Erin Fisher - That Tiny Life

He brushes his bangs out of his face, takes a step to the equipment shed, and pauses to bite a hangnail. His cheeks are still red, as well as his nose — he looks like he’s been scrubbed. His eyelashes — they’re long enough to paint with. What a sorry kid. Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned the Nazis to him. Germans would have been better. She should cut back on swearing, too. But, damn it, today she deserves her cuss words. Her poor truck. Fishtailed every tap to the brakes. The way she lifted off the slippery lick of driveway was plain spooky. Somewhere under the ice there should have been gravel, but the rear end spun and floated and, whoops, she was looking up at snow syphoning down from the clouds. And it’s still falling.

There’s a good, weighty, foot and a half of drift in front of the wood door to the flight pen. So Axel shovelled the screen door clear and fed the birds, but hasn’t handled them today. Nice. The white should still be hungry enough for a few short flights in the training yard. Nothing tricky. Post to fist. She shovels the snow from the pen and opens it.

The white sits neat on a low perch. Kendra pulls her glove out of her belt and flexes stiffness from the fingers — dried blood, cold leather, and yolk-sack. “Good girl,” she says. “Come see this.” She shoulder-checks. Cody’s picked up two gauntlet-cut gloves.

“They’re both lefts.” He holds the gloves toward her.

She reaches into a vest pocket and fiddles out a feed chick. “You just need one.” She rips a bit off and tucks it into her glove. “Hup, hup!”

The bird shifts on its perch but doesn’t make the jump to her arm. Only six inches. Come on. Black eyes — the only colour on it. White feet, white nails. Not even the usual faint turquoise dusting the root of the beak. And a female, a big girl. She calls again. The bird tilts her head but stays put. Okay. She rubs the chick against the white’s beak, then lets the bird step rather than hop. “Why’re you not jumping?” The grip on her glove—no lack of strength there. “Hey girl? Being lazy?” Wings spread around her fist in a feathery tent. Lovely. Just lovely.

She carries the bird to the centre post in the training tent and tucks another ripped chick into her glove.

What’s wrong? “Hup.” The bird does nothing. Not overfed. Axel was planning on training her today, so he wouldn’t have given enough to make her fat.

Cody tucks the wrist of his sweater under his glove. “What’s it doing?”

The wrong thing, to be honest. A bird sees the meat, it jumps to the meat. Especially after a taste. Natural. The second step in training after carting it around on the fist for a day, and Axel did that yesterday.

“She’s not doing much.” Could be the crows. Every so often a flock sights the farm and gets pissy. It was worse when she car-hawked — drove around tossing a red-tail out her window at ducks in sloughs off the highway. The crows had learned to recognize her truck, and the vehicle was always covered in turd. “Hold out your hand.” She lifts the white from the post and passes her to Cody.

“Wait.” Cody stretches back from his arm, like he’s trying to leave it.

“Don’t let go.” She wraps the jesses around his fist and thumb.

“Wait, please?”

“Hang on.” She unearths the pellet gun from the shed. The crows, attracted by her earlier collapse of the snow roof and by the falcon, have flocked over. Falcons from the other pens shriek and jingle. The white doesn’t seem to notice. She sits, imposing but docile, on Cody’s fist. The kid holds the bird out from his body like flames. Like a firework or a sparkler. Like it might go for the eyes.

“How’d you like the couch?” She got him set up last night before she left. He’d said, “You’re leaving?” And she’d replied, “What, you think I live here?” Not that the prospect of staying at Axel’s was disturbing; she’s stayed on the couch in other winters when the roads were bad. Fuck. She’ll have to stay today if she doesn’t get that truck out of the ditch. Huge piss-off. She loads the pellet gun and scopes a parked crow. Misses.

“All right,” he says.

“Survived the night, I suppose.” She lines up another shot. Shoots. The crows scatter from the netting and batter around the barn and house. “We can clean out that room.” The jerk birds land on the roof again and she takes a shot through the netting.

The boy’s bird arm sags and rises. He grabs the arm with his right hand and tries to keep the bird stable.

“Axel — I know he seems tough.” Is tough. “How long you here?”

The kid cringes — bends a bit at the knees — and says, “Well.” He lets go of his arm and tries to reach into his hoodie pocket.

“Just a minute.” She takes the white and sets it on the post. Then takes the postcard Cody offers and hands him the pellet gun. “Line up the notch with the groove.” The postcard hasn’t been through the mail, doesn’t even have a stamp. Golden lab puppies sit in a basket on the front of the card. Big yellow ribbons tied in bows round their necks. Corny, but cute. She flips it over.

Hey Cody, my best lad,

Hope you’re loving that farm! I want to be honest with you, but don’t worry, okay? I can feel your worry from here. Now here goes: my holiday is not a fun one. Can you believe it but there is more than one meaning of “lab?” Turns out I mixed up Labrador retriever with laboratory testing. I need to be in the hospital. I know you’re sick of that joke. It’s for me. Your Aunt Jen is here.

P.S. I’m glad you’re doing your school work.

The writing is tight and blue, cramped by the end, and the postscript is written around the edge of the card like a frame. Kendra flips the card back over. The puppies are all ears and oversized fluffy feet. The kid hasn’t taken a shot yet. “You won’t hit one. Go on.”

He raises the gun and cracks off a pellet. The crows aren’t small, but they’re mobile and hard to focus on in the snow.

“Kind of fun, hey?” Out past the pens where the falcons are tinkling their ankle bells, along the edge of the pastures where the forest starts to spread over the hills and mountains, the cedars stand so deeply green they’re black. Wintergreen. The whole morning might be minty, actually, if she were free of Axel’s mood. She should try to salvage the day. She bends the card and lets it snap straight. The boy is silly, but also — doleful? She feels the sudden need to be honest with him.

“The white.” She takes the bird from the post. When she tilts her arm up the bird stretches its wings and shifts its talons to keep balance. “This girl. I think she might be a dud.” She wasn’t sure before she said it, but coming out it feels right. She waves her hand by the bird’s right eye. No reaction.

The kid lowers the gun. He might shoot his foot how he’s holding it, but what the hell. It’s pellets. Who knows, might cheer him up? “Fat birds — overfed birds — they don’t fly. So it could be that, but she didn’t eat much. Doesn’t make sense that she’s fat anyway, because she devoured the chick I gave her.”

The boy squints at the white. He looks different now that she’s read the card. Not so much awkward as uneasy. “Maybe she’s not into food,” he says.

“She likes the food. But check it out.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a feeder. “Okay, watch.” She lets go of the bird’s jesses then tosses the chick into the snow a couple metres ahead. The white wobbles forward and back like her hand is a rodeo pony, but doesn’t leap. She tosses her up and forward. The bird flaps, kind of flies aimlessly and hits the snow two feet from the chick with her left wing still spread. “She can’t seem to see where it’s at.”