The Bird Saviors (14 page)
    In a deep gulch she shows him a mammoth cottonwood where a pair of Western Screech Owls live. She likes the deep gray bark of the tree. Ward wonders how many owls live in that gulch alone, several miles long. Ruby guesses three pair. She's heard the soft dwindling call of a pair near her house. It's like the whinny of a little feathered horse, she says.
    As Ward stands there, pensive and watchful, Ruby is struck by how different he is from all the other men she knows. And the way he looks at her is unlike any face of Lord God.
    You're a strange one, you know that? You don't drink but you
say nary a word about Jesus. Every man I know is either a drinker and a gambler or quotes the Lord every time he burps.
    Ward shrugs. God is an idea that people want to believe.
    Lord God says the Muslims will take over the world and make good Christian folk their slaves if we don't stop them. He says we must rise and smite them before we are lost and wandering in the desert like the Israelites. Myself, I don't know. I've never seen or met a Muslim as far as I can remember. I don't believe what I hear from Lord God. But he believes. And that's what matters.
    Ruby and Ward take turns carrying Lila. She accepts Ward's arms as if that's where she's supposed to be. She reaches up and takes his glasses.
    Oh, no, he says. Don't take my glasses, sugarplum. That's how I see.
    Ruby has to pry them from her fingers.
    They stop for lunch in a wind cave. Ward says it's the kind where you can find petroglyphs.
    What kind of rock this is, I don't know. Sandstone, I guess? He takes a bite from his sandwich and stares at the cliffs above them, looming almost pink, with strata like rippled reflections of water. Maybe it's metamorphic. I don't know.
    Oh, come on, says Ruby. I thought you knew everything.
    Ward shakes his head. Not rocks. I'm not a geologist. He plucks an elk thistle from his jeans. I only know birds.
    I was just kidding, says Ruby.
    Ward keeps chewing. You know, I used to have research assistants working for me, college kids. Or university students, if you want to get fancy. He paused and squinted at Ruby. You're better than them. More focused. Less self- conscious or obsessed.
    What about smarter? asks Ruby.
    That too.
    She smiles. You're just saying that, I know. But that's okay. You're being nice.
    He tells her the sandwich is good and that he's thankful she brought them. You're lucky, he says. You have a baby and a mother and father and you're not alone.
    That's not what it seems to me. My mother lives in town and my father wants to auction me off to the highest bidder.
    I'm sure he loves you still.
    Like you said, you don't know everything.
    Ward is quiet until he finishes his sandwich. He folds up the foil it was wrapped in and puts it in his back pocket like it's something precious. Some people like to be alone, he says. Single people. They like to do things their own way and not have to compromise.
    Ward says this as if it were a foolish idea, like crossing the Atlantic on a Jet Ski.
    I never wanted to be alone, he adds. After my wife and baby were gone, I didn't know what to do. The house was so quiet and at night I was scared of every sound. Birds saved me. Something to focus on. Birds are easier than people. That's why I count them. They matter. More than most people know. When all the birds are gone, the world will end. That's what I think.
    Lila begins to fuss. She pulls Ruby's hat and tries to take it off her head, and when Ruby says no, stop, she cries.
    She's getting tired, says Ruby. She'll probably fall asleep soon as we start moving again.
    A horsefly lands on Lila's neck and Ruby shoos it away. She cradles Lila in her arms and swings her side to side, cooing and saying, It's all right, baby girl. It's all right. I shooed that mean old fly away. I won't let him bite you.
    Lila grabs a corkscrew curl of Ruby's hair and pulls on it, says, Bird, Mama. Bird.
    Ward smiles and touches her cheek. I wish I could be like Lila. Not a care in the world.
    What are you always worried about?
    He puts the binoculars to his eyes and scans the opposite side of the canyon. Birds, for one thing. And the weather. The drought.
    Ruby nods. We still get rain here sometimes, though. When the storms come quickly and make the prairie wet, I call it wildflower rain, she says. The flowers start to bloom after a good rain.
