The Edge of Winter

by Luanne Rice

  Standing in the barn, he listened to the radio. He knew that the whole thing was being televised. He had a TV in the house. But he’d grown up on radio, listening to Red Sox games with his brother. He liked the way announcers described things, letting the listener use his imagination to bring the events alive.

  Right now he wished the events would just cease. How could the United States let this happen, sell history to the highest bidder? The announcer described the scene on Refuge Beach: the governor was there, one U.S. senator, an admiral or two, some Coast Guard commanders…Joe pictured the uniforms, imagined them giving gravity and a military stamp of approval to the operation.

  Townspeople were spread out, all bundled up against the cold February wind. There were family members—and several of the USS James’s crew were on hand. Joe was willing to bet there were no family members of U-823 present. He wondered whether Tim was there. Probably he was. Refuge Beach was a state park, and Tim was the park ranger.

  Joe knew how his son felt about U-823. Probably he would be very glad to see it go—good riddance to the wreck Tim blamed for just about everything that had ever gone wrong in his life. Joe glanced over at his workbench. There, above some small cages and a bunch of scattered bird bands, he saw the picture of his grandson, Frank. Tim’s only child. There he was in his Marine uniform, a snapshot taken outside of Baghdad. Joe knew that Tim probably blamed Frank’s being in Baghdad on U-823.

  And maybe he was even partly right….

  But that didn’t make it okay for Cole Landry to raise the dead, move them to a tidy little berth on Cape Cod, flanked by a clam shack and a bunch of tourist motels.

  Joe stood still, looking around the barn. Eyes stared out at him from all the enclosures, and he saw his own breath hanging in the cold air. He felt closer to Damien here than anywhere else, among the birds. Damien had become a flyboy, and Joe had become a sailor—but in some ways, both of them had gone down in flames.

  Making his way around the big space, Joe did his work. There weren’t enough people trained to keep injured birds alive; Joe had gained a reputation through the years, and people brought him the ones they found. He had a cardinal that had slammed into a wall of glass—the homeowner had hung a feeder of sunflower seeds right by the huge window, for prime viewing—a seagull that had swallowed a fishhook, and a robin that had had a broken wing last summer and now refused to leave Joe’s barn, long after the wing had healed.

  But mainly he dealt with raptors. That was his specialty—probably because they had been Damien’s favorite. As boys they had made it their mission to locate every eagle’s aerie in Rhode Island, every fish hawk’s nest along the Atlantic coast.

  So now Joe had a red-tailed hawk that had eaten rat poison, a great horned owl that had been shot with a bow and arrow, a kestrel that had flown into the window of a passing semi on I-95, a young orphaned long-eared owl, a Cooper’s hawk that had lost most of its tail feathers in a beef with a black bear, a turkey vulture that had flown into high-tension electrical wires, a barn owl that had become entangled in a barbed wire fence, and a gray morph screech owl with two broken wings.

  At the sound of a car pulling into the yard, he went to the barn door. There was a station wagon with three people and, yep, a cage. Another wounded bird. Joe took a deep breath. He wasn’t good at turning people away, but if he didn’t draw the line somewhere, he wouldn’t be able to give good care to the hurt birds that were already in his barn.

  So he walked out into the yard, waving his arms.

  “Go away,” he said.

  They had their car windows rolled up—heat probably blaring out, keeping them warm, but hurting the bird in back. People wanted to help, but they had no idea.

  “Go away,” he said louder. “No room at the inn.”

  There were two women—well, one woman and a girl. They looked surprised by his lack of welcome. Maybe even a little offended, hurt. Don’t take it personally, he wanted to tell them. But there was a young man in the back seat—all fired up. Joe could see it in his face even before the back door opened.

  “What do you mean, ‘go away’?” the boy asked, jumping out.

  “I mean what I just said. There’s no room at the inn.”

  “This isn’t a joke,” the boy said.

  “I don’t mean it to be one.”

