“So, then…”
“So—I realized that maybe I had it wrong. That maybe the feds, my buddies, were f*****g it up even worse. That maybe the private collectors had a point. You know, governments move too slowly. The Duke of Bedford saved the Père David deer, collectors saved the eared pheasants, private breeders are saving the Rothschild’s myna…”
“Shhh.”
This time they all heard it. From out of the darkness all around them it came, from the river and the trees, upstream and down, from inside their chests and between their ears, humming and ticking. The rhythm was exactly like Manuel’s, cough, cuff, cuff, cuff. But no human lungs, even amplified, ever resonated like that. It was omnidirectional, and as it died they all looked wildly around, hair standing on end on every neck. It was an old sound
