A Mating of Hawks (18 page)

He shrugged. “I know that. But you sure ran straight past me to tidy up my brother, sweetheart.”

She didn't answer. Judd took her hands, both of them, made her face him. His jaw was marked, there was a split above one eye and another on his chin. “What I'm asking, Tracy, is how do you feel about me?”

No good to fuel his grudge at Shea, but neither could she evade the direct question. “You lied to Patrick. And you kicked and tripped Shea.”

“Baby doll, if a man wants to win, he can't be Sir Galahad.”

“Maybe not. But I don't like cheating.”

The dark pupils spread, blotting out all but thin golden circles of the irises. “You're acting like a dumb kid!”

She stared back, willing him to see her unvoiced contempt. He colored. “We're not through,” he said thickly. “You need a man who can take care of you. It's damn sure not my brother!”

He got out. She scrambled down before he could help her and went ahead of him into the house.

In spite of her tormenting frustration over Shea and worry about the conflicts dividing the family, Tracy got the Stronghold article done that week. The Tucson lab had developed some good pictures. She mailed a choice of these with the text to her editor and felt she'd earned an outing when Geronimo brought Mary over early Sunday morning.

“Am I glad to see you two!” she greeted as Le Moyne whimpered his delight. “I've been wondering what plants are edible but the only ones I'm sure of are watercress, dandelions and miner's lettuce.”

Mary and Geronimo eyed each other and grinned sheepishly. “What's miner's lettuce?” they asked as one.

Tracy sighed. “All right, campers. Have your coffee and then we're going for a walk.”

With the help of Carolyn Niethammer's
American Indian Food and. Lore
, they identified sheep sorrel and added it to the greens Tracy already knew, which had been gathered from a little side rivulet where the water ran slow enough to allow cress to grow thickly. They collected the tenderest young canaigre leaves and the similar curly dock, but the exciting find was a small marsh thick with cattails.

“We can do all kinds of things with them,” Tracy said delightedly.

“My mother still makes pollen soup and muffins,” Mary said. “But it's too early for that.”

“According to the book, the inner stalk and root bulb and shoots are good.”

Geronimo sighed. “All right, ladies. I'll liberate some.” He took off his boots and socks and rolled up his jeans. Exchanging glances, Mary and Tracy did the same.

“The book says to get under the root so you can free it from the other connected ones,” said Tracy, wading into the shallow water.

She slid her hand down the stalk and followed the root till it began to mesh into others. Pulling it loose, she swished the ropy-looking root till most of the mud was off. Geronimo trimmed the stalks down to where they showed green and sliced off the main roots.

“This better be good,” he warned as he tugged his boots back on.

Their “wild” meal was surprisingly tasty. Salad, canaigre and dock cooked in several changes of water, and the lump at the base of the cattail stalks sliced and fried crisp. The inner stalks, chopped thin, made a crunchy addition to soybean curd flavored with green onions, garlic and soy sauce.

“That was fine,” teased Geronimo. “Now where's my steak?”

“Over in Sonora, I should think,” jabbed Tracy. “I'll bet you enjoyed rustling those cattle.”

“Don't know what you're talking about,
chica,”
he said blandly. “But how would you like to help smuggle an illegal eagle across?”

“An illegal eagle? Why?”

He frowned. “I was in Nogales last night and saw something that really got me. A guy had this eagle and was fighting him with alley cats. Tough stuff. Worst thing was the eagle was crippled, had a shot-up wing. But it fought like crazy. Killed four cats. I asked the owner if he'd sell, but he was making a pile and wanted more than I had with me.”

“So,” said Mary, who'd been bristling, “you spent it on some whore!”

He shrugged. “When a man wants to get married and his girl won't, what's he supposed to do?”

“Damn you, Geronimo, I never said I wouldn't—” She broke off with an embarrassed glance at Tracy. “You wind up with some awful crud and no one will marry you, ever!”

Tracy interposed at her friend's wrathful shriek. “So what do you want to do about the eagle?”

He patted his wallet pocket. “I got advance pay. But the bird won't make it if we just turn it loose and I don't know of any SPCA over there. Doubt if we could get a permit even if there was time.”

