“He’s bound to be near the river this morning,” said Arthur Stuart. “Geese are feeding there, on their way south.”

Alvin looked around. “It’s still summer. It’s hot.”

“Not up north,” said Arthur Stuart. “I heard two flocks yesterday.”

“I haven’t heard a thing.”

Arthur Stuart grinned at him.

“I thought you stopped hearing birds,” said Alvin. “When I changed you, in the river. I thought you lost all that.”

Arthur Stuart shrugged. “I did. But I remembered how it felt. I kept listening.”

“It’s coming back?” asked Alvin.

Arthur shook his head. “I have to figure it out. It doesn’t just come to me, the way it used to. It’s not a knack anymore. It’s...”

Alvin supplied the word. “A skill.”

“I was trying to decide between ‘a wish’ and ‘a memory.’”

“You heard geese calling, and I didn’t. My ears are pretty good, Arthur.”

Arthur grinned at him again. “There’s hearing and there’s listening.”

There were several men with shotguns stalking the geese. It was easy enough to guess which was John-James Audubon, however. Even if they hadn’t spotted the sketchpad inside the open hunter’s sack, and even if he hadn’t been oddly dressed in a Frenchman’s exaggerated version of an American frontiersman’s outfit—tailored deerskin—they would have known which hunter he was, by one simple test: He was the only one who had actually found the geese.

He was aiming at a goose floating along the river. Without thinking, Alvin called out, “Have you no shame, Mr. Audubon?”

Audubon, startled, half-turned to look at Alvin and Arthur. Whether it was the sudden movement or Alvin’s voice, the lead goose honked and rose dripping from the water, staggering at first from the effort, then rising smoothly with great beats of his wings, water trailing behind him in a silvery cascade. In a moment, all the other geese also rose and flew down the river. Audubon raised his shotgun, but then cursed and rounded on Alvin, the gun still leveled. “Pour quoi, imbecile!”

“You planning to shoot me?” asked Alvin.

Reluctantly, Audubon lowered the gun and remembered his English, which at the moment wasn’t very good. “I have the beautiful creature in my eye, but you, man of the mouth open!”

“Sorry, but I couldn’t believe you’d shoot a goose on the water like that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s—not sporting.”

“Of course it’s not sporting!” His English was getting better as he warmed to the argument. “I’m not here for sport! Look everywhere, Monsieur, and tell me the very important thing you do not see.”

“You got no dog,” said Arthur Stuart.

“Yes! Le garçon noir comprend! I cannot shoot the bird in the air because how do I collect the bird? It falls, the wing breaks, what good is it to me now? I shoot on the water, then splash splash, I have the goose.”

“Very practical,” said Alvin. “If you were starving, and needed the goose for food.”

“Food!” cried Audubon. “Do I look like a hungry man?”