The Rescue Read online

  Will sat down at the table, a little shaken. Massively disappointed. He ate a few bites of the eggs, his mind stuck on Jackie. Fool, he said to himself. I’m such a fool. He hadn’t been honest with himself about how much of his decision to move to Stoney Ridge was influenced by his attraction to Jackie Colombo. She was a beautiful girl who shared his love for animals. Even birds!

  As he chewed on a bite of smoky, crisp bacon, he smiled, a little wryly. Being here was his Plan B.

  Will knew all about Plan Bs. His life had been set on course by his father, Charles Stoltz, for as long as he could remember: an Ivy League college, medical school, internship, and a specialization in neuroscience. And everything was on track, on schedule with Plan A, until Will’s last semester of college.

  In an act of complete stupidity that some might call passive-aggressive defiance, Will had gotten himself suspended from school. It was the worst time in Will’s life, and also the best.

  His father “volunteered” him to be an intern for a game commissioner, and Will found himself exiled at Windmill Farm, home to an Amish family, babysitting a falcon couple and protecting them from overeager bird lovers. That spring had a profound effect on Will. Instead of medical school, Will chose vet school. And now, instead of accepting a comfortable, safe position at an established vet clinic, Will chose to start up a nonprofit wild bird rescue center.

  He glanced at his watch. Nearly eight. He wolfed down the last few bites of the blueberry cornbread. His first day at the center and he was already running late.

  Will expected the center to have a slow start—in fact, he even hoped it would be slow. He spent long days cleaning, scrubbing the walls and floors, giving it a fresh coat of paint, contacting vendors for equipment and medical supplies and waiting for things to be delivered. Plus he still needed to look for donors. He was planning to apply for grants but the center would rely on donations.

  After the tedious work of setting up the center, Will was pleasantly surprised when he received a call to rescue an injured snowy owl. He had a cardboard sign up in the center’s window, but that was as much publicity as he’d had time to create. When he reached the farm where the owl was found, he discovered it had a broken wing. He took it back to the center and placed a splint on the wing, grateful he’d received a shipment of small flight cages that morning. When he realized he didn’t have food supplies for an owl, he thought of the barn at Eagle Hill and asked Luke Schrock to catch mice to feed the owl. He paid him a nickel a mouse.

  Eleven-year-old Luke appeared at the center each afternoon, as soon as school let out, claiming he wanted to check on the pigeon. The pigeon was ready for release within a week’s time, so Will and Luke went out to the ridge behind Eagle Hill late one afternoon and opened the cage. The bird hopped about a moment, pecked at the ground, then stilled and cocked its head when it heard the cooing sound of another pigeon. It flew leisurely away and disappeared behind the ridge.

  Pleased with themselves, Will and Luke sat on a rock to watch the sunset.

  “Look,” Luke said, pointing to bulky stick nests, high in a tree.

  “Well, how about that,” Will said, filled with awe. “It’s a rookery. Those nests are great blue heron nests.” It occurred to him that Blue Lake Pond wasn’t far away, not as the crow flies. Fish was the favorite food of herons; that tree was a perfect site for a breeding colony.

  “Don’t they migrate?”

  “Most birds do migrate, but the ones that can survive on berries or nuts often stay put during winter. Herons will usually stick around as long as creeks and ponds don’t freeze over.” Will stretched out his legs. “Luke, how would you like to help me with the Audubon Christmas Bird Count this December?”

  Luke hesitated. “On Christmas Day?”

  Will grinned. “No. I wouldn’t do that to you. During a few weeks in December and January, volunteers help to count up the birds and collect data for scientists to use.”

  “Why do they need to count the number of birds?”

  “The count began way back in 1900. Holiday hunts used to be a popular pastime—but hunters left piles of bird and animal carcasses littered across the country. So the National Audubon Society protested holiday hunts with the first Christmas Bird Count. Today, the Count helps scientists understand how birds react to short-term weather events. They use the data to predict bird population and behavior.”

