The Rescue Read online

  “What are its chances?”

  Will knew, with the temperature dropping below zero and high winds forecasted, the robin wouldn’t survive the night. “Not good, Luke.”

  Luke turned away from Will and looked out the window. When they got to Eagle Hill, he went inside the house without a word and Will went to the guest flat.

  Not ten minutes later, he heard a banging on his door. He opened it to find Luke, standing there, shivering, coatless and hatless. “We chased that bird around all afternoon. He couldn’t eat while we chased him.”

  Will hung his head. “You’re right, Luke. He used up what little energy he had.” Despite their best intentions, they had contributed to the unlikely survival of the poor little bird. “You want to go back?”

  Luke nodded.

  “Do you have any flashlights?”

  Luke grinned. “I even have an LED headlight on a helmet.”

  “Bring it. Bring as many flashlights as you can find. Bundle up warmly.” Luke sprinted up to the house as Will yelled, “And tell your mother!”

  When they got back to the Sisters’ House, the wind was blowing over thirty miles an hour and the temperature had dropped to minus two degrees. They searched the bushes and trees with flashlights for a long time, until Luke caught sight of the robin on the front door of the Sisters’ House. It was so cold that it had lost all concern for its safety and had chosen the shelter of the house. Will walked slowly toward the door and pounced on the robin with his net. The robin startled, then went completely limp. Blast! Did he scare it to death? They drove to the center and placed the robin on a nest of shredded newspapers in a small cage. Luke got worms out of the refrigerator and filled a hamster bottle with water. He watched the robin for a while as Will put the nets away.

  Suddenly, Luke shouted for Will to come. “Look!” The robin’s head was up, then shook back and forth. Will and Luke watched, transfixed. Every minute that passed, the robin seemed to improve. When it stood on its feet, Will let out a laugh. “I think it’s going to make it, Luke.”

  The next morning, when Will reached the center, he laughed out loud when he saw the robin hopping around the cage. The worms were gone, the water bottle was nearly empty. It might have just been a little robin, but all day long, Will couldn’t hold back a grin whenever he saw it.

  j ddd i

  The next week brought a string of discouraging situations for Will, one after the other. He arrived one morning to find a cardboard box left at the door. Inside was an unconscious falcon. After examining it, Will saw the falcon had been shot by a BB gun. He operated, removed the BB, did all he could to keep it alive—even staying at the center all night. By dawn, it died.

  Falcons were listed as endangered species in the state of Pennsylvania. What particularly grieved Will was that he had banded this very falcon when it was just an eyas. It was during that spring of exile when he was interning for the game commissioner.

  A few hours after the falcon death, he got a phone call to come rescue a great blue heron that had been electrocuted when it hit a power line. By the time he arrived at the scene, the great blue heron had died.

  By midweek, he’d had more bad news. His father had called to let him know that his graduate school loans were starting to come due. His father had made it clear that if Will chose vet school, he would have to put himself through.

  When Will arrived at the center, he found a note taped on the door that the electric company was going to turn off his power if he didn’t pay his bill within the week. Start-up costs for the center had been far more than he had expected. His credit card was maxed out and he’d already bounced a check.

  He leaned his forehead against the front door, discouraged. He thought by now that some donations might start to arrive, but that was also naive thinking, he realized. He had done nothing yet to encourage fundraising.

  And he still wasn’t any closer to finding Jackie Colombo. He should let it go, but the more he thought about her, the more he longed to find her. He had done an internet search, asked around town, checked at the local hospital, but no one seemed to know where she had gone.

  This entire endeavor was harder than he’d thought it would be. In his mind, he thought he was coming to Stoney Ridge like a superhero: saving endangered birds, sweeping Jackie off her feet. The truth was, he spent a lot of time alone in a depressing building with a screechy eagle for company. He was . . . lonely.

  He went into the center and checked on his patients: an eagle, an owl, and a robin, wondering if those offers he’d received from some vet clinics after graduation might still be available. He rubbed his face. The thing was, he just didn’t want to take care of pets, or even zoo animals. It was wildlife that called to him.

