“According to the book, the inner stalk and root bulb and shoots are good.”
Geronimo sighed. “All right, ladies. I’ll liberate some.” He took off his boots and socks and rolled up his jeans. Exchanging glances, Mary and Tracy did the same.
“The book says to get under the root so you can free it from the other connected ones,” said Tracy, wading into the shallow water.
She slid her hand down the stalk and followed the root till it began to mesh into others. Pulling it loose, she swished the ropy-looking root till most of the mud was off. Geronimo trimmed the stalks down to where they showed green and sliced off the main roots.
“This better be good,” he warned as he tugged his boots back on.
Their “wild” meal was surprisingly tasty. Salad, canaigre and dock cooked in several changes of water, and the lump at the base of the cattail stalks sliced and fried crisp. The inner stalks, chopped thin, made a crunchy addition to soybean curd flavored with green onions, garlic and soy sauce.
“That was fine,” teased Geronimo. “Now where’s my steak?”
“Over in Sonora, I should think,” jabbed Tracy. “I’ll bet you enjoyed rustling those cattle.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, chica,” he said blandly. “But how would you like to help smuggle an illegal eagle across?”
“An illegal eagle? Why?”
He frowned. “I was in Nogales last night and saw something that really got me. A guy had this eagle and was fighting him with alley cats. Tough stuff. Worst thing was the eagle was crippled, had a shot-up wing. But it fought like crazy. Killed four cats. I asked the owner if he’d sell, but he was making a pile and wanted more than I had with me.”
“So,” said Mary, who’d been bristling, “you spent it on some whore!”
He shrugged. “When a man wants to get married and his girl won’t, what’s he supposed to do?”
“Damn you, Geronimo, I never said I wouldn’t—” She broke off with an embarrassed glance at Tracy. “You wind up with some awful crud and no one will marry you, ever!”
Tracy interposed at her friend’s wrathful shriek. “So what do you want to do about the eagle?”
He patted his wallet pocket. “I got advance pay. But the bird won’t make it if we just turn it loose and I don’t know of any SPCA over there. Doubt if we could get a permit even if there was time.”
“Did you ask Shea about it?”
Geronimo sobered. “No. What with Judd trying to get his lease revoked, he sure doesn’t need any trouble with the law.”
“I could do without it myself,” Tracy said.
“If you’d seen that eagle—”
She shuddered and gave up. “Okay, eaglenapper. What’s the plan?”
Crossing from Nogales, Arizona, to Nogales, Sonora, was easy. Geronimo greeted the Mexican guard by name and said they were going to shop and have a few drinks at the Caverna.
“Two beautiful ladies, no?” smiled the khaki-clad official. “Don’t push your luck, though, Señor Sanchez. You brought your allowance of whiskey in last night.”
Geronimo winked. “But the ladies, Don Alfredo! They haven’t bought their quart.”
“You are lucky!” chuckled the Indian-dark man, and waved them on.
“We’ll come back through the other gate,” Geronimo said. “My sister’s brother-in-law’s on duty. He won’t look behind the seat.” For the eagle was going to ride in the large space behind the seat and the cab back. Shea, though in ignorance about the “snatch,” was going to have the chore of nursing the eagle back to health. Geronimo was sure he could do it if the bird was still salvageable. The eagle’s captor had been feeding it dog food and the bird couldn’t live long on that.
“Shea says they get their vitamins and stuff from plants in their preys’ stomachs,” Geronimo explained. “Then they got to have roughage—fur, bones, teeth.”
They turned off the main drive and threaded through streets running beneath the hill on the left where houses in weathered lollipop colors of violet, green, pink, blue and cream clung precariously to the steep sides.
The natural stench of too many humans existing close together without plumbing competed with that of chickens as they reached the outskirts of town. A crowd had squeezed in among four parked trucks that made an informal arena, blocking off the street.
“Ay, gatos!” yelled one man, flailing his hat.
His exhortation was countered by encouraging shouts from other spectators. “Viva, aguila! Mueran los gatos!”
“My God!” breathed Tracy.
