Grave of Hummingbirds

by Jennifer Skutelsky

  “Do you think she can fly to the gods without her wings?” he asked softly and turned. “There’s water in the cup. Drink.”

  Sophie shook her head.

  He picked up the cup and loomed.

  The bird lay still, unconscious or dead.

  “But can her wings fly without her?” He held the water out. “Please. You’ll feel better.”

  Sophie drank, sipping, then slurping, reluctant, then greedy, ignoring the taste, wanting him to leave, needing him to explain, wondering whether she could . . . get past . . . him . . . to the gate.

  He rippled in front of her, vertical waves of shadowed light, a white-masked snake dancer reaching for her with a . . . needle . . . driving her back into the dark.

  The last sense to leave her was smell, and even when she found a dream of Finn again, the stench refused to release her.

  Sophie woke on her side to silence. Her clothes—white shirt, bra, jeans, panties, socks, and sneakers—had been removed. She was wrapped in a loose dress, a nightgown perhaps. The skin on the back of her shoulder was irritated, painful, and swollen under her searching fingers. It itched and stung.

  Insect bites?

  The condor in the corner remained still. She could hear no movement across the ten or so feet that separated them.

  Her mouth and throat were fuzzy. Her forearm ached. A needle had deposited some kind of poison under her skin.

  Sophie owned her body again, felt the shabby foam of the stained, stinking mattress, and recoiled, surging backward onto her knees.

  She crawled forward until she was able to take hold of the bars. “Please,” she whispered, “this is a terrible mistake. Please let me go.”

  An awareness of the cold returned and she began to shiver violently. Leaning her head on the bars, she closed her eyes and clenched her teeth. “This is a nightmare. Get a grip, Sophie, get a grip. I am Sophie Lawson. I have a son. I have a son, Finn. Finn.” She broke down, letting go of the bars, sobs and a high-pitched moan seeping out of her. On the brink of hyperventilation, she pulled back, slowed her breathing, and tried to think.

  Behind her, the bird began to stir. It raised its bald head, and Sophie saw it was a female, lacking the male’s bulky comb. Her wing looked broken, and now it thumped against the floor. The condor tried to stand, an off-balance tilt that forced her to bob and sway.

  In the animal’s hurt, Sophie found Finn again.

  When he was ten years old, she’d been driving along the freeway when a livestock carrier forced her to slow down. Dense, oncoming traffic prevented her from passing. Beside her, Finn stared up at the doomed cattle. He and Sophie caught sight of a horn, a rump, a shoulder wedged in tight against the steel panels. The truck, with Sophie and Finn trailing behind, turned off and stopped for a time at a traffic light. One of the bulls craned his neck to see over the side, and Finn stared up into straining black eyes that showed rolling white.

  Finn had turned on her in a fury. “Do something, Mom. Why can’t you do something? He’s going to be slaughtered.”

  She shook her head.

  “Did you see him?”

  “Of course I saw him. But what would you have me do, Finn?”

  She asked the question, but she knew. He wanted her to buy the truck, the driver, the whole load of powerless beasts. He wanted her to buy the wide world.

  “Do something. Do something. Dosomethingdosomething . . .”

  Sophie crept toward the shuddering figure in the corner. Between her skin and the floor, her nightgown absorbed the wet smudge of meat. Cold, soft, rotting chunks that the bird had lost the will to eat.

  Sophie choked and coughed.

  The condor’s legs were hobbled with rope. As Sophie reached for her, hardly knowing what to do, head and beak flashed, tearing the skin on her arm. She welcomed the pain. It acted like a current, charging comatose cells. But the bird’s fight to prevent her from coming close was feeble. Sophie imagined the stab and split of what might be pins and stitches. It took only seconds to overcome her.

  Sophie thought of Finn as she grasped the bird’s head behind her beak, as she held against her the folded wing on the unhurt side of the condor’s body. “Sh,” she whispered. “I’ve got you.” She buried her fingers in delicate chest feathers, the white down of neck, and stroked the denser black plumage of the bird’s wing.

