Best Friends

by Samantha Glen

  Timothy Leary dazed onto the lawn. Claudia Schiffer, on heels to the sky, showed in a tartan micro skirt that drew the photographers like worker bees to a queen. Rene Russo arrived with Maria and Wolfgang followed by Jason Priestly, Bill Gerber, Dan Hall-stead, Sally Kirkland . . . Francis couldn’t keep all the names in his head.

  In no time the place was packed. The band rocked into high gear. The buzz escalated. The press were frantic. “We felt like the Muppets taking L.A.,” Francis told Michael afterward.

  They didn’t make much money, and the press frenzy faded with the morning. The affair did get some coverage in the Los Angeles Times, and, of course, Claudia’s tartan appeared in tabloids around the world. More important, throughout the evening people wanted to know about Best Friends. Francis and Silva realized this could be a wonderful venue for increasing awareness of the sanctuary. The first Chateau Marmont affair would not be the last.

  The man and woman whom Maria Petersen had called a couple recognized something else. In the intense months she and Francis had done their part to keep Best Friends afloat, Silva had discovered an extraordinary rapport and safety in being genuinely known for herself. She could be irritable, or terribly serious—a mood which Francis would find hysterical and jolly her out of. It didn’t matter; he was always there for her.

  Before Francis, Silva said, she felt that all her life she had been balancing on stones in a stream, trying not to get her feet wet. With this man of such infinite patience and gentleness, she was finally able to let go. It was such a comfort, such a joy.

  They got married on Angels Landing. Maria shared a tradition from her homeland. “In Germany, if you have a good marriage you give a ring that has special meaning for you to someone you really care about as a blessing on their union.” Maria Petersen removed a slender gold band set with two diamonds from her finger and slipped it onto Silva Battista’s.

  Silva wears Maria’s ring to this day.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Earthquake

  In her Toluca Lake hotel room Silva Battista fell out of bed—hard. At first she was disoriented, and her backside hurt where she hit the floor. She heard a low rumble as from the throat of a lion before it roars, and the room swayed, sliding her into the wall. “Francis, what is it?” she screamed.

  Her husband rolled over. “Come back to bed. It’s only an earthquake.”

  Silva struggled to her feet, staggered to the bathroom, and wedged herself between the doorjambs. “Francis, wake up. This is serious. The building could collapse.”

  Francis sat up reluctantly and stared at his white-faced wife. Silva looked as if she were about to throw up. He threw back the covers, padded to her side, and wrapped her in his arms.

  “It’s okay, darling. If the building were going to collapse it would have done so already. But you’re right, we need to get up. I think—” The shrill jangle of the hotel telephone made Silva jump. Francis grinned. “Operation Earthquake is about to begin.”

  It was January 17, 1994, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday. Silva and Francis were living through what Angelenos ruefully dubbed disaster #10,987,436—the Northridge Earthquake.

  Francis called Best Friends as soon as he got a chance.

  “Are you okay?” Michael asked.

  “We’re fine.”

  “Of course; the real question is how many animals are you bringing back?”

  “Gotta go,” Francis said.

  The Battistas had come a long way from the man and woman who didn’t know about voice mail when they arrived in the City of the Angels three years earlier. Now they carried a laptop loaded with a sophisticated data system that connected them to all the parts and pieces of their L.A. outreach program.

  They were as ready as anyone for this emergency. They had become adept at organizing volunteers; they were in touch with the shelters; their lost-and-found pet hotline had been in place for over two years. Through their Hollywood connections the Battistas were media-savvy. As soon as was feasible, Francis intended to contact the television networks to scroll their hotline number to match lost animals and their persons.

  But at 6:00 A.M. all was quiet. The dawn was just fingering the sky. It was time to go outside and see what nature had wrought.

  Francis and Silva walked into a Salvador Dalí world of the surreal. There were no lights, yet the streets were filled with people afraid to stay in their homes because of aftershocks.

  Police cars crawled along the road, blue lights flashing, bullhorns urging everyone to stay calm. Fire hydrants spouted water ten feet into the air, flooding the gutters. Couples pushed baby strollers along the sidewalk, ignoring the crash of glass from a store being looted.

