Traveling Light (23 page)

She wondered if Rick’s parents were still alive. He seemed so much more robust than Roger.

“Both came in as adults, so they’ve not imprinted. They’re my foster dads.”

“Dads?” She looked up as she unlaced her boots.

“Males are often more attentive. If we get a young eagle while you’re here you’ll see,” he said. “They feed, raise the young, teach ’em to hunt.”

“Even the blind one?”

He nodded. “These guys have successfully reared dozens of chicks.”

They were quiet for a few moments. Everything was contrary to what she knew about birds.

She leaned against the fence, happy to step out of the boots and into the waders. She massaged her foot.

“You mind if later I use some of the Band-Aids in the first-aid kit?” She made a face. “Blisters.”

“Didn’t Clyde at the Ben Franklin get you some moleskin?”

She said nothing.

“Check to see if there’s still some in there. Works better than Band-Aids anyway. Let me know; I got some up at the house.”

“Thanks.”

Paula thought about the owl as she stepped into the rubber boots and secured the waders around her waist.

“Imprinting with wild canids, wolves, foxes, is serious,” he went on to explain. “They’ll have no fear of humans. They’ll approach to play or think you have food for them. Imagine if a ninety-pound wolf walks out of the trees and approaches your five-year-old.”

She cinched the straps tight on the waders.

“Curiosity is natural; familiarity is deadly. They watch us all the time.” He looked out to the woods. She looked, too, searching for pairs of eyes. “It’s the people who try to keep them as pets that get into trouble.”

“Like the people who had Sam?”

Rick nodded. “They get unruly, so people dump ’em, thinking they’ll
go back to the wild,
” he mocked. “Instead they starve.”

She hadn’t thought of instinct as something that could be lost.

“Someone sees a pup or a chick and they think it’s abandoned. Often the parents are just out finding food. Just think how those parents must feel when they can’t find their young.” There was something so earnest about his face it made her want to comfort him.

She mirrored his silence, imagining Sam wandering the highway.

Rick then bent down and grasped one side of the otter pool. Paula took his lead. Together they lifted and dumped out the remaining water.

“These guys were found in the woods,” he said.

“You think their mother was killed?”

He shrugged. “Hard to know.” He took a long pause. “It’s rare to find otters so far from a water source.”

She wondered what circumstances had befallen them. It would be tempting to cuddle and keep them; she could see how someone might try.

“After a few more checks this week, we’ll take them down to the shore.” He motioned west. “Several otter colonies there.”

“Will they be okay?”

He didn’t say directly. “If they don’t come back I’ll take it they’re fine.”

She turned and looked at Sigmund. He spread his huge wingspan with the suddenness of Dracula’s cape and turned around to exhibit himself.

“Oh brother,” she said with disgust.

“He’s going for it,” Rick said in a singsong voice.

Once the pool of water was empty, Rick handed her a scrub brush and a bottle of disinfectant.

“You have the honors,” he said. “Scrub out all the slime and anything that feels suspect.” He let himself out and began walking toward his house.

“Suspect?”

“Yeah. You’ll know what I mean when you start scrubbing,” he called over his shoulder.

“Where are you going?”

“Fish for the raptors.”

She was covered up to her midriff in rubber boots and up to her elbows in rubber gloves. The sun felt good on her face, and like the eagles, she stood absorbing it before bending on all fours to scrub.

*   *   *

Later that afternoon they treated the eagle again and tested his blood. He seemed more listless than the day before and she mentioned it to Rick; he said that the treatment could be rough on them. He put salve on the owl’s wounds. Though her blood blister looked ugly and serious, it was too dangerous to lance.

Holding the owl was like holding the world. Though she was huge, Paula could feel the owl’s hollow bones and skeletal body in her arms as light as air. The feathered tufts on the bird’s head tickled Paula’s face as Rick used a giant syringe to suck up a baby-food jar of pureed liver and deposit it into the owl’s stomach. Next time they’d give her a mouse as a test to see if she was ready to eat. Rick taught Paula how to move the tube down the owl’s throat in the correct position, slowly releasing the food into her stomach and not the lungs.

