A Nest for Celeste (7 page)

S
he awoke during the heat of a lazy afternoon and poked her head out of Joseph’s pocket; they were in the shade of a magnolia, and Joseph was sketching.

Celeste casually looked to the north and saw a
massive cloud off in the distance. It spread low against the horizon, like a gray smudge.
A storm is coming
, Celeste thought, looking at the sky as it darkened and thickened.

“That’s odd,” she heard Joseph murmur to himself. He had noticed the same cloud. “No thunder or lightning flashes.”

They sat watching the cloud swiftly approach. There was an eerie quality to it that Celeste couldn’t quite put her paw on; it wasn’t like the storms that she had seen come and go during the summer. There was no scent of rain pushing ahead of this cloud, no distant rumbling or shifting of air pressure. This cloud undulated and twisted. It spread and waved and rippled.

They heard yelling. Several men were racing across the yard, pointing and gesturing at the approaching cloud. “Here they come!” they shouted. A few of them were hauling logs and dead branches to an
open field one after another, making huge piles.

Still the cloud came closer.

The men dotted themselves across the field, and Celeste noted now that they were all carrying guns. “Get ready!” they called to one another.

And then suddenly the cloud was upon them.
Celeste looked up, mesmerized, as it became a living thing, the endless puffs of cloud becoming enormous pulsing flocks of birds, millions and millions of them. The flocks stretched from horizon to horizon; Celeste gaped openmouthed as she saw the entire sky filled with
layer upon layer of flapping wings. Their droppings pattered to the ground like a wet snow. Some flew near enough for her to see them clearly: graceful and strong, with rapid wing beats and long, pointy tails. Their feathers were a beautiful mossy gray with iri-descent highlights that shimmered violet, green, and copper.

The beating of millions of wings created a rush of wind. The sound was astonishing, too—just like the wind from a thunderstorm.

Joseph seemed just as excited. “Hello! Hello!” he called up, waving at the huge
flock; and Celeste waved, too. The sight of it so exhilarated and amazed her, she wanted to be a part of it.

Then they heard the guns. They were firing from every direction, with blasts of buckshot that brought down several of the beautiful birds at once. Celeste saw hundreds, then thousands of them dropping from the sky every minute. The flock never changed its path. It kept moving in the same direction, seemingly never ending. A river of birds kept flowing overhead; wave after wave were shot, and the birds fell like hailstones.

Celeste smelled smoke. Looking down, she saw the piles of logs had been set afire. Thousands more of the birds were being choked as they flew through the smoke from the fires, and were dropping to the fields below. Their bodies were being collected and thrown onto wagons. The men were laughing and shouting, “We’re going to eat good tonight!” and “Nothin’ I love more than fried pigeon!”

Joseph had heard stories about the massive flocks of pigeons—the birds were called passenger pigeons—but he’d never witnessed one. And he’d seen hunting
before, of course, but never as part of a wholesale slaughter like this. “I’m sickened, Little One,” he said to Celeste.

Celeste burrowed down in the pocket and tried covering her ears; but still she could hear the sounds of the wings, and the shots, and the shouts.

The flock flew overhead all night and most of the following morning.

M
r. Audubon’s deep voice shouted from downstairs.

“Joseph! Let’s go!”

Celeste could feel Joseph’s heartbeat as she was jostled and swung back and forth in the shirt pocket.
She felt each jolt and bump as Joseph bolted down the stairs two at a time.

The front door slammed. She knew they had left the house but didn’t know where they were heading. She heard the snorts and footsteps of several horses. After a while the rocking and swaying of the shirt pocket lulled her to sleep.

Later, when loud voices woke her, curiosity got the best of her. She hung her paw over the edge of the pocket, finding a grip in the buttonhole. She nosed her way under the pocket flap and saw that the men had tied the horses in the shade of some trees next to a river. Surrounding them was a forest of cane, tall grass that stretched up and up…taller even than the horses. A breeze was blowing in off the river, and the cane swayed and rustled like a million petticoats.
That grass would make quite a basket,
thought Celeste.

The men were soon boarding a small raft. Joseph and Mr. Audubon and some other men began poling
the craft out into the river. Dash was at the front of the boat, wagging her tail and looking excited. A large expanse of water opened out in front of them, stretching for nearly as far as Celeste could see. Huge trees, some larger than a plantation house, lined the river on each side.

Thousands of birds—some dark, some light, some
long necked, some short necked, but thousands of them—floated in groups, forming giant carpets on the water. Some chased and skittered and paddled after one another or dabbled their bills across the surface of the water. Some sat and busily preened their feathers; others napped contentedly in the sun. The air was filled with the din of quacks and honks and whistles. Above, hundreds and hundreds more were cascading from the skies, angling their wings and tails and dropping, splashing onto the surface of the river with feet braced for a water landing.

Celeste was thrilled. The breeze off the river was fresh and exhilarating, the clamor and activity on the water exciting. She gripped Joseph’s buttonhole tightly, feeling strangely proud to be in partnership with him on such a day full of possibilities. She was on a real adventure.

After poling some distance out into the river, she noticed the men were busying themselves with their
guns. She smelled something new…something acrid and pungent and biting in her nostrils. Her whiskers twitched with apprehension.

The flatboat approached a flock of ducks. Celeste could plainly see the faces and the feather patterns of the closest ones. Suddenly, in less time than it takes to blink, she heard an enormous
CRACK
. Celeste squealed and burrowed deep into the shirt pocket just as another blast sounded.

“Got ’im!” she heard one of the men yell. “Me, too!” yelled another.

What are they doing?
wondered Celeste. She was shaking and wild-eyed at the bottom of the pocket.

She poked her head out again, and was immediately sorry that she had. Joseph and Mr. Audubon were pulling a dozen or so birds out of the water—the same birds with the beautiful feather patterns that she had been admiring moments before. The birds’ bodies hung limp, drooped and lifeless. Dash was frantic,
barking and sniffing. The remaining flocks of birds had lifted from the water with a roar of wings and were flying in chaotic zigzags down the river.

“Some good specimens, Joseph,” Mr. Audubon was saying as they headed back to the shoreline. “This teal is nearly perfect. The rest…well, fellows, it looks like roast duck for dinner!”

He tossed the teal to Joseph.

“Hold its head up,” he said. “And its wings. Quickly, while it’s still warm.”

Joseph held the duck for a moment, cradling its soft body. The breast feathers were still damp from the river, and Joseph could sense the warmth of its body on his fingers. He pulled the wings up with one hand, supporting the head and neck with the other.

In a moment Audubon had pulled a large sheet of paper from his portfolio and had begun an outline of the “flying” teal. Joseph and the other men watched as Audubon added more and more details: contour
feathers, spreading tail feathers, eyes, and bill.

But Celeste burrowed back down into the pocket. She had seen enough. There was no more excitement and thrill to the outing on the river. It seemed that all of Audubon’s paintings started out this way. The birds were beautiful, alive, and then they were shot from the sky.