by Will Hobbs
“Exactly my thoughts, Shannon, but what can we do about it?”
“Well, you can still drive. You’ve been driving Jackie’s station wagon into Cedar Glen to the espresso place.”
“Yeah, it’s an automatic. No problem.”
“Well, so is the ambulance. You could drive the ambulance.”
“Sure, I could still drive. It’s catching the critters one-handed that’s the problem.”
I held up both of mine. “Here are your catchers, Uncle Neal. You coach, I catch.”
It took another minute for him to take me seriously. Then he took me really seriously. He allowed that I was fast enough, coordinated enough, decisive enough to do the catching. He even thought Sage would work with me. Then he backed off and talked about the danger element. “I won’t grab any hawks by the talons,” I promised. “Look, most of the stuff you do is a lot less dangerous than driving on the highway. We can get the team back together. You, me, Cody, and Sage.”
“I’m sold,” he said. “When do we start?”
“Why not tomorrow?”
The team was back together and rolling again. We were headed across Lake Washington, and it was just like old times. “The greatest thing about this job,” Uncle Neal said cheerfully, “is that it’s not a job.”
“What’s the second greatest thing?” sang the kid from the backseat as he reached out to pet Sage, hopeful she had changed her policy. She hadn’t.
“It’s that you never know what to expect.”
I threw in, “What’s the third greatest thing?”
“The bumper stickers you meet. Keep your eye out.”
“What’s the mission? I mean, our first mission.”
“Something got into somebody’s house over near Lake Sammamish. The woman didn’t speak much English. I don’t think she knows what it is.”
The address led us to a new housing development. A dignified but distraught Japanese woman answered the door. She was hanging on to a huge German shepherd. The house was built on three levels into the hillside above a creek. They led us around the back of the house to a sliding glass door that was ajar. She opened it wide, pointed, and wailed. There was a trail of mud leading across the plush white carpet.
“It’ll be easy to track,” Cody said.
The mud trail had tracks on either side of a continuous swath. Missing the obvious, I asked, “What in the world are we after?”
“A big Chuckie!” Cody cried. “You can see where it dragged its tail!”
I raced to the van for gloves and a carrier. When I got back, Neal and Cody were taking off their shoes. I did the same. Cody was studying the trail of mud, slime, and beaver tracks leading down the hallway. The house was brand-new, yet traditionally Japanese. “Beautiful home,” I said to the lady.
“No more beautiful,” she said sorrowfully.
A hallway opened into the living room, and there we got the picture. It looked like a bomb had gone off: lacquered end tables knocked over, porcelain broken, lamps on the floor, chairs on their back, the luxurious white carpet slimed everywhere you looked, objets d’art scattered everywhere.
“A beaver on steroids?” I wondered.
The German shepherd was in the kitchen wagging his tail and barking his head off.
“I think the beaver had help,” Uncle Neal said with a wry lift of his eyebrows. He had the lady confine her canine in the laundry room so the dog and the beaver, wherever it was, didn’t mix it up again.
We followed the trail down to the second level of the house, where the devastation was equally complete. The lady stayed behind on the stairs wringing her hands. She was terrified to go any farther.
“Strange there’s no blood on the carpet,” Uncle Neal said. “I don’t get it.”
We looked in the family room and the bedrooms. What a mess. We looked under the beds, in the closets. No beaver.
“We need Sage,” I said, and Neal agreed. We trooped back to the van where I found her leash, buckled on her flak jacket and cinched it snug, then got my light gloves, my new welding gloves, and the carrier. Cody grabbed the salmon net. Neal whispered the code word in my ear. On the way down the stairs to the second level, Sage was already onto the scent before I ever cried “Slaptail!” and let her off the leash.
Sage took off like a shot, down the hallway and into the bedrooms where we’d already been, then back out through the family room and down into the third level.
By the time we caught up, Sage had come to standstill in front of a couch. She was at full alert. Everything in the basement rooms that could have been toppled, had been. “I get it,” Uncle Neal said. “No wonder no blood. Her dog and the beaver were playing.”
