Even the guys eat salad. I'm telling you, it's a weird place.”