The Wild Birds

by Emily Strelow

  “Um. Sort of,” Alice said, nudging the box of crucifixes with her foot as if to hide them behind the couch and quickly closing the tin of sin on the coffee table.

  “Well, maybe we can redistribute these to the people of our church who would love to have them.” She emphasized the our, lingering, with her lips pouting for a moment. “How ’bout I take them to the church thrift shop?” She picked up the box and cradled it like an abused baby. “Unless, of course, you want to keep them.”

  Alice crossed her arms and said, “Thanks for the casserole, then.”

  “Hey,” Char’s voice softened. “Why don’t you keep just one of these.” She handed an all-wood, crudely carved crucifix to Alice. “To keep you rooted.”

  “Thanks,” Alice said, taking the crucifix and stuffing it in the back pocket of her jeans. “You know, I just remembered I have some chores to do before I pick Lily up from school.” She cocked her head and opened her arm toward the front door.

  “Of course, dear. See you soon. God bless.”

  Alice closed the door behind Char and watched her retreat toward her car through the front door’s wavy turn-of-the-century glass, original to the house. Through the filter of weed smoke, Alice saw Char bounce to the beat of Clifford Brown’s trumpet and through the waves of glass do a little cha-cha with her wide hips before she slipped into her station wagon and rolled up the dusty road. Alice sighed and slunk back into the library, lifted the tin-foiled edge from the casserole, and dipped a finger in. It was delicious. She got a fork from the kitchen and came back into the library, eating almost half of it in one sitting, sans plate. She examined the crucifix with one hand and shoveled chicken and noodles drenched in homemade gravy into her mouth with the other. Why was it so good? she wondered. What kind of culinary witchcraft?

  Her eyes rested on the fire and the crucifix grew warm in her hand. She sat back in her dad’s chair and twirled the little Christ figure around and around between her fingers like a ballerina in a music box, the flames flickering behind it. He danced and danced in the flames. She looked at the walls and couldn’t think of a single place in the house to put the crucifix that felt right. And so, finally, she laid the crucifix in the only place she knew would send her old life into the past forever. Why did everyone romanticize her rootedness? All she wanted to do was rip up everything she’d ever known from the ground and burn it down. As she watched the fire grow, she was a wildfire, germinating seeds as it tore through the pines. She was a maelstrom of possibility. She watched the wood turn black, the smoke of what had once been herself rising up and out into the cool air. She decided then and there not to live in a manner that made her feel dead. She went over to the shelf and replaced an icon of Mary on the mantle with the egg collection Sal had given her when she was pregnant with Lily. And then she lit the rest of the joint and listened to the rain start to click on the stones and trees outside, a staccato plucking of the strings that made everything new again.

  All About Taking

  Yreka, California, 1932

  Underneath the dark outline of scattered redwoods, a nighthawk sailed through the beam of a loud, buzzing streetlight outside the town hall, making a loud, sharp “peent” call followed by a low boom. The lower, rasping sound brought to mind a miniature dragon bent on destruction. The bird flew in and out of the light on pointed brown wings with white illuminated stripes, its silhouetted image flashing on and off in the moonless night like a strobe as it dove in and out of the beam of light. The bird swooped and caught insects in its mouth, engaged in the arduous task of providing a meal large enough for both itself and its new offspring. A second nighthawk sat atop a fence post outside the front doors to the hall, blinking its inky, black eye in the darkness, resting, waiting its turn to swim upstream on the river of survivalhood.

  Inside the small hall, the summer heat hung in the air. An impassioned speaker, one Mr. Randolph Collier, pounded the podium as he said the words he wanted to accentuate. Gold. Thunk. Copper. Thunk. Ours. Thunk. Action. Thunk.

  “These hills are filled with ore. We have to get roads built to access the deposits or we’re going to have wasted our whole lives as fool paupers sitting atop a gold mine.” He slammed both fists to accentuate. “It’s time we started talking again about statehood. I’m talking about the new State of Jefferson, folks. It’s time to secede from the big government city-folk states to the north and south.”