“You’re going to be okay,” Paula said as she lowered the owl back down into the box. “You’ll see. Rick says maybe six weeks or so you’ll fly back to your home.” The bird looked at Paula. Yellow eyes that mirrored her own: mysterious, clear-sighted like the eagle. Paula could see how people would impart all sorts of qualities onto this bird—wise and precognitive, secret keeper. She covered the box with the bedsheet, fastening it with clothespins.

She was unaware that Rick was watching. He’d left to walk back to the flight room and she hadn’t heard him return.

“Oh,” she said. “I didn’t realize.”

“You did that really well,” he said.

She looked at him and smiled, too humbled to even thank him. Moving toward the sink, she disassembled the components of the tube-feeding apparatus and began scrubbing it in warm water.

“When you’re done, come on up to the house,” he said. “I have some forms for you to fill out.”

She nodded.

*   *   *

The front door to Rick’s log home was wide open. No screen. Sigmund followed, teetering on his scaly pink feet as if racing her toward the opening. “Don’t go in there.” She tried to shoo him away, chasing him out of the doorway, but he walked inside, making himself at home. “Sigmund,” she called. “Get out of there.” But the vulture disappeared deep inside the house.

The home had the feel of a 1920s Adirondack lodge. She knocked on the open door; it was so thick her knuckles barely registered a sound. There was no sign of a doorbell.

“Hello?” she called. She didn’t know whether to walk in like Sigmund or wait out on the deck. What if Rick was taking a shower?

She stepped inside the foyer and called again.

“Hey, Rick?”

There was a stirring from somewhere in the house.

“Come on in,” his voice echoed. She stepped inside and looked up. Vaulted ceilings, exposed beams, huge skylights lined the top near the peak of the roof.

The inside was larger than it appeared from the outside.

“Sigmund’s in here,” she called.

“Ah, that’s okay. I leave the front door open or he’ll scratch off the finish.”

She looked around, imagining the disgusting bird making himself at home in the luxurious great room, and then spotted him sitting on the back of a leather sofa, looking at her as if inviting her to sit down.

The interior smelled like pipe tobacco, old leather jackets and wool. Weather-beaten leather furniture, iron floor lamps, tribal-looking Oriental rugs, wall hangings that looked Native American. Large logs and beams framed the interior ceiling. The inside walls were the same weathered dark brown as the outside.

“Wow, this is amazing,” she said to no one. It was so tidy she imagined someone came in to clean.

She spotted Rick down the hall. Brown reading glasses dangled on the tip of his nose. He waved at her to follow him down a long hallway to a room on the far end of the house.

Bookshelves with legal books lined one wall. A massive cherrywood desk filled practically a third of the room, along with computer equipment and paper files. He sat down behind the desk as she stood.

“Maggie tells me you’re an attorney,” Paula said.

“So they tell me,” he said absentmindedly, gathering forms for her to sign.

“What kind of law do you practice?”

“Have a seat,” he said. It felt like being in Christoff’s office.

She down sat in a leather chair opposite the desk. Photos of birds covered the walls.

“Did you take these?”

He turned as if having forgotten what was hanging on the wall behind him.

“Some. Here, sign where I’ve indicated.” He pointed to yellow stickers with red arrows. It felt like she was buying another car.

“What’s this?”

“Waiver of liability.”

“For what?”

“If you get hurt on the job.”

“I’m not expecting to.”

“No one expects to.”

She looked up at him, the glasses dangling from the tip of his nose, the same shirt he’d been wearing for two days.

“Okay, but I have my own health insurance.”

“Congratulations.”

There was a twist to his voice that put her on guard. It hurt her feelings a little. She was unsure how to respond and felt foolish, younger, unschooled, as if a few days working with birds had disarmed her. She couldn’t think of one bitchy comeback. It seemed she’d forgotten them when she’d grasped that eagle’s feet the first day. Her chin dipped. Maybe she’d imprinted with a species other than her own early on. And maybe it was the same for this weird, contradictory man.

Rick handed her a pen. “Print your name, sign and date here,” he said, as if instructing a client.

She briefly read the statement and then signed.

He rotated the documents. Rick smelled like soap. “And this one’s for the rental agreement.”

She signed.

“And sign this W-4, put your social here and then print and sign your name here.”

