"Of course it is. Who else would it be?" Mrs. Eberhardt kissed the top of his head. "Honey, you get back into that hospital bed right now-"

"Not so fast," Mr. Eberhardt said. "I'm not sure what's going on here, but I've got a feeling we owe the doctor an apology. Probably several apologies." He planted both hands on Roy's shoulders. "Let's see those dog bites, partner."

Roy lowered his eyes. "I didn't get bit, Dad. It wasn't me."

Mrs. Eberhardt groaned. "Okay, now I get it. I'm the crazy one, right? I'm the raving loony bird…"

"Folks? Excuse me, but we've still got a major problem," Dr. Gonzalez said. "We've still got a patient missing."

Officer Delinko was thoroughly confused. Once again he reached for his radio in anticipation of calling headquarters.

"Before my brain explodes," said Mrs. Eberhardt, "would someone please explain what this is all about?"

"Only one person can do that." Mr. Eberhardt gestured toward Roy, who suddenly wanted to crawl down a hole and hide. His father turned him around to face Dr. Gonzalez.

"'Tex?'" she said, arching an eyebrow.

Roy felt his face redden. "I'm really sorry."

"This is a hospital. This is no place for games."

"I know it's not. I apologize."

"If you're the real Roy," the doctor said, "then who was that young man in the bed, and where did he go? I want the truth."

Roy stared at the tops of his sneakers. He couldn't remember another day in his life when so many things had gone so wrong.

"Son," his father said, "answer the doctor."

His mother squeezed his arm. "Come on, honey. It's important."

"You can be sure we'll find him," Officer Delinko chimed in, "sooner or later."

Bleakly, Roy looked up to address the grownups.

"I don't know the boy's name, and I don't know where he is," he said. "I'm sorry, but that's the truth."

And, technically, it was.

THIRTEEN

While Roy took a shower, his mother made a pot of spaghetti. He ate three helpings, though the dinner gathering was as quiet as a chess match.

Setting down his fork, Roy turned to his father.

"I guess it's the den, huh?"

"That's correct."

It had been years since Roy had gotten a spanking, and he doubted that he was in for one now. The den was where his father summoned him whenever there was serious explaining to be done. Tonight Roy was so tired that he wasn't sure if anything he had to say would make sense.

His father was waiting, seated behind the broad walnut desk.

"What've you got there?" he asked Roy.

"A book."

"Yes, I can see it's a book. I was hoping for the particulars."

Roy's father could be sarcastic when he thought he wasn't getting a full answer. Roy figured it came from years of interrogating shifty characters-gangsters or spies, or whoever it was that his father was in the business of investigating.

"I'm assuming," he said to Roy, "that the book will cast some light on tonight's strange events."

Roy handed it across the desk. "You and Mom got it for me two Christmases ago."

"I remember," his father said, scanning the cover. "The Sibley Guide to Birds. Sure it wasn't for your birthday?"

"I'm sure, Dad."

Roy had put the book on his Christmas list after it had settled a friendly wager between him and his father. One afternoon they'd seen a large reddish brown raptor swoop down and snatch a ground squirrel off a cattle range in the Gallatin River valley. Roy's father had bet him a milkshake that the bird was a young bald eagle whose crown feathers hadn't yet turned white, but Roy had said it was a fully grown golden eagle, more common on the dry prairies. Later, after visiting the Bozeman library and consulting Sibley, Roy's father conceded that Roy had been right.

Mr. Eberhardt held up the book and asked, "What does this have to do with that nonsense at the hospital?"

"Check out page 278," Roy said. "I marked it for you."

His father flipped the book open to that page.

"'Burrowing owl,'" he read aloud from the text. '"Athene cunicularia. Long-legged and short-tailed, with relatively long, narrow wings and flat head. Only small owl likely to be seen perched in the open in daylight.'" His father peered quizzically at him over the top of the book. "Is this connected to that 'science project' you were supposedly working on this afternoon?"

"There is no science project," Roy admitted.

"And the hamburger meat that your mother gave you?"

"A snack for the owls."

"Continue," Mr. Eberhardt said.

"It's a long story, Dad."

"I've got nothing but time."

"All right," Roy said. In some ways, he thought wearily, a spanking might be easier.

"See, there's this boy," he began, "about the same age as me…"

Roy told his father everything-well, almost everything. He didn't mention that the snakes distributed by Beatrice Leep's stepbrother were highly poisonous and that the boy had actually taped their mouths shut. Such details might have alarmed Mr. Eberhardt more than the petty acts of vandalism.

Roy also chose not to reveal that Beatrice had nicknamed her stepbrother Mullet Fingers, just in case Roy's father felt legally obligated to report it to the police, or file it away in some government computer bank.

Otherwise, Roy told what he knew about the running boy. His father listened without interruption.

"Dad, he's really not a bad kid," Roy said when he finished. "All he's trying to do is save the owls."

Mr. Eberhardt remained silent for a few moments. He reopened the Sibley Guide and looked at the color drawings of the small birds.

"See, if the Mother Paula's people bulldoze that property, they'll bury all the dens," Roy said.

His father put the book aside and looked at Roy fondly, though with a trace of sadness.

"Roy, they own the property. They can do pretty much whatever they please."

"But-"

"They've probably got all the necessary paperwork and permits."

"They've got permits to bury owls?" Roy asked in disbelief.

"The owls will fly away. They'll find new dens somewhere else."

"What if they've got babies? How will the baby birds fly away?" Roy shot back angrily. "How, Dad?"

"I don't know," his father admitted.

"How would you and Mom like it," Roy pressed on, "if a bunch of strangers showed up one day with bulldozers to flatten this house? And all they had to say was 'Don't worry, Mr. and Mrs. Eberhardt, it's no big deal. Just pack up and move to another place.' How would you feel about that?"

Roy's father stood up slowly, as if the weight of a hundred bricks were on his shoulders.

"Let's go for a walk," he said.

It was a calm cloudless night, and a pale sliver of moon peeked over the rooftops. Insects as thick as confetti swirled around the cowls of the streetlights. Toward the end of the block, two cats could be heard yowling at each other.

Roy's father walked with his chin slightly downward, his hands stuffed in his pockets.

"You're growing up fast," he remarked, catching Roy by surprise.

"Dad, I'm the third-shortest kid in my homeroom."

"That's not what I meant."

As they went along, Roy hopped from crack to crack on the sidewalk. They talked about comfortable topics-school, sports, sports in school-until Roy nudged the conversation back toward the delicate subject of Mullet Fingers. He needed to know where his father stood.

"You remember that day last summer we floated the Madison canyon?"

"Sure," said his father, "in inner tubes."

"Right," Roy said. "And remember we counted five great horned owls in one cottonwood? Five!"

"Yes, I remember."

"And you tried to take a picture but the camera fell in the river?"