Unflappable

by Suzie Gilbert

  “I’m going to kill both those bastards,” he said. “Stanley called me, I got some guys heading for Chicago right now.”

  “No! It’ll just make things worse! Besides, I don’t know what I’ve done to Adam, when I left he was out cold.”

  “What happened?”

  “I, um…y’know. Hit him.”

  Warren sighed. “Look, my guys are going to get you to Minnesota. I got buddies there with a cabin, that sonofabitch could hire an army and he wouldn’t get through ‘em. Where are you?”

  “At a friend’s.”

  “What friend?”

  “Uh…Lyllis. You don’t know her.”

  “Lyllis! Wait a minute — she’s not Roland Edwards’s girlfriend, is she?”

  “Where else was I supposed to go?”

  “Will you get out of there?”

  Luna took a quick hot shower, emerged in Lyllis’s pink and turquoise robe, and found Lyllis hanging up her phone. ”My cousin works the night shift at the hospital, and she said Adam came in with a bloody head a half hour ago. So you didn’t kill him, but let’s just say he wasn’t a happy man. Follow me.”

  Lyllis bustled into the bedroom and begin pulling clothes out of her closet. “Here,” she said, tossing her a navy button-down shirt and a striped scarf. “On you, it’ll be a dress with a belt. Think Garbo,” she added, tossing her a hat and a pair of sunglasses. “And take off that bling. Give it here, I’m gonna hide it.”

  Luna unfastened the diamond necklace. “We need to go right now,” said Lyllis. “There’s only one fight in the world Roland Edwards will back away from, and that’s with me. But let’s not push our luck.”

  Chapter 21

  Elias poured himself a second cup of coffee and glanced out at the misty morning. His laptop lay open on the kitchen table, flanked by two phones. One was his regular cell phone, the second he had purchased yesterday. The banner on his computer screen read Ten Frequently Asked Questions About Your New Burner Phone.

  He had bought it on impulse. He wasn’t clear about this hacking business; he knew at one point Luna had one so her husband couldn’t track her, and considering the way things were going, he thought he should have one, too. After one of the volunteers showed him how to transfer the numbers of the 119 rehabbers in Luna’s group onto his new phone, he sent out a message.

  529-628-4720 Rehabbers: this is my new untraceable burner phone so I’m not going to ID myself except you know me from the West Nile Virus conference last year. Be careful. Don’t write anything someone could hack.

  amphibious632@hotmail.com Gotcha

  bluestreak@juno.com Yokay

  sunny@capedaviswildlife.org Affirmative

  rackocoons@hotmail.com Where’s Esther? Our potential Wikileak?

  chiroptera@gmail.com Right here, Bob! Why don’t you fuck off?

  Ten minutes later, as he continued to investigate the capabilities of his new device, it sprang to life. Elias jumped, assuming it was the police. “Hello?” he answered hesitantly.

  “Yo, Elias,” said Warren. His tone was determinedly casual, though tightly harnessed anger clearly seeped around the edges. “Good job, getting a burner. Listen. Can you get Banshee to a location outside Lake Arrow, Minnesota by tomorrow afternoon?”

  “What?” said Elias.

  Warren explained this would be the meeting point for Stanley, Ned, and Mars, who would be coming from Northeast Iowa; Luna, who would be coming from Chicago; and Warren himself, who would be coming from Indiana. Elias needed to bring a vehicle large enough to accommodate two eagle crates and three people, because from there Elias, Warren, Luna, and the two eagles would head for Hélène’s.

  “But…Luna’s in Chicago?” asked Elias. “What’s she doing in Chicago?”

  “Long story,” said Warren. “One more thing,” he added, as if he were asking Elias to grab him a beer from the refrigerator. “Can you throw together enough paperwork to get the birds across the border?”

  “Uh, maybe,” said Elias, knowing the paperwork to get American wildlife into Canada took weeks, if not longer.

  “Good!” said Warren. “I’ll call you back.”

  Elias felt a sizzle as he hung up. He and Warren were two cool guys working under the radar, planning a special op on their burner phones. It only lasted a moment, though. Don’t be ridiculous, he told himself. It wasn’t like Banshee could just vanish, especially with Gunderman nosing around. And even if Elias managed to smuggle her out, it would take about five minutes for Gunderman to put it together and issue an APB on the center’s SUV. Elias pictured himself flooring it toward Minnesota, a platoon of screaming police cars in his wake.

