Jackie's Wild Seattle (16 page)

It was time for good-byes. Jackie threw a party at the center for all her volunteers, past and present, her friends and neighbors, too. It was a giant picnic that filled up the parking lot and the lawns. Everybody brought card tables and folding chairs and something to eat. There was a live band, kids running around, dogs running around, a raven flying in and out. Kickstand entertained himself barking at the dogs and stealing scraps on one good leg and a stump.

After Jackie cut the cakes, three large carrot cakes she and I had made with garden carrots, she presented us with baseball caps embroidered with big letters in a nice cursive script,
Wild Shannon
and
Wild Cody.
Of course she had one for Neal that said
Wild Neal.
Jackie held up Sage's flak jacket, newly embroidered with
Wild Sage
written across it. Sage appeared from under a table, ready for action, and everybody cheered.

Jackie hugged Cody and me close, then made a little
speech about us, about how she was going to miss us so bad she couldn't stand it, how she thought our parents were the luckiest people in the world, how she'd never had a better summer in her whole life.

There was more. Jackie's eyes went misty as she talked about how much she owed her red-tailed hawk catcher—she bowed to Uncle Neal—and how she wanted to thank everybody for all they'd done “for me and for all creatures great and small these many years.”

The next day, the twenty-third of August, it was off to the airport. Jackie said she wanted to say good-bye at the center, so that's what we did. She made us promise to come back, and we told her that would be an easy promise to keep. Cody said, “No more cakes made out of carrots,” and Jackie laughed.

We knew, and Jackie knew, that Neal's fateful doctor's appointment was two days later. She said she'd e-mail us as soon as she heard anything, so we should keep checking.

We drove out the driveway of Jackie's Wild Seattle in Neal's old pickup, the three of us and Sage, just like old times.

No stops for hot or cold rescues, just straight to the airport with our new baseball caps on our heads.

Nobody said much along the way. There was too much deep feeling for words. I felt the miles rolling past us and the time ticking down, and I knew this could be our last ride with our Uncle Neal. I fought so hard trying not to cry. Neal was looking straight ahead kind of like down a tunnel. I just hoped he wouldn't look over at me because I was about to lose it. I wondered if Neal was thinking about telling us the secret he'd been keeping, but I was pretty sure he wouldn't, not now.

We were passing the Fremont exit and I thought about Cody running up on top of the troll's head. I turned around with a bittersweet smile on my face and saw the tears running down my brother's cheeks. That did it. My own tears cut loose and a sob escaped me. I looked over at Neal, and he was all startled like the sky was falling.

“Shannon,” he said with a catch in his voice, and now I could see his eyes were brimful too. “Shannon, Cody, I'm going to miss you guys something awful.”

“Same here,” I said, wiping my eyes.

“We're pitiful,” Cody said. “All three of us are crying.” He turned his face toward Sage and she actually took a lick at him.

After that it wasn't so bad. We started talking about all the things we'd done, all the crazy things that had happened.

When we reached security inside the airport, that's when it got bad again. But this time it was too serious for tears, and I think we were all trying not to spoil it. We mustered up our smiles and laughs and we hugged with “I love you's” that might be last words. “It was hard enough,” I said to Neal, “just saying good-bye to Sage at the truck.”

“You'll be back,” he told me.

“We better be,” Cody said, and then he fell apart again, just started bawling.

Uncle Neal looked at him curiously, knelt next to him, and gave him a hug.

“You're the
whole reason,
” Cody sniffled.

“The whole reason what?” Neal asked.

“Just the whole reason…”

Neal said, “I'll take that as a compliment.”

“When are you coming to Weehawken?” I asked.

“How about Christmas?”

“Really?” Cody asked, wiping his tears.

“Tell your mom and dad I'd love to. I've been too long gone. Call me as soon as you get home.”

“Promise,” we said.

 

Minutes before touchdown, we spotted Weehawken along the water, across the Hudson River from New York City. We actually spied our house on Liberty Place—half a block from the river on the north side of the street. We saw the shining skyline of lower Manhattan where the twin towers used to stand. I thought of the saying Time heals all wounds.

As we touched down at La Guardia my heart went out to Tyler, wherever he was this minute. The plane came to a stop. Cody and I were holding our breath. We came out of the jetway searching the faces.

Of course our parents weren't there. They couldn't get past security without airplane tickets.

We hustled down the concourse, my brother and I. I asked Cody if he was excited and he said, “Majorly.”

We funneled past security into a crowd, where we heard our parents shouting our names. Their voices were the sweetest music I'd heard in my life. There they were, neither one missing so much as a finger. As for holding my breath all summer, I finally let it out.

 

The day of Neal's doctor visit I spent shopping for school clothes, but I felt like a zombie and came home with only a few things and nothing I really liked. My parents, especially my mother, were still in shock to learn from us that her brother had been sick all this while. They'd told Cody and me not to expect any news until the lab work was done, but
I got up in the middle of dinner and checked for e-mails anyway. There was a new one from Jackie saying that the results would be back either right before or right after the Labor Day weekend. She'd let us know the moment she heard anything.

We didn't hear a thing that Friday. We were going to have to wait for Tuesday, the last day before school started.

Ordinarily we would have gone somewhere Labor Day weekend. This year it was going to be the Berkshires.

We'd canceled those reservations. It didn't feel right. We all wanted to stay close to home.

Tuesday morning found us trying to keep busy. My dad took Cody into the city to indulge his new interest, bumper stickers. They were going to check out novelty shops in Manhattan and maybe even a couple in Brooklyn.

My mom and I started out in Hoboken doing a little browsing. We had herbal tea and some kind of English biscuits at a quaint little shop. “You've done your school shopping and caught up with your friends,” my mother said. “I guess everything is over but the waiting. Would you like to go into the city?”