    Through the binoculars Ward spies a plain gray bird. He shows it to Ruby and asks her what it is. She takes a moment to answer. A female Cowbird?
    I don't think so, says Ward. Brown- Capped Rosy Finch? Without the reddish colorations on its primaries? Probably not. Maybe it's an immature female Cowbird and will always be plain gray, with a bit of mottled black flecks in its plumage.
    Is that what you think I am? asks Ruby. An immature female?
    Ward keeps his binoculars trained on the Rosy Finch. You have Lila, he says.
    Yes, I do. And why do you say that?
    For that reason alone, you're no immature female. You're a mother.
    I guess I'm a little young for that, aren't I? She strokes Lila's cheek. Sometimes I wonder if I'm too young to be a mother. Sometimes I think she's the best thing that ever happened to me.
    You're a mother because you're supposed to be a mother. Things happen for a reason, don't they?
    Do you believe that's true?
    He smiles and says, It's an idea that people want to believe.
    Ward watches Ruby coddle Lila and can't help but feel a pang. Tender and sad and wistful all at once. The sky turns darker. He stands up and steps to the jumbled stones at the edge of the wind cave and stares out to check on the approach of a thunderstorm.
    The dusty smell of rain. The crackling sound of thunder as if an enormous sheet of glass were breaking. Fat raindrops fall to splat against the stones at the cave's mouth. We're going to get wet, says Ruby.
    Across the canyon a Northern Harrier glides along the rocky ledge, a few feet over the ground of the canyon ledge. The prairie hawk gleams pale, almost ghostly white, framed against the dark blue storm clouds above. Its back is dark but the breast and belly are white, giving it almost the appearance of a Snowy Owl, but the tips of its primary feathers are black, splayed like fingers to catch and feel and hold the air. Harriers were rare even before the decline of the prairie and grasslandsâ more so now, a raptor that lives in the plains, that hovers and glides above the prairie floor to pounce on rodents.
    A flash of lightning strobes the landscape. Ward follows the Harrier with his binoculars, holding his breath, and has to think deliberately, to tell himself, Breathe, breathe. And as he watches, the Harrier veers away from the gulch, flaps its wings, and vanishes out of his line of sight.
    Bird, says Lila, pointing.
    Ruby holds out a graham cracker for her. That's right, Lila girl. That's a bird. A hawk or harrier, actually. She smiles at Ward and adds, I'm starting to teach her the names of specific birds. I don't know if she gets it yet, but what the heck. It's a start.
    Ward nods and takes a bite of his sandwich. The wide prairie opens up before them, a violet landscape in the shadow of the rain clouds. The spring rain signals hope for the drought's end. Alone here on the prairie, with the Sierra Mojada in the distance, with the summer monsoons coming on, it feels like all will not be sand and dust. There's something about the chance coincidence of seeing the Harrier gliding, the rainstorm, and Lila's calling what she sees
bird
that electrifies the moment. Ward feels as if he'll remember this event, this particular moment, the rest of his life. Bird, baby, storm. The world in a moment.
bird
that electrifies the moment. Ward feels as if he'll remember this event, this particular moment, the rest of his life. Bird, baby, storm. The world in a moment.
S h e  c o m e s  t o  h i m  on a windy day, the sky a dirty mix of wildfire soot and dust storm. She pulls up in his driveway, her ex- driveway, and is slow as second thoughts in getting out of the car. The wind gusts try to blow her back inside. She pushes and heaves against her driver' s- side door and the wind and the force of difficult decisions that have made her leave and made her return to do some good in the world, the wind an invisible force to assure her it won't be easy. John Cole sees the cloud of dust rise along the driveway and sweep upon the house. He heads toward the front door, curious and hopeful in the claptrap of his domain.
    Juliet opens the rear driver' s- side door and collects her thingsâ a diaper bag, chocolate treats and toys for Lila, a book to read, her glasses. A patina of resolve coats her face of perpetual worry. When she turns the cinnamon cloud has swept over the front porch and curtained it. As if by a magician's trick or miracle divine, when the dust settles there stands her husband, John Wesley Cole, the man to whom she has given her life and the man upon whom she has turned her back.
