"What do you mean?"

"Well, there are rumors the first settlers may have resorted to cannibalism."

Sheila choked on a gulp of water from his glass. She carefully placed it on the table, coughing behind a hand.

"You okay?" Dr. Mulligan asked.

She coughed a few more times, her eyes watering, her face slightly red. "I'll be fine. Go on."

"That would have been around the same time as the Donner Party," Martin said.

"1847, correct. I'd like to think that's a coincidence and not a trend."

"Most likely."

"From what I understand, the first few weeks after the Ruby sank off the southern shore had been difficult. Not many in the crew had survived, those who had were badly injured, and many were considerably weakened by the voyage, sick with cholera and typhus and the like. It was what they used to call in my day a 'heavy scene.' Conditions were certainly ripe, if you'll pardon the pun, for a Donner Party-type situation."

"Flee one island out of desperation only to starve on another," Martin said.

Should've brought my notebook, he thought. The old coot's sitting on a gold mine of information here. Wonder if he'll let me come back, get a look at all these books.

"Too true," the doctor said. "The Land of Opportunity must have looked quite inopportune at the time. If they'd capsized near the mainland, they might all have survived. Since they crashed here, out in the sound, they made due with what was obtainable. From my understanding there wasn't the abundant wildlife we see here now. No whitetail deer, for instance."

Martin winced at the image of Nadine's mangled body lying in the ditch. With the hundreds—thousands—of crime scene photos he'd seen in his lifetime he could picture it clear as day.

"No wild boar, like you might see on the mainland. The deer population boomed closer to the turn of the century, when some damned fool brought them across the sound two by two, like a latter-day Noah. Anywho, the point I'm rather clumsily trying to make is that food was in short supply with a high demand. Hence, or so the story goes, the strong set upon the weak, circle of life, Amen."

The doctor showed his teeth in a rueful smile. "And that story epitomizes the truth of this place, rumor or not. Barrows Bay was built upon the bones of its forebears. It's right there in the name. They weren't talking about garden tools."

"Do you believe it?" Martin said.

"Oh, I can't say either way. It doesn't seem unlikely, given the circumstances. Any recorded history of the time leaves a gap between the sinking of the Ruby and the prospective townsfolk coming together to establish a new life. Almost as though it's been deliberately omitted. If you'll allow me to read you a passage."

He shifted the glasses on his nose. "'In those first months, the inhabitants of this once-nameless island fashioned huts along the shore with broken planks and joists from the ship christened Ruby. They soon began moving inland, tilling the soil, hunting gophers and other small woodland creatures, and felling large white oaks and sugar maple to fashion what would soon become the town of Barrows Bay. While they toiled, they sang the songs of their homeland. The Wearing of the Green became somewhat of an anthem, an emblem of the first settlers' courage and perseverance—'"