Nightbirds

Shep knew when to call it a day.

He'd been up since before dawn, had watched the boats leaving from the cove with a sense of sorrow and nostalgia, had returned the friendly shouts of the outbound fisherman with an uncertain smile. He missed fishing, missed the labor and the camaraderie, missed the weariness at the end of the day. Now he spent his days collecting shells, a solitary figure in old work clothes, prowling the rocky coastline and trying to fill his hours. He was alone now, the children grown and long gone, Mary Louise laying still in her grave, three years now. Even his old rough coated setter, going on twelve and feeling her age, had gone lame and preferred to spend her days asleep in a basket by the fire. Shep still made his rounds unless the weather was too damp and his arthritis was acting up - morning coffee at McIntyre's, a little light housekeeping - Mary Louise would never have tolerated a disorganized household and it was the least he could do - then dinner at noon, prepared on the ancient hot plate or eaten cold, and then he went in search of shells. It was a comfortable, predictable if lonely routine, it kept his mental state occupied and his body relatively active. At seventy-two, in reasonably good health and still possessing an unclouded mind, he was as content as he could be. Each evening, he listened to his radio, ate a light supper of hard boiled eggs and toast or a cold sandwich, drank one beer and made one turn around the abandoned vegetable garden with the setter. He was exhausted by eight and in the old four poster bed by nine unless he happened to fall asleep on the rose patterned sofa Mary Louise had loved. He usually slept dreamlessly, the old dog at his feet, the house quiet as a tomb. He kept no clocks - after Mary Louise's death, he had to begun to imagine that the incessant tick tock might be footsteps coming up the path or worse, a voice he had no wish to hear. Now there was only the old dog's raspy breathing and the random calls of the nightbirds - he slept peacefully, depending on his body's natural rhythms to wake him, not needing to know the time - if it was light, he got up, if it was dark, he laid back down. Life had become unexpectedly uncomplicated for Shep - no television, no telephone, he still lit the house primarily with lanterns, not fully trusting the inexplicable science of electricity, his water came from a well and his transportation was an unused hay wagon hitched to a pair of elderly mares he had named Salt and Pepper. He and the setter, who's name was Tillie but who he usually just called Dog, rode into town once a month or so, otherwise he traveled on his own two good feet. He had never been off the island in his entire life and had no desire to see beyond it's shores. God put me here, he told his well meaning sons when they pestered him to visit, And here I reckon to stay. No amount of badgering, coaxing, incentives or pleading could change his mind.

They're good boys, Shep told Nana ruefully, But they don't understand about being rooted. This is where I belong, why, leaving would be like letting the garden go without water or sunshine.

Well, Nana replied with a philosophical shrug, It's always best to grow where you're planted. Know your soil, I always say.

Tillie was to see three more summers before she heard her last nightbirds - they were good, lazy years where she lay in her basket and watched the world go by through tired, sleepy eyes. Shep buried her one early evening in a grave facing the ocean. That fall he put the mares out to pasture with Rowena and dismantled the hay wagon for firewood. That winter, so Miss Clara wrote Nana, he began feeding the nightbirds, laying out a clear path of breadcrumbs from the trees to his porch and finally to Tillie's grave. In his will, a handwritten and yellowing parchment he wrote by lantern light and tacked to the back of the kitchen door, he asked to be buried next to Mary Louise. If my sons should come, James read - and they did, each bringing their families and staying the better part of the winter despite their busy lives - Tell them not to disturb Tillie's grave.

I reckon some of us hear angels or harps, Miss Clara remarked to my grandmother as they trudged through the snow to the cemetery, Or maybe even smell that evil smoke. Me, myself, I kinda like the idea of nightbirds. When she looked up, the skies were full of them and she smiled then scattered a
pocketful of biscuit crumbs over Shep's grave and called it a day.