Winter Loon(66)

The black-and-white checkerboard bird stood out against the man’s corn-colored canvas jacket. Its head extended forward, the long beak like black shears rested against his chest.

“Holy shit,” I said. “It’s a loon.”

“Her beak’s frozen,” the man said as he approached. “She’s in pretty bad shape, babe. We have to get her help.”

“I want to hug you so bad right now,” the woman said.

“Keep clear, Rhonda. I don’t want her to peck at you. That beak of hers could do real damage.”

“No shit,” Lester said. “Look at that hell-diver.”

“You should have seen her when I tried to grab her. She’d have run it right through my hand if I hadn’t had gloves on. But she gave up and let me take her. Didn’t make a peep.”

My father had taught me all the loon’s calls—the wail for separation from a chick or mate, the tremolo to warn that a predator was near, the yodel to signal aggression, and the hoot for curiosity or even happiness. But this loon was quiet. Was there a call for gratitude, for rescue from the verge of death? What was the call for surrender?

“Oh, babe. I’m so glad you’re okay. You remember that fellow died trying to save his dog?” She turned to us. “Dog climbed right out of the ice over the guy’s head. Been a few drownings here over the years.”

“You got to be careful with a distressed animal. Even the tame ones can be unpredictable.”

“These boys are checking out the old place,” Rhonda said, gesturing toward the cabin.

“That right? Well, I bet you’ve never seen anything like this before.”

I took a step closer to the loon and bent slightly to make eye contact. “What was she doing out there, you think?”

“I don’t know exactly. Something about this lake. Every couple of years a loon gets stranded here. This one should be off having drinks on a beach somewhere in Mexico. Could be they’re young or they lose their bearings. Some have injuries so bad their wings don’t work. The back end here, that’s where the baggage is,” Darin said, lifting the bird slightly. “It’s real heavy so they need a lot of running room to get going, like a cargo plane. Runway’s too short, or iced in like this one, they can’t take off.”

“What happens then?” Lester asked.

“Honestly? They usually just disappear. Dive maybe, can’t find the hole again. Hard to rescue once they’re stranded, I know that for sure. They don’t know what’s good for them anymore. This one, she’s lucky I got to her before a hawk or a coyote.”

“We’d better be going if we’re going to get her to a vet,” Rhonda said. “You boys be careful around that cabin, you hear? Don’t do nothing stupid.”

They veered off along the other path, the excitement still raising their voices.

“Wow, that was crazy, huh?” Lester said. He scratched his neck when I didn’t answer. Instead, he did what I did, which was to stay put and stare at the spot where the loon had been stuck. All the commotion of the rescue had settled, and other than the tools Darin had dropped, the ice was as it should be. No intruders, just a black scar where that bird had nearly died. Desperate and lost. Stuck in a jam.

“She tried to pull me in with her.”

“What?”

“My mother. When I couldn’t pull her out, she tried to pull me in.”

I grabbed my own wrist, feeling the way she’d latched on, feeling the pull toward the hole, the ice collapsing, my elbows wet with advancing water. I stood still, watching it unfold out there, magnified by time. The boy, taking off his coat. Already he’d tried to go for help against her pleading but had turned back, knowing help couldn’t come in time. Kneeling now, his hair silver in the moonlight. He looks like something sprouted in the freeze, a winter shoot. She tells him he looks like the moon. He tosses the coat. She doesn’t even reach for it. Now he’s on his belly, elbowing toward her. The ice shudders, bends. They grip each other’s wrists. He yanks free, she disappears below the waterline, surfaces, sputters, gasps. All is quiet now. By dawn, I know they will be lost to each other.

“Are you kidding?” Lester asked. “That’s fucked up, man.”

“I keep trying to imagine what was going through her head. All I could ever figure is she didn’t want to be alone.”

“Pretty lousy way to get company, if you ask me.”

I think about that, about the boy I was and my drowned mother. What did I know, really? Her love for me was deep and frantic. And the desperation of her dying the way she did was keen, sharp like the blade she left behind, like the loon’s black bill. I was not able to put my thoughts together right then, not for years, that the ice had closed in on my mother long before she went out onto Bright Lake.



DARIN AND RHONDA, BACK FROM the veterinarian, knocked on the cabin door with news that the loon would be fine, that she wasn’t injured so much as lost and lonely. Rhonda insisted we join them for stew, and given how hungover we both were, stew and a warm cabin and a fire sounded good. Their place was farther back in the woods, away from the lakeshore but with a nice view from a new deck. They’d lived on the other side for years, Rhonda said, and bought this place the previous spring. She and Darin picked at their stew, and the conversation came to an awkward stop.