“It’s all right. It’s all right,” she kept saying to Lolita, her voice as calm as she could manage. “I’ll get you out. It’s all right.” She pounded and pounded against the wire. One part let loose. She tried peeling it back, but again, it sliced her hands. More pounding, harder and harder. Finally, the nails in the board tore away a large enough opening. She threw the 2x4 down and eased her arms inside, the jagged wire tearing her flesh. “Come,” she said. “Come….”
Lolita held back, her chest heaving, her wings battered and torn. “Come.” Too frightened to respond, when she tried to fly again, Ellie grabbed her and very carefully, slowly, eased her arms back out. “It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re free. It’s okay.” She examined Lolita’s head for injury, her body, her legs - Lolita’s trusting gaze piercing her heart, her soul. “Damn him!” Ellie glanced toward the field, the place she’d laid the dead crow; spread its blood in a circle…a warning…a threat.
“Damn you!” She called out Victor’s name, and turned, raising Lolita to the sky. “You should have paid heed, Victor! You should have listened!”
Clutching Lolita to her chest, time running out, she spit into her hand, again and again, each time draining herself of more and more energy, and forced Lolita to drink. “Drink….” Lolita gulped down the nourishment, her heart beating hard and labored. She drank and drank, until Ellie had nothing left to give. Her side aching, head throbbing, Ellie climbed the hill to the car, barely able to catch her breath, and opened the trunk to get Damian’s blanket. She shook it out, placed it on the back seat and laid Lolita on her side and wrapped her tightly. She’d be unable to move, but safe from further injury. She’d have to be examined more carefully, see if she’d broken a wing. God forbid, if she’d broken both. But first, fearing more for Damian now, Ellie started into the barn and thinking twice, ran back around to the birdcage and picked up the 2x4 that had the nails in it. As she started back up the hill, something shiny in the cage caught her eye. A locket. One she knew well. It had belonged to her mother.
She retrieved it, shoved it into her pocket, and hurried to the barn. Bubba was standing in the back of his stall. He appeared to be fine. So did Damian. Ellie opened his stall door, checked his water, his feed tub, checked him. Then she went in search of Victor. The racetrack people said they hadn’t seen him. The other boarder there hadn’t seen him either. She searched the feed room, tack room, the hayloft, everywhere imaginable, and found herself back at Damian’s stall, even angrier. She glanced at her watch. She was going to have to leave. Grandma Betty was expecting her. She leaned against Damian, breathed in his scent, tried calming herself. And turned at the sound of Victor’s voice.
“You looking for me?”
She backed up, glaring. “I want this to stop, Victor. Do you understand? I don’t know what your problem is, or what’s going on with you and this thing you have with me….”
“I don’t have a thing with you. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t even like you. I don’t like your horse. I don’t like your friend.”
“Nobody says you have to like us. Just leave us alone. We’ve done nothing to you.”
“That’s what you think, all high and mighty.”
Damian tossed his head and began fidgeting.
“I see you found your bird.”
Ellie glanced at the 2x4, a little more than arm’s length away. “How’d you get my locket?”
“Maybe if you’d come home at night, you’d find out.”
Ellie moved toward Damian, pretending to attempt to settle him down. Just a little closer and she could reach the 2x4.
“You must not get many phone calls.”
Ellie hesitated. Damian started dancing back and forth, blocking her way. “Just leave us alone, okay?”
“I can’t,” Victor said, stepping inside the stall. “You and I both know that’s not what you really want.”
“It is,” Ellie said. “I don’t want anything to do with you. Now please…” Timing Damian perfectly, when he stepped back, tossing his head, she lunged for the 2x4 and turned, only to have Victor snatch it out of her hands. And with that, Damian started bouncing off the walls.
“Oh my God!” Ellie gasped, suddenly realizing the source of Damian’s puncture wounds.
“I’m going to teach you how to behave yet!” Victor shouted. And when he raised the 2x4, Damian swung around and started kicking! The first two kicks missed, the succession that followed didn’t.
