• • •
Ned eased the Cadillac onto the highway. His passenger sat beside him, clad in cotton pants, a T-shirt, and sneakers, her curly hair framing a large pair of sunglasses. Her bodyguard perched in the covered crate on the back seat.
Luna looked approvingly around the car. “What do they call this color?” she asked, gesturing to the hood. “All these classic car colors have cool names.”
“Spectre Blue Firemist,” he answered.
“See? I knew it!”
She removed her shoes and crossed her legs. He waited for her to make the first conversational move, but she continued to gaze silently out the window. Normally this would be the answer to his prayers, but after a half an hour he began to wonder if he should take a stab at communicating. After all, he certainly wasn’t going to be in this position ever again. The problem, he knew, was that he needed to start off with something interesting, unusual, and deep, otherwise she would think he was an idiot.
“So, what’s it like being married to a billionaire?” he asked, then immediately cursed himself out.
She regarded him with an inscrutable expression, and he forced his eyes back to the road. “Never mind,” he said.
“Did you ever go to a county fair when you were a kid?” she asked. “At first you’re blown away by how much stuff there is to do and see and buy. But then everything becomes a blur, and then you start feeling sick, and then you want to leave.”
Ned nodded. “Got it.” She turned toward him, rested her head against the seat, and promptly fell asleep.
Ned drove in silence, occasionally turning on the radio when he grew tired of questioning his own sanity. He pondered the connection between Warren and dildos, concluding that if this person did, in fact, collect plastic penises, it would hardly be the strangest thing that had happened to him in the last two days.
Three and a half hours later he passed the sign for the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge, slowed down, and found an unmarked break in the thick vegetation. You’re driving toward lions, he thought, with a meat-eating bird in your car. This sequence is flawed.
Luna opened her eyes. She gazed groggily out the window, and regarded Ned with surprise. “We’re here already?” she asked. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sleep the whole way!”
Ned pulled up beside an old cabin surrounded by a riot of plant life. Pale lime to forest green, slender stalks to jagged fronds, they all seemed to be trying to elbow each other out of the way; no doubt wanting to be the first to engulf the unsuspecting blue Cadillac which had just blundered into their midst.
“Look how beautiful!” said Luna, when she emerged from the car. “Look at the orchids. Look at that cypress over there.”
Ned regarded the bursting vegetation. He turned slowly, head tilted backward, and suddenly found himself staring into the penetrating dark eyes of a man with shaggy grey hair and a full grey beard.
“Gah!” cried Ned, heart thudding.
Luna hurried over and threw her arms around the man, who regarded Ned with amusement. “I keep telling you not to do that,” she said with mock severity, as he encircled her with a tanned, muscular arm and kissed her forehead.
“Sorry, man,” he said lazily, and extended his hand.
“It’s okay,” said Ned, impressed by his grip and fitness, estimating he had to be in his mid-sixties. “She warned me. I just…y’know. Didn’t see you coming.”
“No one ever does,” drawled Warren.
Luna opened the Cadillac’s door and reached for the covered crate. “Sweet,” said Warren, eyeing the car. “So, what have you got?”
“Mars,” said Luna.
“Mars!” he repeated, mystified.
Luna’s crystal eyes filled and her lower lip trembled. Ned was so thrown by her gust of emotion that his gaze returned to Warren, to see how he would react. Warren stiffened, then gave him a look of such intensity that Ned’s stomach plummeted.
“What’d you do to her, man?” he demanded, his voice an octave lower.
“Ned was a lifesaver,” said Luna, regrouping. ”I owe him big-time. Please, Ned, don’t go yet. That was a long drive — stay the night! At least stay for dinner.” She addressed Warren. “Right?”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” said Warren, appeased. “Come on. Let’s get the birdie out, then we’ll all have a beer.”
Ned’s heart slowed as he watched them pull the crate from the car. The dark sheet slipped and revealed a side window. Behind it hovered a cold yellow eye and a great hooked beak.
“Go on inside,” called Warren, as they disappeared into the underbrush. “We’ll be five minutes.”
