by A. M. Burns
After completing a particularly hard quest, Scott turned away from the screen and looked at Dillon. “What do you think? Cool, huh?”
“Yeah.” Dillon noticed the clock above Scott’s monitor; it was almost 1:00 p.m.
“Would you like to play?”
“Sure.” Dillon was unsure exactly what to do since Scott had been using his keyboard the whole time with only what appeared to be basic movements with the mouse. “What should I do?”
Scott got out of his chair after he went back to the screen where the different characters were listed. “Here, you drive.”
Once Dillon was in the computer chair, Scott got into the kitchen chair and leaned over Dillon’s shoulder. “Why don’t we do you up a temporary character? If you like it, we can get the game installed on your computer and do you a similar one for real.”
“Sounds good.” Dillon wasn’t sure what to do first.
“Click over there, on the New Character button.” Scott pointed to a button at the bottom of the character list. When another screen popped up, he walked Dillon through making a new character. He spent lots of time leaning close to Dillon. It was closer than people normally got to him, but Dillon didn’t mind Scott being that close. A heavy earthy smell rolled off Scott. There was something nice about it. It didn’t make him nervous like most of the kids at school did.
“Hey, boys.” Alex appeared in the doorway. “It’s after one. Do you guys want some lunch? You’ve got the option of leftover pizza from last night, or sandwiches.”
Scott, still leaning over the chair, looked at Dillon; it was the closest he’d ever been to a nonthreatening face. His heart skipped a beat.
“What do you think?”
Dillon glanced from his new night elf toon to Scott. “I’m cool either way.”
“Let’s go get some sandwiches, and then we can run this guy around a bit.” Scott stood and walked to the door.
“You guys don’t need to spend all day in World,” Alex said. “It’s a nice day out. You should be outside for a while. Scott, I bet you haven’t shown Dillon the flight pens, or even Mel.”
“Mel?” Dillon asked. Who’s Mel? He wondered if there were more people out here who he hadn’t met.
“We’ll get to that in a bit. I’ve just got him to roll up a toon on my account to see if he likes WoW or not.” Scott went down the hallway. “But don’t worry, I won’t forget about Mel this afternoon.”
“Make sure you don’t.” Alex gestured for Dillon to follow Scott down the hall.
It was a couple of hours later—once Scott had Dillon totally hooked on World of Warcraft—before they made it outside.
“You’re doing really good.” Scott held the door open for Dillon. “I can’t believe you’ve never played before. You’re a natural.”
A warm flush filled Dillon’s cheeks. He wasn’t used to getting compliments from friends. “Thanks. I guess I need to get the game loaded onto my computer so we can run together.”
“If you want, after we get the critters fed, we can go down to Bryan’s and get you started. It’s going to take a few hours to actually download everything, but once you’ve got the process started you should be fine.” Scott strolled over to a chain-link gate and opened it. “So, to make Alex happy, let’s show you around the flights. Now, I have to let you know, we don’t let just anyone back here. Most of these birds are going back into the wild, and we don’t want to get them too accustomed to people.”
Some of the pens had small shed-like buildings with chain-link enclosed areas in front of them. A few were just chain-link pens with branches and tree stumps in them. Most of them had birds of various shapes and sizes flying or perched around in them. The first flight had a big gray bird standing in a wading pool.
Dillon stared at it. “Okay, what’s that? A stork?”
“Great Blue heron, a really nasty character too. They use those long pointed beaks to spear fish and reptiles in the wild… well, when you’re dealing with them in captivity, they aren’t opposed to using their beaks on people. Paul hates dealing with them. Alex is better at it. But we’re all ready for this one to go back into the wild.”
“What’s wrong with it?” Dillon reached for the chain-link to peer closer at the bird.
Scott caught his hand in a firm but gentle grasp that spread warmth through Dillon. “Watch the fence. Some of these guys, like this one, aren’t opposed to trying to attack through the fence. We don’t lean on, or hold on to them. Don’t want to take you back to Bryan with holes in you.”