  As the condor began to slip away, she took Sophie with her. Together, light as dust, they left their prison behind and caught an easy updraft to soar away from the cliffs and find the lake, return to the canyons and rearing rocks, blink in the wind, and take in Pájaro’s blue-magenta-yellow-green-rust-red.

  The cry of a second bird—the one Sophie had heard earlier when she’d reached Gregory’s house—rose to meet them as they flew, and when Sophie found she couldn’t keep up, she rested her head against the wall of her cell, slow tears trickling down her cheeks.

  TWENTY

  Gregory ran after Finn but quickly lost sight of him. He got to the square, where a crowd surrounded him, babbling a chorus of distress.

  Manco pushed his way forward and cried, “Gregory, I sent Carlos and Ricardo to the house to find you.”

  Distracted, Gregory continued to scan the street for signs of Finn. “Have you seen the boy?”

  “The boy?” Manco said as he and several men began to usher Gregory toward the café. “Never mind the boy. Rufo’s been murdered, like an animal.”

  Gregory had no choice but to retrace his steps to the man he’d left sprawled against the wall. People stood in a semicircle around the body, waiting in subdued horror for someone to take charge. Ineffectual guards and police succeeded only in clearing a path for Gregory, giving him space to lower himself onto his haunches and take a closer look.

  He fought his panic and fixated on Rufo’s open palm, which, from this vantage point, appeared to ask for or offer him something.

  “What should we do, Gregory?” Manco asked.

  Gregory was silent. He stayed motionless, in his mind drawing the blades out of Rufo’s back and shoulders; getting that red hair out of his face; easing him out of this awkward, uncomfortable position; laying him down.

  “We must find whoever did this,” he said at last and slowly stood, still saying good-bye to the man he knew had loved Nita. That rare tenderness, cupped in Rufo’s callused palm, could have cradled something as small and elusive as a hummingbird, and he felt an urge to take it in a gesture of belated friendship.

  “This is a crime scene,” he said. “We’ll have to call in the police from Búho. Manco, we don’t have the resources to process this without them.”

  “Will you take care of him now?” Manco asked.

  “I’m a doctor. Not a medical examiner, not a pathologist, not an undertaker.” He spoke to all the men who had gathered. “It’s too late for Rufo. We have to turn our attention to the American boy and his mother and find her before it’s too late.”

  “Why do you say that?” Raphael, in charge of the community watch, overcame his shock to assert the authority that Rufo had delegated him. “What have they got to do with this?”

  “I don’t know that they have anything to do with this. But she’s missing, possibly abducted, and her son has gone off on his own to look for her.”

  “But I just saw him,” Manco said. “He was asking whether I had seen his mother. Why would anyone take her?” Incomprehension furrowed his brow as he tried to connect seemingly random events. “Last year, the murder, the woman with the wings? You think it’s the same as last year? Surely not. Just because . . .” His hesitation drew the attention of everyone gathered.

  “Say it, Manco,” Gregory said. “Go on, say it.” But Manco wouldn’t, so he had to. “The first woman who was murdered, a year ago, looked like Nita. I believe that’s why she was abducted in the first place. The boy’s mother does, too; she resembles her even more closely.” As he articulated his dread, he shared his suspicions that the killer had been close to Nita, was close to them all. It was some
one they had overlooked, someone easy to overlook, because he kept his darkness well hidden. “All along, Rufo said, and we wanted to believe, that he came from far away. He doesn’t. I think he’s one of us.”

  “Where were you earlier tonight, Gregory?” Father Alfonso stepped into the light that streamed through the kitchen doorway. “It looks like you’re out of breath. I only ask because we’re all concerned. You had an argument with Rufo in the morning.”

  Gregory took a moment to stare at him before answering. “I will defend myself when I’m accused outright, Father. Are you accusing me?” He understood that it was more than spite that goaded the priest. The man jostled for position.

  A murmur passed among the men.

  “I only point out that it seems strange. We have a murder and a possible—only possible, mind you—abduction, and we may be going in search of someone who is right under our noses.” The priest’s eyes were hooded, impossible to read in the half-light. “Just as you’ve pointed out.”

