Rory’s Angel

by

Anna Sykora

“Throw--me--the--ball,” coaxed bearded Otávio.

The red-haired toddler tossed it straight up. His dad ran with it, and Rory scampered after him, fell in the grass, didn’t cry. Otávio caught him up, and whirled him around.

Smiling Peg poured more water over the dishes in her basin. A horn tooted, and she waved as the other campers drove away. Carefully she strained scraps from her dishwater; Otávio called it low-impact camping. She wanted a hot shower, a soft bed.

Her husband strapped Rory into his harness, wrapped its line around a tree and wove a bowline knot.

“Dunno where he gets his fizz.” She wiped the last dish. “I’m pooped.”

“We hiked miles yesterday.”

“I’m all bug-bit.”

“Because you’re the sweetest.”

“Are we ready to roll?”

“It’s ain’t even 10. Take a nap, out of the sun.”

“Even my freckles have freckles, I bet. You’ll watch the boy?”

“He’s all strapped up like a bundle.”

“Don’t let him nap; he should sleep driving home.” She crept into their army surplus tent.

He leaned into a tree with marks in its bark that didn’t make a letter. The roof in Skowhegan was leaking, and the saw mill soon would close. Something had to turn up; he touched the medallion on his neck. Might as well grab a few winks himself.

#

Rory pitched facedown into the grass. When he hopped up he was free. Arms stretched wide he twirled in the sun.

His freckled mom smiled in her sleep. Slumped against a tree, his dad was snoring. Pale trees, like long-haired women, waved to Rory, and he hurried up the hill.

#

“You said you’d watch him!”

“My knots are good,” groaned Otávio. “His harness loop split.”

“Your idea, to go camping!”

“Rory’s too small to get far.”

“Maybe he’s playing near the truck?” They ran down the hill, to their lonely pickup.

“I’m afraid he went back to the trail,” Otávio muttered.

“By himself?”

“Tell you what we do: you take the Dodge to the station. I’ll go back up the trail.”

“I don’t want to leave him.”

“Maybe he’s hidin’. If he’s lost, we’re gonna need a pack of men.”

She started to cry, and hugged her and rocked her in his lean arms. He broke away, handed her the Dodge’s key.

“Peg, you gotta drive slow. The road’s washboardy, and our brakes are almost shot.”

#

When she skidded into a curve, the wheels on her side sank hubcap high. Revving the motor, she kept digging in, till the slant looked crazy. Jumping out she ran down the road.

A new SUV sat in a pullout, loaded with fancy gear and locked. Nobody came to her cries.

#

Otávio wove a tight search pattern across the Abnaki Trail. Touching his medallion he argued with God: you can’t ask us for our only child.

His own fault. After weeks with the blueberry crew, he’d chosen this remote campsite, the empty week after Labor Day--and now he needed a hundred men, all drinking beer in Millinocket.

He heard Rory crying--wind in the trees. Hardwoods showed red tinges. Where were Peg and the posse? They needed dogs and food, and radios and first-aid.

Bargaining with God in Portuguese, he didn’t feel his thorn-torn hands. Give me back my boy; I’ll go to church; I’ll build St Joseph’s new steps. I’ll never stay out late with my buddies again, without telling Peg. He rubbed away his tears.

#

Ranger Kovacs locked up his duty car in the empty parking zone. He wanted a piping hot dinner, with the sports scores for dessert. Mike, driving up from Millinocket, would bring along a USA Today. The Labor Day campers were gone, who’d jostled for parking and strewn their garbage.

A petite redhead was waiting outside the ranger station, and his heart sank. “Where you been all this time?” she demanded.

“Out on patrol, lady, doing my job. Just found another accident too: somebody’s dented Dodge.”

“Our truck.”

“You must have been speeding like a robber on that turn. Limit in here’s just 20 mph.”

“Mister, it’s an emergency--and nobody’s home, and your door’s all locked.”

“If we don’t lock up, our stuff walks away, even our first aid. So what’s your problem this evening, lady?”

“We lost our little boy.”

Roger grimaced at the dipping sun. “Come on in,” he said bitterly. Unlocking the door, he pointed her to the chair beside his battered desk. Pulling open a sticky drawer, he sorted through a sheaf of forms:

“Name of the missing party, please.”

“Rory O’Connor Da Coelho.” She spelled out the Portuguese name.

“Age?”

