The Road to Bayou Bridge

“I’ll call Stevo in Baton Rouge and see if he can send Ruby back to work on field notes and mind the fledglings. The captive cranes seemed to like her. She even got L-3 to take walks with her.”

Renny nodded. “She’s a good grad assistant. Glad we got her instead of that smarmy ex-fraternity president.”

As the project manager carrying out the reintroduction of the whooping crane into the wintering grounds of Southwest Louisiana, Renny had tremendous pressure to succeed on her shoulders. The federal and state grants only stretched so far, and after losing one of the released cranes to natural predators earlier that summer, she felt even more driven to prove all was going as planned. Private donors liked to see results—successful results—or they didn’t open their wallets. And at the rate their funds were dwindling, they needed to tread carefully.

Renny felt something sink in her stomach. Ironically, L9-10 was on Beau Soleil property, which, come to think of it, wasn’t so odd considering the Dufrenes owned lots of land in St. Martin Parish. No problem except there were far too many painful memories attached to anything named Dufrene—even an abandoned rice field.

Darby.

His image flashed in her mind. Long legged, brown from the sun, alligator smile. He’d been pure pleasure in a pair of worn jeans. God, she’d loved him so much. Loved the way he touched her, loved the way he made her feel. Wild, alive, made for him.

Of course that had all been a lie.

A young girl’s dream of what love should be. And she wasn’t a young girl anymore.

The real Darby hadn’t looked back. He’d left Louisiana and the girl he supposedly loved behind. Left her behind broken both physically and spiritually. But his dismissal had made her stronger. Had made her who she now was, and she was damn proud of what she’d become.

She shook herself.

“Rat run over your grave?” Carrie asked.

“Yeah, something like that.” Renny pulled off her reading glasses and tried not to think about the rat. Darby was behind her and she’d made peace with herself and what had happened...or rather what had not happened. They’d been eighteen, high school seniors and majorly naive. She’d long ago forgiven both herself and the wild Dufrene boy who’d talked her into loving him.

Besides, she was too old to worry about those feelings again, even if she would soon have to deal with his mother. And Picou was never easy to deal with. On the surface, Picou Dufrene seemed docile and enlightened in her yoga gear and caftans, but underneath the feathers and fluff was a woman of pure steel. A woman who always got her way.

Just like her youngest son.

“You heading out now?” Carrie wrinkled her nose at her coffee cup. “How long has this been sitting in the pot?”

“Long enough to grow hair on your chest,” Renny said, sliding the journal into the beat-up leather tote she’d bought the day she got her master’s in biology. “And, yeah, I’m going to head up and see what’s going on with L9-10. She was always such a skittish bird. Should have known she’d settle down in some weird location. Damn storm.”

Carrie set her mug down. “But a good opportunity for us to see how far they’ll stretch the habitat. Go. Call me later and let me know what you find, and then go have yourself a good weekend. As in, go do something fun for a change.”

“I have fun.” Why was everyone pushing her to go out and lasso a man? Even her mother, who’d formerly harped on the evilness of the opposite sex, had started “suggesting” Renny go somewhere other than church for her social life. Renny was Bev’s only shot at grandchildren. Forget biological clocks. Grandmother’s clocks were wound tighter.

“If you call sitting in a pirogue watching herons mate fun, then I guess you do. Come on, it’s Friday, Renny. Don’t let your leg keep you from shaking it.”

“Shaking it?”

“Your booty, girlfriend.”

Renny pushed through the door leading to the lobby of the office. “Sure. I’ll think about it.”

But she wouldn’t. Carrie had poked a soft spot in her psyche—one she tried to ignore. Renny didn’t want to squirrel herself away like some disfigured misanthrope. No, she wanted to be that game gal who didn’t mind the stares, whose zest for living and glowing smile chased away any thoughts of pity. A small part of her wanted to be the girl she used to be...but it was only a small part. The rest of her liked her life as it was. Simple. Driven.

Safe.

She dashed that last thought because what was wrong with living safe anyway? Having control was a good thing, considering she’d spent a good deal of time having no control over anything—even her body. Most of her doctors were convinced she’d never walk again. And here she was walking out of her office door.

Okay, the pitch in her step still bothered her. Vain, stupid and weak, sure, but walking into a bar, aka meat market, wasn’t fun when a girl unintentionally lurched herself at men. So she didn’t go to bars. Or singles mixers. Or on blind dates.

