The call came right after five o'clock, on Friday.

Typical.

A woman, the wife's former boss, sees an injured "big bird" in her neighbor's yard.

As I'm heading out, the wife asks if it was five-foot tall and bright yellow...

No, two and a half feet, with a brown head. Took me a half second to realize what the wife was talking about. But no, this bird is on 13th Street.

Not Sesame.

Found it right where it was supposed to be. As I suspected, it was an immature redtailed hawk. Several pair nest in town, and this is the time of year when they fledge out and start getting into trouble.

By the feathers, this one flew into the six-foot tall plastic netting these folks have around their backyard. Presumably to keep out the deer that wander freely through this part of town. (Well, heck, they wander freely through all parts of town, except the jail.)

The left wing isn't broke, but the fledgling holds it strange, and cannot fly. There's a little blood just below the wrist joint.

Crap.

After trespassing into the neighbors' yard and borrowing a rake to sweep the hawk out from between two sheds, I have a hawk in my hand.

As you can see, it is nowhere near two and a half feet tall.

First problem that arises is I forgot to bring a box. So, the hawk rides on my lap all the way home.

It's filthy.

But that is not my concern at all. The question is... what do I do with it?

I remember the email last winter telling everyone to stop sending injured birds to the Audubon couple in Central City. Frank was hospitalized, and his wife was overwhelmed trying to take care of him and their menagerie.

They're well into their eighties, you know.

Months later I happened to spot Frank's obituary.

Damn.

So, I call dispatch. They got nobody for caring for injured birds except in the northern part of the state. A choice of a 256 mile drive, or one of 264.

The word in the emails was, we were not to make those drives.

No other alternative provided, mind you. Just that with budgets and gas being what they are, birds don't get to go to those two rehabilitators unless someone else takes them.

Likewise for the two veterinary clinics qualified to handle birds of prey in the southern corners of the state. Available, but too far to drive unless you happen to be close. Or find the bird a ride.

One of my wardens makes frequent trips to the southeastern city... I call him.

Nope. No trips that way any time soon. I ask if he's got any other ideas.

Nope. "I think we're just supposed to shoot 'em."

He's not kidding. He's not happy about it, either.

He's just serious.

I'm sitting parked along a street just blocks from his house. The redtail is on my lap, glaring back at me, every once in a while trying to swing a wing out to take control of the steering wheel.

Shoot it?

I think not.

I make the call I'm not supposed to make.

And make the two-hour drive we've been told not to make.

It's eight-thirty before I pull up to their house.

Her house, now.

I have been coming to this modest home for over twenty years. Both the truck and car are parked out in the driveway still, the garage long ago taken over by bird cages for their patients.

Lois is smaller than I remember. Immediately eager to get the hawk in her hands, and check it out. It's practically asleep, but otherwise in good shape. It's prognosis is good. She'll get someone to take her to the vet tomorrow, and then Audubon will find a volunteer to ferry it to the rehab expert 150 miles farther up the state.

And for another thirty minutes, her holding the hawk the entire time, we visit.

I hear a little about Frank's health problems. The evening she called an ambulance.

"He never came home..."

But most of the conversation is about birds. The eagles and hawks she nursed through West Nile infections. Apparently it doesn't kill them, just makes them too weak to hunt. If you catch them early and feed them, they'll make it.

We talk about the rare volunteers who have come forward. The young woman so scared of eagles. But eagles are such sweethearts I interject.

"Exactly!" with that same laugh I have heard for decades. The laugh that I suspect has not been coming out much in the past months.

As I fill out the obligatory paperwork on my hawk, she asks...

"How's your Mom?"

Like my Mom, Lois had found herself tied down with oxygen hoses after a long bout of pneumonia. She'd given me the name of a doctor who had changed her treatment, and gotten the use of her lungs back. We'd had this discussion almost a year ago, and she still remembered to ask.

I look up from my paperwork, and tell her.

We lost her last September.

And reality came crashing back in. But now we have something else in common besides our love of birds.

We're both survivors who have lost someone close. And now the details come out. About the two and a half months of hospital care. Her husband sometimes lucid, but often not. She points out the new plaque set on the front table, recognition of their many years of volunteer work. Happily he was aware when she showed him that. It was a final gift of pride that they could share.

And I heard about the myriad of problems that arose, both in the hospital, and with their bird care.

And finally, his death. Without any diagnosis or answers.

They were a childless couple, their nurturing talents directed towards those in need with feathers. I can tell this is something she needed to talk about. With someone.

With me.

But too soon I see how dark it is outside the windows. I have a two-hour drive to get home, perhaps with dinner waiting. She has a bird to bed down, and arrangements to make for tomorrow's vet visit.

The hawk is asleep in her hands.

As I pull up to the highway to make the only turn I will make for 115 miles, I know.

There may be minor repercussions for bringing this bird so far, to someone the outfit no longer wishes to burden.

It was still the right thing to do.