Then she saw, through floating bits of feather and dust. Inside a wire cage with a wooden lid, the eagle, a bleeding mass of brown feathers sheened with gold, clamped talons that looked like black wrought-iron hooks into the skull of what was left of a black cat. Another mewling gray-striped cat dragged itself into a corner, spilling entrails.
Tracy fought the hot scalding filling her throat, as sickened by the excitement on the faces around her as by the carnage. She caught Mary’s hand; which returned a strong heartening grip as a sobbing little girl thrust her way through the people and knelt by the cage, trying to reach the dying striped cat.
“Mi gato!” she wailed. “Mi gatito lindo!”
The chubby brown arm was in reach of the maddened eagle. Tracy grabbed the child back, dropped on a knee to cuddle her. Sheepishly, a young man came forward to pick up the child.
“I’m sorry, little sister,” he said in Spanish. “Come, I’ll buy you some candy.”
“I don’t want candy!” she lamented. “I want my kitty! My beautiful little kitty!”
He carried her off. The onlookers drifted away, though a few lingered to see what the strangers wanted. The eagle had finished the cat’s brains and was gorging on chunks torn from it.
In spite of her horror, Tracy had to admire the blazing spirit in those yellow eyes. The sheer size of the bird demanded awe. As she awkwardly flapped her torn wings to move forward, she must have measured six feet from wingtip to wingtip.
Geronimo was starting to count out bills to the fat gray-moustached impresario of cat-eagle matches. “This one’s on me,” Tracy said, getting out her wallet.
“It’s a hundred dollars,” Geronimo protested.
“Save yours for getting married,” Tracy said, amazed that he’d been willing to part with what was probably half of a month’s cash wages.
It was a point of pride with her not to draw from her trust fund for living expenses, but for something like this she didn’t mind. After all, she gave most of her inherited income to the American Friends Service Committee and animal and environmental protection groups.
The entrepreneur looked regretful that he hadn’t asked for more, since an apparently wealthy gringa was paying. “You like birds?” he asked in broken English. “Buy six parrots—very pretty?”
Such smuggled birds often spread diseases. “Where are they?” she asked in Spanish.
He pulled up a canvas flap over the back of one truck. Big blue-fronted birds, a few small green ones, a pair with lilac crowns moped in wire cages or pecked at the end boards. One appeared to be dead.
“How much?”
“Two hundred?”
Tracy would have consented, sick with revulsion and eager to get away, but Geronimo said toughly, “One hundred. Those birds are about to die on you.”
“One-fifty?”
“One-twenty-five,” Geronimo said. The man shrugged and flashed a gold-toothed smile.
“For you, a good price!”
Geronimo turned to Tracy. “What you going to do with them?”
“Have him turn them loose. Now, while we can be sure he does.”
The plump bird dealer was shocked but did as he was told, taking the parrots over to the trees along an arroyo before he released them. While he was thus occupied, Geronimo got adhesive tape and sheets out of the trunk.
“Shea says an eagle can’t do anything with his claws except grip,” he said. “Hope
he’s right.”
“That sounds like enough,” Tracy muttered.
When the Mexican came back, he took part of a sheet, lifted off the wooden lid and dropped the cloth over the eagle. Unable to see, it offered little resistance as he lifted it up, instructing Geronimo to tape the ferocious talons together.
This done, wide bands of sheeting were used to bind the damaged wings against the body. Hissing sounds of terror came from the swaddling sheet and the dealer helpfully cut a hole.
“She breathe better,” he explained. “Buena suerte.”
They had the luck. Geronimo’s sister’s brother-in-law waved them by without a question and the U.S. customs official only glanced at the heap of sheets in the back. Just to sound credible, Geronimo said they had a quart of rum and one of Scotch.
Once out of town, they uncovered the eagle except for its bindings. It didn’t stir, even when its head was clear.
“Do you think it’s dead?” Tracy worried.
Geronimo cautiously felt the brown breast. “Heart’s beating. May be in some kind of stupor or shock.”
“After all that, I hope she won’t die on us,” Mary said.
