Praise for the novels of
MARY ALICE MONROE
THE BEACH HOUSE

“With its evocative, often beautiful prose and keen insights into family relationships, Monroe’s latest is an exceptional and heartwarming work of fiction.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Whether you are one of the hundreds of sea turtle volunteers in the southeast or just wish you were, this beautifully written story brings us a glimpse of their dedication and commitment to the conservation of the loggerhead sea turtle.”

—Sally Murphy, Sea Turtle Coordinator for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources

THE FOUR SEASONS

“Monroe writes with a crisp precision and narrative energy that will keep readers turning the pages. Her talent for infusing her characters with warmth and vitality and her ability to spin a tale with emotional depth will earn her a broad spectrum of readers, particularly fans of Barbara Delinsky and Nora Roberts.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Mary Alice Monroe writes from her heart to the hearts of her readers. It is a quality of emotional honesty together with lyrical, descriptive passages that draw her audience to books like The Four Seasons.”

—Charleston Post and Courier

“With novels like this one and The Book Club, Mary Alice Monroe continues to be one of the leaders of complex female relationship dramas that hit home to the audience.”

—Midwest Book Review

“Moving, touching and beautifully drawn, the characters in this wonderful novel are compelling and true. Ms. Monroe’s skills as a teller of women’s fiction are becoming quite exceptional.”

—Romantic Times

THE BOOK CLUB

“Monroe offers up believable characters in a well-crafted story.”

—Publishers Weekly

“The Book Club skillfully weaves the individual story threads into a warm, unified whole that will appeal to readers who enjoy multifaceted relationship novels with strong women protagonists.”

—Library Journal

GIRL IN THE MIRROR

“What price beauty? Mary Alice Monroe’s Girl in the Mirror reflects the shadows and shapes of a woman’s painful and illuminating journey of self-discovery, of choice, of loves.”

—New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts

“What would you do if the career you cherished threatened to cost you your life? Mary Alice Monroe draws you into an absorbing tale of hard-won success, devastating choices and the triumphant power of love.”

—bestselling author Diane Chamberlain

Skyward
Mary Alice Monroe

www.mirabooks.co.uk

This book is dedicated to

Jim Elliott, Jemima Parry-Jones, Grace Gaspar,

Stacy Hughes, Franci Krawcke, Mary Pringle

and to all my fellow volunteers at the

South Carolina Center for Birds of Prey

And to dedicated professionals and volunteers

across the country—and the world—who

dedicate their time to help preserve and protect

the magnificent birds of prey.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have many people to thank for their assistance and support as I wrote this book. First and foremost is the founder and director of the South Carolina Center for Birds of Prey, James Elliott, for providing insights, information and corrections on the text. He is an inspiration to us all. Thanks to Franci Krawcke of SCCBOP for answering my questions and for teaching me how to handle raptors. Thanks also to Jemima Parry-Jones for sharing her extensive history and experience with raptors. And as always, heartfelt thanks to my dear friend Mary Pringle, who not only served as my mentor at the SCCBOP, but has shared countless mute-scrubbing duties with me.

Thank you to Marjory Wentworth for generously offering her magnificent poem “Contretemps,” (Nightjars, Laurel Publishing), and for her savvy and indefatigable support as publicist. Heartfelt thanks as well to fellow osprey lover Anne Rivers Siddons.

I am indebted to Queen Quet, Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation, for graciously offering translation and consultation regarding the character of Lijah and the Gullah/Geechee culture in this book. Your contribution was invaluable. I am also grateful to Gerald Mackey.

Several outstanding nurses shared their knowledge of the issues facing their profession, as well as the commitment and dedication of nurses today. Thank you, Janet Grossman, Gail Stuart, Therese Killeen, Alexandra Koch and Eileen Dreyer. I’m also grateful to Dr. Timothy Assey and Vanessa Ward for answering my questions concerning diabetes.

For an education on eagles, I’m grateful to Tom Murphy of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. Thank you to Coastal Carolina Expeditions, Carolina Heritage Outfitters and the Bull Island Ferry for consultations about expeditions on South Carolina’s incredible rivers. A special thank-you to Jerry and Jenny Reves for sharing articles and books, and for a memorable boat trip that expanded my appreciation for this beautiful region. And for a tour in which we stopped for every raptor we spotted, I am grateful to Ruth Cryns Rutledge.

I’m beholden to Buzzy Porter for his incredible support, expertise and friendship, to Patti Morrison for always being there for events with that megawatt smile, and to all the staff at Barnes & Noble, Mt. Pleasant. Likewise, heartfelt thanks to Marge Irizarry and the staff at Waldenbooks, Charleston.

My sincere appreciation goes to my divine editor, Martha Keenan, and to Dianne Moggy, Amy Moore-Benson, Donna Hayes, Craig Swinwood, Isabel Swift, Randall Toye, Tania Charzewski, Stacy Widdrington, Katherine Orr and everyone at MIRA. And, as always, special thanks to Karen Solem. Thank you, Barbara L. Bergwerf, for the photos and for so many other kindnesses you give so freely.

I have the privilege of working with dedicated volunteers at the South Carolina Center for Birds of Prey. These are remarkable individuals who give their time freely. Thank you Robert Allen, Tara Bailey, Beverly Ballow, Susan Bogart, Desiree Boulware, Laura Buchta, Susan Burnet, Simone Castiller, Vicki and Ashley Causey, Jeff and Cari Cone, Linda Flanagan, Sheena Forte, George Gardner, Dave Gunnells, Randy Hausenfluck, Nedra Hecker, Carolyn Hodo, Nadara Hoffmann, Lara Hopkins, Jennifer Jolly, Joline Kennedy, Meghan Lee, Monique Leveille, Michelle Lewis, Gail Lucas, Susan Maguire, Heather Marlowe, Mary Catherine Martin, Angela McClelland, Kelly Moore, Cynthia Murphy, Murray Neale, Marty North, Kay O’Mara, Marjorie Rath, Joe Regan, Joanne Remington, Bill Robertson, Mary Ellen Rogers, Linnea Rogers-Notton, Diane Rountree, Ted Rucker, Paul Rushton, Mary Ellen and Jim Sharman, Audrey South, Stacy Spence, Amy Sprouse, Donna Totten, Michael and Dede Vergot, Mary Whaley, Mima Wicker, Andrea Wilbanks, Linda Zinnika—and to those intrepid souls who travel across the state to pick up and deliver injured birds. I thank you all!

Finally, for much more than I can write here, my love and heartfelt thanks go to my family: to Markus for grace under pressure, Claire, Gretta and, especially, Zachary for patiently being my dialogue coach for teenaged characters.

CONTRETEMPS

Though the world’s dark heart

brought me here,

where time was hiding

in the unleashed sea,

I will stay in this fragile place

of broken trees and wounded birds

that teach me patience as I watch

them fill the bared branches

like clusters of singing leaves.

I will follow

a passing flock of plovers,

who think faster than we can see

when they suddenly turn

and flash their snowy undersides

in one bright act

of collected caring consciousness.

They must have heard a warning

in the lost language

of the river wind.

But the silent merlin—

in pursuit

disarmed, confused, and angry—

cackles at his lazy gods.

I see the breath

of another god, moving

beneath still wings

of the osprey and the eagle

in flight. I see

countless angels, rising from the river

with open hands

and upturned palms

to hold the wings in place

as the animals glide over

this sanctuary

and pull the sky

back into the universe.

—Marjory Wentworth

“Fa ebeeting wha dey een wi, hunnuh kin tun Skyward an’ kno’.” (For everything that’s in us, you can turn Skyward and know.)

—Queen Quet, Chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee Nation

The character of Lijah in this story was inspired by the Gullah tradition of the African-American oral historians (griots). The Gullah language is as rich and complex as the culture, and I was fortunate to have the guidance of Queen Quet of the Gullah/Geechee Nation in writing Lijah’s dialogue. However, I have taken the liberty of making substitutions so that the reader would more readily understand the text. Thus, while the dialogue is not pure Gullah, I've done my best to convey the unique qualities and rhythm of this significant Lowcountry language.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Epilogue

Birds of Prey(also known as raptors) have characteristics that distinguish them from other birds. A bird of prey has a sharp, hooked beak for tearing food, sharp, curved talons, powerful feet for killing its prey and binocular vision. Thirty-eight species of raptors are found in the geographic limits of the United States and Canada. These species are divided into categories: buteos, accipiters, falcons, harriers, kites, eagles, ospreys and owls.

1

A brisk, wintry wind whistled along the South Carolina coast. It rattled the ice-tipped, yellowed spartina grass and rolled a thick, steely gray fog in from the sea. The old black man paused in his walk and cocked his ear toward the sky. He heard the whispers of change in the wind. Hunching his shoulders, he turned the collar of his threadbare woolen jacket high up to the brim of his fedora, then dug his hands deep into his pockets. He resumed walking, but he kept his eyes skyward.

The old man had walked nearly half a mile when he heard a high, plaintive whistle over the wind’s song. He stopped abruptly, rigid with expectation, staring out at the heavy shroud that hovered over the wetlands. It was a still morning; the pale night moon lingered in the dusty sky. Suddenly, a magnificent white-crested eagle broke through the mist. Its broad, plank-straight wings stretched wide as it soared over the water.

“There you be!” he muttered with deep satisfaction. Bringing his large, gnarled hands to cup his mouth, he whistled sharp and clear, mimicking the birdcall.

The bald eagle circled wide, flapping its powerful wings with a majesty reserved for royalty. The great bird took a lap around the marsh before deigning to return the call.

The effect was not lost on the old man. Heartened, he rushed his hands to his mouth and whistled again, louder and more insistently. This time, the eagle banked, then flew unwaveringly toward him.

This was the moment Harris Henderson relished. He squinted and let his gaze slowly traverse the wide, open meadow encircled by tall, leggy pines. The grasses were crisp and the ground was hard with the early morning frost. In only one day’s time, winter had blustered into the Lowcountry, plummeting temperatures from balmy to freezing. He took a long, deep breath, feeling the moist chill go straight to his lungs. The morning air carried the scent of burning wood—cedar, he thought—so strong he could almost taste it.

Turning his head, he gazed upon the sleek red-tailed hawk held firm against his chest by his thick leather gloves. Maggie Mims, a robust woman with hair almost the same color red as the hawk’s tail, looked up at him with eyes sparkling with excitement.

She gave a curt nod.

Harris moved his gloved hands so that his left wrapped around the hawk’s wings and the right maintained a firm hold of the hawk’s feet. Instantly, the hawk’s dark gaze sharpened, her mouth opened and she jerked her wings hard for freedom.

“So, you’re eager to be off,” he said in a low voice.

He waited patiently for the bird to calm itself, all the while looking on with admiration. She was a beautiful specimen, creamy breasted with a dark bellyband and the brick-red tail feathers that gave the species its name. Red-taileds were superb hunters, “the black warriors” J.J. Audubon had called them. It was hard to believe, looking at her sleek, healthy form, that she’d been brought into the clinic with gunshot wounds a mere two months earlier. “Well, it won’t be long now.”

The bird cocked its head at the sound of his voice, glaring, ferocious—the right attitude for survival. Every instinct in its body was on alert for flight. Harris could feel the bird’s anticipation in his own veins.

In this brief moment before flight, Harris sought to merge spirits with the bird. He’d read stories of shamans who practiced this ancient art, myths of Indians whose spirits soared with eagles, tales that he’d heard spoken of only in passing or in jest. Though he’d tell this to no one, deep down he’d always believed that at the core of legends and myths lay a kernel of truth. There were individuals who communicated at some visceral level with birds. He knew it. Witnessed it.

And it was his private pain that he was not one of them. Although highly skilled, he didn’t possess the rare instinct—the gift—of connection. The art of truly flying the birds.

The closest he came to it was at liftoff. The seconds when the bird’s wings stretched out and he heard the whup-whup of their flapping and felt the quick fluttering of air against his cheek as the bird flew fearlessly into the wind. At that stolen moment in time he caught an exhilarating glimpse of what it might be like to fly, to feel the lift, then the air glide over him like water.

“Ready?” asked Maggie.

Sensing freedom at hand, the red-tailed tightened its talons on his arm. The brisk wind gusted, riffling the feathers on its head. She didn’t flinch. Her eyes were focused. A faint stream of breath clouded the air like steam as her chest rose and fell. The moment had come.

“Okay, my beauty,” he said softly to the hawk. “Let’s send you home.”

With a lift of his arm, he let his hands go. Instantly the talons released their grip. Wings fluttered, stirring the air. Harris released a sigh as the hawk took flight.

Up, up, the red-tailed climbed. Harris tracked the bird, assessing her strength and looking for any tipping, which would indicate the broken wing hadn’t completely healed. The margin for survival was very slim in the wild. A raptor had to be one hundred percent to successfully hunt. There was nothing tentative about this bird’s flying, however, and Harris felt a bone-deep satisfaction that their work at the rehabilitation center had been successful.

This bird, number 1985, was successfully released to the wild.

“We’re not s’posed to hunt in there.”

Brady Simmons pointed the business end of his .22 caliber rifle toward the No Hunting sign posted on the gnarled bark of a bare-leafed live oak. “It says right here, see?” he said, careful to make it more question than statement.

His father rubbed his bristled jaw and drawled, “I don’t see no sign.”

“Billy Trumplin’s dad says we could get in big trouble if we hunt in there. ‘Specially birds. It ain’t even the season.”

Roy Simmons slowly turned his head, narrowing his eyes as he focused on his eldest son. His voice was low but lethal. “You tellin’ me what to do now, boy?”

Brady took a step back. “N-no, sir.”

The spark in his father’s eyes banked as he acknowledged the respect. “Our family’s been huntin’ this here land longer than anyone can remember. There ain’t nothing wrong with takin’ a little of what’s there for the takin’.” He hoisted his rifle. “Besides, we ain’t here for sport. We’re here to put food on the table. And I’ll be dog damned if some tree hugger’s gonna up and tell me I can’t.”

Brady gave a curt nod and kept an eye on his father’s balled fists. The stench of stale whiskey on his father’s breath kept the boy mute with fear and contempt.

His father reached out to rip the sign from the tree bark and throw it on the ground.

Brady’s face was a portrait of teenage apathy as he watched his father ground the muddy heel of his boot on the federal sign. What a jerk, he thought. He was sick of hearing his father grouse about land that had been “stolen” from the people. How could someone steal what wasn’t theirs in the first place? Besides, what did he care about the land and who owned it? All he wanted was to get as far away from this hellhole as he could.

Satisfied, his father turned and pushed into the federally protected land. “Well, come on, then,” he said over his shoulder. “Don’t lag behind.”

The woods were still dark in the dank hush of early morning. The crush of Brady’s boots in the layers of frosted, composting leaves sounded violent in the quiet forest. There were lots of loblolly pines, growing thin and so close together it would be easy to get lost if one didn’t know the territory. Brady always preferred the longleaf pine and the way its long needles stirred in the breeze. There was something regal about them, the way they stood ten stories tall, six feet around and straight-backed—the kings of the pine forest. He liked them even if his father hated them, calling them nothing better than wood weeds on account of the fact that the fire-resistant bark was no good for firewood. He’d heard tell of a time when longleafs used to dominate the woods, back before the buzzsaws did their work. Brady would like to have seen that.

As he walked around the clustered trunks, he noticed how the light of the rising sun dappled through the leaves, making the melting frost sparkle like diamonds. In the thick branches over his head, he could hear fox squirrels chattering and, farther off, a red-cockaded woodpecker hammering into the sapwood.

“Quit draggin’ your feet back there! If you didn’t stay up all night with that rowdy bunch of no-counts you call friends you wouldn’t be so damned worthless in the mornin’. Took a bomb to get you outta that bed this morning. I told you we was goin’ huntin’ this mornin’.”

Brady spit out the sour taste of his breakfast of cold biscuits and jerky, then picked up his pace behind the bulky, wide-shouldered man in the camouflage jacket. At least it would be the last thing he’d hear from the old man for a while, he thought. From here on in, he’d be telling him what to do in hissed whispers and jabs with his index finger so as not to spook the game.

Roy Simmons never asked his son where he might think was a good place to hunt or even what game he’d like to go after. Brady felt little more than a lackey behind the skilled huntsman who knew better than most where to find the first buck of the season, or a fertile oyster bed, or where to flush out birds. That’s what they were after this morning. Some pheasant, or maybe quail…something special to put on the Christmas dinner table tomorrow.

Most of the food on their table came from what his daddy hunted or fished. It was pretty much a hand-to-mouth existence for the family of seven. His mama did all she could with whatever his father brought home, but he never seemed satisfied. And lately, with the neighboring land just made into a national preserve, places to hunt were hard to come by. More and more folks were after what little game was left. Roy Simmons had to hunt longer and smarter to bring less to the table, even as his young were growing bigger and eating more.

He preferred hunting alone, but for the past few days since school was out for the holiday he’d dragged Brady, the eldest son, along on his early-morning hunting trips. They’d come up empty-handed each time. It being the holiday, the stakes were higher. Every day Brady saw his father’s desperation turn to anger. As he followed the pounding footfall of his father, Brady hoped he wouldn’t take that anger out on him.