  The audience erupted into skeptical murmurs and shouts of agreement as he drew his speech to a close. The air in the room had become stagnant and hot over the last hour of the community meeting and the crowd of mostly men fanned themselves with their pamphlets like señoritas watching flamenco. In the back, an old man named Warren and his wife, Olive, both in their seventies, sat in the last row of chairs listening to the meeting take place. Olive was the only woman in attendance but dressed like everyone else: jeans, wool shirt, and warm cap for the ride home through the cool night. The couple had said nothing to anyone, but kept their hot, calloused working hands clutched in one another’s the entire hour.

  “These secessionists seem to take in more air than the average man,” Olive whispered to her husband as the men filed up the aisle and out into the night. “Makes you understand why they call them ‘windbags.’”

  “They’d take the oxygen out of our very lungs if it would fetch the right price,” he said to her, patting her hand before they slowly rose up out of their chairs.

  “Greed for greed’s sake, my love.” She took his arm as she straightened up.

  The couple were strong and lean, dressed in matching, sensible work shirts, though he stood a good head and a half taller than her and then half again as wide. He helped her escape the tight row of uncomfortable chairs and held her arm as they filed out, the very last two bodies to leave the room.

  Outside the hall, the men were riled up, talking about the idea of seceding to form a new state. Not everyone was in agreement, but the men talking the loudest were by and large defending the idea. The couple moved through the crowd and most men moved out of their way, except one. A plump, blue-eyed farm boy turned around on his heel and looked right at the old woman.

  “I’m not sure where you think you are, ma’am. But this here was a men’s meetin’. Bake sale’s next week.”

  “Excuse me, young man,” Olive said. “But you are an ass. Now let us through.”

  The young man scoffed but stepped just far enough aside to make room. He made sure to let his shoulder find hers hard as she passed by. She winced as a pain ripped through her middle, a string of lightning bouncing through her organs and up her spine, but did not want to give the whippersnapper the satisfaction of seeing her in pain, of seeing her weakness. She gritted her teeth and let the pain from her old injury subside as she walked over the fence and rested with both hands on the post. Looking up at the nighthawks swooping in and out of the light, she felt a deep affection for their perseverance and grace. It was hard not to admire the way they went about their business. Boom. Warren watched her, admiring her upturned face holding the light. She looked like a painting when she watched the birds.

  A shot rang out above her head. The nighthawk fell from the air mid-swoop as the man who had checked her shoulder lowered his rifle slowly. The second bird on the post scattered into the protective blanket of night.

  “Damn bull bat,” the man said, “Couldn’t get a word in edgewise.” He swung his rifle back onto his shoulder and took a swig off his flask. “Just like my wife.”

  He was looking right at Olive as he said this. Message sent. His friends laughed and patted him on the back like he’d just slain an attacking bear. One of them hopped the fence to retrieve the trophy from the ground. The group of secessionists ambled off down the road toward the bar to finish the night in similar fashion to how they started it. The dead bird flopped off the shoulder of the man who’d shot it, a small trail of blood dripping a dotted line in the dusty road
.

  “He should be arrested for that,” she said to the rapidly dispersing crowd of onlookers. “So says the Migratory Bird Act of 1918.”

  “I’d like to see them try,” a man said. “There’d be more than that one shot fired around here if they took a man into custody for killing a bird, I’ll tell you.”

  “Boys will be boys,” said another. “Let it go.”

  Warren and Olive walked silently a ways in the other direction toward their horses. It was time to get back to their farm, to their llamas, goats, and sheep. They rode the three miles home in silence under the stars. As they slipped down the road, she looked out over the trees and into the unknown. The trees made a dark line like a seismograph against the skyline, wildly oscillating jagged edges registering unknown shifts. As she traveled along slowly, moving with the lope of the animal underneath her, she thought of an article she’d read in one of her periodicals on the increasing use of coal since the turn of the century. Consumption showed no sign of stopping. She wondered as they turned up the gravel road to their house if maybe it wasn’t all about degrees of taking. Humans just kept taking resources but never considered the outcome. All these goods we take from the land, she thought, they have to grow, settle, and age. The rate of taking exceeds that of growth, which just can’t go on forever. The couple arrived at their sanctuary and stabled the horses. When the husband saw his wife’s dark, furrowed brow, he told her he would check in on the animals. “There you go thinking too hard again,” he said. “You go fall into bed.” He kissed her on the top of her head.