• • •
Harper stood before an ornate water trough with a hose, the head of a Bactrian camel resting on her shoulder. Absently she scratched the camel’s chin, wondering how long she’d be keeping her current job.
I don’t want to be a reporter, she had told her father. I want to work with animals.
That’s not a profession, replied her father, the managing editor of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Harper had grinned as she drove north on the Pacific Coast highway, her degree in Animal Biology from UC Davis tucked into the side pocket of a battered suitcase. She had loved her job at the wildlife rehabilitation center in Alaska, loved the crystalline winters, the exuberant explosion of life in the spring and summer, and the palpable restlessness of the migratory wildlife just before the leaves began to turn.
That’s called Zugunruhe, said her caribou biologist friend, and it’s why you won’t stay in Alaska.
Three years later Luna called, told her she’d married her boss, and asked if Harper would move to Florida and replace her as Adam Matheson’s zookeeper. Harper found the offer irresistible for two reasons: it would allow her to give in to her pent-up Zugunruhe, and it would get her closer to her goal, which was to study the difference in communication patterns between Spinner and Bottlenose Dolphins.
Harper’s left pocket fluttered. She eased the camel’s head off her shoulder and moved to his other side, effectively placing his body between her and the camera installed on a palm tree. A few hours earlier she had stopped by a coffee shop and picked up the burner phone Luna left for her. Harper pulled the vibrating phone from her pocket and read the text.
777-388-0021 We’re at Warren’s. This is my new number. Thanks again! More later xx
Harper glanced at the time, pocketed the phone, and headed toward a long building ringed by azaleas. Once inside she passed the Honduran Curly Hair, the Brazilian Black, the Green Bottle Blue, and the Chilean Rose Hair, then stopped at the Mexican Red Knee. She reached in, carefully picked her up, and placed her on her open palm. Most tarantulas didn’t like to be handled, but this Red Knee was a honey.
Harper was standing in front of her office window, her back to the door, when Adam and Roland entered. She waited until they were fairly close behind her and then turned around, the thick, hairy Red Knee calmly clasping the front of her shirt.
“Christ!” said Roland, slamming on the brakes.
“What can I do for you, gentlemen?” asked Harper.
The quintet of tarantulas, as well as the rest of the zoo, had been the brainchild of Adam’s third wife. I don’t know why he keeps the spiders, Luna had said, shrugging at Harper’s initial query. Must be some macho thing. They scare the shit out of him and Roland.
Adam’s outward composure didn’t even waver. You have to hand it to him, thought Harper, if it’s possible to hand anything to a soulless ecosystem serial killer.
“What are you doing?” he asked, in a conversational tone.
“Routine arachnid check-up,” she replied.
“Where’s Luna?”
“No idea.”
“You called her phone yesterday afternoon at 4:23.”
“I suspect the way you obtained that information is illegal.”
“I suspect that really doesn’t matter.”
“Cut the shit, Harper,” growled Roland. “Where is
she?”
Harper cocked her head. “You know something, Roland?” she said. “You could take me down, but I’d hurt you on the way.”
“And it would be your last act on earth.”
“You have a bad attitude, Harper,” said Adam, without changing his tone. “The only reason you’re still here is Luna, so it’s in your best interest to cooperate.”
“Oh,” she said, as if this were news to her. “In that case…”
“Did you help Luna take that eagle?”
Harper delicately touched the tarantula on her chest. A moment later, she leveled her assassin’s eyes at Adam.
“No,” she said.
• • •
Warren, Ned, and Luna sat in a row, beer cans in hand, facing four video screens. The cameras focused on a two-acre enclosure surrounded by a fourteen-foot heavy-gauge wire fence. From his cabin Warren could make the cameras swivel, lighten and darken, zoom in and out, and take videos. Four microphones picked up the sounds.
“There’s a barrier on top of the fence, too,” said Warren. “Fourteen feet is not much of a deterrent when you can jump eighteen from a standstill.”
“There he is,” said Luna, pointing to a lean form stretched on the ground, perfectly camouflaged by the sun-dappled soil. The panther flicked his long tail into the air, rolled onto his back, then curled onto his other side, yawning.