“Did you ask Shea about it?”

Geronimo sobered. “No. What with Judd trying to get his lease revoked, he sure doesn't need any trouble with the law.”

“I could do without it myself,” Tracy said.

“If you'd seen that eagle—”

She shuddered and gave up. “Okay, eaglenapper. What's the plan?”

Crossing from Nogales, Arizona, to Nogales, Sonora, was easy. Geronimo greeted the Mexican guard by name and said they were going to shop and have a few drinks at the Caverna.

“Two beautiful ladies, no?” smiled the khaki-clad official. “Don't push your luck, though, Señor Sanchez. You brought your allowance of whiskey in last night.”

Geronimo winked. “But the ladies, Don Alfredo! They haven't bought their quart.”

“You are lucky!” chuckled the Indian-dark man, and waved them on.

“We'll come back through the other gate,” Geronimo said. “My sister's brother-in-law's on duty. He won't look behind the seat.” For the eagle was going to ride in the large space behind the seat and the cab back. Shea, though in ignorance about the “snatch,” was going to have the chore of nursing the eagle back to health. Geronimo was sure he could do it if the bird was still salvageable. The eagle's captor had been feeding it dog food and the bird couldn't live long on that.

“Shea says they get their vitamins and stuff from plants in their preys' stomachs,” Geronimo explained. “Then they got to have roughage—fur, bones, teeth.”

They turned off the main drive and threaded through streets running beneath the hill on the left where houses in weathered lollipop colors of violet, green, pink, blue and cream clung precariously to the steep sides.

The natural stench of too many humans existing close together without plumbing competed with that of chickens as they reached the outskirts of town. A crowd had squeezed in among four parked trucks that made an informal arena, blocking off the street.

“Ay, gatos!”
yelled one man, flailing his hat.

His exhortation was countered by encouraging shouts from other spectators.
“Viva, aguila! Mueran los gatos!”

“My God!” breathed Tracy.

Then she saw, through floating bits of feather and dust. Inside a wire cage with a wooden lid, the eagle, a bleeding mass of brown feathers sheened with gold, clamped talons that looked like black wrought-iron hooks into the skull of what was left of a black cat. Another mewling gray-striped cat dragged itself into a corner, spilling entrails.

Tracy fought the hot scalding filling her throat, as sickened by the excitement on the faces around her as by the carnage. She caught Mary's hand; which returned a strong heartening grip as a sobbing little girl thrust her way through the people and knelt by the cage, trying to reach the dying striped cat.

“Mi gato!”
she wailed.
“Mi gatito lindo!”

The chubby brown arm was in reach of the maddened eagle. Tracy grabbed the child back, dropped on a knee to cuddle her. Sheepishly, a young man came forward to pick up the child.

“I'm sorry, little sister,” he said in Spanish. “Come, I'll buy you some candy.”

“I don't want candy!” she lamented. “I want my kitty! My beautiful little kitty!”

He carried her off. The onlookers drifted away, though a few lingered to see what the strangers wanted. The eagle had finished the cat's brains and was gorging on chunks torn from it.

In spite of her horror, Tracy had to admire the blazing spirit in those yellow eyes. The sheer size of the bird demanded awe. As she awkwardly flapped her torn wings to move forward, she must have measured six feet from wingtip to wingtip.

Geronimo was starting to count out bills to the fat gray-moustached impresario of cat-eagle matches. “This one's on me,” Tracy said, getting out her wallet.

“It's a hundred dollars,” Geronimo protested.

“Save yours for getting married,” Tracy said, amazed that he'd been willing to part with what was probably half of a month's cash wages.

It was a point of pride with her not to draw from her trust fund for living expenses, but for something like this she didn't mind. After all, she gave most of her inherited income to the American Friends Service Committee and animal and environmental protection groups.

The entrepreneur looked regretful that he hadn't asked for more, since an apparently wealthy
gringa
was paying. “You like birds?” he asked in broken English. “Buy six parrots—very pretty?”

Such smuggled birds often spread diseases. “Where are they?” she asked in Spanish.

