Case of the Glacier Park Swallow

Copyright © 1994 by Dina Anastasio

Published in the United States of America by
Roberts Rinehart Publishers
Post Office Box 666, Niwot, Colorado 80544

 

Published in Ireland by
Roberts Rinehart Publishers
Main Street, Schull, Co. Cork
Republic of Ireland

9781461711971

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 94-65091

 

Printed in the United States of America
Distributed in the U.S. and Canada by Publishers Group West

 

Cover and text art by Birgitta Saflund

J
uliet Stone's old black labrador, Max, found the bird first. He discovered it in a cluster of red cedars that was so dense and so dark that only an animal that led with its nose would have noticed it at all. The bird surprised Max. He had been following an elusive fox through the woods, and the scent of the tiny bird pulled him up short. In fact, it surprised him so much that not only did he stop suddenly, but he jumped backward and hesitated before he could work up the nerve to investigate.

He studied the bird for several minutes, pushing its buff-white breast with his nose, probing its yellow and black wings and its forked tail gently with his paw, and then he barked at it. It was a soft bark, a combination of a whine and a moan, but it was loud enough for Juliet to hear it as it echoed through the branches and bounced off the hard snow.

Juliet took her time. She didn't want to be rushed today. It was the first day of Christmas vacation and she was determined to make it a slow, flowing day, a day when one thing blended into the next, softly.

Earlier, she had eased out of bed, taken her time over breakfast, and put on her cross-country skis. When she was ready she had called Max to her and together they had followed the path that led through the woods behind her house to Glacier National Park.

Max led the way. Max always led the way, wandering off sometimes to chase a rabbit or trace a scent or just take a look. But he never stayed away for long.

Juliet loved the park. She loved skiing along the snow-covered paths while the silent world slept around her. Once in awhile she spotted a mountain goat high up in the peaks above her, but most of the time there was nothing but the sound of her skis as they slid along and the sound of the wind whistling through the rocky slopes. She moved quietly, being careful not to wake the sleeping grizzlies in their caves, and every so often she glanced up at the glistening sculptured peaks and ridges and walls that had been formed, were still being formed, by the creeping rivers of ice called glaciers.

Max was barking louder now. The bark had become insistent, a distress call, a message for her to hurry, that something was not right.

She took off her skis and moved into the dark forest of cedars, following his bark until she came to him. When he saw her, he jumped back and whimpered up at her like he always did when there was something that he wanted her to explore, and then he stood there, frowning a bit, and waited.

She saw the swallow then. It was a tiny thing, only six inches long, and it was resting face down on its stomach. It appeared to be dead.

She knelt down and touched the bird, hoping that it would move. Then she saw one of its tiny wings tremble just a bit. Max moved closer and cocked his head and looked at her as if he was waiting for an explanation of some sort, and when it didn't come he circled the bird, around and around, looking for answers. Then he moved closer to the bird and pushed it slightly with his nose. The bird trembled again, and turned slightly.

“It's a swallow, Max,” Juliet told him. She picked it up and ran her fingers gently through the tiny feathers. “Nothing seems to be broken. I wonder what it's doing here. It should be on its way to South America.” And that is when Juliet noticed the silver ring that was attached to one of its legs. She picked up the little bird and studied the tiny piece of metal.

There was a number on it, the number 6, and an address, P.O. Box 98, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Juliet knew about the practice of banding, or ringing, birds. Everyone who lived on a migratory path had heard of it. It was a way of tracing the exact whereabouts of a migrating bird, and assuming the bird lived to complete its journey south from continent to continent, it was effective.

But this bird was one of the unlucky ones. Something had brought it down before it had reached Mexico or South America, or wherever it was heading in search of insects to feed on during the winter.

Juliet wondered what had happened to it. Swallows rarely stopped in those woods. A swallow from Canada wouldn't have come down in a freezing area like this one, where food was impossible to find.

She was curious now, curious enough to wrap the bird in her scarf and place it in her pocket.

Max watched her carefully, until the bird was safely hidden, and then he turned and led her back to the path and waited while she put on her skis. When she was ready, he ran ahead of her through the bare shadowy trees toward home.

Juliet took off her skis, put them in the shed, and walked down another, smaller path through the woods to Cam's place.

“Anybody here?” she called as she opened the door of the little cabin. When there was no answer, she went inside, waited for Max to follow, and closed the door behind them. Cam must have been out on a call. He spent most of his time making house calls. He liked being out. He enjoyed tending to sheep and delivering foals and sewing up an injured pig or a collie in distress. Sometimes she went with him, but most of the time she stayed behind to take care of the animals brought in for treatment.

