“It’s not a hawk!” Beatrice yells as we run from where we’d hidden in the tall grass.
“It looks like a hawk!”
“It’s definitely not a hawk.”
Our trap has worked but also failed. The state only lets a falconer trap a passage red-tailed hawk or goshawk. If it’s anything else, we have to let it go and then reset the whole trap.
So I’m kind of angry at whatever this thing is that’s broken my bal-chatri trap I worked all week to get perfect for my passage hawk. That is, until I see that it’s the most fantastically, amazingly beautiful bird I’ve ever seen in my life.
It’s the size of a giant watermelon but brown, with its huge wings open and stretched out along the ground like it’s trying to fly. As we approach, its head rotates almost all the way around and I see two enormous yellow eyes rimmed in black, surrounded by disks of coppery feathers. The eyes are on fire, daring me to come any closer, and the deep V of black-brown feathers that stretches from its forehead toward its hooked beak forms a scowl. It screeches, and two feathery horns flip up off its head, adding wings to the V, as if saying, Are you looking at me?
It’s the ultimate dragon bird, the king of all birds.
“It’s a great horned owl,” Beatrice says, stopping near where it lies in the grass.
It flaps its splayed wings, then arranges them in this weird upside-down way, fanning out the feathers around its head and body into a wide ruff. It looks like a miniature turkey, all puffed up and angry. The owl stumbles away from us, dragging the trap with it. It gets about five inches before it flops still again.
It’s awful to see this bird king dragged through the dirt by my trap. I kneel beside him and he turns his spectacular face to me. Glowing eyes lock on to my heart.
“We have to free him,” I say, knowing it to be true: that no matter how much I want to keep him, this bird is meant to be wild.
“Him?” Beatrice kneels beside me, examining the owl.
“Yes, him,” I say. He snaps his beak, making this clacking sound, and flops around, trying to get to his feet.
Beatrice gently places a blanket over him, folding his wings against his back and holds him steady as she works his talons free from the trap.
“Look,” she says, holding his legs in her thick leather glove. I peer at his glorious little face, which looks like the most malevolent stuffie’s, curled in the blanket. “He’s not even scratching at me,” she says.
A ribbon of cold runs through me. Dragon birds fight to survive. Why isn’t he fighting? “What does that mean?”
“He might be sick or hurt,” she says.
“Was it the trap?” My voice gets stuck in my throat. I did this, I hurt him . . .
Beatrice examines him a bit closer. “No,” she says. “Look at his wing. This bird can’t go free today.”
His left wing sags away from his body and I can see some feathers that are matted with blood. “He’s hurt?” I ask. The ribbon of cold turns into a knot around my gut.
“He’s also dehydrated,” Beatrice says. “And probably starving.”
The knot tightens with each pronouncement. “Can you help him?” I ask. Please don’t say he’s going to die.
Beatrice sighs. “We can try. But that’s the end of our passage hawk quest for the weekend.”
“That’s okay,” I say. “He needs our help.” He starts panting and hissing and snapping his little beak. Still fighting, my dragon bird.
Beatrice smiles down at him. “Yes, he does.”
I carry the trap and she carries the owl back to the truck. I put the trap in the bed and hop into my seat. I am completely shocked when I see Beatrice hold out the owl in his blanket to me.
“I can hold him?” I ask, afraid to put my hopes into words.
“How else am I going to drive to the hospital?”
“Shouldn’t we tape him or something?” We have painter’s tape and a length of pantyhose I call “the sleeve,” which we were going to secure our passage hawk in when—if—we caught one.
“I’m not sure he’d last through a taping.” She places the precious package into my arms, then flips over the extra material to cover his head. “This will help keep him calm.”
“What about the hood?” Falconers put these cute little leather hats called “hoods” on falcons’ heads to keep them calm when traveling. We have a couple of different-size hoods that we were going to use on the passage hawk.
“I don’t have a hood big enough for that melon,” Beatrice says, shaking her head as she starts the engine. She calls someone on her phone. “Hi, Lil? I have a sick owl with an injured wing.” Pause—I guess that “Lil” is Lillian Cho, the vet Beatrice works for. “Great—thank you.” She hits the gas and gravel goes flying as we head for the animal hospital.
The blanket is thick: fleece-lined on one side and tough canvas on the other—meant to withstand the slash of a talon. The owl is quiet, probably terrified out of his little mind. The truck bucks over ruts and rocks in the dirt road, and I use my legs to brace my body against the seat cushion to keep the worst of it from disturbing him. With each bounce, I scowl at the dashboard, willing the truck to keep still. I’m afraid to breathe too deeply for fear of startling him. He seems like a ghost inside the blanket, he’s so light. It’s the most shocking thing about these dragon birds—they’re all feathers. How can something so fierce also be so fragile?
We arrive at the animal hospital where Beatrice works. She takes the owl from me and carries him in the back entrance. I follow her into one of the rooms, where Dr. Cho waits in her white coat.
“Let’s take a look at him,” she says, placing the owl on an examining table. She removes the blanket and quickly places a smaller towel over the owl’s head. She checks his back, then extends each wing, all while holding his body still. Dr. Cho then folds the wings in and turns him over. She blows on his spotted chest feathers.
“Why are you doing that?” I ask.
“To see his skin,” she says.
“If it’s scaly,” Beatrice says, returning after having changed into a set of scrubs, “he’s dehydrated.”
“Which he is,” Dr. Cho says. “Well, you diagnosed it as far as I can tell. He hurt his wing—it looks like a puncture from a talon. He may have fallen out of his nest while branching and been attacked by another bird of prey . . . though he’s a bit old for that.”
