A Buzzard’s View
The Adventures of Burton & Bernice
by
John Duncklee
Smashwords Edition
A Buzzard’s View
The Adventures of Burton & Bernice
Presented by Western Trail Blazer
Copyright © 2011 by John Duncklee
Cover Art Copyright © 2011 by Laura Shinn
Produced by Rebecca J. Vickery
Design Consultant – Laura Shinn
Smashwords License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with other people, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this ebook without purchasing it and it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.
Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
A Buzzard’s View is a work of fiction.
Though some actual towns, cities, and locations may be mentioned, they are used in a fictitious manner and the events and occurrences were invented in the mind and imagination of the author. Similarities of characters or names used within to any
person, past, present, or future, are coincidental.
Dedication
To my wonderful wife, Penny, aka "Comma Momma" and
our twenty-two years without a single bad day.
Should The American Eagle ever become extinct, I would request The Congress of the United States of America to proclaim Cathartes aura,
The Turkey Buzzard, the National Bird.
A Buzzard’s View
The Adventures of Burton & Bernice
Chapter One
The two Turkey Vultures were members of a flock soaring through the sky searching for carrion. But, there was something special about these two. They had paired, but so did others. They flew together, but so did others. They could communicate, but not like others. They could actually speak. They could also read. However, they never learned to write.
Burton and Bernice Buzzard were deeply in love and shared every moment of their lives together, whether soaring looking for carrion or making a nest for the winter in Mexico. They had seen a lot from their vantage point high in the sky, and their memories served them well. So, when their eggs hatched they had lots of bedtime stories to tell their children.
One of their favorite stories happened one day when they were checking out an airport terminal. The newspaper they had found contained headlines about a jet passenger plane that crashed on landing. That information had led them to believe there would be plenty for them to feast on at the site of the crash. But, as they swooped down, Burton saw a sign just outside the entrance to the terminal. He had flown by quickly and glimpsed the words, ‘Carry-on Luggage’.
“Look, Bernice,” he called to her. “There’s a sign back there that says they have carrion.”
“Burton, I saw that sign and it didn’t say ‘Carrion’, it said ‘Carry-on’. The spelling is quite different. The carrion we are looking for doesn’t have a ‘Y’ in it.”
“How do you know all this stuff, Bernice?” Burton asked.
“You must have forgotten, I taught English at the International Buzzard Academy before I met you. I’ll never forget that school after the President of the United States had made an edict about ‘No Child Left Behind’. The Academy cut our carrion hunting time in half and definitely left us behind. I damn near starved to death that year, so I quit and went back to the skies.”
“That’s when I met you.” Burton would never forget that day. “Remember, we were soaring over I-40? You said there was too much traffic and that landing for ‘Road Kill’ was much too dangerous. Then Sophie, that youngster from Chihuahua, spotted a flattened gopher close to the westbound centerline.”
“I remember cringing as I saw her take that long dive,” Bernice said. “Sophie didn’t even see the big tractor trailer rig barreling toward Los Angeles.”
“I saw it, too. And I saw that big rig’s windshield smack into Sophie—the glass went all over the road. The truck driver must have gotten blinded by the windshield glass then the truck went through the guard rail and into the canyon where it burst into flames.”
“I told you to be careful of those flames or you might get your tail feathers singed,” Bernice said. “We waited until the flames had subsided and were almost out before we landed on the rig’s hood and hopped into the cab to see how the Bar-B-Q would taste.”
“And, you made me go first.” Burton made a face. “I’ll never forget how disappointed I was when I took that big bite and the Bar-B-Q tasted like diesel fuel. We got out of there in a hurry. Then we watched the rest of the flock go in for disappointment so we could laugh. After that we both realized we were hungrier than before because we had anticipated a good meal.”
“We have had some funny experiences, haven’t we?” Bernice mused. “I’ll never forget the time we followed that Mercedes with the driver ‘texting’ as he drove his car ninety miles an hour on I-25. We had been soaring I-25 because there wasn’t much traffic. I suppose that is why the guy was hauling down the road at such a clip. We couldn’t keep up with him, he was going at such a high speed. But then we saw the smoke up ahead. I remember you telling me that your daddy had told you to watch for smoke around the Interstates because that generally meant a wreck and a chance at a hot meal unless the ambulances beat us to the scene.”