  “So what you’re saying is every man here is a suspect,” Gregory said.

  “No, that’s what you’re saying.”

  “Every man. Including you.”

  The murmurs were silenced. A deep hush settled, restless and fearful.

  Here in Colibrí, people saw death as more than an end; it was an opening. Its presence allowed for the intrusion of other forces that were not kindly disposed to the living. Perhaps the gods were jealous of the brief, finite time all creatures had on earth, or they were jealous of one another, but in their jealousy they thrashed about, wrecking harvests, causing accidents, and setting men at one another’s throats.

  All gods must be appeased and placated, and each had his or her tastes. It was very difficult to keep up and inevitable that there would be oversights. Father Alfonso helped to regulate the blunders. He was the keeper of breaches, the conduit to a foreign god they had come to accept.

  Rufo had understood all the gods. He had known, better than anyone, the delicate balance that had to be maintained between so many rivals. Colibrí had flourished not just because of the work Rufo had done to bring them cell phone reception and electricity but because he had been such a successful juggler.

  They needed the doctor, but Gregory understood why it was difficult for them to trust him. He was something else entirely. Part warrior, part healer, part landowner, part peasant, he was a window to a dazzling dream, and the closest many of them would ever get to his world was to press their noses against the glass. He signified progress of a different kind. If he didn’t disrespect all gods outright, he certainly challenged them, and who knows, perhaps the gods loved him for it. He wasn’t afraid.

  He and Rufo had always been at odds, but that was the way of power, and now Colibrí chose to side with Gregory.

  His face bitter, Father Alfonso turned back to his church.

  “We’ll form two search parties,” Gregory said, “one to stay in Colibrí and another to follow me into the mountains. Raphael, can you make this happen?”

  “Of course. Tell me what to do.”

  Gregory looked about for the policemen. “Work with Ernesto and Joaquin. You’ll need to deputize some men to get people back to their homes. Knock on every door and see if anyone saw anything out of the ordinary. Get details; it doesn’t matter how small. We’ll need to secure this area and the bridge until homicide detectives get here from Búho.”

  Gregory returned with Manco to Los Colibríes and reported the murder to the police in Búho. The men who would accompany Gregory back to the house to regroup and search the surrounding areas would do so on horseback, and they hurried off to prepare their mounts and tell their families where they were going. Manco arranged for Gregory to borrow a mare, and their party gathered quickly.

  Isabella trotted forward on a shaggy black pony. “I’m coming, too, Gregory,” she said. “We’ll see this finished, once and for all, together.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  It was, after all, a gentle death. The condor’s heart, pressed tight against Sophie’s, gave up the arduous fight and stopped. Sophie’s heart continued to beat against her ribs, nudging and coaxing the bird’s to pick up a rhythm again.

  But the condor stole away quickly, leaving behind a cold, dead weight.

  Sophie stretched her fingers through the soft down and moved her hand across the stiff quills, conscious now of a wet trickle from the wound in her arm and a flare of pain that, once ignited, started to throb.

  Think.

  Think.

  Think.

  Sophie lifted the injured wing and explored the shoulder joint. She knew that avian bones were light and brittle. Many of them were hollow and tended to shatter, but she had to forget for now the remarkable job someone had done of repairing the fractured wing. Working quickly, she probed and picked at the thin skin to discover the pins, connecting bars, and clamps inserted into the radius and the external skeletal fixator on the ulna. She pushed and ripped, overriding her sense of shrieking flesh, tearing her nails and bloodying her fingers as she dug out the elusive, slippery stainless steel.

  At last, the condor surrendered the metal, and clutching one of the pins, Sophie extricated herself from the bird’s sad embrace. Knowing her legs would buckle if she stood, she crawled back to the opposite wall and concealed the implement under the mattress.

  She heaved herself up to sit with her back against the wall and, beyond the soft lamplight, made the breathtaking discovery that she was not alone. The silent, macabre companions with whom she shared a cell gazed at her expectantly. Next to her own slumped, corporeal form was the ghost Sophie had encountered at the café, damaged and stripped down to her slip. An old woman with broken fingers and a punctured dress stood nearby, and to her left, a man with black holes in his skull hung his head. A bruised boy, around Finn’s age, trembled in shredded clothing, his skin minced by bullets.

