A Nest for Celeste (8 page)

T
he men rode their horses slowly along the riverbank. It was tough going; they were hindered by the tangle of branches and roots from the huge trees.

Joseph put Celeste on the brim of his hat for part of the trip, a great vantage point for sightseeing. She perched,
gripping the hatband, fascinated by the scenery passing by. She had never seen such enormous trees. Their limbs stretched up, covered in hanging moss, reaching
higher and higher until they ended in a blurred tangle. There were all sorts of strange and mysterious bird-calls and songs coming from them; Celeste felt tiny chills skitter across her skin.

Joseph’s hand reached up to the brim, and Celeste gratefully grabbed at an offered walnut. “You all right up there?” he called.

Just then Mr. Audubon heard a certain call from high up in one of the huge cypress trees. He loaded his gun and fired, bringing down a large black-and-white bird with a scarlet crest of feathers on its head. The shot had only wounded it, damaging one wing; and the bird floundered around on the ground and in the cane. “That one we can use for a painting. We haven’t got an ivory-billed yet,” Audubon shouted.

The bird cried piteously and repeatedly tried to stab the hands of anyone who grabbed at it. Back on the hat brim, Celeste watched the cheerless scene; maybe she could help the poor bird, she thought, once
they got back to the plantation house.

“Haven’t ever seen a woodpecker before, Little One?” Joseph asked, rubbing her behind the ears to calm her.

The men went out with their guns looking for wild turkey and other game. It was Joseph’s job to walk through the cane, flushing out the birds. Stalks of cane towered way above Joseph’s head and surrounded them like high walls of a small room. The dizzying tangle of waving green dwarfed them. They soon lost sight of the other men, and Celeste felt as if she was in another, strange world.

Suddenly they heard a shotgun
fire, and then a sound like an arrow hitting a haystack; and immediately Joseph keeled back into the cane. His hat, and Celeste, flew into the air and landed some distance away.

Celeste was disoriented and trembled in shock. The tall cypress trees and the thick cane towered over her. Evening was coming on, and darkness was spreading fast. She could see Joseph’s body lying a little distance away. His head was red with blood; it covered his face and ear and trickled into a puddle under him. It took a moment for Celeste to get her bearings and realize what had happened.

The shot had hit Joseph in the head.

Celeste panicked. She frantically started climbing over the jumbled labyrinth of cane reeds, wanting desperately to get back to the safety of Joseph’s pocket. She needed to know that he was all right.

The stalks of cane lay this way and that. Up she climbed, down she leaped, trying her best to grasp
and balance. When she got to a high spot she located where Joseph lay, checked her position, and then started out again. In a crazed burst of energy, she scrambled over the cane and reached Joseph in seconds.

“H-help! Help!” Joseph called out weakly.
Celeste let out her breath. She was relieved to hear him speak. She climbed up his arm, found his shirt pocket, and tunneled in.

Joseph smiled. He could feel the mouse over his heart.

“It’s okay, Little One,” he whispered. “It’s just a scratch.”

Audubon and the other men raced over to the boy and gathered him up. The stray shot had grazed his head just above his right ear. A surface wound only, but a messy one. His hair was matted and crusting over with dried blood.

One of the men washed out the wound and then tore off strips from an old saddle blanket, making bandages from it. “You know, Joseph, I could have swore you were the biggest wild turkey I ever did see!” he joked, and everyone laughed.

They started back to the plantation. And although
she was safely tucked in Joseph’s pocket, Celeste thought only of going home, someplace safe, wherever that was.

J
oseph hung his shirt on the door peg, with Celeste nestled in the pocket, and then collapsed on his cot, exhausted. Celeste could tell his head was throbbing, but the men had done a good job of cleaning and dressing the wound. She waited for his breathing to
steady and slow, and finally he was asleep.

She watched the black-and-white bird, the woodpecker. It scooted awkwardly around the room. Joseph had left it some grubs to eat, but the bird ignored them. It cried pathetically most of the night and hopelessly hammered at anything wooden, reducing one of the chair legs to splinters.

The next morning Celeste saw it lying under the window listlessly. It seemed to have no fight left in it. Audubon took the bird and made sketches of it; but the drawings looked dull and lifeless, much like the woodpecker. Joseph took the bird outside to the garden, hoping that seeing the sky and trees would help. He laid the woodpecker under one of the magnolias, but it only stretched its neck out in the grass and stared up blankly. It again refused the grubs and worms that Joseph brought it. Celeste tried squeaking out encouragement from Joseph’s pocket, but the woodpecker never responded.

Later that evening Celeste was perched in Joseph’s pocket watching him sketch. The setting sun was streaming in through the bedroom window. They heard Audubon call out.

“Joseph! Fetch me some more pins!”

Dutifully, Joseph searched a wardrobe drawer for the pins.

As they entered Audubon’s room, Celeste chittered in disbelief, then squeaked in horror. Audubon was carefully lifting the drooped and lifeless body of the ivory-billed woodpecker out of a canvas saddlebag. Its eyes were glazed over and cloudy. Its head hung down, jiggling like a knot at the end of a loose rope. The two wings, one broken and twisted, flopped forward and back as Audubon tried positioning the bird against a wooden board. Celeste could see that a small, dark purple streak of dried blood had oozed from the corner of its long, curved beak.

Celeste witnessed a change in Joseph’s appearance.
His eyes were somber. His voice quivered a bit, stumbling for words.

“This doesn’t seem right….”

“What doesn’t?”

“I don’t know…the way we’re doing this, the paintings.”

“What about them?”

Celeste noticed Joseph’s face getting red, and he was flustered as he spoke.

“You are looking to capture its life on paper, but by killing it first? By pinning it to a board?”

“I am painting their portraits; this is how they sit for me.”

“It was so majestic up in that enormous cypress tree….”

“There are plenty more woodpeckers where this one came from,” Audubon retorted. “There were possibly dozens in the woods where I took this one. One bird less won’t make any difference.”

“Maybe we could—” Joseph offered.

“What?” Audubon shot back. “Do you want to hold the bird for me while it is still alive and have its bill slice through your hand?”

“Perhaps a cage—”

“No! A caged bird will sit like a caged bird. I want my specimens posed like I want to paint them.
Wings outstretched…as if they were alive!”

“But to kill them in order to make them look alive….” Joseph shook his head.

Audubon glared at the boy, his eyes dark and angry. For a moment Celeste was afraid for Joseph, but Audubon just lowered his voice and held out his hand.

“The pins, Joseph.”

Joseph handed the packet of pins to Audubon, who continued, “Your duty is to master the techniques of watercolor botanicals, not to question my handling of the bird specimens. I am preserving their beauty forever. If I could paint their portraits as well another way, I would. Now go!”

Joseph’s face was red, his mouth rigid. He turned and strode down the hallway, leaving Audubon to sketch the pinned and trussed ivory-billed woodpecker.

He paused, thinking:
A landscape with no woodpeckers?
His life had seen lonely moments, and probably
would again; but he couldn’t imagine the loneliness of being the last of his own kind on Earth.

He thought about the ivory-billed; there were certainly other woodpeckers all along the river valley. But what if there was only one more? How would it spend the rest of its days? On an endless and futile search up and down the valley, looking to find another ivory-billed woodpecker?

As if sensing Joseph’s melancholy thoughts, Celeste burrowed farther down in the shirt pocket.