  He heard the front door open and walked out to find Rose Schrock, holding up a brown lunch bag. “You forgot this today. I had some errands to do in town so I thought I’d drop it by.”

  “Thank you, Rose. You’ve been very good to me.”

  “Your family has been a blessing to us. Your mother’s friendship to me, your father’s skill as a doctor to my mother-in-law. And now you.”

  “Me?”

  “Letting Luke come alongside you like he’s done. It’s made a world of difference to him. He hasn’t been this excited about something for a long time.”

  A horrible high-pitched squeaking sound filled the air. It was the eagle.

  Will shook his head. Those earsplitting screeches were starting to give him headaches. “I’ve called a few rehab centers looking for available space in a large flight cage, but so far, I haven’t found any. He’s ready to be transferred.” More than ready.

  “Can’t you just release him?”

  “I want to be absolutely positive he’s ready to return to the wild. Bald eagles are a threatened species, America’s favorite bird, after all. We can’t be too cautious. But when he is ready for release, I’ll take him back to Eagle Hill so he can rejoin his mate.”

  “I hope it’s soon. She seems lonely.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “No luck finding Jackie Colombo?”

  He jerked his head up. “Is it that obvious?”

  She shrugged. “You’ve mentioned her once or twice.”

  He let out a puff of air. “I think it’s a lost cause.”

  Rose walked to the robin’s cage. “Our minister had a particularly thoughtful sermon last Sunday about a couple in the Bible. He spoke of Jacob’s longing for Rachel, that he was willing to work seven years for her, even though a typical dowry would require only two years. But Jacob was head over heels in love. He’d been sent away from his family because he had played a trick on his brother Esau. He was lonely. And Rachel was everything to him. Maybe even too much. His love for her replaced the role God was meant to have in his life.

  “Seven years went by and Jacob did marry Rachel, or so he thought. The veils covered the women, you see. In the morning, he discovered that he had married Leah, her sister, whom he didn’t love.”

  Will wasn’t quite sure what point she was trying to make. That he should stop pining for Jackie? He tried. He couldn’t.

  Rose seemed to read his mind. “Caring for someone is a good thing, but it isn’t meant to be the only thing. The minister reminded us that whenever something or someone is in the place that only God was meant for, our heart’s desire might be for Rachel, but in the morning, we will always find ourselves with Leah.” She walked to the door, put her hand on the handle, and turned back to Will. “Thank you for bringing my boy back to me.”

  Will watched Rose get into the buggy and start the horse down the street. Slowly, her message started to sink in. He had turned Jackie Colombo into something she wasn’t. He hardly knew her, and he had pinned a lot of hopes and dreams on her.

  Same thing with the center. He arrived in Stoney Ridge thinking he was a rock star, here to single-handedly defend wildlife. He let out a deep breath. I’ve turned this vision of life in Stoney Ridge into “marrying Rachel,” and in the
morning, I discovered I “married Leah.”

  He looked up at the blue sky, with white puffy clouds scuttling across the expanse, and lifted his hands, palm side up, fingers splayed. “I give up. It’s all yours, Lord. The path I’ve chosen, my career, my life . . . it’s yours.”

  He started to turn around when something stopped him. It was a quiet, a deep, restful Presence that he knew was God. The Presence that seemed to surround him and pursue him at the same time, filling him with a bone-deep awareness that he was deeply loved and cared for. In that moment, something seemed to move from Will’s head into his heart: knowledge became belief.

  Will would have thought he would feel . . . well, to be honest, almost a dread if he surrendered his life to God. He assumed something would be taken from him. Instead, he felt a sense of freedom and release. A tightness in him loosened like a cut cord.

  Filled with joy, energized and invigorated, he went to his desk to start down the list of wildlife rehab centers that were in Pennsylvania, hoping to find space for the eagle. It took six phone calls, but he finally found a wildlife rehab center in east Lancaster with an empty flight cage and made an appointment to deliver the eagle later that afternoon.

