Sugar Birds

by Cheryl Grey Bostrom

  The Camaro screamed as he punched the pedal and tore down the road. The cloud of his threat settled over us.

  I stood immobile, my hands over my mouth, until Burnaby ran ahead and slid onto his knees beside the young eagle, his arms and hands extended, uncertainty on his face.

  Three feet tall, the bird held her hooked, razor-sharp beak open wide, menacing. Her concave tongue protruded and pulsed as she panted. She rotated toward Burnaby with her good wing curved, its tip pointed downward. The other wing lay broken and useless at her side.

  I approached behind her, assessing, and saw blood on the side of her face—from her mouth! Then she snapped her head toward me. A strand of sinew trailed from her beak down her neck. Her open mouth looked clean.

  Just rabbit blood. I exhaled my relief.

  But her wing? Now that was ugly. Blood seeped into her feathers near her shoulder, and the pinions twisted at an unnatural angle away from her body. Broken. Compound fracture.

  My palms were wet, and I breathed through my mouth. How bad was it? A clear membrane blinked over the bird’s brown eyes as she took my measure. “We have to get her to the house before she goes into shock, Burn.” Apart from that broken wing, she seemed intact, but I couldn’t tell for sure. A small hope buoyed me. Without internal injuries, she could survive this.

  I should get Mender. I took a step toward the house, then stopped. No. It would take too long. I’d corralled raptors before. I could do this. Burnaby stood and began whistling softly to her. We could.

  I hesitated. I’d never stabilized a bird this big. We didn’t even have gloves. Between her talons and her beak, she could put a serious hurt on a person.

  The eagle craned her neck and turned her head toward me, then back to Burnaby. “Quick, Burn. Take off your shirt.” He took a step away from that wicked beak, stripped off his T-shirt, and held it in one hand.

  “Here’s the plan. Move slowly. Count of three, drape your shirt over her head but stay out of range. She’ll make ribbons of your skin if you get too close. I’ll come from behind and restrain her. Got that?”

  Burn nodded. He lifted his shirt at the shoulder seams and gave it a quick shake. It unfurled, ready. We had one good chance at this.

  I counted.

  On three, Burnaby dropped the shirt over the eagle’s head and neck. She flipped her head side to side, but he held the cloth fast. I snapped my right hand forward and pulled the bird’s good wing into her body as if I were closing a pleated fan, then clamped my arm over it and ran my hand down her leg to her tarsus bone, just above the foot. I gripped it hard, then slid my left arm under the broken wing and clenched her other leg the same way. I pressed her spine into my chest.

  Done.

  “Easy, girl.” I stood upright and held those treacherous feet straight out in front of me, anticipating the bird’s resistance. Burnaby waited beside me, holding the provisional hood in place.

  But she didn’t fight. Instead, blinded by the cloth, her head nodded, and she relaxed into the security of my arms and body. Her wing hung useless.

  We shuffled to the house, a jumbled assembly of arms and wings, talons and hands. Burnaby opened the door. “Gram?” I called. No answer. In the kitchen, two breakfast burritos sat beside the stove, ready on plates. “Gram? Mender?” The bird jostled against me as I raised my voice.

  “Should I go find her?” he asked.

  “No. She’ll show up.” I didn’t want Burnaby to leave. Once the eagle collected herself, I could have a fight on my hands, and the broken wing would make it worse. Besides, I couldn’t so much as scratch my nose from this position.

  “We’ll prep her for transport. You can get us to the vet, right?”

  Burn nodded and jangled the keys in his pocket.

  I carried her to the laundry counter, above drawers and cupboards of bird-tending supplies and instruments. Burn took a flannel sheet from a stack beside the sink and spread the cloth over the surface.

  “You’ve done this before.”

  “A few times. Nothing hands-on. Mender has me pass items to her as she needs them.”

  Good. He knew where to find things. No way I could dig through cupboards. I repositioned my straightjacket arms and eased the bird down onto the sheet. A jagged white spur jutted from the underside of her wing, its marrow red as jelly. No mistaking Burnaby’s fascination. He stared, rapt, at the injury.

  “Find the largest hood. Top drawer to the left.”

