Sugar Birds

by Cheryl Grey Bostrom

  A well? What was she talking about? Aggie walked behind him until he was on the ground, prodding him until he poised for a pushup in a tangle of salad greens. I didn’t see a well anywhere.

  “Celia. His coveralls should be in the cellar. Get ’em. Quick.” She spoke without taking her eyes or the gun off Cabot. “Burnaby can’t swim.” Her voice shook.

  Aggie touched the barrel between Cabot’s shoulder blades. “All the way down. Hands on your head.” He plopped onto his belly and twined his fingers over his occipital lobe, directly above Aggie’s bloody dental impression. His face pressed the ground, and he muttered into the dirt.

  I hurried for the coveralls and held them out to her. “Why these?” She didn’t answer me, but spoke into the leafy carpet instead.

  “Burnaby. Can you hear me?” Her eyes darted to a shaded hole crowded with foliage that opened a few feet from Cabot’s head. The well. I could have been right on top of it and not noticed. I scrambled to the edge and bent over the rim. Cabot twisted toward me. Aggie jabbed the gun into his ribs.

  Burn’s voice echoed. “Here. Right here. Aggie? That you?” Water splashed, and I saw his shoulders and yellow head, his face upturned. “Celia?” Aggie spoke before I could answer.

  “I’m here, Burn. You hurt?” She stepped around Cabot and leaned over the well so he could see her, but she kept her eyes and the gun tethered to Cabot. Tears streamed down her face.

  “Uninjured. Where’s Cabot? He said he’d shoot me if I spoke.”

  “I’m breathing down your neck, you dirty—”

  “Shut up, Cabot.” Aggie poked him with the muzzle. “He won’t be shooting you, Burn. I’ve got the gun. How far down are you?”

  “I’m in water to my waist.” Seconds passed. “Distance from my waist to the lip?” He was taking his time to estimate. “Approximately eleven feet. No, twelve.”

  Aggie evaluated my hoodie, unzipped halfway down my tank top. “Your sweatshirt. Tie it to the coveralls.”

  The girl was a genius. Talk about being good in a crisis. I knotted our makeshift rope and tossed an end to Burnaby. “We’ll get you outta there.”

  Burn leaped for the hoodie’s sleeve. Missed. Jumped again. His fingers found the cuff and gripped. “I’ve got you at this end.” I said. I steadied myself against rocks lining the well’s edge and the fabric pulled tight over them. He began to climb.

  Cabot was watching me. When he slowly unclasped his hands and lay them on the ground by his head, Aggie didn’t react. Then he shot his hand forward and grabbed my ankle. I recoiled, and a few inches of the coveralls slipped through my fingers. I clenched the fabric tighter and held on for all I was worth. Which wasn’t much, given my sore knee and Cabot yanking on me.

  Aggie jabbed him with the gun. “Let go.” Her wispy voice chilled me. I could tell it affected Cabot, too. When he released his hold, I dug my heels into the ground and pulled. Aggie shoved the muzzle into Cabot’s kidneys until he returned his hands to his head.

  I braced my feet and leveraged my body against the well’s rim, straining. My knee ached. For all Burn’s skinniness, I could hardly hold him. “You making headway?” I asked.

  “Halfway.”

  Then the rope shifted again under his weight and so did I. The rock supporting me loosened; my foot punched it into the well, and I toppled backwards. Burn’s moan and the sound of a splash rose from the hole. The hoodie and coveralls slid into the water.

  I dropped to my belly opposite the prostrate Cabot and peered down the well. I nearly cried with relief when I saw Burnaby upright and moving. He was holding his shoulder.

  “Oh, Burn. I’m sorry.” I rolled to face Aggie. “Let’s get Cabot out of here.”

  Aggie shook her head. “I won’t leave Burnaby. Go get Uncle Loomis.”

  I got to my feet. “You sure? You got Cabot? I don’t know, Aggie …” Her skinny arms trembled. That gun was heavy.

  She nodded. “Hold on a second.” Lowering one knee to the ground, she planted her other foot ahead of her and, with her forearm on the upraised thigh, steadied the gun. Aimed it straight at him. I felt better about leaving her then. “He won’t be going anywhere.” Her steely eyes confirmed her resolve. Her voice was airy, like it came from the sky.

  “I’ll hurry.” I took a dozen slow, painful steps up the trail until the movement loosened my knee enough to speed up. With the wind howling overhead, I limped toward the dairy.