  His stomach rumbled and he realized it was lunchtime. As he went to get Rose’s lunch from the refrigerator, he heard the door open and in came five elderly Amish women, beaming with happiness. He recognized one—Sylvia—the woman from the Sisters’ House who had wanted to save the robin. “Hello! Did you come to visit your robin?”

  Sylvia nodded. “We hoped we could see how he’s doing.”

  “He’s right here,” Will said, pointing to a cage on his desk. “Come see for yourselves.”

  The five sisters surrounded the robin’s cage, oohing and aahing. It pleased Will to see their delight in something as simple as a robin. He needed to remember this moment. “Will you release him soon?” one sister asked.

  “He’s ready,” Will said, “but I’m waiting for the temperature to warm up a little. He might stick around Stoney Ridge or he might fly south to join his cousins. I just want to give him the best chance for survival.”

  One sister gave him a shy look. “Not many veterinarians would have cared so much about a little robin.”

  “We have something to tell you,” Sylvia said. The other sisters bobbed their black bonneted heads. “We want to help your center. With saving birds. A year ago, our sister Ella—” she pointed to the shy sister— “she was inspired to design a special quilt. We never knew where it should go. After you saved our robin, we had a family discussion and decided the quilt was meant for you. For your work. We’re heading over to the Grange Hall for today’s auction and we’re going to give you the money we receive for it.”

  Will was stunned. “That’s not necessary. I certainly appreciate the thought, but I wouldn’t want you to give away something you’ve made.”

  “Nonsense,” Sylvia said. “We do it all the time.”

  “All the time,” another sister echoed.

  “Things aren’t meant to be stuck in a closet, gathering dust, where rust and moths can get at it,” a sister said.

  Another sister nodded. “That’s what Bethany Schrock is always telling us, anyway.”

  Sylvia held up a large shopping bag. She placed it on Will’s desk and carefully pulled out a tissue-wrapped quilt. Will was speechless. Each block was a different bird—just common backyard birds, made of tiny pieces of fabric that fit together like a mosaic—and in the center, was a sparrow. Down at the bottom was embroidered: “Not even a sparrow shall drop without His knowing.”

  “Not even a robin,” Ella said. Her voice trailed off, like a bagpipe leaking air.

  “It’s beautiful,” Will said, his voice trembling.

  The sisters smiled. “We’ll bring the check for the quilt over to you later this afternoon. You use it any way you need.”

  Will’s face grew hot and he felt himself perspire. Oh sheesh . . . he felt his eyes prickle with tears and realized he was going to start welling up. How mortifying! But he was so overwhelmed by the way this morning had turned itself upside down. He would be able to keep the center going for a while, thanks to these kind old sisters and a little lost robin. He had a feeling his life would never be quite the same.

  After lunch, Will braced himself to move the eagle into a traveling cage. He put on thick leather elbow-length gloves, wore eye protection, said a prayer, and opened the cage to hood the eagle. He let out a sigh of relief when the eagle didn’t attack him. He quickly grabbed its legs and moved it into a cage, locked it tightly, and carried the cage to his car. In his pocket was the address to the wildlife rehab center. He glanced at it. He noticed the name of the center was Plan B, which he thought was fittingly ironic for a rescue center.

  When he arrived at the wildlife center, the receptionist told him to keep the eagle outside and wait for the handler. He stood by his car, hopping from foot to foot to keep warm, irritated that the wildlife center didn’t acknowledge that he was a licensed vet and knew what he was doing.

  “I understand you have an eagle that needs a flight cage?”

  He spun around, then did a double take, stunned. Standing in front of him was Jackie Colombo. Jackie Colombo! Will’s jaw dropped. “What are you doing here . . . ? Where have you been?”

  Jackie looked equally amazed. “I had an accident at the vet clinic in Stoney Ridge and had to take a leave of absence for a while.”

  “You vanished into thin air.”