  “Why do they need to predict stuff?”

  “Well, birds and insects are the first part of the ecosystem. If a species is in trouble, it will eventually head up the food chain to reach humans. Imagine a world without honey from bees, for example.” Will watched the smaller eagle, the male, return with a fish in those powerful claws and soar back to its gigantic nest made of sticks, lined with grass and moss. Amazing, just amazing.

  Luke’s eyes were on Will. “You need to explain all that Bird Count stuff to my mom,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant. “If she says I can go, I guess I could.” He rose and started down the hill, Will following behind.

  Luke’s curiosity about birds pleased Will. Earlier today, Rose had brought breakfast to the guest flat and said she hoped Luke wasn’t a nuisance for him. Will assured her that Luke was helping him fix up the center and he was good company.

  Rose confessed she’d been worried about her son—he’d been getting into trouble at school lately and starting fights with older boys. “It seems as if he doesn’t care about anything. But he does love birds.”

  Will knew, from his mother’s friendship with Rose, that Luke’s father had died the year before. The boy reminded him of himself at that age: bright, capable, a quick trigger temper, and sorely needing a man’s attention. Luke, he thought, could go down the wrong path pretty easily, just as he had. But his love of birds might keep him on the right track, as it had for Will. Birds had called him back and set him straight.

  Will found an apartment within walking distance to the center, but it wouldn’t be available until the first of January. Rose assured him he’d be welcome to stay in the guest flat through December and gave him a weekly rate. It was overly generous, but he knew she was grateful for the attention he was giving Luke. When he described the Christmas Bird Count to her, explaining that he wanted to take Luke with him, she practically hugged him.

  “I’ve heard about it,” she said. “In the Budget, I’ve read of some Amish teens in Ohio who ride bicycles to count the birds.” She bit her lip. “Lancaster Amish don’t ride bicycles, only scooters.”

  Will grinned. “I was planning to use my car.” He folded his arms against his chest. “I’d take Sammy, but I think he’s a little young.”

  “That’s fine,” Rose said, grinning from ear to ear. “Luke’s the one who loves the birds.” From that day on, she insisted Will join them for supper each night, and packed an enormous lunch for him each day.

  Later that week, she brought him a breakfast tray with enough food to feed two people. Maybe three. “Rose, you’re being too kind to me. I want to pay you for this extra food.”

  She wouldn’t hear of it. “What you’re doing for Luke . . . it’s payment enough.”

  “He earns his keep. He helps clean out bird cages and sweeps the floor and takes out garbage and catches mice. I should start paying him.”

  She smiled. “He’s getting something much more important than money could ever give him.”

  Early one morning, Will was startled out of a sound sleep by a banging on his door. “Will! Will! It’s the eagle. It’s dead!”

  Will jumped out of bed and jammed his feet into his boots. He grabbed his coat and opened the door. “What happened?”

  Luke was hysterical. “I went to feed the sheep in the pasture this morning and wondered why they were all huddled in a corner. Then I saw a lump in the middle of the field. It was one of my eagles, lying there, dead!”

  “Take a deep breath and calm down. I want you to show me where the eagle is, but you need to be calm. It might not be dead and you don’t want to scare i
t.”

  Will grabbed some supplies from his car, a blanket, and his medical bag, and followed Luke out to the field. When they got to the eagle, he made Luke stand back. He picked up a stick and gently poked it, relieved to see an eye blink. He walked back to Luke. “It’s not dead. But it’s limp and near death. We need to get him to the center so I can examine him. Can you help?”

  Luke nodded.

  “Spread the blanket out on the ground near the eagle, but remember, stay calm and move slowly.” Will put his thick gloves and protective glasses on. “I’m going to move the eagle onto the blanket.” He gently lifted the eagle onto the blanket, covered it, and carried it to his car. Luke followed on his heels.

  He knew Luke wanted to stay with the eagle. “You need to get to school. I’m going to do everything I can to save the eagle. You can stop by after school.”