  Burn extracted a leather helmet with nut-like bulges to cover the eagle’s eyes and keep her quiet.

  “That’s the one. Lift your shirt, then slide the hood up from below her beak. You want that beak to pass through the hole above the chinstrap. Then slip the hood straight back over her head.”

  As if he did it every day, Burnaby pinched the braided tassel protruding from the top of the little helmet, clucked his tongue at the bird, and settled the hood into place. He drew the rear thongs snug, then rested his hands on the counter. Focused. Steady. Those fidgety hands of his, calm.

  “Good job. Now, those talons.” Before I could ask, he set a roll of adhesive tape and an Ace bandage at my elbow and retrieved two wine corks from a bag in the cupboard behind him. “You’re on, Burnaby. Give those claws something to grip.”

  He screwed a cork into each clenched talon, and the eagle squeezed them as if she were on a branch. Then he bound her legs and feet together with the Ace wrap and secured it with tape.

  “Oh, yeah. Weapons disabled.”

  I immediately turned to her injury. “Ready for that wing, Burn?” For her ever to fly again, the bone needed to stay viable enough to mend after surgery. We had to keep it moist. “Saline. And gauze. Lots of it.”

  As best I could, I maneuvered the broken wing into a more natural position, then laid a thick layer of saturated gauze over the break. I shaped the feathered arm against her body, added more wet gauze, and held it there. Then I refolded her intact limb and clasped both wings snug against her.

  Burn flew into action. As if he swaddled wrecked eagles every day of his life, he bundled the flannel around the bird until she lay before us like a baby, soothed and comfortable.

  “It’s a wrap, Burn.” I laughed with relief.

  “Couldn’t have done better myself.” Gram stood by the door, smiling. “Go turn off the tractor, Burnaby. I’ll get the car.”

  CHAPTER 39 ~ AGGIE

  Junkyard

  At a tree near the dairy, Aggie held one of Celia’s waffles between her teeth and gripped a low alder branch. She flipped backwards until her knees hooked the limb, pulled herself upright, and devoured the food. Then she tugged her torn, dirty pajamas up to mid-thigh and ran her hands over her legs, tracing her sinewy muscles with her fingertips. So skinny. Her knees bulged, knobby. Curling her fist, she raised it over her bent elbow and flexed her biceps like boys did when they showed off. The muscle looked stringy.

  Her body was rapidly growing weaker, and it worried her. She tripped more now, and her limbs sometimes shook when she climbed. If she waited much longer, they would fail her altogether. And if they failed—if she fell and died before she could expose Cabot—what would happen to Burnaby? And Celia?

  Plain and simple, she couldn’t hide anymore. Before the day ended, she would tell on the dog-killer. The gun, the cubbyhole, his threats and lies … his murder of Pi. She sighed, resigned. She’d have to tell the sheriff. Would he let her see Mama and Dad before he took her away?

  Jumpy, she concentrated on bird music from the surrounding trees. Birds had helped her when Mama got sick, cheering and distracting her. And, though she wasn’t sure how, they kept her strong. Especially robins, tugging worm ropes from the ground like athletes, chirping their hellos and goodnights from treetops every time the sun rose and set. “Benedictions,” her dad said.

  And the robins’ eggs? Those tiny blue orbs snugged into mud cups like pieces of sky. Aggie savored the hope in them, had captured it in her sketchbook. Wished she could stay in egg season forever
.

  But it didn’t work that way. After eggs hatched and nestlings grew, they flew. Lately, she had spotted fledglings as they dodged predators and learned to find food, copied their parents’ flight patterns, and roosted like grownups. Everywhere except their nests.

  Her dad had told her she was like one of those birds, growing her own wings. Getting ready to fly. She hummed as she remembered, then stopped short. Birdsong. It sounded like hope.

  A chill wind penetrated her clothes, and she smelled rain. Who could take her to the sheriff ? Who would listen to her? Angling for a view behind the machine shed, she pondered the junkyard of old farm equipment that Loomis kept for parts. One of those truck cabs could shelter her while she decided. While she worked up her nerve.

  She crept to a pickup and stuck her head inside. A blackberry vine wove through a broken window and across the floor. Mouse droppings covered the cracked dashboard. The seats stank of mold and mouse urine. Boo. Not this one.

