Creature Discomforts

the path. As he did, Malcolm Fairley broke into appreciative laughter. “Well done, Steve! You really had Gabbi going there for a while. Excellent! Never let it be said that we can't take a joke at our own expense. Right, Anita?”
    Anita had taken a seat on the big rocks around the base of the cedar signpost. She could have been posing for a photograph intended to illustrate the joys of hiking in Acadia National Park, except that her expression was more placid than joyful. In response to her father’s bid for support, she did nothing but dip her chin.
    Looking confused, Gabrielle produced a token, mirthless smile. Wally, however, was furious. “What’s this we?” he demanded. “I don’t hear anyone laughing but you, Malcolm, because the rest of us don’t see the joke.”
    “Of course you do, Wally,” Malcolm said amiably. “Steve has picked out a few points of superficial similarity to have a little fun with us. The pine needles were a nice touch, Steve.” Malcolm chuckled. No one else did. Malcolm resumed. “The rest of you aren’t taking this seriously, are you? There’s no real comparison, you know. Ours is, among other things, a charitable undertaking. The Pine Tree Foundation for Conservation Philanthropy. And the Pine Tree Foundation is as solid as...” He paused. “It’s as solid as...” With relief, he finally said, “As solid as where we stand right now! It’s as solid as Dorr Mountain!”
    “Malcolm,” Gabrielle observed, “below where we’re standing right now? From here down, it’s all rock slides. All the way across, and all the way down to The Tam.” Buck produced one of his moose noises: “Arrggh!” It took even me a second to realize that he was laughing appreciatively. When he looked at Gabrielle, his whole craggy face crinkled into hundreds of separate little smiles.
    “A poor choice of image,” Malcolm Fairley conceded. “But you know what I mean! The foundation is as solidly constructed as the carriage roads! There! Haven’t we been overlooking a crucial point?”
    The famous roads are, in fact, well constructed. Besides paying for the project, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., supervised the construction himself. The carriage roads are synonymous with Rockefeller. Malcolm had no need to refer explicitly to the foundation’s anonymous benefactors. If I caught the allusion, everyone else must have, too.
    Catch it I did: Wham! Another jarring collision with a rock-hard memory. My whole body jerked, and my head recoiled as suddenly and sharply as if I’d slammed full speed into a high rock wall. When I’d been following Malcolm Fairley and Norman Axelrod, I’d overheard Axelrod complaining about the steep ascent. He’d sounded out of breath. “Why the hell here?” he’d wanted to know. “Why the hell here? When the carriage roads would’ve made more goddamned sense?
    I repeat: On Mount Desert Island, the carriage roads are synonymous with Rockefeller.
    “Carriage roads!” Wally shouted at Malcolm Fairley. "Carriage roads! For all we know, you’ve bamboozled the Rockefellers, too!”
     

Chapter Twenty-eight
     
    NO NAMES!” Malcolm Fairley was adamant. “The strictest anonymity is one of the conditions, and I fully intend to see that it’s respected.”
    “I heard you say that,” I told him. “After I fell. You were talking to someone, and that’s what you said.”
    Wally started to reply to Fairley, but his wife cut him off. “Wally, please! These people operate on another level! They obviously have a whole staff of accountants and financial advisors and so forth who do nothing but check these things out. For that matter, so does Gabbi, more or less. Not on that scale, but she has people in Boston who—”
    Quint was, for once, less than the little gentleman. He interrupted Opal to address his aunt. “Gabbi, you did run all this by your people, didn’t you?”
    The appearance of more park visitors gave Gabrielle a good excuse not to answer. Even after the hikers had passed by, however, she evaded the question. Tenderly stroking the bichon in her arms, Gabrielle said, “Molly is thirsty, and Rowdy and Kimi must be, too. I don’t have any water with me, and Holly doesn’t, either. And does someone have something we could use for a bowl?”
    Her observation was accurate; all three dogs did need water. Still, Quint wasn’t fooled. “Gabbi!”
    “Quint, family matters are something we discuss in private. I’m surprised to have to remind you of