Orphans
Cole trudged along the flood plain of a shallow creek, his only company, a parrot perched upon his left shoulder. It was high noon, the sky cloudless. Cattails as tall as cornstalks rustled when the wind picked up, bringing with it a chill. He showed great determination for a boy of twelve. His eyes cast to the ground he focused on moving one foot in front of the other. The guys back at the mining company had said he could find food and shelter in Silverado, some six miles up the road. “Ya might find someone willin’ to swap that birdie for supper,” a hardened miner had remarked. The other miners just coming off a ten-hour shift, burst out laughing.
“Off with your head,” squawked the parrot perched upon Cole’s shoulder.
Bewildered by the bird’s command, the miner kicked aside a caged canary and leaned forward to focus in on Cole’s feathered creature. Black Star canyon’s red cliffs cast a shadow on the miner’s face. He lurched forward and a peach pit shot out like a cannon from his blackened mouth. It happened so quickly Cole didn’t have time to react. The missile smacked Diablo’s beak head-on.
“Git along—you and your freak birdie, don’t never come back,” the miner grumbled.
A watchman made his way over to Cole and motioned for him to leave. “Miners are a superstitious lot. Ya outa git along.”
“If I know anything,” Cole said. “It’s when to git along.”
“Told you so. Graawk.”
Old Saddleback stood out in the distance, it’s ridgeline covered in pines. Somewhere out there a small town named Silverado sat beneath a canopy of Maples. Population: 300. Swatting at the dragonflies that buzzed in close, Cole resented Diablo for having cost him his breaker job. But he felt grateful for the seventy-five cents now in his pockets. His hands cut and bruised from separating slate; Cole’s welted back was free from the boss’s stick.
“Told you so,” the parrot squawked.
Recalling the satisfaction he felt when the pit knocked Diablo’s beak, Cole brushed the bird off his shoulder.
“Told you so!” Diablo hopped along, taking flight here and there to catch up.
“Told you I don’t wanna to hear ya,” Cole hollered.
Diablo puffed out a brilliantly golden feathered chest. “Should have turned at the mines,” he added in sing-song fashion.
“Horseshit. Can’t go back now. Besides, we’re not welcome at Black Star, thank you very much.” Cole pulled a prune from his coat. After inspection, he took a bite and tossed the remainder to the ground. “Now hush and leave me be.”
“Off with his head!” Diablo grabbed the fruit with his beak and swallowed it whole. “Told you so . . .” he ruffled his turquoise-colored wings.
Cole leaned in for Diablo who landed awkwardly, clawing at his coat. Fresh green maple leaves shimmied in the wind. What at first appeared as a stick, slithered away into the cattails and a single bullfrog began a slow and steady song as Cole and Diablo emerged from the floodplain.
Before them lay a town in ruins. Empty road, shattered glass, many of the building’s walls had fallen. Cole walked along the broken-up boardwalk straight to the only building that showed any sign of life. Smoke billowed from its chimney. The hand painted lettering, though warn, could still be read on the front window pane: “Hotel and Saloon. Prettiest Dancing Girls East of the Mississippi.” Cole pressed his face up close to the glass to look inside.
“Keep movin’ on boy,” someone yelled from within.
“Mister, I don’t mean to bother ya,” Cole hollered back. “I’m lookin’ for Silverado.”
“Cain’t you read!” A shot rang out blasting through the window pane a foot away from Cole.
“Told you so!” Diablo squawked.
Cole dropped to the ground and noticed the storefront across the street, “Carbondale Post Office.”
“It’s a ghost town,” Cole whispered.
“Ghost town?” Diablo squawked.
“Shhhhh. You know! Boom town gone bust. Paper town!”
“Should have turned back at the mines! Graawk.”
Another shot rang out from the saloon. Diablo took flight and Cole jumped off the boardwalk and ran straight out of Carbondale towards Old Saddleback. They followed the road up a narrowing canyon its edges lined with orange poppies and purple lupin. Yellow mustard plants covered the foothills. About a mile up from Carbondale they could hear voices, maybe even children laughing. Another half mile later, they came upon the silver mining town appropriately named Silverado.
