Chesapeake Read Online Free Page B

fading sunlight and was brown-green in color. The bird was obviously pleased with its catch, for it threw it in the air, severedit with one snap of its beak, gulped down one half, allowing the other to fall into the water. The swallowed portion was so big and with so many protruding legs that it required time and effort to maneuver it down the long gullet, but once this was accomplished, the bird retrieved and ate the other half. Having enjoyed a feast of this kind, it did not bother with mere fish. With a short run it rose in the air, uttered its mournful croaking and soared away.
    Pentaquod went to where the fish had feasted, searching for clues. There were none. The bird had eaten everything. Next day he went there with his fishing line, but caught nothing. However, some days later he watched as Fishing-long-legs caught another of these morsels, enjoying it even more than before, and Pentaquod crept close to see if he could determine what it was that the bird was eating. He discovered nothing he had not seen before: bigger than a man’s hand, many legs, brown-green in color, so soft that it could easily be bitten in half.
    He was determined to solve this mystery, and the first clue came one day while he walked along the southern shore of his island: washed up on the beach and obviously dead lay a creature much like the one the bird had been catching. It was the right size; it had many feet, or what passed for feet; and it was brown-green, with touches of blue underneath. But there the similarity stopped, for this dead animal was encased in a shell so hard that no bird could eat it. Also, its two front legs had formidable jaws with serrated, heavy teeth which could, if the animal were alive, inflict substantial harm.
    How could the bird cut this shell in half? Pentaquod asked himself, and then, an even more perplexing question: And how could he swallow it if he did? He tapped the hard substance and knew there was no possible way for that bird to swallow that shell.
    For ten days he tried to catch one of these strange creatures on his line and failed, and yet twice in that period he saw Fishing-long-legs catch one, cut it in half and force the food down its long neck. In frustration, he realized that this was a mystery he was not destined to solve.
    He did, however, discover two facts about his home that disturbed him. The more he explored the two deep cuts which came close to bisecting the island, the more he realized that some day the two arms must meet, cutting the island in half, and if this could be done, why might there not evolve other cuts to fragment it further?
    His second discovery came as the consequence of a sudden and devastating storm. The midpoint of summer had passed and life on the island had been a growing joy; this was really an almost ideal place to live, and he supposed that later on, when he had traveled upriver to establish contact with whatever tribes occupied the area, he would become a member of their unit. But for the time being he was content with his solitary paradise.
    It had been a hot day, with heavy moist air, and in the late afternoon a bank of towering clouds gathered in the southwest, on the opposite side of the bay. With a swiftness that he had never witnessed in the north this congregation of blackness started rushing eastward, and even though the sun remained shining over Pentaquod’s head, it was obvious that a storm of some magnitude must soon break.
    Still the sun shone; still the sky remained clear. Deer moved deeper into the forest and shore birds retreated to their nests, although the only sign of danger was that galloping cloud bank approaching the bay.
    Pentaquod watched its arrival. It struck the distant western shore with enormous fury, turning what had been placid water into turbulent, crested waves leaping and tossing white spume into the air. The clouds moved so swiftly that they required only moments to cross the bay, their progress marked by the wildly leaping