Lindsay McKenna - The Defender

“Okay,” Joe said. Later, when Katie wasn’t around, he would try to see what was contained in the file. He heard the chirps of welcome from the raptors. Sam’s chutting was a lot louder. Glancing down the aisle, he asked, “How are the birds this morning?”

“Fine, fine.” Katie’s hands shook as she finished putting either mouse meat or rabbit meat into the smaller bags. Her gut churned and she felt nauseous. She’d completely forgotten Joe was coming in for his first day of work at 8:00 a.m. She wasn’t emotionally prepared. She’d slept poorly because of nightmares in which Janet Bergstrom screamed at her to go away, not even to try to make contact. Katie had awakened at 3:00 a.m., sobbing into her pillow. She hadn’t been able to get back to sleep after that.

She hoped Joe wouldn’t see she’d been crying. Every time she recalled yesterday’s conversation with Norah, tears would form. Girding herself, Katie forced down her feelings. She had to train Joe today. She heard the locker door open and close and turned as Joe pulled on his gauntlet. His handsome face had darkened with concern. Of course he could see she’d been crying. Great. Not exactly the foot she wanted to get off on with this trainee.

“Everything okay?” Joe asked, keeping his voice even. Katie appeared disheveled this morning. Her black hair was mussed, as if she hadn’t combed it. Her face was pale, redness rimming her blue eyes. An acute desire to reach out and touch her shoulder took him by surprise.

“Yes, yes, everything is fine,” Katie managed. Her voice sounded off-key even to her. Moving to the aisle, she said, “Joe, will you start on the left and go to the first mew? I’m a little out of sorts and the birds will feel it. Bring them up here one at a time. You weigh them, I’ll write down the numbers and then I’ll feed them. Afterward, you can return them to their mews. Okay?” She searched his pensive features. His green eyes were speculative and focused on her. A lump stubbornly remained in her throat. Grazing the area with her fingers, Katie added a limp smile to go along with her request.

“Sure, no problem.” Joe turned and walked down to the first mew on the left. The name Moon was on the cage door. Below it: Barn Owl. He opened the mew. Moon was not to be seen and Joe knew she would be found in her wooden nest box since owls slept during the day. He peeked in and kept his voice soft.

“Moon? You ready to be weighed?” Joe saw her heart-shaped white face lift. The barn owl had been sitting on the floor of the nest box, fast asleep. She revealed her round black eyes and opened her beak, as if to yawn. Joe forced himself to focus on the owl. He wanted to know why Katie was so upset. It had something to do with that file. His mind whirled with possibilities as he gently tapped the front of Moon’s box. A trained raptor knew the tapping meant they were to sit on the glove of the falconer. Moon stared sleepily at him.

“I know, you haven’t had your coffee yet, Moon, but you gotta come to my glove,” he told her with a grin.

Katie heard Joe talking to Moon. She looked around the corner. Joe was peering into the nest box, his glove even with the opening. She heard laughter in his tone as he spoke quietly to the owl. Her heart suddenly opened. Instead of pain, she felt a sense of calm. She studied Joe for a moment, really appraised his features and manners. He was dressed in a long-sleeved white cotton cowboy shirt and Levi’s. His dark brown hair was short and had been recently washed. She found herself liking his quiet demeanor and he certainly knew what he was doing with the raptors. Moon peered drowsily out of her nest box. Then she looked up at Joe, studying him. This was the first time Moon had seen him. He kept his glove on the lip of the box so she would climb onto it when she was ready.

“Have you handled many owls?” Katie called.

“No,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. Katie was standing in the aisle, a bag of food in her hand. It upset him to see how wan she looked. “Anything I should know about Moon?”

“Owls are the opposite of hawks, falcons and eagles. They’re slower. Owls think a lot about something before they do it, unlike other raptors. Moon is memorizing your face right now. All birds memorize. Keep talking softly to her, gain her trust and eventually she’ll climb onto your glove.”

Nodding, Joe kept up his quiet banter with the sleepy barn owl. Moon’s white breast feathers were dotted with caramel and black spots. “Listen, Moon, we got a bunch of hungry hawks, falcons and eagles in here. Are you going to hold up the breakfast line for all of them?” He grinned as Moon tilted her head, peering intently up at him. Then, unexpectedly, she hopped firmly on his glove. Her claws dug in, she fluffed her feathers and seemed content. Joe slowly eased her away from the nest box. Once out of the mew, he shut the door and walked Moon to the weighing station.

Moon hopped on the perch to be weighed. Her attention was on Katie, who stood next to Joe. Moon’s focus was on her opening the bag that contained some delicious dead white mice; the barn owl keenly eyed her breakfast.

Joe read off the numbers and Katie wrote them down on Moon’s file. The barn owl opened her beak and began a begging cry to Katie.

“How old is Moon?” Joe asked, watching Katie pull out a dead mouse by its tail.

“She’s three years old.” Katie lifted the mouse up and Moon gobbled it down in three gulps.

“How did you acquire her?”

“Moon was discovered in a rancher’s barn. She’d fallen out of her nest as a baby. The fall broke her right leg. The rancher discovered her on the floor, picked her up and called me. I drove over and got her.” Katie smiled softly as she fed Moon a second mouse. “She was nothing but a ball of fuzz and fluff. So ugly but so cute...”

Smiling, Joe enjoyed the huskiness of Katie’s voice. It calmed him, yet excited him at the same time. She worked quietly and without any swift movements around Moon. “And she became an educational bird because of her broken leg?”

“Yes, the break was an open fracture.” She glanced over at him. “Moon’s fracture was so bad the vet said she could never be released into the wild. If Moon pounced on prey, it would break her leg again.” Katie closed the bag and gently ran her index finger down the soft feathers of Moon’s breast. The barn owl gave her a begging look for another mouse. “No more, Moon. Your eyes are bigger than your stomach. Go ahead, Joe. Take her back to her nest box.”

Joe placed his glove next to the perch for Moon to step upon. The owl continued to gaze adoringly over at Katie.

With a slight chuckle, Katie said, “No, Moon, I’m not taking you back to your box. Joe is.” She tapped the thumb area of Joe’s proffered gauntlet. “Come on, you have to get used to having him take you back to your home.”

The owl hopped on Joe’s glove.

“Does Moon understand English?” he asked teasingly as he slowly lifted the gauntlet with Moon on board.

Shaking her head, Katie managed a half smile. “No, but these birds are so psychic they pick up on what we want. As soon as you put Moon in her nest box, she’ll go back to sleep.”

“Right.” Joe saw that Katie looked a bit more perky than before. He knew raptors had a phenomenal ability to change a person’s mood. It was bird magic, he decided. Once in the mew, the barn owl leaped from his glove back into her nest box, trundled around, sat down and promptly closed her eyes.

Joe moved to the next mew, which contained two Harris’s hawks from Arizona. “Who’s first?” he called.

Katie looked around the corner. “Take Maggie first. She always wears the red jesses on her legs. Her mate, Mac, wears blue ones.”