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and took ’em to the river in a sack ten minutes ago.”
    â€œOh no!”
    â€œIf you run, you might catch him, but maybe it’s best that you don’t. Ugly, I tell you. Mercy me.”
    Travis wheeled and took off like a madman. I managed to stutter a good-bye to Mrs. Holloway and ran after him at top speed.
    â€œTravis, stop! Don’t look!”
    He ran even faster. I kept up with him halfway until I got a sudden agonizing stitch in my side, slowing me to a trot a hundred yards back. Off in the distance, I could see a figure on horseback heading our way. Mr. Holloway. Returning from the bridge. Travis shouted something I couldn’t hear. Mr. Holloway shook his head and jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at the bridge. Travis ran on.
    As I passed Mr. Holloway, he said, “You don’t want no coyote cross.”
    I hurried on. Travis stood on the bridge feverishly scanning the slow-moving river for signs of life. But there was nothing to see. No sack, no puppies, not even bubbles. For Travis’s sake, I was grateful.
    â€œThey’re gone,” I said.
    We stood there a few minutes longer. He said not a word. I put my arm around him, and we turned for home. It would be months before we spoke of it again.

 
    CHAPTER 4
    DEVIL BIRDS
    [The tameness of the birds] is common to all the terrestrial species.… One day, whilst lying down, a mocking-thrush alighted on the edge of a pitcher, made of the shell of a tortoise, which I held in my hand, and began very quietly to sip the water.
    A FEW WEEKS LATER , I was in the kitchen with Viola, petting Idabelle and generally getting in the way, when Travis came through the back door, beaming and carrying an old straw hat covered with a red bandanna, from whence issued rustling sounds.
    â€œHey, everybody, you’ll never guess what I found!”
    Viola looked up sharply. “Whatever it is, I don’t want it in my kitchen.”
    â€œWhat is it?” I said, with both interest and trepidation.
    He whipped back the cloth like a conjurer to reveal two baby blue jays, scrawny, stringy, partially feathered, pink mouths agape, and ugly enough to turn sweet milk into clabber. They strained upward, quivering for food, emitting grating high-pitched cries.
    Now, it wasn’t all that unusual to occasionally run across a stranded young bird that had fallen or been dumped from the nest. But two? I found that … suspicious.
    â€œYou found them? Really? Where?”
    Travis wouldn’t meet my eye. “Down near the gin.”
    Viola said, “I don’t care where you found ’em, you get them nasty things out of here right now. Those are devil birds.”
    As if to confirm her opinion, both birds threw back their heads, much too big for their wobbly necks, and screamed like, well, the devil. You wouldn’t think such frail-looking organisms would be capable of such a racket, but this was how they begged for food from their parents.
    Viola yelled over the noise, “Get ’em out of here.”
    Travis chattered on our way to the barn. “I’ve heard they make good pets. Have you heard that? They say they’re really smart, and you can teach them tricks. I’ve been thinking about their names. How about Blue for one and Jay for the other? Blue is this one here. Look, he’s a little bit smaller. And Jay, well, he’s a little bit bigger, but one of his wings looks kind of funny. I hope it’s okay. But that’s how you tell them apart. I wonder when they ate last? Do you think they’ll eat chicken feed? Or will we have to dig for worms?”
    â€œTravis, you know how Mother and Father feel about wild animals.”
    â€œBut these aren’t even animals, Callie. They’re birds. So it’s different.”
    â€œNot really. Birds are a class of vertebrate within the kingdom Animalia.”
    â€œI don’t know what that means, but boy, they sure are noisy.”
    And