  He closed his computer and pocketed his new phone. He left the kitchen, crossed the field, and hiked to the top of ridge, puzzling over why Luna had decamped to Chicago, and how he could get Banshee to Minnesota. He sat on a boulder, caught his breath, and looked over the lush Pennsylvania landscape. He and his fellow rehabbers spent their lives fighting ignorance, indifference and greed, struggling to help those who had no voice. It was clearly a one-sided battle. How much difference did the life of a bluebird, a badger, or an eagle really make?

  A lot.

  Elias clung stubbornly to his belief. He could take a wild creature on the brink of death, bring her back to life, and set her free. Not every time, of course. But when the magical, mystical, odds-defying sequence worked, it was enough to prevent him from laying down his arms, despite his weariness. And if he and his compatriots could perform these little miracles, year after year, they could certainly make an eagle disappear from Pennsylvania and reappear in Ontario.

  He pulled out his phone.

  529-628-4720 Everyone: Need unrl f BAEA 5.7 k no records. Right now.

  Elias thought of Adam Matheson’s hackers scratching their heads over the animal nut gobbledygook, unable to recognize BAEA as the American Ornithological Union’s abbreviation for Bald Eagle. They wouldn’t realize he was asking if anyone had taken in a female weighing about five and a half kilograms, whose injuries had rendered her unreleasable, and whose statistics had not yet been logged into the exhaustive records the state and federal government required rehabbers to keep. It might not stump hackers for long, but it would certainly slow them down. After a moment, his phone chimed.

  pacificawild@outlook.com Sorry

  gduncan@bobcathollow.org None

  envirowacko@gmail.com Will ask around off-line

  bluestreak@juno.com Checking.

  ben@coldcreekpreserve.org Just got one in! Roadside zoo confiscation.

  529-628-4720 Can you make her disappear?

  ben@coldcreekpreserve.org No. Conservation Police brought her in, there’s a paper trail.

  kelly@muscongusbaywildlife.org Wish I could raise the dead. BAEA intake this morning, DOA. Power line.

  Elias paused, thinking furiously. He raised his phone.

  529-628-4720 Paper trail?

  kelly@muscongusbaywildlife.org Not yet. In the freezer.

  529-628-4720 Princess and the Pauper. Right angle to NER. Are you both following?

  Elias’s phone was silent. He waited, praying the two rehabbers knew enough of Luna’s plans to decipher his shorthand. Finally, his phone chimed twice.

  kelly@muscongusbaywildlife.org Overnighting.

  ben@coldcreekpreserve.org Will deliver. Send me time and place.

  Elias sent Ben a private message.

  529-628-4720 6:15 tonight?

  ben@coldcreekpreserve.org You got it.

  Elias snapped his phone shut.

  Kelly, from Muscongus Bay Wildlife in Maine, had been a friend for years. So had Ben, who was from Cold Creek Preserve near Buffalo, New York. Both were longtime rehabbers who conscientiously followed the rules. That is, until it was clearly time to circumvent them.

  Elias went over his plan, looking for holes. Earlier this morning Kelly had taken in a female Bald Eagle, dead on arrival after hitting a power line in Maine. Kelly had put her in the freezer, and not yet fil
led out the paperwork required for eagles. Normally she would complete the forms, pack the dead eagle in ice, and overnight her to the National Eagle Repository, the federal agency which collects protected but deceased eagles and distributes their feathers to Native American tribes.

  But now, instead, she would overnight the dead eagle to Ben. Ben’s female eagle, confiscated from a roadside zoo in Buffalo by the state’s Conservation Police, was very much alive. But today Ben would record that she suddenly collapsed and died, probably due to stress and age. Tomorrow Ben would receive Kelly’s record-less eagle, repack her, insert a copy of his own records, and send her on to NER. This afternoon he would take his confiscated eagle and drive her to the Western Pennsylvania Wildlife Center. The Pauper and the Princess would switch places, the confiscated eagle would move from a dirty little zoo in upstate New York to a palace of a flight cage in Pennsylvania, and Banshee would reunite with her mate and roll on up to Ontario.

