142 Ostriches. April Davila
brushed my hands together as I returned to where Joe Jared waited with a condescending grin.
“As I was saying”—he chuckled again and adjusted his belt—“market rate for the flock comes in at two hundred ten, plus fair value on the land.” The pounding rain overhead grew to a thundering roar that syncopated with Joe’s voice until his words, loud as they were, became simply another noise.
I pictured the water flowing off the barn roof in sheets, overshooting the flooded rain gutters. It would glisten in the gray light and smooth the sand. The whole of the desert was one big basin, and though pockets of the ranch would catch runoff in pools, for the most part, the rain would rush down into the lowest part of the valley, miles to the east of us.
In my mind, I saw the path it cut to a creek bed that sat dry 363 days a year. Tomorrow, it would be a lake, and the next day, it would be dry again, the rain having soaked into the thirsty soil to replenish the underground reservoir that provided our small town with its modest supply of drinking water.
It would rain in Montana. Snow too, though I figured by the time winter came, I’d have a new assignment somewhere else. That was one of the things that appealed to me about the idea of working a handcrew. They would send me where I was needed. It didn’t pay much, but I wouldn’t have to pay rent and I’d have money in the bank from selling the ranch.
The thought brought me back to the barn, where Joe Jared tapped his pen on the pages before him and planted tiny check marks in the margins. When he came to the sale price, he tried to lowball me, offering a decent price for the land and the barn, but nothing for the house itself.
“It’s a four-bedroom,” I argued.
“I’ve got no use for it.” He sighed, reluctant to explain himself. “Here’s the thing. You can spend the next year transporting your birds to the slaughterhouse, setting up buyers, and dealing with accounts receivable while you try to sell the house, incurring all the costs that come with wrapping up a business like this. Or you can sell it all to me and be done with it.”
I had three weeks to get myself to Montana. I didn’t have time to sell off everything piecemeal. “Fine,” I said.
He wrote the total at the bottom of the page. All in, I would walk away from the sale with almost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, an overwhelming amount of money, though I tried not to dwell on it. My plan was to put it all in savings and buy a place of my own someday when I found somewhere I wanted to settle down.
“You hang on to this,” he said, returning the pages to the envelope and handing it to me. “I’ll send my inspector out to do some diligence on the barn, the rest of the infrastructure,” he continued, scrutinizing the splitting wood of the joiner. “Do an official inspection. How’s Tuesday?”
“Fine. The sooner, the better. I’m leaving town at the end of the month,” I said, glad to have settled on a price before he knew I was in a hurry. “We’ll need to wrap things up before then.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem.” Joe Jared ducked to try to catch my eye. I avoided his gaze. I didn’t want to discuss my plans with him, and I knew he didn’t really care. We didn’t need to pretend otherwise. We were business associates, nothing more.
I held the dog’s collar as Joe Jared shoved the barn door open. The storm carried on and the crisp, cool air rushed in, the clean smell of it distinct for the absence of dust. From over near the house, I heard a squeal and saw my cousins through the deluge, dancing in the driveway, wiggling their hips and spinning in circles.
Joe Jared hesitated. “As a courtesy,” he said, “would you mind firing up the incubators and collecting the eggs while we finalize the details? They’re of no use to me otherwise.”
“Sure,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. “I can do that.” The mention of eggs reminded me again of the one lone egg that morning. It was a fluke, I told myself. It had to be. Maybe it was the pressure change before the storm, or all the well-wishers who had been coming and going with their trays of pasta. It would blow over. Everything would be fine. There was no need to worry Joe Jared and jeopardize the sale of the ranch by disclosing the details of one unusual morning.
“You heading in?” He indicated the house. Through the windows, I could see the small crowd of people gathered. The light inside looked cozy against the surrounding storm.
“I’ve got a few things to take care of out here.”
“Yeah,” he said, pulling his Stetson low. “I hate funerals too. Again, I’m sorry for your loss. Your grandmother had a good head on her shoulders.” And with that, he ducked out into the driving rain and made his way to his giant truck, drops bouncing off the brim of his hat. He beeped his horn at the girls, who were jumping in the puddles beside the house, and then he was gone.
I regarded the photo of Grandma Helen. It had been part of Aunt Christine’s vision for this whole reception thing, but I hesitated to bring it to the house. Grandma Helen had hated crowds. She would have been out there in the barn with the dog and me, finding any excuse to keep to herself.
Henley’s tags jingled as he followed me to the workbench, where I found a nail and hammered it into the wall, leaving enough sticking out to hang the frame on. She would be safe there. The dog and I stood side by side, considering the woman who had loomed so large in our lives.
The dog whimpered and cast an accusing glance at me.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I said. “None of this is my fault.” I pointed at Grandma Helen’s image. “She made her choice.”
Resentment surged in me when I thought about her leaving me alone on the ranch, followed immediately by guilt. I didn’t have any proof she had taken her own life. For all I knew, it had actually been an accident. Uncertainty gnawed at me. If she had steered into oncoming traffic on purpose and it had been her last-ditch attempt to manipulate me into staying, then selling was an easy way to win the argument. If not, selling was a terrible betrayal.
Over the din of the rain, I heard a low croak from the stall where Abigail was penned in. She lifted her beak to the ceiling. She was missing the rare treat of the rainfall.
Her favorite thing in the world was when Grandma Helen turned the hose on her. She would scramble in circles, dodging the stream of water while snapping at it with her beak. In the desert, folks tried hard not to waste water, but every now and then, Grandma Helen would indulge her feathered friend for a few minutes and play. To Abigail, rain was one extended hose session. By tomorrow the storm would blow over and the rain wouldn’t return for months.
“I can’t let you out,” I said, imagining how Aunt Christine’s church friends would react to finding an inquisitive, soggy ostrich between them and their cars. “I’m sorry.”
Abigail lowered her gaze to stare at me, annoyed. The small feather on the top of her head, the one that rose up like a question mark, looked almost painted in place.
The ostriches didn’t have expressions, exactly. They didn’t have lips to curl in anger or ears to lay back in irritation. With the ostriches, it was all about posture and sound. Friendly curiosity manifested in lilting head bobs—all the better to reach around and pilfer from the pockets of the unsuspecting. Aggression was hard to miss. A bird about to charge would lift its wings forward, suddenly appearing twice its size. Distress could be heard for miles as a low, whooping reverberation.
I grabbed Abigail’s beak and pulled gently. It was a playful invitation I’d seen Grandma Helen use with her a thousand times. When Grandma Helen did it, Abigail responded by pulling away and trying to peck at her hand, initiating an oversize thumb war, but when I did it, the bird just stared at me.
“Whatever,” I mumbled. I was wasting time anyway. I needed to know if there were more eggs. “Let’s check on the rest of ’em,” I said to the dog.
In the corner of the barn, I found the seldom-used raincoat we kept on hand and pulled it on over my dress, tucking the folded manila envelope into the pocket for safekeeping. There was something so satisfying