“Almost three, and he’s a good walker.” Next came clothing, so Roger noted:

Blue jean overalls

A T-shirt, with Tweety Bird

Red sneakers

“No sweater?”

“No.”

“How long has your boy been missing?”

“About five hours, I’d say.”

“A kid can get good and lost in five hours.”

“My husband’s looking along the trail. We were the last campers at your Twin Birches site.”

“Maybe he found him. Before I call the rangers, we’re supposed to check.”

“Mister, you’re gonna to have to call them.”

“Ma’am, I’ve been a ranger here for twenty-two years.” The lines in his lean face deepened in a scowl.

“You don’t understand. My son’s deaf.” His jaw dropped, and he squinted till she blushed red as the extinguisher on its bracket.

“You brought a deaf kid into Webster State Park? This isn’t a playground.”

“We just found out. We thought he was slow, but he’s allus pickin’ up stuff to show us. And he loves animals. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with his mind.”

“Every baby in Maine’s supposed to get their hearing tested, at the hospital.”

“He never got his test; he was born at home. Come on, mister, help us.”

Silently Roger counted to ten. “Mrs. Coelho, before we hit the road I want you to have a cup of coffee.”

#

“We never thought….” she muttered, burning her lips on the bitter brew.

They never do. He eyed the duty roster: only four rangers who’d taken Wilderness Rescue.

“We find most campers in good health,” he declared, “but little kids can’t mark a signal, and copters are no use for dense cover. We’re gonna need all the dogs we can get.”

“Can they search at night?”

“Sure; people stop moving, and their smells stick better without the sun. It’s the dog handlers who break their legs.”

“So my baby has to get through this night alone?”

He handed her a rumpled tissue box. “Depends on how soon we can get the dogs. Even a toddler will seek shelter.”

“He knows about blueberries. We were raking them, near Machias. My husband said there are berries here.”

Roger nodded. And bears and snakes, and booby-trapped patches of marijuana. “If you’re ready, Mrs. Coelho, we should go.”

#

The butterfly sat on a stone table slanting into a blanket of moss. When he reached for her she whisked away; so he rested his chin on the stone’s high edge, which felt smooth.

This light looked green, and bushy-tailed animals chased each other through the trees. One threw a nut, and he put it in his pocket. Then he scuffed along through green needles, picked up some cones and broke them in his hands. When he threw one at a tree, something flickered behind. He chewed on a cone, but it tasted sour.

These woods looked darker, the trees standing close, like legs in a crowd. Light fingers pointed, slowly changed, while he pulled up hunks of moss and ripped them. A tree’s cracked skin wept sticky stuff that tasted awful.

Rambling along, he found worn ways walked by others, on two feet or four. Sometimes he crawled. A curled snake watched him approach, slipped away.

Where was the tent with chocolate? His mother was with his father and the food. “Dih,” he yelled. “Dih!” Nobody came; nobody was home.

He sat down on a stone, rocked himself and cried, “Hoo, hoo.” A bird on a pine’s tip took up his cry, and squirrels and birds looked down. Nearby, a moose raised her blunt nose, snuffling with lips drawn back, and then bent to browse again.

Nodding off, the boy dreamed of his mother.

For several breaths, one blue eye and one green one studied him from under a bush. As his breathing evened, the odd-eyed animal crept out and sniffed at his sagging diaper, his crusted sneakers and half-open mouth. His eyes flew open when she brushed against his knees.

“Dih, dih,” he yearned. The skinny white cat stared up at him. Something glittered on her collar, and he gurgled, reaching out. Watching him, she stepped away, and he followed.

The fat, spotted cats next door licked his eyebrows. Now his new cat wandered around with him, always keeping him in sight. She was better at this than he was.

He found a bank of puckered blueberries, and ate what he reached, ignoring the gouges in the earth that marked the claim of a local bear. He offered his cat a berry, but she looked away, so he sucked it gone.

He found a plastic bag and ripped it open. She didn’t want the dry bread he offered, but took a bite of the stiff grey cheese. He petted her bony back while they chewed, and she purred under his hand like the cats next door. He plucked some burrs from her fur.

He couldn’t hear the stream she led him to. Bending, she lapped the shining water, carefully keeping her feet dry. The water slid away when he picked it up; scooping worked best, so that’s what he did, dribbling some down his face and chest. Then he chose a round red pebble from the bubbling water and put it in his pocket.

