Erin Fisher - That Tiny Life

“Keep breathing.” Kendra sits beside him. She takes off her glove, pulls two plastic-wrapped sandwiches from her vest and passes one over. “Made them at six a.m. and they’re squashed,” she says. He sets his glove beside hers and opens the wrapping. The bread smells of plastic and the mustard is canary yellow, but it’s not so bad. He didn’t realize how hungry he was. The bird eyes the glove from the tree, hungry as well. Kendra too, from the size of the bite she’s taken.

He’s never seen a woman take such a big bite. His mom is more of a crumb person — she licks her finger and dabs crumbs off the plate from around the bread. Or sips broth. She boils down beef knuckles, onions, and carrots until the house is wet. Then she says, “Can you feel that?” while she scrapes the congealed fat from the surface of the cold broth and taps it into a soup can. “There’s a layer of fat on everything,” she’ll say, and shower. Which, to him, makes the apartment damper than the soup had, but has her feeling better and joking again.

Kendra rests her sandwich on her knee and unscrews the lid from the Thermos. Before she swallows, Lola drops from her branch and hits the ground halfway between the two of them and the girl, barely visible down the slope. Kendra tosses her plastic wrap at Cody, swallows the butt of her sandwich, and jogs down to where the bird is tented around a kicking rabbit. She lifts her camera, pulls back the plastic bag and snaps a picture, and then bends over and swaps the rabbit for a chick from her vest. Holding the rabbit by the neck, she lifts it and it goes still.

Cody works his way down, one hand on the rocks and snow beside the stream. His kilt drags over the wet moss and collects twigs, and because of the kilt and the slope he can’t see where he steps. Way down the hill — the girl again, standing in the trees. He stops next to Kendra and blows into his hands. He means to ask Kendra about her, it’s nice that there is someone his age here, but his feet are numb and his palm throbs where he planted it on a rock, and there’s a rabbit dangling from Kendra’s grip. Brown, furry ears lie flat over the back of her hand. Its eyes are half-shut, but it curls its legs and kicks.

“Looks like you were useful anyway, stalker,” Kendra yells to the girl. “Flushed us a hare.” Kendra runs two fingers over the rabbit’s ears then does a little twist at its spine, and then a bigger twist that rips the head from the neck. She tosses the head to Lola and turns, so that she’s squatting between the body and the falcon, and lays the rabbit on the ground.

She flips out a pocket knife and cuts a horizontal line through the belly skin. Laying the knife aside, she grips the skin with her fingers and peels it up from the cut so that the fur folds back on itself and the hide tears off the body inside out. Without the skin the body is mottled and bloody. Scrawny — he’d never have guessed a rabbit. It looks cold, but that must be him projecting because it steams. She bags the skin and body separately.

The falcon rips fur and meat from the open neck of the head. Kendra grabs a chunk of snow and scrubs her fingers, then rinses her hands in the creek. “Lucky catch,” she says.

Looking at her, bent over the stream beside a rabbit she decapitated — he was stupid to tell her about the snorkelling. Kendra shakes the creek water off her hands. She hikes to where they’d been sitting and gets the Thermos and their gloves, then down again and pulls Lola off the rabbit.

The bird has needles stuck to its breast, and the bulge of its swollen crop is visible under the wet feathers. Kendra pulls strings of flesh off its beak. “Okay, take her.”

He doesn’t want to. He so doesn’t want to. But down at the trees he can see the girl watching them. He eases his hand into the glove and holds out his arm. Kendra transfers the bird and wraps the jesses. The hawk’s wet, clumpy, and sits with its wings untucked and half-limp at its sides. The gold-black eyes take over most of the head. His arm seems too close, and, at the same time, as if it reaches into another space. It’s his and not his — like the bird’s claimed it. If it wasn’t obvious that he was in too deep when he shut himself in that car with four thousand baby chicks on their death ride, it’s obvious now. Not only is he in too deep, he’s in the wrong pond completely. The white bird, his uncle, Kendra’s lies, the trees and snow — deep breaths.

The curtain catches on the rod and refuses to slide. He jerks it with his right hand, his left hand planted against the cedar wall-panelling for balance, since his leg’s in the middle of the room. Too hot for the leg. Too hot for anything but skivvies because today, the first day this winter he’s spent inside sewing hoods, he lit the stove and overestimated the wood. Small pieces. Burned too fast. That’s fine. Clothes needed a wash — his jumper and long johns are soaking in the tub.

He gets the curtain across as the porch sensor light flicks on. Kendra and the kid. If she hasn’t got her truck towed she’ll have to ask for a room. After this morning he’s not offering. He lifts his leg and sets it next to his chair at the table.

The boy enters, red-cheeked and queasy, like he’s survived a carnival ride. His hair slick on his scalp with melted snow, and bird shit down that skirt. Does the kid even notice? Kendra kicks dirt and snow off her boots on the door frame. Bagged fur sprouts from her vest pocket and she carries a jar of Milo’s home-still in each hand. Her camera across her chest. Cold air wafts off both her and the boy. Behind them light shines from the dairy barn. He can’t tell who’s milking but it’s probably the granddaughter.

Kendra shoulders the door closed and hoists the jars on the table next to his dyes and today’s work. He’s only finished two hoods, but they’re quality. The first has a polished brown leather crest and snakeskin side panels. A bead and plume on top. The second is dyed royal blue, no trimmings. The boy sits across from him and pulls the hoods across the table. Axel sweeps loose snake scales into a pile. “Get your truck out?”

She looks at him like she’s sizing up the challenge. “That falcon was shit today.”

The kid sets down the hoods.

“What falcon?”

Kendra seals the rabbit in Tupperware. “The white.” She washes her hands. “What else?”

“You took her out?”

“Nah.” She opens a cupboard and pinches three jiggers. “Only in the training yard.”

“Well?” She’s stringing him on. Get on with it. He grips the edge of the table. “They’re always shit the first time out.”

“Shit like couldn’t hit a fist? Couldn’t find the fist.” She sets the jiggers down and picks up the blue hood. “Nice stitches.”

“First time out. Should’ve stayed in the pen.”

“Told you we did. Kept landing sideways in the snow. Lost the mark with the chick in full sight, then got tangled in the netting.” She pulls up a chair and tilts it back on two legs. She wipes her palms over her hair — a darkened, wet auburn — and squeezes drips out of her braid onto the carpet. “Fine, not tangled. Flew into it. Flew being generous. Flapped.”

Axel takes the blue hood from next to the jiggers and sets it back beside the brown. “How’d it hit a rabbit then?”

“Am I on trial here? Lola did that.”

Why is she saying this? There is no way that bird is bad. All the photos and records in the hatchling barn back him.

“Course she still might breed well.” Kendra tilts a jar of Milo’s home-still. She says that out of spite. She knows — she knows — that if there was a wrong bristle on the bird, which there is not, of course he wouldn’t breed it.

He slams his hands down on the table, rattling the dye jars. The boy jerks back. “You listen.” He grabs Kendra’s arm.