  CHAPTER 43 ~ AGGIE

  Help

  As Celia hobbled up the trail, Aggie trained the weighty firearm on Cabot and pictured that ammo sinking in the river. If he hadn’t reloaded, she was nothing more than a scrubby girl with an empty shotgun, like a terrier with no teeth, barking at a grizzly.

  But what if he had reloaded? And what if he rushed her and seized the weapon?

  Please hurry hurry hurry. She sturdied her arm against the fatigue as a tremor crept into her muscles. How long could she hold this thing? She repositioned again, aiming lower on Cabot’s back. Her senses sparked. He’s too still. Planning something. The gun barrel shook.

  His voice came so low she had to strain to hear him. “You’ve got me all wrong, little girl. If I hadn’t stopped Burnaby, he’d have hurt your friend Celia.” He looked her way, but kept his hands on his head. “Do you know he lit your house on fire, Aggie? Then he drove off to work, leaving you all to die.”

  He’s trying to distract me. She willed herself to tune him out, but his words attached themselves to her like tentacles, entangling her in doubt. Could Burnaby have lit a second fire? Did that fire, instead of hers, burn their house?

  No! Don’t listen! He wants you to do something stupid. She tried to block the lies with thoughts of her trees and birds, of her parents smiling and healed. Happy things.

  Minutes ticked by. Cabot’s words kept coming, fluid and melodious. She thought of Pi, and her brother weeping as he carried the dog to the truck. She exhaled through her teeth. Whispered.

  “Help me.”

  “Who ya talking to, sweetheart?” Cabot lunged for the barrel; Aggie swung it away.

  There was no time to answer. Uncle Loomis, breathing hard and sweating, broke into the clearing. When he spotted Aggie, he ran toward her, his mouth open in a wide, delighted grin. “Risen from the dead.” His deep voice bounced off the trees. He palmed her head affectionately and took the gun from her, then laid it on the ground before he scooped her into his arms and spun her, laughing. “And risen from the swamp, from the looks of you.”

  He’s being nice to me. He’s glad to see me. Her eyes blurred with tears. She wrapped her arms around her uncle’s neck and squeezed. He held her like a moorage.

  Cabot wasted no time. “Loomis. Good to see a friend. Crazy people down here.” He stood and brushed leaves and twigs off his shirt and jeans. Wiped blood from his face.

  “I figured as much.” Uncle Loomis kissed Aggie on the forehead, then lowered her, retrieved the gun, and took in the scene. Aggie hid behind him and grasped his shirt, the cloth tight between her fingers.

  Cabot talked faster now. “Burnaby ripped off your shotgun. I got it back, but then this little monster jumped me.”

  “M-hm. I see that.” Her uncle lifted the gun to study it and Aggie dropped her hands as Celia limped into the clearing with a rope.

  “Be right back.” Aggie scurried into the root cellar and returned with two shells, which she handed to her uncle. “It’s not loaded.” Or maybe it was. She was taking a chance. What if Uncle Loomis believed Cabot?

  Her uncle cracked the gun open, exposing two empty chambers. Aggie’s eyes widened.

  “How’d you know it was empty?” He winked at her, his eyes spilling. Over her? Uncle Loomis was crying because of her?

  Then he did the oddest thing. He turned away from Cabot and Celia so only Aggie could see his hands. He pretended to reload the gun, but instead slipped the shells into his pocket. He snapped the barrel back in place, clicked the safety, and handed the weapon to Cabot. Celia gas
ped.

  “Now that you’ve caught him, Cabot, let’s get him out of here and take him someplace where he won’t hurt anybody.”

  Cabot puffed up like a sage grouse. He sneered at Celia and waggled the gun’s butt at Aggie. Her uncle put his hand on Cabot’s shoulder. “I’ll pull him out. You make sure he doesn’t run once I bring him up.”

  “You bet, Loomis.”

  Her uncle knelt by the well. “Hey, Burnaby. Ready for daylight? Any injuries I should know about?”

  “Yes, I am ready. Surface wounds. A modest amount of blood.”

  “We’ll get you fixed up. Here comes the rope. Remember the snake pops out of the hole, goes around the tree, and dives back in the hole?”

  Uncle Loomis should have saved his breath. Burn knew every knot in the book. Aggie danced in place, waiting for her brother.