Dillon gave a weak chuckle. “Yeah, probably not good. So will that hawk we brought in yesterday end up out here?”
“Eventually. She was doing decently this morning. I think Alex said once her foot is stronger, he’ll move her out here so her wing muscles don’t start to atrophy.”
“Atrophy?”
“Go soft, get weak.” Scott motioned for them to keep walking. “I often forget that I’ve been around this stuff for a few years, but there’s a learning curve when you first start hanging around the birds and all.”
“I bet. So Paul and Alex haven’t always been rehabbers?”
They stopped at a pen full of songbirds. A large number of them sat on a huge bird feeder while others splashed in a concrete birdbath.
“As long as I’ve known them, they have. Paul says it was Alex’s idea at first, but it’s something they both enjoy. Paul likes the education aspect of things and Alex is better at patching birds up.”
“What do you mean, as long as you’ve known them? Isn’t one of them your dad?”
“They’re both my dad, but I’m adopted. I came to live with them when I was six.”
“Was it hard to get used to them being gay?” Dillon felt awkward as soon as he asked the question, but it was something he wanted to know.
Scott was quiet for a moment while they watched a robin splash water all over a blue jay. “Not really. It’s who they are. They love me as their own kid. It’s better than being in the foster care system. It also helps that I’m gay.”
For a second Dillon didn’t know what to say. He turned from the birds and looked at Scott. “You’re gay?”
“Yeah. I hope that’s not going to be a problem. I’ve really enjoyed the time we’ve spent together.” There was more than a little bit of cautious questioning in Scott’s tone.
Dillon shook his head. “It’s not a problem. Like I told Uncle Bryan last night when he told me about him, Alex and Paul, Mom would have a fit, but she’s not going to be around much. It doesn’t matter to me.” Is the world trying to tell me something? I’ve suddenly ended up surrounded by really nice gay guys. I’ve been trying to figure out what Robbie really wants from me. Like Uncle Bryan said last night, girls feel awkward to me.
“Good.” Scott flashed him a heart-stopping smile. “This summer’s going to be a lot of fun.”
Dillon smiled back. “I hope so. That’s what I told Uncle Bryan last night too. I think it’s going to be good out here.”
“Come on, I want you to meet Mel.” Scott strolled down the aisle of flight pens.
“So who’s Mel?” Dillon hurried along in his wake. He wanted to stop and look in each of the pens as they passed, but Scott seemed to have a destination in mind.
“Mel’s a special friend. You’ll see, in just a second.” They rounded a corner and Scott stopped at a flight that looked like most of the others. It had a small shed on the back of it, with an open window. There weren’t any birds sitting on the perches in the flight.
Scott whistled. “Mel!” A hawk similar to the one that Dillon held the previous day flew out the window and landed on the perch closest to them. It stared at them with bright, inquisitive eyes.
“Mel’s a hawk.” Dillon inadvertently stepped closer to the wire. “She’s beautiful.”
“Actually we’re not sure if Mel’s a he or a she. He’s kind of an in-betweener. Kinda big if he’s a boy, and kinda small for a girl. Mel’s a fairly androgynous name. Plus Mel B
lanc was one of the main voice actors for the Looney Tunes, you know, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. We hunt ducks and bunnies, so I thought it was appropriate.” Scott’s tone took on a shade of pride as he talked. It was even brighter than when he explained Warcraft.
“You hunt with him?” Dillon looked at the needle-sharp talons and imagined them sinking into things, like his arm. He repressed a shudder. But there was a look in Mel’s dark brown eyes that called to Dillon. It wasn’t as defiant as the other hawk had been the previous day, but it was still proud and powerful.
“In the fall and winter. Not right now. We hunt mostly rabbits and squirrels, but he’s taken a couple of ducks off of creeks. Last year we went to a field meet in Abilene, and he caught his first jackrabbit. That was a tussle, but it was three times his weight.”