We got down on our hands and knees to peek under the couch. “Watch you don’t bump Uncle Neal’s cast,” I cautioned Cody.
“Gotcha,” he said, and gasped, “It’s a Chuckie, all right. A humongous Chuckie.”
Neal leaned on an elbow, craned his neck. “Biggest beaver I’ve seen in my life. Might go fifty pounds.”
Neal had me open the door to the carrier and set it under the table next to the couch. Then I got down on my belly with the salmon net and gave the beaver a push in the table’s direction. The beaver started moving, and I kept pushing. At last I shoved it out from under the couch.
By the time I scrambled to my feet to see where the beaver had gone, it had found the open carrier and crawled in. Cody closed the door and that was that.
“The carrier looked like the safest place,” Neal said. “For an animal looking for cover, it often does. Not bad for our first rescue since our week off. My assistants need very little assistance. I drive, you catch.”
Our next mission was to release the beaver in a place where a housing development wasn’t going to put it out of business. Uncle Neal drove into the forest past a town called Issaquah. There was a stream along the road, and the houses were few and far between. He picked one that he liked and turned into the driveway across a bridge over the creek. The long drive, a riot of friendly color, was banked with tall blooming dahlias. I caught sight of a fenced vegetable garden. Out past a barn, sheep were grazing picturesquely.
As we drove up to the house, a gray-haired couple came onto the porch. Uncle Neal started by telling them he’d noticed some indications, not many, of beaver a few miles down the creek. A minute later I was opening the back of the van so they could take a look at the refugee from suburbia. Yes, they’d love to have “Big Mama Chuckie” for a neighbor. They hoped she’d stick around, find a mate, and start making ponds and some more beavers. But they wouldn’t let us release her until we had lunch with them.
Her eyes on the lettering across the side of our van, the woman said her name was Jackie too, only it was spelled J-a-c-q-u-e. Her husband’s name was Tom. Cody and I were checking out the bumper sticker on the back of their old pickup. It said TURTLES FOR PEACE.
As we were eating lunch on their back deck, we watched Tom and Jacque’s shaggy sheepdog play a game with some crows. The dog would hide in the bushes until half a dozen crows had their crops stuffed with food from the dog dish on the lawn. Then the sheepdog would charge out of the bushes and give them a scare, which they were perfectly well expecting.
We were done with sandwiches and starting on cookies and ice cream when Cody shouted, “Will you look at that!” and took off running.
The rest of us followed. From the bushes on the far side of the backyard, a turtle was crawling into the sun. This wasn’t just any turtle. It was some sort of reptilian tank.
“What in the world?” Neal said. “That’s a desert tortoise.”
“Well,” Tom said sheepishly, “I’ve had that fellow for close to thirty years. I picked him up in California outside of Barstow. They’ve become an endangered species now, and I feel bad about taking him out of the desert. I didn’t know any better at the time.”
Tom asked Neal if he would see that the tortoise got taken back to the desert or at least to a zoo. Neal said Jackie had a million conn
ections and would get it figured out.
We were about to leave, all standing around the tortoise, when the crows flew back in force, maybe a hundred darkening the sky. Strangely, one of them was white. Their raucous calls and the ominous beating of their wings had me wondering if something was about to happen.
My eyes and everyone’s were drawn to the white crow. As the rest of the birds wheeled away, the white crow dropped a small object on the grass only inches from the tortoise.
The object was alive, no bigger than a fifty-cent piece, and it was a turtle. Neal picked it up and put it on his palm. “Holy cow, it’s a hatchling snapping turtle. I’ve been trying to figure out how snapping turtles have been moving up from Oregon. Maybe it’s by air.”
“I’ll be darned,” Tom said. “Crazy crows, what a stunt.”
“Those crafty corvids,” Neal said, shaking his head. “Crows and ravens, you never know what to expect from them. ‘You like turtles, well, here’s another one for you!’”
On our way out the driveway we released the beaver and the tiny turtle into the creek. The crows were right above us, supervising, making a racket. Cody asked Neal, “Are crows and ravens really as smart as you said?”