  “Yes. Bowline. Under my arms.” Her uncle sat back on his haunches until Burnaby spoke again. “Tied and secure. Ready.”

  “Elevator going up.” Uncle Loomis produced leather gloves from his back pocket and smoothed them over his thick fingers. He docked his sturdy legs, gripped the rope, and pulled like Hercules—or The Incredible Hulk. His muscles bulged from his enormous shoulders down into his forearms. His legs anchored to the ground like ancient stumps, and he hoisted Burnaby out of that hole as if he were a toddler.

  When Burn’s hands touched the lip of the well, Celia and Aggie converged on him and helped him stand. Celia ran her fingers along a scrape on his face, then stepped away. Sobbing, Aggie clung to her brother, as her threadbare clothes absorbed the well water that dripped from him. “They’re alive, Burn? Mama and Dad?”

  Burnaby lifted the rope over his head and tossed it aside. He held his hand open above his sister, then gently set it on her head. “They are.” She gripped him tighter.

  Uncle Loomis kept moving. Aggie pulled her face out of Burnaby’s shirt and watched. Whose side was he on? Her uncle coiled the rope and handed it to Celia. He casually retrieved the gun from Cabot, who passed it to him as if he were a fellow soldier. Loomis stood the weapon against a tree.

  “Now what do we do with him?” Cabot asked. He stood beside Uncle Loomis, his feet planted wide and his hands clasped behind him. His eyelids were swelling.

  “Wanna see?” In a flash, her uncle seized Cabot’s arms and locked them behind his back like wings under a roasting chicken. Aggie clapped her hands over her open mouth. Cabot had rotated Celia’s arm like that. But her uncle cranked Cabot’s arms so hard Aggie thought they might break right off.

  Cabot folded at the waist, yowling. He writhed to free himself but was powerless in Uncle Loomis’s mighty grip.

  “Get moving,” her uncle growled and shoved the dog-killer, still bent in half, ahead of him. About fifty feet up the trail, he let go of one arm. “Stand up and walk. Try anything and you’ll crawl.”

  With one arm liberated, Cabot spun down and toward his elbow, uncurling Uncle Loomis’s hold on the other arm. He threw a punch, but her uncle dodged it and cocked his own fist. Then, in the split second before Uncle Loomis could strike, Cabot dropped to his knees and hung from Loomis’s grasp, surrendered. He held his free hand upright.

  Loomis grabbed Cabot’s wrist and crossed his arms behind the man’s back. “Changed your mind, huh, punk?”

  Cabot shook his shoulders angrily, but didn’t resist when Uncle Loomis jerked him to his feet.

  The girls watched until the pair crossed behind the hill. Aggie pointed after them. “How did Uncle Loomis get him to—what just happened?

  “Beats me.” Celia said. “Better ask Mender. She claimed she had invisible help with him.” Her voice was shaky, but she looked at Aggie and laughed. “Where have you been?”

  “All over.”

  “I bet.” She scanned Aggie’s skinny body. “You can tell us over a meal. Let’s get your brother.”

  But her brother had evaporated. Aggie shook her head. Her thoughts fuzzed again as she ran back to the clearing. Was she dreaming that they found him? Where was he?

  Celia limped after her, calling. “You want to fall in there again, Burn? What are you looking for?”

  Burnaby. As soon as she spotted him, Aggie slumped onto the mossy ground and lay on her side, facing his way. Thankful. Exhausted. He crawled through the herbage beyond the well, his hands patting the earth ahead of him like a blind man.

  She smiled. Typical Burn, to ignore his brush with death and go on a treasure hunt. She didn’t care what he was doing. He was here. A little beat up, but okay, and Cabot wouldn’t hurt him anymore.

  “Found it.” Out of the greens, Burnaby pulled a snarled chain connected to something curved and whitish. Oh, yeah. Aggie recognized the necklace Cabot had snatched from her brother. She wanted to ask him about it, but her mouth wouldn’t move.

  He held it up to Celia. “Your owl ilium. Cabot took it.” He twisted the chain’s broken ends, and the bone swayed.

  “I can fix that.” Celia slid the broken chain into her pocket. Then she lifted a leather thong off her chest and over her head. As Burnaby watched, she untied it and removed a shell, gently threaded the cord through the bone, and tied it behind his neck. He blinked hard, held his breath for a second, and bowed his head, the muscles in his neck relaxing. Hardly nervous at all.

