HE’D FOUND THE bald eagle as described. The hikers-who’d asked a seasonal forest service employee to call it in once the worker cleared the walled canyon-milled about helplessly while the big eagle stood between them and their Subaru with Colorado plates (an inordinate number of complaints were called in by people with Subarus and Colorado plates). The eagle had her wings outstretched an imposing seven and a half feet. Her talons gripped the soft dirt parking lot like a scoop shovel biting through asphalt. Her screech was shrill, chilling, ungodly, as if intended to scare pinecones out of the trees. Her eyes were as dark, intense, and piercing as hell itself, he thought. He couldn’t lock eyes with her more than a few seconds before breaking the gaze.
There were three hikers, two men and a woman. College age, good equipment, scruffy half-beards on the men, the woman a brunette with her hair tied in a ponytail. They told him they’d spent three nights and four days hiking the trails and high-country lakes near Bridger Peak in the Sierra Madres.
The woman told Joe, “We’re tired, dirty, and hungry and we need to get out of here. We have a dinner reservation tonight in Steamboat Springs. At the rate we’re going, we’re going to be late.”
“Oh dear,” Joe said.
“I’m serious,” she said, miffed.
“Did you see anyone in the area other than the forest service guy? Any other hikers or vehicles?”
They all shook their heads no. Damn.
The eagle was big, Joe noted, probably fifteen pounds. Females were larger than males. The yellow arrow shaft went cleanly through her right wing and was lodged half-in, half-out, the familiar razor-tipped broadhead winking in the sun. He guessed by looking at the way she held the wounded wing that tendons had been sliced so she couldn’t get lift. She’d probably been ambushed while on the ground, he thought, likely surprised while feeding on a fish or roadkill.
As he stood there looking at the eagle with the hikers gathered behind him, admonishing him not to hurt the bird but to get her out of the way so they could get to their car, he felt a particular kind of bitterness he couldn’t give away to them. He knew he was probably looking at a dead bird.
Although there were several rehabilitation centers for raptors and birds of prey, the more reputable of the two being near Sheridan and Boise, there had been a recent departmental memo saying both facilities were filled to capacity. They could take no more birds, no matter the circumstances. Damaged eagles, falcons, and hawks would have to be placed privately or destroyed. Since Joe was in exile of sorts and five hours away from the nearest facility anyway, he knew what the likely conclusion would be. But he didn’t dare tell the hikers. So on the spot, he came up with a scheme: tackle the eagle, bind her wings to her body with his spare sweatshirt, tape it tight, and transport her out of there. To where he would determine later.
The hikers agreed to form a human shield to the side of the eagle and draw her attention (and vitriol) while Joe swooped in from behind her. It worked, except for the part where she slashed down with her hooked beak and ripped a gash the length of his forearm. Spurting blood and holding her wings tight to her body, he managed to slide the arrow out of her wing, slip the sweatshirt over her head, tie the sleeves together around her like a straitjacket, and finish the job with duct tape. Her screech seemed to reach down inside him and tug at primeval fears he didn’t even know he had, but he fought through them out of pure terror and eventually gained control of her thrashing body and sharp talons, wrapping the sweatshirt around her with a continuous strip of tape. Finally, as the hikers stepped away, he had her under control except for her screeching, and he picked her up and carried her to his truck. She was surprisingly light with her wings taped tightly to her side, and it reminded him of carrying one of his daughters as babies. It seemed a shame, he thought, to reduce this beautiful and regal creature to a shiny silver papoose. She seemed cowed and harmless-except for the talons, of course.
He used bungee cords to lash her upright to the inside sidewall of his pickup bed. She looked like an insurgent caught in the act and awaiting interrogation, he thought. He avoided looking into her murderous eyes, which pierced him through the curtain of his peripheral vision.
The hikers thanked him and left in time to make their dinner reservation. He watched their taillights recede down the gravel road through the dust kicked up from their tires that hung in clouds and slowly sifted back down to earth. Their problem was now his problem, and they could tell their friends they’d helped saved a bald eagle.
Joe stood in the campground bloodied and breathing hard, unable to raise dispatch or get a cell signal because of the height of the canyon walls.
While he bound his bleeding forearm with a compress and medical tape from the oft-used first-aid kit in his pickup, he looked at the eagle and asked, “What am I going to do with you?”
JOE THOUGHT THERE might be enough room on the canyon-wall side of the pickup to get around the driverless pickup with the Oklahoma plates in the middle of the road, but he knew it would be close. The side mirrors of both trucks would likely hit each other if he tried to squeeze through.
Sighing, he put his vehicle into park, got out, and bent both of his mirrors in on their hinges.
“Hey!” he called. “Would you mind moving your truck?”
His words echoed back over the tinkling of the river. Clouds of caddis flies smoked up the river. An aggressive trout smacked the surface of a pocket-water pool to get one.
To be safe, he decided to bend the mirrors of the Dodge in as well so he could pass. It was never a good idea to touch another man’s vehicle, but he was sure the missing driver would understand.
As he pushed the driver’s side mirror in, he glanced inside the cab and saw a half-empty twelve-pack of beer, binoculars, a pint of tequila, torn empty packages for AA batteries, and a quiver of Beman arrows between the bench seats.
Joe backed away and instinctively rested his right hand on the butt of his.40 Glock semiauto. His senses sharpened, and he felt his heart beat faster. The rush of blood hurt the gash on his forearm, and dark red blood beaded on the side of the compress. He looked back inside the cab. No keys. He placed his palm on the hood of the truck. It was warm, as if the engine had been running just a moment before. Squatting, he looked underneath the pickup. Two drops of transmission fluid in the dirt and a pink bead of it poised to fall from a black rubber hose. A glance at the tires didn’t conclusively confirm the tread was the same as his plaster cast, but it was similar enough. And near the rear tires on both sides, in the loose grit of the road, were two sets of footprints headed down the road in the direction the Dodge had been coming.