She runs back to the car and yanks her sweatshirt out of the back seat. It’s her high school track sweatshirt with “MUSTANGS” printed in blue across the chest and a wild horse galloping, mane and tail flagging out through imaginary prairie wind. Again, she looks up and down the highway but there’s nothing, only the weird steely heat rays rising off the salt flats; a single seagull gliding south. She moves toward the hawk, holding the sweatshirt out in front of her like a matador warily testing a yearling bull. She’s not sure how she’s going to attempt the capture; whether to throw the sweatshirt over the dying bird or just tackle him straight on and wrap him up fast. She has no experience with hawks. She starts repeating “Oh my God” again but stops herself this time, hearing how pathetic and hopeless it sounds in the endless space. She tries her puppy voice again but gives up on that too and settles for silence. The silence scares her to the bone; scares her worse than the shrieking hawk and the wind moaning across the treeless flats. She moves in closer and sees that the bird has really been mangled badly across its whole left side. “A car must have smacked him as he rose up out of the ditch,” she thinks. “Why wouldn’t somebody stop? You’d think they’d stop if they hit a bird like that. Such an incredible bird. I mean, it’s not like hitting a crow or a sparrow or something. This is a hawk! Look at this hawk! He’s huge! He’s amazing! Look at his eye!” She’s never been so close to a hawk before. “I can’t believe it,” she whispers. “You’re so pretty. You are the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life. You are a gorgeous hawk. Oh, don’t do that! Don’t do that! Please don’t do that!” she says as the hawk goes into another seizure, smashing away with its one good wing. She darts in fast and tries to catch hold of the giant wing with the sleeve of her sweatshirt but the hawk slashes out with beak and talons, making a horrible hissing sound. She backs off and has a sudden urge to fall to her knees and break down. She wants to break down badly. She wants to fold up completely and have this all disappear. She dances in tight circles in the middle of the empty highway; jumping and slapping her thighs with the sweatshirt. “Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!” she cries out. Nothing answers. She stops still. The hawk stops too and just stares at her with his blinking yellow eye, the black pupil cold as stone in the center. His beak is wide open, panting for air. She can see his pink wedge of a tongue. She hears it clicking against the back of his throat. “Let me just take you, okay?” she pleads softly. “Let me just wrap you up and take you away. I’ll find someone to make you all better. Someone to fix you up. All right?” The bird just blinks. His head snaps from side to side, bewildered. “I promise I won’t hurt you. I promise. I just want to save you, that’s all. Don’t you want to be saved?” The bird lets out a different tone, a lower crackling kind of sound, then lets his neck fall back on his damaged wing. His leg twitches and his good wing spreads out flat across the white line of the road like some exotic Japanese fan. “Oh, don’t die!” she tells him. “Please don’t die. I couldn’t stand that. I don’t want you to die!” She leaps for the bird and pins him down with the sweatshirt. She’s surprised how easy it is. The hawk hardly protests. He rolls his head around, feathers bristled, and arches his gaping mouth toward her chin. The hissing sound comes again. She flips him over and ties the sleeves of the sweatshirt tight across his chest. There’s blood smeared all over her hands and arms now. It has a wild smell to it. Wilder than human blood; like rusting metal. She runs for the car, carrying the hawk across her belly. A truck appears from out of nowhere but she can’t drop the bird to wave to it. She twists in a tight circle, tracking the truck with her desperate eyes as it flashes past, heading for Winnemucca. She sees the driver clearly. He’s looking straight at her from high up in his cab. He sees a girl clutching a bloody sweatshirt, screaming with panic. She sees a blond beard, blue eyes, and a black ski cap pulled down tight over his ears. She’s yelling “Stop! Stop! Please stop!” and it looks, for a second, like he will. The truck jerks down and starts to pull off to the side. The jake brakes hiss and blow steam. One of the back tires locks up screeching. She smells the burning rubber. Then, before she can even begin to feel relief, the truck accelerates and bolts back onto the highway. “Wait!” she screams, but he’s already cranking through the gears; gone in a long plume of white dust that sparkles blue and gold in the glaring sun. The hawk thumps her in the belly with his one strong leg. She gets him to the car and sets him gently on the back seat, checking the knot again across his chest and asking him please to hold on, not to die; she’ll find help and everything will be all right. Somehow some miracle is bound to take place.