The Bird Saviors (28 page)
    Down into the gulch he goes, stumbling forward like a blind man in the darkness, his rough hands on rocks rougher still, until he's close enough to hear their voices. Their tongue is Spanish, and he can tell there's some problem. He shines his flashlight on a trio of women crouched over a young boy and asks what's the matter.
   Â
Está enfermo
, says one of the women. T
enemos miedo que
muera el niño.
Está enfermo
, says one of the women. T
enemos miedo que
muera el niño.
    Lord God hears the ragged breath of the boy, his lungs full of liquid. It sounds like a drowning. I've got a house up here, he calls out. What can I do to help?
    The Mexican women huddle over the boy and whisper among themselves. Lord God holds the flashlight and waits. The boulders and cactus catch and shimmer in the flashlight beam, a glow of yellow spines. Lord God feels as if a caul of spiderwebs is woven upon his face.
    The young boy coughs, loosing a rattle of phlegm in his throat. His mother thanks Lord God. They're bedraggled and need shelter. His flashlight beam freezes the line of refugees in placeâ a queue of misery extending as far as Lord God can see.
    Lord God leads the way up and out of the gulch. He slips and stumbles halfway to the top. His face and arm dirtied, he lies on his back and works his prosthesis into position to stand. The crowd behind him sees the metal peg leg revealed, the thin aluminum tube like the limb of an android.
    I'm fine, says Lord God. I just need to get my good leg under me.
    As he struggles, a man steps forward. He takes Lord God's hand, gives him a yank, hefts him up and over his shoulder.
    Lord God smells wood smoke and sweat on the man's clothes, his face pressed into the man's back. His feet dangle in the air like a child's, with the prosthetic shoe resembling that of an oversized Pinocchio.
    I can walk, says Lord God, his voice muffled against the man's back. I can walk. I just needâ
    The Mexican man doesn't respond. He climbs goatlike up the steep trail. Lord God's head hangs awkwardly to the side, his eyes focused on brief glimpses of the trail illuminated by the wavering flashlight beam now jostled in his left hand, cutting wildly across the gulchâ here casting a circle of yellow light upon a shimmer of wet prairie, there shining into the darkness above.
    They reach the plateau and the Mexican lowers Lord God to his feet. Lord God thanks the man, dusts himself off, then leads the procession that carries the ailing child toward his house, feeling like a gimp- legged Moses leading illegals out of the desert.
After a frantic search of all the rooms, Jack Brown leans against a wall and sucks on his inhaler. He returns to the nursery and wipes the doorknob and window frame with his sleeve. About to leave the room and this wacko hellhole forever, he notices his black footprints, gets down on his knees, and wipes up the mud with a baby blanket. He's just finishing when he hears voices and the back door opening. He peeks out of the nursery and glimpses a Mexican standing in the hallway, holding a child in his arms.
    Jack backpedals to the closet and closes the door. He squirms into a mass of coats and boxes, sweating and breathless. Has Cousin Page double- crossed him? Sent some Mexican to do the deed and set him up for a fall? It doesn't make sense. Why would all these people be involved, making all this hubbub?
    Jack burrows into the nest of coats, wheezing, dizzy. He has to suck his inhaler to keep from passing out.
Lord God brews a pot of tea. One of the women tells him the boy has been sick only for a day or two, that he became weak and fe verish the day before. She says they were living in the boxcars of the old train yard but were driven out by vigilantes with baseball bats. Now they need to find a place to stay. Their only choice is a tent city west of town. That's where they're headed, using the gulch as a hidden back way to avoid
los vigilantes.
    A crowd gathers in Lord God's kitchen, close to the woodstove. The women lay the boy on a sofa in the living room. The knee of Lord God's good leg is now swollen and stiff. He limps to and fro between the living room and kitchen, afraid he's about to collapse in pain. He must have twisted the knee when he fell. He realizes he might not be able to walk in the morning.
From the closet Jack hears a confused burble of voices, most talking in Spanish. One hoarse voice asks questions in English. At one point he hears someone enter the room, a heavy footstep, limping, rhythmic thump and hiss, searching for something. Jack tenses and is ready to bolt, run like a madman through the house and out the door. The door creaks shut and the thumping fades down the hallway.