Brady and his father walked without luck for more than an hour into the Marion National Forest, miles from the small spread of ramshackle house and barn that his family called home. The scrap of land was deeded to his great-grandfather back when this place on earth was considered nowhere. Now the sprawl from Charleston was spreading its tentacles their way, causing environmentalists to scoop up whatever they could as protected land. Their scrubby bit of earth was a small speck of private land bordered by thousands of acres of national forest, what his daddy smugly called “the thorn in the ass of the feds.”

“You think maybe we should head back?” he asked, foot weary.

“We’re not going back without we get somethin’ for dinner.”

Brady silently groaned. His eyelids were drooping and his toes were cold in his boots as he silently kept up. He hated being forced to get up early in the morning. He hated being stuck in these godforsaken woods, hungry and tired, when all he wanted to do was go back to his warm bed, even if he did have to share the room with his brother and the dog. And though he’d never admit it to his father, he hated hunting. It was boring and pointless, like most things in his life.

At last they came to where the flat woodlands opened up to a wide expanse of open marshland. His father stopped here, his shotgun hanging from his arm, to survey the landscape with an eagle eye.

A brisk wind was blowing in from the ocean, stinging Brady’s cheeks with crisp freshness and waking him to the beauty of the eastern sky. He lowered his rifle in quiet awe. The dawn had already declared itself. Pink streaks softly shadowed a pearly blue sky, but an approaching armada of low-lying gray clouds and fog stretched threatening fingers across the horizon.

“Look! There!” His father jabbed his side and pointed.

“Where?”

“There. Over that stretch of marsh. At nine o’clock.”

Brady turned his head to see an enormous black bird soaring on a great expanse of wing. The beauty of the sight was awesome.

“Go on, son. Take the shot!”

Frozen with shock that his father was actually offering him the rare opportunity to take the shot, Brady fumbled as he raised the barrel, losing precious seconds.

“Hurry up! You’ll lose it.”

I ain’t gonna lose it, he thought to himself, aware that actually speaking the words could cause him to lose his train on the bird. He could hear the blood roar in his ears, and excitement thrummed in his veins as he brought his eye to the scope.

“It’s bankin’,” his father said. “Comin’ right for you.”

“I can’t see it!”

“It went back into the fog. Don’t matter. Wait for him. Be cocked and ready.”

Brady eased off the safety, put his right forefinger on the trigger and placed his site squarely on the spot he figured the bird would emerge. He tried to calm himself, to take slow breaths and make certain he got the shot. His father wouldn’t give him a second chance.

Okay, where are you? One…two…three…Suddenly, out from the fog, the bird emerged—right where Brady figured it would. Oh, yeah, it was a big bird. A real big bird. He told himself to take it slow and careful as he trailed the soaring bird and focused. His finger applied pressure. He held his breath.

Brady released his breath with the curse, lowering his rifle. “I can’t shoot. It’s an eagle.”

“A what? Goddamn…That’s all that’s left in these goddamn government woods.” Roy shook his head and mumbled a curse. “They won’t let us hunt nowhere or shoot nothin’ no more. Look up there! It’s comin’ straight for us. Bold as can be, knowin’ we can’t shoot. Probably gonna steal some decent farmer’s chickens. Well, hell. Go on, son. Take it.”

“What? I can’t. It’s against the law.”

“What’s the law got to do with my god-given right to hunt like my father and my father before him? I’m tellin’ you, that bird is the enemy, you hear me?”

“That bird ain’t done nothing.”

“I’m not playin’ with you, boy.” He looked his son in the eyes with steely rage and said in a low, threatening voice, “You’re either with me on this or against me.”

Brady hesitated.

His father muttered with disgust that he was as weak as a woman, bringing his own shotgun to his shoulder.

Brady felt his chest constrict and brought his eye back to the scope of his rifle and his finger to the trigger. Life with his father had always been an endless, agonizing series of tests.

Was he with his father, or against him? In that moment, one that seemed to linger in the air without regard for time or judgment, Brady knew that, whatever action he took, his life was going to change forever.

The old man smiled from ear to ear in elation at the magnificent sight of seven feet of wingspan riding a thermal. The Good Lord sure knew what he was doing when he made the eagle, he thought to himself. Powerful wings, a razor-sharp beak and talons as long and sharp as tiger claws. And the way she flew…It was like she knew she was queen of the skies. There weren’t no creature more beautiful in the whole world, he thought.

He whistled again and reached into the pouch hanging from his side to pull out a wide-mouth bass he’d brought just for this bird. He knew she was busy with her nest, knew she was hungry.

“Well, come on and get yourself some bittle,” he told the bird as he raised the fish high into the air. He whistled again, loud and clear, wiggled the outstretched fish and began walking through the field. She saw it. He could tell by the way she was circling.

Suddenly, the unmistakable thundering of gunshot shattered the morning’s peace. The old man stumbled. His arms jerked outstretched, dropping the fish to the field. He watched with helpless horror as the eagle’s great wings fluttered against the bruise-colored sky. His breath choked in his throat as the bird seemed to hang in the air. Then the wings crumpled and the eagle dropped like a stone to the earth.

His cry of anguish mingled with the shrieking wind that streaked across the wetlands, whisking away the old man’s hat to reveal a head of snowy white hair. Spurred forward, he took off at a stiff-legged gait across the frosted fields straight for the fallen bird.

Buteos: The Soaring Hawks.Buteos are medium-to-large hawks with broad wings and a short tail. Although slow flyers, they excel in soaring and hunt on the wing. They are a diverse group with a wide range of habitats and prey. Buteos include red-tailed hawks, red-shouldered hawks, broad-winged hawks, Swainson’s hawks, rough-legged hawks and ferruginous hawks.

2

Harris stood in the brisk wind watching the sky until the tiny speck of brown that was the hawk disappeared from view. Scanning the horizon, there wasn’t another hawk in sight; only a broad-winged vulture coasted over the treetops.

He could remember his grandfather telling him of the days when he could walk a mile through a country field like this one and see every kind of hawk: sharp-shinned, Cooper’s, red-tailed and red-shouldered, kestrel and harrier—though his grandfather called those small but quick birds “marsh hawks.” Harris was no older than five when his grandfather began walking the fields with him. His grandfather would pause, point to the sky and ask, “What’s that?” Harris would shout out an answer with boyish confidence and never feel rebuked when his grandfather, more often than not, gently corrected him. Those walks were some of the most memorable in his life and fired a lifelong devotion to birds of prey. His grandfather had loved raptors, hawks especially, and taught him that identifying a hawk in the air was not as much a skill as it was an art. Color of plumage wasn’t a key, as it was in smaller birds. He was a shrewd and patient teacher, instructing Harris to take his time to read the subtle signs—the cant of a wing, the speed of the flap—and to trust his intuitive sense of how a bird appeared in flight before making his call. By the time his grandfather passed away Harris was only twelve years of age, but he could unerringly spot and name a raptor from a distance.

Harris was born in the early 1960s, a decade that recognized the devastation DDT brought to the environment. Since his boyhood he’d worked to help rebuild the birds of prey population from near extinction. They still had a long way to go before the skies would be as filled with raptors as his grandfather remembered, but they were on the right track. Each time he released a bird back to the wild he felt his entire being stir with hope.

“Harris!”

He reluctantly turned from the sky to see a young, black, teenage girl neatly dressed in jeans and fleece trotting toward him from the edge of the open meadow. He waved an arm in silent acknowledgment, then cast a final glance toward the sky. The hawk was long gone. Beyond the circle of meadow, the fog was closing in.

“Mr. Henderson?” the girl called again, breathless from her run. “I’m supposed to tell you that Sherry needs you back at the clinic right away. Someone’s brought in a bird what’s been shot.”

Harris cursed softly.

“I’ll take this one,” Maggie said, bending to pick up the gear. “Aren’t you supposed to take Marion Christmas shopping? That little darling’s been talking about nothing else all week.”

He nodded with acknowledgment as he helped gather the gear. His five-year-old daughter had woken him at dawn that morning, already dressed in her best pants and sweater, her hair haphazardly pulled back with a pink plastic headband. She was so excited about their holiday outing that she only nibbled at her breakfast, preferring to drink several glasses of orange juice that kept her running back and forth from the bathroom. He chuckled quietly as he walked, recalling how he’d asked if she had a valve open in her plumbing. His last view before leaving the house was of Marion’s forlorn face staring back at him from the front window. He’d waved and called out that he’d be back soon, but she hadn’t smiled. He’d had to go to release the hawk, but the memory still tugged at his heartstrings.

“You haven’t bought a thing for that child yet, have you?” Maggie asked in response to his long silence. They’d walked across the field to the truck and she was regarding him skeptically. When he didn’t reply she added, “Good Lord, Harris. Do you even have a Christmas tree up?”

“Yep. The tree’s up and it’s even got lights on it, so don’t you worry, Mother Maggie,” he said with a teasing grin, and was pleased to see her face soften in response. Once Maggie got going, it was hard to derail her. “Marion and I amble into town every Christmas Eve, just the two of us, and she gets to pick out something special. It’s kind of our ritual.”

“Ritual?” Maggie looked at him disbelievingly. “Come on, Henderson, you can’t fool me. I’ve known you too long. You’re a hermit who’d never leave the woods if you didn’t have to, and this so-called ritual is your excuse for not having to face going into stores more than you absolutely have to.” She was nearly as tall as he was and her green eyes were fiery as they bore into his. “No more excuses today. You go on and leave that bird to me and give that poor child a Merry Christmas.”

Harris held up his hands in mock defeat. “All right, all right, I’ll go. You can take this one.”

“But Sherry said she needs you, Harris,” the young girl interrupted. “It’s an eagle. She said for you to hurry.” The cold wind puckered the volunteer’s lips but her brown eyes were soft with worry.

Harris gave Maggie a knowing look and took off at a trot for his truck parked at the edge of the field. He treated all kinds of raptors at the center: hawks, owls, ospreys and falcons. But it was the eagle that he had the greatest affinity for. In his opinion, no other raptor could compare with the eagle’s grace and power. And it was that very power that made them so dangerous to handle. Unlike substantial Maggie, Sherry was older and as small and delicate as a peregrine falcon. And though just as clever and quick, she didn’t have the physical strength to handle eagles. When an injured one was brought in, Harris took the call.

Silenced by duty, Maggie jumped into the cab beside him. The gravel flew as his wheels dug in and he took off down the dirt road. The bird-flying field was only a short drive down the main road from the Coastal Carolina Center for Birds of Prey. He parked his truck at the house and trotted through the small tangle of trees straight toward the small white frame house mounted on cinder blocks that was the clinic. Immediately, he spotted Sherry Dodds, his senior volunteer, in full leather protective gear hovering uncertainly near a tall, slender black man with snowy white hair. Harris’s eyes fell to the man’s arms and his step faltered.

Maggie grasped his arm tight. “Oh, my God…”

Harris swallowed hard. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The old man carried a full-size bald eagle in his bare arms. That eagle’s talons could rip apart the man’s thin coat and arms, and its razor-sharp beak could slash his face with the speed of a bullet.

“Slow down,” Harris said to Maggie as they approached. They didn’t want to startle the eagle. It seemed to be in shock, not moving a muscle save for its glaring yellow eyes that followed their approach with typical intensity.

“Thank God you’re here,” Sherry exclaimed, straining to keep her voice down. It was rare to see her flustered. “This man…he just walked in here with the eagle…in his arms! I got the gloves out, but with him holding it like that, unprotected…I didn’t know what to do!”

Harris nodded curtly. He understood too well the dangers. The old man was holding on to the eagle’s feet with one hand, which was good, but he cradled the bird too damn close to his chest and face.

Sherry slipped out of the leather chest protector and long gloves and handed them to Harris, keeping her eyes on the bird all the while. As he stuck his arms into the protective gear, Harris assessed the bird with an experienced eye. It was a very large eagle, with shiny plumage, obviously healthy before the gunshot wounds. The white head feathers marked it as an adult, at least five years of age.

“Excuse me, sir. But you the doctor?” the old man asked. His long, weathered face was heavily creased with age and worry. He had a distinguished bearing, dressed almost entirely in faded black, yet he cradled the bird in his arms and large, gnarled hands as tenderly as a nursemaid with a baby. Harris figured he was either a fearless old coot or just plain ignorant to the danger he’d put himself into. At least he had the sense to keep a firm grip on the talons.

“Yes, but don’t talk. The sound of human voices is distressing to wild birds, and right now we don’t want to do anything unnecessary to rile this ol’ boy.”

“Girl.”

Harris narrowed his eyes. From the size of the bird, the old man was likely right. “I’ve got to get that eagle out of your arms. Now, I want you to listen carefully. I’m going to approach the bird and get a firm grip on its talons with these gloves. When I say go, I mean just that. You let go of the bird and get away as fast as you can. Understand?”

“You think Santee’s gonna hurt me?” he asked. The old man shook his head slightly. “No, she ain’t. She knows me.”

“Knows you?”

He nodded solemnly. “I be the one that called her. She was coming straight to me when someone shot her from the sky. I tracked her and found her lying on the ground. Alive, praise Jesus! I heard about you folks here. How you help the birds. I’m grateful you were somewheres I could walk to.”

“You walked the bird here?”

“Came down the big road, straight as the crow flies.”

“How far did you come?”

“Not far. That way, back yonder a few miles, maybe. But it was slow going through the marsh.”

He almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. “How long have you been carrying that eagle?”

“Since after sunup.”

It was already almost nine. That meant the eagle had been wounded for hours. Harris shifted his gaze to the eagle. The large bird continued to stare at him, not lethargically or with head dangling, as one would expect from a bird in shock, but with an unnerving calm. Yet only shock could explain its nonresponsiveness—and shock was a killer. He had to act quickly to save the eagle’s life. He cast a worried glance at Sherry, who had returned wearing another set of long leather gloves. She was waiting, hands in the ready.

“The bird’s in shock,” he told her.

“I figured. I’ve got the body wrap and dex ready.”

He took a deep breath to squelch the flicker of anxiety in his chest. He met the old man’s steady gaze. He seemed to have no fear at all. “Okay, then…ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

With slow, deliberate movements, Harris moved his gloved hands to get a secure grip on the feather-coated legs. “I’ve got her. Let go.”

When the old man retracted his hands, the bird flinched its enormous talons and squirmed in Harris’s grip. In a flash, Harris cupped his free hand under and around the wings, then lifted the bird from the old man’s arms. Even with shot in its wings, the eagle had surprising strength as it flexed its talons and jerked to escape during the transfer. Harris’s experience quickly brought the bird under control.

Once stilled, however, its breathing grew more labored and its mouth gaped with stress. Sherry moved to place a light towel over the eagle’s head.

“What for you did that?” the old man asked.

“It helps reduce stress,” she replied.

“You’re a lucky man,” Harris said, exhaling with relief. “If this bird wasn’t in shock, you could be in the hospital yourself. Never forget these are wild creatures. Don’t make the mistake of trusting them.”

“Trust ain’t never a mistake,” the old man replied.

The man’s gaze held him with the same unnerving intensity of the eagle’s. Harris abruptly turned to the two women standing close by. “Can you get the intake information from this gentleman?”

“Will do,” Maggie replied, stepping forward.

Harris turned again to the old man. “We’re grateful you brought the eagle to us. I’m taking it into surgery now. You can give your name and phone number to Maggie and we’ll call you once we know how things turn out. Thanks again for taking the trouble to bring the bird in.” He moved toward the treatment room, dismissing him.

“I’ll wait.”

“We don’t have a waiting area,” Maggie replied kindly. “Don’t worry. We’ll call you right after surgery. It could take hours.”

“No matter. I’ll just wait outside.”

Maggie looked questioningly at Harris. His eyes flashed with annoyance, but he didn’t have time to argue the point. “He can wait in my office,” he said briskly, then turned and carried the eagle indoors.

The sun was beginning its descent by the time Harris’s duties in surgery were completed. It had been an unusually busy day. Two barred owls and a black vulture had also been admitted, all with head traumas from being hit by cars—a result of the heavy holiday traffic. After surgery, the birds were placed in the critical-care unit, a small, narrow room off the treatment room comprised of two long shelves holding two rows of kennels. Each kennel was draped with a cloth for darkness and quiet. Stress in captivity was a killer for wild birds, and at the center they did everything possible to minimize it.

Before closing up, Harris went to check the eagle one more time. In the darkness of her large kennel, she lay on her side, groggy from the anesthesia. She was hurt pretty badly with pellet wounds, some of them lodged where they could still cause trouble. There was also head trauma from the fall. Whether she’d be able to hunt again remained to be seen.

He ran his hands through his hair as he stepped from the treatment room, then let them slip down to rub the small of his back. His muscles ached from the hours of standing bent over the treatment table. He wanted nothing more than to strip from his dirty flannel shirt and jeans, kick off his hiking boots, shower, grab a bite to eat and collapse. The phone was blissfully silent and he was ready to call it a day. Yawning, he stopped short when he spotted the old black man still sitting in his office, elbows on his knees and his long, gnarled fingers worrying the brim of his hat. The man leapt to his feet when Harris walked in.

