Broken Wings

by Weis, Alexandrea

  Carol raised her mug of coffee to Daniel. “I think you’re growing on her,” she said with a playful grin.

  Daniel just shook his head and lifted a can of paint from the back of his Jeep.

  Once back inside the house, Carol found Pamela sitting on the floor of her kitchen, holding a tiny baby gray squirrel in her lap. She watched, fascinated, as Pamela fed the animal formula drop by drop with a small syringe. It amazed her at times how much patience her friend always seemed to have with these animals. But when confronted by someone like Daniel Phillips, Pamela became like a snapping turtle, eager to bite off the man’s fingers with her powerful jaws.

  “You could give the guy a break,” Carol proposed as she leaned against the entrance to the hallway.

  “He’s a bartender from New Orleans who beats up his customers. Now why should I give him a break?”

  “He also studied at Harvard.”

  Pamela frowned. “How do you know that?”

  “He told me.”

  Pamela glanced up at Carol and then she snickered. “And you believed him?”

  “Of course,” Carol shrugged as she took another sip from her coffee mug. “They’re not all out to get you, you know.”

  Pamela turned her attention back to the baby squirrel in her hands. “What are you talking about?”

  “Men. You think every one of them has some ulterior motive for talking to you or doing anything for you.”

  “Men always have ulterior motives, Carol. That’s what makes them men.”

  “The guy drove up here from the city, bought supplies to fix your house, and hasn’t so much as asked you for a cup of coffee, let alone a date. So what’s your problem with him?”

  Pamela shook her head. “I have a hard enough time letting people I know into my life. How do you expect me to accept a stranger just like that?”

  Carol lazily pushed her body away from the wall. “I’ve got to head over to my office and get some work done.” She placed her mug down on the old brown and white tiled counter in the kitchen. “Sometimes people come into your life for a reason, Pamie. Just like the animals. You always said every animal that you have rehabbed has changed you in some way. People can do the same thing, but you have to let them in first so you can find out how they will change you.” Carol walked over to the couch and picked up her five-gallon purse. “You once told me your biggest fear was being a burden to someone. And I have often wondered if that’s the reason you have fought so hard to be alone. But the one thing you’ve never stopped to consider is that you will never be a burden to anyone who loves you.”

  Carol placed her purse over her shoulder and then walked to the front door. She opened the door and without looking back quietly exited the house.

  Pamela felt her heart sink as she mulled over Carol’s words. Inside she wished it could be that easy for her; to just accept people into her life and not give a second thought as to the consequences. But like a prophet privileged to see the future, Pamela knew exactly how any relationship with the impossible Daniel Phillips would end. And the thought of giving in to those long dormant desires scared her more than a lifetime filled with frozen dinners for one.

  * * * *

  After feeding all of the baby squirrels inside of her house, Pamela ventured out to the front porch to look for her uncannily quiet handyman. She found him on the side of her house, frozen atop his ladder and starring into the oak tree next to her bedroom window.

  She came up alongside of his ladder and gazed up at him. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  He did not move, but appeared to talk very slowly out of the corner of his mouth. “There is a big ass owl up here staring at me like it’s going to rip my eyes out.”

  Pamela laughed and started to climb up the ladder behind him. “Oh, I forgot to tell you about him. That’s Lester. He won’t hurt you.”

  As Daniel looked down at her, Lester let out an ear-splitting screech.

  “Oh, Lester, hush up,” Pamela scolded as she waved her hand at the large brown owl.

  “Jesus!” Daniel grabbed for his chest. “That thing wants to kill me.”

  Pamela came up right below him on the ladder. She reached out to the tree and began to stroke the owl’s wing. “He’s really a pussycat when you get to know him. He already ate this morning so I can guarantee he has no interest in you. That is unless you are carrying any chocolate on you.”

  Daniel caught his breath. “Chocolate?”

