http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/sandhill-crane-bosque-refuge/

Part 3 – An Adventure Concludes

Hundreds of cranes mulled around the shallow end of the seasonal lake. In a few months, at the end of the rainy season, the lake will be six or seven feet deep all the way around. The cranes will have moved on by then. Their season here ends when the water rises above the backwards-bent knees of their spindly legs. Anything more than two feet deep is enough to drive them away. That the lake once ran too deep too measure, too wide to swim across, was unknown to them.

Their numbers were swollen this season. More clans than had come in living memory were gathered in the ankle-deep lake. It was a conclave the likes of which the cranes had not seen in their long years as the porters of the nymph children.

Bellemar stood at the lake’s edge, frowning as she listened to a hundred conversations wash over the rippling water. Beside her, inside a small tent, the nymph child snored quietly. It had been a week since they’d arrived at the lake. Waiting around had become the hallmark of Bellemar’s adventure. It was not, in any way, how she’d imagined it might go.

“This is going to go on forever unless we do something,” she said aloud to the snoring tent.

It had become clear as soon as Bellemar and the child arrived that the cranes were perhaps the most proud group she had ever met. More proud even than the farmers that had raised her with gruff voices and calloused hands. They’d spent the entire first day organizing themselves on the lake according to seniority, in a great cacophony of splashing, squawking, complaints and demands.

They had not been receptive to her joining the discussion. Her first attempt met with a great deal of rhetoric about ancient accords and the flock’s proud traditions of duty. Bellemar had acquiesced early on, but she regretted it now. If she’d known they would delay action this long, she would have put up more of a fight.

Eventually, the birds broke up for a recess. The crane elected to act as ambassador with her strode over with long, careful steps. He was a magnificent creature tall, his feathers brilliant white but for slight brown at his wingtips and a stark patch of red over his eyes.

“How’s it going in there?” Bellemar ask.

“Slowly,” the crane replied without irony.

“No kidding.”

“It’s an enormous responsibility. Only a crane can deliver a nymph child.”

“She’s a very small child, and it’s one flight.” Bellemar knew better than to lose her patience with the crane, but it became increasingly difficult as the days wore on.

“Yes, but a flight with tremendous implications.”

“How? You pick her up, fly her to the river, drop her off. It’s cake.”

“Tell that to the last guy,” the crane replied.

Bellemar sighed. “Fair point.”

“Cranes have delivered the nymph children all over the world since there were cranes and nymph children. Our reputation is all we have to sustain this grand tradition.” She gave this crane credit. He delivered the company line as he was required, but his tone was far less haughty than the other cranes with which she’d spoken that week.

“He got sick on the flight. The flock can’t possibly feel personally responsible for an act of nature a century old.”

“A human flock couldn’t.” The crane puffed his chest out and lifted his long, elegant beak just a little. “We are cranes. Our lives may be short, but our memories are long.”

Bellemar rubbed her forehead. “How much longer?”

“Than the memories of humans? I would guess-”

“The conclave. How much longer until a decision is made.”

“Oh, it’s made. We have to take the girl.”

Bellemar was flabbergasted. She looked around, as if half-expecting a dream to dissolve around her. But it did not.

“You’re kidding,” she said. “So what’s the hold up?”

“We have to decide which of us will take her.”

“Let me get this straight. I found the girl, brought her here, and you called the conclave.”

“Correct.”

“To decide if you were obligated to still deliver her.”

“Yes.”

“Which of course you are because only cranes can deliver nymph children.” The last tendril of patience frayed with her line she spoke.

“That is an oversimplification, I think, but the spirit of your points are sound.”

“And now you’re just waiting to draw straws on who takes her?”

“It’s an enormous responsibility. And a big honor. Many are willing,” the crane explained.

“You have ten minutes, or I’m tying a hunk of white feathers to my arms and taking her myself.”

“You cannot.”

“You want to see me try?” Bellemar lifted her eyebrow as inviting the dare.

“You cannot. Only a crane can-“

“Deliver a… yeah. I got it. Listen,” Bellemar started, then paused. She took a deep breath. This whole affair had been one big inanity after another. She was this close to finishing what she started.