Renny angled across the gravel parking lot nestled into the grasslands of the Black Lake Conservation Area and slid into her crossover hatchback. The early fall sun shone overhead, spotlighting the small field office invading the natural landscape. The actual lake lay only fifty yards away and she could hear the low hum of a boat on the water as she cranked the engine.

Going to Beau Soleil would be hard. She hadn’t been back in over ten years, and that had been only to meet Darby in the cloak of the night with a backpack holding her nightgown, a spare T-shirt and a toothbrush. So long ago. So utterly stupid.

So, no, it wasn’t going to be much fun for her tripping down memory lane—all because L9-10 had an adventurer’s soul.

The only consolation was Darby wouldn’t be there.

In fact, other than the occasional holiday, he hadn’t returned to Beau Soleil. Renny hadn’t laid eyes on him since that horrible night, and she really hadn’t wanted to see him again. Not since she’d woken up in the hospital and realized she’d meant less to him than his family, than his damn place in the not-so-grand society of Acadiana. The anger at him had burned hard and deep in her gut, fueling her desire to get well if only to prove to him she didn’t need him anyway.

In one way, Darby’s disinterest had given her life again. Had given her purpose, so finally after years of hating him, she’d let the hard kernel of pain go.

Now she felt nothing.

Or at least she’d convinced herself she felt nothing.

Life was more tolerable that way.

* * *

RENNY PROWLED THROUGH the dense brush bordering the abandoned rice field sitting several acres off the Bayou Teche. L9-10 wasn’t where the GPS tracker indicated.

Hmm. Had the bird somehow lost her tracking device? Or maybe some predator had eaten the bird, device and all? Improbable but not impossible.

Thorns tugged at the material encasing her legs. Luckily, she kept her protective costume and rubber boots in the trunk of her car for times such as this, so her jeans and T-shirt were protected by the white sheeting. A draped hat with a screen obscured her face so she resembled an odd-looking astronaut prowling through the prickly vines and brush rather than an everyday biologist.

“Ow,” she muttered under her breath as she unlatched a nasty vine from the sheeting. She needed to be mindful of keeping a silent, remote figure in case she actually found her rogue crane. Handlers were always careful to erase any human aspect of their form when interacting with the cranes. The goal was to produce birds as wild as possible—birds that avoided human contact.

Where are you, L9-10?

She swiveled her head left and right, scanning the swaying marsh grass that was little more than five acres in scope. Then she raised her eyes and scoured the tree line across the wet grass bordering an inlet from the sluggish bayou to her right. A flash of white appeared before disappearing completely.

“Got ya,” she whispered as she stepped over the barriers Mother Nature tossed in the way of all wetland biologists and conservationists. The hum of a boat on the bayou accompanied her muttered curses as she slogged through the grasses toward the area where she’d glimpsed the flash of white. L9-10 obviously had taken to roosting in one of the ginormous oaks dappling the remote landscape. Perhaps she was showing a creative way to adapt. Maybe she’d found something to eat in the wide-spread branches of the tree. Or maybe she’d taken to the thick limbs because an alligator sat below her.

Renny stopped walking and stared at the big gator on the sloping bank, tail halfway in the marsh water, basking beneath her poor L9-10.

“Damn it.”

The huge prehistoric reptile lay sprawled with its baby claws spread looking like a socialite on a cocktail cruise. Wasn’t in a hurry to go anywhere, especially since its next meal perched a few feet above, solemnly contemplating the marsh.

Perhaps the bird’s tracking bands had snagged on something or perhaps it was already injured.

“And what are you doing here, big boy?” Renny whispered. Gators were notoriously shy and didn’t frequent populated areas. But this little patch of St. Martin Parish was remote and near fresh water teeming with crawfish, snakes and frogs, along with the animals that fed on them. It was odd to see the gator away from a large body of water, but perhaps it was protecting hatchlings, since it was September. That would make her dangerous.

Rotten luck for L9-10.

Renny stood completely still many yards from the seven-foot gator and contemplated her course of action. She wanted to get the crane to safety, but where was safety? The purpose was to release the cranes into the wild. The wild had big teeth. The cranes had to learn how to adapt and live on their own. She didn’t want to go all Darwin on L9-10, but it was about survival of the fittest.