“Wow. I had no idea they could do something like that.”
“They can do a lot more than most folks think. They’re really smart too. Let’s go get his food and after he eats, if you’d like, you can hold him.”
The idea brightened Dillon’s day, which had already been a good one by his standards. “Can I? That would be awesome.”
“Sure. There’s a big difference between holding a perfectly healthy bird and an injured one. You’ll see.” He turned toward the house. “Let’s go get his food and a couple of gloves.”
Dillon raised an eyebrow. “Gloves?”
“Yup.” Scott grinned mischievously at him. “We wouldn’t want him to stick his talons in your hand or anything. Always wear a glove when you’re handling raptors.”
They hurried off only to return a couple of minutes later and slip into the flight chamber with a glove for each of them and bird food. Mel gulped down a couple of dead mice Scott offered him from leather-gloved fingers. Dillon stood enraptured by it. Even while eating Mel moved purposely and elegantly. He seemed to be undisturbed by their presence in his enclosure as he ate. Every brown feather looked to be perfect. Nothing appeared out of place or damaged.
By the time Mel was finished with his meal, Dillon’s hand in the leather glove had started to sweat from a combination of heat and nerves.
“You ready?” Scott asked.
“I guess. What do I do?” He tried not to sound too nervous.
“Just hold your left hand out. Don’t drop it down.” Scott stepped closer.
Dillon’s heart pounded as Scott moved beside him, then held his hand where Mel stood up behind Dillon’s outstretched arm.
“Mel, step,” Scott said softly.
The hawk moved quickly from Scott’s hand to Dillon’s. The weight was more than Dillon had been expecting, and he nearly dropped his arm, but he remembered Scott telling him not to, so he tightened his muscles and held his hand up. Mel stared at him. It was a similar look to what he’d given Scott when they came in with his food.
“I don’t have any food.” Dillon almost whispered. He wasn’t sure how loud he should talk around him. He didn’t want Mel getting upset.
Mel glanced over his shoulder at Scott.
“I’m out too.”
With a final disappointed look at Dillon, Mel shook his feathers and launched off to land on the perch just outside of the window. He rubbed his beak on the limb, then lifted a foot and began grooming.
“I think we’ve been dismissed.” Scott walked over to the gate. “Come on, we got other critters to feed, or rather I do. You can help if you want.”
Dillon stood for a moment and just watched Mel. He still had his hand up, where it had been when the hawk was on it. Mel turned around on the perch, which broke Dillon’s concentration. He mentally shook himself. “Oh. Sure. I can help you. That’s one of the things I’m supposed to be helping Uncle Bryan with, feeding his critters.”
“We all do that a lot around here.” Scott opened the gate as Dillon approached. “There’s always critters that need feeding. For us it gets busier in the fall when we’re also trying to get the hunting birds out after school.”
“So you have more hunting birds than just Mel?” Dillon waited while Scott locked the gate.
“Yeah, both Alex and Paul have birds too. They’ve both got Harris’s Hawks so they can hunt them together. I’ll probably get a Harris one of these days too. It’s really cool seeing a bunch of hawks hunt together.” Scott launched into an explanation of gang hawking. It was the first time Dillon could remember the term “gang” not making him nervous.
He fell into easy step with Scott as they moved about the center feeding the birds that needed it. Every time they went past Mel’s flight, Dillon looked at him as he sat on his perch in the late afternoon light. I can’t believe this. Just yesterday, I never would’ve believed people hunted with birds, and now I’ve held one. This is really shaping up to be a good summer.
10
DILLON WATCHED the Dallas skyline grow larger as the forest and fields gave way to houses and strip malls. “Are you sure Mom said she’d meet us there?”
“That’s what she said,” Uncle Bryan replied.