  The boy was about seventeen, eighteen. Tall, lanky, something irreverent about him. Long brown hair, a jacket with some surfboard insignia on it. He didn’t have a hat or gloves on; there was a row of fresh stitches along the side of his head. Joe felt the kid taking his measure, knew that he was seeing an old man, pushing eighty-six, six foot four but stooped over, short gray hair, serious frown. Joe knew his frown could scare off even the bravest men, and this kid didn’t look all that brave. Tough, maybe—but how brave could a surfer be?

  “Think you can find your way out?” Joe asked.

  “I told you, we have an injured bird.”

  “And I told you—no room—”

  “At the inn. I know.” The kid shook his head—more in disappointment, it seemed, than anger. He turned, shrugged to the girl and woman still waiting in the car.

  “What’s your problem?” Joe asked.

  “You’re not what I expected.”

  “What the hell would you expect? You don’t know me.”

  “I thought I knew something about the guy who sank the U-boat.”

  “You’re a surfer, aren’t you?” Joe asked, nodding toward the patch on the kid’s jacket. “Surfers and old Navy men don’t have much in common.”

  “Yeah. Turns out you’re right about that. I had some other idea.”

  At that, the kid whipped around, started walking back toward the car. Joe saw the woman register whatever was showing on the kid’s face—sulking probably—and she opened her door. Jesus, Joe thought. He really didn’t want to have to go through the whole thing again, especially not with someone as pretty as her. She had straight hair that fell across high cheekbones, soft blue eyes, and a huge dose of hope in her smile.

  “Mr. O’Casey?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, suspicious. Did he know her? Had his forgetfulness—usually confined to whether or not he’d taken his pills, where he’d put his reading glasses, whether he’d fed the birds or not—spread to the point where he was forgetting that he’d met a beautiful woman?

  “The Gray Goose?” she asked, smiling wider.

  “That’s me,” he said, straightening with pride at his nickname.

  “We’ve brought you a new patient,” she said. “My daughter and her friend rescued it from the beach last night.”

  “As I just told your young surfer friend, there’s no—”

  She took a step closer. He looked into those eyes and saw the smile disappear. For a moment, he saw an expression he remembered from war—the kind of desperation that came from defeat, death, losing that which mattered most.

  “Please,” she said. “Mr. O’Casey.”

  He hesitated, aware of the young man stepping a little closer to her, just in case she needed him. That one step did something to Joe, but he didn’t let on.

  “It’s a snowy owl,” the woman said, giving Joe just the out he needed—to avoid the sentimentality he always felt when he saw something that reminded him of Tim when he was younger, back when they were father and son.

  “A snowy owl,” he said, standing still, looking toward the back of the station wagon. “Such a rare bird for our area. I’ve only seen one other.”

  “Please help this one,” the woman said.

  Joe hesitated, then nodded—in ways this woman and the two kids could never understand, this was exactly what he’d been waiting for. He didn’t speak, but followed her to the car, to carry the cage into his barn.

  The barn was long and tall, and painted dull red. Inside, the roof rose to a sharp peak paneled with silvery, unpainted pine. A radio was playing, and Neve heard the announcer’s low voice talking about Refuge Beach. She also heard the rustling and
calling of what sounded like hundreds of birds. Mickey and Shane were already looking around; both walls were lined with tall, deep cages—some so large, they seemed almost to be rooms made of wire mesh.

  Each space was occupied by one or more birds. The light was all natural, coming through the cages’ far sides—which opened to the outside—as well as a row of clerestory windows along the top of one wall. Hearing wing beats, she looked up and saw a hawk flying along a mesh corridor from one enclosure to another. Neve followed Joe, carrying the snowy owl, to a cage at the far end. It seemed to be the most distant from his work area, and she felt alarmed. She fell back slightly, and he looked over his shoulder.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Shouldn’t you keep him closer to your work area? He’s so badly hurt….”