Ellie dropped to the ground and rolled out of the stall fast, then stumbled to her feet amidst a small crowd quickly approaching.
“Easy now…” she heard someone saying. “Easy now….”
“Easy….”
Victor lay in a heap. Damian had stopped kicking, but was repeatedly stepping on him, still trying to get away from him. Sheila, the farm owner attempted to get close to Damian, but he wouldn’t have any part of it. “Ellie!” she urged. “Ellie, come help me! Come help me!”
Ellie grabbed his halter and went back into the stall, lunged one way and then the other, to try and stop him. He stepped on Victor yet again. Finally, she got the halter on him and led him out - Damian dancing up and down and snorting and almost getting loose.
“Get me his shank,” she said to Diablo, and froze for a split second. Diablo?
A shank. Fortunately she’d pointed to it. He had no idea what a shank was. He grabbed it and started toward her. “Toss it to me,” she said. “Slow.”
He tossed it to her carefully, then glanced back in the stall, assessed the man’s injuries, and took out his cell phone and dialed 911.
Ellie disappeared for a moment, walking Damian in the arena, trying to settle him down, talking to him. He kicked and bucked and squealed over and over. “It’s okay,” she kept telling him. “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault.” But he was too wound up. She gave up and turned him loose in the arena, let him run and run and run, and walked to the stall, dreading what she would find.
“Is he…?” Surely Victor had to be dead.
“No,” Diablo said. “All fucked up, but not dead.”
A siren sounded, louder and louder, and then went silent as the ambulance turned in off the road.
Ellie looked into the stall. Sheila was bent over Victor, sobbing. Ellie imagined her turning on her, blaming Damian, blaming the crows, blaming her.
“Sheila…?”
The woman shook her head, cradling Victor in her arms. “I’m so sorry, Ellie. I should have known.” He was still holding on to the 2x4.
Tears sprang to Ellie’s eyes.
Everyone gathered stepped back then as the ambulance crew wheeled a stretcher in and started attending to Victor. “Ma’am,” the one said, pulling Sheila off of him. “Ma’am, please.”
“Ellie.” Diablo reached for her hand. “We have to go.”
“What?” Ellie stared at him.
“It’s your Grandma. She’s dying.”
“Oh my God.”
“Come on.”
~ 24 ~
In Diablo’s family, it was bad luck for a bird to fly into one’s house. Having one in a car seemed ten times worse. “Oh, the things I do for you, Ellie,” he said, and it made her smile. A sad smile, but a smile nonetheless.
She held Lolita in her lap, still wrapped in Damian’s blanket, hesitant to look, to see if she would live or die. There was no time to check her at the barn, no time to…. She’d hardly spoke except to give Diablo directions. It was nightfall.
Diablo explained how he’d phoned the nursing home, worried about her, how they said she hadn’t arrived, and that he became even more concerned then, uneasy. When the nurse gave him the news about Grandma Betty failing fast, he told the woman he’d find Ellie and get there as soon as possible. The barn was the only other place he could think she’d be, and arrived just as two women came running out of the house. Apparently, one of the racetrackers, alarmed by the cuts and scratches on Ellie’s hands and arms, not to mention her searching for
Victor with the 2x4 in her hand, went up to the house and alerted the owner.
“Do you want me to phone the nursing home and find out if…?”
Ellie shook her head. “She’ll still be alive. I know it.”
Diablo glanced out his side window, hoping for her sake she was right. “You okay?”
She nodded. She’d cleaned her cuts and scratches as best she could, by wiping them on the blanket. She was numb to the pain. Another ten minutes or so, and they’d be there. When Lolita let out a shrill caw, Diablo jumped.
“Jesus Christ!”
Ellie chuckled somewhat at his reaction, and cradled her in her arms, talked to her, hummed to her, pressed her cheek against her small face. She’d put it off long enough; she had to examine her wings. She unwrapped her gently, right wing first, and examined each feather. The tips of three were gone; all were somewhat furled and frayed, but no feathers broken, no broken bones. Left wing, a feather was missing and another barely attached.