Geronimo shrugged. “At least she won’t be torn up by a bunch of half-starved cats. Shea’ll bring her around if anyone can.”
Shea and Don Aniceto left the garden patch where they were working when they saw Mary and Tracy get out of the pickup. The last rays of the sun turned Shea’s hair to living flame.
A subtle, internal sword seemed to turn in Tracy. His gray eyes touched her briefly before he moved to see what Geronimo was lifting out of the back.
“Hellfire, what’s that?”
“You can see,” grunted Geronimo. “Where you want her?”
“I don’t want her,” Shea retorted.
“You got her. And I know you have a nice legal permit from Fish and Game to take care of hurt wildlife.”
Shea gave up. “She may not come out of this sleep. It’s more of a coma, a response to stress.”
“Be a good time to fix her up,” urged Geronimo. “She’s kind of frazzled.”
They unwrapped the bird except for the disabled talons. Examining her as she lay on one of the cots under the ramada, Shea cursed savagely, sent Aniceto for medicines.
“What happened to her? Where in hell did you get her?”
Geronimo explained. “So we just went over and brought her back,” he concluded with an angelic smile, looking more than ever like an outsized De Grazia cherub.
Shea’s glance skidded past Mary to Tracy. “And you went along with this desperado?” he demanded incredulously. “Do you think you’d like the inside of the Nogales jail?”
“I didn’t cut any border fences,” she reminded him. “Do you think she’ll fly again?”
“First we’ll see if she lives.” He spread out one of the damaged wings. “Hold this.”
Fortunately, the eagle stayed in her deathlike sleep while Shea cleaned her wounds and gave antibiotics. An unused granary shaded by a mesquite and surrounded by an ocotillo stalk fence seemed the best place to put her.
“We’ll just have to wait,” Shea said, placing the bird on an old blanket. “Geronimo, since you’re the guy that brought her, you’re in charge of mice and rabbit procurement. Aniceto, we got anything to feed these smugglers?”
“Frijoles,” said the old leather-skinned man with the frank, open face of a child. “Tortillas. Stewed dried beef and rice.” He smiled at Tracy and Mary. “If the ladies will stay, I’ll make flan.”
“We’ll stay,” Tracy laughed. The caramel custard was a favorite of hers, but the main thing was the warm glowing delight of being near Shea.
They sipped beer in the cooling evening. When Aniceto called, they lined up in the kitchen of the small adobe and filled blue enamel plates from the various pots on the wood stove. Jaime polished off the remnants and still had room for three helpings of warm flan.
“Muy sabrosa, Don Aniceto,” Tracy praised truthfully. After two cups of the aromatic, eggshell-settled coffee, she began to collect the dishes. Jaime barred her way to the tin dishpan.
“It’s my turn for dishes, señorita.”
“Don’t upset our system, chica,” drawled Geronimo. “Aniceto bosses the kitchen but the rest of us take turns cleaning up.”
With a smile, she surrendered her plate to Jaime. “Could we peek at the eagle? And then I need to get home and feed Le Moyne. I don’t want him eating my photographic subjects.”
The eagle was already staggering drunkenly around the pen. Geronimo went to see if there were mice in any of Aniceto’s traps and returned with two, which he dropped near the surprisingly long-legged bird.
“What do you think?” Tracy asked softly.
“She came out of that coma. Sometimes they don’t. And she’s got to be tough to have stood that catfighting with a bullet-shattered wing.”
As if suddenly making up his mind about something, Shea loosely clasped her wrist. “Shall I take you home?”
That fire ran between them. Her body felt weighted and sweetly heavy. Despairingly, she knew she loved this man. What did he feel for her, beyond this hunger? Even if that was all of it for him, she couldn’t deny this wild tremulous longing.
Unable to speak, she nodded silently.
Shea turned to Mary. “Want me to drop you off at the house?”
“I’m taking her!” Geronimo yelped.
“Only if you stay on your side of the seat,” Mary told him.
He groaned. “You’re one mean damn woman!”
“Shall I go with the others?”