  “He loves chocolate. Only comes out of the tree for it. Otherwise he stays up there all day and all night.”

  Daniel rubbed his hand across his sweaty forehead. “I’ve been sitting up here for thirty minutes afraid to move or make a sound in case that thing went after me.” He shook his head. “And then you come out here and tell me the damned owl only eats chocolate.” He stared down at Pamela. “What kind of place are you running here?”

  “Oh, Lester eats ham and eggs, too. I only give him chocolate on special occasions,” she confided with a smug grin on her face.

  Pamela started back down the ladder and Daniel quickly followed behind her. When they reached the ground, Pamela noticed the man’s dark blue T-shirt was soaked through. She did not think it was warm enough for him to be overheated.

  “Are you all right?” she asked as she watched his eyes dart back and forth across the compound.

  He wiped his hand across his sweaty brow. “I just don’t like being cornered like that.” He leaned over and grabbed his knees.

  Pamela saw how his hands gripped on to the fabric of his jeans until his knuckles turned white.

  She put her hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go sit down over by the porch,” she softly suggested.

  Daniel stood up and took a few deep breaths.

  To Pamela, the man appeared to be trying with all of his might to regain his composure. She noted his respirations and reached over to check his pulse.

  “I’m fine,” he insisted, pulling his wrist away from her.

  “You’re not fine.” Pamela put an arm about his waist. “Come on,” she urged as she ushered him to the front of the house.

  Daniel let her guide him to the porch. She shooed the dogs gathered there away to make room for them to sit. Five dogs instantly scattered and ran to the back of the house. She eased Daniel down on to the step.

  “I’m going inside to get you some water. Stay right here,” she ordered in a firm tone.

  Daniel rubbed his face with his hands and nodded.

  Pamela ran into the house and grabbed a glass from the kitchen cabinet and filled it with water from the tap. When she returned, she found Daniel standing by the porch railing. Studying him from the steps was Rodney the raccoon. She walked over to Daniel and handed him the water. His hands were shaking as he took the glass from her.

  She nodded to the raccoon. “He came to check up on you.”

  Daniel took a few deep gulps of the water and then motioned to the raccoon. “I thought he was debating on whether or not to attack me.”

  Pamela noted the way Rodney stood on his hind haunches and sniffed at Daniel. “No, he’s concerned. He senses your distress. Animals can do that.” She turned back to him. “They know when someone needs help,” she added.

  “Maybe it is because they’re wild animals. They’re just more in tune with nature, or whatever you rehabbers call it,” Daniel reasoned.

  “Wild is only a term used to measure degrees of distance between us and them. We call something wild because we do not know it. But once you form a bond with a creature, and become part of its family, you discover it was never wild, simply afraid.” She watched his hands as they tightly gripped the glass. The beads of sweat were still forming above his upper lip and forehead, despite the cool spring morning. “Can I get you anything?” she asked, suddenly feeling helpless without her array of EMT equipment to aid her.

  Daniel shook his head and tried to wave off her concern. “I’ll be all right. You got anything stronger than water in your house?” He
then took another long sip from the glass.

  “I’ve got one bottle of vodka and half a bottle of cognac.”

  Daniel raised one eyebrow at her.

  Pamela just shrugged. “I like to take a sip of cognac when I can’t sleep. It helps to calm me.”

  “I suspect it’s a good pain reliever too,” he stated, handing the empty glass to her. “I saw you grabbing your arm the other day. Carol told me about your lupus.”

  Pamela sighed as she took the glass from him. “Carol has a big mouth.”

  He leveled his dark eyes on her. “And she cares for you a great deal. She even threatened me with torture if I ever hurt you.”

  That made Pamela laugh.

  Daniel watched the pale woman’s face fill with color. She had a light harmonious laugh that reminded him of wind chimes stirring in a gentle breeze.

  “That’s something you need to do more often,” Daniel said, smiling into her face.

  “What?”

