Mercer saw the tracks from the sea and smiled. She carefully followed them until she saw the outline of the loggerhead near the dune. From experience, she knew that any noise or disturbance during nesting could cause the mother to abort and return to the water without covering her eggs. Mercer stopped and studied the outline. A half-moon peeked through the clouds and helped define the loggerhead.

The trance held; the laying continued without interruption. When the clutch held a hundred eggs, she was finished for the night and began covering them with sand. When the cavity was filled, she packed the sand and used her front flippers to refill the body pit and disguise the nest.

When she began moving, Mercer knew the nesting was over and the eggs were safe. She gave the mother a wide berth and settled into a dark spot at the toe of another dune, hidden in the dark. She watched as the turtle carefully spread sand over her nest and scattered it in all directions to fool any predators.

Satisfied her nest was safe, the turtle began her cumbersome crawl back to the water, leaving behind eggs she would never bother with again. She would repeat the nesting once or twice during the season before migrating back to her feeding ground, hundreds of miles away. In a year or two, maybe three or four, she would return to the same beach and nest again.

For five nights a month, from May through August, Tessa had walked this section of the beach looking for the tracks of nesting loggerheads. Her granddaughter had been at her side, thoroughly captivated by the hunt. Discovering the tracks had always been exciting. Finding a mother actually laying her eggs had been an indescribable thrill.

Now Mercer reclined on the dune and waited. The Turtle Watch volunteers would come along soon and do their work. Tessa had been the president of that club for many years. She had fought fiercely to protect the nests and many times had chastised vacationers for tampering with the protected areas. Mercer remembered at least two occasions on which her grandmother had called the police. The law was on her side, and that of the turtles, and she wanted it enforced.

That strong and vibrant voice was now silent, and the beach would never be the same, at least not for Mercer. She gazed at the lights of the shrimp boats on the horizon and smiled at the memories of Tessa and her turtles. The wind picked up and she folded her arms over her chest to stay warm.

In sixty days or so, depending on the temperature of the sand, the hatchlings would come to life. With no help from their mother, they would crack open their shells and dig out in a group effort that could take days. When the time was right, usually at night or in a rainstorm when the temperature was cooler, they would make a run for it. Together they would burst from the cavity, take a second to get oriented, then hustle down to the water and swim away. The odds were stacked against them. The ocean was a minefield with so many predators that only one baby turtle in a thousand would see adulthood.