The Buzzard Table - By Margaret Maron Page 0,3
fresh meat. They will turn their nose up at rotten meat if there is a fresher alternative available. They also prefer the meat of herbivorous animals.
—The Turkey Vulture Society
What was all that about?” I asked Reese when we were back on the road home. “Who is that guy and what’s his problem?”
He shrugged.
“So how did you meet him?”
Reese turned into a lane that would cut across the farm and bring us out near one of Daddy’s barns. “I’ve been noticing buzzards hanging around over there off and on since right after Christmas and I couldn’t figure out why. I mean, deer aren’t like elephants, are they?”
“Not that I’ve noticed,” I said dryly. “For one thing, elephant antlers are a lot bigger.”
He grinned. “You know what I mean. Elephants have graveyards, right? But who ever heard of a deer graveyard? I figured that it had to be a pretty sizable animal, though, and more than one of ’em to keep those buzzards circling in the same place for so long. Anyhow, a couple of days ago I drove over in that direction as far as I could and hiked the rest of the way. When I got across the creek, I saw that guy trying to get a deer carcass out of the back of his truck. He looked to be having trouble—I think there’s something wrong with his arms—so I went and helped him.”
“He doesn’t strike me as somebody who’d welcome help,” I said.
“You got that right. But as long as I was there, he let me hoist it out and onto the table.”
“Table?”
“That’s what he calls that old foundation. His buzzard table. Anytime he finds some fairly fresh roadkill, he picks it up and puts it there.”
“Why?”
Reese shrugged. “All I know is that his truck box is stuffed with tripods and camera equipment. He says he’s doing a photographic study of American vultures.”
I had noticed the stranger’s slight accent. “He’s British? An ornithologist?”
“Oh, hell, Deb’rah. I don’t know. It’s not like he’s somebody who’ll tell you the story of their life the first minute you meet ’em. I didn’t even get his name.”
“But you must have talked about something when you were helping him move that deer.”
“Just buzzard stuff. Hey, did you know that they don’t like the taste of dogs or cats?”
“Really? I thought buzzards eat anything dead.”
“Not meat eaters if they can avoid it. They will if there’s absolutely nothing else, but he says they’d rather have animals that eat plants. Like squirrels and deer.”
That made me smile. “Who knew buzzards were that picky?”
“Or that stuff could be too rotten even for them?”
He coasted to a stop under one of the shelters that jutted off from the barn and we soon had my neon pig safely stowed in a stall that hadn’t been used since Daddy quit keeping a milk cow.
There was no sign of Daddy’s truck up at the house, so Reese dropped me at my own back door, then headed on down the lane to see if he could scrounge some supper from one of my sisters-in-law. Most of them have a soft spot for him.
I let the dog out, started a load of laundry, and set a spinach lasagna that I’d made the weekend before out on the counter to thaw for our own supper. Children aren’t supposed to like spinach, but it was one of my young stepson’s favorites.
When I married Dwight December before last, the courthouse women—judges, clerks, and attorneys—gave me a recipe shower. The consensus seemed to be that Dwight would otherwise starve to death. Never mind that he’d been cooking for himself since his divorce a few years earlier. This lasagna was from Portland Avery, an attorney in Dobbs, and my oldest and closest friend. Weird to think of getting healthy recipes from her after all the Butterfingers, bacon cheeseburgers, and double-buttered popcorn we consumed together growing up.
The rain had begun again, heavy now, and gave signs of setting in for the night, so Bandit, Cal’s terrier, was ready to come back in almost immediately. I gave him a rawhide chew and sat down at the computer to check my email. The last message, sent only minutes ago, was from Dwight’s sister-in-law Kate and was headed “TURN ON YOUR PHONE!!” in all caps. The message itself read, “Did you forget about tonight?”
Tonight?
I quickly switched on my phone and saw that I’d missed two messages from her and one from Dwight. It seldom occurred to either of them to try the