  The next morning, the sun came up with the intensity of a desert heat as the couple went about tending to their farm chores. Warren mowed the expansive lawn around the garden with a push lawnmower, moving the blades through the grass with the strength of his core body. It was getting more difficult with each passing year. He had paused to wipe the dripping sweat off his neck when he noticed not far in front of him a ground nest with small green-and-brown speckled eggs. He took out a string from his pocket and marked the area with a little stick planted in the ground, so he would remember not to mow over the area in the future. Making a wide semicircle around the nest, enough to give it a nice buffer, he continued cutting the grass.

  Back at the house, he found his wife in the kitchen, embraced her with an extremely sweaty hug, and said, “How ya like me now?”

  “You brute,” she said and snapped him with a wet dishrag on the behind.

  “Ow,” he said, crumpling his face up. “That smarts.”

  “I fed all our ungrateful bovids,” she said. “But I think you should take a look at Shorty. He’s been pretty lethargic lately. Hardly touched the fresh hay.”

  “I’ll look in on him in a few,” he said, unclasping a bottle of beer from the cold box. “Seeing as you are our resident bird expert, ma’am, what do you reckon nests on the ground in the tall grass and has little green-blue eggs with brown speckles on them? I found a nest and mowed around it out in the back by the garden where the sagebrush starts up.”

  “Hmm,” she said. “I suppose it could be a few different species. You didn’t see a bird hanging around or making noise while you were peeking in on the nest?”

  “Coulda been,” he shrugged. “There was one of those funny green birds with the red spot on the head skulking around in the sagebrush at the edge of the yard.”

  “Green-tailed towhee, maybe,” she said. “Beautiful bird.”

  “Whatever you say, love.” He picked her up gently and twirled her in a circle. “But you’re the only beautiful bird I know.” The lightning lit up in her middle again as he swung her in a circle, but she said nothing. She gripped onto the counter with white knuckles and let the pain dissipate, then moved out of the kitchen and slowly down the steps out across the grass toward the nest, her curiosity piqued.

  The couple had chosen to buy this land because it marked the place where biomes met, the line between forest and desert scrub. She loved that she could look in one direction from their yard and see small tanbark oak in the foothills blending up into the redwoods, Sitka and hemlock. If she looked the other direction, she saw the great expanse of sagebrush wandering out into the great basin. A creature with a wandering spirit, she had always loved these liminal places. When they arrived in these parts well before the turn of the century, there was nothing but trees and desert for miles in either direction. She had immediately fallen in love.

  She bent down to look in the nest and saw that one of the eggs had a small puncture in it. She picked up the green speckled thing, just bigger than a dime, and examined the smooth sides and painterly decoration. It always amazed her that this was the way birds came into the world, from painted packages as fine as any marble sculpture. She examined the small hole in the shell, probably made by another bird. A wren, perhaps. She put the egg into her pocket and breathed in the strong, brisk sagebrush air.

  Back at the house, she drained the unviable egg by puncturing the other end and blowing out the yolk. This one particular possibility of life was, like all her own eggs knocking around inside her, never meant to develop into young. Long ago, her monthly had abruptly stopped due to complications from an injury. In replacement of her role as mother, she found herself taking care of wounded wildlife in a special shed next to the other farm animals. Inside the shed was a rotating cast of songbirds, hawk, deer, rabbits, and, one time, a baby raccoon. People from all over the area would deliver half-gone wildlife to their steps and the duo would do what they could for them. Survival rates were low, but the release of a rehabilitated creature gave her more joy than she could express in words. It was a sight to see: a posse of rehabilitated animals following her around from place to place on the farm as she went about her business.