  Luke dropped his chin to his chest. “It’s dying, ain’t it?”

  “I don’t know. But if this eagle has a chance at all, it’ll be because of you.”

  “Bet it’ll die.”

  Will sped to the center, hoping no cops were making their rounds. At the center, he set the eagle on the table and examined it. Immediately, he found the problem. He pulled a piece of rancid meat out of the eagle’s beak. It smelled of poison—possibly a carcass of a euthanized farm animal or a poisoned mouse. He gave the eagle antibiotics and an IV of fluids. As he examined the eagle, a male, he judged it to be just reaching maturity—the white head and tail feathers didn’t come in until an eagle was four or five years old. He examined each wing to make sure nothing was broken—powerful wings that rarely flapped, mostly soared. His gloved hand ran down each leg to those claws that could snatch a fish out of a lake or river or creek. Its yellow hooked beak could tear apart carrion. Satisfied that he had ruled out any injuries, he lifted the eagle into the flight cage and stood watching it. He took some close-up pictures for his files. It felt strange to be so close to such a majestic bird. Strange and wonderful. It filled him with awe.

  He realized he was still in his pajamas and drove back to Eagle Hill for a quick change. These were the moments when he wished he had a partner. Someday, he hoped.

  Rose saw his car and hurried out to meet him before he disappeared into the guest flat. She handed him a brown sack of food. “I made enough for breakfast and lunch for you.” She didn’t want to ask, but the worry in her eyes gave her away.

  “The eagle is still alive. Looks like he ate something that was poisonous. I should know if he’s going to make it within a few hours.”

  “Those eagles . . . they’re very important to us. To Luke, especially.”

  “I know.” He hesitated. “If the eagle doesn’t survive, I’ll leave a message on your phone so you can tell Luke. I don’t want him to drop by the center and find out that way.”

  Rose dropped her eyes. “No. If the eagle doesn’t make it, Luke should hear it from you. He knows you will have done everything you could for it. He knows that God is in control of all things, including eagles.” She lifted her head. “I’m praying, though. Praying the eagle will survive.”

  As Will drove back to the center, he pondered Rose’s comment. He felt that familiar stirring in his soul that happened whenever he spent time among the Amish. The belief that God’s hand was on all parts of life, that he would bring good from all things—it infused the way they thought, the way they took in circumstances and experiences.

  Take the Schrock family, for instance. They had weathered a terrible blow when Rose’s husband died in a drowning accident last year, complicated by the family investment company being under investigation by the SEC for wrongdoing. The oldest son in the family, Tobe, was serving time in jail for withholding evidence. And still, they believed that God would bring good from that big mess. And what a mess!

  His thoughts traveled to Luke. He wondered how much of Luke’s tough-guy attitude, masking his neediness, was affected by his father’s untimely death. He had no idea what Dean Schrock was like, but if he was anything like his own father—busy with work, distracted when he wasn’t at work—Luke would have been left with many confused and frustrated feelings. Will felt grateful that he had time with his father to get past most of that, to start carving a relationship with him that was healthy. They had come a long way from where they were at Luke’s age. He decided he would call his father later today and tell him about the eagle. If it survived.

  He pulled his car to the back of the center and hurried inside, hoping, hoping, hoping the eagle was still alive. He went through the hallway and into the room that held the flight cages. There, to his surprise, was the eagle, standing. He had rallied! He was looking around the cage as if he wasn’t quite sure what had happened or where he was.

  Will leaned against the wall, relieved, ecstatic, eager for Luke to get out of school. He sat on the ground, watching the eagle gain back strength—moving around a little, making squeaking noises—as he ate both the breakfast and lunch Rose had packed him. He knew there would be winners and losers in this work, that he wouldn’t be able to save every bird, but he was elated that this particular patient could be saved.

  Two days later, Luke burst into the Wild Bird Rescue Center during his lunch hour. “I found out something about Jackie Colombo.”

  Will’s head jerked up. “You’re supposed to be at school.” He cleared his throat. “What did you hear?”

