In Reach by Pamela Carter Joern

we don’t know what could happen once the coyotes get at ’em.”
    Buck nodded. Hell, he’d already lost a half-day of work.
    “Do you know if anybody else found dead birds? Did you call Hank or any other neighbors?”
    “No. I came straight here. After I picked them up. That pond, see.” Buck fidgeted, bounced from foot to foot. No help for it, he had to go on and say what he’d come here to say. “Ella’s being baptized in a couple of weeks. In that pond. I need to know . . . I don’t want her going under that water if there’s anything bad in there.”
    “Yeah, okay. I see what you mean.”
    “Then, if there isn’t, well, I’d just as soon keep it quiet. Ella’s counting on that day.”
    “Yeah. I can see that, too. We don’t want everybody all stirred up over what may be nothing but a fluke of nature. Hell, maybe they all died of old age.” Joe guffawed, his old humor springing out.
    Buck tried to laugh, too, but for the life of him, he couldn’t see what was so all-fired funny.
    The hardest part was lying to Ella. He had to make up some excuse for going to town in such a hurry. He mumbled something about needing a part for the tractor.
    “Whyn’t you take me with you?” She said this while rubbing her bare foot up and down his thigh. He was seated on the couch, and she was lying on the other end, her back against the arm. She wore shorts, and his hand played at the hem against her inner thigh.
    “Just got in a hurry, I guess. You looked awful busy in your garden.”
    “Phoo, Buck. You know I can hoe in that garden anytime. I don’t get to go to town that often. I could have got that lace I want from Murphy’s.”
    “Lace?” He thought to distract her.
    “For my baptism dress. You know, I told you. I want some lace on the bottom and around the sleeves.”
    “You’re going to be the most beautiful woman ever baptized in that pond.”
    “Go on. You know I’m the only woman ever baptized in that pond.”
    She played at kicking him. He caught her foot, lifted it to his lips, and kissed her toes.
    Later, after they’d made love, he said, “Take the truck tomorrow and go on to town. I don’t need it.”
    “Are you sure?”
    He smarted at the excitement in her voice. But next day, while she was gone looking for lace for her baptismal gown, he hitched a plow to the tractor, drove it down to the dry gulch, made a trench. By hand, he shoveled in the birds, covered them over with dirt, stomped the mass grave down with his boots.
    He argued with himself constantly. If he told Ella about the blackbirds, maybe she’d take it for a sign that the baptism wasn’t supposed to happen. Even if she didn’t see it as a sign, maybe she’d feel creeped out about having the baptism on the site. But did hewant her to be creeped out about their own land? He’d never kept anything from her before. If it wasn’t for the stupid baptism, he would have told her, taken her to the dry gulch to see the burial trench. They would have consoled each other. He would have felt safe. He hated the way her being saved made him second-guess everything he’d been sure of before.
    Three days later Joe called and reported that the University of Nebraska Extension Service said there have been, over the years, other reports of mass bird deaths. No one knows why. There are lots of theories—disease, power lines, storms—but no real proof of anything. Blackbirds flock together in roosts, sometimes thousands or millions at a time. Apparently, that makes them more vulnerable. Hell, maybe one bird goes bonkers, and the rest just follow. They don’t call them birdbrains for nothing. And then Joe laughed and hung up. So, that was that.
    Buck decided not to say anything to Ella.
    After that, Buck was on edge. Waiting for the sky to fall. Every morning he looked out on the yard with trepidation.
    “Are you okay?” Ella asked.
    “Sure thing,” he lied, trying to lace his voice with optimism.
    Meanwhile, Buck had work to do. He