    She tries to hold her hair, swirled by the wind into her eyes. Her movement up the stone walkway is like wading in muddy remorse, against the wind, against the current of how his and her lives have flowed off course, an oxbow of heartache. She rubs the dust in her eyes and the cinnamon gusts ripple and roar. She squints to survey the peeling paint on the porch rail, the cracked wood, and an old clay flowerpot full of dry dirt.
    Well, this is getting to be a regular event, says John. He nods and smiles, his windburned skin a mask of wrinkles, weathered like the woodshed walls. You're looking good, he adds. Single life must be treating you well.
    Thank you, she says. She shrugs. I don't know.
    What don't you know?
    If single life is treating me well. It's hard. She steps up close to him before she stops moving. I get by, she says. Sometimes that's the best to hope for.
    You look better than getting by. You look ten years younger from where I stand.
    She blinks and nods. Maybe it's your eyes.
    Eye, he says.
    I'm sorry. That's stupid of me. I didn't mean anything by it. It's just what people say.
    I know, he says. That's okay. I'm glad to see you. Say whatever you want.
    Well, aren't you agreeable.
    Absence makes a man lonely, I guess. I'd say it's the work of the Lord but you'd roll your eyes.
    I'm here to help with Lila. Ruby has to work today and I promised her I'd come.
    Work? Is that what she's calling it?
    Work it is, John. She's a research assistant, whether you approve or not.
    I don't. And I think what she's researching is just how sad that poor bird man is without a woman. Or how happy he is to find a new one.
    You haven't even talked to him, have you? He's giving Ruby some confidence in herself, which she needs.
    Anybody who counts birds for a living got to be an egghead, you ask me.
    What? she asks. You'd prefer a righteous dropout who campaigns for Jesus instead of a man with an education and a good job?
    The world's full of educated idiots, says John. He rubs his upper thigh, where the prosthetic leg attaches to his stump. I'm sure the doctors who fixed me up had plenty of education, but it still hurts like I'm walking on a broomstick.
    Well, at least you're walking. Juliet moves past John into the living room, where she hears him shuffle and thump through the doorway, following her. The morning sun beams in trapezoidal blocks onto the hardwood floor and backlights a falling snowscape of dust motes in its light.
    Don't you ever vacuum anymore?
    I do, he says. Ever' chance I get.
    Looks like you don't get many chances.
    Take off your shoes, John says. Lila's asleep.
    Juliet removes her huaraches while looking around the room, noting dust on the television screen, streaks on the dingy curtains. Plastic toys litter the floorâ square and rectangular blocks of Legos colored blue and yellow and green, a plastic triceratops and allosaurus, a polka- dotted horse. A pair of Teletubbies figures perch on a windowsill. Juliet tiptoes to the back bedroom and finds Lila in her crib, angelic and peaceful. She's lying on her back, her hands tucked under her head, her striped shirt hiked up to show the soft plumpness of her belly. Her eyelashes are long and dark, like feathers of a delicate bird.
    Juliet reaches down to stroke her face. She brushes the bangs off Lila's forehead and tucks the blanket above her waist. She notices milk stains on the crib sheets and tells herself she will have to pull them off and wash them as soon as Lila wakes. She senses John come up behind her, the hiss and the lisp of his prosthetic shoe on the floor. She feels a force field of anger welling up behind her, a force field of the past, all the moments of silent fury and things gone wrong in her life yoked with his. And yet this child makes the pain bearable.
    She can feel John breathing behind her and knows that he is standing there looking at Lila, mute and proud and defensive.
    She's so precious, whispers Juliet.
    I worry about her, says John. She needs a father and Ruby's so hardheaded she won't admit it.
    Ruby seems to be doing okay. She's a good mother.
    A good mother doesn't run off and abandon her child. A good mother sticks it out. What would she do without me? She wouldn't have a roof over her head.
    Soon as possible I'll move to a bigger place. They could come live with me.
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