  “Laugh. You look good when you laugh. And your eyes are not all cold and distant, like they usually are.”

  Her smile fell away. “My eyes are not cold and distant.”

  Daniel tilted his head slightly to the side and frowned. “They are when they look at me.”

  Pamela gazed down at the porch deck beneath her feet. She knew she had been staring at the man as if he were some plague-carrying vagrant. But that was the way she always looked at people. It was her safety mechanism, in a way. And even though keeping everyone at a distance had guaranteed she would live a lonely life, at least it was a life she knew she could live with.

  She rubbed her tennis shoe against a crack in the wood on the porch deck. “Yeah, well, you’re a thug, remember?”

  Daniel leaned to the side and playfully nudged her shoulder. “Still think I’m a thug?” he asked with a grin.

  Pamela turned and examined his face for a moment. He was a handsome man, she decided, and wondered why she had never thought of him as attractive before. His looks were more suited for a man of adventure rather than a model or actor. He appeared to be someone who should be flying planes or, at least, jumping out of them. His eyes were the only part of his features that she found unsettling. The darkness of them seemed to hint at some hidden pain behind his welcoming smile. Like he had been to hell, and the visions he had seen there were still burning through his soul. She found it odd how you can look into a person’s face a thousand times, and then suddenly, one day, you glance over and feel as though you are seeing them for the very first time.

  “Perhaps you should call it a day,” she suggested.

  Daniel shook his head. “No, I came here to help you out, and I’m fine now. I just got a little shaken up by that crazy bird of yours.”

  “You were more than a little shaken up, Daniel.”

  He moved toward the steps. “Sorry, I just overreacted. I’ll get back to your roof,” he said over his shoulder. He quickly walked down the steps and around the side of the house.

  Pamela felt a sense of relief when Daniel disappeared from view. It wasn’t that she didn’t like his company; it was more that his presence seemed to unhinge her. Being around Daniel turned her mind into that of a self-conscious adolescent again. Perhaps what she felt were the dying embers of her youth making a last ditch effort to ignite her interest in the opposite sex. But she knew she had come too far in her life to ever entertain the idea of allowing a man like Daniel in. She had enough adrift souls dependent on her for their survival, and she had no room in her heart to try and right another.

  * * * *

  Later that morning, Pamela returned from feeding the animals in their outdoor cages to find Daniel hammering away on her roof. He diligently labored to pry the cracked shingles from the roof, throw them to the side, and hammer the new ones into place. Pamela wondered if he had ever worked in construction, or if replacing roof shingles was something he had learned from his father. She stopped, shook her head, and silently chastised her overzealous curiosity. Suddenly angry that she had allowed her mind to fill with such frivolous thoughts, Pamela marched to the front door.

  Once she stepped inside the door to her home, the constant thud of the hammer seemed to reverberate throughout her house. No room was free of the overhead banging. She noticed even Louis, the squirrel, had hidden himself inside of the sleeping sack in his open cage to try and get away from the noise. Unable to take the intermittent hammering, Pamela walked to her hall closet and took out the Winchester rifle she kept there. She added a few extra shells to the front pocket of her jeans and checked to make sure the rifle was loaded. She eyed Louis once more and observed the array of sleeping baby squirrels in their containers on her kitchen table.

  “I don’t have to feed you guys for another hour, so I’m going out to check feeders,” she said to the animals.

  Rifle in hand, Pamela headed out the door. As she walked down the steps of her back porch, she toyed with the idea of telling Daniel where she was going, but quickly decided against it. She figured it would be best to avoid further interaction with him and then maybe her disturbing feelings about him might just go away.

  Pamela made her way to the open shed that housed her truck, tractor, and ATVs. She went to the larger of the two ATVs and searched under the seat for the keys. After she had secured her rifle, she started the vehicle and headed for the woods.