He sighed. “No. Hell, if you want, we’ll make you a chastity belt of barb-wire!”
They got in one truck, still arguing, while Shea boosted Tracy into his high-floored pickup cab. Before he put it in gear, he took her by the shoulders and kissed her. His tongue explored her mouth, thrusting, probing, sensuously teasing.
“Can you wait till we get you home?”
“I don’t know.”
They didn’t. Stopping a few miles down the road, he spread a blanket on the soft sand of a wash. She stripped as swiftly as he, trembling, pulsating. They came together in a kind of fury, delivered each other, then lay watching the stars, so much brighter here than in the city. Tracy’s heart swelled with hope.
This was the first time he hadn’t turned strange and hostile after lovemaking. Was there a chance he might get over his terrible mistrust of women? He wasn’t holding her in his arms but at least they lay relaxed and companionably touching.
“How come you helped spring that eagle?” he asked.
She knew he was frowning, dared to lightly stroke the furrowed lines between his straight brows. “It’s hard to resist Geronimo.”
“Maybe you thought you could get an article.”
Hurt, she said coldly, “Maybe I did.”
Sitting up, she reached for her clothes. But when they had parked beside the stream, crossed the log, and greeted Le Moyne, Shea didn’t leave. When she had fed Le Moyne, he drew her into the bedroom and again there was the flame and the need that crested till the unbearable longing peaked like a fountain and diffused itself in soft ebbing flows.
I love you! almost broke from her lips. His silence forbade it. But he didn’t leave or utter some brutality. Perhaps in time—With a muffled sigh, she snuggled against her pillow and enjoyed the warm peace of him near her fulfilled body until she fell asleep.
XII
She woke in early light, unconsciously reaching for him. He was gone. Dazedly, she tried to remember if he’d been there or if she’d dreamed it.
The pillow held the mark of his head. His scent was on her. Rising quickly, she found no trace of him. The green pickup was gone. A wave of desolation washed over her. If he had just stayed for breakfast! For him to leave without a word like that made her feel used as a convenience, almost like a whore.
“If this weird affair is to continue,” she told Le Moyne sternly, “there have to be some ground
rules.”
Le Moyne thumped his tail. She rubbed the wide dome of his head and began to fix breakfast.
Thoughts of Shea haunted her, but she determined not to use the eagle for an excuse to visit El Charco, at least not for a few days. On the other hand, she did care what happened to the creature and hoped to get some good pictures as it convalesced, so she wouldn’t be stopping by just to see Shea anyway.
Since she’d moved to Last Spring, she’d heard the screech of barn owls, an explosive hiss like a steam locomotive, often enough to suspect there was a nest fairly close by. Ordering Le Moyne to stay at the house, she went on a search. They liked old barns and buildings but since there were none, she concentrated on hollow trees.
Towering above the rock basin was an oak blasted by lightning, mostly dead, though branches of it showed green against the sky. There was a big hollow about ten feet above the ground but Tracy couldn’t see into it. She climbed up a smaller neighboring tree and was rewarded by seeing, snugly ensconced in a leafy nest, two fluffy white little creatures with prominent heart-shaped faces. It was harder to locate the parents, who were roosting in the densest foliage.
Exultant, Tracy clambered down, then frowned as she realized she’d need some kind of platform and blind. The most interesting pictures would happen at night while the adults were feeding their young.
Carpentry wasn’t her strong point, so on her way to see Patrick that day she stopped at the Sanchezes and asked if Roque or Tivi could help her.
“It might be better not to put it up all at once,” she said. “I don’t want to scare the adults.”
Tivi made an expansive gesture. “No problem. I’ll put up the legs and platform today. Two, three days from now, I can fix on the sides and top.”
He promised to be as quiet as possible, even to the sacrifice of leaving his transistor radio at home.
When Tracy entered Patrick’s room, Mary was regaling him with their eaglenapping. “Shea’ll bring her round if anyone can,” he said, and returned Tracy’s kiss by shifting the better half of his face toward her. “He always had a good hand with wild things. So did his mother.”
A Mating of Hawks Page 14