  Vines also clawed at a silage truck, the last vehicle at the far end of the yard. The cab stood tall above her head and a hawthorn shrub grew along the driver’s side. No one’s climbed in here forever. She slunk past the dirty bumper. Moss grew like a green picture frame on the gasket around the cracked windshield, but it—and the other windows—were still intact. This cab would stay dry when it rained.

  At first glance, the far side of the truck seemed neglected, too. But soon Aggie noticed small details that suggested recent activity. A freshly torn, wilted vine threaded the door handle. A thin trail of flattened grass ran the length of the vehicle’s bed. A wide smear streaked a dusty side panel. Her curiosity piqued. In the absence of tracks or scent or telltale scat, she could only guess. Deer? Bear?

  With her back to the cab, she assessed the area. The truck’s nose pointed into hilly fields to the north. Dense woods lay fifteen feet east of the passenger door. The rear walls of farm buildings to the south blocked views behind the rear bumper. Large game could easily pass here undetected. Oh well. They wouldn’t bother her inside the cab.

  But when she gripped the rearview mirror, stepped onto the running board, and looked through the algae-tinged glass, her analysis shifted. Definitely not deer or bear. Below window level, tools and boxes of shotgun shells covered the bench seat and floor. A cattle prod like the one her uncle jabbed at cows headed for auction wedged against the driver’s door.

  She pulled the shiny handle down, blinking in surprise when the door opened quietly at her tug. Too quietly. The hinges showed fresh grease.

  A red strip caught her eye. A line of scorched caps lay between a box for an electric sander and a leather tool belt. A few spent matches lay near the charred red strip.

  For a fleeting second, she linked her brother to the scene, then rejected the notion. This was all wrong. Burnaby would never stow his stuff here. Burnaby kept his tools in their barn in alphabetical order. But those caps … Had he been worrying— and fired them off to calm himself ?

  Not a chance. Burnaby wasn’t stupid. Besides, this was loot, and she didn’t believe for a second that Burnaby would steal anything. He followed rules without wavering. Even if he did, he sure wouldn’t pop caps right beside his stash. All fingers would point to him as the thief.

  Who would do this to frame her brother?

  Easy answer.

  She left the cab undisturbed, exiting fast. Still perched on the running board, her muscles tightened when an engine fired up in the barnyard. Framed by the dingy cab windows, a green tractor pulled a flatbed trailer around the machine shed, and headed into the junkyard. Toward her. She dropped beneath the window and landed on the ground in a squat, then crawled under the truck and scooted forward between the front tires.

  Diesel fumes wafted around her. The tractor motored closer until nothing lay between the noisy engine and Aggie’s hiding spot but a stack of aluminum irrigation pipes nested in a fringe of knee-high grass and thistles. The trailer clanked over a rut as the tractor eased it forward, then stopped. Boots passed between her and the pipes, and a deep bass rang over the chug of the idling engine. Uncle Loomis. Singing. His thick hands hoisted one of the thirty-foot tubes as if it were paper and clanged it onto the trailer. Every time he bent for a pipe, she cringed, certain he would see her.

  So what? Go to him, Aggie.

  She tried. Though her voice deserted her, she inched along the truck’s underbelly toward her uncle as he loaded the trailer.

  But he didn’t see her. He climbed back in the tractor. The engine whined, and the machine arced around the silage truck, where it paused, then continued its route north, hauling pipe into the thirsty pasture.

  She wasted no time. Aunt Nora. She’d tell her, not scary Uncle Loomis. Aunt Nora would call the sheriff for her. On hands and knees, she left the underbelly of the truck and sprinted for the house.

  Grasshoppers popped like rockets around Aggie as she watched Aunt Nora, purse in hand, pull the kitchen door closed, walk to her car, and drive away. If her aunt had turned, she’d have seen the frightened girl standing in the open, unable to speak—not thirty feet from her porch.

  The car bumped down the lane and Aggie, lightheaded, darted back to the junkyard. When she reached an old hay rake, she heard whistling, so she squatted and peeked through its skinny tines.

  A hat. Head. Shoulders.