Juliet had been working for Cam for two years, since she was fifteen, and she was pretty good at treating almost anything by now. Cam was a fine veterinarian and a great teacher, and it was because of him that she could deliver a calf and treat a case of cat leukemia as well as most vets with years of training.

But could she figure out why a swallow on its way from Canada to Mexico would stop in Montana, and stay behind while the rest of the flock flew on without it?

She took the swallow from her pocket, unwrapped it, and placed it carefully on the table. It wasn't so cold now, and Juliet wondered if this would mean the diagnosis would be harder or easier to make. She ran her fingers through the feathers again, searching for broken bones, and this time the swallow did more than tremble. It shook and pulled itself up onto its tiny legs, and looked up at her.

It was frightened. She could tell that. But it seemed to be coming alive. She studied its eyes and saw that they were cloudy and sleepy, but other than that, the bird seemed fine.

The bird walked over and climbed up on the palm of her hand, and when it was settled there and comfortable, she leaned down and introduced it to Max. Max seemed shy at first, but he came to the bird soon and looked it over. He kept glancing up at her, waiting, perhaps, for instructions on what to do with this new visitor.

“We'll have to make him strong enough to fly,” Juliet told him.

Cam came in then. “What's with the bird?” he asked. He was a rough man, rough and big and he talked that way.

“A swallow,” Juliet told him. “From Canada. I can't figure out what happened to him.” She said it hesitantly, because what she really wanted to say was, “This is my case. Please let me have it. I need one that's all mine.” But she didn't have the nerve. He had taught her so much. When would he trust her?

“It could be anything,” Cam said. “Any marks?”

“None. And no broken bones. Maybe it just froze up there in the sky.” Juliet handed him the swallow and took off her parka and hat. Her long blond hair was stiff from the cold, and when she shook it to dry it, it fell around her shoulders in clumps. She was a tall girl, almost as tall as Cam, and for a second, as they stood there together, studying the bird, she felt that she was his equal.

And then he spoke, as if he were speaking to Max, and she folded like an accordion because his tone reminded her that she wasn't his equal and wouldn't be until she could match his years of education.

“That's silly,” he said dismissing her. “He wouldn't freeze in the sky. He looks O.K. to me. I'm sure he's fine. Maybe he just needed a rest for awhile.”

“He's not fine,” Juliet insisted. “You should have seen him a little while ago. He was almost dead.”

Cam gave her the swallow and turned his back. She knew he thought she was being an alarmist, and she tried not to care. But she did care, and when he walked over to his desk and started flipping through his letters, she felt sick.

“Have you taken a blood sample?” he asked without looking up.

Juliet shook her head and sighed. Of course. Blood samples. Why hadn't she thought of that?

She placed the bird on the counter and watched him for a moment to see if he would fly away. When she saw that he wouldn't she left him under Max's watchful eye and began to prepare the injection. She took a tiny bit of blood, and then she found a box for the bird and gently placed it inside on a soft towel.

She was putting her parka and hat back on when Cam said, “Why don't you take the blood over to the lab and see what they say.”

“That's where I'm going,” Juliet snapped. She was going to do that. He knew she was going to do that, but he just had to be in control. She was tired of him. She was tired of his attitude, and his style, and his bossiness, and everything else about him.

“And Juliet,” he said.

Juliet waited.

“Call me when you get the results,” he said. It was an order. She hated him.

Juliet slammed the door and went to the lab with Max. An hour later she called Cam. “He's been poisoned or something,” she said. “Somebody injected him with something that made him sick. We're not sure what it is yet, but it was probably injected into him up north, and it took awhile to bring him down. We're working on what it was.”

Behind her, Max whined a slow worried wine. The day, it seemed, was flowing away in an unexpected direction.

J
uliet stopped to see the bird on the way home. It was still in the box, and it seemed sleepy again, as if it had become worse while she was gone. She picked it up and studied it, and then she walked around the room.

Cam wasn't there, but Juliet could tell that he had spent most of his day in the office. The medical encyclopedia was on the desk, and there were notes all over the place. She didn't understand most of them, but the last one interested her. “Convulsions?” it said with a question mark. This was followed by the word strychnine? When Juliet saw the encyclopedia opened to the poison section, she understood what he had been looking for.

The bird was awake again, and for the first time it flapped its wings and tried to fly. Beside her, Max whimpered and wagged his tail.

Juliet mulled things over as she watched it. It was possible that a swallow could have picked up some strychnine in some rat poison somewhere, although it wasn't likely. But would it behave like this? Wouldn't it have died? And the question, the one about what it was doing in those woods, remained.

Cam came in then, saw her there beside the book, and understood that she was annoyed that he had taken over her case.

“I was just guessing,” he explained. He seemed softer, as if he were trying to be nice. “I don't even know why I thought it was strychnine since we didn't see it when it came down and we don't know if it convulsed ... but....”