Cole and Diablo moved unnoticed between the sparsely placed buildings and took a seat in the shade of the mercantile down the road from the Silverado Schoolhouse. They watched as a group of men converged outside its doors. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary about their meeting, that was not until the men began to raise their arms and fists at each other in frantic gestures.
“I suppose we ought to git along.” Cole stood and leaned in for Diablo.
“I know a place,” Diablo squawked. “Just past the post office.”
“What?”
“Ah! Should have turned at the mines,” the bird squealed. He flapped his colorful wings, slapping Cole’s ears. “Stupid boy! You know nothing!”
“You ain’t never been here,” Cole barked. Now, he knew darn well that the parrot had been around longer than he. Birds like these lived as long as 80 years, so he wasn’t foolish enough to think he was the bird’s first master. His ma said that Diablo came from Pa’s side of the family. But Cole never knew Pa to ask.
A brawl erupted among the men at the schoolhouse interrupting Cole’s confusion concerning Diablo. That’s when several women burst from the single-room schoolhouse. With piercing, shrill voices, they commanded the men to stop. But the men paid no attention, continuing to tear at each other’s ties and long-tail coats, occasionally landing a fist in the face.
Cole noticed one particular woman in a purple-colored day dress step away from the group and walk cautiously toward them. Long dark hair whipped across her face as the wind suddenly picked up and brought with it that cold chill.
“Keep walking,” said the parrot. “Git along.”
“I thought you said –“
“What do you know what I said? I said git along.”
Fists flew at the schoolhouse as the woman moved in closer to Cole. At the edge of the field, she grabbed hold of her dress near the knees which revealed a white petticoat and ankle high black boots. She took off running down the road toward them.
“Git along!” screeched the parrot.
The women screamed in the background. The men’s blows landed in rage despite their pleas. The woman in purple running toward Cole tripped twice in the ruts left by stagecoach wheels. She waved one arm while still gripping her skirt with the other. “Please,” she screamed. “Don’t go!”
“Loco woman,” the parrot muttered. “Off with her head!”
The boy fumbled in his pocket and threw another prune to the ground. Expecting the bird to fly from his shoulder, he walked straight on to the woman. He could see her clearly now – fresh face, pink lips, large, dark alluring eyes; she was about twenty years old.
“I’m waiting!” The bird pecked his curved beak against the boy’s head.
The woman stumbled forward, tears streaming down her cheeks as she slowed to a halt. She looked past Cole, to his left shoulder. “Diablo,” she wept. “I’ve been looking for you. For so long!” She held out her arms.
“Graawk,” the parrot said.
Cole studied the woman, then looked to the parrot. “Diablo,” he whispered, "how does she know your name?”
“Graawk.”
“Where did you go? Where have you been?” The woman fell to her knees before Cole. “It took me days to find my way out of the mines.”
"Mines?” The boy smacked Diablo on the side of his beak. He looked to the men still fighting near the schoolhouse, then down at the woman who wept into her hands. Finally, he turned to stare down Diablo, who refused his eye contact while remaining perched on his shoulder.
Not a cloud existed in the sky as the sun shined down on these three in Silverado’s windy valley. The woman squinted looking up at the boy and his bird. She hesitated, hopeful Diablo would utter an explanation.
“Graawk . . ."
“Ahhhhh,” moaned the woman. “I’ve missed you so much. Heck, Diablo,” she sobbed. I had nowhere to go!”
“Diablo!” the boy screamed. “Say it ain’t so, PLEASE Diablo.”
“Graawk.”
The woman sobbed some more and reached out to caress the bird’s neck. But the parrot jerked away from her touch. Tears welled up in Cole’s eyes.
Diablo shook his feathers. “Women!” he squawked. “Off with her head!”
The parrot then spread his wings and took flight from the boy’s shoulder and flew up the canyon toward the ridgeline. While the men on the schoolhouse mended their wounds, the boy and young woman comforted one another in the shadow of Old Saddleback. Then after some time, the two made their way up the road together, to make their lives in this small, yet prosperous mining town, two orphans.