  She frowned. “I’m sorry. First, I had a hand injury—I was badly bitten by a pet raccoon while I was prepping it for surgery—and then discovered the raccoon was rabid. Long story short . . . my hand needed surgery and was bandaged up for a few weeks. And then the vet clinic was worried I would sue them because they neglected to make sure the raccoon was up to date with its shots—of course I wouldn’t sue, but they’re a little paranoid—so they gave me this ridiculous settlement if I promised I’d never speak to the press or to any attorney. I had to take a leave of absence until my hand healed. Next thing I knew, a friend who works at Plan B asked if I could help them out with a few things while I was on leave. So . . . here I am.”

  Will was still dazed, trying to listen to her and still absorb the fact that she was standing right in front of him. He had found her! Over Jackie’s head, Will noticed the sign for the wildlife rehab center. PLAN B: A WILDLIFE REHAB CENTER. He nearly burst out laughing. Mim Schrock had told him where Jackie was, weeks ago, and he didn’t put two and two together. Then something she said sunk in. “Rabies? You had rabies?”

  “No symptoms. But of course I needed treatments.”

  “Shots!” Will thumped his forehead with the palm of his hand. “The old treatment for rabies is fifteen shots to the stomach.” Luke, being a typical eleven-year-old, assumed shots meant gunshots.

  She nodded. “Thankfully, the treatment is better now.” She grinned. “I’m all cured.” She glanced back at the Plan B entrance. “I find I’m liking this work much better than being in a clinic. Feels good to make a difference.”

  “You stopped answering my emails.”

  She bit her lip. “I’m sorry. It was hard to do anything with my hand. Then, I had so many emails piling up—hundreds of them—I just got overwhelmed and didn’t even try to go through them.” She looked at the ground. “I figured you would have accepted a fancy job somewhere.”

  “Not so fancy. I’m in Stoney Ridge starting a wildlife bird rescue center. In fact, I’m in that very location you had suggested.”

  “Yeah?” She grinned.

  He took a step closer. “Yeah.”

  For a while they just stood there, grinning at each other. Then the eagle started to shift impatiently in its cage and Will remembered why he had come. “I have a patient for you.” He reached down to pick up the eagle cage. “But before I forget, would you mind giving me your phone number?”

  “Not at all.”

  “And . . . what would you think of joining me
and my eleven-year-old assistant on the Audubon Christmas Bird Count next week?”

  Jackie smiled. “Why, I was planning to go on it myself.”

  The next day, Jackie called Will to let him know the eagle was flying well and was cleared to return to the wild. On Saturday afternoon, Will and Luke picked up the eagle, and Jackie, from Plan B Wildlife Rehab Center and drove to the Inn at Eagle Hill close to sunset. They walked up to the ridge, the highest point. Luke spotted Mrs. Eagle flying over the creek. Will opened the cage, took the eagle out, holding tightly to it, then quickly pulled off its hood and set it free. The eagle took off, soaring down the ridge. Luke kept his binoculars peeled on Mrs. Eagle, while Jackie shielded her eyes from the sun and kept watch on Mr. Eagle.

  Will looked at Luke and Jackie, and at the eagles soaring over Eagle Hill. He felt overwhelming gratitude well up in his heart, and he thanked God for this moment. He was a different person than when he had arrived. He thought he held his future tightly in his hands. Now, he held his hands, palms open, to God. He remembered that first cautious prayer when he arrived in Stoney Ridge, asking God to bless this endeavor. This morning, his prayer was to ask God to make him a blessing. Some might think it the same prayer, but to Will, it was entirely different.

  It wasn’t long before Mr. and Mrs. Eagle found each other and met in the sky. Their claws caught and they did a dance together, spiraling down, down, down toward the earth, then suddenly releasing and soaring back in the sky. Luke was worried they would hurt each other until Jackie explained it was a courting ritual. “They’re happy to be together again,” she said, giving Will a shy sideways glance.

  Will grinned. Yes, they were.

  1

  The air had the sweet burn of frost. Long out of habit, even in the winter months, Rose Schrock woke before dawn to carve out a little time for herself before the day began. She liked the bitter cold, a cold that seemed to sharpen the stars in the wide Pennsylvania sky. Dawn was her favorite hour, a time when she felt most keenly aware of how fragile life truly was. Between one breath and the next, your whole world could change. Hers had.