Читать книгу Weather to Fly - Christopher LeGras - Страница 9

Riding the ’Cane

Sometimes things are bigger than you, and the best you can hope for is to keep your wings level and have patience and a little luck.

—Warren L. “Wally” Simpson, World War II bomber pilot

Jasper Wolfskill was in a pickle. In itself this wasn’t unusual. After all, a crow learns pretty quickly about tight spots. One of his pop’s favorite stories was about the time when he was fifteen moons old and found himself trapped in the back of a garbage truck. Asked how he came to find himself in such a predicament, Pop would puff out his chest and say, Biggest darned piece of chicken fried steak I ever laid eyes on, that’s how. In addition to being a raconteur, Jasper’s pop was something of a gourmand.

He’d flown down to a green city dumpster a couple of blocks from the Santa Monica shoreline and tucked right into that greasy, salty, crusty, just-spoiled-enough-to-make-a-crow’s-beak-water chunk of meat when something clonked him on the noggin and everything went black as his feathers. He came to bouncing in the back of what he surmised via olfaction was a garbage truck. He gave a quick, silent thanks to the garbage men for not pushing the red button on the side of the truck that caused the whole back end to collapse on itself and crush the trash—along with any errant scavengers—to make room for more trash. It was crow’s luck and Maynard Wolfskill knew better than to push it. He needed out, and now.

I tell you, he’d say, his deep blue eyes glinting with the playfulness Jasper loved in his old bird, I was in a tight spot and I didn’t have long before it got a lot tighter, know what I mean? At which point the other crows on the telephone line or in the palm tree would caw and twitter in the camaraderie to which Jasper had aspired even before his first moonday. Pop’s audience, who had heard the story at least a hundred times, would (if you’ll forgive the expression) egg him on. What’d you do, Maynard? How’d you get outta there, old crow?

His father would grow somber, almost philosophical. If he had a twig handy (oh, how Pop loved his twigs) he’d use it to scratch at a mite in his chest feathers or preen a wing as if he’d lost his train of thought. Pop was a master suspense builder when he told stories, a skill that earned him the nickname The Bard. The moniker actually was dispensed by an irate cormorant at Point Dume who’d had quite enough of Maynard’s crow stories, but Pop owned it right away and turned the tables as only a crow can.

After a few moments of scratching, preening, or just gazing toward the sage green Santa Monica Mountains, he’d say, Instinct. Crows have the best instincts of any bird species in the world except Northern Wheateaters. But those guys are just freaks of nature.

There’d be the requisite, Whaddya mean, Maynard? Tell us, Maynard! How’d you get outta there, Maynard? Come on, tell us!

His father would answer, A crow never panics. You can put us in any situation you can think of. The worse things seem, the calmer we become. Remember Old Bill?

Asking a crow if he’d heard of Old Bill was like asking a pigeon if she’d heard of a bird named Cher Ami or inquiring a human being about a fellow called Lindbergh. Old Bill saved the crows of New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. As the storm gathered strength on that fateful August afternoon, instead of panicking like the other birds, the crows had flocked to their usual meeting spot in the willows near the Palace Café on Canal Street. They weren’t particularly frightened but they were at something of a loss as to what to do. No one had ever seen a storm like this one. Crows being crows, everyone had an idea and no one could agree. They cawed like mad, each bird straining to raise his or her voice over the others’ and the growing menace in the Gulf.

Old Bill, who at that point was a middle-aged nester named William Gadfly known mostly for his crossed beak, the result of an unfortunate encounter with a tourist fanboat on Bayou Chevee, had an idea. The storm was too big to fly around and everyone knew that trying to fly against a hurricane was suicide. Bill suggested they fly with it. The idea was too much even for crows, and they cawed something fierce.

Calm as could be, Bill (who was more than forty moons old) lifted off and corkscrewed high into the air. As they watched, the crows’ disbelief turned to amazement, and then euphoria. Riding the pressure at the edge of the hurricane Bill streaked through the sky like a black peregrine falcon. He tumbled and cartwheeled, sometimes seeming to lose control only to roll back to level flight. A few brave souls joined him, then a few more, and as the first raindrops fell on the doomed city 10,000 crows rode the pressure and flew to safety. Ever since, riding the ’cane was the highest form of crow praise for a well-executed aerial maneuver, and calling someone Old Bill was the greatest compliment in crowdom.

Pop would continue. I asked myself what Old Bill would do. I sure as shingles wasn’t going to peck my way through a steel-hulled garbage truck, and if I’d tried to fly I’d likely have broken a wing or cracked my head. It was black as a feather. Still, the longer I was in there the calmer I felt. You know how it is. Finally I realized the truck was built by human beings, and human beings are ground animals. The answer was probably as close to the ground as you could get. I pecked through the garbage (how it pained me to leave that magnificent chicken fried steak behind!) until I got to the bottom. I felt along the edge and sure enough I found a switch. A tap of my beak and the big machine went to work. The giant hatch started to open and as soon as I saw daylight I was out of there like a gerfalcon! The mess on Ocean Street fed the local crows for a week even after the humans cleaned up what they could.