“How is she?”

“Amazingly good for a bird that just had a bucket of buckshot taken from its wings. It was slow, tedious work.” He shook his head. “But I’ve got to tell you, despite several punctures of lead shot, not a bone was broken. It’s pretty damn unbelievable. I’d have thought there’d be at least one break. This was one lucky bird.”

“Praise Jesus!” the man replied.

“I think Dr. Henderson had a little to do with it, too,” Sherry chimed in good-naturedly as she followed Harris into the office. She’d tucked her salt-and-pepper hair into a knit cap and was stuffing her arms into her parka en route to the sign-out sheet.

“No doubt, no doubt. And I’m grateful. Don’t know exactly how to repay you for your kindness. While I was sitting here, I was thinking…I might could do some work around the place. I saw a few spots that could use a good carpenter. And I’m a good carpenter.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Sherry blurted out as she rushed by. “That’s what we’re here for, you know. To help injured birds.”

“But this ain’t just any bird. This be my bird.”

Sherry paused her hurried exit to look at Harris. He read in her eyes the same question running through his own mind. Eagles were a threatened species protected by the United States government. No one could own an eagle or possess it in any way. Even at the birds of prey center they were restricted to keep an eagle for only ninety days without federal permission for an extension.

“Excuse me, but I didn’t catch your name,” Harris said.

“The name’s Elijah. Elijah Cooper,” he said, straightening and extending his hand with an almost courtly manner. “But most folks call me Lijah.”

Harris shook the offered hand. It was surprisingly large and strong.

“Well, Lijah, a Merry Christmas to you,” Sherry interrupted as she swept by them. Her eyes were sparkling behind her glasses with anticipation of the holidays. “You too, you ol’ humbug,” she said to Harris with a brief but heartfelt hug. Then with a softer tone, “I left a little something for you and Marion under your tree.”

“You didn’t have to.” He was always surprised and deeply touched by the many kindnesses the women at the center showed to him and his daughter. It was as though they had some silent pact between them to keep a close eye on the motherless home.

“Of course I did. I won’t be in tomorrow at all, remember. Neither will Maggie. But I’ll be here all the earlier on the twenty-sixth.”

“We’ll be fine. You just have a wonderful Christmas with your family. And drive carefully. The snow’s still coming down.”

“Don’t worry about me. You just make sure you give that little girl of yours some time tomorrow. The birds will be fine for one day,” she called as she hurried down the hall, eager to be home.

Harris turned back to Elijah, who stood waiting with a patient smile on his face as though he had nowhere to hurry off to on this snowy Christmas Eve. Harris usually didn’t like talking to strangers or engaging in social chitchat, but there was something compelling about the man’s serenity.

“Lijah, I don’t mean to keep you any longer, but there’s something I don’t understand.”

He cocked his head and his dark eyes glowed with interest.

“How is the eagle your bird?” Harris asked. “Do you keep it somewhere?”

“Keep it? You mean like in a cage?” Long lines crinkled the edges of his eyes, joining the multitude of others as he shook his head and chuckled. “No, sir. Nobody can keep an eagle. First off, it ain’t legal. Second most, it ain’t right. They noble creatures, meant to be free.”

“Then how is it that this bird is yours?”

“I figure you can say she adopted me.” When Harris’s brows knit in confusion, Lijah explained, “See, years back, when she was still in her black feathers, she flew low, right by me. You know how they be…She just glided in, curious like, then she perched on a low branch not ten yards in front of me. She sat there watching me. I reckon it was only for a few minutes or so, but it seemed like a long time we stayed there, studying each other.” He shook his head and smiled at some thought he meant to keep private because he simply shrugged. “Ever since, we just sort of looked out for each other. I call her Santee, after the river where I first seen her.”

Harris stared at the old man, unsure of what to make of the story. He’d never heard such a fantastical tale before, but he couldn’t discredit what he’d seen with his own eyes. Lijah had, after all, walked to the birds of prey center with the eagle held in his bare arms.

“Tell me what happened this morning.”

“Well, sir, I was walking along the big road early this morning, looking for her. I’d parked my car a ways back, knowing she has a nest not too far from here. I knew she’d be showing up to hunt sooner or later. And then, there she was. So I called her.”

“You called her?”

“Mmm-hmm. Like this.” He raised his hands to his mouth, then stopped and shook his head with a rueful smile. “No, best not. She’d hear it and try to come.”

Harris could barely restrain the wonder from his face. “You call and the eagle comes to you?”

“That’s right. Like I said, we look out for each other. And she knows I’d brung her something good to eat. Anyway, this morning I called to her like I always do. She was banking in a nice loop, coming for me.” His expression darkened. “Then them gunshots rang out. They shot her down.” His cheeks stiffened in anguish. “What kind of man would do something like that? Why would anybody shoot such a fine creature of God?”

“I don’t know,” he replied soberly. It was a question he’d asked himself every time he pulled pellets from a bird. “Did you happen to see who shot the bird?”

Lijah paused while his face clouded with mixed emotions. “Yes, sir, I did. Leastways, I caught sight of two men with guns back in the woods when I went to fetch Santee. They were standing right where the sound of the gunshot came from so it was most likely them. But I didn’t approach them or ask them nothing. Things being the way they were.” He shook his head and his eyes flashed. “But it was them, most likely.”

“You should report it to the police.”

“I called them already. The woman let me use the phone and they came by while you was in surgery. We talked a bit, I told them what I know, then they left.”

“Good. I hope they catch the bastards.”

Lijah’s lips pursed in thought. “You did say you pulled buckshot out of Santee? Not a bullet?”

“That’s right. A mother lode of it. Why?”

“No reason. Just curious.”

“Another thing. This eagle—” He paused and smiled briefly, conceding the name. “Santee. She has a brood patch. Did you say she had a nest somewhere near here?”

“Yes, sir. Not too far away. They’re good parents, Santee and Pee Dee—I named ’em after the rivers. It’s the second year they bred in that nest. Had two babies last time. That’s what brings me this far north, you see. I be from St. Helena, but I been following them to check out the nest. Sometimes I camp, sometimes I stay with friends. It’s a hike, but I don’t stay long. Santee likes to nest up here. I figure it most likely be where she was born.”

“Most likely. It’s still early in the season. She may not have laid her eggs yet.”

“Can’t tell you that. Only just arrived myself. I been watching them, though. They been busy up there.”

Harris weighed the lecture building in his mind about how humans needed to keep away from raptor nests so as not to disturb them, but decided against it. This man seemed pretty knowledgeable, and at the moment, he needed his help.

“Could you show me where this nest is?”

Lijah rubbed his jaw with his brow creased, then said with hesitation, “I suppose I could.”

“Lijah, it’s going to be hard for that male to incubate any young that may have hatched. Damn near impossible, in fact. We’ll have to watch the nest carefully, in case he abandons it.”

“I intend to.”

“Maybe if we…”

Harris’s attention was diverted by a gentle tug on his trousers. Looking down, he saw the sweet, pale face of his five-year-old daughter. Marion’s hair was pulled back into an elastic that was slipping off center. The clothes he’d seen her in that morning were now slightly soiled and a smudge of grape jelly lingered at the corner of her pouting lips.

“Daddy?”

His face softened at the sight of her. “Yes, baby?”

“Are we gonna go shopping yet?” she asked in a soft whine.

Shopping. Christmas Eve. Dusk. All these realities hit him like a bucket of cold water dumped down his back. How could he have forgotten the outing? It was always this way with him. He’d get so caught up in his work he’d lose track of time and anything else that was on his calendar.

His daughter’s eyes were filled with childish expectation and longing and Maggie’s admonitions played again in his mind. He swung his head around to look out the window. It was only four o’clock but already the sky was dark. A few flakes floated in the dim light outside the door, but nothing to be worried about. He had to make good on his promise. If he hurried, they’d be in town and back before too late.

“Why, sure, honey,” he replied, jostling her hair, sending the elastic flying. “Just give me a minute to close things up here.” He looked again at the old man, who had already reached out to grab his hat.

“I best be going,” he told Harris. “It’s Christmas and looks like you’ve got an evening planned.”

“We do. Heck of a night to hit the roads, though, isn’t it. Can I drop you somewhere?”

“No, sir. Thank you but I’ll find my own way.”

“But didn’t you say you walked here?”

“I did. But don’t pay me mind. My friends live a short way down the road.”

“But the closest house is a long walk through the woods. I insist. Let me drive you.”

Lijah shook his head and began heading toward the door. “I been sitting here all day. My legs’ll enjoy the stretch. Thanks again for tending to my bird. I’ll stop by tomorrow, if you don’t mind. Just to see how she is.” Before leaving, he bent his snowy white head and smiled warmly at Marion. “Merry Christmas to you, little missy.”

Marion smiled shyly and ducked behind her father’s legs.

“We’ll talk again. I’d like to go to that nest,” Harris said.

Lijah nodded, then left, quietly closing the door behind him.

Harris stared after him a moment. The man left a lingering impression. With a sigh, he peeked out the window at the smattering of faint snowflakes dancing in the gray-blue afternoon. Placing his arm around his daughter’s slim shoulders, he bent close to her ear.

“Will you look at that?” he asked. “It’s been a long time since I last saw snow for Christmas right here in South Carolina. In fact,” he said, squeezing her close, “I’ll bet this is the first time you’ve seen snow at all. Guess it’ll help ol’ Santa.”

“You told me there’s no such thing as Santa.”

His brows rose. “I did, huh?”

She nodded her head.

Even though he never encouraged belief in such things as fairies, Santa and the Easter Bunny, he believed firmly in the magic and beauty found in the wilds of nature and human nature alike. Life was full of hard realities, like people putting buckshot into an eagle for sport. And though he was dog-tired and hungry, at least for tonight he’d do what he could to keep the magic alive.

Harris felt blinded by the fluorescent lights as he strolled into the Wal-Mart store with Marion in tow. There was so much stuff everywhere. Who could need so many things? Bright red bows, gold tinsel and moving Santas seemed to jump out at him from the shelves. Compared to the silence of the woods, the loud and persistent Christmas music was grating to his ears. He squeezed his daughter’s hand and fought the urge to walk faster through the aisles. Other shoppers racing through the store brushed clumsily as they passed in a buying frenzy. He couldn’t wait to get back outdoors.

“Daddy, I’m thirsty.” Marion’s face peeked out from the hood of her pink parka, a hand-me-down from one of Maggie’s girls. It was too small; Marion’s shoulders were squeezed and the cuffs were inching up her forearms. He thought of buying her a new coat, since they were already here, then thought again. Money was tight and it wasn’t cold for that long in South Carolina. He figured this parka would make do awhile longer.

“You had a drink before we left the house and another at the gas station. You can’t be thirsty again.”

“But I am. Can I have some of that?” she asked, pointing to some icy blue swirling mixture for sale at the snack bar.

“Maybe later.”

Marion dragged tiredly on his arm and whined, “I’m thirsty now, Daddy.”

Her tone was insistent, drawing his attention from the aisles of toys. On closer inspection her face appeared flushed and her eyes glassy. Come to think of it, she’d downed those glasses of juice this morning as if she were dying of thirst. He wondered if she could be coming down with something.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said, bending over to speak gently. “Let’s pick out your present first and then, if you feel up to it, we’ll go someplace real special for our Christmas Eve dinner. You can get anything you want then. How’s that sound?”

“Okay,” she replied with lackluster, casting a final longing glance at the drink machine.

It was his fault they’d had such a late start, but he couldn’t help feeling disappointed. He’d hoped she might be a little excited by their special outing instead of dragging her feet and complaining. When they reached the doll section, he spread out his arm grandly and said with the enthusiasm of a carnival barker, “Look, Marion! Have you ever seen so many dolls in one place? And you can pick any which one you want for Christmas. Go on! Any one at all.”

Marion let go of his hand and shuffled close to the row of dolls, staring dully at them with her arms dropped to her sides. There was no squeal of delight or so much as an ooh of anticipation.

He sighed and lowered himself to her level. “What’s wrong, honey?”

She shrugged.

“But you said you wanted a doll for Christmas.”

She shook her head no.

“Oh,” he replied, perplexed. Then, regrouping, “Well, that’s okay. You don’t have to get one.”

At least he hadn’t gone out and bought one, he thought to himself. Kids changed their minds all the time, didn’t they? “There are lots of toys here. Games, stuffed animals, sports stuff…Hey, how about a bike?”

She turned to look at him, her eyes forlorn. “Daddy, you know what I want for Christmas.”

On her pale, thin face he saw the yearning of a lonely child. It near broke his heart. Marion wasn’t by nature a whiner or a complainer. In fact, she rarely asked for anything for herself. He wrapped his arm around her and rested her against his knee as he racked his brain for what to say.

“Honey, you know I can’t get you your mama for Christmas. We talked about this. That’s just silly.”

“No, it isn’t silly.” Her lower lip shot out in a pout.

“I know, I’m sorry. Why don’t you pick out a doll that looks like Mama? Won’t that be fine? Look at those over there. They’re very pretty, just like her.”

When she looked up at him with those large, trusting blue eyes, she looked so much like her mother that his heart wrenched. He kissed her tender cheek. “Go on, now.”

With a resigned sigh, Marion turned and looked again at the row of dolls. After some thought, she raised her arm and pointed toward a Barbie doll dressed in a neon pink ball gown littered with colored glitter. Harris thought it was the gaudiest doll on the shelf—and sadly appropriate. Fannie did like bright colors. He shifted his weight and reached for the chosen Barbie doll.

“That’s a fine choice, honey! It’s real pretty. What are you going to call her?” He held his breath, hoping she wouldn’t name the doll Fannie after her mother.

Marion scrunched her face in deliberation, then announced, “Lulu.”

He smiled. “Perfect. Now, you stay put and have fun looking at these dolls while I go buy her,” he told her. “Don’t go anywhere. Promise? Daddy’ll be right back. Okay?”

When she nodded he hurried to the checkout line with the Barbie doll in his hands. He wasn’t the only one doing last-minute shopping, but only two checkout registers were open so the lines were long. He took his place, all the while anxiously looking over his shoulder to keep an eye on Marion in the toy aisle. The line seemed to move to the same slow pace of “White Christmas” blaring from the speakers. He longed for the quiet peace of his home in the woods and tapped his fingers on the box. Nearing the counter, he picked through the selections of last-minute Christmas items: decorated sugar cookies, a plush red Christmas stocking filled with candy, a small stuffed reindeer and wrapping paper with ribbon. When at last it was his turn, he set his parcels on the belt, pulled a few bills from the worn leather wallet and gave them to the cashier. He fingered the remaining bills in his wallet, mentally tallying up the bill and figuring the cost of dinner.

It was times like these he wondered if he’d made the right choice to dedicate his life to saving birds. Most biologists connected with wildlife conservation understood from the get-go that the job required long hours and endless dedication. They loved their work, couldn’t imagine doing anything else, but the job took its toll on their personal lives, not to mention their bankbooks. He sighed. Putting his wallet back into his pocket, he knew his answer would be yes.

When he looked up again, he saw a minor commotion over at the toy aisle. A few people were bending over something on the floor.

“Marion!” he blurted out, and took off at a run. He pushed through the small cluster of people to find his daughter lying on the floor ashen-faced with her eyes rolled back, jerking uncontrollably. His heart rate zoomed. Kneeling, he scooped his little girl in his arms and began loosening her hood and jacket with shaky fingers.

“She just fell down, like she fainted!” an elderly woman exclaimed. “I saw her.”

A slight trickle of blood oozed from her mouth. Had she bitten her tongue? He tried to wedge open her mouth but her teeth were clamped tight. His mind fought through a horrifying panic as he tried to diagnose Marion’s problem. Epilepsy? Fever? He felt choked and his hands shook. This wasn’t some hawk or an eagle. This was his daughter and he didn’t know what to do.

He looked up at the wall of onlookers, eyes wild, and shouted, “Will someone call an ambulance?”

Accipiters: The Woodland Darters.Accipiters are agile, determined hunters. Their shorter, rounder wings and long tails are adapted for the quick bursts of speed and weaving through branches and brush needed to hunt other birds. Accipiters include sharp-shinned hawks, Cooper’s hawks and goshawks.

3

Harris never realized how mere weeks could change an entire life. In less than a month’s time, his hard-won routine was turned upside down. There were times that he could almost hear the gods laughing at his hubris for believing he’d had everything in control.

Still, he was lucky. He knew that, too. Things could always be worse, had been worse.

He stood in the main room of the small Cape Cod house watching his daughter as she lay peacefully on the sofa. She was enveloped in a cocoon of pillows and wrapped in an old yellow-and-brown afghan. Clutched to her chest was the ever-present doll, Gaudy Lulu. Marion’s blue eyes, fringed with pale lashes, stared fixedly at the cartoons on the television. Her wispy blond hair curled behind gently pointed ears that protruded a tad too far. A smattering of faint freckles bloomed over an upturned nose.