  And the plan would work because of the general blindness of humanity. Elias pictured Banshee: the slight droop of her left wing, the crooked third toe on her right foot, the unusually loud, rapidly descending notes of her cry; the way she cocked her head to compensate for her blind left eye, visible only by its slight sheen when she looked toward the sun.

  He could pick her out of a flight cage filled with eagles. But then, he knew her.

  He would have to borrow a car, call Hélène, expedite the paperwork, and find a way to get rid of Gunderman for a couple of hours. The plan would work, and no one but Elias, Celia, Stanley, Warren, Luna, Ned, and 119 rehabbers scattered across the country would know.

  Elias stood up and gazed over the hills and valleys, home to wild creatures determinedly living their lives. He raised his fist in tribute to the resistance, then he followed the trail down the mountain. Halfway through the field he noticed the hammock was swaying, and he slowed to a stop.

  It was covered with a colorful quilt. Celia swung gently, radiant, a six-month-old Wizzie beside her. On Wizzie’s other side was Luna, just turned seventeen. She had been living with Harry and Rose for almost two years. She was still quiet and guarded, but her transformation had been a thing to behold. The three of them swung in the summer shade. Dad! Join us! Celia beckoned.

  Come on, Elias, called Luna, smiling. There’s always room for you.

  He blinked, and the hammock was empty. Life is filled with miracles, he thought. Let’s see how many we can find now.

  • • •

  “Who do you think Warren’s going to kill first?” asked Stanley, his eyes bleary above his steaming coffee cup. “Matheson or Edwards?”

  Ned sat beside him. Neither of them had slept much, even after Warren had phoned to say Luna was safe. “I still can’t figure out how she got away,” said Ned, “unless another mob of rehabbers with guns showed up at his house.”

  Stanley regarded him sympathetically. “I’m glad I’m not you,” he said.

  “Why don’t I go home?” asked Ned. “She’s married! And she’s not just married, she’s married to Adam Matheson. Plus, she’s a felon. I could go on.”

  “You could.”

  “I don’t even like birds. I thought they’d grow on me, but no. Not at all. That one out there? It still scares the shit out of me. You know something? The first time I met her she had fish puke all over her.” He leaned his head on one hand. “What’s going to happen when she gets to Canada? Notice I’m saying when.”

  “That’s what we’re all waiting to see.”

  Something in his tone made Ned squint. “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. It’s a rehabber thing.”

  Ned snorted. “I’m either one step above or one step below a rehabber, depending on how you look at it.”

  Stanley put his cup down. ”Have you noticed the Greed Is Good crowd is back in charge of this country? Every day they rip another environmental regulation to shreds.”

  “And?”

  “And we need our own Hélène.”

  Ned regarded him blankly.

  “You don’t know what it’s like, Ned. The destruction. The suffering. You work for decades to change the laws and finally you win, but only for a minute. You feel triumph and hope, and then another sleazy politician takes it all away. You get tired. You need someone to inspire you not to give up.”

  “Are you saying it’s Luna?”

  Stanley looked back at him with a mixture of embarrassment and defiance. “I know, I know! I know how it sounds! But she’s already mythical. When Harry and Rose took her to Ontario for her sixteenth birthday, Hélène spent ten minutes with her, then handed her a Golden Eagle. You know what Golden Eagles are like? They’re like Mars on steroids. Luna handled that bird as if she’d done it her whole life. Everyone could see it. After they left, Hélène said Luna was the one. And we’ve been waiting ever since.”

  A two-toned whistle emerged from Ned’s phone. It was Carlene, texting from her painted bird room in Florida.

  bluestreak@juno.com Goddamn cops were at the panther refuge and F&W just released this photo

  He clicked on the attachment. Beneath the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services logo was a photo of Warren, eyes on the distance, holding a pair of binoculars beneath his chin.

  “What is it?” asked Stanley

  “Warren’s officially a Person of Interest,” said Ned, tilting the phone toward him. “They’re tightening the net.” He put the phone down. “Does Luna know who…what…she’s supposed to be?”

  “No,” said Stanley. “We don’t think she could take it.”