She was about to question why this was necessary since it was an exchange of rent for labor but didn’t bother. Reaching over, she filled out the form and signed.

“Okay then.” He looked at his watch.

“Guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

“Guess so.”

She was about to ask if there was a back door she could use to retrieve Fotis but decided against it.

Instead she walked out the same way, feeling stung. She eyed the log walls and stone fireplace. Sigmund was still planted on the sofa like a Basilias, Greek for king. She hopped down the front steps and was grateful to be out of there. The air smelled fresh with sweet grass, campfires and the delicate spice of water plants.

“Asshole,” she muttered, as if that would cauterize her feelings. How could someone who exhibited such gentleness and compassion with mammals and birds be such a jerk? Walking around the side of the house, she spotted Fotis and Sam waiting at the fence.

“Hi, guys,” she gushed, bending over in a goofy play stance, relieved to be suddenly enveloped by love and welcoming. She unlatched the gate and stepped in. Fotis rubbed her, turning against her chest as he basked in her scent.

Sam made a beeline for the stand of mature birch trees in the farthest part of the backyard.

“Hey, Sam.” The wolf’s ears perked up as he loped quickly away.

He stopped a ways off to watch her, hiding behind one of the trees, peeking out, still not making up his mind. It hurt her feelings, too.
Like father, like wolf.

“Let’s go have fun,” she said to Fotis in Greek. Leaning over, she began playing, feeling excited about something for no apparent reason. He started wriggling.

“Let’s go to the IGA and see if Maggie’s there,” Paula said in a playful voice. “We’ll get a rotisserie
kota,
maybe some ice cream, a new bone and some
psomi.
” At the sound of
psomi,
he stopped. “Yes, bread.” She nodded. Bread was his favorite; he’d go through a whole loaf in one meal. She’d taken to buying the long baguettes Maggie stocked. He’d lie in the car on his back, holding the two-foot-long bread between his front paws like a flute as he chewed away.

“Let’s go,” she said, and began to run, racing Fotis to the Escape.

*   *   *

Later that afternoon, just back from Maggie’s, Paula found Rick’s driveway filled with cars. Shiny, identical late-model BMWs, without a speck of road dust, not the type of trucks and cars she’d come to recognize as local. All had Minnesota license plates.

She played with her lip as she scoped out the cars. Rick’s front door was shut, inside lights were on. Maybe he was having a dinner party. She felt miffed but was glad she hadn’t been invited.

Just then her phone rang.

“Heav,” she said. “Let me call you back.” The signal was weak. Yesterday, while talking to Eleni, Paula had discovered a place with good reception, out on the water in front of the guesthouse, on a boulder. She could get three bars. Maybe the signal was bouncing off a tower across in Canada or maybe Wisconsin.

She situated Fotis with bread and a bone in the cabin and walked down to the shore, rolled up her jeans and stepped through the knee-high icy water. It made her breath catch as she slogged toward the boulder. Getting a foothold, she climbed up and checked the signal.

“Hey—Tony’s got info on the guy,” Heavenly said.

“Already?”

“Christ—has all that fresh air killed your brain cells, Paula? He’s a detective for Christ sakes.”

“I know, but still so fast?”

“We’re concerned, that’s all. We love you. Doesn’t hurt to check—hey, Tone?” She was handed over.

“Hey, beautiful,” Tony’s voice prompted a pang of homesickness.

“Thanks. I needed that,” Paula said. It was so good to hear his gruff voice.

“Richard Erik Gunnarsson,” he began. “Last name two
n’
s and
s’
s. Jeez, we don’t get a lot of names like this in New York.” She’d noticed the name on the papers she’d just signed. “Northern Lights Wildlife Rehabilitation,” he continued. Rick was a member of both the Minnesota and Wisconsin Bar Associations. His name was also found in association with legislation in both states as well as federal legislation to restrict breeding and selling native birds. It also covered export of raptors and native songbirds unless by controlled facilities licensed by the federal Wildlife Protection Act.

Aside from a few speeding tickets over the past few years, a long and ugly divorce battle that was over eleven years ago, there was nothing else. His property was assessed at almost $2 million; his taxes were fifteen thousand a year. This was his only residence, and he had no reported income other than capital income.