The Bird Saviors (7 page)

Look out the window. And doesn't this remind you of when you were in the boat? And then later that night, you were lying, looking up at the ceiling, and the water in your head was not dissimilar from the landscape, and you think to

yourself, "Why is it that the landscape is moving, but the boat is still?"

A  h a r r i e d  n u r s e  a t  t h e  h o s p i t a l info booth tells officer James only immediate family members are authorized to visit the young woman. Elray explains who he is, how he found her in the manger.

    When I called before I came, nobody said family only. I mean, if the rules could be bent and not broken, I'd appreciate it.

    Go on, says the nurse. I see why you'd be caring to know how she is.

    Could you tell me the name?

    What name?

    The girl. The sick girl.

    Ruby Elizabeth Cole. Seventeen years old and a mother already. The young nurse in the info booth leans forward and whispers, Her father's a war vet, and a preacher to boot.

    Elray wanders confused down several hallways before he finds Ruby Cole. Her room is small and cramped, with two folding chairs at the foot of the bed and barely enough room to cough without hitting your head on the ceiling.

    In bed Ruby resembles a sick mermaid, her hair wet and bedraggled on the pillow, tendrils tangled and wave- tossed, breathing ragged, eyelids purple, nose pink. Her face looks cat- scratched, lips blushed and swollen. Elray watches the blue veins in her neck, the slight hollow of skin in the center of her collarbone. An IV stand holds liquids in clear plastic pouches, tubes from them to her arms. She's also hooked up to a monitoring contraption, a video screen that shows her vitals.

    In the pale room, with its tiled floor and simple white walls, a single window presents a view of white sky and mountain silhouettes in the distance. Time seems to contract and withdraw, like an old- fashioned film in which the bright scene of the film's action— say, a farm in winter— appears in a circle surrounded by the blackest darkness until it contracts and all that's left is the mane of a horse, snow falling on a barn, a pitchfork upright in a hay bale.

    Elray can't keep his eyes open. He dreams he's trying to swim but has no legs. He awakens with a crick in his neck. A nurse is checking the girl's pulse. She smiles at him and says he's a good man to watch over the girl. They're calling her the Miracle Girl, one of the few to recover from the fever after reaching stage three. They say she's blessed. Some visitors have even come to touch her, as if she possesses the healing powers of a saint.

    Elray puts his hat in his lap and sits up. I only wanted to make sure she was okay. Looks like she's in good hands.

    Ruby opens her eyes and blinks. She looks at Elray for a long

moment, turns her head to the window and stares, reaches up to rub her face.

    Well, look what the cat drug in, says the nurse.

    Come again?

    You're waking up, she says.

    Ruby's bone- white face cringes. Where am I? Where's my baby?

    The nurse tucks her sheets and straightens her IV attachment. Your family has your baby girl. She's doing fine. Don't you worry.

    My family?

    Your father is coming to visit. He can tell you everything.

    Her eyes pink with tears. Does he have Lila?

    Honey, now you just hush and don't worry.

    I want my baby.

    Elray stands to leave, cowboy hat in his hands. I hope you're feeling better, he says. I was the one picked you up.

    Ruby rubs her face. I don't remember.

    He nods. Maybe that's good. They say your heart quit beating.

    She smiles weakly. People say all kinds of things.

    That they do.

    I guess you saved my life, then.

    It's my job.

    Saving people's lives?

    He shrugs. Well, mostly I give parking tickets. The occasional drunk and disorderly.

    Why are you here?

    He picks at the brim of his hat. To see how you're doing.

    Ruby's expression stiffens. She stares out the window. Behind him Elray feels a looming. He turns to find a tall, bearded man staring at him with a biblical squint and glower, standing too close. Elray can practically feel his body heat. He smells of wood smoke and soil, the reek of a farmer or a field worker. Elray extends his hand and offers his name.

    Lord God does not accept the gesture. He's a good four inches taller than Elray and uses his height to bend him to his will. When he speaks his voice is hoarse and slow.

    You know who I am?

    I'm guessing you're Mr. Cole, Ruby's father?

    Lord God only blinks and strokes his beard. I'm the man who fought for your freedom. I'm the man who went to war so you can eat your fried chicken and drink your beer. You look like a chicken- and- beer man to me.

    I wouldn't turn it down, says Elray.

    Tacos, too. Tamales. Lord God makes an exaggerated sniffing motion, like a hound trying to catch the trail of an outlaw. Perhaps the occasional enchilada with a margarita chaser.

    I do like Mexican food. On the occasion of every chance I get.

    It's written all over your face. That lazy hunger. A well- fed man is most likely a criminal, is what I believe. And if his fingers be slick with pork grease from tamales, he's most likely in league with the illegals. Taking payola is what I guess. And it's for you I fought in the desert overseas. For you and your ilk.

    Elray wrinkles his brow. And we thank you kindly?

    Do you see this leg? Cole lifts his pants leg to reveal his

prosthetic limb. I had my leg blown off, my eye put out. The Muslims put a bomb in the road as a welcome mat. All for my efforts to improve their world.

    Elray believes that it's a mistake to occupy a foreign country and expect its people to welcome you with hugs and kisses, especially as a Christian man carrying weapons in a country that worships Allah. He looks at John Wesley Cole's leg and says, It looks to be they have you fixed right up.

    Cole nods, his squint tightening. Is that what you call it? Fixed? I got one leg is what I got.