To look at her now, she appeared like any other normal five-year-old girl watching television.

But she wasn’t.

Marion had juvenile diabetes.

Diabetes. He still couldn’t reconcile it in his mind. When the doctor had given him the diagnosis that night in the hospital, he’d felt the floor open up to swallow him. He’d stood staring back at the doctor, mouth agape. Of all the possibilities that had spun madly in his worry-crazed mind while pacing in the hospital waiting room, diabetes had never occurred to him. Sure, he knew a little about the disease. Diabetes meant there was too much sugar in the body. People with diabetes needed insulin. But these were adult people, not little children. Not five-year-olds who had never had a serious illness before.

But later, once he began reading about the disease, he recognized all the symptoms that had been there all along if only he’d really paid attention. The excessive thirst, increased urination, weight loss, irritability—they were all warning signs of Type 1 diabetes, the rarest and most severe form of the disease.

That was when the guilt set in. A gnawing, insidious, ever-present self-loathing that he could have let her condition get so bad that her sugar dropped low enough to cause convulsions. He felt like the world’s worst and most pathetic father.

Only he didn’t have time for guilt. Living with diabetes was all-consuming. Nothing was easy. He couldn’t even make Marion a snack without worrying about what calories she was taking in and watching for reactions. For the first time since becoming a father, Harris was afraid to take care of his own child.

He looked again at his daughter curled up on the couch watching TV. How sweet and innocent she appeared. And how deceiving it was. He shook his head, took a deep breath and braced himself for what was coming.

“Marion? It’s time to do the test.”

Instantly, all sweetness fled from her face as she jackknifed her knees to her chest, locking her arms tight around them. “No!” she shouted.

“Come on, honey. You know we’ve got to do this.”

“No!”

Harris released a ragged sigh. So, it was going to be another fight. As he walked toward her, she backed up against the armrest and cowered in the corner of the sofa, her hands up, nails out, to ward him off. She looked just like one of the wild, terrified birds when he reached to grab them—all glaring eyes and talons ready to attack.

As with his birds, he moved toward her in slow strides, murmuring assurances in low tones. Then, swiftly, he grabbed hold. Marion reacted instantly, shrieking and kicking at him as viciously as any wild bird.

“No! I don’t wanna. No, no, no!”

Her screams ricocheted from the walls to reverberate in his head. She was an amazingly strong child for such a skinny thing—and wily. When he tried to pick her up, her legs sprang straight out and she began kicking and pummeling with bunched fists even as she began sliding from the sofa.

“What in heaven’s name is going on in here?”

Harris recognized Maggie’s voice over the shrieks. So did Marion. She paused for just a second, then renewed her fight with even more vigor. He tightened his grip as she tried to wriggle away.

“Oh, no you don’t,” he said to his daughter as he hoisted her back up onto the sofa.

“It sounds like you’re committing bloody murder in here,” said Maggie, entering the house.

“That’d be easier than this,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ve got to prick her finger for a blood sample. Ouch! Marion, stop kicking me.”

Maggie chuckled and came forward. “It might help if you took off her shoes.”

“Be my guest.”

Maggie reached out and, with the same skill she employed with birds, quickly took hold of Marion’s feet and in seconds had both shoes removed. She kept her grip on Marion’s legs. This seemed to make Marion even madder and she tried all the harder to kick and wiggle her way free, her face turning beet red.

“Lord, she’s stronger than a great horned owl.”

“She bites like one, too. Quick, grab hold of her left hand.”

Once Maggie took hold of her hand, Marion’s screams heightened in pitch to near hysteria.

“She’s holding her breath. Quick!”

Harris wiped the sweat from his brow with his elbow, took aim, quickly pricked the finger, then with split-second timing, dabbed the test strip against the bright red drop of blood on her fingertip.

“Got it,” he said with triumph.

The fight seemed to flee from Marion’s little body as she exhaled a defiant cry, then slumped, defeated and sobbing, against the pillows.

“There’s got to be an easier way,” Maggie said, checking her arm for bruises.

“If there is, I’d like to know what it is.” He reached over to pat his daughter’s head but she slapped his hand away.

“I hate you!” she cried, scrambling from the sofa and running off to her bedroom like someone escaping an inquisition.

Harris ran his hand through his hair when the bedroom door slammed shut between them.

Maggie raised her eyes to heaven. “How often do you have to do this?”

“I have to check the blood sugar six times a day, then I get to give her a shot of insulin three times a day. At least. That’s six to nine pokes with a needle each day.”

“Lord have mercy.”

“Yeah. Mercy on me. She tried being brave at first, now it’s just total war.”

“I hate to say it, but it looks like you’re losing.”

His face fell. “That’s the problem. I can’t lose. Her life depends on it.” He reached for the container, checked the test strip against the model, then set it down on the table, satisfied with the result.

“The first week home I screwed up and didn’t check her blood. She was carrying on like this, so I thought I could skip just one. Next thing I knew she was weak and sweaty and her hands started shaking. Thank God for glucose tablets. But I can tell you, it scared the hell out of me.”

“But she’s all right now. That’s what matters.”

“You’re right. And I’m going to keep her all right.” He glanced up at her, the better to gauge her reaction to his news. “I’ve hired someone to live in and take care of Marion full-time.”

Maggie’s eyes widened. “Live in? Here? But, Harris, this house is so small. Where will she sleep?”

“She can have my room. I’ll bunk in my office.”

“You’ll find that awfully cramped. And I’m not talking about just the layout of furniture.”

“Maybe. But it’ll have to do. At least for now.” When Maggie opened her mouth to voice another objection, Harris held up his palm. “It’s all arranged, Maggie. I placed an ad in the paper and she’s agreed to come. Please. I don’t need a lecture. Right now, I need support. Marion and I both do.”

Maggie’s mouth clamped tight against the torrent of words. She nodded her head, then leaned forward to wrap her ample arms around him in a hug of support. In the five years that they’d worked side by side, they’d shared a need for peace and quiet on the job. When they spoke, it was in spurts, mostly about the patient birds and what tasks needed doing. Though Maggie was the mother hen of the organization and gave opinions often and loudly, rarely did she probe into his personal life. Important bits of information they announced plainly, more like bulletins. Bob’s been laid off. Marion’s got the flu. The kids are home from school today. The washing machine’s on the fritz again. Their loyalty and friendship was deep, and though not discussed, it was never questioned.

“You just call if you need me,” she said.

“I always do.”

Harris knocked lightly on Marion’s bedroom door. There was no reply. He put his ear to the door, relieved to hear silence instead of the hiccupping sobs and mutterings of how mean her daddy was. He opened the door slowly, lest she be asleep. He stuck his head in to see her lying on her bed playing with Gaudy Lulu. Her head darted up when she heard him, her blue eyes widening with surprise, then quickly changing to a scowl.

“May I come in?”

“No.”

“Well, I’m coming in, anyway.” He walked to her side, picking up dirty clothes from the floor en route, and sat on the bed beside her. “So, do you still hate me?”

She pouted, stroking the doll’s hair. “I hate the shots.”

“I know you do. But you need the shots for your diabetes.”

“I hate ‘betes.”

His smile was bittersweet. Harris leaned over to kiss the soft hair on the top of her head. “Ah, my favorite perfume,” he said, inhaling the scent of her.

“I’m not wearing perfume, Daddy,” she replied as she always did when he said this to her. It was a little game they played and her response told him the storm was over.

“I’d like to talk to you for a minute.”

She kept her eyes on the doll while she maneuvered the tight bodice of the pearly gown over the doll’s impressive breasts. He waited patiently for her to finish the snap at the tiny waist and set the doll aside. When she raised her eyes to him, he began in a calm voice.

“We have a problem. Or, rather, I have a problem. I’m not doing a very good job taking care of you.”

Marion’s eyes rounded in surprise. Clearly she’d not expected this.

“You need someone who can give you your medicine and watch over your diet.”

“You can do that.”

He shook his head. “No, I can’t. We both know it’s not working out.”

“I won’t kick—”

“Honey, it’s not just that. Well, it is, in part,” he said teasingly, wrapping an arm around her and tucking her close. Marion rested her head against his chest. “I work long hours. I’m gone a lot. You need someone to keep an eye on you all the time.”

“Why can’t Maggie take care of me?”

“Maggie works at the clinic, honey. With the birds.”

“How come the birds get everything?” she asked, sitting up to face him with a scowl on her face. “I’m sick now, too.”

Harris wondered at the level of resentment she had to feel to make that comparison. “The birds are my job, honey. But you’re my heart.”

That seemed to appease her somewhat. She sighed raggedly and leaned back against her father’s chest. “You mean I’m going to get a new baby-sitter, right? Like Katie?”

“Sort of. You know how Katie went home to her own house every night? Well, I’ve hired a lady to stay here with us.”

“You mean, she’s going to live here? In our house?”

“Yes.”

Marion turned in his arms to look into his face. Her own was alert with interest. “Is she gonna be like a mother?”

“Heavens no,” he said with a light chuckle. Then, seeing the light dim in her eyes, he said more tenderly, “Well, maybe a little. She’ll read to you, cook your meals and help you get dressed in the morning. Most important, she’ll make sure you get your medicine.”

“You mean my shots?”

“Yep. Those, too.”

Marion scrunched up her face. “I don’t want her to come. She’s not my mama. This is our house.”

“Hold on, now. That’s not the right attitude. It’s her job to help you and it’s your job to be cooperative. You have to help us take care of you.” He reached into his shirt pocket to pull out a folded white paper. He opened it and held it up to the bedside light.

“I put an ad in the newspaper and I got a few replies. Miss Majors is the one I chose to be your caretaker,” he replied. “She’s a nurse, so she knows a lot about diabetes and how to take care of you. A lot better than I can.”

“I want you to do it.” Her voice was more frightened than belligerent.

“Would you like me to read her letter?”

“I don’t care.”

Harris cleared his throat and began to read.

Dear Mr. Henderson,

I am replying to your ad for child care in the Charleston Post and Courier. The ad was very timely as I’ve just arrived in town and am looking for a position. I am from Rutland, Vermont, where I worked for the past decade as a pediatric nurse.

You are probably wondering why I would seek out a position in child care instead of nursing. I have had offers. Please rest assured that I have not lost my license or committed some violation or crime. You will find my complete résumé attached, along with multiple references. Please contact them if you feel the need. I know I would if it were my child.

To be frank, I have worked for many years in an emergency room and I feel the need for a respite from my career. I moved to the south for a change in climate as well as a change in lifestyle. When I saw your ad, it seemed a perfect solution. I am very familiar with the treatment of juvenile diabetes and welcome the chance to care for one child rather than many.

If you are agreeable, and if my credentials meet your standards, I can take the position as caretaker for your daughter immediately for the term of one year.

Naturally, we should allow for one month’s trial period, after which one or the other of us can cancel the arrangement without penalty or blame.

I look forward to meeting both you and Marion. Tell her that I love to read and play games, that I know lots of card tricks and that I’m curious to learn what she likes to do, too.

Most sincerely,

Ella Elizabeth Majors, R.N.

Harris sat in the resulting quiet looking at the letter in his hands. He’d read the letter a dozen times since receiving it a week earlier. He’d been very impressed with her résumé and every person he’d telephoned on her long list of references only had the highest words of praise for her abilities. They’d said she was bright, clean and neat, punctual, efficient, responsible. All qualities that made her a first-rate nurse. There was nothing, however, about how well she played with children, or whether she could cook, or even if she was kind.

But once again, Harris counted himself lucky. He’d requested some medical knowledge in his ad but he hadn’t expected a nurse. The personnel director of the hospital had assured him that Ella Majors had no skeletons in her closet when he’d asked what her reason was for leaving. In closing, the woman’s voice had lowered and she’d made one comment that lingered in his mind.

Sometimes, a nurse in the emergency room just sees one too many children die.

He wondered as he folded the letter back up if that was the case for Miss Majors. If it was, he thought, cringing at the memory of the gut-wrenching fear he’d felt while waiting for Marion in the emergency room, he certainly could understand the woman’s need for a break.

“Is that all, Daddy?”

He nodded, tucking the letter back in his pocket. “Yep, that’s it. Except, of course, she’s coming. I expect she’ll be here by lunchtime tomorrow.” Please God… “So, what do you think?”

“I dunno,” she said with a shrug. “Is she pretty?”

He smiled at the child’s question. “I have no idea.”

Marion yawned wide and blinked sleepily. “Okay. I just hope she doesn’t smell bad.”

He laughed out loud and squeezed his daughter with affection. “I sure hope so, too.”

Later that night, after Marion was asleep, Harris walked around the mews of the resident raptors, then strolled through the medical pens where the injured birds were housed. It was his customary evening walk and the birds knew him—his looks and movements—so they were not flustered by his presence. Likewise, he was soothed by their quiet acceptance. In contrast to the quiet of the pens, outside in the plush cover of the surrounding trees, the little southern screech owls were trilling and wailing, wildly searching for mates.

He stopped outside the medical pens to check the three ospreys currently in Med 8. With that black band across their eyes, he’d always thought ospreys looked like dashing Zorros as they soared through the sky. Only they weren’t bandits at all. They were fish hawks, skilled fishermen that neither begged for nor stole their food. One of the ospreys was breathing in wheezy pants that rocked his body, a sign of possible lung infection. Harris made a mental note to take him out for treatment in the morning. With that decision, his tour of the grounds was completed. He turned and began his trek home, his mind free to struggle with his decision to bring Miss Ella Elizabeth Majors into his home.

He was as wary and testy as any bird at having a stranger enter his territory. It was far different to hire someone for a job at the neutral ground of an office than it was to bring someone into one’s home, into one’s daily routine. This allowed entry at an intimate level. How was he, someone who eschewed company, going to handle such an intrusion?

She’d written in her letter that she’d stay one year. That meant twelve months, fifty-two weeks, three hundred and sixty-five days of togetherness. He hoped in that space of time he’d be able to get a grip on the diabetes situation. Then he’d only have to endure her presence for that finite amount of time. He could put up with that, for Marion’s sake.

He could only afford one year, anyway. Miss Majors was taking a minimum salary, a lucky break for him. But even that small salary would eat up every penny in his savings account, and then some. Somehow, he’d make do. He’d always managed in the past, hadn’t he? Even with Fannie’s bills.

Fannie. He paused to run his hand through his hair and take a deep breath. Other than his mother, she was the only woman he’d lived with in his life. And if that was any indication of what that experience was like, he would pass, thanks very much. Lord, if this Miss Majors was anything like Fannie…

He shook his head, surprised at the way his adrenaline was pumping even at the thought. There was no way she could be like Fannie. There was only one like her…

He’d made the decision to bring Miss Ella Elizabeth Majors into his sanctuary. He’d see it through. Even if the very thought of it made his breath come as wheezy and as fast as the osprey’s.

Early the next morning, Harris followed Lijah to the site of Santee’s nest. They trudged in a companionable silence through miles of silt and mud along the Wando River. Harris’s long legs could traverse a rough landscape at a clipped pace. He paused twice during the long trek, thinking perhaps the older man might need a rest. Lijah, however, wasn’t even winded. It was a cold, damp morning and most of the South Carolina reptiles and amphibians were nestled in a quiet, dark place, waiting for the warm sunshine of spring. Here and there, however, they’d spy a shiny black salamander burrowed in a pile of moist, composting leaves, no doubt waiting for a meal of earthworms and grubs. They reveled in the brisk wintry air, breeding and laying their gelatinous egg packets that would emerge as tadpoles months later.

At last the two men reached a cluster of ancient, proud longleaf pines that towered into the sky. Countless smaller trees and shrubs clustered around the bases of the giants like children holding on to the hems of aunts. Lijah reached out and pointed.

“That’ll be it.”

Harris craned his neck to gaze up at the conical nest. It was massive, more than six feet in diameter, comprised of large sticks knitted together, deep in a vertical fork of the tree. Sitting beside the nest like a lone sentinel was the eagle. He glared at them, as though daring them to come closer.

“He’s still sitting by the nest,” Harris said. “Poor guy.”

“He sat on those eggs for the longest time. I knew he’d have a hard time of it without Santee. Did what I could to help. Brung him fish most every day. I’d whistle to let him know I was here, then set the fish right at the bottom of the tree. Once he knew it was me, he’d come on down, grab a fish, then go right back up to the eggs. I was hopeful.” He shook his head.

“Don’t take it too hard, Lijah. It’s just the way of things. It takes two adults to incubate the eggs.”

“But Pee Dee…He kept with the nest. He didn’t give up.”

“Even when the father makes a valiant effort, he eventually has to leave the eggs from time to time to feed. The odds were against him. It’s just too cold to leave those eggs exposed. Sometimes, if he’s lucky, a male will find a new mate who will help incubate and raise the young as her own. But that’s rare.”

“It’s a real shame.”

“That it is. I feel for him.”

Something in his voice must have alerted Lijah, because he turned his attention from the nest to look at Harris. “You mean, on account you taking care of your young one alone, too?”

