Traveling Light (17 page)

“Been down to the water yet?”

“Yeah.” Paula glanced outside across the street at the changing color of the sky and lake. “It’s so peaceful.”

The woman chuckled as she scanned the pink package of razors. “Come back in a month when it hurls boulders the size of small cars up onto the beaches.”

“
That
lake?” Paula turned to look.

The woman just looked at her; her eyes twinkled. “Fall can come with one good storm.”

Paula wondered what she meant.

“It always starts with vacation groceries,” the woman teased. “Then warm coats and boots from the Ben Franklin.” She gestured next door with a can of Roger’s shaving cream. “It gets harder to leave, and before you know it you’re looking for a job.”

“Funny you should say that,” Paula said, laughing. “I just called about a job.”

The woman smiled. “What job?”

“Part-time wildlife rehabiliatator, out on Highway Sixty-One?”

“Oh.” The woman chuckled in a way that put Paula at ease. “That would be Rick. You must have experience with birds.”

Paula looked out the storefront window at the Escape. Rick. So the voice had a name. He sounded too sour to be a “Rick.”

“Looks like a nice dog.”

“He is. I’d better go.”

“I slipped an Avon brochure into your bag,” Maggie said, lifting her hands like “just in case.”

“Thanks.”

“They’re introducing a new vintage jewelry line you might like,” she said, keeping an eye on Paula’s pendant. “I don’t have the brochures yet, but if you end up getting the job give me a call. My number’s stamped on back.” She pulled out the brochure. “I just got in the autumn products, candles, spice packs. Tell Rick that Maggie says ‘hi.’”

“I will.”

“He’s been short staffed for a month; his part-timer left for school in The Cities. Got a job down at the university’s Raptor Center.”

“The Cities?”

“Minneapolis/St. Paul. Happens every summer, he loses his interns. Gets ’em trained and then releases them back into the wilds of the university.” She chuckled. “Winter’s hard, though God knows he’s done it for years.”

“Is his place hard to find?” Paula asked, fishing for better directions.

“Go north on Sixty-One till you’re practically out of town.” The woman gestured. “Rick’s the first right. He’s the only fire number on the lake side.”

“Fire number?”

The woman studied Paula for a moment. “Those blue signs with white numbers. You can see ’em from the road.”

Paula slowly nodded.

“Where you from?”

“East Coast,” Paula said.

“New York?”

Paula nodded and pointed at her. “Good guess.”

“Well, it’s a pretty distinctive accent.” Maggie looked at her. “Rick’ll be glad to have help.” She looked out the storefront window. “What’s your dog’s name?”

“Fotis.”

“Fotis,” Maggie repeated it. “What’s it mean?”

“‘Light.’ Like light.” Paula pointed to the sky.

“Pretty,” Maggie said, her voice drifting a bit as if she’d been reminded of something. “What language?”

“Greek.”

“You’re Greek?”

Paula nodded.

“Knew you were something or other,” Maggie said as she chuckled and raised her eyebrows. Paula felt the woman studying her features.

“So this guy Rick’s okay, then.” Paula looked at her in a way she thought was universal.

Maggie looked back in a funny way.

“Okay?”

“You know.” Paula joked out the serious question, “Not a psycho killer?”

Maggie laughed and slapped her thighs with both hands as her shoulders shook. “Oh my stars, you’re a hoot.” The woman patted her eyes as if to protect her makeup. “You just say it right out there, don’t you?”

Paula bunched up her shoulders and raised her arms. “Why not?”

“You just made my afternoon,” the woman said.

“Sorry,” Paula said. “I’m new, just thought I’d ask woman to woman.”

“Oh God no,” Maggie said, though still savoring Paula’s comment. “Rick is decent. Known him for a decade; no one’s gonna argue he’s got quite an edge,” she said. “Comes with the territory.”

What territory?
Paula had wanted to ask. “Well, thanks.” She wanted to coax out more information but was afraid of sounding too curious.

“Well—good luck,” Maggie said. “Let me know what happens.” She turned to put away Paula’s basket. “Don’t forget to say hi to Rick.”

Placing the grocery bags in the back of the Escape, Paula pulled out one of the bones and began peeling off the plastic wrap.

Fotis focused on her hands.