“Branching” is when a baby bird moves from the nest to hopping around on the branches of the tree the nest is in. It’s the bird equivalent of crawling.
“He’s had the wound for a day or so. But he hasn’t eaten or had a good drink in longer than that.” She touches what would be his breastbone if he were a human. “His muscle tone is poor.”
“But we can save him, right?” I ask, practically falling off my bench listening to the diagnosis.
Dr. Cho smiles as she places the owl back on his feet. “We can try,” she says.
I do not like her lack of commitment.
The doctor stuff starts. Dr. Cho pulls out this syringe with a length of tube off the end of it instead of a needle. She shoves the tube down my owl’s throat. “Hydration,” she tells me. I cringe, dig my fingers into the underside of the bench. She finally pulls the tube out, then begins working on the wing. While she cleans my owl’s wounds, Beatrice retrieves from the back a large dog crate with solid plastic walls. Once satisfied with her work, Dr. Cho puts the owl into the crate.
My owl shuffles and flaps to the back of the crate, then huddles against the back wall, big eyes glaring at us.
“Now it’s up to him,” Dr. Cho says.
We all look at the lump of feathers with the enormous eyes, and he scowls back at us.
Fight, I tell him, as if our eyes can communicate. You fight and I’ll fight with you.
We take him home and Beatrice leads me to the dining room. I see now why she keeps it closed off. The room is mostly bare and the windows are shuttered, so it’s dim as evening even though it’s midday. There’s a table on one end and a smallish stained couch on the other. Its upholstery looks like it’s been hit by a cheese shredder. In the center of the room is a perch.
“This is my training room,” she explains, lowering the crate to the floor near a wall. “If there’s too much stuff in it, the hawk gets nervous. Same about exposure to the outside, or light.”
“We should feed him,” I say, kneeling in front of the crate. My owl is still hunched at the back: a petrified owl statue with great golden eyes. “Maybe some lunch will help him feel less afraid.”
“Some lunch will help me,” Beatrice says, and walks out of the room.
I drop to my knees and then stretch my legs back so I’m on my stomach in front of the crate. I rest my face on the backs of my hands. It’s just me and the owl.
Rufus.
The name just comes to me.
The owl has looked away, his head rotating to inspect the walls of the crate. Did he tell me his name?
No, of course not. That’s insane. But I like the name: Rufus. He looks like a Rufus.
“I’m Reenie,” I whisper.
His eyes are instantly back on me, staring down my face like just a look from him could kill.
I bet he makes every animal in the forest run screaming with that look.
You are one tough little owl, I think to him. You can do this, Rufus. You can get better.
“You making friends?” Beatrice has returned with a plate full of dripping-wet diced meat.
“Rufus needs a friend.”
“Rufus?”
“He looks like a Rufus.” I scooch up to sit on my butt and reach out a hand for the food. Beatrice hesitates, but then gives it to me. I open the crate door and slip the plate in.
Rufus’s eyes don’t leave me. He doesn’t make a move toward the food, either.
“Do you think he knows what we just gave him?” I ask.
“He knows,” she says. She kneels down, peeks in on Rufus. “He might be too weak to eat.”
My heart cramps hearing her say that. But this is my owl, and we’re in this fight together. “So what do I do?”
“You?” Beatrice’s eyebrows lift. She lowers a towel over the crate’s door. “Maureen, this is different than with Red. This is a wild bird. It doesn’t understand what’s happening to it, it’s scared, and it will lash out. You need to promise me you’ll leave this owl alone, let me handle it.”
My jaw clenches down so hard, I worry my teeth might shatter. Who is this lady to get between me and Rufus? “But I can help you. You let me hold him.” I give her a Rufus glare.
“Maureen, I’m a licensed rehabber. I can’t—”
“Please,” I snap.
She considers the situation a moment longer, and then maybe she finally gets that there’s no way I’m not doing anything and everything to make Rufus better, because she stands and grabs something from the table at the end of the room.
“Here,” she says, and hands me a pair of long metal tongs. “Pick up a tidbit and hold it out to him.” She lifts the towel and opens the crate door.
Just removing that metal wall sends tingles all over me. I pinch a bit of meat from the plate with the tongs and hold it out to Rufus. He’s looking at me the whole time.
“He doesn’t even seem to notice the food.” I give it a shake and nearly lose the tidbit from my tongs.
“Imagine if two giant, feathered monsters plucked you out of the grass, stuffed you in a box, and started poking you. You might not want to take your eyes off them for a minute.”
She’s right. I have to get into my bird brain—my owl brain. What do I even know about owls? He’s glaring at me, but when I move, he moves his whole head to follow, not just his eyes—can he move his eyes? I wonder if he can even see the tidbit that close. I decide to try something I saw in one of the YouTube videos I watched about training hawks: I rub the tidbit right up against Rufus’s beak.
That startles him a little, but he snaps onto the tidbit and gulps it down.
“Good,” Beatrice says, kneeling beside me like a coach. “Now try a second bite.”
I get him to eat everything on the plate.
He seems sated. At least, his eyes are slightly less terrified and slightly more satisfied.
And I did that.
“See?” I say to Beatrice. “I helped.”
“You did,” she says, though in a way that sounds like maybe she thinks this was a fluke.
“So I can help you?” I want guarantees.
She glances in at Rufus. “Looks like I don’t have a choice.” Her mouth quirks up at the corner. She doesn’t look or sound angry. She almost sounds happy. Whatever.
“Can I stay with him?”
She flips the towel over the door. “If you want.” She leaves.
I peek in through the strip of grating along the side of the crate. Rufus is staring right at me, like he knew I’d be there.
I spend the whole rest of the afternoon just sitting there, watching him watching me.