    Jack closes his eyes and prays to Jesus that he not be found. He promises he will change his dumb- ass ways and sin no more. He drifts into a half- sleep state and dreams of devil girls with Taser guns torturing him. . . .
On the sofa, the Mexican boy's young mother sits beside her feverish son. She wears an old sweater wet from the rain and dirty from the gulch. She looks about the same age as Ruby. She wipes tears from her eyes and pleads for God almighty to help her son, not to let him die in pain, in this house of strangers.
    Her face resembles that of women Lord God saw in the Arab desert, huddled over their bloodied children after the explosion of a car bomb in a market, asking Allah for forgiveness and protection. He wonders if any in the room would blow themselves apart for an antigringo jihad. He wonders if they're to be trusted. A teenager among them turns on the television set and watches a sunblock commercialâ blond, bikini- clad girls playing volleyball, high- fiving in the sand.
    Lord God limps into the kitchen and places a saucepan on the stove. He opens a can of tomato soup, stirs in a splash of milk.
    His knee throbs as he leans against the wooden kitchen counter. Dirty dishes fill the sink, a stack of plates clutters the counter, and the faucet drips. Flies buzz and light on spilled bacon grease on the stove. Without Ruby and Lila in the house, Lord God is lost and vacant. A Mexican woman steps through the doorway and asks,
Le ayudo?
Le ayudo?
    Lord God says no, he's doing fine. He just needs to get this soup heated and find where he put the saltines. I know they're here someplace.
Galletas
, he adds.
Galletas
, he adds.
    The woman says something he doesn't understand, begins pulling pots and pans from the sink. Lord God tells her she really doesn't need to do that.
    She drains the mucky water, rinses the sink clean, and fills it with hot, soapy water. She goes to work on the pots and pans, stacking them in the dish drainer as he stirs the tomato soup.
    Lord God feels ripples of weariness wash through his body. He struggles to make his way with the bowl of soup and crackers to the living room, where the boy is now propped up on pillows on the old, faded, flower- print sofa. Lord God's hands tremble, the spoon tinkling against the bowl and saucer on the tray. One of the migrants takes the tray and thanks him while another makes a place for Lord God to sit on the sofa. The boy's lips are cracked and discolored, his nose leaks a thin dribble of blood.
    I don't know that I can do anything, says Lord God. I wish I could but I don't know. He shakes his head and watches the boy as a woman spoon- feeds him the soup. The boy's eyes are pink and he moans after he swallows, his coughs high- pitched and painful- sounding. He puts his head back on the sofa cushion and pants. He closes his eyes and calls for his mother.
    Later Lord God awakens in the rocking chair, disoriented. The crowd in the room stands hushed and weeping. He feels a weakness in his bones and heart, a burning sensation on the skin of his throat and neck, the small of his back. It's all he can do to stay awake as the crowd filters out, carrying the boy's body, thanking him for trying to help, not daring to look in his face. Lord God urges them to stay the night, but he takes to coughing with a roughness that frightens the migrants. He tells them to take his water, a collection of fifty gallons in plastic jugs beneath the kitchen table.
    They thank him and form a line from the kitchen out the front door, passing down the one- gallon jugs as if manning a fire- brigade line. Lord God urges them on, telling them, Don't be shy. Take it all. I can get more.
    Lord God falls into a coughing fit again, leans forward to clear his throat, the mucus thick and gluey. When he looks up the last of the people are walking away, only the flickering beams of their flashlights visible as they head back toward the gulch and the path toward their shantytown. The dead boy's body fades into the darkness, draped with the white bedspread, held high by the illegals.
After three hours in the closet, Jack Brown tries to stand but his leg is asleep. He leans against the closet door and rubs until it begins to tingle. Outside, all is quiet. He hasn't heard a peep for a long time. The house seems empty. He creeps down the hallway and reaches the kitchen. A saucepan on the stove, a glass of water on the table. He gulps it down quickly, the first thing he's had to drink in hours. He tiptoes through the passageway, glancing into the living room. There sits an old man with a hooked nose and a gray beard in a recliner, his head leaning back, eyes half open.
    In a feverish sleep, Lord God dreams himself inside the vortex of a whirlwind. Images of Ruby and Juliet swirl and float above him until he opens his eyes and sees the apparition of a stranger in the hallway of his house. He tries to focus and speak, to call out to this interloper.