Diablo leaned further and further away from them, as far as he could. “Can she fly like that?”
“I don’t know. I think so.”
When Lolita ruffled her feathers, he jumped again.
“Don’t, you’re gonna scare her.”
“Scare her?”
“Be still. I’m serious. If she gets frightened….” Ellie raised her up from her lap. “Be still.” Lolita instinctively wrapped her talons around the side of Ellie’s hand, then with a shudder, extended her wings and fluttered them up and down. Diablo could barely keep his eyes on the road, between worrying the bird was going to start flying around the inside of the car, to his fascination of her, her wing span, her size, her sheer beauty.
“Wow,” was all he could say.
Ellie lowered her slowly, and cradled her in her hands. “It’s not far now. Take a right at the next light.” By the time Diablo turned into the drive at the nursing home and parked, Lolita was fidgety. She’d even pecked at Ellie several times. Ellie scolded her and smiled. “Is that the thanks I get for saving your life?”
Diablo came around to open her door and stood back. Gripping the side of Ellie’s hand, Lolita tested her wings again, fluttering, reaching, cocking her head one way and then the other, hesitating. Then seemingly without effort and with a magnificent wing display, she took flight and disappeared into the night.
Ellie and Diablo hurried inside and rushed down the hall. Grandma Betty looked up when they entered the room and sighed. “Oh good, you’re here. I’m so weak, Ellie. I didn’t know I’d be this weak.” They had removed the IV and at her request, she was wearing her favorite red pantsuit. “How do I look?”
“You look beautiful, Grandma.” Ellie kissed her forehead and sat down next to her.
“How’s my hair?”
“Perfect,” Ellie said, her chin quivering.
“I wish I didn’t have to die here.”
“I know.”
“We had such fun, didn’t we?”
“Yes.”
“Can I go back outside?” she asked, her chest heaving with each breath. “Do you think they’d let me go outside?”
Ellie’s mind raced. “I’ll go find out.”
A nurse met her coming out of the room, listened to her request, and shook her head. “Not a good idea. We’re shorthanded,” she said. “Someone would have to go get the key to the back door, move furniture, maneuver the beds….”
“Do you think she could sit up in a wheelchair?” Ellie asked.
Grandma Betty heard. “I can try,” she said, barely able to hold her head up.
“There are loungers out there, if we could only get her outside.”
“Why don’t I just carry her?” Diablo suggested. “Is it all right if I carry her?”
The nurse hesitated, perhaps running through a mental list of rules and regulations, ifs, ands and buts. “Yes.”
They moved quickly. “Oh, isn’t this grand,” Grandma Betty said, as Diablo scooped her up. “I feel like Scarlett O’Hara.”
Ellie laughed, gathering up her patchwork-quilt and pillow. “Let’s go.”
“Wait. I need to say good-bye to April. April, it’s time to say good-bye, Okay?”
“Okay,” April said. “I’ll miss you.”
This was it, the sum of their year and a half together as roommates, hardly ever communicating, hardly ever acknowledging one another. They passed by Mary’s room, the hypochondriac. “Where you going?” she asked.
“I’m going outside to die,” Grandma Betty said.
“Who’s that carrying you?”
“This is Diablo. He’s very strong. Bye, Mary.”
The nurse appeared with the key to the door, extra pillows, and led the way, Ellie at their side.
“Your father just phoned. He said he’d be here within the hour.”
Ellie looked at the nurse. Did they have an hour?
Apparently not. The woman shook her head. Down the main corridor, they passed two more residents. Grandma Betty told them both good-bye as well, even though she’d never met the two women. Every aide and nurse they encountered, she bid farewell also.
The nurse unlocked the door and they stepped out into the night. She and Ellie positioned the pillows on the lounger then covered them with the patchwork-quilt. Diablo set Grandma Betty down gently and the nurse and Ellie fussed making her comfortable. “Thank you,” she said, all situated. “This is nice. Thank you.” The night air was warm, with a soft breeze, not a cloud in the sky. Faces and voices blended in the darkness.
