The Bird Saviors (2 page)
    He cuts a bite of pancake and waits for Ruby to lift her voice. She dries a plate and stacks it in the cupboard.
    I've shouldered weapons among the heathens, he says. I've struggled with them close enough to smell the spices on their breath. I have tasted the ash of anger and have seen my leg lying in the street, blown clean from my body. And in this greatness I have been given the grace of a new leg and now I walk to preach the tongue of a righteous Lord.
    Ruby squints at the portrait of Jesus on the wall opposite the kitchen tableâ his expression merciful and angelic, a tenderness in his eyes she has never seen in a living man. Beside him hangs a portrait of Joseph Smith, high cheekbones and narrow chin, eyes burning like a madman, full of fire and conviction. Lord God insists the two martyrs stand side by side, both sacrificed to teach the sinful and the righteous a lesson.
    Ruby asks if he has heard anything from her mother.
    Lord God chews, his face turned to the window, a slat of morning sun reflecting within his artificial eye. The glass orb glows golden, opaque. He closes his eyelids as if to savor the food. His face wrinkles with maniacal certainty and anguish, crease lines on his chin visible through the gray tangle of his beard. His lips are lost in the coarse hair, even his cheeks and neck covered, as if he is becoming a half- man, half- bear creature of legend.
    Your mother is gone, he says. But she'll be back. She will see the error of her ways. It may take time is all.
    Ruby finishes drying the dishes. She turns to find her baby girl awake now and watching, a slight smile on her lips. Lila has a perfectly round head. Her grandmother calls her Baby Lollipop with such affection that it melts Ruby's heart. And now she's gone and not here to help with Lila.
    I miss her, says Ruby.
    Lord God is quiet for a moment. He chews his toast. Finally he whispers, I do too.
    You should beg her back, says Ruby.
    Lord God rocks back in his chair, stares up at the ceiling.
Girl? Haven't I taught you right? Never beg. Never rely on anybody else.
    This is different, she says. It's Mom we're talking about.
    We get by just fine, don't we?
    Ruby makes a funny face for Lila, crossing her eyes and opening her mouth wide. The baby girl waves her hands in the air and makes a sputtering sound. Say what you want but it's not the same, living here without Mom, answers Ruby. The house is cold.
    It's what I've been telling you, says Lord God. The house is cold because you don't have a husband. And with a child of your own too.
    I'm doing okay, she says.
    What? With me taking care of her, you mean? When you're off studying uselessness?
    Ruby dries the dishes, counting the Smoke Larks. Maybe I should quit school? she asks. Besides, we won't be here long anyways.
    You're just stubborn. You know how to solve this problem, says Lord God. Marry that man. They say he's a good egg. And he's got more money than he knows what to do with.
    Why? she asks. Why would I do such a thing?
    We could drop by his pawnshop and have a nice chat. He's a good egg.
    You're not listening to me.
    It's not you who takes care of Ruby when you're in school, is it? You need to be cared for. And kept from the wickedness of the world.
Daddy, don't.
    A wickedness you have already tasted. And have been stained by.
    My baby is not a stain.
    I know. I also know there is more to the story. I have seen the wickedness, he says. It is amongst us.
    Ruby sighs. Half the time I don't know what you're talking about.
    We must keep you from harm, for your own good, he says. For Lila's sake. You haven't seen the evilness, says Lord God. And I hope you never will.
    I've seen a little. I've also met some good people out in the world. They're not as bad as you say they are.
    Lord God frowns and rises from the table with a faint pneumatic hiss.
    That's a fine kettle of fish, he croaks. Man comes home from war, from getting his body blown to hell and back for your sake, so all the fat can sit around and complain about everything. His wife leaves him. His child mocks him.
    I'm not mocking, says Ruby. I don't want to marry a stranger. Is that so crazy?
    Lila grabs a skein of Ruby's red hair in her fist and cries. Ruby puts a pacifier in her mouth and rocks her, one hand on her belly. The pacifier muffles the sound until she spits it out and cries harder, her face turning purple.