“Good kitty,” said Warren.
The cabin was filled with outdoor gear, camera equipment, and stacks of books and outdoor magazines. Photographs of wild panthers hung haphazardly from the walls.
“What happened to him?” asked Ned.
“Hit by car, like most of ‘em,” said Warren. “Unless they get shot by those limp dicks who call themselves hunters. Panthers used to range all across North America. Forests, mountains, deserts. Now they’re only in Canada and the west, down to Mexico. Florida panthers are a subspecies, you used to find ‘em across nearly the entire southeast. Now? They’re gone. The only breeding population of Florida panthers is right in this area.”
He shook his head. “They’re the toughest, most beautiful wild athletes this country has ever known. They’re the embodiment of the free spirit of America. Settlers called them Ghost Cats. They’re innocent killers …”
He gave a grunt of disgust. “And they’re gone. Maybe a two hundred left in Florida. All thanks to the vermin hordes of fuckheads that come here so they can drain and build, like that scum-sucker prick husband of Luna’s. Our girl here did not do her homework before making a major life decision.”
Luna gave a rueful sigh. “I did not.”
Ned looked back at the screen, anxious to absorb the comparative tranquility of the lone mountain lion, but it was no longer there. He scanned the monitors, startled when the cat’s head suddenly appeared directly before the screen.
“Now you see him, now you don’t,” said Luna. “Just like Warren.”
Warren turned up the volume, and a bass purr filled their ears. “You know why they can purr?” he asked Ned. “Because they have hyoid bones, which are tiny little bones that run from the back of their tongue to the base of their skull. When the smaller cats — say, bobcats, lynxes, ocelots, or panthers — want to purr they vibrate their larynx, and that makes the hyoid bones resonate. The hyoid bones of the big cats — lions, tigers, jaguars, or leopards — are reinforced with cartilage, so they can’t resonate. But the cartilage makes their larynx flexible, so they can roar. Big cats can roar but not purr, and small cats can purr but not roar.”
“Wow. I thought a small cat meant a house cat.”
“A house cat is a toy cat.”
“He has a nice sound,” said Ned, cocking his head. “Like a ’74 Barracuda 408 with a 6.51 V8.”
Warren stared at him, and Ned froze. What had he done? He had insulted the panther man’s panthers by comparing them to the machines that ran them over. He pictured a fist as it flew toward his face, felt the thump of his own unresponsive body as it hit the ground of the pen, heard himself renounce his atheism as the cougar approached him, licking its chops.
“No shit!” said Warren. “I always thought they sounded more like a ’68 Mustang with a 4.71.”
Ned exhaled. “Got them both on my phone,” he said, pulling it from his pocket.
“I’ll be right back,” said Luna.
• • •
Luna passed the Cadillac, the pickup truck, and the clinic, then she slid through the underbrush and reached the slatted wooden enclosure. It was eight feet high, ten feet wide, and twenty feet long, built in a day by a crew of twelve after Warren fished an injured Wood Stork out of the swamp, paid for by a minuscule portion of her husband’s ill-gotten gains. Mars preened himself from the top perch. The remains of a large catfish lay on the ground beside a rubber tub half-filled with water. Luna entered the enclosure and he called to her in his high-pitched giggle, a sound which always astonished those who had never actually heard a Bald Eagle’s cry.
Luna whistled, matching his descending call note for note. She knew he wouldn’t leave his perch after a meal, so she curled up on the ground nearby.
Babe, Adam had said. When you’re in finance, you get cornered into doing things you don’t want to do, things that violate your moral code. But I promise I’m listening to you. I’m pouring money into new technology. Don’t you think I lie awake at night, obsessing about the world I’m leaving to my kids?
Bullshit, said Harper flatly. You want to know what he’s pouring money into? Gutting the carbon tax proposal. Read The Wall Street Journal.
Luna walked back to the cabin, grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, and found Ned and Warren on the back porch grilling hamburgers. Conversation ceased as Warren stared at her.