  • • •

  Celia stood by her office window, her eyes on the flight cage where Banshee stood, stubbornly motionless, on her perch. The volunteers’ morale was down. They tried not to question her directly, knowing she had no answers, but Celia could see the concern in their eyes. Even worse, she could feel it: anxiousness hung like a fog, emanating from people who knew its effect on wildlife and tried to suppress it. She saw a flash of motion, and watched her father cross the field.

  “Dad, what is going on?” she asked, as Elias entered the room. “No one knows what happened after Trish and Angelica’s! Do you?”

  “I know they’re okay,” said Elias, “but that’s all I can tell you. Just hang in there a little longer. Can you do that?”

  “But when is it going to end? Banshee’s still not eating! Are we all supposed to just sit and watch? And Officer Gunderman — why does he have to come back here?”

  “It’s not our decision, Celia! And don’t forget what he did for Warren!”

  Celia turned toward the screen door. Standing outside was Gunderman, lowering his hand as if he had changed his mind about knocking.

  “Officer Gunderman!” said Elias. “Come in.”

  Celia watched him enter the room. As usual he stood straight and tall, his uniform neatly pressed, his eyes level. But there was something defensive and guarded about him, an inner cloud which had not been there before. The first time she met him she noticed his face was handsome and kind, but she dismissed it. Now, she noticed it again.

  “Good morning,” he said politely, and she wanted to sit him down and ask, what happened? Are you in trouble because of what you did for Warren?

  “I just wanted to let you know I’m back in town,” he said. “I won’t disturb you for long, but we believe Luna Burke may try to take the missing eagle’s mate. I still hope her plan is to cooperate with us, and to return the missing eagle. If so, I will do everything possible to help her.”

  Celia and Elias exchanged glances.

  “But if her plan is to take that second eagle, it’s my job to stop her.” He regarded each of them in turn, and sighed. “Basically, right now I’m a bird guard.” He paused, then backed toward the door. “Thanks for your time. I’ll swing by again this afternoon.”

  He left the room, and Elias turned to Celia. “Just keep the faith,” he said. “I’ll be back in a little while.”

  • • •

  The apartm
ent was small and neat. It had been empty when they arrived, its owner in Springfield visiting her mother. Lyllis insisted Luna take the bedroom, then she busied herself with the foldout couch. This is why friends need to keep copies of each other’s house keys, Lyllis said.

  A half hour later Luna turned out the light on her bedside table. She expected the worst, but almost immediately she fell into a dreamless sleep. Eventually she awakened with a start, rose, and pulled on Lyllis’s shirt. She padded barefoot into the living room, now flooded with daylight, but the apartment was empty. On the dining room table was a note in loopy script: BACK SOON. The sky was overcast. The kitchen clock read 11:13 a.m.

  “It’s me!” came a voice from the hallway, accompanied by the click of a lock. “Don’t freak out.”

  Lyllis entered, followed by a tall, broad-shouldered young man with long braids and more than a passing resemblance to Roland. He saw Luna’s look of apprehension, and smiled apologetically. “You don’t have to worry,” he said. “Kidnapping doesn’t run in the family.”

  “This is Michael,” announced Lyllis, placing a shopping bag on the table. “Roland’s nephew. My nephew too, though maybe not officially.”

  Michael shook her hand, then reached into a bag and offered her a cup of coffee. “I had a big fight with your friend Warren this morning,” said Lyllis. “I don’t know how he got my number, but he called me and said two of his friends were going to pick you up. I said hell, no.”

  Lyllis put her hands on her hips. “Warren said your next stop is a cabin outside Arrow Lake, Minnesota. We’re going to get you there tonight. And if Roland thinks he’s going to grab you again, he’s going to have to get past his own family. Michael and I are the best bodyguards you’ve got.”

  “Thank you, but it’s too dangerous,” said Luna, shaking her head. “Where are Warren’s guys?”

  “I just don’t know,” said Lyllis, exaggeratedly baffled. “And I can’t find out from Warren, because I turned my phone off.”

  “There’s no point in arguing with Lyllis when she gets like this,” said Michael. “Uncle Roland’ll be watching her garage, so we rented a car. Warren promised to let us get you to his friends’ place in Minnesota, and Lyllis promised to not smash his tracker.” He gestured to Luna’s necklace, and she touched the silver bead.