    For a moment their eyes meet. Jack tenses, a tremor passing through his body as if he's looking into the eyes of an angry God. Next he's running out the back door, through the windy yard, and fumbling for the keys in the truck cab. He shoves the truck into gear and lets out the clutch, his legs trembling.
    He rushes down the dirt road, bouncing over cattle guards and ruts, almost flipping the truck on a high- sided curve, slamming back down to earth, holding on to the steering wheel like the crossbar of a roller coaster, tires squealing as he gets back on the highway. He wheezes and gasps, struggling to get his inhaler out of his pocket while speeding to put as many miles as he can between that crazy old man and his miserable hide. Still he can't suppress a shit- eating grin that he got away without a load of buckshot in his ass or worse.
    He plans to get up early and tell Cousin Page just what went wrong. But the next day he has a wicked fever and his body aches so bad he can't get out of bed. By afternoon he lies in bed sweating, staring at the television with scorching eyeballs. He wishes he could just die and get it over with. In his fevered delirium he remembers Gata's advice for remorse:
Close your eyes and don't
look back.
Close your eyes and don't
look back.
L o r d  G o d  a w a k e n s to the sound of Lila playing with her blocks in the living room. Simple wooden blocks embossed with letters of the alphabet, numerals, and images of fish, birds, bears, cats, and horses. He sits in his easy chair and tries to peel an orange in one continuous piece, a trick that always brought a smile to Lila's face. He wears pajamas with moose on them and Lila points to the moose pattern and says, Cow.
    No, says Lord God. That's a moose. He holds his fingers out from his head to pantomime antlers. They're much bigger than cows, with big antlers. And they're wild.
    Cow, says Lila again. She blinks slowly, with both eyes, and then clacks two wooden blocks together as if they are cymbals. They make a hollow, wooden sound. She keeps doing this for several minutes.
    Lord God hears Ruby call his name. Papa? she calls out. Papa? Are you there?
    He turns and looks for her in the kitchen doorway, but there is only blackness in that direction. He looks down at his legs as he wills himself to stand. Both of his legs are whole and firm, and he stands as if weightless. Only now Lila holds a wooden block in her hand, and on it is a hideous wrinkled face with the horned forehead of a devil. She frowns at him and says, You are a stupid, selfish man. I hate you and hope you die. You will roast in hell for your sins.
    He tries to speak, to tell her he loves her and ask why she would say such a thing. He can't move his mouth. He holds out his hands to pick up Lila but she scurries away quickly, like a rat, crawling beneath the sofa and hissing at him.
    He feels Ruby's hand on his forehead. Papa? Are you awake? Wake up, Papa. You need to eat something.
    He opens his eyes and stares at Ruby's face. She has her hair pulled back and her head looks too small for her body. His breath is hot on his lips. He wheezes and feels a wave of fevered weariness move through his veins and arteries. The room smells unwholesome, as if something is rotten.
Where's Lila? he asks.
She's in town, says Ruby. Mom's taking care of her.
    She told me I was selfish. She said she hoped I rotted in hell. Why did she say those things?
    She didn't, says Ruby.
    Yes, I heard her. She was in the living room playing with blocksâ
    Hush, says Ruby. She puts a cool washcloth on his forehead. Everything will be fine. It must have been a dream. A nightmare.
    Lord God's lip trembles. There was a stranger here. The devil, it was. Or one of his minions. I saw him.
    Hush, Papa. Here. Ruby maneuvers a TV tray onto his lap and fluffs his pillows, tries to get him to sit up. His fever is so high she can feel it radiating off him as if from a space heater. She holds a glass of orange juice to his lips. Drink.
    He has no strength to swallow. He coughs and chokes, his face turning red, a vein down the middle of his forehead swollen and pulsing. Ruby makes him lean forward and pounds his back.
    Breathe, Papa. You have to breathe!
    After a moment he catches his breath, the air making a wheezing, high- pitched whistle when he exhales. He coughs again and Ruby sees blood droplets on his pillow. Orange juice spills on the tray and leaks onto the patchwork quilt. Papa, she whispers, what's the matter? Your knee is swollen. What happened?
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