“Did you think she sounded better than she did a couple of weeks ago?” Dillon had been really excited when his mother called the night before, the first time since he’d been at his uncle’s. Then when she said he needed to come into the Dallas police station, he’d gotten nervous. Even with his uncle reassuring him that everything was going to be all right, he kept having visions of being told he was going to have to go to jail, or juvenile hall. He was enjoying his time with Uncle Bryan, Scott, and his family. For the first time in a long time, he felt like he found somewhere to belong, but then his mother called to say that he had to report to the police about the robbery.
“I think she did. It can be hard to tell with Milly. She’s always been really good about hiding what she’s feeling. But she did at least sound sober, which was surprising, all things considered.”
They drove past the exit for Fair Park, and downtown loomed before them. After being out in the country for two weeks, all the buildings seemed to press in on Dillon. It felt like he was going into a kind of institution or confinement. He didn’t like the feeling. He rubbed his sweaty hands on his worn jeans. For a moment he wondered if he should’ve found his best jeans for the trip in, then remembered most of his jeans were in about the same condition. At least he’d picked out one of his best shirts—a hunter green that Uncle Bryan said looked good on him and set off his eyes. He ran his hand through his curly brown hair for what felt like the hundredth time since they’d left the house. He’d already told Uncle Bryan he thought he needed a haircut, but they didn’t have time to stop before meeting his mother at the police station.
Parking was a hassle, and by the time they met his mother on the police station steps, they just had a couple of minutes to find the office where they needed to be.
His mother gave him a quick glance-over. “Good, you wore your nice shirt.” She looked at Uncle Bryan. “I wish you’d stopped to get him a haircut. It would’ve helped convince them that he’s not in a gang.”
Uncle Bryan rolled his eyes. “What does having short hair have to do with being in a gang? Look, if it’s that big a deal, we’ll stop and get him one as soon as we’re done here. I take it you’ve got money for that?”
She turned and hurried them up the steps without another word.
By the time they reached the hallway outside the office they needed to be in, a burly man in a clean white shirt and a shoulder holster stood looking for them.
“Mildred Smith, and Dillon Smith?” he asked as they strolled toward him.
“Sorry we’re late, officer,” his mother said. She flashed him a coy look as if she was trying to be sexy, as the ring of her high heels on the linoleum finally died away.
Inwardly Dillon groaned and wished it had just been him and Uncle Bryan. At least Uncle Bryan wouldn’t be trying to come on to the officer.
“This is my brother, Bryan Smith.” She gestured to Uncle Bryan. “Dillon’s spending the summer with him out in Kerens. Far away from those awful Shanks.�
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The officer gestured for them to enter the office. “I’m Detective Graham. This is just a fact-gathering meeting, so please come in and have a seat.”
A lone folder sat on an otherwise empty desk situated in the middle of the room with several chairs on the close side and a single chair on the far side. Graham walked over and sat on the far side. “Now, Mrs. Smith, I did advise you on the phone that you could bring a lawyer if you wanted to, or thought that young Mr. Smith needed one. Since you have not, I presume that you do not feel the need for one at this time?”
“Please, call me Milly, all of my friends do. And no, we do not feel that Dillon needs a lawyer at this time. He was extremely adamant that he is not part of the Shanks, and I believe him.”
Dillon’s heart leapt. Mom believes me? Why hasn’t she told me this before?
“That is what his statement at the time of the incident says. That he was just an innocent bystander in the attempted robbery.” Graham made some notes on the first sheet of the file he opened. He looked at Dillon. “Is that still the way you remember everything?” There was a piercing edge to the look that reminded Dillon of Mel waiting for Scott to feed him. He suppressed a shiver.
“Yes, Detective Graham,” Dillon said, trying his best not to let his voice shake.
“What do you say to Charlie Holmes’s accusation that you are part of the South Side Shanks and were the one who thought of hitting the convenience store?”
Dillon straightened and glared at Graham. “That’s not true. They’ve been trying to recruit me for years, but I’d never be part of their gang. And, who’s Charlie Holmes?” Detective Graham’s intense look never changed. It caused Dillon to slump into his chair as quickly as he’d straightened. “I’m not part of the Shanks,” he mumbled.