“Sure, it’s just not the kind of smartness we give credit for. That’s true of animals in general. Sage’s sense of smell is fifty times better than ours. We’ve lost most of our animal intelligence.”
We made the rounds of the vets on our way back, collecting birds and squirrels and cottontail rabbits. We went to a house above Lincoln Park where a couple had evacuated on account of a bat. The bat was in the hall closet, they said. The man was clutching a tennis racket. There was stark terror in their faces.
“Not a problem,” Uncle Neal told them. He had Cody find a tiny cricket cage in the jumble in the back of the ambulance. Cody returned with the cricket cage and some exciting news. Tom and Jacque, the people who had fed us lunch and given us the desert tortoise, had slapped a TURTLES FOR PEACE bumper sticker on the back of the ambulance.
The couple followed us into the house. The man still had a death grip on his tennis racket. They pointed out the closet. Neal eased the door open; the bat was hanging on a beige overcoat. I pulled on a pair of light cotton gloves, picked the bat gently off the overcoat just like Neal told me, and put it in the cricket cage. That was it. Not exactly a big deal, but we were heroes anyhow, or so the lady said as she wrote us a check as we were leaving. I hadn’t even thought to give her a donation card. We were miles away when I took the check out of my pocket. It was for ten dollars, which was pretty typical. I did a double take. She’d made it out to Turtles for Peace.
On our way home the beeper had us heading to a construction site in Snohomish to save a drowning bird. The police said they hadn’t been able to get much of an explanation. It made no sense that a drowning bird could still be alive by the time we got there. We went anyway.
The address was in a new subdivision. In fact, the house we were after was just being framed up. The construction crew was taking a break as we drove in. There wasn’t a stream or pond in sight, not even a bucket for a bird to drown in. The men all had silly smiles on their faces. I got out and said, “We got a call about a drowning bird. Could this be the right place?”
A guy with a walrus mustache pointed across the cul-de-sac. “In there,” he said with a smirk.
He seemed to be pointing at a porta-potty. I said, “Do you mean where I think you mean?”
“Yep,” he said. “That’s the situation.”
I went back to the ambulance and explained “the situation.”
“Ugly,” Neal said.
Cody pumped his fist. “This is major!”
“Since you think so,” I told him, “you’re on for this one. Go for it.”
And he did. Neal had a box of disposable latex gloves that came in handy for the delicate operation.
The victim, a baby owl, was still alive. Cody proudly presented it to me. I took a step back. We rinsed it off with a hose at the construction site and dried it using the heater vent in the ambulance. We improvised a nest of rumpled towels in a small carrier. The baby owl burrowed into it.
The guys at the construction site were pulling out their billfolds. Most gave us tens, one gave us a twenty. One started writing a check. “Don’t make it out to Turtles for Peace,” Cody told him. “That’s just our nickname.”
“Another day at the office,” Neal said as we drove out. “Life is beautiful.”
This from Neal, even though he knew Liberty now had only four more days to make it. The date had been set.
I glanced across the front of the van to Uncle Neal’s arms, then to his face. It looked like he’d gained a little weight since we’d come. He was still shaving his head in case he had to start the treatments again. He wouldn’t miss his hair if he didn’t have any.
I thought about the kid from Afghanistan flying his kite above the sewage ditch at the refugee camp, about the smile on his face.
A smile came to mine.
15
TO THE EDGE
I woke before sunrise. This was it. For three days running, Neal had stayed at Liberty’s side, talking her ear off to no avail. Now the day had come. Liberty was going to have to be put down.
I checked in on Cody and found him still asleep. I dressed quickly and went straight to Liberty’s pen. There was Uncle Neal, sitting with his eagle.
Neal’s eyes were moist. It broke my heart to see that bird still plopped there. How hard would it have been, I wondered, after all these weeks, simply to stand up? “Today’s the day, isn’t it?” I said.
“You heard?”
“Yeah, we’ve known. Does she have all day at least?”
Neal nodded but didn’t speak.
