“Good grief, how did you get into that mess?”
She couldn’t just cut the fishing line at the dock. The line was wrapped good and tight around the mama swan’s leg. How would she swim that way? J.J. needed to cut her loose. She ran back into the house and rifled through a few of the kitchen drawers until she found a box cutter.
“This will do.”
She was headed back out when a knock at the door interrupted her rescue mission.
“It’s open. Come in, I can’t talk right now. I’ve got a crisis to manage!” she yelled it to whoever was at her door.
“What?”
“No time!”
J.J. dashed back out to the dock, box cutter in hand, and a honking male swan seemed ready to charge her and peck her eyes out.
“Hey, back off. I’m doing you a favor.”
An angry swan was no joke. His impressive wings flapped through the air, making it impossible to get too close.
Great, now big man swan is stopping me from saving his sweety. Stupid swan.
“Hey, swan, over here!”
J.J. turned around to see Stone, clapping his hands, offering a swan distraction. It worked; the male swan looked at Stone long enough for J.J. to get by. She waded straight into the frigid water of Lake Manitou, khaki skirt and adorable chambray blouse getting soaked in the process.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, this is why we don’t swim until Memorial Day,” she said as she waded through the water toward the female swan. “Okay, okay. I’m going to have to get up close and personal here.”
The male swan was somewhere behind her, pitching a fit, but she couldn’t worry about that now. She needed to be fast and decisive if she wanted to save the female and get her free of the fishing line.
J.J. grabbed the female around its body and pulled the bird in tight to her own. In essence, she had the swan under her own wing. The swan didn’t fight her.
“You’re okay, mama, you’re okay.”
Behind her, the male was splashing and honking, unsure what she was doing to his mate.
“Hey, come on, here you go, over here,” Stone yelled, clapping again.
“Yes! Keep daddio busy,” she called back to Stone.
“Yep.”
“But don’t hurt him.”
“I’d like to wring his neck!”
She imagined what the male swan and Stone were up to but couldn’t turn to look.
“Don’t kill that one while I’m saving this one.”
She would need to get lower to get to where the line met the dock.
“Okay, I’m going to cut you free first and worry about the dock second. Seem like a good plan?” J.J. hoped the mama swan stayed still so she didn’t slip and cut the poor thing and make it worse.
She sliced through what had to be several layers of line but held tight to the swan. If she was going to go this far, it wasn’t going to be a half-baked job. She slid her free hand on the swan’s two legs. They were clear. Okay, mama was free. Satisfied she’d completely untangled the swan, J.J. did her best to hurl it back into the water.
Stone’s performance didn’t fool the male for one more second. It flew into the lake and nearly took J.J.’s head off.
She ducked. And then she looked on as the pair swam toward the tree-lined shore.