  Cabot climbed over the crest of the hill from the direction her uncle had driven the tractor, his mouth a whistling O, his arms swinging. At the front of the silage truck, he jigged in a circle, his head swiveling, checking for onlookers. When he sprang onto the passenger side running board, his upper body showed through the windows. He opened the door, bent over behind the seat, backed out, and closed the door.

  An instant later he came around the truck, shoved a box inside the front of his coveralls, and zipped them over it. Shotgun shells. Aggie raised her slitted eyes and saw him pass the machine shed toward the woods. Judging by his direction, he was taking the ammo to the cellar. He must have opened the gun. Must have discovered that she pulled those shells. She bit a dirty cuticle and followed.

  When she got to the cellar, Cabot’s coveralls and the box they hid were nowhere in sight. He stood outside the little door, wearing jeans and a red T-shirt. He lifted a small plastic tube, pushed hard on the cap, and slid it into his back pocket. The syringe. Had he reloaded the gun already? Neither his face nor his posture told her.

  Instead of returning to the farm, he surprised Aggie when he punched through some twiggy dogwood bushes hiding a faint deer path. What now? She followed him down the game trail as he dropped into a swale, then skirted a car-sized boulder and a windfall of young maples, clearly familiar with the route.

  When the green of Mender’s fields showed through the trees, he sat behind a smaller boulder and surveyed the house. For at least half an hour, no one showed. Restless, he drummed his knees, tapped his toes. Then the door opened at the landing where Aggie had stolen milk. Now she understood. Cabot spied on Celia from here.

  Celia stepped into the wind with a loaf of bread dangling from one hand. Wonder Bread, with those dots on the wrapper. For me? A ripple of dizziness fuzzed her vision, and she shook her head to clear it. Celia’s breakfast treats had awakened a fierce hunger in her; her body cried constantly for food. She pushed on her stomach to quiet the whine and focused on Celia walking downhill to the woods.

  Aggie wanted to shout. Or run to her. She’d point at Cabot’s hiding spot so he wouldn’t sneak any closer. She nearly did. But Cabot’s reaction when he saw Celia scared her. Held her back.

  The man extended his neck like a wolf and settled onto the rock, watching Celia walk. He was hunting her. His hands lay crosswise on his thighs; his elbows locked at right angles. His jaw worked fast, and the wad of gum in his mouth popped between his front teeth before he pounced.

  “Hey, girl.” He ambushed Celia after she passed beneath the hill, out of view of the house. Aggie watched in shock as he blocked her retreat.

  CHAPTER 40
~ AGGIE

  Wolf

  Make a run for it, Celia. Get back to the house. Aggie’s heart drummed. She wanted to shout, but words tangled in her throat.

  Celia startled at Cabot’s voice. Aggie was close enough to see fear tighten her shoulders and drain her face. “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, I thought my girl might like some company while she feeds the birds.”

  “Did you, now?” A bleak smile turned Celia’s lips, and she twisted the tie on the bread bag. “What makes you think I’m feeding birds?” She started walking again.

  He cocked his head toward the sack, matching her footsteps. “I saw you the other day, hanging waffles from trees like they were Christmas ornaments. Lucky birds, to have such nice fresh treats. I tried one myself.”

  Celia sped up. She moved laterally, as if to circle back uphill to the house, but Cabot took a giant step in front of her and smiled, his eyes wide and wild. “Don’t change your plans on account of me. I’m sure Aggie—uh, I mean your birds—are waiting.”

  Aggie shrank. She was right. He had heard Celia calling her.

  “What do you know about Aggie?” Celia’s voice rose. With fright? Aggie could no longer see her face to be sure. They had passed her. She scrambled to keep up, shadowing the pair as they approached the anthill trail.

  Cabot’s words poured like syrup. “Well, I know you’re looking for her and that you say you saw her footprints. That you think you can be her new best friend. Just like you and Burnaby.”

  “Leave Burn out of this.”

  “He’s ‘Burn’ now, is he?”

  Celia neither answered nor opened the bag as Cabot tailed her into the trees. Stupid move, Celia. I wouldn’t lead that creep into the woods for anything. Celia had missed her chance to escape in the field. How was she going to get away from him now?