Of course everyone knew that last part best of all. The Garbage Deluge was one of the great feasts in Southern California crow lore.

In his current predicament Jasper was beginning to worry that he was no Maynard Wolfskill, much less an Old Bill. He didn’t feel calm. In fact, it was taking a goodly amount of mental and emotional energy not to break into a full-blown, very un-crowlike panic.

He was learning to fly. More precisely, he was trying to figure out how to get off the ground. Instincts or no instincts, flying was about as far from his mind as chicken fried steak. He would have been content just to get airborne, thrilled with a little awkward gliding.

The moment had been coming for a moon. It started with Mama making a peculiar reference after dinner one night to Getting you kids out into the big colors. Then Pop started talking to Jasper and his brothers and sisters about the great wild mystery. Words like big and wild and mystery made the quills on the back of Jasper’s neck stand up. He was happy at home, and the more Mama and Pop talked the more he found himself half-burrowing his way to the very back of the nest, hiding under his brothers’ and sisters’ downy feathers.

As if they sensed his anxiety Mama and Pop let him go last. Their good intentions only made him feel worse. All week he’d watched in sick horror as one by one Mama nudged his sisters and brothers to the edge of the nest and heaved them over. Jasper nearly regurgitated his regurgitated breakfast every time he heard another sibling caaaaawwwwing his or her way toward the ground. The first one to go was his big sister, Grace. He was convinced she was dead.

Far from it. Grace, like all four of his siblings, miraculously reappeared under her own power a few minutes after her harrowing departure. All of them changed in that tiny window of time. Their eyes glinted more brightly than he’d ever seen, like a light switched on in a human window. They held themselves with their chests puffed out like Pop. Even his little sister Aubrey, who cracked her shell two whole days after Jasper, stood on the edge of the nest glowing like an angel. She’d said, You can do it, Jasp, I know you can! He was sure he’d seen doubt in her eyes.

This morning the inevitable had arrived. It wasn’t so much plummeting from the top of the palm tree toward the grass. He’d been too terrified to be terrified during the fall. Truthfully, even though it was less than five minutes ago he hadn’t the foggiest idea how he’d avoided certain death. He didn’t remember spreading his wings, and he knew for a fact he hadn’t flown anywhere because he was in a clump of shrubs and yucca not ten wingspans from the base of the palm tree. He was clinging to a dead yucca branch and trying not to look down at the waves crashing on the rocks a hundred feet below.

Finally persuaded that he was not, in fact, dead, he began to assess just how dire his situation was.

As it happened, dire didn’t begin to cover it. He forced himself to half-look over his shoulder at the cliff and the rocks and the waves and spray. His heart did a somersault and he felt breakfast coming up for what seemed like the tenth time that morning. Since he couldn’t fly off, his Plan B (a crow always has a Plan B, and C, and D) was to side-walk his way along the branch to the ground. But when he tried to take even a half step, the branch gave way and he nearly tumbled off. So he clung there, trying to move as little as possible and praying that the branch didn’t snap off altogether. The wind picked up and shook the whole plant. Jasper wanted to cry.

Mama was cawing something at him from the nest (easy for her to caw from all the way up there where it was warm and safe and there wasn’t a cliff and rocks and ocean below her). Pop flew down from an adjoining palm and hovered a few feet above him. He cawed, Jasper, Jasper, Jasper! (Crows tend to repeat themselves when they’re excited.) What are you doing, boy? Spread your wings! Trust your instincts! Come on, son, let’s go! Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!

It wasn’t exactly a heartfelt pep caw. Jasper could hear the frustration, maybe even disappointment, in his father’s voice. It made him feel worse. If even Pop, the crow who believed anything was possible, didn’t have faith in him, what did that say about his chances of getting out of this fix alive?

He cawed back, humiliated at how terrified he knew he sounded, I can’t! Look at this branch! It’ll snap off if I even take a deep breath! Help, help, help!

His father didn’t answer but circled twice and then flew back up to his observation post. Great, thought Jasper, his heart sinking further, they’re gonna sit up there and watch me die. Or worse, watch me make a fool of myself and then die. Instincts, my tail feathers. I don’t need instincts, I need the nest and a good meal. I need a nap.

At the thought of sleep and the nest he relaxed, kind of. He realized he was more exhausted than he’d ever been in his entire life. His terror ebbed into the fatigue and he saw a warm yellow light in his mind’s eye. That was it, he would just take a little nap here on the branch. He would take a nap and when he woke up maybe Pop would have carried him up to the nest and put a little lint over him like he liked. He knew some parents gave their kids a few chances to learn to fly. As Jasper drifted toward the yellow light he was certain of it. Pop would rescue him.

Pop was cawing at him again, more urgently, but Jasper didn’t hear what his father was saying. Mama joined in and she sounded even more upset. But Jasper was slipping closer to that warm yellow light, which he realized looked like the nest. Oh, the nest! Maybe his sisters and brothers would come back. He’d rest a day or two, tucked in the warm down of his siblings. When he was ready they’d help teach him to fly. There’d be no shove out of the nest, no hurtling earthward, no clinging to a yucca branch in gusty wind over a cliff of death. He loved his brothers and sisters, and they loved him and would care for him. Jasper felt warmer and warmer even as his parents cawed like mad and the wind blew harder.