Harris drew in a long breath and placed his hands on his hips. It was rare for Harris to speak openly to others. He found the act of confiding personal information painful and often wondered why others seemed to do it freely. But the old man’s sincerity and disarming warmth thawed his icy hesitance. Or, it might just have been some private longing for advice from a father he’d never had.

“Marion’s mother left me soon after she was born. Fannie was a beautiful woman, but flighty. She had…problems. But she gave me Marion, and for that I’ll always be grateful to her. I never for one moment regretted having my daughter.”

“’Course not.”

“I do the best that I can for her. I’ve provided a decent home. I see that she’s warm, fed and has enough clothes. I’m gone a lot, but I’ve always had someone to look out for her.” He shrugged, hearing the plea for understanding in his own voice. “It’s hard. They count on me at the clinic to treat the injured birds that come in day after day. Then there are the resident birds to look after, and their training. That alone requires hours of my time. On top of all that, I’m always seeking donations, doing fund-raisers, sending out mailings, anything I can to keep the center afloat. I have to bring home food to the nest, too, so to speak.”

He looked up at the eagle sitting alone among the cluster of tree limbs. The nest beside him loomed empty and desolate.

“I rationalized how busy I was, how I had so much to get done.” His lips tightened. “But when I look back on those days, those weeks, before her illness, if I’m honest, I see how I wasn’t paying attention. Sure I put the food on the table and paid the baby-sitters, but I wasn’t really watching. If I had been, I would have seen her symptoms, seen that she was thirsty or losing weight. Seen that she was looking poorly. I’m her father. I should have seen. My daughter had to have convulsions before I noticed. What the hell kind of a father was I?” He paused. “So yeah. I do feel for that eagle up there. You think Pee Dee failed? I failed.”

He wanted Lijah to agree with him, to tell him that he was a bad father, guilty as charged. Maybe then the voice in his head that whispered those words over and over would be silenced.

Lijah only nodded to indicate he’d heard. After a moment, he looked across the wetlands. “Son, it’s a fair way back,” he said. “I’ll walk with you.”

They walked shoulder to shoulder through the mud, back toward home. The sun was rising higher into an azure sky, promising a clear day. Without preamble, Lijah began to sing. His rich baritone rose up from his chest and poured out over the wetlands like a fresh morning breeze that spirits away the darkness. He sang a Gullah spiritual, one that Harris had heard long ago, perhaps in his childhood along the Edisto River.

I look down duh road, en duh road so lonesome,

Lawd, I got tuh walk down dat lonesome road.

En I look down duh road, en duh road so lonesome,

Lawd, I got tuh walk down dat lonesome road.

Owls: Hunters of the Night.Owls are nocturnal raptors adapted for hunting at night. Fringed feathers allow for soundless flight and larger eyes and ears aid auditory hunting. Owls rest during the day, but at dusk they come alive, ready to hunt. South Carolina owls include great horned owls, barred owls, Eastern screech owls and barn owls.

4

Highway 17, a long stretch of four-lane divided highway, took Ella Elizabeth Majors toward what she’d hoped would be the beginning of something new in her life. She wasn’t looking for magic. She wasn’t looking for love. What she was looking for, at the very least, was a rest stop between where she’d been and where she was heading.

The open map lying on the passenger seat of her modest four-door sedan informed her that the highway dated back to the colonial days when it was called King’s Highway. Redcoats, “Swamp Fox” Frances Marion, slaves and planters had all traveled up and down this roadbed once upon a time.

But it was all new to her. She’d arrived in Charleston a month earlier, and though she’d moved to the south to stay, she was as yet a Yankee tourist—and would be for another twenty years, if the guidebooks she’d read were true.

Ella liked to drive and was accustomed to long journeys alone along highways and winding roads. In her home state of Vermont, she’d driven through deep snow and acres of mud, driven through periods of ecstasy and despair, driven in a glassy-eyed stupor after double shifts in the emergency room. She’d driven in the pinks and yellows of dawn when only the dairy farmers waved from the fields, and she’d driven in the primordial darkness of night on a county road when she saw little but the yellow eyes of raccoons as they scampered across her line of vision.

Yet even her experienced knuckles had whitened on the steering wheel as she crossed over Charleston’s narrow Cooper River Bridge and saw an enormous tanker the size of several football fields ease its way beneath her with seemingly inches to spare. A few minutes and several Hail Marys later, she was over the bridge and following the highway down a long, straight stretch through Mount Pleasant, where shops and strip malls crowded both sides and traffic was slow but polite. As she traveled farther north, the tentacles of the city’s growth thinned. Clusters of stores gave way to a few showy entrances of gated communities, occasional rickety wooden roadside stands where sweet-grass baskets were sold by descendants of slaves, some gas stations and, here and there, small homes barely visible behind foliage.

Less than an hour after leaving the bridge, the road began to curve, the traffic whittled down to a few vehicles and vast tracts of pinewoods bordered both sides of the road. She breathed deeply, more at home in the open space. The flat landscape was different from the cragged, green mountains of Vermont. Here, the blue sky stretched uninterrupted over broad vistas of marsh and, beyond, the glistening blue of water. Above the treetops, the ubiquitous vulture tipped its wings as it circled.

It was hard to believe that only a month earlier she’d packed up her sedan and made the drive from the Green Mountain State to the Lowcountry. In the few weeks since she’d arrived in Charleston, she’d stayed at a hotel and interviewed for several nursing positions. There was a shortage of nurses in the city and hospitals were clamoring to have her.

But the plain truth was, she couldn’t go back to work at a hospital. Not yet. Ella’s heart was bled dry. Her very soul was parched, and her instincts told her to find an oasis quick or she’d wither up forever.

That was when she’d found the ad in the newspaper. It was a small ad, barely catching her notice. Someone needed full-time help caring for a child with diabetes. Some medical knowledge was preferred. That drew her in. But it was the phrase We need someone who cares that made Ella circle the ad and call the number. She wasn’t the type to believe in miracles, but she wasn’t about to deny fate.

So here she was again, with all she owned crammed in the back of her sedan, driving toward a new destination. This time to a rural town called Awendaw, a short ways north of Charleston. When she’d left Vermont, her aunts had told her to have a fine adventure. Choosing to live as a nanny in a private home that she’d never seen certainly qualified as an adventure in her book. She’d thought it best not to write her maiden aunts about her latest decision, however, lest they flutter with worry like two old hens. Truth was, her own heart was jumping in her chest each time she wondered if the child would like her, if the family was friendly and whether or not the house would be clean.

After a dozen or so more miles she began paying attention to the mile markers, then slowed to turn off Highway 17 onto a narrow, gravel-strewn road that seemed to lead to nowhere. She stopped, adjusted her eyeglasses, checked her written directions, then craned her neck as she searched the area. There was no sign or mailbox to indicate where she was.

She gazed warily down the road, then pressed the gas and drove twenty yards farther, her tires crunching in the gravel. She came to a stop before a wide metal gate that crossed the road. And sitting on it, not the least flustered that her car had driven within a foot of the gate, was a plump white rooster that stared haughtily at her over its yellow beak. She chuckled. This just had to be the Coastal Carolina Center for Birds of Prey.

She opened the car door and put out a foot. “Hey there!” she called.

The rooster watched her with dark, shining eyes and without so much as a shake from its bright red wattle.

“Okay, old boy. Have it your way.” She was well acquainted with the stubbornness of roosters, having lived with them for most of her childhood. She drove slowly closer to the gate, sure that at any moment the rooster would fly off, squawking.

It didn’t happen. The bird sat unflinchingly as she walked straight up to the gate and lifted the heavy chain from it. Then it hitched a ride as she swung open the gate and walked it along its arc across the road. After she drove the car through, the whole scene repeated itself as she closed the gate back again. Driving away, she saw the white rooster in her rearview mirror, still sitting, still staring impassively. Ella laughed out loud, liking the bird’s spirit enormously.

Passing the gate and its mysterious guardian, it felt as if she was entering another world. Here, the impersonal highway gave way to a narrow gravel road bordered by a jungle of pines, live oaks and choking clusters of chinaberry. Taking it at a crawl, Ella rolled down the window, letting the cool, moist air permeate the stale cabin of her car. It was January in the Lowcountry, yet she didn’t need more than a fleece jacket. She didn’t even need gloves or a hat. Yet, for the first time since leaving Vermont, she felt a twinge of homesickness. These southern trees had to compete with sand and marsh for bits of scrubby soil to exist and their leaves were paler and scrappier compared to their northern cousins. Still, she was surrounded by the familiar smell of grass, moss, mold and damp earth. Songbirds called in the trees. Her senses came alive, awakening dormant memories under her skin.

She followed the curving road to a clearing in the woods where a few cars were parked. She stopped here and got out to stretch her legs and look around. Beyond a barrier of leafless trees, she caught a glimpse of a pod of small wood structures. Up front and closer, and a bit larger than the others, was a Cape Cod house.

She crossed her arms and studied the white clapboard house nestled snug between two enormous longleaf pines, rather like a scene from a Japanese woodblock print. At first glance, the little house made a welcoming impression with its long, narrow veranda, the low-slung roof above it and a solid base of red brick. The porch pillars stood as straight as a spinster’s back and white smoke curled from a blunt chimney, filling the air with the delicious scent of cedar. But the house was weathered gray in spots and the surrounding yard barely held back the wilderness. On the porch, two handsome twig chairs, iron garden tools, all-weather boots and a wooden barrel filled with scrap wood lent the house that shabby-chic, comfortable feel of a home truly lived in.

It was a man’s house, she thought.

Leaving her bags in the car, she removed her eyeglasses and gathered her long brown hair into a clasp, even as she gathered her courage. If all went well, she thought, smoothing the wrinkles from her long khaki skirt, this little house nestled in these woods would be her home for the next twelve months. She would become intimately involved with the family within those walls, help a child adapt to the lifestyle of a diabetic and, if she was lucky, in the process she might regain a measure of joy and purpose in her own life, as well. Straightening her shoulders, she walked across the scrubby yard, with each step hoping that the people who lived in this house were decent and kind. She climbed the six red-brick stairs, relieved to see that the porch was well swept and tidy. A small index card was taped to the door.

Please knock. Doorbell broken.

From somewhere in the trees she heard the song of a mockingbird, and from inside, the canned voice of the television. Reaching out to knock, she smiled at the normalcy of everything. She didn’t wait more than a minute before the door swung open.

A slender girl about five years of age with flyaway hair hung on the door and stared at her with cornflower-blue eyes narrowed in speculation.

Ella smiled and said, “Hello there. You must be Marion.”

The child didn’t reply.

“I’m Ella. I’ve come to see you.”

The child released the door and blurted, “You’re not pretty.”

A short laugh burst from Ella’s mouth. “No. No, I’m not. But I’m bright. And that’s ever so much better.”

The child glared at her, uncertain of what to say next.

Behind her, a man came forward from the shadowy hall to fill the doorway. Ella sucked in her breath and straightened her shoulders, filled with anxiety. He stepped into the light and met her gaze. He was tall and lanky, what her aunts would call a long, cool drink of water. She guessed him to be somewhere in his late thirties, but it was hard to tell with men. Most important, he appeared clean and mannerly. She almost sighed aloud with relief.

“Hello. I’m Harris Henderson,” he said, extending his hand. “You must be Miss Majors. Please, come in.”

She took his hand briefly. It was warm with long, slender fingers. The cuff of his white shirt was frayed. “Yes, I am.”

“I see you’ve found your way. A lot of people miss the turn.”

“The directions were fine. Thank you.” She dragged her gaze to meet his, clasping her hands before her. He had a pleasing-enough face, even handsome, and it touched her that he went to the trouble to put on a freshly ironed shirt and tie for their first meeting. But it was his eyes that arrested her. They were blue, like Marion’s, but without all her distrust. Rather, his were wide spaced and wary. She suspected he was as nervous of this first meeting as she.

“You’ve met Marion,” he said, rubbing his palms together.

Ella smiled at the child, not the least dismayed that she didn’t smile back. “Oh, yes.”

“It’s cold out there today,” he said, closing the door behind her.

“I don’t find it cold. Where I come from, this weather would be considered positively balmy for January.”

“Vermont, is that right?”

“That’s right. South central. I’m from a small town called Wallingford, but I’ve been living in Rutland for several years now. That’s where the hospital was, you see.”

“Right. A long way to come.”

“Ayah, it is. I wanted a change and started with climate. I had to go a ways from Vermont to find a palm tree.” She smiled tentatively.

He nodded noncommittally and rubbed his hands again. “Would you like some coffee? Or do you prefer tea?”

“Coffee would be great, thank you. With milk, please.”

“Make yourself at home. I’ve got some freshly made. It’ll only be a moment.”

While he went for the coffee, Ella unclasped her hands and looked around the room. The low ceilings, dark wood paneling and thick red curtains gave it a heavy feel. At the far end near the kitchen sat a round wood table surrounded with four hardwood chairs. A few more mismatched chairs and a sagging sofa clustered before a stone fireplace that dominated the eastern wall. Inserted into this, like an afterthought, was a black iron stove. There were dramatic framed photographs of large birds in flight on the walls, and several wood shelves overflowing with books took up the rest of the space. It was a small, compact room and the wood-burning stove was doing its job, for the house was warm and cozy. She removed her fleece jacket, aware that Marion was watching her every move.

“Where do you sleep?” she asked her with enthusiasm.

Marion’s curiosity apparently got the better of her resentment because she walked over to open a door on the side wall. Ella followed, fingers crossed, peeking her head through the doorway. A narrow hall divided the small house in two. Directly opposite the hall door was a yellow-tiled bathroom. It was spacious but spare, with a tub that stood on clawed feet. The towels hanging on the metal rail were mismatched, but he’d made the effort to supply new bars of soap for the bath and sink. It was, from what she could see, the only bathroom.

“That’s where Daddy sleeps,” Marion said, pointing.

Through the partially opened door Ella saw a black iron bed covered with a bright white matelasse coverlet that looked brand new. She turned her head to look down the opposite end of the hall at a closed door. “What’s in there?”

“Daddy’s office.”

“I see. And where do you sleep?”

Marion pointed up. “It used to be the attic. But Daddy made it my room. It’s pink. That’s my favorite color. There’s a stair in the back, by the kitchen.”

“Is there a room for me up there?”

“No-o-o,” she drawled, looking at her as if she was crazy to ask. “There’s only my bed up there. And a closet where Daddy puts all his stuff.”

“Ah, I see.”

Did she, she wondered? The house was much smaller than she’d imagined it would be and there didn’t seem to be any other rooms. She chewed her lip, seized with a sudden fear that she’d misunderstood Mr. Henderson’s job description.

“Coffee?” Harris called, stepping into the room carrying a tray from the kitchen.

She settled herself on a hard chair by the warm stove. He’d thoughtfully put leftover holiday gingerbread cookies and chunks of cheese on crackers on a plate along with a blue pottery pitcher filled with milk. He poured a glass of it for Marion and set a few chunks of cheese on a napkin before her. She quickly gobbled them up. Ella took a sip from her mug, glad to have something to do with her hands in the awkward silence. The coffee was good and strong, not that black water some people made. Restored, she waited until he was settled on the sofa with his coffee before speaking.

“Mr. Henderson,” she began, sitting straight in her chair. “Allow me to get right to the point. This is a live-in situation, isn’t it?”

He hesitated with his mug close to his lips. He placed it back on the table and put his hands on his knees. “Yes.” A faint blush colored his cheeks as he chose his words. “I realize that the house is small. Not too small, I hope. It might be a bit cramped at first, but once the weather warms, I figured…well, there’s a small cabin by the pond. There’s no heat, you see. But come spring, I could move there. And use the outdoor shower.”

“Oh, I’m sure the house will be fine,” she replied hastily, relieved that she hadn’t misunderstood. “But…Mr. Henderson, which is to be my room?”

Understanding dawned on his features and he brightened. “I guess I should have showed you that right away. I gave you the main bedroom. It’s the largest and it has a nice view of the pond. I put a little television in there, too. And a small rolltop desk. I thought, well, I figured you’d want some privacy.”

“I hate to put you out.”

“It’s no problem. There’s a bed in my study for me. I’ll sleep fine there, and besides, I’m at the clinic most hours, anyway.”

Ella was enormously relieved. It would be cramped, indeed, but manageable.

She saw Marion eyeing the cookies. Ella reached out to place a few more crackers and cheese on the child’s plate. These she ate without argument. Ella made a mental note to toss away all the gingerbread cookies, cakes and other sugary items that might tempt a five-year-old.

“Can you tell me about Marion’s diabetes,” Ella began. “What are her current insulin levels?”

Harris wiped his mouth with the napkin. “Marion,” he said, turning to his daughter, “why don’t you go in your room to play for a while. Miss Majors and I need to talk.”

“Do I have to?”

“She can stay,” Ella added.

“I think we should be alone to discuss this,” he replied firmly.

“It’s healthy for Marion to be a part of this discussion. She might have questions of her own.”

“I don’t think she has any questions.”

