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Miranda’s nerves wouldn’t let her sit still.
As it was a lovely September morning, she went for a long walk on the island to pass the time. Spieden was two miles long, less than a half mile across, and lay on the northwest edge of the lovely San Juan Islands of Washington State.
The San Juans were actually the remaining peaks of a drowned mountain range, sticking up steep rocky heads, crowned in thick conifers.
In the 1970s, Spieden had been stocked for big game hunting—none of the predators, but gnu, zebra, several breeds of deer, and over two thousand exotic birds had abounded. The park had collapsed under the pressure of animal cruelty protests and complaints from nearby San Juan Island where stray bullets had been known to cross the half-mile channel.
John Wayne had enjoyed hun