For the rest of their moons, Maynard and Martha Wolfskill swore they didn’t see the cat until the last second. It was black and it had spent the minutes Jasper clung to the branch slinking through the undergrowth. Slowly, with feline patience, she moved within striking distance at the precise moment when Jasper succumbed to his trance.

Mama saw the cat an instant too late. She dove out of the tree as the beast leaped from the bush and took a vicious swipe at her son. She cawed louder than she’d ever cawed, and dove straight for the black back caring nothing for her own safety. Her instinct to protect her son took over her mind and her body. She wanted blood. An instant later Maynard was right behind her.

Jasper never saw the cat. He didn’t hear Mama and Pop screaming at it like screech owls. The cat’s razor-sharp claws sliced the air and missed his tail feathers by a quill’s width. They sliced his branch and sent him plummeting down the cliff to the rocks and the surf.

He never saw the cat, but he would remember every nanosecond of the fall the rest of his life. At first it felt unreal, and he didn’t actually believe that he was watching the yucca tree and the ledge streaking away from him or that the branch to which he’d clung was suddenly level with his head. He felt like he was tumbling very, very slowly, until he was falling beak first. He was perplexed for another endless moment. The ocean was racing toward him at mortal speed. That wasn’t right, was it? He caught a whiff of sage in his nostril, and it tickled his eyes. He thought, I didn’t know death smelled like sage.

As the rocks rushed toward him, he felt something. At first it was just the sense of a sensation. Between him and the cliffs and rocks was a sort of cushion of air. It felt almost like the bottom of the nest, and at the thought of the nest he flashed to a memory of wrestling with his brothers and sisters, falling over and over in the downy bed. Then he felt it under his belly for sure, a slight difference in pressure caused by him moving through it and by the proximity of the rocks that threatened to crush his fragile body. Mama would later explain something called ground effect.

He saw the warm yellow light again. Only now the color was deeper, nearly gold, and it wasn’t in his mind but all around him in the air. It enveloped him and hugged him and he felt safe. Safer than in his egg, safer than in the nest, safer even than in Mama’s wings. As the rocks rushed toward him he reached for the golden light to see what it felt like and what it was made of. He stretched out his wings as far as he could as if he was reaching for a great and perhaps final secret in the instant before his demise.

And he was flying. The sea rocks and sea foam and water rushed at him but the light was above it and around it. He reached for the light again and executed a perfect snap roll around the closest rock, missing it by a barb. Now the golden light lay above the surface of the water like mist and he reached for it there. His snap roll resolved into straight-and-level flight a few feet above the whitecaps.

From somewhere behind him he heard Pop cawing like a bird possessed. Jasper realized he was losing altitude. Pop cawed again and Jasper forced himself to take his eyes off the transfixing light and look over his shoulder. Above him the light was bands of gold and pale purple, and his father was racing toward him flapping almost as fast as a hummingbird.

Jasper looked back at the ocean surface. The light above it had changed into the same sort of gold and purple, the colors woven like a palm frond. He tried to touch a purple band but missed it. He tried and missed again. He kept trying and kept missing, and a funny thing happened. He was flapping his wings. He was no longer losing altitude and heading for the water. He was climbing.

When he’d flapped a few more times, the purple faded and then almost vanished and he was once more bathed in gold. He stopped flapping as an updraft from the cliff caught his wings and his belly. He was maybe 200 feet above the water now, gliding in a slow figure eight as the current ebbed and flowed.

Pop and Mama caught up with him. Pop was as pale as a mourning dove and Mama’s eyes were as wide as a puffin’s.

Mama reached him first. Jasper, Jasper, Jasper, Jasper! Son, we thought we’d lost you! Lost you, lost you, lost you!

Jasper had already forgotten the terror of clinging to the yucca branch. He’d forgotten the nauseating fall from the nest and Mama nudging him out. In fact, he was forgetting more with each flap. He reached for a pale purple band and looped over Mama. Aw, Mama. Don’t make a big deal. It was just a dive. You guys do it all the time.

Pop leveled off next to them. His color had returned and there was a huge grin in his blue eyes. He didn’t say anything at first, but just looked at his son. Then he started laughing. As he laughed the gold and purple around him gave way to a deep orange light and Pop was hovering. Caaaaw, caw, caw, caw, caw! Didja see that, Martha! First time Jasp flies and he rides the ’cane! A danged snap roll against a cliff! Takes most crows moons to learn that kind of maneuver! Caw, caw, caw, caw, caw! Jasper, boy, you’re a natural! Our boy’s a real Old Bill!

Mama started laughing too as Pop flipped onto his back in midair and grabbed his belly with his wings, cackling uncontrollably. He dropped down and away from them, then caught himself and climbed back up, still choking back giggles.

Jasper saw tears of laughter in his parents’ eyes. The light filled the sky with more colors than he thought possible. There were hundreds of birds in it, climbing, diving, cartwheeling, gliding. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. It was where he belonged. The three of them made a gentle turn toward land and glided home.