“No? After all, the disease is happening to her.”

He paused, and she wasn’t blind to his growing annoyance “I don’t want her to be afraid of the disease,” he said with finality.

“She might already have fears that need listening to.”

The two adults stared at each other, each recognizing the stubborn strength in the other.

Harris turned again to his daughter. “Marion, do you want to hear this or do you want to play in your room?” His tone clearly was trying to persuade her to play.

“I wanna stay,” she replied without a moment’s hesitation, settling farther back into the sofa with a smug gleam in her eye.

Harris pursed his lips, his eyes flashing his irritation, but conceded.

It was hardly a victory, thought Ella, since there was no real battle, yet it established her position in the house. She couldn’t possibly stay if he was going to dictate her job. The house may be strange and new, but managing a diabetic child was her field.

They moved into a lengthy discussion of Marion’s diabetes, during which Ella noticed that, though the child picked at a scab and looked at the ceiling, she was listening intently. Ella had experience with children of all ages who had diabetes. Though they all reacted differently according to their personalities and level of maturity, they had one thing in common. They each wanted to know what was going on in their own bodies, and most of all, they wanted to know how many shots they needed to take each day.

“Would you like to take a walk and look around before it gets dark?” Harris asked after they were through.

“When did Marion last have her blood checked?”

Ella saw Marion tuck her legs in close and her face grow mutinous. Harris’s face visibly paled.

“I checked it before you arrived,” he replied.

Ella looked at her watch. “There’s been lots of nervous excitement since then. Let’s give it a look-see before we go out.”

Harris cast a wary look at his daughter. Ella saw this—and how Marion watched and waited for it. On cue, Marion began to howl like a banshee, kicking and screaming. Harris went toward her, but Ella stuck out her arm, warding him off. She stood abruptly and slammed her hands on her hips.

“That will be quite enough of that, young lady,” she said in a voice loud enough to be heard over the wails. “I will be testing you four, five, six times a day, and I’ll be giving you your shots, too. Every day. That’s my job and…Marion, listen to me.” She moved quickly to grasp hold of the child’s shoulders and lift her to a sitting position. She held tight, ignoring the pummeling.

“Marion!” she said louder, in a command.

Marion sucked in her breath, silent for a second.

Ella rushed, “There’s nothing to be afraid of. I’m a nurse. I know exactly what to do and I’m good at this. Really, I’ve given lots of shots to hundreds of children.”

“But it hurts.”

“It will hurt a little, I know, but not that much if you sit still. And pretty soon, you will get used to it. I promise.”

Ella spoke quickly, while she had the child’s attention. “I want to show you something. I have a special little tool.” She looked over her shoulder at Harris, who stood with his arms by his side, waiting to assist. “Could you bring my purse over here? Quickly, please.”

Marion was still crouched in the corner of the sofa, but her screaming at least had ceased. She watched warily as Ella dug into her purse.

“What’s that?” she asked with panic when Ella pulled out a little plastic box.

“It’s a kind of magic box that will prick your finger so fast you’ll just be surprised, that’s all.” She held it in the palm of her hand and was pleased to see Marion lean closer to inspect it. She knew the child wouldn’t see the needle.

“But first, come with me. Oh, don’t balk, you silly goose. We’re just going to wash your hands. Come along.” Without waiting for her to agree, Ella took Marion’s hand and half dragged her to the bathroom. She looked over her shoulder and mouthed “test strip” to Harris. He nodded his understanding and went to fetch them. While she rubbed soap onto Marion’s hand, she surveyed the bathroom. An effort had been made to keep the tile and sink decent, but it was a far cry from hospital clean.

“Okay, now let’s check those nails.” While she looked at the short nails she milked the finger she planned to prick. “Hmm…I see we’ll have to clip those little nails later. Maybe paint them, too. Pink? Isn’t that your favorite color?”

Marion brightened, distracted.

“Now rinse,” Ella said, waiting for Marion to turn her back before slipping the lancet box from her pocket. She raised her brows at Harris and he nodded, holding up the test strip.

“All ready? Inspection time!” She took hold of the hands. “Very good job, Marion. Nice nails, too. Okay, then, let’s do it, shall we?” Before Marion had time to go into her fight mode, Ella brought the box up and with a quick, precise movement pricked the side of her fingertip and swooped in with the test strip.

Marion’s mouth popped open in a gasp, but she was too stunned to cry.

“All done!” Ella knew it was the sight of the needles that frightened children most. Looking up at Harris, she was amused to see that his expression wasn’t that different from his daughter’s. She handed him the test strip to check with the meter.

“She’s good to go,” he replied with obvious relief.

“I think we’re ready for that walk now, aren’t we?” She took Marion’s hand again, squeezing it gently. Just as quickly, Marion yanked her hand away and made a face at her, full of reproach. Ella let the snub slip by. She couldn’t blame the child for being miffed. After all, Ella had just outmanipulated her. “Marion, will you lead the way?”

They strolled at a child’s pace through the grounds. The mantle of dark was falling, and as she walked through the shifting shadows and shapes of early night, Ella felt again the strong sense of place she’d experienced when she first passed the gate with its watchful gatekeeper. This strange place was a sanctuary in a harried world. She felt safe here in the cocoon of trees and wondered as she passed a pen of owls that stared back at her with their wise and all-knowing eyes if perhaps coincidence and destiny were intertwined, after all. If perhaps her long journey to this small outpost of healing was written in the stars.

She followed Harris around a cluster of shadowed trees to a few wood structures of various sizes and shapes.

“It’s late and the diurnal birds are settled so we’d better not disturb them. I’m afraid this will have to be an abbreviated tour tonight. Over there,” he said, pointing to an L-shaped white house with a low-slung roof, “is the clinic where we treat and house the critically injured birds. We only take in birds of prey, though we sometimes get a wood stork we just can’t say no to.”

“And the crows, Daddy.”

“Yes, we have two crows,” he conceded, smiling at the child. “Marion likes the crows.”

“There’s a baby crow,” she said.

“We try to keep Marion away from the birds,” he said, in such a way that Ella understood this was part of her new duties. “It’s dangerous and she might disturb them.”

“I saw a rooster at the gate,” Ella said. “That’s not exactly a bird of prey, either.”

“Him!” Harris said with a laugh. “We don’t know where he came from. He just showed up one day and never left. We think he roosts in one of the pines and comes down to scrounge for insects. I toss feed his way, too, especially now that it’s winter. He’s quite a character. Very vigilant. We’ve grown pretty fond of him.”

“What’s his name?”

“We don’t name the birds. It gives the wrong impression. We feel we need to reinforce that they’re wild creatures, not our pets.”

“Cherokee has a name,” Marion said.

He shrugged. “See? Children catch you lying all the time. She’s right. Some of the birds do have names, but only the resident birds, those that won’t be set free for one reason or another. Sometimes they come to us with names already and, frankly, with them living here year-round, it’s easier for us to remember names than numbers.”

He began walking again, pointing toward a series of smaller pens grouped together in pods. “Over there is where the resident birds live. We can see them tomorrow. And over there,” he said, pointing to larger wooden structures to the right, “are pens for rehabilitation.”

They walked in that direction as Harris talked on about how the birds were moved from place to place based on their stage of rehabilitation. They began in the critical-care kennels in the clinic and, if they survived, they were moved to the larger pens in the medical unit, then finally to the flight pen where they could exercise and test their hunting ability with live mice.

“This is the final checkpoint to determine if the bird is fit to be released,” he said when they reached the long, narrow flight pen. It was screened with the same heavy black wire mesh and framed in wood. “It’s too small. We hope to build a bigger one soon. Maybe two, if we’re lucky. That would give the larger birds a chance to really test their wings. So, that’s about it,” he said by way of conclusion. “Our goals here at the center are to observe, heal and release.”

As he looked over the grounds she saw in his eyes the pride and satisfaction he felt at having achieved this much. Ella was also keeping an eye on Marion as she meandered along at their sides. What was it like to grow up surrounded by all these wild and ferocious raptors, she wondered, then made a mental note to discuss safety issues with Harris.

He moved closer to the flight pen, bending at the waist to see between the slats. “Look at them back there. Red-tailed hawks. They’re fit and ready to go. I’m hoping to release them soon.”

She squinted, trying to focus in the dimming light. Perched at the far wall, the three hawks were an impressive group, robust and muscular, much larger than they appeared flying in the sky. The hawks glared at them menacingly.

“I think they know they’re being spied on,” said Ella.

“Count on it,” he replied. Then, catching sight of something over her shoulder, he said, “Hold on a minute. There’s something I need to check on.” He hurried off to meet a woman volunteer who appeared carrying a tray of fish and mice on her way to the medical pens.

“Mmm…dinnertime!” Marion said with a giggle.

Ella wasn’t squeamish, but she made a fake shudder to play along. “I hope that’s not for us.”

“It is!” Marion giggled harder, putting her hand up to her mouth.

Enjoying their first friendly exchange, Ella gave a look that said, you dickens! She went too far, because immediately the smile faded from Marion’s face and the wariness returned.

Around them, the day’s light was fading fast. Looking at her watch, Ella was surprised to see that they’d been walking for half an hour. She looked again at Marion. The child leaned against the wall and had a tired, hangdog expression, which, in a diabetic child, could signal much more than fatigue.

Harris talked on with the volunteer, apparently about some problem with an osprey. His hands gesticulated in the air as he spoke. Ella wondered how he could be so attentive to the needs of the birds yet be blind to the signals his daughter was giving? The birds weren’t the only ones needing their dinner.

“I’m getting hungry,” she said with decision to Marion. “How about you?”

She nodded, scratching her head lethargically.

“Let’s you and I see what’s planned for dinner.” She reached out her hand and was gratified when the child took it. “Do you think we might find something in your refrigerator other than mice?”

To her horror, mice were exactly what she found.

Ella opened the fridge to find a container of milk, a carton of eggs, a half loaf of bread and myriad condiments. There was also a large Rubbermaid plastic bin. Curious, she bent closer to open it. The seal burped, releasing a pungent odor as she removed the lid.

“Oh!” The lid fell to the floor as Ella slapped her hand to her mouth with a shriek.

She stood panting before the fridge, her eyes wide with disbelief. Inside the container were dozens of dead mice, black, white and bloody, packed high to the rim. Seeing mice outside on a tray for the birds was one thing. But here in the refrigerator next to a wrapped package of butcher’s meat was another thing entirely.

“Is everything all right?” Harris asked, entering the house. His voice was winded, as though he’d come running. “I heard you shriek.”

“There are mice in the fridge!” she exclaimed, standing in front of it and pointing accusingly.

“I know.”

“You know?”

“I put them there.”

“Well, that’s not right! It’s…it’s totally unacceptable.”

“I didn’t think nurses were so squeamish.”

“Squeamish? Squeamish?” she repeated, her voice rising. “I can think of a thousand reasons why dozens of bloody, dead mice should not be in the family refrigerator that have nothing to do with being squeamish.” She moved her hand to her forehead, catching her breath. After a minute, her lips twitched and she said, “But let me tell you that one top reason is that they are an absolute appetite killer.”

He reached up to scratch behind his ear, holding back a grin. “I guess they are at that. I sometimes keep the overflow in this fridge when the one at the clinic is full. But I didn’t mean for you to cook tonight. You’re our guest. I have steaks thawing.”

Her stomach turned at the thought of eating any meat that came from that fridge. “Marion needed to eat,” she explained. “I thought I’d fix up something quick.”

His face reflected understanding, even approval. “I’ll get the grill started.”

“Mr. Henderson,” she called out, halting his retreat. “Please, before you do anything else, could you take these mice out of here? It really isn’t sanitary. And…” She gathered her courage. “It’s not my business how you manage things at the clinic, but as this will be my workplace, I simply cannot have dead animals in my refrigerator.”

He paused to consider, then nodded and came to retrieve the offending container. Marion was leaning against the sofa in the next room, watching with keen interest.

“Thank you,” Ella said with heartfelt sincerity as he took the bin. Then, wanting to be helpful, “Is there anything I can help make for dinner?”

“No. I’ll do it. Like I said, you’re a guest.”

“But I’m not. I don’t like sitting around uselessly and Marion should eat as soon as possible. Why don’t I season the steaks while you start the grill? And I could make a salad. I see fixings.”

“You certainly are a go-getter,” he replied in a flat tone that she couldn’t decide was complimentary or critical. “All right, I’ll leave it to you, then. It’s your kitchen from here on out. I’ll just get rid of these and start the grill.”

Later that night, Ella sat on the edge of her bed staring out at the night from her open window. Her long hair flowed loose down her back and ruffled in the occasional breeze. The night was nippy and she’d opened the window to hear the hooting of courting owls. Harris had explained over dinner that it was the mating season for owls. He’d told her how at dusk, when the rest of the bird world was settling in, the owls were just waking up, becoming active and vocalizing.

Harris. She’d been pleased to find that her employer was an appealing, well-mannered man. Yet she’d not been prepared for her reaction to him. The attraction hit her hard and caused her heart to beat so fast in her chest that when he was near her she had to wrap her arms around herself to try to still it, sure he might hear its thundering. At this moment he was lying in his bed down the hall from her and she was painfully aware of every noise she made in this small bedroom, exquisitely aware of his nearness.

Ella wrapped her robe tight around her neck and leaned forward while listening intently to the melodious series of low hoots. The melancholy cries moved in a synchronized manner from one pen to another. Occasionally, an owl from the trees answered the calls. Over and over, east to west, calling and answering, the mysterious, erotic song circled her in the night.

She closed her eyes and put her face to the chilled, moist breeze. The ghostly moon shone overhead, and it felt to her as though it opened up her chest and drew out her neatly folded and stored memories like so many antique linens and gowns being removed and aired from a dusty trunk. They hung, suspended, around her in the mist, leaving her feeling empty and lonely. Love sang all around her, and she sat, utterly alone, on her bed.

As usual.

Ella was thirty-five years old. She could say that to anyone who asked without stuttering, blushing or trying to fudge a year or two. For fifteen years, Ella had worked as a pediatric nurse with all the tenacity and devotion that was in her nature to give. On the eve of her last birthday, Ella had, in typical practical manner, made herself a cup of tea, lit a fire in her fireplace and, while staring at the flames, laid out her realities as neatly as sums on a ledger.

She was a plain woman with a good education and solid job prospects. She hadn’t had a date in eighteen months, a boyfriend in four years, and her romantic prospects weren’t rosy. She’d told herself that it was time to face the likelihood of a life lived alone.

The reality was not so much frightening as it was chilling. While she stared at the embers, her private dream of a family of her own thinned and dissipated like the wisps of smoke that curled from an old fire grown cold.

On that birthday evening spent alone, she’d dragged herself up from the edge of despair to arrive at a decision. She couldn’t change her lot in life, but she could alter its course. Her life would have meaning, success and joy. If she couldn’t dedicate herself to a family and children of her own, then she would dedicate herself to her career and the children placed in her care.

And, she’d determined as she shivered in the bitterness of a Vermont winter’s night, she would at least be warm.

The next morning she’d pulled out maps and chosen only those cities that were near sandy beaches and palm trees. A big medical hospital was a must, a theater and good music would be nice, and museums a big plus. Number one on the list, however, was a balmy climate. It didn’t seem to her to be an unreasonable demand and she’d set her mind to it. Just after the Christmas wreaths and boughs were hung around the inn, she’d packed her Toyota Camry with everything she could squeeze into it, kissed her weeping aunts goodbye and driven south to begin her new life by the New Year in sunny Charleston.

On the long drive, she’d blindly passed the landscape. Her mind was too occupied wildly wondering what awaited her at the end of the long journey. Her imagination played with all manner of possibilities. But never, not even at her most creative high, did she consider that she’d have raptors as neighbors and live in a teensy house with a single bathroom she’d be sharing with a stubborn man and his recalcitrant daughter.

She chuckled at the perversity of fate, then rose to close the window tight. Shivering, she slipped from her robe and climbed under the heavy down quilt. It took a few minutes to warm her chilled body. She tucked her arms close to her chest and rubbed her feet together. Soon, the cocoon of warmth softened her muscles and her breathing grew rhythmic. Closing her eyes, she could still hear through the closed window the soft lullaby of the owls’ love songs circling her. It was a melancholy song, rich with longing. This time, her heart responded.

Before falling asleep, just when her heavy lids began to seal, she thought she heard the rich baritone of a man’s voice join the owls in song.

Feathersare marvels of evolutionary adaptation. They are some of the strongest and lightest structures formed of living tissue and do more than merely help birds fly. When fluffed up, feathers form dead air spaces that act as insulators against the bitter cold. When pressed tightly against the body, they help to expel excessive heat. All birds periodically shed their old feathers and replace them with new. This is known as a molt.

5

Ella awoke as the pink light of dawn heralded a cacophony of bird chirping outside her window. Not the melancholy love songs of owls or the piercing cry of raptors, but the squabbling and squawking of jays and mockingbirds in the surrounding woods. She brought the edge of her comforter closer to her chin and cuddled deeper in its warmth. Suddenly, her eyes sprang open. With a burst of clarity, she recalled where she was.