  Like gamblers to a casino, people gravitated to the nearest Von’s Supermarket parking lot, where they congregated in knots and talked animatedly with neighbors whose names they’d never known.

  For Best Friends, the disaster would be a test of the fledgling outreach programs they were putting in place. For Los Angeles, the Northridge Earthquake was a turning point in the often acrimonious relationships between animal organizations and the city’s shelters.

  With the media spotlight upon them, the shelters and the volunteers called a truce and worked side by side. Television coverage generated interest in how the city’s pounds operated, forcing long-range innovations for the benefit of both animals and their persons.

  Francis likened the earthquake to Best Friends’ financial heart attack. It was a disaster, but it forced nothing less than a tidal wave of change.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Feathered Friends

  Nathania Gartman missed her friend Sharon St. Joan, the only one of the Best Friends who hadn’t yet made her home in Angel Canyon. When their financial crisis mandated that not even another doghouse should be built, Sharon had graciously offered to caretake the Arizona ranch. By her taking on this responsibility from Virgil Barstad, the ranch was not abandoned to fall into disrepair, and Sharon’s feathered friends would be with her until adequate accommodations could be built for them in the canyon.

  By the spring of 1994, with Best Friends already a haven for dogs, cats, rabbits, horses, goats, ducks, geese, sheep, and a potbellied pig, the time was right for the woman who had made a name for herself as one of the finest wildlife rehabilitators in the Southwest to come home to Angel Canyon.

  Paul and Virgil built a temporary aviary in the meadow by the Welcome Center. Sharon found a couple she could trust to keep an eye on the Arizona ranch. And on the first Monday in May, the woman who loved birds loaded an old Suburban with her precious cargo and set forth for Kanab.

  King Ming the peacock was the first to be made comfortable. He had been found as a dehydrated brown chick struggling to stand on a sidewalk in Phoenix. Under Sharon’s expert care, he matured into the most gorgeous, swaggering bird with a fantail of glossy cobalt-blue-and-emerald feathers. Peaches and Fairy Dance, his consorts, were snugged in next to their mate.

  One by one Sharon made room for the disabled geese, three great horned owls, the brilliant-hued Conure parrot who liked to affectionately nibble her ear, a dozen finches, and thirty common pigeons, one of whom was cursed with a crossed beak and couldn’t eat properly. Sharon’s friends always marveled at the hours she spent patiently feeding the crippled creature.

  The last cage she placed on the passenger seat next to her. It held a one-winged yellow-headed blackbird named Troubador. The sweet bird had been so badly abused by its owner that he could never be rehabilitated into the wild, which was always Sharon’s goal. So she built him his own house with a bird-size swing. Every morning the little singer thanked her with his beautiful song.

  Oftentimes, listening to Troubador’s spring trilling, Sharon was reminded of the time she lived in the Colorado Rockies. She’d walk for hours entranced by nature and the long, sweet melodies of the meadowlarks. She could understand why some thought the birds were a spiritual link between heaven and earth.

  Sixty feathered frie
nds in all found their place in Sharon’s van. The slender, elegant woman who knew birds as Faith and Diana knew dogs and cats, anticipated no problems on the journey to Best Friends. A weather front was moving in, but not until tomorrow. She would arrive in the canyon before sunset chilled the air for her charges.

  But the snow started as she passed through Flagstaff: fluttery wisps of flakes that turned the Coconino Forest into an unforeseen winter wonderland. Sharon turned up the heat and soldiered on. Half an hour later the van was inching through a blizzard. It was 11:00 P.M. before Sharon crawled into the canyon. The Welcome Center was dark. She maneuvered the van through a foot of powder toward a dim glow in a cabin next to the Hamlet.

  Nathania was dozing on the couch. “You got here,” she yawned happily, stretching the cricks out of her neck. “I figured you might be late. Need some help unloading?”

  “Thank you,” Sharon said gratefully. “We’ve got to move fast or the birds will catch cold.”