  Aggie let relief unclench and sedate her. Her body throbbed from the fall, from hunger, from so many adrenaline surges. She just wanted to lie there.

  And she wanted her mama.

  CHAPTER 44 ~ CELIA

  Reunion

  When I tied that owl’s pelvis around Burnaby’s neck, he ran his fingers along the leather. The corners of his mouth rose in that adorable, crooked uptick. “How’d that thing land in the bushes?” I asked.

  Aggie answered for him. “Cabot tore it off Burn and tossed it.”

  She slowly got to her feet and walked to a spot on the far side of the well. “It landed right there. Burnaby was standing where you are now. He walked in a line from you to me and stepped into the well on his way.”

  “Cabot must have known I would concentrate on the location. Not recognize the break in the vegetation.”

  “It’s hard to see even if you’re staring at it.” I parted the plants, exposing the well’s crumbling rock rim.

  “I’ll build a cover for it,” Burnaby said. “Deter animals.”

  “Good thing none have fallen in there so far, Burn. If you’d found any bones down there, we’d never have gotten you out.” He gave me that oblique smile again. “Now you’ve got that hipbone, let’s go. Loomis called the sheriff. He’ll want our statements.”

  As soon as I said “sheriff,” the girl bit her thumb. Stood on her tiptoes and jigged. “You up for that, Aggie?”

  Her eyes flicked toward a tree by the river. I could tell she wanted to make a run for it.

  “Are you afraid of the sheriff ?” Why was I talking to her as if she were a preschooler, instead of someone who had just rescued me? But she was so tiny.

  “He’ll take me, too.”

  “Take you where?”

  “Jail.” She clamped her arms around Burnaby and buried her face in his shirt, muffling her words. “Mama. Dad. Have you seen them, Burn?”

  “I have.” He stood like a post.

  “So, when? Where are they?” She crouched and fidgeted with some twigs, her shoulders near her ears. “How are they?”

  He raised his hand against the flood of questions. “Both are at Harborview. Second- and third-degree burns. A surgeon pinned Dad’s leg. The doctor released him a week ago. He’s staying in Seattle. With Mama.” His voice was low and choppier than usual. “He thought you were dead. We all did.”

  I shouldn’t have kept her a secret. I had robbed Burn and his father of hope. Not to mention Loomis and Nora. And Gram.

  Aggie’s eyes widened. “Mama? How’s she?”

  “Burns on her back. Arms. Head. Three surgeries. Medications are keeping her comatose for pain control.”

  “Will
she be okay?”

  “Prognosis varies day to day.”

  Pain pinched Aggie’s face. “I did that to her.”

  I stared at her. “Why do you say that?”

  “I started that fire. I was only testing a fuzz stick. I was making them for Mama and built a little campfire, and Mama called me for dinner and I kicked dirt on it, I really did, to put it out and instead of water and a shovel I used my foot and Mama would be mad if I didn’t come to dinner right away and …” And then she was sobbing too much to get the words out.

  “Oh, Aggie.” I was struggling with the storyline, but I got the gist. “Sounds like an accident to me. You started out doing something nice for your mother, built a small fire, and put it out. Is that right?”

  Aggie shoved her fists into her eyes. Her chest heaved. “I don’t know. I guess. But—”

  “You will not go to jail, Aggie.” She backed up when I reached for her.

  “I thought I killed them. When I heard you in the woods and you said they were alive, I thought we could all be together again, and that they wouldn’t take me away.” She pulled at her greasy hair with both hands. “But I lit that fire, Celia. The house is gone and Mama’s still in the hospital.”

  This time she let me draw her into my arms. I could feel her corrugated ribs, her protruding shoulder blades. “An accident, Aggie. An accident. They won’t take you anywhere. You’ve served your time.” I thought of that little girl out there in the woods for a month, feeling like a murderer, missing her family. Hungry, dirty.

  I rocked her. “It’s over, Aggie. Over.”

  A sheriff ’s car was idling in the barnyard when the three of us came over the hill. Cabot sat in the backseat. He pounded the window with his fist and tried to catch my eye, but I hurried past him with my arm around Aggie.

  “There.” Burnaby pointed into an assembly of old machines where Loomis and an unfamiliar man in a green uniform were sifting through the cab of a big farm truck.

  Aggie hung behind me as we approached, then stepped forward like she was reciting her spelling words. Or going to the guillotine. “Burnaby didn’t steal those things.”