My Lord, what time was it? She pushed back the covers and the chilly, dank air hit her like a cold shower.

Grabbing for her watch, she saw that it was not even half past six. The air had that bitter, dank cold that told her the fire had gone out. She shivered and reached for her robe from the bottom of the bed where she’d tossed it the night before. While slipping her arms through the sleeves she crossed the icy floor on bare feet and peeked through a small opening in the window curtains.

Outside, the morning sky held that rosy, misty softness of an awakening day. Enchanted, she pulled back the curtain for a better view. The pastoral scene of a small black-bottomed pond tucked away by vivid green pinewoods was one she hadn’t noticed on her arrival. A small smile tugged at her lips. She was pleased at the prospect of such a charming view each morning. A one-room cabin with a tin roof perched on a small rise beside the pond. It was probably the very cabin Harris had offered to sleep in, once the weather turned warm. Very sweet-looking, she thought as she let the curtain fall from her fingers. She began to turn away when, from the corner of her eye, she saw a blur of movement by the cabin.

She yanked back the curtain again and bent close to the glass to peer out. It wasn’t her imagination…. A lean black man carrying a small bundle under his arm slipped from the cabin in a furtive manner, then hurried out of sight.

Her mouth slipped open in surprise. Could anyone be sleeping in that cold cabin? she wondered. In this weather? There wasn’t any telltale sign of smoke from a chimney and icicles formed at the corners of the roof. It had to be freezing in there, she thought, shivering at the nippiness in the house. It was all very suspicious, and she decided she’d best mention it to Mr. Henderson at breakfast.

“A man in the cabin? Are you sure?” Harris asked her as he studied the plate of bacon before him. Three thick strips of bacon, blackened at the edges and pink in the middle, were drowning in a puddle of grease.

“Of course I’m sure,” Ella replied, standing at his side, refilling his coffee. “You don’t think I’m making this up, do you?”

“No, no of course not. It’s just that…” He returned the bacon to the plate and reached for the toast. This, too, was burnt to a crisp at the edges. “A tall man, you say? Slender? Black?”

Ella cringed inwardly at seeing him scrape the burnt edges from the toast. He had a sleepy look about him with his tousled hair and heavy-lidded eyes. He looked so boyish she had to stop herself from calling out “Eat up!” the way her aunts had when she was growing up and fiddling with the food on her plate.

“That’ll be him,” she replied.

Harris set his elbows on the table. “Lijah,” he concluded before slathering the blackened toast with jam.

Ella felt another swift flush of embarrassment at the sorry breakfast and quickly returned to the kitchen and poured herself a fortifying second cup of coffee. She’d already been up for hours. The first one up, she’d showered quickly in the single bathroom, then dressed in jeans and a thick navy sweater in record time. The house felt strange to her and she’d fought off a sudden attack of homesickness and doubt as to why she’d ever left home in the first place. But she marshaled her will, focused on the task at hand, then went in search of a broom and dustpan. She’d found a butcher’s-style apron hanging on a hook in the kitchen and the broom behind the kitchen door. Tools in hand, she went directly to the woodstove. As she’d suspected, the stove had long since gone cold to the touch.

Woodburning stoves were commonplace in Vermont and in no time she’d swept the ashes, dumped them outdoors and revved up a good fire with wood she found in a basket on the front porch. Then, after washing her hands, she thought it high time to make better acquaintance with the kitchen. The north was in her blood, after all, and a chill in the morning air energized her.

Now, looking around the kitchen, Ella thought again how it really was a pathetic little room. Everything was out of proportion. The miniature Roper stove was so small she’d bet it had been pulled into service from a camper. In contrast, the porcelain farm sink was deliciously enormous. It stuck far out from the narrow, dark green Formica counter like a full-term belly on a thin woman. It would be fine for washing big pots and produce, and she wondered if Marion hadn’t bathed in it a few times over the years. There was also the tiny refrigerator—sans mice—an ancient toaster with a dangerously frayed cord and beautiful hand-hewn wood cabinets that looked so heavy she hoped the wall wouldn’t collapse under their weight. All in all, a challenge to even the most capable cook—which she was not.

Ella sighed, hoping she’d find a few good cookbooks in the bookshelves to steer her through the ordeal. She was about to add a dollop of milk to her coffee but stopped, seeing how little was left in the jug. She thought Marion would likely want some when she awoke, and with a resigned sigh she put the remaining milk in the fridge. Frowning at her cup of jet-black coffee, she joined Harris at the table.

“We need milk,” she said, taking a seat.

“I’ll go shopping today.”

“No need. I can go, once you tell me where the nearest grocer is. I’m good at directions, as you can tell,” she added with a slight smile. “We’ll need to work out some kind of system for shopping. A budget and all. I expect you’ll give me a weekly allowance?”

“If that works best for you.”

He wasn’t much of a talker, but he was trying to be amenable. “I got up early and took a look around. I made out a list of things we need,” she said, pulling a sheet of paper from her apron pocket. In two tidy columns, she’d started to list all manner of groceries, sundries and cleaning supplies she’d need to get the job started. In fact, she could feel the caffeine racing through her veins and couldn’t wait to roll up her sleeves. She very much wanted to make a good start.

“Of course, I want to ask you what kind of meals you and Marion prefer, and what kind of things you hate, like onions, peppers, that sort of thing. You’re not allergic to anything?”

“No, but Marion’s not great with vegetables. Especially not okra.”

She laughed. “I wouldn’t know an okra from a collard green, anyway.”

“Oh.”

Ella thought it sounded more of a groan than a comment. She tapped her fingers on the rim of her cup before setting it down and folding her hands on the table. “Mr. Henderson, I suppose now’s the time to tell you I’m not the best cook.”

He looked up with a worried expression.

“It’s just that I grew up with my aunts, you see,” she hurried to explain. “They own an inn and they just love to cook. My aunt Eudora is a master chef. She can make a béarnaise sauce that would send you swooning. And her desserts!” Ella rolled her eyes. “Not to be believed, all made with fresh Vermont cream and butter.

“Aunt Rhoda is a baker. She has no interest in anything but breads, rolls, cakes, pies and the most delicate pastries. She always smells of sweet flour and has these big strong hands that can knead out a kink in your shoulders as readily as a glob of dough. They received a four-star rating from Fodor’s,” she added with pride.

Harris was now looking at her with an air of hopefulness. Realizing what he was thinking, Ella shook her head and smiled sheepishly. “So, you see, there was nothing left for me to do but clean up after them. That’s what I’m good at. Cleaning. Really, I know more household hints than Heloise and my specialty is getting rid of germs. I’m organized, too. Even as a little girl I could take charge of the pantry, and let me tell you, I ran a tight ship at the hospital.” She glanced around the room, narrowing her eyes in speculation. “And I can see I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

“But, you do know how to cook?” Concern deepened the creases in his long forehead.

“Sort of,” she confessed. “After all, I’ve lived on my own for years.” She refrained from telling him that, other than the hospital cafeteria, she existed mainly on food that came out of boxes, the freezer or from care packages from the aunts. “My aunts taught me the rudiments, of course. I mean, I can boil water and I know what bake and fry mean. I figure with a good cookbook, how hard can it be?”

Harris looked at the congealed, undercooked bacon on the plate like a condemned man.

“This Lijah,” she asked, eager to go back to the earlier subject. “Does he work here?”

“He’s the fellow I was telling you about. The one who carried that eagle in his bare arms? Had to be him coming out of the cabin, that cagey old coot,” he added, the affection in his eyes belying the scold in his tone.

“You didn’t know he was there?”

Harris shook his head. “He’s a strange man, decent and hardworking, but it’s an unusual situation. He lives in St. Helena, but he followed this eagle north to its nesting area. They have this…relationship, I guess you’d call it.” He paused, recollecting the night he came upon Lijah standing outside Santee’s pen, anxiously peering in. “It’s a rare and beautiful thing to witness, actually. He says he’ll stay only as long as his eagle does. I doubt he expected to stay this long. Then again, he didn’t expect for his eagle to get shot, either. I’m not sure where he’s staying, or even how to reach him, for that matter. When I asked him about it, he just said, ‘I do all right.’ I accepted that and let him be. He’s Gullah.”

Ella shook her head, not understanding what that meant.

He leaned back in his chair, stretching long legs in jeans under the table. “Gullah is both a local culture and a language descended from enslaved Africans. I guess you could say it’s a legacy that was born during the slave trade, flourished on the plantations and, because of the isolation of the Sea Islands, survives to today. You see evidence of the culture all throughout the Lowcountry. The sweet-grass baskets, hoppin’ John, music.” He smiled with recollection. “Every once in a while I hear Lijah slip into Gullah when he’s talking to the birds—especially that eagle he likes to think is his. I can’t understand most of what he’s saying, but I’ll be damned if the birds don’t.” He shook his head, chuckling softly at the memory. “They sit and listen like children with a bedtime story.”

“Does he come around often?”

“Ever since he brought that eagle in he’s been volunteering his time here at the clinic most every day. He does odd jobs—carpentry, fixing perches, general maintenance. There doesn’t seem to be anything he can’t build or fix. We’re damn lucky to have him, truth be known.” He frowned at his plate. “But I can’t have him sleeping in the cabin.”

“Why not? It’s a perfectly nice living space.”

“For one thing, there’s no heat. It’s freezing out there.”

“Couldn’t we get a heat source for him?”

“Probably,” he allowed. “But that’s not the point. The cabin was constructed for fair weather only. We often have students and interns come in the summer, and the cabin is where we put them up. I can’t be having the volunteers sleeping here.”

“And you have no idea where he’s staying while he’s here?”

“No. And quite frankly, I don’t think it’s really any of my business to look into the private lives of my volunteers. They come here to give their time and energy to help these birds. I don’t pay them. Some stick around for a long time, others get bored, or figure it wasn’t what they’d thought it would be, or just get busy and drop away.” He paused. “But Lijah, he’s one of the dedicated ones. At first I had to point out where the supplies were and what had to be done, but pretty soon he just seemed to find out for himself what needed to be done and did it. People like that are hard to find. I’ll hate to lose him.”

“So don’t lose him.”

“You don’t understand. He’s made it clear, he’s only temporary.”

“But if he’s as good as you say, surely you can find an agreeable arrangement? Perhaps you can offer him a job?”

He steepled his fingers and stared at them. “Miss Majors, I have my own way of doing things.”

“Well, you really should find out if he needs a place to stay. There’s not a hotel or motel for miles. Does he even have enough food?”

“I’ll handle it,” he said, effectively cutting off her questions. He reached for his coffee, taking a long sip as he ruminated the problem.

Ella picked up her own coffee cup and debated in her mind whether or not she was overstepping her bounds by pursuing this. She felt certain that she was starting to antagonize him again, even though she’d promised herself she’d start off on the right foot this morning. She looked at him through the rising steam of her coffee. He was staring into the distance, the rigid set to his jaw giving clue to his personality.

“I realize my job is to tend to Marion in this house. And I don’t mean to interfere with what goes on at the clinic next door.” She took a deep breath. “But you simply can’t turn your back and pretend we didn’t see anything. What if that poor man hasn’t anywhere to go? He can’t sleep in that cabin another night without heat, that’s for sure and certain. It’s just not right. Why, it was so cold in here this morning I could see my breath. Imagine what it must’ve been like in there last night?”

“Sorry about the fire,” he said quickly. “I don’t usually let it go out.”

“No matter. I’m accustomed to woodburning stoves. I’ll check it at night before bed from now on. And sweep the ashes in the morning.” She saw him about to object and added with finality, “It’s my job, Mr. Henderson.”

He studied her face for several moments and she felt he was taking her full measure. “You like to have things your way, don’t you, Miss Majors?”

“And you don’t?”

He set down his cup and looked at her with an expression of exasperation. He didn’t reply. Instead, he tucked in his legs and rose from the table. Ella remained sitting straight-shouldered in her chair, looking at him and wondering how the two of them were ever going to abide being in the same house for a year.

“Thanks for breakfast,” he said without a hint of sarcasm. “It’s been a real long time since I woke up to the smell of coffee I didn’t make myself.”

Her shoulders softened. “You’re welcome.”

He walked to the door, where he grabbed a thick navy-blue peacoat from the wall hook. “Marion likes to sleep late sometimes,” he said, pulling his arms through the sleeves. Then, pulling up his collar close to his ears, he added, “I’ll be back in a few hours to settle the budget with you.”

He spoke in declarative sentences and she worried that she’d annoyed him. She thought back to the morning long ago when she’d told the local pastor of her church—after his stirring sermon about original sin—that she couldn’t believe in a God that would send poor little unbaptized children to a horrid nowhere place called Limbo. So either the pastor was wrong or she was giving up coming to his church. She was nine at the time and distinctly remembered wagging her finger at the pastor as she spoke. Her aunt Eudora had studied her with pale gray eyes more sad than critical behind wire-rimmed glasses and said, “Child, when will you learn to curb your tongue?” Ella never had learned, and this facet of her personality was both her strength and a curse.

“I’ll be ready to discuss the budget whenever you are,” she replied. “Oh, and Mr. Henderson…” she said, catching him before he turned away.

He stood with one hand on the door and a look of uncertainty on his face.

She looked at the untouched plate of bacon. “I’ll try to do better with the cooking.”

His smile came reluctantly, but when it blossomed, it transformed his face, lighting up his pale blue eyes like a sunny blue sky against white clouds.

“Miss Majors,” he said, seemingly moved enough to venture a small confidence.

Ella waited expectantly. The words seemed pried from his mouth.

“I care about my volunteers. They’re good people, just private individuals going out of their way to help. All I can offer them in return for all the work they do here is to work as hard or harder than they do and to respect their reasons for being here. We come from different places but we’re all bound together by our common love of raptors. We count on one another.” He opened the door, paused, then added before leaving, “And right now, I’m off to find out what’s what with Elijah Cooper.”

Harris found Elijah in the weighing room, bent over the worktable. It hadn’t occurred to him until now how often he found the old man in this room, hard at work, so early in the morning. Now, stepping in the cozy warmth of the handsome one-room building, he understood. It was a fine little room. Neat rows of hanging leather bird-handling gloves and hoods hung on hooks beside organized charts on the walls, a weigh scale and spare perches. A long wooden table sat under a wide plate-glass window overlooking the resident bird mews, and in its deep drawers he knew he’d find the bells, swivels, leashes and other equipment of falconry. It made perfect sense that a man who loved raptors as he did would feel at home in this space.

The old man turned to look over his shoulder when Harris entered. “Morning, Harris. Sleep well?”

“Well enough,” he replied, closing the door behind him. “What’s that you’re busy with?”

Lijah returned to his work. “Oh, just cutting jesses. Thought I’d start off slow this morning, since I’m fixing to stretch Astro Turf on the perches later. That’s one mean job, but someone’s got to do it. And looks like that someone be me.” His chuckle seemed to rumble low in his chest.

“Much appreciated,” Harris said, drawing closer. He watched as Lijah cut a few strips of light, tough leather to make into jesses, the slender straps that were secured to the birds’ legs. These looked to be about the right size for a peregrine.

“Here, let me show you how to slice those,” he said, moving to take hold of the sheath of leather. “You want to take care not to weaken the leather when cutting the slits,” he said, his hands moving expertly in demonstration. “Jesses are only good if they’re secure. What’s the point of a steel swivel that can hold an elephant if the jesses are so weak it couldn’t hold back a sparrow? There. How’s that?” he said, holding up a perfectly slitted pair.

“Looks good.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve been doing this for years. Now you try.”

He watched as Lijah worked the leather. As with most things in bird care, attention had to be paid to the details. Once, he’d found a hawk hanging by one leg so high up in a tree Harris couldn’t get to him, all because of bad jesses. But the old man’s enormous hands worked as daintily as a seamstress’s making French knots, he thought, looking on with admiration.

“You’re good with your hands.”

“Yes, I am. They been good to me over the years. I can build just about anything with some wood and nails. Done some ironwork, too. And I’m handy with a net, if you ever need help there.” He held his hands up and looked at them with more respect than admiration. “Always wanted to try these fingers on a piano, but we never hooked up. I like to think we’d make pretty good music.”

Harris took a breath, rubbing his palms together, knowing that the next conversation would determine if this particular versatile man would stay on at the center.

“A bit cold today, don’t you think?”

“Cold? Nah, it’s not that cold. ‘Posed to warm up to the forties by midday.”

“Really? That’s good. Good. We can put the birds out to weather.” He cleared his throat and tried again. “But the nights are cold, aren’t they?”

Lijah chuckled softly as he worked the leather, nodding his head. “Oh, yes. The nights sure are cold.”

Harris waited a moment or two before saying, “I imagine it’s cold, even in that cabin.”

Lijah’s hand stilled and he lowered the hand tools. He sat for a moment, not moving, then he sighed heavily and turned to face Harris with an open expression.

“I don’t mean no disrespect,” he said somberly. “I keep it clean and I’m careful not to disturb nothing.”