  A clanging sound drove the phantom group into a huddle in the corner as the gate whirred across its railings.

  The shrinking scientist in Sophie forced her eyes open.

  There were bones here.

  Bodies.

  There was work to be done. These people had names. She must find out who and where they were.

  The masked man stepped into the cell and drew the gate closed behind him. “Are you awake?” he murmured.

  Sophie stirred but did not respond, saw him through half-shut eyes, and waited.

  He turned and crossed quickly to the condor, looked down at the cold, capelike wings that no longer quivered. The feathers didn’t even stir as he stepped near, then away, more cautious around the dead bird than he had ever been when she was alive.

  He spun at the same time that Sophie hurled herself at him, wielding the pin high above her head. Weak from the opiates, she stumbled on the hem of the nightgown and catapulted into his chest. He caught her arm as it descended toward him, and the steel pinged onto the floor, bouncing once before skidding toward the mattress. She was no match for him, but the attack surprised him, and before he could wrestle her to the ground, she attempted to rip the mask away.

  As though still suspended above the struggle, Sophie had time to wonder where she found the courage to shriek and snarl. She had time to claw at the plaster and string that held the mask in place so that it slipped, revealing a forehead glistening with sweat, before he reared beyond reach.

  He gripped her wrists and forced them above her head, his fingers slipping in the blood that had seeped along her skin. He pulled her arms down to her sides and twirled her around to face away from him. Curving his body into her back, he locked her in a tight embrace that squeezed the breath out of her. Then he swept her feet out from under her, toppling them both to the floor.

  Sophie landed hard, cracking her head on the cold stone, shrieking again, this time from the pain in her twisting arm. Gasping, almost senseless, she carried his weight on her back and drew them both along the slick surface, sliding inch by inch through rotted meat chunks. Desperately, she
felt for the pin.

  For a moment she imagined she’d escaped him, as the heaviness along the length of her body lifted off her shoulders, allowing her to raise them and stretch forward, breaking scrabbling fingernails on the floor.

  He heaved his body onto her again, nudging his fingers between her knuckles to hold her hand. He forced her elbow to bend into her waist and pressed his face against the back of her head to push the mask into place.

  “What have you done?” he whispered into her ear.

  Sophie bucked once underneath him, then folded into the dark with the smallest gasp and felt nothing more.

  He accepted her surrender with a sigh of his own, a breath that eased into the lines of his mask and whispered through the cracks that her nails had torn in the plaster. He could feel her, slender and strong, the long muscles of her thighs ensnared in his, her spine against his heart. Her pulse was light, a butterfly flutter.

  He moved her hair off her neck to study the indelible marks he had left on her skin. A single vine reached from the back of her neck to the shoulder, where it dropped leaves into the clavicle. He was pleased. It was all he’d had time to do in the hours she’d been with him. He still had much of the story to tell, and he’d try this time to make his message clearer.

  He sat down and lifted her into his arms, pushing away a lock of hair that had caught between her lips. He used the sweat and tears on her cheeks to clean her face and found the bump and scrape where she’d struck her head, the tear on her arm. Her skin was paler than he remembered, and the yellow light from the lamp made it appear sallow. He had left her alone for only an hour, and look what had happened. He wouldn’t leave her again.

  He sighed deeply and rested the back of his head against the wall. He had loved her since childhood. Nita. Even when he was twelve years old, from the moment he had seen her for the first time, crossing the bridge on her way to school, he had begun to love her. She wore a plain gray knitted dress, with a thick black belt that cinched her tiny waist, and she carried a satchel full of books and art materials. She was to be their teacher. She had knotted a scarf beneath her chin, and she swept it off her head as she introduced herself to them. Her hair, black as a starling’s wing, fell to her waist in thick waves, which she then rolled into a makeshift bun. She stuck a pencil through the mass to hold it in place, and he thought her brilliant.