  “Snowy owls are very shy birds,” he said. “I want to put him as far from most of the others as possible, not to traumatize him more than he already is. There’s an empty spot down this end.”

  Neve watched as he opened the door to one enclosure, walked right in with the cage, and set it down on the floor. He opened the door, and right away the owl escaped. Trying to fly, he toppled over, then scuttled into the corner. Joe seemed unfazed, and left the owl, bolting the wire mesh door behind him.

  Standing back, Neve met the man’s eyes. “Is he going to make it?” she asked.

  “Too soon to tell,” he said. “But most of these other birds were as badly hurt or worse. That great horned owl”—he pointed up at an owl perched on a tree—a live pine tree—growing out of a pot in an enclosure—“came to me with an arrow sticking out of its chest. Missed the heart by an inch, broke the owl’s wing as it went in. The minute I put him in there, he climbed up to the top branch. They’re resilient.”

  “Why didn’t you put the snowy owl into a cage that has a tree?” Shane asked.

  “He wouldn’t use it. Snowy owls don’t roost up high,” Mickey said softly.

  “That’s right,” the man said, smiling at her. “Where do they roost?”

  “On the ground, because the arctic tundra is so flat, and trees don’t grow there. That’s why they like beaches and airport run-ways, when they come south.”

  “You’re a smart young woman,” he said. “And you know a thing or two about snowy owls. Here at the rehab we use furniture—that’s what we call trees, branches, cavity nest sites—for many species, and it all depends on the bird. Forest owls need height to feel secure. That’s why some of these cages are eighteen feet high.”

  “You built them?” Shane asked, looking up.

  “My grandson and I,” he said. “Long ago, in a different location, I built the first cages myself. That was years ago. But the enclosures were too small, I needed more room because people kept bringing me wounded birds—from all over New England. So I moved here—and my grandson helped me.”

  “Your grandson?” Neve asked, but the man didn’t respond.

  “Are you a veterinarian?” Shane asked, making even the simplest question sound like a challenge.

  The old man shook his head. “Nope. Never even finished college.”

  “Then how can you help the snowy owl?” Shane asked. “It’s so badly hurt, and it won’t eat or drink….”

  Neve wanted to put her hand on his shoulder, remind him to be polite. She knew that he was upset—they’d been unable to locate his mother, and even though he was nearly a grown man, he’d had stitches last night. Kids needed their parents after a visit to the ER—at any age. She glanced at Mickey and Shane, knew they were bonding, partly, over missing parents. But the old man seemed barely to notice Shane’s rude tone.

  “The most important part of caring for hurt birds is mostly about helping to mend their broken spirits,” the man said.

  “But…”

  “That’s why these enclosures are so big,” the man explained. “Frank helped me build them tall and wide, and we put those flight corridors in overhead, because birds need to make their own choices. As often as possible…They need to choose their own territories, select their own roost, choose what height suits them, decide whether they want seclusion or exposure, whether they want to be alone or have company.”

  “Company?” Neve asked.

  “There are several breeding pairs here,” he said.

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Yep,” he said. “We’ve raised a bunch of families in this barn. Another reason for the large spaces—they have to be suitable for young raptors learning to fly. They have to be big enough for the adult males to catch live prey, and for the babies to learn that food moves and fights back.”

  “That’s amazing,” Neve said. She felt wonder and admiration, and looked into the old man’s blue eyes for signs of Tim. They were there, too. Not just the color, but the spirit—bright, intelligent, in love with nature, wanting to help. What had happened between them?

  “Is that why they call you the Gray Goose?” Mickey asked. “Because you know so much about birds, because you’ve rescued so many?”

  He shook his head. “No, I got that nickname long before I started this rehab.” He began to walk over toward a long workbench set up in the middle of the barn. “Did you know snowy owls feed on lemmings? That’s their—”

  “You got it when you were in the Navy, right?” Shane asked. “The nickname?”

  “Yep,” he said. “A long time ago. I don’t like it much anymore.”

