and face.
Sherry slipped out of the leather chest protector and long gloves and handed them to Harris, keeping her eyes on the bird all the while. As he stuck his arms into the protective gear, Harris assessed the bird with an experienced eye. It was a very large eagle, with shiny plumage, obviously healthy before the gunshot wounds. The white head feathers marked it as an adult, at least five years of age.
“Excuse me, sir. But you the doctor?” the old man asked. His long, weathered face was heavily creased with age and worry. He had a distinguished bearing, dressed almost entirely in faded black, yet he cradled the bird in his arms and large, gnarled hands as tenderly as a nursemaid with a baby. Harris figured he was either a fearless old coot or just plain ignorant to the danger he’d put himself into. At least he had the sense to keep a firm grip on the talons.
“Yes, but don’t talk. The sound of human voices is distressing to wild birds, and right now we don’t want to do anything unnecessary to rile this ol’ boy.”
“Girl.”
Harris narrowed his eyes. From the size of the bird, the old man was likely right. “I’ve got to get that eagle out of your arms. Now, I want you to listen carefully. I’m going to approach the bird and get a firm grip on its talons with these gloves. When I say go, I mean just that. You let go of the bird and get away as fast as you can. Understand?”
“You think Santee’s gonna hurt me?” he asked. The old man shook his head slightly. “No, she ain’t. She knows me.”
“Knows you?”
He nodded solemnly. “I be the one that called her. She was coming straight to me when someone shot her from the sky. I tracked her and found her lying on the ground. Alive, praise Jesus! I heard about you folks here. How you help the birds. I’m grateful you were somewheres I could walk to.”
“You walked the bird here?”
“Came down the big road, straight as the crow flies.”
“How far did you come?”
“Not far. That way, back yonder a few miles, maybe. But it was slow going through the marsh.”
He almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. “How long have you been carrying that eagle?”
“Since after sunup.”
It was already almost nine. That meant the eagle had been wounded for hours. Harris shifted his gaze to the eagle. The large bird continued to stare at him, not lethargically or with head dangling, as one would expect from a bird in shock, but with an unnerving calm. Yet only shock could explain its nonresponsiveness—and shock was a killer. He had to act quickly to save the eagle’s life. He cast a worried glance at Sherry, who had returned wearing another set of long leather gloves. She was waiting, hands in the ready.
“The bird’s in shock,” he told her.
“I figured. I’ve got the body wrap and dex ready.”
He took a deep breath to squelch the flicker of anxiety in his chest. He met the old man’s steady gaze. He seemed to have no fear at all. “Okay, then…ready?”
“Yes, sir.”
With slow, deliberate movements, Harris moved his gloved hands to get a secure grip on the feather-coated legs. “I’ve got her. Let go.”
When the old man retracted his hands, the bird flinched its enormous talons and squirmed in Harris’s grip. In a flash, Harris cupped his free hand under and around the wings, then lifted the bird from the old man’s arms. Even with shot in its wings, the eagle had surprising strength as it flexed its talons and jerked to escape during the transfer. Harris’s experience quickly brought the bird under control.
Once stilled, however, its breathing grew more labored and its mouth gaped with stress. Sherry moved to place a light towel over the eagle’s head.
“What for you did that?” the old man asked.
“It helps reduce stress,” she replied.
“You’re a lucky man,” Harris said, exhaling with relief. “If this bird wasn’t in shock, you could be in the hospital yourself. Never forget these are wild creatures. Don’t make the mistake of trusting them.”
“Trust ain’t never a mistake,” the old man replied.
The man’s gaze held him with the same unnerving intensity of the eagle’s. Harris abruptly turned to the two women standing close by. “Can you get the intake information from this gentleman?”
“Will do,” Maggie replied, stepping forward.
Harris turned again to the old man. “We’re grateful you brought the eagle to us. I’m taking it into surgery now. You can give your name and phone number to Maggie and we’ll call you once we know how things turn out. Thanks again for taking the trouble to bring the bird in.” He moved toward the treatment room, dismissing him.
“I’ll wait.”
“We don’t have a waiting area,” Maggie replied kindly. “Don’t worry. We’ll call you right after surgery. It could take hours.”
“No matter. I’ll just wait outside.”
Maggie looked questioningly at Harris. His eyes flashed with annoyance, but he didn’t have time to argue the point. “He can wait in my office,” he said briskly, then turned and carried the eagle indoors.
The sun was beginning its descent by the time Harris’s duties in surgery were completed. It had been an unusually busy day. Two barred owls and a black vulture had also been admitted, all with head traumas from being hit by cars—a result of the heavy holiday traffic. After surgery, the birds were placed in the critical-care unit, a small, narrow room off the treatment room comprised of two long shelves holding two rows of kennels. Each kennel was draped with a cloth for darkness and quiet. Stress in captivity was a killer for wild birds, and at the center they did everything possible to minimize it.
Before closing up, Harris went to check the eagle one more time. In the darkness of her large kennel, she lay on her side, groggy from the anesthesia. She was hurt pretty badly with pellet wounds, some of them lodged where they could still cause trouble. There was also head trauma from the fall. Whether she’d be able to hunt again remained to be seen.
He ran his hands through his hair as he stepped from the treatment room, then let them slip down to rub the small of his back. His muscles ached from the hours of standing bent over the treatment table. He wanted nothing more than to strip from his dirty flannel shirt and jeans, kick off his hiking boots, shower, grab a bite to eat and collapse. The phone was blissfully silent and he was ready to call it a day. Yawning, he stopped short when he spotted the old black man still sitting in his office, elbows on his knees and his long, gnarled fingers worrying the brim of his hat. The man leapt to his feet when Harris walked in.
“How is she?”
“Amazingly good for a bird that just had a bucket of buckshot taken from its wings. It was slow, tedious work.” He shook his head. “But I’ve got to tell you, despite several punctures of lead shot, not a bone was broken.