“It was the swans, wasn't it?” Juliet asked. They had read about the swans in the paper the week before. It had been just a small item in the paper, a human interest story, and they had almost missed it. Two dying swans had been discovered by a woman in Yellowstone, and before they had died they had convulsed, or so she had said. She had buried them somewhere. She couldn't remember where,
but was sure they had convulsed.
Cam and Juliet had guessed that the swans had been poisoned with strychnine.

Behind them, the door opened, and Juliet saw that it was David McHenry, her ten-year-old neighbor, and he was carrying his cat in his arms. The cat looked like she was dead.

“I found her in the barn this morning,” David said softly. “She was trembling, and her eyes were funny and she looked like she was going to die.”

Juliet took the cat and studied her eyes. She had seen eyes like that only once before, and she had seen them that very day. The cat had the same look as the bird. The cat wasn't dead yet, but soon would be if something wasn't done.

“This cat's been fed whatever that bird was fed,” Juliet told Cam. “Look at its eyes.”

“I wish I knew what it was,” Cam said.

“Maybe it ate a bird,” Juliet said.

But it didn't matter, not really. The bird seemed better when it was moving, and worse when it was left to sleep, so she took the cat and shook her quickly and made her move around while Cam prepared a shot and they waited for the lab to call. The cat held on. She seemed better, in fact, as the hours passed, and by the time the lab called, she was almost as good as new.

The room was still as Juliet listened to the technician. The bird was sleeping again, and the cat was quiet in Danny's arms. Even Max was silent. He stood beside her as she held the receiver, and watched her silently.

“That bird was drugged,” the technician said.

“When?” Juliet asked.

“I don't know yet,” the technician said. “But I'd say it was a matter of days.”

“Long enough to get down here from Canada?”

The technician paused and then said, “Yes. I'd say so.”

“What was the drug?” Juliet asked.

“We don't know yet,” the technician said.

“Could it have been strychnine?” Juliet asked, and when the technician said no, absolutely not, she felt suddenly happy, then guilty about her happiness.

Juliet hung up and went outside into the icy cold. She didn't want to see Cam for a minute. She didn't want him to see that she was pleased that it hadn't been strychnine. She was ashamed that she felt so resentful and she didn't want to be small, but it was her case, wasn't it?

She thought about the bird, and then she thought about the cat. The cat must have found another bird that had been injected. She wondered if a dead bird, or a tranquilized bird, could make a cat sick. She wondered how many birds, and how many cats, had been poisoned.

Cam came out a few minutes later and apologized. “Sometimes I forget that I'm not that much older than you are, and that you know almost as much as I do, and sometimes you even know more.”

“You're ten years older,” Juliet said. “That's a lot.” Of course he was older, and of course he knew more, but she needed a case of her own, just one, so that he would know that she could do it. If only he would just trust her with it.

“The bird keeps sliding in and out of sleep,” Cam said. “I wonder what kind of a drug would do that.”

“I don't know, but I'll watch it carefully. I won't let it out of my sight.”

Max barked, interrupting them, and disappeared into the trees. His head was down so she knew he was after something.

“I wonder if that bird will ever fly again,” she said when he was gone. “Its friends are all gone now. It's on its own. I wonder if it can make it to Mexico or South America all alone.”

“I don't know, Juliet,” Cam said.

Juliet was silent for a few minutes, and then she said, “I should go. I'll take the bird with me, I guess, just to make sure it doesn't fall into too deep a sleep. Should you give it a shot?”

“It's too small. We have to be careful. I'll watch it if you like.”

Juliet frowned and said, “No. It's all right. I sort of feel responsible for it, and anyway, Max wouldn't know what to do without it now.”

She looked carefully at Cam, and then announced, “I'm going to Yellowstone. The Swallow and I want to find the swans.”

“When are you coming back?”

“Not till Christmas.”

For some reason Cam didn't seem surprised. Perhaps he knew her better than she thought. He started to ask what her parents thought about her leaving, but she assured him they had agreed.

She could hear Max barking somewhere far away. He had found something. She hoped it wasn't a bird filled with poison. Or a cat. Or a rabbit. It was amazing what one person was capable of doing to the food chain.

She called his name, heard him bark again, heard the barking come closer and closer still, and then saw what looked like a ball of snow break through the trees and hide behind her. Juliet laughed, and Cam laughed with her.

“Snow-footed hare,” Cam said. “It's the first one I've seen this year.”

“Funny how they turn white like that for camouflage in the winter,” Juliet said as she grabbed Max by the collar and held him back.

“Run rabbit,” Cam said, and the rabbit ran.

And so did Juliet.