Villages

The Montauk Monster is missing. The putrescent carcass of the creature whose image has captivated millions around the globe and spawned nearly as many identities was taken from two Montaukers. They said they planned to supply the beast’s bones to an artist who had already found a buyer for signed monster art.

Ever since Jenna Hewitt, Rachel Goldberg, and Courtney Fruin found the thing in front of the Surfside restaurant, the electronic clones of the creature have invaded computers — by way of Ms. Hewitt’s snapshot — until the Internet itself is threatened.

Spend just an hour with Eleanor Whitmore and you know you have met someone extraordinary. Not that she would ever say so. She focuses not on what she has done, but on what she has gotten from the doing. 

The rugged canyons and sprawling ranches around Penjamo in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato are haunted with stories of hidden treasure, Catholics fleeing persecution by the Spanish crown, and of revolutionaries like Pancho Villa, who rode through this territory in the early 20th century. Along with these tales, which straddle the line between the historic and the fantastic, are the extraordinary stories of ordinary people who went “al otro lado,” as the people in Penjamo say — to the other side, the United States. 

It is too big, too awful, too otherworldly to comprehend without being surrounded by it. Standing at Ground Zero, breathing the mingled rot of burning chemicals, cooked plastics, and the unspeakable, I realize why it will take months if not years before we can begin to rebuild.

Every day since terror found its targets in New York and Washington and was intercepted by heroism in Pennsylvania, worship services here have drawn hundreds of people, some in business dress, some in beach sandals, parents carrying infants, a few elderly in wheelchairs, and almost all with tears welling.

The gate in the high fence that surrounds the Montauk Coast Guard Station was shut tight on Tuesday morning -- the station's people and the crew of the 87-foot cutter Ridley on high alert like all of this nation's military. Without radio and television, the closed fence would have been about the only indication that something terrible had happened 118 miles to the west.