  “Why not?” Shane asked.

  “Because the Silver Shark isn’t here anymore. He was the one who started it, but what did he know? War nicknames are stupid. They take the curse off what’s really going on.”

  “I thought you were a big war hero,” Shane said. “You sank U-823.”

  “That I did,” he said.

  “Are you sorry you did it?” Shane asked.

  “Sorry I sank an enemy U-boat? That was trying to sink our ships?”

  “Yeah,” Shane said.

  Neve watched Joseph O’Casey frown, go to the workbench, start filling out a sheet of paper. It looked like a standard form; he beckoned Mickey over, and she helped him fill in the blanks. Where was the bird found? When? Identifying marks? Species? Neve heard the radio broadcast coming from Refuge Beach, and so did Shane.

  “I’m sorry about a lot of things,” he said. “That’s my right as an old man. Maybe you’ll understand when you’re my age, and maybe you won’t.” With that, Cole Landry’s voice said, “…and we are proud to announce that we will raise U-823 this spring. Even now the crane is en route, on schedule to arrive in Secret Harbor. On April seventeenth, the anniversary of the day the USS James so bravely fought back the enemy, our team will be in place to hoist the U-boat from the sea bottom and transport it to…”

  “April seventeenth,” Joe O’Casey muttered, turning off the radio. “God almighty.”

  Shane opened his mouth as if to protest, but then he just shook his head and backed away, down the row of cages, toward the snowy owl. Mickey followed him, leaving Neve and Tim’s father alone.

  “I’m sorry about what Cole Landry is doing,” Neve said.

  “So am I.”

  “We had blackout shades in my house, when I was growing up,” she said. “Left over from World War II.”

  Joe stared at the silent radio. “All the houses along the coastline did. Lights shining from the houses and town could silhouette ships, making it easier for the U-boats to see and attack them. Kids now can’t imagine what it was like. There was no eerier sound than the sirens going off—right here in Rhode Island—telling people to black out their lights and go inside.”

  “I always wondered why my parents and grandparents left the shades up so long after the war was over.”

  “Maybe because it was such an important event in their lives,” he said. “It was, in all of ours. It affected every single person who lived in Rhode Island, Connecticut—all along the eastern seaboard, really.”

  “And you were patrolling the coast?”

  “Yes. I was
in the Navy; my brother was in the Air Corps. We joined up right after Pearl Harbor.”

  “Your brother was the Silver Shark?”

  Joseph O’Casey nodded. “We sort of switched nicknames—he wanted to be called something that reminded him of me, on the sea, and I was called Gray Goose to remind me of him in the sky.”

  “Did your brother die in the war?”

  Joe shook his head. “He might as well have. He came home from the war a different man. I guess I did, too. Just ask my son.” He looked over at Neve, as if willing her to tell him the truth. “That’s who sent you here, right? Tim?”

  “He actually…” Neve began, not wanting to hurt the old man’s feelings by telling him that Tim had tried to stop her from coming.

  “Oh, I know he wouldn’t come himself,” Joe said, waving his hand. “Don’t try to shield him. He’s made it clear how he feels. Not that I don’t agree with him, most of the time. He thinks I’m better suited for life with hawks and owls than people.”

  “I don’t know,” Neve said, smiling. “You seem okay to me.”

  Joe gave her a grizzled smile, then went back to filling out the paperwork. As curator of a gallery, Neve knew about logging things in. In her case, it was paintings or drawings or photographs. In Joe’s case, it was wildlife. She drifted closer to the workbench, saw that Joe had hung two pictures on the wall behind it. One was a painting of an osprey soaring over a long white beach—and it took her breath away.

  “That’s an original Berkeley!” she said.

  “I collect him,” he said. “Or I used to, before his stuff got so expensive.”

  “I work at the Dominic di Tibor Gallery,” she said. “And we’re doing a retrospective on him. I’m just writing the catalogue copy now…there’s so little known about him.”