She took the turn and drove toward the lake. The water shimmered so brightly from the angle of the late afternoon sun that it was blinding. To her left was a large log home weathered dark gray by the elements. Surrounding the front yard were several round gazebo-like structures, only where open space should have been there were closely spaced wooden slats.
A man was hammering nets up around one of them. Inside, two huge birds were flapping and screeching. She parked and walked toward him, with Fotis on his leash. The dog smelled the air before pausing to pee on a tree.
As the man straightened up, he set down the hammer, put his hands on his hips and looked at her. He had thinning sandy gray hair, pale blue eyes—almost colorless—and was short, about her height, and deeply tanned, with weather-beaten face and hands from too many years of not caring how much time he spent in the sun. She guessed he was probably sixty, though the skin made it tough to narrow down.
“Hi.” She extended her hand. “I’m Paula. You must be Rick?”
He didn’t offer an introduction.
“I called about the job?”
He frowned and looked at her torso, seeming irritated at having to stop working. He assessed her short skirt, temporary NY license plates, sandals with the patent-leather straps, red toenails.
“First put your dog back in the car.” It was the same crotchety voice, thin but not weak.
“Right, sorry.” She turned and walked toward the Escape. “Don’t know what I was thinking,” she mumbled an apology as she led Fotis back. He was only too happy to hop up and resume his work on the IGA bone.
She and Rick walked side by side in silence toward a large metal building; his clothes smelled of fabric softener. Inside a heavy green metal door was a space that looked like an examination room. A metal table was covered by what looked like a towel. There was a stainless sink, a centrifuge and a refrigerator. Drawers were labeled with various supplies. A large computer monitor sat on top of one of the refrigerators, its screen divided into squares of closed-circuit TV that monitored birds.
“Stand there.” He gestured to the examining table. She moved into position. “You said you have experience with wild birds.”
She nodded.
“I’m short staffed today. Suzanne, my intern, just left for school.”
“Stand here?” Paula asked.
“Put these on.” He set a pair of heavy leather gloves on the examination table. She slipped them on and tried to bend her fingers. It was hard to flex, the suede was so thick. The tops reached up to her elbows.
She watched as he stepped over to a cardboard box that looked large enough to house a washing machine and gently unclipped and rolled back a sky blue bedsheet, fastened on all sides by multicolored plastic clothespins. He bent over and reached in. When he straightened up, in his arms was a bald eagle as tall as Rick’s torso. Holding the eagle by his yellow feet, Rick shifted his hands to cradle the raptor’s enormous body. His talons looked as long as the man’s fingers, only curled and razor-like. The eagle opened his wings. Each wingtip almost grazed a side of the small room. The bird turned and looked right at her; the clarity of his gray-yellow eyes against his white face stopped her breath.
She blinked in wonderment. Aetos Dios—the eagle of Zeus—the legendary golden eagle that became the god’s trusted personal messenger. Paula had seen depictions of the huge bird portrayed on statues in the Metropolitan Museum’s antiquities collections as well as the national museums in Athens.
Paula had never seen an eagle this close and was astounded by his size.
The bird began to struggle.
“Adult male,” Rick said. “Around thirty.”
“Years?” she asked.
He looked at her like she should know this. She looked away.
“How can you tell it’s a male?”
“Because he’s small. Females are much larger.” Rick said it like she should have known that, too.
The eagle opened his yellow beak and arched toward Rick as if about to attack. The man yanked back, avoiding the beak that seemed capable of ripping off his nose. Paula shuddered to think of the softness of a man’s flesh in that beak.
“Lead poisoning. Was brought in yesterday. It’s okay; it’s okay, old man,” Rick said calmly. The eagle responded to Rick’s voice by lowering his head and settling onto the man’s gloved arm. He rested his chin on the top of the bird’s skull.