  Nathania pulled on a fleece jacket and bounced out of the cabin. “Let’s do it.”

  Paul and Virgil had built the temporary aviary at the lower end of the meadow, not 50 yards from Sharon’s new home. The two women worked quickly, nesting the protesting birds in the warmth of their respective quarters. Nathania’s happy chatter bubbled into the night, bringing a smile to her tired friend’s face—which was exactly what she intended. Nathania’s laugh echoed around them. “I’m so glad you’re here, Sharon. We’ve got so much to catch up on.”

  The snow stopped as they nestled the last bird. Nathania made them a cup of chamomile tea, then she and Sharon stood side by side on the porch, bundled in scarves and gloves, gazing over a carpet of white, heeding a silence so complete and unsullied by the unsubtle sounds of the city that it begged reverence.

  Suddenly in the midnight air they heard a fierce Whoo, Whoo, Whoo. “It’s three owls,” Sharon whispered. “A family. Hear the little one squeak? The babies stay with their parents for six months after birth. That’s what they sound like.” She cocked her head listening, then turned to the dark mass of the cliffs. “They’re on the ridge behind us.”

  Nathania squeezed her friend’s hand. “They’re welcoming you home, Sharon.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Medicine Man

  With the June 1994 issue, the magazine’s circulation topped 10,000 and finally outgrew the label parties. The get-togethers were fun when there were only a few thousand zip codes to slap on envelopes, but they became drudgery, and totally inefficient, when the number passed five figures—and growing every month. Steven now had to ship the magazine layout to his friend in Phoenix to print and mail, and at the same time he moved his office to The Village.

  He needed a quiet place to work. The Hamlet was getting to resemble Grand Central Station. Mariko Hirano, Chandra Forsythe, who had worked with Cyrus and Anne in Denver, and Faith’s daughter Carragh now helped Estelle and Charity full time with the letters and phone calls.

  The activity was spilling over to the new Welcome Center. Anne Mejia was no longer surprised to have two or three families a day stop in and ask if they could tour the sanctuary. It was becoming evident that as Best Friends reached out to the world, so the world was finding its way to the sanctuary.

  To Cyrus it was clear that another chapter was unfolding. He remembered how when he first arrived, old Grant Robinson mentioned a Paiute medicine man whose people had once inhabited the canyon.

  Once again he thought of the looting of the sacred places, the litter, and the carelessness of those who had passed through in earlier years. Cyrus felt that if people were again to be welcomed to the canyon there should be a cleansing and apology to the land for all it had endured. Cyrus would ask a blessing on Angel Canyon from the spiritual leader of the Paiutes.

  Clifford Jake was a very old man. His movements were slow and stiff and he leaned heavily on a stout, polished staff as Steven helped him from his car.

  Michael felt the eerie chill of déjà vu. Once again he flashed back to the ancient prophet who had appeared on a beach in the Yucatán Peninsula to foretell their coming to this place.

  Anne and Cyrus weren’t sure what they expected, but they were somewhat disappointed to see the medicine man in Levis and cowboy boots. The old Indian smiled. “We don’t go around in feathers and breechclouts anymore,” he reminded gently.

  Cyrus walked around the koi pond and took the old man’s worn hands between his. “Forgive us. We are so honored to have you here.” He turned to Anne, who passed him a pouch of tobacco and the sage smudge stick he had made. Cyrus had been told that it was proper protocol to give a gift when you asked for a ceremony to be performed by such a powerful leader. He’d taken great care wrapping the sage branches, tying them into a wandlike rod, and drying the stick in the sun before the Paiute’s arrival. The old man took the offering and nodded. Respect had been paid.

  As cirrus clouds scudded across an azure sky the spiritual leader explained that most every curve of the canyon had been defiled by those who knew no better. Yet there was one sacred place from which his benedictions could heal all. With stately dignity, Clifford Jake directed the little band to Angels Landing. There, on the grassy carpet beneath the vigilant watch of the red rock dome, he carefully arranged the paraphernalia of ceremony.