He pulled up a canvas flap over the back of one truck. Big blue-fronted birds, a few small green ones, a pair with lilac crowns moped in wire cages or pecked at the end boards. One appeared to be dead.

“How much?”

“Two hundred?”

Tracy would have consented, sick with revulsion and eager to get away, but Geronimo said toughly, “One hundred. Those birds are about to die on you.”

“One-fifty?”

“One-twenty-five,” Geronimo said. The man shrugged and flashed a gold-toothed smile.

“For you, a good price!”

Geronimo turned to Tracy. “What you going to do with them?”

“Have him turn them loose. Now, while we can be sure he does.”

The plump bird dealer was shocked but did as he was told, taking the parrots over to the trees along an arroyo before he released them. While he was thus occupied, Geronimo got adhesive tape and sheets out of the trunk.

“Shea says an eagle can't do anything with his claws except grip,” he said. “Hope he's right.”

“That sounds like enough,” Tracy muttered.

When the Mexican came back, he took part of a sheet, lifted off the wooden lid and dropped the cloth over the eagle. Unable to see, it offered little resistance as he lifted it up, instructing Geronimo to tape the ferocious talons together.

This done, wide bands of sheeting were used to bind the damaged wings against the body. Hissing sounds of terror came from the swaddling sheet and the dealer helpfully cut a hole.

“She breathe better,” he explained.
“Buena suerte.”

They had the luck. Geronimo's sister's brother-in-law waved them by without a question and the U.S. customs official only glanced at the heap of sheets in the back. Just to sound credible, Geronimo said they had a quart of rum and one of Scotch.

Once out of town, they uncovered the eagle except for its bindings. It didn't stir, even when its head was clear.

“Do you think it's dead?” Tracy worried.

Geronimo cautiously felt the brown breast. “Heart's beating. May be in some kind of stupor or shock.”

“After all that, I hope she won't die on us,” Mary said.

Geronimo shrugged. “At least she won't be torn up by a bunch of half-starved cats. Shea'll bring her around if anyone can.”

Shea and Don Aniceto left the garden patch where they were working when they saw Mary and Tracy get out of the pickup. The last rays of the sun turned Shea's hair to living flame.

A subtle, internal sword seemed to turn in Tracy. His gray eyes touched her briefly before he moved to see what Geronimo was lifting out of the back.

“Hellfire, what's that?”

“You can see,” grunted Geronimo. “Where you want her?”

“I don't want her,” Shea retorted.

“You got her. And I know you have a nice legal permit from Fish and Game to take care of hurt wildlife.”

Shea gave up. “She may not come out of this sleep. It's more of a coma, a response to stress.”

“Be a good time to fix her up,” urged Geronimo. “She's kind of frazzled.”

They unwrapped the bird except for the disabled talons. Examining her as she lay on one of the cots under the ramada, Shea cursed savagely, sent Aniceto for medicines.

“What happened to her? Where in hell did you get her?”

Geronimo explained. “So we just went over and brought her back,” he concluded with an angelic smile, looking more than ever like an outsized De Grazia cherub.

Shea's glance skidded past Mary to Tracy. “And you went along with this desperado?” he demanded incredulously. “Do you think you'd like the inside of the Nogales jail?”

“I didn't cut any border fences,” she reminded him. “Do you think she'll fly again?”

“First we'll see if she lives.” He spread out one of the damaged wings. “Hold this.”

Fortunately, the eagle stayed in her deathlike sleep while Shea cleaned her wounds and gave antibiotics. An unused granary shaded by a mesquite and surrounded by an ocotillo stalk fence seemed the best place to put her.

“We'll just have to wait,” Shea said, placing the bird on an old blanket. “Geronimo, since you're the guy that brought her, you're in charge of mice and rabbit procurement. Aniceto, we got anything to feed these smugglers?”

“Frijoles,” said the old leather-skinned man with the frank, open face of a child. “Tortillas. Stewed dried beef and rice.” He smiled at Tracy and Mary. “If the ladies will stay, I'll make flan.”

“We'll stay,” Tracy laughed. The caramel custard was a favorite of hers, but the main thing was the warm glowing delight of being near Shea.