“I thought I would,” I said. “But I just can't stop thinking about Neal. I guess I'd rather be home than anywhere else.”

“Me too,” my mom said.

Back home, I read a chapter from a novel, or rather I ran my eyes over the words. Then I just waited. We got a few phone calls but none from Jackie. Every half hour I would check the computer.

Late that afternoon, word finally came, an e-mail. Surprisingly, it wasn't from Jackie. It was from Uncle Neal himself. We'd never seen him anywhere near the computer. Here's what he wrote:

 

The most amazing thing happened to me today. In all my years working with animals, I never expected this. Listen up, Cody, this is major. I just got a hug, a big hug, from an eagle. That's right, from Liberty. I can't tell you how much she's been helping me this summer. I'm sorry I didn't tell any of you that I've been sick, but Jackie tells me you figured it out. She said you understand why I didn't tell you. She said my sister would too. I hope she's right.

I can tell you this now. Remember all the times this summer I went walking with Liberty? Taking her with me in the woods? Well, she was talking to me the whole time, telling me I could get through this, that I'd be okay. She'd visit me in my dreams too, flying into my body and wiping out the cancer cells. She gave me so much of her strength. So of course she was the first one I went to today, even before Jackie. I took her out of her pen and headed up into the hills with her. I told her the good news—the tests found no sign of the cancer. It could come back, they warned me, but for now, I'm cancer-free.

When we stopped at the top of the ridge, Liberty turned to me, spread her wings, and wrapped them around both my shoulders. It was the first time I ever knew of an eagle doing anything like that. We stood together on that hilltop a long time, eye to eye. What I figure this means is, she thinks I'm going to be around for a long, long time.

I'll be headed your way for Christmas.

Can't wait.

Love, Neal

 

“Mom!” I screamed. “Come see. You gotta read this!”

Hyperventilating, I got out of her way. She read it slowly, pausing once to look at me with eyes wide, and then she read it again. I could picture Liberty and Uncle Neal up on that ridge like I was right there with them. My mother jumped up from the computer and we started hugging like crazy. I let out a whoop that might have been heard in Manhattan.

It was definitely heard as far as the front street, where Cody and my dad were getting out of the car.

Cody burst through the front door with a bumper sticker in his hand. “Did you hear, Shannie? Did you hear about Uncle Neal?”

“All clear,” I cried. “He's okay!”

Cody gave half a dozen fist pumps, then did a little dance. My father stood beside him, beaming.

“So what's your new bumper sticker say?” I asked my little brother. “Bet you found a good one.”

“For Uncle Neal! It's the ultimate of the ultimate!”

Indeed it was. When Neal came at Christmas he brought us a picture of his truck with Cody's sticker slapped on the back bumper:

I INTEND TO LIVE FOREVER. SO FAR, SO GOOD.

It was a newspaper article that first caught my attention, a profile of a longtime volunteer for a wild-animal rescue and rehab center. Bob Jones had become an urban legend in Seattle. Among other exploits, “Crazy Bob” had rescued a wild coyote from an elevator in the Federal Building downtown, taking it in his arms.

Jones's nickname came from his hair-raising rescue of a fledgling red-tailed hawk from a steep roof during a lightning storm. A baseball cap with his new name was presented to him by Kaye Baxter, founder and director of the Sarvey Wildlife Center near Arlington, Washington, northeast of Seattle. Sarvey, I read, was the largest rehabilitator of raptors in the state, in addition to caring for a staggering array of other wildlife, from baby squirrels to harbor seals.

I had to meet these people and their menagerie.

With his rescue dog Billie at his feet, Bob Jones regaled me with anecdotes of their rescues over the years, while
Kaye filled me in on the workings of the center. Sarvey does wonders for wildlife with the help of countless volunteers. After several visits I came away inspired to write a novel.

Some of the rescues in the story are wholly invented, while others are based, sometimes loosely and sometimes closely, on actual Sarvey rescues, most of them Bob's and Billie's. The story line of
Jackie's Wild Seattle
is fictional, as are the characters, though some of them were inspired by real people. Jackie and her “circle of healing” were of course inspired by Kaye Baxter. Uncle Neal was inspired by a combination of Bob Jones and Jeff Guidry, another Sarvey volunteer.

Battling cancer, Jeff devoted himself to and bonded with a bald eagle fledgling named Freedom that had fallen from a nest and would never fly. On the day she was finally to be euthanized, Freedom stood up, signaling her intention to survive. Much later, on the day Jeff was declared cancer-free, Freedom embraced him with both wings.

I am grateful to Bob, Kaye, and Jeff, along with Dorian Tremaine, who shared a day with me in Sarvey's wildlife ambulance, for their enthusiastic support as I researched this novel. I also want to thank my brother-in-law, John Loftus, for introducing me to Sarvey.

The subplot involving the Tucker family's conflict with Jackie's Wild Seattle is entirely fictional. Kaye Baxter has, however, provided opportunities for many troubled teenagers to fulfill their probation requirements through working at Sarvey. Some return as volunteers. Kaye and others from Sarvey, including Freedom and various raptors, have also done numerous presentations in schools all over the Seattle area. A new ambulance was indeed donated to Sarvey by the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe.

For great photos of the wildlife at Sarvey Wildlife Center and much more about Sarvey's mission and operation, I encourage readers to visit their website, www.SarveyWildlife.org.

Another website I hope readers will visit is www.DoctorsWithoutBorders.org. In 1999, Doctors Without Borders was awarded one of the world's highest honors, the Nobel Peace Prize, for their humanitarian efforts around the globe. The organization was active in Pakistan and Afghanistan before and after the events of September 11, 2001.

Durango, Colorado
June 2002