Shifty's Boys by Chris Offutt

Author:Chris Offutt [Offutt, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic

Chapter Fourteen

Brace Gifford was a man of action, even if that action consisted of sitting on his porch watching a robin’s nest in a maple. The eggs hatched in the order they were laid, and the babies always departed the nest in the same sequence. On the ground below stood a tiny fledgling with tufts of down on its head. It was the first one to leave the nest, watched over by a nearby adult male. Brace wanted to see the next one jump from the nest, a move he considered the most courageous in nature—a bird too young to fly but willing to navigate the air. It invariably fell to the earth and lay stunned, then looked about and walked in an awkward circle.

Brace had never married and had lived the past sixty years of his life in the same house. He’d planted the maple that held the robin’s nest and carefully cultivated three hackberry trees to feed the birds. A row of cedars bordered the north edge of his property, the trees serving as a windbreak in winter and giving the robins protective cover from predators. He watched the mother tear off bits of worm and feed her young, perhaps the last meal before one leaped into space.

A breeze carried the scent of automobile exhaust, and a few seconds later he heard an engine. He had no near neighbors. The mail had already run, bringing its standard fare of advertising circulars, which he saved year-round for winter kindling. Probably kids, he thought, out roaming the roads, seeking what little adventure there was to have. The car sound came closer, then stopped, and he heard a door open. Still gazing at the nest, he gestured for the vehicle’s occupant to avoid the area in front of the tree. No sense in scaring the fledgling.

He saw his niece and a stranger, a shortish man, thin and wiry, slightly favoring one leg and trying not to show it. The man lacked a hat, which was unusual.

“Hey, Little Sandy,” Brace said.

“Good to see you, Uncle Robin,” Sandra said.

“Watch where you walk. Got a little feller there don’t know how to fly yet.”

“Reckon he’ll make it?”

“Oh yeah. If a snake or a fox or a hawk don’t get him.”

“This is my uncle Brace,” Sandra said. “I call him Uncle Robin on account of the birds.”

“I’m Jimmy Hardin’s boy,” Mick said.

“Jimmy Hardin,” Brace said. “Homer Jack’s boy?”

“Yeah, Homer Jack was my grandfather.”

“I knowed him. A good man. He could read the woods like a magazine. You’uns come up on the porch. I’d invite you in, but I got to keep an eye on that baby yonder.”

He pointed to the fledgling, which was turning itself in a circle, one tiny wing aimed up like a spindle.

“Is it hurt, Uncle Robin?” Sandra said.

“Naw. It’s getting the lay of the land. In a week, it’ll be flying.”

“Working its strength up,” Mick said.

“That’s right,” Brace said. “If you look sharp, you’ll see its daddy in that bush. He’s learning the little feller how to get around for food.

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