Joe looked up from his porch into Liddy's shadowy leaves and branches, trying to recall if there was ever a time when she hadn't loomed over his home. His old arborist's bond with his tree kept him from questioning her mysterious aura, but her rece...
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Joe watched Liddy's branches as they swayed in the warmth under the few orange clouds in the evening sky. He loved sitting on the porch under Liddy's shade during this time of day, when the leaves danced and the grass waved in the calm evening breeze. He grinned and enjoyed the floral fragrance of the ending day.
Chaotic chittering high in Liddy's limbs disturbed his smile. He peered up into her branches and thought, them darn squirrels messing around up there again, eating up her berries and gnawing on her leaves. He grunted as he got up and thought, reckon it's time for the hose again.
He sprayed those rascals up and down, chasing them all over Liddy's branches, but they were hardly bothered. His eyes were getting old and his aim wasn't much good anymore when the sun was low. But as he'd seen often over the decades, Liddy was quickly sprouting up one of her big husky fruits up there, and Joe's grin returned.
He rolled up the hose, took a deep breath of Liddy's foresty fragrance, and went into his big old house, sheltered in the deepening shade under her big branches. His crew had a small tree trimming job tomorrow afternoon, and he might as well turn in early so he could join them and tackle the work fresh. As far back as his happy memories reached, he'd felt perfectly made for his calling as an arborist.
After dinner he settled into bed and thought, at least those Ace Development folks weren't coming around bothering him tonight. Seems Ace was coming by every month now, always offering a bigger number to get him to sell his plot for the big shopping mall they wanted to put in. His reply was as regular as the chimes on his old grandfather clock.
"Thank you kindly, but nope, ain't no way I'm cutting down ol' Liddy, and ain't no way I'm moving."
Ace Development made it their job to keep trying, just like it was his job to take care of trees, so he figured he couldn't much fault those people for it.
The next morning he had his coffee and read the paper in his favorite spot out on the porch. Those squirrels were still up there leaping between branches and making a ruckus. The morning gradually warmed, and after the last sparkles of dew disappeared from Liddy's boughs in the brightening sun, she let go of that big fruit she'd finished overnight. Joe glanced over the top of the newspaper as it fell silently.
It cracked when it hit the ground, and the dry shell rested unmoving, warming up in a bright patch of sun. Joe kept an eye on it, and after a while it began to shudder and sway. In a few heaves the crack widened enough for a falcon to poke its head out. After another minute it squeezed from the rind, yawned, and stretched its wings. The bird called out, and Joe nodded good morning. The sleek, beaked face looked up into Liddy's fluttering leaves, and in a few minutes those squirrels were dismembered and digesting.
Joe finished his coffee and whistled as he cleaned up the broken husk. He wasn't surprised that the shell's inner hollow was shaped exactly like the mold of a falcon. He took it to his old garden shed and piled it with the others. They came in all sizes, from as big as Joe to as little as an egg. There were forms of the little hounds that dug up moles, an aardvark shell for that time she got termites, and a big old pod that let out a flock of little birds that ate up those elm tree beetles in '81.