  She clucked at a robber jay hopping on the back porch railing and said, “You can’t come inside, now. Remember what happened last time?” The sky-gray jay hopped up onto the top of the screen before scolding her once and flying off to harass a bluish-grey rabbit hopping around near the shed. She came inside and handled the egg carefully over the kitchen sink basin, turning it back and forth in the light. She blew out the last of the yolk and carefully left the empty husk to dry on the sill above the kitchen sink. As the speck of clear white and deep orange yolk swirled and found its way down the drain, she marveled at the scientific tricks required to transform such simple ingredients into life. She went into the living room and examined her old silver egg collection sitting on the bookshelf next to her field guides. There was more than enough room for a new member in the assembly, and the little towhee token would look nice in there. She picked up the most recent copy of Nature Magazine and sifted through the articles, stopping on one called “Helping Birds to Migrate.” She made it halfway through before the day took its toll on her and she fell asleep in the chair with the magazine laid open on her chest, her brown hair streaked with lines of grey flowing loose over her men’s shirt. The magazine, a picture of white parrots on the front, rose and fell on her chest gently as a boat on the calm ocean.

  The People Collector

  Burning Woods, Oregon, 1994

  To Alice it felt like standing before a blank canvas, paintbrush poised to fill in the space with invention. For years Lily had been begging her mother to tell her a little about her father, and one evening after a long day driving the husker in circles to collect the hazelnuts for harvest, Alice, dizzy with fatigue and three glasses of cheap bordeaux, finally caved to Lily’s request for the story of Original Donnie. She paused and stared into the fire in the library, sipping deep from a tall glass of red, and composed the lie. She could make him a centaur, or a Pegasus with a typewriter for a head. Who was left to refute such a truth? In the story Alice finally decided on, she embellished with just enough details to make it plausible, adding that in the strong tradition of wild and rebellious Christian daughters, at fifteen, the same exact age as Lily was, she pointed out with a note of warning and a wag of th
e finger, she had left the farm with an older aspiring comedian named Donnie to go make her fortune in Las Vegas.

  As she sketched in the details, Alice felt swept up as an actress might be on the first night on stage of a big production, her heart beating faster and her voice growing dramatic in the telling. Alice claimed Donnie told her she had “showgirl legs,” drawing her fingers up her indeed lovely legs, and shrugged her shoulders and said that that was enough for her. She lingered on the invented minutiae. She had packed up her small houndstooth carpetbag and crept from the creaky house so early in the morning that the birds hadn’t even begun to sing yet. The way Alice told it, she and Donnie only made it as far as northern Nevada before she threw up her breakfast and realized she was pregnant. When she shared the news with him, he said, “I’m not headed to Vegas to be that kind of daddy,” and put her on a bus back home to Oregon. Alice claimed she never even knew his last name (a morsel of truth) and told her daughter that their sorrowful parting in front of a diner was the last time she ever heard from him. Alice finished her glass of wine in one final, dramatic gulp, feeling a sense of pride in the storytelling. It seemed like an airtight story to Alice—a man on the run and a woman scorned make a tearful final break somewhere on the loneliest highway and part ways forever. The story was not a new one, as far as stories go.

  Alice had looked deep into Lily’s eyes as the fire licked gently in the glassy reflection of her pupils and emphasized that Lily looked exactly like her and nothing like him. But that evening after hearing the story, looking at herself in the mirror upstairs in her room, Lily felt there was clearly something else in there, like two dark half moons under her eyes waiting to rise above the surface and tell a bad joke, or start a fight. Compounding this distrust of her own genetics, Lily lingered on the elements of the story she’d heard Alice telling Darla about her attempted in-utero assassination of her daughter. As the evidence mounted, there was something even more sinister yet undiscovered about the foreign features staring back at her. She played with the fleshy knob at the end of her upturned nose and pulled out her ears to inspect the shape of the lines, as though there were some map hidden within her singular topography. Her mother was simply not telling her the whole truth, and a familiar hot anger welled up in her face, making her skin hot to the touch. She sighed and put her forehead against the mirror to feel the coolness. Her third eye, her mom would call it. She closed her eyes and tried to disappear into the mirror, to let the cool reflection give way like a diver into moonlit waters. She wanted to disappear. Her mother’s half-truths weighed her down like a suit of lead. All the information and misinformation was not helping Lily mend the kind of self-loathing that can walk girls hand in hand into adulthood like a shadow friend.