She’d spent the last week on this lake shore, hearing the arguments of birds filter to her. But she hadn’t really been listening. Rather, she’d been thinking. The child would be brought back, and it may very well help the farmers of the river land. More water might be sent down the increasingly shrinking river. But that wasn’t why she was so anxious to finish.

This had been more personal than that. She wanted the win. She wanted to feel the satisfaction of completion, of knowing she’d set out on a near-impossible task and completed it. And ever since she’d realized that had been her motivation, she’d been awash in guilt. People needed food and water, and this nymph child was the answer to all their quiet prayers. Yet all Bellemar could think about was how hard she might pat her own back.

“I am listening,” the crane said in his deep, patient tone.

“The world, our world, is getting drier. You have flown thousands of miles. You must know this by now.”

The crane remained still for a long moment, but eventually he nodded. “Yes, I have.”

“I have no idea if this nymph child is the first step to making the world wet again. Maybe she is. Maybe not. But she can be a symbol, that all of us are working together in the face of an adversary none of us fully understands.”

“Water comes and goes,” the crane said. “Drought is a part of life everywhere. I have seen that.”

“Drought like this?”

“No,” the crane admitted, sadly. “Not like this.”

“Recently, I’ve traveled a lot too. First time in my life. And a lot happened while I did. I’ve confessed to river Nymphs and argued with cowboys and negotiated with cacti. I am exhausted. But I think I came back with the sort of lesson I hadn’t realized I set out to learn.”

“And that is?”

“We need the win more than we need the water,” Bellemar said. “When this child reaches the headwaters, it’s going to show that we have a chance in a changing world. Human, animal and Nymph alike.” She felt her voice catch a little. She hadn’t realized she was veering into emotional territory, but she wasn’t going to stop now.

“Take the girl,” she implored. “Pick her up and take off and deliver her. Honor your dead predecessor by finishing his task, and help all of us start a new rainy season with a little less fear and worry and paranoia and a little more hope.”

“And a little more water too, huh?” said a girlish voice. Crane and human heads swung around simultaneously.

“You’re awake,” Bellemar said, lamely.

“I can’t make it rain,” the nymph child said. “I don’t know a lot about what I’ll be or what I’ll be capable of, but I know that much. And I know what you’ve said about the other Nymph. That she hides a lot.”

“I wouldn’t say hides-“ Bellemar started.

“Doesn’t matter,” said the nymph child cut her off. “I like what you said. About having a chance in a changing world. I must be the first nymph ever raised in a desert. I think that can help. What I mean is, I think I can help. I know I have so much to learn but… I know I don’t want to hide.”

Bellemar smiled, and felt unashamed when a few small tears slipped from the corner of her left eye. The nymph girl smiled back, and turned to the crane.

“Will you take me to the river?”

The crane sighed. This wasn’t a part of the eons-old procedure. He looked to the mass of birds milling around the shallow lake. Despite his composed bearing and steady stance, Bellemar could see a great internal conflict sloshing around inside him.

“No,” he finally said. The girl momentarily looked hurt before he continued. “You will soon be a river Nymph, and it will not be just the river. It will be your river.”

“My river,” the girl said, thinking. Then she shook her head and reached for Bellemar’s hand. “No. I think, for a little while at least, it should be our river.”

She hugged the farmer’s daughter, and Bellemar squeezed her back. Then the moment passed, and the small nymph climbed atop the crane’s back.

The crane began to run in an awkward, strange jaunt that was too much wing flapping and knee raising. Bellemar had a brief, horrible flashback to her clumsy hike on the day she met the river Nymph. But the crane’s motion soon transformed, becoming more elegant and smooth with each step. He picked up speed and spread his wings up and out to their full, impressive span.

With a powerful flap, he jolted from the ground and into the air. A few powerful pumps of his white wings and he was off, the small nymph child perched astride him. Bellemar watched him flap his wings until he found a thermal. Then with a graceful arc, he turned north, toward the distant mountains and the river’s headwaters.

“Our river,” Bellemar said quietly, proudly to no one at all.