After breakfast I took a call about a hurt raccoon in Woodinville. The man on the phone wouldn’t listen to the few questions we always asked, like “Describe the condition of the animal.”
“That’ll be obvious enough when you get here,” he snapped. “I told you, it’s hurt.”
“Where’s the raccoon?”
“In my backyard. Are you coming or not?”
I told Uncle Neal about it. I was sure he’d want to stay with Liberty, but he surprised me. “Let’s go,” he said grimly.
We went. It turned out to be easy enough to find the raccoon, even without Sage. It was under the man’s deck, in agony, crying something awful. The man was a snappy dresser, every hair in place. He was wearing a sweatband; his head was ringed with embroidered golf balls. “What happened?” Neal asked.
“Just kill it,” the man told him. “I have a ten-fifteen tee time.”
“What happened?” Neal repeated firmly.
“Look at this,” the man said. “Look at my hot-tub lid. Pure maliciousness. Maybe the rest will learn to stay out of my yard.”
“You need to tell me what happened to the raccoon,” Neal insisted, plainly irritated.
The man’s forehead was breaking out in a sweat. It was becoming obvious why he wore a headband. “I hit it with a hockey stick, okay? I broke my son’s hockey stick, and maybe the miserable creature’s back. Just do whatever you do—drag it out and put it down.”
Uncle Neal got on his knees and peeked under the deck. “From the looks of it, you did break the raccoon’s back. I’m afraid I can’t help you, though. I’m not licensed to euthanize animals. Not that I would. Call Animal Control.”
“The dogcatchers? Thanks for nothing. Now I’m definitely going to be late. And look what the deer have done to my fruit trees, will you?”
To the side of Uncle Neal’s eye, a vein was throbbing. I was afraid he was going to blow a fuse. Voice loaded with tension, Neal said, “From the looks of it, this is a new subdivision.”
“Of course it is. So what?”
“Not very long ago it was these animals’ home. That raccoon’s creek didn’t use to run through a concrete culvert. It knew there was water inside your hot tub, even with the lid closed. Just for a s
econd, picture how you would like it if somebody bulldozed your community and your home. Left you nowhere to live, even in your own backyard.”
The man flushed bright red. “You’re talking nonsense, mister.”
“I understand it. Why can’t you?” The voice was Cody’s. He’d been standing back, horrified by the nonstop wails from the injured raccoon. “What if giant raccoons destroyed your house and then broke your back with a giant hockey stick?”
The man looked at him strangely. “What are you people, lunatics? I think you should leave now. Mister, I don’t know what planet you came from, but you’re teaching your kids utter foolishness.”
“We’re his niece and nephew,” I corrected him, “and proud of it. Maybe you should loosen your headband, sir. You must be wearing it too tight.”
I couldn’t believe I’d just said that. The man was speechless.
Uncle Neal took a deep breath. “Next time, just call me before you do anything, okay?”
We were about to go when Cody burst into tears, just melted down. I got down on my knees, held him, and said, “What is it, Cody?”
“I can’t stand the way it’s crying,” he blubbered.
“I know, I know.”
His chest was heaving like it might explode. “Can’t we at least take it to a vet?”
Uncle Neal gave in. I put on the heavy coat, the welding gloves, and squeezed under the deck with the net. The raccoon hissed at me, then snarled viciously. “I’m not the enemy,” I said. “I’ve come to help.”
I snaked the net forward and tried to work it over the raccoon’s back, but there wasn’t any clearance between the animal and the deck. It squirmed away, dragging itself in pain.
I cussed under my breath, bellied forward, and tried again. This time I got the net over the raccoon. I started backing up, or trying to. “Pull me by my legs, Cody, if you can reach them.”
That helped. I backed out of there dragging the net with me and the raccoon inside it. Cody ran for a carrier. I had to handle the raccoon. It was growling, snarling, and spitting. It wanted to take my head off and I had to hang on tight. It bit the welding gloves again and again. It was horrible to hear an animal in such pain. The golfer was on his way out. “Close the gate behind you,” he called.
