12 There Are Three

hearing the workers below or Sam Gribley, who was creeping along the girder to her. "Frightful," he said, disbelief in his voice. "Now they're going to paint the bridge!" IN WHICH There Are Three At dawn the next day Leon Longbridge wedged the .wooden scrape into a fork in the sycamore tree and wired it in place. He climbed down and hurried to his car to watch what came next.

Frightful was too broody to notice what was going on below her, but not 426. He sat on the bridge top in the cold dawn, watching Leon climb down from the tree and Jon Wood grab the iron bow and climb toward him. When Jon was too close, 426 took off with a loud snap of his wings, climbed high, and dove at the man. Jon ducked and climbed on. Sam in his lean-to was also watching. "That ought to work," he said to himself. "The eggs are so close to hatching, she won't abandon them." Frightful snapped out of her trance when Jon Wood swung down to the horizontal girder. She got to her feet. "Hello, Destiny," he whispered. "I'd know you anywhere." Frightful recognized him. "Psee," she called, and stepped back over her eggs. He inched slowly toward her. screamed the alarm of the peregrine. The penetrating call touched Frightful's survival

instinct, and she flew off the eggs. The air was cold. Jon carefully wrapped the warm eggs in bubble plastic and lowered them onto a hot-water bottle in his backpack. He shouldered the pack, grabbed the bow, swung up onto it, and backed down its curved slope to the bridge. Frightful flew back to her scrape. Her eggs were gone. "Kek, kek, kek," she cried. 426 answered her distress call and dropped down beside her. The empty nest stunned and confused them. Movement at the foot of the sycamore caught Frightful's eye, and she saw Jon Wood. She screamed and dove. He was the one who had taken her eggs. He saw her coming and covered his head with his hands. A talon scraped him. Quickly he scaled the tree to the artificial scrape and, fending off Frightful with one arm, he gently lay the eggs in the box. He climbed down, ran across the bridge, and joined Leon Longbridge in his car. Frightful circled and swooped to a limb in the sycamore tree. 426 joined her. Sam watched. Leon and Jon watched.

Minutes passed. The air was cool. Frightful flew from the tree back to the bridge. She circled once and flew back to the tree. She cried her worried call. answered. Agitated, he flew over the town. Frightful followed him. An hour passed. The pair did not come back. "Okay," said Jon Wood. "This isn't working. The eggs have been uncovered for sixty minutes, and at forty-five degrees Fahrenheit, that's not good. I'm going to put them back." He climbed to the box, wrapped up the eggs once more, and returned them to the scrape on the bridge. He was backing away when Frightful lit on the girder and, putting one foot in front of the other, ran to the eggs. She sat down and pressed her brood patch against them. She stood up. The eggs were cold. She sat down again. An hour later she got up and walked away. The chicks in the shells had not moved. She walked back, turned, and snuggled them against her brood patch. She called wistfully.

Dan Martin arrived early for work. He looked up at the gray-blue sky and put on his rain gear. Seeing Leon Long-bridge and Jon Wood, he asked about the falcons. Jon told him they had tried unsuccessfully to move the eggs. "We've got to somehow postpone the bridge painting," Jon said. "I guess there is nothing you can do. I'll try calling Albany again." The rain was beginning to fall when Joe Cassini arrived. Dan Martin greeted him as he got out of his car. "We can't paint today," he said. "Bad rainstorm coming." "We can sandblast," Joe Cassini said. "Is there any reason why we can't start cleaning up rust spots in the rain?" "No," said Dan Martin. "Rain shouldn't make any difference." Then Joe Cassini turned to Dan and put his hand on his shoulder. "When we get to the webs," he said, "I want you to paint the ones near the nest. You seem to know something about peregrine falcons."

"Enough to ask this: Do we still have to go ahead with the work? The bridge won't fall down now." "We still have to go ahead," Joe Cassini said. "I checked with Albany myself. The governor is relentless. Said the tourists were beginning to come to the Catskills, and he wants the work done on time." "I've just been talking to Leon Longbridge and Jon Wood," Dan Martin said. "They tried to move the eggs to another site this morning." "Yeah?" "It didn't work. They had to put them back before they froze." Joe Cassini glanced at the aerie. "Funny," he said, "but I like those birds. They're real spunky." Two hours later, when Frightful again turned the eggs, there was still no movement. 426 arrived with a pigeon. He pulled off a morsel to feed Frightful. The sandblasting machine started up. 426 dove onto his wings and sped away. Sam left his lean-to and walked partway down the mountain. Frightful had not eaten for eleven