Strawberry

Jodie was in a sunbeam, face pressed to a screen door as it was announced somberly they would be idle at the motel until Sunday morning. Father and daughter watched the restless Joads pass along Highway 30. A mattress tied to a van’s roof rack threatened those following. A hitchhiker climbed into the bed of a creeping truck overloaded with people.

She bore it all easily, thinking time spent here was prelude. Her focus was on the adventure of soon traveling alone to the valley, she was excited to board the tall commercial bus called Greyhound. Father said it was what touring acts made use of. Jodie believed him and expected life would soon be as it was before events at the Brier Hill had evicted her neighbors. He would remain in town and later send for her; home was safe and waiting.

Jodie left the dimming doorway to visit the laying hens.

Having learned all that was interesting in her exploration of the motel, she could lead a tour. Jodie had no words for the purposeful staging of unfamiliar equipment and could affix no name to the tools and implements. However, the young lodger could show where rabbits and quail disappeared into gooseberries. She knew where it was best to watch hawks draw circles over the yard and could recount how to ask the deer to eat from her hand in the orchard.

A general sense of being unwatched at this roadside inn led her into the supply sheds. Taking it upon herself, she filled a plastic vessel with a measure of chicken feed pellets. With one adept motion she held the feed, backed out, closed the door behind her, and turned toward the hens.

Petrified, she was aware only of being inside a man’s shadow and the ice blue eyes staring down at her.

Struck dumb by fear, she heard words spoken in a deep gravel voice, meaning arrived slowly. He said she wasn’t doing it right. A tan hand with busted knuckles and black under its nails took the feed from her grip. He emptied half and topped it with seeds and dried worms. He called it scratch and said the pellets were too boring alone. He returned the food to the child and moved to set the box he toted near the hen house. He began to open it carefully.

Jodie spread the food to the eager hens and watched this strange business.

From the box appeared the chicks of spring’s brood who will be joining the motel’s flock. Set loose, they stood innocent and chirped endlessly for their mothers. Numbering more than a dozen, they were bland colored brown and tan, squash and acorn, all save one.

Among them was a single crimson bird, a red of fire. Its beak shone like a cherry. Plump and large, it ate calmly with the adults and seemed already at home. The groundsman called it the star of the show. He laughed when Jodie named it Strawberry and told her to keep the bird. It was bound to outgrow the others.

Without a word she agreed and held the chick for a time. When she found herself alone, she put it back with the others and went to prepare father for a new ward. Waiting outside unit 9 she found a box with breathing holes left for her use on the patio.

After dinner she returned, ready to collect her prize and present it to her father. She imagined how its plumage would be admired and how its possession would draw people to her and soothe her loneliness.

The wind was gaining. Rain, then hail stung her face. The birds moved in tight, frantic groups and issued harsh warnings. No hens were outside.

Near the henhouse she found a loose red feather and placed it in the sketchbook she carried. She looked inside without disturbing the colony. Strawberry was not among them.

A flash of lightning, then thunder breaking in the distance.

She stepped back and searched for shelter where a confused chick might hide. In the willow nearby a hawk sat motionless, its stare fixed on her. Its eyes shone like a blade.

Rounding the far side of the roof she saw the red clump at once. It was the head and half the body of Strawberry.

She did not remember falling to her knees, only her father lifting her from the dirt. The motion startled the hawk, causing it to flee. As it climbed it released a small mass of red feathers that drifted down into the yard.