    She shouldn't get gas after feeding, not on breast milk, says Lord God. It might be something you're eating. You're not eating too much red chili, are you? She'll get those spices through your blood.
    Ruby carries Lila to the wooden rocking chair in the living room. The crying subsides as she rocks, until Lila only whimpers. From the kitchen comes the sound of the clink of silverware and china, Lord God putting away the dishes.
    Ruby rocks and waits. She needs to get ready for school. That is what she should be doing. But she watches the kitchen door and waits. Aloud she says, Because you have spoken nonsense and envisioned lies, therefore I am indeed against you.
    Lord God finishes clearing the table and stands in thought. He is out of work and has given up looking for more. He lives off disability but it's hardly a living. He preaches now at the Lamb of the Forsaken Fundamentalist Church of Latter- Day Saints. His congregation is mostly lost souls and the lonely, living hand to mouth. He drinks his coffee and surveys the empty expanse of his day before him.
    He walks with a thump and hiss to the doorway of the living room, where he stands and watches Ruby coddle Lila. A child of mixed blood, misbegotten in the hardest of times. The Lord gives us choices and we don't always make the right one.
    Your baby girl needs a father, he says. Any fool can see that. You're going to marry Page.
    Not a man with two wives already.
    I had a vision, says Lord God. The Lord spoke to me. He told me Page is a good man. Better than you know or have known.
    Says you.
    Says the Lord God Jesus Christ. I'm right. And you know it.
    Ruby takes Lila to her bedroom, kissing her forehead as she carries her propped against her hip. She changes Lila's diaper and finishes getting ready for school. She listens to Lord God talking to himself in the kitchen down the hall. It has become a habit with him, a kind of running commentary of his thoughts, spoken aloud in a whispery, intense tone. Sometimes he seems to be talking to her mother now that she's gone, arguing with her, firing back at her female sass. She hears him say, Is that what you'd have me do, Juliet? Is that what you want? Just tell me and I'll make it so.
    Ruby slips a gauze face mask around her neck and arranges it at her throat like a white choker necklace. She can't stand the thing but school regulations require it, everyone insane about germs. With the fever that has swept the country, wearing face masks is now mandatory in public places.
    Two years ago it was the fever snuck up like an ugly rumor and nobody believed it at first. Soon you saw people fainting at the supermarket. Later a shopping mall closed after a rent- a- cop discovered a Pakistani woman two days dead in the parking lot. They had to close down the unemployment offices to prevent the contagion in line. People out of work and sick too made it insult to injury.
    In school that term Ruby studied Native American customs and learned that they had called it the Fever Moon. Somehow it made more sense than anything you heard from the talking heads on the screen. Doctors saying they have no cure but what can you do anyway? They don't know. They're making it all up. They like to hear themselves talk, to look important. They don't know when it will end. When the next thing will begin. They blame the birds.
    Lord God calls out, You miss the bus, don't plan on getting a ride from me.
    Ruby stands at the window, watching a lone Grief Bird on the railing. It stares back, like a shape- shifter waiting for her next move.
    Lord God stomps his peg leg on the front porch. Ruby grabs her book bag and marches past him. She keeps moving down the front walk. Red Creek Road is a two- mile stretch of potholed dirt from their front yard to Highway 96. When she passes the junipers near the mailbox, she catches sight of the yellow school bus pulling away. She has to turn and head back.
    It came early, she mumbles as she passes him.
    You're late again, says Lord God. You'll be late for your own funeral.
    Ruby stops and stares at the sky. Snow clouds bulge over the mountains. The wind whips dust into her eyes, makes her squint. She does not want to give Lord God the satisfaction of acknowledging his words and warnings.
    I'll take you to meet Mr. Page on the way to school. He is just the thing you need.
    She goes through the front door, back inside the house. Lila sits in her plastic play swing and smiles like a cartoon baby when she approaches. Ruby leans in to kiss her cheeks and forehead, trembling. Lila grabs a curling lock of Ruby's hair and holds on tight, as if she's holding the reins of a roan pony. A clear dribble of drool shines her lips.