    I should be going, says Elray. I was just here to hope she was feeling better.

    Not so fast, Officer, says Cole. Let me ask you something. Am I right to assume you did not serve in the military?

    Not me. Elray shakes his head.

    And can you tell me why?

    I guess I didn't think it was the right thing to do.

    You guess.

    An expression. I didn't join. Let's leave it at that.

    You are an officer of the law, says Cole. I see this and I will give it what it's due. But please could you tell me what my daughter's hospital room has to do with any crime or criminal behavior?

    He pauses. No one moves. The nurse has disappeared. Cole breathes loudly through his nose, as if Elray were an annoyance and he a giant. I was under the impression that she was to see direct family members only, he adds.

    Elray tells who he is, what he's done. How he found her in the manger, cold and sick in the snow. I just wanted to make sure she was okay. I heard she was better.

    She's been here long enough, says her father. I'm taking her home. We thank you for your concern and ask that you now move your concern to other, more dangerous citizens of this county.

    Daddy, where's Lila?

    I got the Johnson woman down the road to come babysit for a few hours. She'll be fine.

    Ruby glances at Elray and says, He didn't mean anything—

    My daughter needs to dress and prepare herself. In the interests of modesty, you best be leaving.

    Elray nods and backs away, bumping into the nurse.

    She shoos both of them and tells Ruby's father to leave her be. She says Ruby can't be moved yet. This young lady is still running a fever, says the nurse. Plus the virus might still be contagious. She is not ready to be released. No way nohow.

    Nonsense, says Cole. We'll care for her. She'll recover with her family, where she should be in the first place.

    I'm going to get the physician in charge.

    Do what you want. As will I. I'm her father and she does what I say.

    Elray steps closer to Ruby, watching her face. I think the nurse is right, he says. She should stay a couple more days, till the fever's gone.

    I don't need a yellowbelly to tell me what to do. You may wear a badge and carry a gun, but you are not telling me how to raise my daughter.

    The girl is sick, says Elray, and she needs time and care to get better. It's not a matter of raising her.

    Yes, it is. I'm raising her out of this bed and taking her home.

    Cole reaches over the bed and tries to gather Ruby in his arms, but the IV tubes and stand are still connected at her wrists. They tangle as he lifts her to his chest, the stand flopping over onto the bed.

    Put your daughter down, says Elray. I can arrest you and charge you with endangering the welfare of a child.

    You wouldn't.

    Try me.

    She's a child no more, says Cole. My daughter has a child of her own. And her baby girl is in need of her attention.

    The doctor comes and tells both of them to lower their voices. You can take her home, Mr. Cole, he says. In due time. First we're going to get some test results back and make sure she's good to travel. Just be sure to keep her warm and watch that temperature. Keep feeding her liquids. She might need to stay in bed a week or more.

    I'll do that, says Lord God. She's my daughter and I'll lay down my life for her. He stares at Elray and adds, Now I think we've had enough law enforcement for the day.

    On his drive north through the panhandle of Texas and northeast New Mexico, Ward counted eighty- nine raptors, mostly Red- Tailed Hawks, with a number of Northern Harriers perched on low telephone poles or fence posts. Tasked with ascertaining the bird populations on the prairie, Ward estimates the number of birds based on a study of given areas, such as a ten- mile grid with clearly defined parameters. Seeing five Harriers in a five- mile stretch of highway is misleading: More Harriers linger near the highway, feeding off road kill, than in the open expanse of wind- ruffled grasslands. Five to two Harriers per five miles might extrapolate as some two hundred Harriers in a given two- hundred- mile stretch of highway, but that number is suspect.

    The population of raptors— Harriers, Prairie Falcons, Red- Tailed Hawks, Ferruginous Hawks, and Golden Eagles— has dropped significantly in the last decade. Ward's scientific method compels him to stake out and define a particular region of prairie, such as BLM land west of Pueblo, Colorado, and do the difficult fieldwork of hiking the prairies and gulches, counting the number of apparent birds, verifying those numbers by numerous visits, and coming up with a rough approximation for the population.

    Awakened late the night before by the flashing lights of squad cars in the Buffalo Head's parking lot, a radio barking static in the background as guests spoke to police, Ward's eyes sting and sag and he's bleary- brained. A Western Meadowlark trills from a fence post, liquid and lyrical. He records the sighting in a small spiral notebook, then follows mountain bike trails and finds himself wandering, counting candy- bar wrappers and plastic bags impaled on cactus and rabbit bush. Above him white vapor trails crisscross the pale winter sky.

    In two hours he counts three Red- Tailed Hawks, eight female Lark Buntings, seven Horned Larks, a Brewer's Blackbird, a Winter Wren, a flock of thirty- odd European Starlings, and nine plastic bags. He clambers into a gulch that feeds Lake Pueblo and works back toward the highway, studying the mud nests of Bank Swallows. A Raven croaks and squawks as it struggles against the wind, landing in a cottonwood tree.

    At one point a Great Horned Owl swoops from a cliff face and glides away. Spying the thicket of a large nest on a rock shelf above, Ward climbs the gulch walls and finds himself staring at a pair of fledgling owls, almost full grown, green eyes blinking, feathers fuzzy. One of the owlets beats its wings and opens its beak wide, hissing. Ward climbs down and crouches a few feet away, out of their line of vision, his heart beating wildly. After a while he takes a long climb out of the gulch to the upper rim across from the owl's nest, watches the owlets from a distance.