She could hear her favorite aide, “I come to say good-bye, Betty.” A kiss on her cheek.
“Me, too,” Sophie said.
“Betty, are you in pain?”
“No, Mary, it’s not bad at all.”
“Mr. Cooper says good-bye. He’s sitting by his window.”
“Betty, wave. April’s waving to you.” April stood just inside the door, trembling and with big tears in her eyes. She’d rung the buzzer again and again, and insisted on coming.
Grandma Betty waved to her.
“Are you afraid?”
“No. Not at all.”
Ellie tucked the quilt around her grandmother’s shoulders. She’d paled and was starting to shiver. “You are so sweet,” Grandma Betty said, a flicker of sadness crossing her eyes. Ellie was so precious to her. So very precious. “Diablo.”
“Yes,” he said, down on one knee at her side.
“You take care of her.”
“I will.”
“Let her take care of you, too.”
“I’ll try,” he said, his voice cracking.
Grandma Betty nodded, her hand soft in Ellie’s, her strength failing. “I’ll miss you, Ellie.”
“Me, too, Grandma,” she said, and apologized for crying. “I’m sorry. “
“It’s okay.” Grandma Betty brought Ellie’s hand to her lips. “It’s okay.”
Ellie looked at Diablo, her heart breaking, a part of
her slipping away…then gazed up into the night, tears trickling down her face. “Which star is ours, Grandma?” she asked.
Grandma Betty scanned the darkness, darkness everywhere. “That one right there.” She pointed to it, smiling. “That one right there,” she said. Then she closed her eyes and in an instant, she was gone.
“Oh, God.” Ellie laid her head in her grandmother’s lap and hugged her dearly. As a child she would fall asleep like this - so safe, so warm in her grandmother’s lap. “Good-bye, Grandma,” she said. “I love you.” All around them, in the trees and on the rooftops, was the whisper of wings. “I will always love you.”
~ 25 ~
Ellie packed her grandmother’s things. April was asleep, her hearing aids removed.
“Is that it?” Diablo asked.
She nodded. Two bags of clothing. “Take them to the Goodwill,” her grandmother had said. She’d take them in the morning. Ellie glanced around the room. The bed had been stripped already. A bare mattress, lying flat. She stopped a
t the nurses’ station, went through the motions. “My dad’ll have someone pick up the fridge and chair tomorrow.”
He and Jewel had just left. The four of them had waited until the undertaker came and went. Ellie insisted Grandma Betty not be brought back inside. Her dad tipped the driver for being so congenial. “Just a little something,” he said, to thank the man.
“If anyone wants what’s in there….”
The nurse nodded. “You were good to your grandmother,” she said.
Ellie looked at her, bottom lip trembling. “Thank you. She wasn’t just my Grandma, she was my friend.”
“I know.” The nurse wrapped her arms around her and squeezed her tight. “Let me give you some advice,” she said, breaking down and crying. “Leave this place behind you and don’t look back. You did all you could.”
“Thank you.” Ellie welcomed the woman’s touch, her strength, her shoulder to lean on. And when she and Diablo left, she did just that. She left the place behind.
“Where do you want to go?” Diablo asked. “Your apartment or mine?”
“Neither. The night’s too pretty,” she said.
Diablo smiled, and leaned over and kissed her. “Well, we have to go somewhere. I have to take care of you, you know.”
“Oh, God!” Ellie laughed, wiping her eyes. “Leave it to my Grandma.”
Diablo chuckled, the two of them gazing at one another. “How about we go get the Harley?”
“Don’t you have to work?”
“No, I called off,” he said. The night was theirs. They took to the highway, the streets, Diablo’s domain. And in the morning, Ellie slept. And slept and slept and slept. When she finally woke, she found she had changed. Her life would never be the same. She’d lost a part of herself, and yet in some ways, she felt richer, more whole, blessed.
Ellie's Crows Page 14