“This is not characteristic,” Rick explained. The top of the eagle’s head was tucked under Rick’s chin. “He’s hallucinating from toxins. Ordinarily they’re docile. In the wild if they’re on the ground sick you can pick them up using your coat. They offer no resistance. Fearless at their own peril,” he explained. He sounded like a colleague, an academic, which surprised her, especially after the phone call, which had consisted of a series of grunts. “They’re always assessing what’s around them, who is food, who is not. They have no natural predators, except us. We’re the distortion at the top.”
“How was he poisoned?” She thought of peeling paint in the older buildings in New York.
“A deer carcass with lead shotgun pellets or a fish with lead sinkers in its belly. I see more of these in winter. Deer entrails,” Rick explained. “Hunters use lead ammo for whitetails. They leave their gut piles in the woods. After the lakes freeze, it’s slim pickings, and gut piles are an easy meal. It kills many of them. It’s needless suffering for these birds—an easy fix if hunters would switch to lead-free copper bullets and fishermen would use bismuth-tin alloy tackle and nonleaded sinkers.”
“Why don’t they?”
He glared at her like the eagle. “For every eagle we find, there are nine more we don’t. That suffer and die needlessly.” The bird became agitated and began turning his head from side to side, the arc of his neck reminding her of the mosaics she’d seen in the museums in Athens. He pulled back as if getting ready to take a swipe. The man pulled back in anticipation, talking to the bird until he calmed. He stared eye to eye.
Then the eagle turned to Paula. She’d never felt so examined; his eyes were so clear, as if there were nothing between them. As though the beat of her heart were visible through her neck as well as the pulsating blood running through her arteries.
“He looks scared.”
“He’s delusional,” Rick corrected. “See the green stain on his tail feathers?” He raised the eagle so she could see.
“Yeah.”
“Lead.” Rick looked at her. “But this guy’s luckier than most. They die a long, slow death as the iron depletes them, interferes with the digestion process.” They both looked at the bird. “Folks saw him on the ground yesterday in a campground. Just out of town. They threw a blanket over him and called the DNR. Ranger brought him yesterday evening.”
“Will he live?”
The man didn’t answer.
“Come closer,” he said.
She couldn’t; her body felt like stone. She wasn’t afraid but in awe.
He scooted aside.
“Surround my hands,” he instructed.
She found a place within that wasn’t frozen.
“Now grasp his ankles as I let go,” Rick said calmly. She circled the raptor’s yellow ankles, his three-inch talons just inches away. She clutched as best she could through the stiff leather gloves.
“You got him?” the man asked.
“Yeah.” She blinked and nodded. Her stomach fluttered like the Escape had just crested a steep hill and gone momentarily airborne. She was surprised by how light the bird was, ten pounds at most. But as he spread his wings it was like trying to hold on to the wind. Her muscles burned; her bangs lifted off of her forehead.
The man shifted one hand away, cradling the bird’s neck. “Now grasp with your other hand.”
She nodded.
“Okay,” he signaled.
She felt the man let go, though he immediately grasped the eagle’s body, laying the enormous bird, almost three feet tall, down onto the table.
“I’ve got to pull another blood sample,” Rick said, and picked up a syringe from the table. “Lead levels were off the charts yesterday. Been giving him fluids he’s so dehydrated. Dosed him with anti-toxin last night, hoping it wouldn’t kill him. Sometimes the cure kills ’em before the disease,” the man explained. “Gave him anti-toxin again this morning. Want to see if it’s made a difference at all.”
“You can tell so quickly?”
“Hold him re-e-al steady,” Rick said. He moved the bird’s enormous wing aside to get at an artery. Pulling the cap off with his teeth, he inserted the needle and filled the syringe with blood.
She was surprised by the color. Not that she’d thought it would be green; she’d just never thought about birds having blood.
The eagle turned and went for her face. Paula reared back without letting go of his feet as the yellow beak missed. She held on, struggling as he writhed and fought to get free, his wings brushing her ears, creating their own wind. The stronger the eagle resisted, the deeper she found the resolve to hold on. Muscles burned from her fingertips all the way up to her neck.