  “I heard that she’d been shot. In the stomach. Fifteen times.”

  “What?!” Will was horrified. And skeptical. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “A seventh grader.”

  Will tried not to roll his eyes. “Any idea where he heard it?”

  Luke squinted his eyes, trying to remember. “Not sure. I’ll ask him.”

  “Wouldn’t something like a gunshot have made the news?”

  “Unless whoever shot her wanted to keep it quiet. Maybe it was a botched robbery and the thief got away but threatened her to keep quiet.” Luke shrugged. “She must be dead. Who could survive fifteen gunshots to the gut?”

  Will scowled. “Did you hear anything else? Any idea where she is now?”

  “Nope.”

  The disappearance of Jackie Colombo kept getting stranger.

  As soon as Luke went back to school, Will walked down to the Stoney Ridge Times newspaper office and spoke to the features editor, a portly, unpleasant man who reeked of stale cigarette smoke. Will had been hoping the paper might do an article on the center, so he’d been planning to introduce himself, but first he wanted to find out if the editor had heard of anyone getting shot fifteen times in the stomach.

  “Nope,” the editor said, giving Will a look like he might be sun touched.

  “Does the name Jackie Colombo ring a bell? She was a local vet.”

  “Nope.”

  Now the editor’s disdainful look turned impatient, so Will dropped the subject and told him about the center. The editor listened to him, took a few notes, told him that if space opened up, he would run a story on him. “But I need a good bird story,” he said, tapping his pencil on his notepad. “A pigeon with tar won’t cut it.”

  “How about the rescue of a poisoned bald eagle?”

  The editor’s bushy eyebrows shot up, showing interest for the first time. “That could work.”

  Will walked back to the center with a much lighter heart. He felt excited about the chances of getting an article in the newspaper and reaping good exposure for the center. Not so excited, however, that he could forget about Jackie Colombo.

  Where was she?

  The next day, the weather turned bitterly cold. Late in the afternoon, Luke blew into the center along with a gust of wind. “There’s a robin at the Sisters’ House. We gotta save it!”

  Will was skeptical—robins had flown south long ago—but he grabbed his nets, bundled himself up in a parka, and pulled on some mittens. “How far away is it?”

  “Just a few blocks from here. We can walk.”

  In this biting wind?
Driving sounded better to Will, but Luke was already out the door and down the street. Sheesh, these hearty Amish, Will thought, running to keep up. “Who lives in the Sisters’ House?”

  “Old sisters. Five of them. They must be over one hundred years old.”

  Will slowed, feeling even more skeptical. Old folks tended to see things.

  Luke frowned. “Can’t you go any faster? The robin might be dying.”

  The wind slapped them in the face as they hurried down Main Street. When they reached the Grange Hall and turned down the road, Luke pointed to an old clapboard house. One of the old sisters was watching from the window and came to the door to meet them.

  “Sylvia’s the youngest sister. She’s the one who spotted the robin and told me to get you.” Luke ran up to her. “Don’t you worry! Will is going to save the robin.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad,” Sylvia said, shivering in her thin shawl. “It’s been flying into the windows and eating frozen berries in the yard.” She pointed to the bushes where she had last seen the robin and Will sent her inside to stay warm.

  Will and Luke hunted around the yard and there it was, a juvenile robin, born last summer. It was in pretty poor shape, barely able to clear the treetops. Will and Luke did everything they could to catch it—one behind and one in front, chasing it from bush to bush, tree to tree—but after an hour, their feet were so cold they couldn’t feel them anymore and it was starting to get dark, so they had to give up. Will knocked on the door to the Sisters’ House. “We simply couldn’t catch the little guy and we’re too cold to continue.”

  Clearly disappointed, Sylvia invited them inside to warm up, but Will knew Rose would be worried about Luke. They walked back to the center and Will drove them over to Eagle Hill. Luke was silent all the way home. “We did our best, Luke. But we have to give the robin a chance to settle in for whatever fate lies ahead of him.”