    Ruby disentangles her hair from Lila's fist, whispering, Mommy has to go now. I'm going to miss you and think of you every minute I'm away until I can come back and take you away too. Mommy loves you so much and she won't do anything to hurt you. For now Grandpa will take care of you.
    Ruby's eyes well with tears as she kisses her baby's lips, soft and wet with drool. She tells her she's sorry. She swears she'll be back to get her as soon as she can. A day or two at the most. She covers her face with her hands and tries to stop her sobbing. She hears Lord God on the porch, opening the door, telling her to hurry.
    He tells her he doesn't have all day. We have to get Lila dressed and in the car seat too, he shouts.
    Lila puts her hands over her eyes and then pulls them away dramatically. She wants to play. Ruby's voice breaks when she says, Peekaboo! Lila covers her eyes again and Ruby starts to cry as she leaves the room. When Lila takes her hands away, the room is empty. Mama, she calls. Mama!
    Ruby rushes through the smoky kitchen and out the back door. Lord God follows her but is several steps behind, his prosthesis slowing him. Did you hear me? he calls. You need to dress your girl. I'm not a taxi. You want a taxi you get a job and pay for one.
    She runs past the woodshed, Grief Birds rising and cawing, her backpack slapping her shoulders. At the fence she tosses her backpack over, grabs a crooked post, clambers over the sun- bleached rails. She turns her body sideways to straddle the rough- hewn cross- ties. A rusty nail catches her jeans until she wriggles free.
    For a moment she takes one last glance at the houseâ a faded white box set against the redness of the sky beyond, a smoky plume rising from the stovepipe. Lord God on the back steps, bearded and angry as a statue of Brigham Young, perplexed and one heartbeat from judging her to have lost her ever- loving foolish female mind.
    The high desert beyond the woodshed is brown grass sloping upward, toward the mountains. To the east dry gulches big as small canyons cut the bleached landscape.
    Lord God shouts again. Ruby hurries on, the wind ripping her father's voice into the past. The field of rabbit bush and sage jiggles before her eyes. She cuts a zigzag path through cactus, cold air stinging her face.
    The wind fills her ears with a loud buffeting roar. She stops to catch her breath. Behind her Lord God still follows, struggling against the gusts, losing her. She takes off again, her legs feeling thick and clumsy. To the west roils a dust cloud like a billow of sandblast. The early- morning sun reflects against it, against the clouds of prairie dust boiled loose by downdraft in the foothills of the mountains. The clouds churn, swirling tongues of dust spreading across the plains and heading toward Ruby alone in the murk.
S o u t h  o f  P u e b l o  a red- tailed hawk perches on a telephone pole. It has not eaten in two days. Below it a prairie dog scuttles into its burrow. Trucks thunder by on Interstate 25, drafting gusty diesel wind, ruffling the parched brown grass. Another prairie dog strays from its burrow until the hawk swoops low with talons outstretched. The prairie dog darts below. The hawk banks, curls toward the highway, and is flapping its wings to regain height when a passing truck clips it with a shiny side mirror. Caught by the wind, the hawk's body tumbles into the right lane of traffic.
    Passing vehicles run over it twice before a Subaru slows and pulls onto the shoulder. The driver sets his emergency brake and turns on his flashers, watching the stream of traffic. He pulls on leather gloves as he rummages on his floorboard for a paper sack. He unfolds it, watching a tractor- trailer rig in the distance.
    Ward Costello gets out of the car and stands in the shudder of tailwind gusts off the diesel rigs, hurries across the right lane. A truck blasts its horn. He eases the hawk's broken body into the paper sack, taking care not to crush the cinnamon- colored tail feathers. The truck honks again. At the last minute Ward trots to the shoulder and gives the trucker a wave, cradling the paper sack like a swaddled baby.
    He opens the bag wide enough to give the hawk a preliminary inspection. The tips of its primaries are ragged, indicating stress from pollution or inadequate diet. One of its talons is broken off to a stump. He smooths the mottled feathers, waits for a break in the traffic, and stares at the dead hawk's red tail feathers sticking out of the paper bag. It looks like something being smuggled.
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