She grabbed a flashing fish, bit off its head and gobbled it all. It smelled wrong, he thought. She groomed herself and stretched, and then on they went together. When he stuck a feather in his shirt, she reached up and pulled it out; so he held it for her while she played.

They happened on a row of falling-down houses, and he toddled in an open door, hoping for a woman who’d feed him from a plate. When a snake wound out of the broken floor, the white cat slapped at it. Amazed, he watched the snake dwindling back down its hole.

There was no woman, no place to sit. He felt sleepy, his diaper heavy and wet. He wanted to cry; but something lay in the high grass near the sill. He picked up the rusty horseshoe and pondered its surprising weight. It wouldn’t fit in his pocket; he put it back.

The red sun hung low, and the breeze rippled chill on his face and arms. His cat hurried away, peeking back twice. He felt sorry to leave the houses.

She crept between sun-warmed rocks in a hollow where pine needles had drifted thick. Crawling after, he heaped them over himself--which felt warm and smelled delicious. She curled up with her nose and paws pressed into his larger warmth.

Over them passed the iron gaze of predator birds. Huge bears strode around in the dusk and left them together.

#

The diaper made a beacon to the rescue dogs, who pulled their handlers off the trail. The five men and two women unleashed them, calling out to each other in the darkness eyed with flashlights.

Otávio splashed across a shallow stream. Minutes later they found the logging settlement. The dogs sniffed at a collapsing shack, then wheeled around and headed back to the woods. Wouldn’t Rory wait inside a house? When Otávio heard a burst of furious barking, he broke into a run and fell on his knees.

“Slow down!” urged Mike, the youngest ranger. “We don’t want to lug you out on a stretcher.” Otávio touched the medallion on his neck.

Red, and Old Clementine--both retrievers--stopped near tumbled rocks of Katahdin granite. Red barked furiously while the older dog calmly waited for her handler.

“Over here!” Mike waved his flashlight in circles. “Don’t--could be a snake,” he warned Otávio, who was reaching into a cleft. “Everybody, shine your lights.” Needles tumbled from a rising bush, and the filthy toddler put his hands up to the light, as if surrendering.

“That’s my boy,” cried Otávio. When a small face peeked from Rory’s arm the dogs barked uproariously. Mike grabbed the cat by her collar, lifting her out of reach.

#

Pets, which disturb the wildlife, aren’t allowed in Webster State Park. Shoved into a game bag, the cat got stowed, while Otávio carried Rory away.

The next day--after getting their pickup towed--his parents asked to see her. Mike dumped her out on the station’s desk, where Roger offered her a cup of water. While she lapped, Rory stretched his arms to her, crowing. Peg held his shoulders tight.

“We think she belonged to an Indian, who died here,” Roger explained. “When we found him, he was mumbling about his cat. Later some campers told us they’d seen one begging for food.”

“You can see she was a pet,” Mike stroked her bony back.

“What’s gonna happen to her?” Peg asked, and the rangers looked at each other.

“Guess the next guy down will drop her off at the Millinocket pound,” said Roger. “Unless you want to keep her.”

“We’ll take her,” said Otávio impulsively. “She kept him warm.”

“Rory loves cats,” Peg put in. Just then the cat leaped out the window. Rory cried, and the adults felt sorry, who would’ve liked a happy ending.

Roger suggested that Rory get a checkup.

“He ate like a man last night,” Otávio boasted. “Two bars of chocolate for dessert. This morning he showed us a feather, an acorn and a pebble.”

“He’s OK,” Peg soothed. “We’re not insured,” she muttered to Mike.

“It’s none of my business,” Roger said. “But I’ve got a niece who’s hearing-impaired. These days kids can get an implant better than a hearing aid.”

“We heard of them Kuckeler Plants,” said Peg.

“I think you mean cochlear implants.”

“Whatever,” said Otávio. “We want to find out, when we get home. We want him to hear, same as everybody.”

“If he can’t, that’s OK,” said Peg. “We love him like he is.”

They found the white cat curled on Rory’s sweater. She’d climbed in the pickup’s broken window. She didn’t react to his joyful screech, or when--on a hunch--Otávio clapped his hands over her head:

“She’s deaf. That’s why she’s wearing the bell.”

“I’m gonna call her Angel,” said Peg.

#

Roger watched them drive away in their rusty Dodge, with its bright blue door on the passenger side. People get along somehow. With some help and kindness, we get by.

“Got that USA Today for me, Mikey?”

“Sure.”