“Shhhh,” she whispered.
His eyes were practically the size of a baby’s. But he would rip her apart if given the chance. She’d never seen anything like it; she felt like a wide-eyed virgin.
“Endaxi, endaxi,” she found herself comforting him in Greek and purring from somewhere deep within, mimicking Rick.
The bird calmed and she felt him relax onto the table.
“Now with your elbow, help me brace his torso.” Rick looked at the quantity of blood and then placed the syringe on the side table. “I just got a lead analyzer,” he explained. “Now I get results in seconds. This guy beeped off the charts.”
Then Rick took out a brown glass bottle. “Ca-EDTA,” he said, and picked up another syringe. Paula held the eagle’s feet and braced the bird’s wings against the table with her forearms. “Anti-toxin,” Rick said. “Draws out lead.”
The eagle pushed up and spread his wings. They thumped against the table, knocking off the syringes of blood onto the floor. Her face was enveloped in the curve of his torso, where the wing extended. The wings were so massive it felt like a dream.
“You got him?” Rick asked.
“Yeah,” she said.
He drew medicine as Paula held on.
“You sure?” he said with a little laugh, but she didn’t take it as mean.
“Yep.”
He injected the bird. “He’ll get one of these three times a day.”
“Will he make it?” she asked again.
It took Rick a while to answer. He sighed deeply before he spoke. “He’s in pretty rough shape.”
Her heart felt as if it would burst for the eagle, his raggedy-looking feathers, crazed demeanor. She felt helpless.
“He’s lost lots of weight. Muscle wasting,” Rick said, over his shoulder as if he didn’t want the eagle to hear. “Bones where muscle should be.” He touched the bird’s breastbone. “His keel. Feel,” he said, and reached to secure one of the eagle’s feet so that she could let go.
Paula reached and felt the bone.
“You shouldn’t be able to feel that,” Rick said, watching her face carefully.
He then smoothed over the bird’s head and wing feathers, feeling the sharp angles. “I’m afraid his organs may have begun to shut down. Came in pretty dehydrated. Started an IV on him right away yesterday when he first came in, was up with him most of the night,” Rick said.
He gently pinched the skin on the eagle’s chest. “Seems more hydrated. We’ll try and tube-feed him.”
She looked at the curve of his neck where the white feathers met dark brown and wondered how and why nature had drawn such a definitive line.
“You’re a real fighter, old man,” Rick said to the bird, his voice suddenly riddled with warmth.
He then surrounded Paula’s hands with his. “Now let go.”
She didn’t want to.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I got him.”
She released her hands and Rick took the eagle from her.
“Let’s leave him for about thirty minutes, let the medication absorb. We’ll come back to tube-feed him.”
Rick lifted the bird. He spread his wings again, grazing just over Paula’s head. Her skin prickled with the sense of it.
The man carried the bird back to the cardboard box, gently lowering and then covering him with the bedsheet.
“Can he get out?”
“Nope.”
Funny how something as fragile as a cardboard box, an old bedsheet and eight clothespins was enough to contain such a creature.
“It’s like a nest,” Rick explained. “A cocoon. It calms them, makes them feel safe.”
She already ached for it—longed to climb into the box, curl her body around it to give comfort as Fotis had done for her that first night in the hotel.
Paula was drained; her arms were empty tubes of flesh. In all the years she’d spent studying society, trying to understand why people do what they do, or don’t do, more understanding had passed through that eagle in a split second than over the course of her lifetime of study.
“Well.” Rick took off the long gloves and looked at her without a change in expression.
She waited.
“Consider that your job interview,” he said. “By the way, your shirt’s buttoned crooked.”
She looked down but was too electrified to even care. She’d never felt so drained yet so alive.
“You smell like cigarettes, too.”
“I haven’t smoked since New Jersey,” she said with such defiant conviction he burst out with a laugh.
