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"A dead baby blue jay," Mama answered for me.

"So?" he said. "What'cha going do with it, Gabriel? Throw it in the gumbo?"

"Jack!"

Daddy laughed.

"I wanted Mama to bring it back to life," I explained. "She said its mother threw it out of the nest."

"Most like," Daddy said. He sucked on the neck of the beer bottle, drawing its contents down his throat as his Adam's apple bounced like a tiny rubber ball. "Just throw it away," Daddy said.

I looked horrified at Mama.

"Why don't you bury it in the backyard, Gabriel," she suggested softly.

"Yeah. Maybe we could have a service," Daddy said, and laughed.

"Could we, Mama?"

Daddy stopped laughing.

"Hey, child, that's just a dead bird. Ain't no person."

I didn't understand the difference. Something beautiful and precious was dead.

"I'll say some words over it for you," Mama offered. "I got to see this," Daddy said.

"Don't tease the child, Jack."

"Why not? She's got to grow up someday. Today's as good a day as any." He pointed his long right forefinger at me. "You should be up here helping your mama make them hats to sell and not be spending your time wandering through the field anyhow," he chastised. Then he offered, "There are snakes and bugs, snapping turtles and gators."

"I know there are, Daddy," I said, smiling. "I stepped on a snake this morning."

"What? What it look like?"

I told him.

"That's a damn cottonmouth. Poisonous as hell. You didn't step on it or you'd be as dead as that bird in your hands."

"Yes, I did, Daddy. I stepped on it and then I said, excuse me, Mr. Snake."

"Oh, and I suppose it just nodded and said, it's all right, Gabriel, huh?"

"It looked at me and then it went back to sleep," I said. "Christ, you hear what stories she's telling, Catherine?" "I believe her, Jack. She's special to the animals out there.

They know what's in her heart."

"Huh? What sort of Cajun voodoo nonsense you concocting, Catherine Landry? And now you got the child talking gibberish, too."

"It's not nonsense," she said, "And certainly not gibberish." She stood up. "Come on, Gabriel. I'll help you bury your bird," she said. "Maybe the creature should be pitied," she said, throwing an angry glance back at Daddy.

"Go ahead. Waste time worrying about some dead bird. See if I care," Daddy said, taking another swig of his beer. Then he dropped the empty bottle in the rain barrel. "I'm going to town," he called after us. "We're outta beer again."

"You're out of work, Jack Landry. That's why we're out of beer."

"Aaaa," he said, waving at us. He went back into the shack.

Mama got the spade and dug a small hole under a pecan tree for the baby bird because Mama thought it would always be a cool, shady spot. I put the baby bird in gently and then Mama covered her. She told me to put a stick in the ground to serve as its monument. Then she lowered her head and took my hand. I lowered my head too.