“Here.” She held it out. It left a greasy residue on her fingers. She looked around. There was nothing to wipe them on. Fotis sniffed and then took it. He turned over on his back and began gnawing on one end.

*   *   *

It was impossible to tell where the town ended. Rick and Maggie had made it sound obvious, but it took Paula three passes, looking for the last turnoff. Finally, she spotted a slight hint of a driveway; the blue fire number was obscured by branches.

She took the turn and drove toward the lake. The water shimmered so brightly from the angle of the late afternoon sun that it was blinding. To her left was a large log home weathered dark gray by the elements. Surrounding the front yard were several round gazebo-like structures, only where open space should have been there were closely spaced wooden slats.

A man was hammering nets up around one of them. Inside, two huge birds were flapping and screeching. She parked and walked toward him, with Fotis on his leash. The dog smelled the air before pausing to pee on a tree.

As the man straightened up, he set down the hammer, put his hands on his hips and looked at her. He had thinning sandy gray hair, pale blue eyes—almost colorless—and was short, about her height, and deeply tanned, with weather-beaten face and hands from too many years of not caring how much time he spent in the sun. She guessed he was probably sixty, though the skin made it tough to narrow down.

“Hi.” She extended her hand. “I’m Paula. You must be Rick?”

He didn’t offer an introduction.

“I called about the job?”

He frowned and looked at her torso, seeming irritated at having to stop working. He assessed her short skirt, temporary NY license plates, sandals with the patent-leather straps, red toenails.

“First put your dog back in the car.” It was the same crotchety voice, thin but not weak.

“Right, sorry.” She turned and walked toward the Escape. “Don’t know what I was thinking,” she mumbled an apology as she led Fotis back. He was only too happy to hop up and resume his work on the IGA bone.

She and Rick walked side by side in silence toward a large metal building; his clothes smelled of fabric softener. Inside a heavy green metal door was a space that looked like an examination room. A metal table was covered by what looked like a towel. There was a stainless sink, a centrifuge and a refrigerator. Drawers were labeled with various supplies. A large computer monitor sat on top of one of the refrigerators, its screen divided into squares of closed-circuit TV that monitored birds.

“Stand there.” He gestured to the examining table. She moved into position. “You said you have experience with wild birds.”

She nodded.

“I’m short staffed today. Suzanne, my intern, just left for school.”

“Stand here?” Paula asked.

“Put these on.” He set a pair of heavy leather gloves on the examination table. She slipped them on and tried to bend her fingers. It was hard to flex, the suede was so thick. The tops reached up to her elbows.

She watched as he stepped over to a cardboard box that looked large enough to house a washing machine and gently unclipped and rolled back a sky blue bedsheet, fastened on all sides by multicolored plastic clothespins. He bent over and reached in. When he straightened up, in his arms was a bald eagle as tall as Rick’s torso. Holding the eagle by his yellow feet, Rick shifted his hands to cradle the raptor’s enormous body. His talons looked as long as the man’s fingers, only curled and razor-like. The eagle opened his wings. Each wingtip almost grazed a side of the small room. The bird turned and looked right at her; the clarity of his gray-yellow eyes against his white face stopped her breath.

She blinked in wonderment. Aetos Dios—the eagle of Zeus—the legendary golden eagle that became the god’s trusted personal messenger. Paula had seen depictions of the huge bird portrayed on statues in the Metropolitan Museum’s antiquities collections as well as the national museums in Athens.

Paula had never seen an eagle this close and was astounded by his size.

The bird began to struggle.

“Adult male,” Rick said. “Around thirty.”

“Years?” she asked.

He looked at her like she should know this. She looked away.

“How can you tell it’s a male?”

“Because he’s small. Females are much larger.” Rick said it like she should have known that, too.

The eagle opened his yellow beak and arched toward Rick as if about to attack. The man yanked back, avoiding the beak that seemed capable of ripping off his nose. Paula shuddered to think of the softness of a man’s flesh in that beak.

“Lead poisoning. Was brought in yesterday. It’s okay; it’s okay, old man,” Rick said calmly. The eagle responded to Rick’s voice by lowering his head and settling onto the man’s gloved arm. He rested his chin on the top of the bird’s skull.

