Ward leans close and kisses her ear. We have anything for dinner?
There's some soup and cornbread.
That sounds good. I'll be hungry, I know that.
. . .
By the time he has the grave six feet deep, long and wide enough for a man the size of Lord God, it's late. The sky is layered in strata of pink and blue, a deep purple over the Sierra Mojada in the west. Ruby tucks and pins Lord God's body in a sheet. She helps Ward carry it outside. He stands in the grave and does his best to lower it over the edge gently.
Juliet has arrived and stands bundled in a black dress and wool coat, eyes bloodshot, face grief- stricken. Cool wind sends the prairie dust into Ward's face and Ruby's hair into her eyes. Once he gets the body in the ground and laid out in repose, Ward struggles to climb out. Ruby leans over to give him a hand. He almost pulls her into the grave.
They stand for a moment. The only sound is the wind in their ears. Ward winces from back pain, and his hands sting and throb. Ruby recites the twenty- third psalm. Juliet struggles to say a few words, how he was a good man who gave too much away, too soon. She stops in mid- sentence, Ruby's arms around her, holding her up. They start for the house and Ruby turns to Ward.
I have to get back, she says. I put Lila in the crib and she was crying. She's been fussy all day. She knows something's up.
Go to her, says Ward. I'll finish up here.
Ruby leads her mother back to the house and asks if Juliet can give Lila a bath and get her ready for bed.
At the grave, Ward picks up the shovel with his bandaged, aching hands and goes to work. Every bladeful burns. When he's done he has trouble walking to the back door. His back so stiff he can barely stand. The wind in his ears and face makes him stupid. He struggles with the screen door in the wind and stumbles inside, blistered and spent. Ruby warms up a bowl of tortilla soup on the woodstove, with three wedges of buttered cornbread wrapped in foil.
This will take a few minutes to get nice and hot, says Ruby.
Lila squeals from the bathtub, and Ruby hustles down the hallway, saying she'll be right back. Juliet is perched on the edge of the tub, one hand in a sock- puppet duck, quacking at Lila, who sits in a shallow pool of soapy water, a pink rubber duck in one hand and a seahorse in the other.
She wants more Rubbadubbers, says Juliet. I told her we'll have to ask Mommy.
Oh, I know where they are. Ruby retrieves a walrus and penguin from her toy basket, comes back and tickles Lila's tummy with the penguin before kissing the top of her head. Thanks for watching her, Mom. I'm trying to fix Ward something to eat.
Go on, she says. She pinches Lila's nose with the sock puppet. We're having fun, aren't we?
Ruby returns to find Ward asleep with his head down on the kitchen table, breathing deeply. She pats his back until he wakes and sits up.
Come on, Tiger, she says. You need something in your belly. We have work to do tomorrow, right?
He smiles and nods. I'm okay, he says. This is just what I need.
Ward chews his cornbread and says, My hands are blistered. I should have worn gloves.
I'll put some Neosporin on them, says Ruby. You'll be good as new in no time.
She washes the dishes and stares out the window. The junipers on the distant hillside look black. Nearby the ghostly white trunks of the aspens shimmer by the woodshed, their knots like Cleopatra eyes. Sunlight glows above the mountain ridgeline. Over the yard it casts a blue sheen. A breeze waves the brown stalks of grass by the water pump.
From the kitchen window Ruby can just see the mound of loose earth on Lord God's fresh grave. She thinks the words, It's over. The phrase sounds odd. The word over. Life without Lord God. How to grasp such a thing?
She remembers him years ago, full of energy and hope. He was always building something: a birdhouse for swallows, a rock wall. He planted aspens by the woodshed, nursed them with water and a wire fence to keep the deer from eating all the leaves. He was a force of nature, relentless and indomitable. He chain- sawed dead trees and split wood for winter. Every night and morning he'd rise early and make a pot of coffee, have the fire going and the wood box full before anyone else was up. He fixed the leaks in the roof and varnished the hardwood floors.
Lila runs into the kitchen, wrapped in a yellow towel. She tugs on Ward's left hand, wants him to come with her to the living room to play. He tells her he will, soon as he finishes dinner. He lets her tug his hand absentmindedly, as if it's the most natural thing in the world. To get his attention Lila puts an orange plastic bucket shaped like a pumpkin atop her head, for trick- or- treats. She keeps repeating, I get lollipop? I get lollipop?
He smiles and says, Only if your mom says it's okay.
Ruby feels tears swell and she wants them to stop, her heart so full it's cracking. She wipes her eyes with the back of a wrist, her fingers sudsy and pink. Lord God loved Lila and was always there for her. He said the world was hers to inherit. He was right. Whatever happens to her from here on out, Ruby knows she must be strong and fierce for her baby girl, to give her a good life.
But what does that mean? A good life? It's like some rare bird that we know exists but have never yet glimpsed. Like the Yellow- Breasted Chat— a lovely, musical bird that hides low in thickets, that you can hear and know it's there but rarely see.
And in this moment, a blue- winged Kestrel kites above the backyard, hunting mice. Falco sparverius. It opens its wings wide and glides in a low, looped arc before alighting softly on the wire clothesline, its black face stripes barely visible in the fading light.
Acknowledgments
I'd like to thank Anne Edelstein, Greg Michalson, Fred Ramey, Kent Haruf, Mike Merschel, Caitlin Hamilton Summie, Libby Jordan, Rich Rennicks, and Glenn Blake for their enormous support and help. And most importantly, I give my greatest thanks and love to Elizabeth May, for holding my life together, and for helping me find the time to write.
The Bird Saviors Page 27