Free Flying Crows by Jim Lehrer Page B

minute or so and, presto, he shouted for joy and got up and walked away. He’s been on the steady road to recovery ever since.”
    Hilda Owens, the Somerset Sister, moved her head slightly but avoided any eye contact with Birdie, the potential beneficiary of the proposition. She said, “What about the murder? The killing of the sheriff? What are they going to do about that, if and when he arrives at the end of the road to recovery—assuming he does?”
    â€œThey’re going to take him back to Springfield and hang him,” Josh said.
    A frown crossed Sister Hilda’s face. Was she imagining a man hanging?
    â€œDid you murder anybody at your massacre?” she asked Birdie, suddenly turning to him and looking him in the eye.
    â€œNo, ma’am,” he said, his face and body clearly full of anticipation. From Josh’s view, Birdie, cleaned up soft and soapy from an hour of hydrotherapy, his black hair combed and slicked straight back, didn’t look so bad. If the truth were known, Sister Hilda could do worse than have his hands on her bosoms.
    â€œThen why are you in here?” she asked Birdie.
    â€œWatching it made me crazy. I can’t close my eyes or go to sleep without screaming from what I saw. All that blood and dying and awfulness always comes back.”
    â€œWhat happens to you if and when you’re cured? I don’t know about that man from Springfield, but they told me very few . . . I’m sorry, but they said only a few ever leave here really cured.”
    â€œThat’s right. That Springfield man’s still here, as a matter of fact,” Josh said quickly. “But I think our Birdie has a real chance—with the right therapy. He’s still very young.”
    â€œI’d go back home to Kansas City if I was cured,” Birdie added. “I might even try to get a job selling the
Kansas City Star.
My cousin did, and I would love to do that.”
    Sister Hilda looked up toward the heavens, as if asking for permission or forgiveness, and said, “All right, then, I guess it’s the least I can do—particularly for somebody from Kansas City. That’s where I’m from too.”
    She scooted her chair back from the table, stood, and motioned for Birdie to follow her into the book stacks.
    Birdie followed her out of sight between two tall shelves of books, HISTORY (MISSOURI) on the left, FICTION (A–L) on the right.
    Josh didn’t have a watch or a clock and he had never been good at estimating or guessing time, but it seemed like almost ten minutes went by before he heard the first real sound. It was a male groan. Then a slight feminine chirp, a cooing. . . .
    Obviously, something besides a few seconds of bosom-touching was happening back there among the books. Josh was overcome with shame for listening. He grabbed
John Brown’s Body
and continued reading loudly where Sister Hilda had left off.
    â€œWhere the great huntsmen failed, I set my sorry

And mortal snare for your immortal quarry.

You are the bu falo-ghost, the broncho-ghost

With dollar-silver in your saddle-horn . . .”
    Josh paused for just a second to take a breath. “Yes, yes, yes,” said a soft female voice coming from the stacks.
    â€œThe cowboys riding in from Painted Post,

The Indian arrow in the Indian corn—”
    â€œOh, oh, oh,” said a raspy male voice coming from the book stacks.
    â€œAnd you are the clipped velvet of the lawns

Where Shropshire grows from Massachusetts sods,

The grey Maine rocks—and the war-painted dawns

That break above the Garden of the Gods.”
    Josh felt somebody next to him. It was Roger from Holden with his Somerset Slugger.
    â€œWhere’s the lady and the other loony?” he asked Josh.
    Josh shrugged. How would I know? he was trying to say.
    Josh heard a male voice say, “Thank you, thank you, Sister Hilda.” It was coming from the stacks. “I will carry this