“This is not characteristic,” Rick explained. The top of the eagle’s head was tucked under Rick’s chin. “He’s hallucinating from toxins. Ordinarily they’re docile. In the wild if they’re on the ground sick you can pick them up using your coat. They offer no resistance. Fearless at their own peril,” he explained. He sounded like a colleague, an academic, which surprised her, especially after the phone call, which had consisted of a series of grunts. “They’re always assessing what’s around them, who is food, who is not. They have no natural predators, except us. We’re the distortion at the top.”

“How was he poisoned?” She thought of peeling paint in the older buildings in New York.

“A deer carcass with lead shotgun pellets or a fish with lead sinkers in its belly. I see more of these in winter. Deer entrails,” Rick explained. “Hunters use lead ammo for whitetails. They leave their gut piles in the woods. After the lakes freeze, it’s slim pickings, and gut piles are an easy meal. It kills many of them. It’s needless suffering for these birds—an easy fix if hunters would switch to lead-free copper bullets and fishermen would use bismuth-tin alloy tackle and nonleaded sinkers.”

“Why don’t they?”

He glared at her like the eagle. “For every eagle we find, there are nine more we don’t. That suffer and die needlessly.” The bird became agitated and began turning his head from side to side, the arc of his neck reminding her of the mosaics she’d seen in the museums in Athens. He pulled back as if getting ready to take a swipe. The man pulled back in anticipation, talking to the bird until he calmed. He stared eye to eye.

Then the eagle turned to Paula. She’d never felt so examined; his eyes were so clear, as if there were nothing between them. As though the beat of her heart were visible through her neck as well as the pulsating blood running through her arteries.

“He looks scared.”

“He’s delusional,” Rick corrected. “See the green stain on his tail feathers?” He raised the eagle so she could see.

“Yeah.”

“Lead.” Rick looked at her. “But this guy’s luckier than most. They die a long, slow death as the iron depletes them, interferes with the digestion process.” They both looked at the bird. “Folks saw him on the ground yesterday in a campground. Just out of town. They threw a blanket over him and called the DNR. Ranger brought him yesterday evening.”

“Will he live?”

The man didn’t answer.

“Come closer,” he said.

She couldn’t; her body felt like stone. She wasn’t afraid but in awe.

He scooted aside.

“Surround my hands,” he instructed.

She found a place within that wasn’t frozen.

“Now grasp his ankles as I let go,” Rick said calmly. She circled the raptor’s yellow ankles, his three-inch talons just inches away. She clutched as best she could through the stiff leather gloves.

“You got him?” the man asked.

“Yeah.” She blinked and nodded. Her stomach fluttered like the Escape had just crested a steep hill and gone momentarily airborne. She was surprised by how light the bird was, ten pounds at most. But as he spread his wings it was like trying to hold on to the wind. Her muscles burned; her bangs lifted off of her forehead.

The man shifted one hand away, cradling the bird’s neck. “Now grasp with your other hand.”

She nodded.

“Okay,” he signaled.

She felt the man let go, though he immediately grasped the eagle’s body, laying the enormous bird, almost three feet tall, down onto the table.

“I’ve got to pull another blood sample,” Rick said, and picked up a syringe from the table. “Lead levels were off the charts yesterday. Been giving him fluids he’s so dehydrated. Dosed him with anti-toxin last night, hoping it wouldn’t kill him. Sometimes the cure kills ’em before the disease,” the man explained. “Gave him anti-toxin again this morning. Want to see if it’s made a difference at all.”

“You can tell so quickly?”

“Hold him re-e-al steady,” Rick said. He moved the bird’s enormous wing aside to get at an artery. Pulling the cap off with his teeth, he inserted the needle and filled the syringe with blood.

She was surprised by the color. Not that she’d thought it would be green; she’d just never thought about birds having blood.

The eagle turned and went for her face. Paula reared back without letting go of his feet as the yellow beak missed. She held on, struggling as he writhed and fought to get free, his wings brushing her ears, creating their own wind. The stronger the eagle resisted, the deeper she found the resolve to hold on. Muscles burned from her fingertips all the way up to her neck.

“Shhhh,” she whispered.

His eyes were practically the size of a baby’s. But he would rip her apart if given the chance. She’d never seen anything like it; she felt like a wide-eyed virgin.