“I’m gonna take that guy out,” he said matter-of-factly.
Luna’s eyes widened. “No, you’re not,” she said. “That would only make things worse.”
“How would it make things worse? I’d say it would solve a hell of a lot of problems, and not just yours.”
“I’m going to get Mars to a safe place. I’m going to get both eagles to a safe place.”
“And you don’t think he’ll be looking for you?”
“Come on, Warren, he can replace me in a second! He can have any woman he wants. I told him he didn’t have to give me any money.”
Ned watched as Warren sighed and gave her a surprisingly tender look. “You don’t get it, do you?” he asked her. He turned to Ned. “She doesn’t get it.”
Ned attempted to assume an expression of wisdom, but the whole situation reminded him of lying on the floor of a friend’s apartment, smoking way too much hash, and watching a foreign film with no subtitles.
“It’s not just him,” said Warren. ”Fish and Wildlife’ll be after you, too. And state conservation. Not to mention the cops.”
“Fish and what?” asked Ned.
“Wildlife,” said Warren. “The government. Eagles are a protected species. You can’t just help yourself to one.”
“The government protects eagles? Then why don’t you call them?”
“Because the government knows shit about eagles,” said Warren. “Goddamned government’s half the problem.”
“Thanks to the government, it’s against the law to touch these birds without a license,” said Luna. “But some of the government wildlife people are great and some are not, which means I can’t trust any of them. If they get a hold of Mars, there’s no guarantee they’ll reunite him with his mate. There’s no guarantee they won’t put him down for being a dangerous bird.”
“A dangerous bird,” repeated Ned pointedly.
“Where can you go where they won’t catch you?” asked Warren.
“They won’t catch me. And I’m going to Canada. To Hélène’s.”
“What?”
“Who’s Hélène?” asked Ned.
The dining room table was piled with hamburgers, containers of deli food, and beer. Grace Slick’s clarion voice emerged from a pair of
speakers on either side of a turntable, slicing through the chorus of crickets on a warm summer night.
“Hélène de la Croix,” said Warren, drawing the syllables into a seductively long growl: Hel-ennnnne de la Quaaaaaaa. “She’s a warrior queen. Gotta be 85 by now, and everyone’s still scared shitless of her.”
“She has an eagle sanctuary in Ontario,” said Luna. “If I get Mars and his mate there, no one will be able to touch them. Not Adam, not the police, not the government. No one.”
“But…” said Ned. “He’s a billionaire. He can do whatever he wants. And the government — can’t they extradite eagles?”
“Let me tell you about Hélène,” she said, putting down her hamburger.
“Hang on,” said Warren. “I’ll get a visual.” Ned watched him rise and disappear down the hallway, relieved to have something to focus on besides Luna’s unnerving blue gaze. Warren returned and handed him a framed black and white photograph. Ned had once watched a documentary about iconic protest images, and now a series of them flashed through his mind.
Police dogs in Birmingham, Alabama. Kent State. The Stonewall Riots. Women marching down Fifth Avenue. And now, in his hands, the most powerful and celebrated photograph of the early environmental movement.
Thunderclouds loomed. The rain slashed sideways. Propped before a brick wall was a large wooden cross, and chained to the cross was what appeared to be a woman with outstretched wings. The wind whipped ropes of drenched hair across her high cheekbones, her feral eyes, and her expression of wild fury. As she struggled to burst from her chains, a perfect bolt of lightning bisected the roiling sky.
“The Canadian Bird Woman,” said Ned.
“Hélène,” said Warren.
“It was the 1960s,” said Luna, her voice hushed, as if she were telling him a secret. “People were just beginning to wake up to the environmental devastation taking place all over the United States and Canada. There was that huge oil spill in Santa Barbara. You couldn’t breathe for the smog. DDT was legal, and so was using lead in paint.
“A man named Kevin Dean owned a big paint factory in Michigan, on the southern shore of Lake Huron. He’d dump the paint he didn’t want into the lake. On the northern shore of Lake Huron is Ontario, where many of the lead-poisoned eagles went to die.
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