  The medicine man stretched his arms to the vast spaces of the mesas and intoned for the benefit of his untutored listeners. “This is the place where the nations used to gather to seek guidance from Mother Nature for their future.”

  Clifford Jake closed his eyes. Silence swaddled them like a cloak. On the still, transparent air the distinct, true notes of the rarely seen canyon wren wafted sweetly in the afternoon. The Indian smiled. “Now we begin.”

  Cyrus and Anne held hands as, from a worn leather pouch, the Paiute sprinkled cornmeal and tobacco in four directions. Steven and Michael listened quietly as he chanted words they couldn’t understand. Clifford Jake culled a small, smooth stone from his effects and offered it to the heavens, the earth, the rush of spring river and surrounding cliffs. “I am calling the spirits back to make right what wrong has been done here,” he said.

  Last to be chosen from the medicine man’s belongings was a beaded drawstring bag. With utmost care, the old man opened the multi-colored purse and showed them an exquisite fan of beaten silver. “Now I invoke a blessing for all of you, and for what you’re planning here.”

  Clifford Jake instructed Cyrus to gather some juniper sprigs. “Only pick those upon which the full sun shines.” Cyrus brought the juniper and the old man lit the tips of the branches.

  The twigs smoldered as he walked the perimeter of Angels Landing. The silver spines of the fan ruffled the smoke under the varnished rock of the cave, over clutches of scarlet-flowered globe mallow, purple mulberry, and gray-green mullein, finally enveloping the still forms of his hosts in the fragrant vapors.

  After the spiritual leader had taken his leave, the little group repaired to the Welcome Center. The prayers of the medicine man had a powerful effect. Each felt the blessing to go forward, sensed the presence of the spirits of the canyon.

  Cyrus put forth a suggestion. He and Anne should find another place to live nearby. Norm Cram’s stone house should be dedicated to receiving the many thousands of visitors the old Paiute predicted would be coming.

  Before the evening shadows descended it was agreed that the Welcome Center should be Anne Mejia’s province. As the acknowledged master of the history, flora and fauna of the canyon, artist extraordinaire, and grand teller of tales, Cyrus would be their new ambassador and conduct the tours of the canyon.

  Anne had a million plans. “I’ll put in a lovely gift shop. We’ll make a video of the sanctuary for people to watch in the living room.” She glowed with excitement. “I love the pond. After all, it was because of that pond we have our Welcome Center. I want to plant a beautiful wishing garden, a place to thank everyone for helping the animals.”

  “Interesting,” Micha
el said. “How would it work?”

  “People would send in their wish. We would inscribe it on special biodegradable paper that we’ll then wrap around a flower seed and plant. We will bless the flower and pray that as it grows their dream comes true.”

  Michael smiled at her enthusiasm. Anne Mejia would turn the stone house into one of the most inviting and welcoming places in the sanctuary. She and Cyrus would be the ideal gatekeepers for the canyon.

  As Faith had realized years before, each of them had their own special gifts which contributed to the whole that was Best Friends, and Michael was soon to see even more clearly the truth of her prescience.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Finding Their Gifts

  Michael walked slowly. Up ahead, That Naughty Girl and three newcomers he was fostering for Faith romped and teased an increasingly irritated Sun. The Doberman didn’t want to be bothered this afternoon. He still enjoyed his daily exercise, but Michael saw that the dog moved stiffly lately. The whirling, twirling bounciness of youth had given way to sedate, deliberate meanderings along familiar trails. Sun was showing his thirteen years.

  The daily hikes with his dogs had become a pleasant ritual. Michael never tired of their frolicking, and in the solitude of the high desert he did some of his best thinking. At that moment he was pondering how each of the Best Friends were finding their own niche in the new scheme of the sanctuary.

  Nobody had dreamed that Virgil Barstad, their soulful violinist, composer, and lover of John Deere tractors—the bigger the better—had a talent for math.

  “I need help!” John Christopher groaned after one particularly grueling month of juggling income with outflow and still coming up short.

  Virgil was home from tabling in Colorado. “I had a pretty good head for figures in college,” he offered.