  A few feet into the thick brush around her property, she found the old trail she used to travel to the feeders that sustained the released animals throughout the cold winters. Normally the feeders would be empty this time of year, but because of the unusually cold winter Louisiana had just endured, Pamela had opted to stock the feeders for another month until spring was firmly entrenched. As she maneuvered the ATV through the high shrubs and around the low tree limbs covering the trail, she continually checked for her rifle. No one should ever be caught out in the thick brush without a weapon. Most animals would run from the approaching sounds and smells of a human, but wild boar, indigenous to the area, were especially aggressive in the spring. Mothers had baby piglets to protect from predators, and they could badly maim, or even kill, when encountered.

  After ten minutes of negotiating through the dense vegetation, Pamela came upon a small clearing and the first of four feeders located on her property. The feeder was nothing more than an empty metal barrel with large holes drilled into the sides along the bottom. A mixture of corn, seeds, and nuts would be poured into the top of the barrel and as the animals removed the food from around the bottom of the barrel, more food would filter out through the holes.

  Pamela pulled her vehicle up next to the feeder and left the motor running as she climbed off the ATV and went over to the barrel. Lifting the heavy top of the barrel and looking inside, she could see that the barrel was still full of food. Pamela let the lid drop with a bang and then stepped back to her vehicle.

  A loud rustling from the bushes off to her left distracted her. Instinctively, Pamela reached for her gun on the back of the ATV and stood watching the brush where the noise had emanated from. Then a long angry grunt came from inside the dense foliage in front of her. As her body tensed, she lifted the rifle and aimed in the direction of the noise. Seconds later, a huge black ball of fur came barreling out of the brush directly toward her. She fired one shot above the creature’s head and saw the animal immediately halt. It was a large black bear, probably female, Pamela surmised. Black bears were common in Louisiana, but they usually never ventured this far south. The animal stared at her, rocking back and forth on its front feet, as if debating the prudence of pursuing an attack. Then from the brush behind the bear, a small black face emerged, and then a second face popped out next to the first. Pamela stood motionless while keeping her eyes peeled on the mother black bear. The stand off seemed to go on for several agonizing minutes, until the bear emitted a low, deep growl. Pamela raised the barrel of her rifle and fired.

  * * * *

  “Pamela!” Daniel’s frantic scream pieced through the woo
ds.

  He ran toward the sound of the gunshots and called out again and again for the woman.

  “Pamela, can you hear me?” he shouted and would stop running only long enough to listen for a reply. But there was none.

  He ran on, figuring he must be coming closer to the origin of the two shots he had heard. But as he fought his way through the brush, he could feel that familiar pang of dread start to tangle his gut. His heart was racing and his breath seemed to burn like fire in his chest. The panic, God the panic! he thought to himself. It was eating him up. He tried to think of the techniques he had been taught to control the powerful flood of adrenalin in his veins, but no peaceful thoughts of sandy beaches or cool ocean breezes were going to allay the absolute terror that was raging through his body. What if he couldn’t find her? What if she was wounded, or worse? Frightful scenarios, with the force of a tsunami, began to slam, one after the other, into his mind. Then, he heard the sound of an engine idling close by. He jumped through some of the brush to his left and soon found himself in a small clearing. There, standing next to a tall oil barrel, was Pamela.

  She spun around to face him. The rifle, still at the ready in her hands, was pointed at his chest.

  “Are you insane?” she yelled at him as she lowered her rifle. “I could have shot you!”

  Daniel stopped, bent over, and tried to catch his breath. “I heard the gunshots…and thought you might be hurt…I took off from the house to come…and help you.”

  “And surprising a woman with a loaded gun was going to help me? Do what? Spend the next eighteen to twenty in prison?” she shouted.

  Pamela spotted several small trickles of blood flowing down his arms. She ran to his side and inspected his arms. “Jesus, Daniel. You’re all sliced up.”

  Daniel stood up and, still gasping for breath, yelled, “What in the hell are you doing out here? And why did I hear gunshots?”