“Smoke kills birds, so knock it off unless you’re gonna chew.”
She frowned before realizing he’d said it to shock her.
He motioned for her to follow. “I’ll show you the mammal side before we come back to tube-feed this guy. Don’t take a lot of them, but can’t turn ’em away either,” he said, talking into the air as she hurried to catch up.
They walked toward a chain-link area that contained a litter of three orphaned otters swimming and twirling around in a large pool. Their bodies were slick; one swam backward while another slipped under and then resurfaced, jumping on top of the other in play. Paula’s body felt as light as the eagle’s. Three tiny heads bobbed up and then down before turning to look at the newcomer.
“They’re just about ready for release. A couple more days,” Rick explained.
“What are their names?” she asked in a playful way.
He stopped and glared. “They’re never named. You name it, you claim it.” He then turned to the fence, holding it open for her to follow.
* * *
That night she’d slept in the Escape at a public campground on a half-moon beach next to Lake Superior. She’d combed the area for over an hour looking for a room before giving up; two young desk clerks had searched online before shaking their heads. But all she could think of was holding the eagle, the feel of his weight, worrying about him surviving the night until she could see him again.
Before she’d left that evening, Rick had let her take the eagle out of the box. Rick showed her how to slice fresh trout into tiny chunks and mix it with baby food in the blender. Then he’d shown her how to gently snake a feeding tube down the eagle’s esophagus into his stomach as she held on to his body. Tomorrow Rick said he’d let her try.
She’d driven back to the IGA to buy a rotisserie chicken to share with Fotis, hoping that Maggie was still there and she’d get some advice on places to stay. Maggie was gone for the day, but the IGA clerk gave Paula directions to the public campground, where there was access to a bathroom and a shower. So she drove up and parked next to a small hut, which looked like it would house a parking attendant.
“You’re in luck,” a burly man said. “Someone just left. The wife’s water broke. One of the lakeside spots, too. You got a camper?” The man looked out the window of the small hut towa
rd the back of the Escape.
“Just my car.”
“How long you plan on staying?”
She shrugged. “A couple of nights?”
“There’s a pile of firewood behind your spot. Five bucks a bundle, the honor system, ‘you take some, leave some’—envelopes are right here outside the window.” He looked over his glasses at her.
She smiled.
“Need your license or photo ID.”
She rifled through her purse and handed it over.
He wrote down information and then looked up at her.
“Long drive,” he said. “You drive straight through?”
“Oh God, no.” She laughed. “Two stops. Ohio, Wisconsin.”
“Visiting friends?”
“Sort of.”
“I just need to make a copy of this.” He held up her driver’s license. “Homeland Security requires it this close to the border.”
“Really.”
He looked up at her. “We’re an hour by car from the border, twenty minutes by boat.”
She looked out to the harbor. It was dark except for a bright full moon shimmering on the water and light from the beacons on either side.
“Showers are behind you there.” He pointed. “Bathrooms in the same facility.”
Paula pulled the Escape up to face the lake. The front tires touched a sliver of the red rocky beach. She hoped the tide didn’t get much higher. There was a long asphalt walkway bordering the campground starting from a rocky outcropping and continuing from the marina to downtown Grand Marais. Each campsite had a picnic table. The grounds were lit up like a baseball field. People had set up the equivalent of their own living rooms: folding chairs, tablecloths, bottles of ketchup and mustard, glass jars holding wildflower arrangements.
The neighbors at the next site waved; she waved back. Their dog barked at Fotis, but he ignored it. Paula felt so different, chosen; she wanted to tell everyone she’d held an eagle. How many people get to hold an eagle to their chests?
She climbed onto the picnic table to sit, holding the leash and looking out toward the lake. On the asphalt walkway an older man, shaggy hair and beard, soft looking around the middle, rode a child’s bike. The man sat tall on the seat and looked embarrassingly excited, like a ten-year-old trapped in a seventy-year-old body.
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