“I know,” Harris replied. He paused. “Lijah, do you not have any place to stay?”

“No, no. I’m staying with friends—just down the road a piece. But getting back and forth to see Santee every day got to be troublesome. See, I need to be close. I need to sit with my bird a while to see her through this. I reckon like you did for your child back when she was in the hospital.”

Harris felt a strong sympathy for the man’s situation. Lijah loved that bird as any father loved a child. “I understand,” he replied. “But damn, Lijah, there’s no heat in there.”

“I do all right.” A sly smile slipped across his face. “It’s a sight better than sleeping in the car.”

“Lijah, it’s not right, you sleeping out there in the cold. We’ll have to figure something else out.”

“You don’t have to worry none. I’ll just clear out of that cabin and find somewhere else. It ain’t no problem for you.”

“But where will you go?”

He shrugged. “Don’t matter. Like I said, I have friends. And it’s only temporary.” His expression altered to worry. “I hope this don’t change your thinking on letting me keep coming here. Leastways, till Santee be well. I like working near these birds. And I daresay I’m doing a good enough job here?”

“You know you are. In fact, too good. You’re coming near every day now and that’s more than just volunteering. I don’t want to take advantage of your generosity.”

“You can’t take advantage of what I’m giving freely,” he replied with his serene smile.

“Well, I certainly don’t want you to stop coming. There’s no fear of that. But the conditions of your working here have suddenly changed. You’re working as hard as any of the full-time staff, but the problem is, I can’t afford to pay you a full-time salary.”

He drew his shoulders back. “I never asked for money.”

“I know you didn’t. But you deserve it. So, I’ve been thinking. What would you say to a salary? We could negotiate a fee that you feel is fair.”

Rather than brighten with enthusiasm, Lijah seemed a bit wary. “I thank you for the offer,” he replied. “It’s kind, to be sure. But all that strikes me as too permanent. I ain’t looking for a job. I always pay my own way and earn my own keep. Done so all my life. And I don’t want to charge you for working here because I’m only here on account of my bird friend. Here’s the way it is. I like keeping to myself, like coming and going as I please. I just need to sit with Santee a while to see the bird through this. Then, when she well, we can make our way back home. Soon, hopefully.” He met Harris’s gaze. “You need to understand that when Santee leaves, I’ll leave with her.”

“I understand that.” He sighed, reaching a decision. “I suppose we could open up the cabin early this year. Put a kerosene heater in, open the plumbing, fix up a bed, and you could join us for meals in the house. Though after you’ve tasted Miss Major’s cooking, you might forgo that pleasure,” he added with a smile. “What do you say? You can stay for as long or as short as you wish.”

“In that case, I thank you for your offer and accept.”

They shook hands and smiled in that companionable way that men often did when they were relieved and comfortable with the way a situation was resolved.

“I confess,” Lijah said, that wry smile playing at his lips again. “A couple of those nights near froze my vitals off. But we’re heading toward spring, so I’m hopeful.”

“You won’t freeze another night, not if Miss Majors has anything to say about it. She’s the one saw you creeping out of the cabin at dawn and has been worrying about you ever since. Knowing her, she’ll have that place in right order before nightfall.”

Lijah’s brows rose. “Miss Majors? That your new lady friend?”

“Good God, no! She’s the nanny. She only just arrived yesterday and will be staying in the house with us, looking out for Marion, cleaning, and—heaven help us—cooking our meals. Speaking of which, what have you been eating these past few weeks?”

“I’m an old man and the appetite ain’t what it used to be.” Amusement sparkled in his dark eyes. “I been making good use of the microwave in the clinic to heat up a can of soup or stew. And from time to time I stay with a relative or a friend I know lives nearby. They can’t stop feeding me. ’Course, there’s biscuits, jerky, the kind of things I can pack up. Oh, and I come to like that Slim Fast in a can. Tastes pretty good. Only thing I miss, though, is a good hot cup of coffee in the morning.”

Harris released a smile, amazed—as he often was in life—at how things sometimes came around full circle. He put his hand on Lijah’s shoulder.

“Today’s your lucky day. I happen to know just where you can find one.”

Brady Simmons traveled to the Coastal Carolina Center for Birds of Prey vowing to make everyone at that rehab joint as miserable as he was.

He sat in the passenger seat of the family’s Ford pickup that belched smoke and whined like a tortured animal every time it shifted into high gear. If being seen in that sorry-ass piece of tin wasn’t embarrassing enough, his mother was driving him.

Not being allowed to drive was all part of this mother lode of punishments that had been dumped on him since the police pinned the shooting of that eagle on him. That bird wasn’t even dead and his own life had been wiped out, as far as he could tell. It was bad enough that he had to spend every Wednesday afternoon and Saturday morning for six long months doing so-called community service hours. He’d a done that without complaint. He deserved it. He shouldn’t have pulled the trigger.

But why did they have to go and punish his whole family? Just on account of him doing something so stupid? The authorities told them they was lucky to only have to pay 1,800 in fines. Lucky? They weren’t no wealthy family that could just write a check for that amount. That was about every cent the family had put away, and then some. Mama had cried for days about that and wouldn’t talk to his father, blaming him for being so pigheaded as to trespass on government property and to drag his son right along with him. And if trespassing weren’t bad enough, she’d hollered, he had to go tell him to shoot the goddamn national emblem!

All of that was true. Brady wouldn’t have fired if his father hadn’t pushed him to do it. But he’d do it again if he could stop the nights of fighting between his parents.

Always the next morning, his mother would tell Brady that his father was a good man and only drank when he was worried. Problem was, he was worried all the damn time since the authorities banned both of them from hunting and fishing anywhere in the United States. Brady couldn’t care less about himself. But that was a lethal blow for Roy Simmons. Let them do what they will to his son.

Though Brady doubted his father would obey it, anyway. And he had the nerve to tell Brady to act like a man? God, he hated him and all he stood for. There was a time Brady had looked up to his father. Roy Simmons always told his sons that a man had to live and die by his honor.

What a crock, Brady thought as he swallowed down the ball of hurt that bobbed in his throat. He turned and looked sullenly out the window at the blur of green pine along Highway 17. Good ol’ Roy Simmons had caved at the first threat of trouble. And look what honor got me, he thought.

As far as Brady could tell, all that honor had brought him was having to stand in shame before a judge while he called him every kind of vile snake that crawled upon the earth before laying down a sentence that sounded like a living hell to Brady, but that everyone claimed was lenient on account of him being a minor. He’d been branded a delinquent and forced to serve time at some godforsaken outpost for birds.

“We’re here,” his mother announced as she turned off the highway onto a narrow gravel road in the middle of nowhere. When she stopped at the gate, she waited for him to climb out and open it, watching him like a hawk each step till he climbed back in the truck. When he settled in she reached out and slapped the back of his head.

“What?” he asked with a scowl.

“Sit straight and do something with your hair,” she said, her mouth turned down at the corners. “You look like you just fell out of bed.”

“I’m gonna be scrubbin’ bird shit, Mama.”

“Don’t talk to me like that,” she warned, her voice rising. “You just change that attitude, hear?”

Brady rolled his eyes and slouched farther into the seat. He’d heard that expression so many times it blew right over him like the wind.

“You want to do right in there so there’s no more trouble. We’re counting on you, son, to get this whole incident behind us.”

Brady kept his lips tight, horror-struck that he felt a cry about to burst out and tears stinging his eyes. They were counting on him…. Didn’t she think he knew that? Didn’t she know what this was all about, anyway?

He turned his head away from her, crossing his arms and leaning against the door. As his mother shifted into First and began pulling off, he caught sight of a big ol’ white rooster sitting up on a pine bough. It seemed to look him straight in the eye as Brady passed.

Flocks.Most birds of prey are considered solitary and breed in single pairs. Sometimes, however, raptors will come together to form large, cohesive flocks for migration or to form communal roosts in winter. Flocking is also a means of protection for smaller raptors as well as a means to gain information about food sources.

6

The Coastal Carolina Center for Birds of Prey was a small five-acre sanctuary surrounded by the 350,000 acres of wildlife refuge. All that protected land was seen by many folks to be too much to set aside. Others believed it wasn’t near enough.

Harris was of the latter frame of mind. Not that many years ago, Harris could drive for miles without seeing much beyond salt marsh, pine woodlands and scattered homes burrowed along black-water creeks. It was a bird heaven. Raptors, shorebirds, songbirds—they all could migrate through the free coastal Carolina skies, find plenty of food sources in the maritime forests, perhaps even decide to take up residence, if only for a breeding season. Now, new subdivisions littered the highway, bringing with them high wires that crisscrossed the sky, speeding cars, noise, trash and the destruction of natural habitat.

His work could be pretty discouraging. Every day there were calls for help. He’d gone to pick up hawks whose wings were broken from flying into electric wire while in fast pursuit of quarry; picked up countless owls and vultures with head trauma after being hit by a car while eating roadkill; treated ospreys whose chests and talons were ripped open by improperly disposed of fishhooks and line; put down a suffering raptor shot needlessly from the sky or poisoned by the misuse of sprays and insecticides. Over the years, he’d come to realize that most people weren’t even aware that there was a lot society could do to prevent these senseless casualties.

Truth was, most people didn’t know what the heck wildlife was. Folks—good folks—moved to big, new homes carved out of the wilderness, eager and excited to live among all that natural beauty. They lived day after day right smack next to a black-water creek or a vista of marsh, maybe even had a dock, and didn’t have a clue what to do with it. They’d never learned how to cast a net or a line in the creek, or pull up a crabpot from the dock loaded with the most succulent meat God put on earth, or squished their toes in the pluff mud searching for hidden clams. Rather, they walked in clean-soled shoes along tended paths in a park, peeked at nature and breathlessly declared it wild.

But Harris figured if they learned to play with what lay in their own backyard, they’d learn right quick what wild was and what wild did and be eager to protect it. Education was the key.

Today, however, his commitment to education was being sorely tested. Harris placed his hands on his hips and waited at the edge of the parking area at the raptor center while an old Chevy truck rounded the bend and whined to a stop. He wasn’t happy about this young hooligan coming to the center, but the court had argued that allowing Brady Simmons to do community service in support of the raptors he had defiled was an important form of education, perhaps even a message to the community.

Well, maybe, he thought as he watched the disheveled teen in baggy jeans, sweatshirt and torn jeans jacket slink from the truck and slam the passenger door with force. There was work that needed doing, but he’d sure as hell not let that kid anywhere near his birds.

The driver was a stout woman, pale and pasty, dressed in faded black slacks, a cable-knit green sweater and tennis shoes. Her blond hair was the same color as the boy’s, only streaked with gray, so he figured she was the boy’s mother. But that was where the comparison ended. Brady Simmons was tall for his age, with a boy’s leanness and a man’s broad shoulders. A troublemaker, he thought, tightening his jaw when he spied the spiked hair and pierced ear.

The woman led the boy along the dirt path with a rolling gait. “Mr. Henderson?” she asked in a rural drawl. When he nodded she said, “I’m Delia Simmons, Brady’s mother. This here’s my son.” She turned to locate him.

The boy came up behind her, hands deep in his pockets, head ducked and eyes averted.

“Brady,” she said sharply. “Say hello to Mr. Henderson.”

Brady raised his eyes and shot out his hand so fast it barely touched Harris’s before he retracted it back to his pocket, mumbling “hello.”

Harris could see the frustration raw in the mother’s eyes at her son’s lack of manners. But he remained silent, doing nothing to make either of them feel more relaxed or welcome. His resentment against the boy and his father, and thus this woman by association, was like an unhealed sore on his hide.

“He’s here to do whatever you tell him to do,” Delia Simmons declared. “He knows what he done was wrong and he’s here to make amends.” She nodded her head several times, as if adding exclamation marks to her statement.

“We’ll keep him busy enough.”

“Uh-huh. That’s good.” Another nod. She must have sensed which way the wind was blowing for her son, because she looked Harris full in the face, her pale eyes appealing. “He’s real sorry for what he’s done. Brady’s a good boy. Works hard around the place. Helps me with the kids, that’s for sure. He’s smart, too. The teachers tell me so all the time, and he’s never caused us no trouble before. Fact is, I blame his father for the mess Brady’s in, him bringing the boy into the government woods in the first place. We’re hoping that he’ll do his time here and that’ll put this whole mess behind us.”

The line sounded too rehearsed to suit Harris. The boy shuffled his feet and looked off at some point in the far distance, no doubt wishing he were there. Wishing he were anywhere but here. Harris gave Mrs. Simmons a stern glance that told her this was not some parent-teacher conference she could bluff her way through.

“The whole mess, as you put it, will only be behind us once that eagle is healed from the load of pellets that hit her. It’ll be behind us once your boy learns that shooting federally protected birds is simply not tolerated. You see, Mrs. Simmons, the only reason I agreed to allow your son to do the community service here at my center is because I have the hope that your son will learn enough by being around raptors not to ever want to shoot them again. Nor any other bird—not an eagle, hawk, owl, not even a sparrow. And that he’ll pass on what he’s learned to his peers. And his family.”

Then he shifted his gaze to the boy. “You got that?”

Brady swung his head around, eyes widened in surprise at the direct question. Recouping his cool, he shrugged noncommittally, then looked down at his feet.

“I didn’t hear you,” Harris said.

“I get it.”

Harris studied the boy, but his passive expression revealed little besides contempt.

“Then that’s settled,” Harris said to Mrs. Simmons. “I expect him here every Saturday morning at nine sharp and every Wednesday afternoon by three. We won’t be waiting on him to show up. Three late shows and he’s out. You can pick him up today at two, unless he wants a lunch break, in which case you can pick him up at three. He brings his own meal, water and whatever else he wants. Any questions? No? Then we’ll be seeing you later this afternoon, Mrs. Simmons.”

“I’ll be here at two, since I didn’t make a lunch. Hear, Brady?”

“Yes’m. Two o’clock.”

Harris turned to the boy. “Come on, then,” he said, catching himself from calling him boy. “Let’s get started.” He fixed him with a stern look. “I hope you won’t make me think this was a mistake.”

Harris found Elijah in the rear of the clinic, cutting long strips of Astro Turf. Already he’d covered two six-foot perches. They were leaning against the wall looking tightly fitted and clean.

“Hey, Lijah! Mind if you slow down a bit? There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

Lijah turned from the perch he was bent over to face him, a greeting on his lips. The smile of welcome slipped, however, and recognition sparked in his eyes when he saw the blond young man at his side. He straightened from his task and turned to face them with his shoulders erect.

Harris waved the boy closer. He followed with dragging feet. “This here’s Brady Simmons. I suspect you know who he is.”

Lijah nodded without comment. Even in his baggy jacket and faded pants, Harris thought a king could not be more regal. Turning to the boy Harris said, “This is Mr. Elijah Cooper. It was his eagle that you shot.”

Surprise and confusion flickered across Brady’s features. Harris was gratified to see the boy’s cheeks flush before he ducked his head.

“Lijah, you recall we talked about this boy doing community service here?”

“I recall.”

“And you’re fine with that?”

“I don’t have a problem, long as he don’t give me a problem.”

“Right. I thought it only fitting that I put him in your charge, if you’re willing.”

“I’m willing.”

“Well, there’s no shortage of chores to be done, we both know that.” He looked around at the rows of stacked dog kennels lined up along the wall. Each one of them was filthy with streaks of black, green and white smears of bird mutes, spores of mildew, mold and mud. “Looks like we’ve got an overflow of kennels that need cleaning. We could maybe start him off with that.”

Brady’s head shot up. “I thought I was going to be working with the birds.”

Harris’s eyes flashed. He wanted to tell him hell would freeze over before he’d let him touch his birds. He took a moment to rein in his anger at the kid’s arrogance before saying in a level voice, “Let’s get this understood right from the start. No one gets to care for the birds without approval. Not any volunteer. And you, Brady Simmons, are not a volunteer. You’re going to have to work extra long and extra hard to earn that approval from me. We’re all here to serve those birds. It’s not the other way around.”

“That be right,” Lijah interjected with feeling.

Brady shot the old man a wary glance.

“You’ll start working with a by-product of birds. See that bottled soap over there? And those scrub brushes? And that hose? Lijah here’s going to show you how to use all that stuff along with some of that muscle power you’ve got to scrub clean every one of those kennels.”

Brady’s eyes smoldered in dismay at seeing the fourteen dog kennels ranging in size from small to extra large. “All of them?”

“Well, that’s all there are for now. More come every day. They’ll keep you busy.”

“But…they’re covered with caked-on bird shit!”

Harris was enjoying the boy’s agony and had to hold back a smile. “We prefer to call it mutes. Makes it somehow easier. But the truth is, bird shit is just part of living with birds. You’ll be scrubbing a lot of mutes in the next six months. Mutes from kennels, mutes from perches, mutes from pens, mutes from towels. We all do it. Pretty soon you won’t think twice about it. Isn’t that right, Lijah?”

“Don’t bother me none.”

Harris grinned, then turned to the boy. “See what I mean? So, I’ll be leaving you in Lijah’s excellent care.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.