Helldiver

Every winter the birds went south. One time a helldiver volunteered to stay for the winter to take care of two birds, an injured whooping crane and a wounded mallard duck, both of whom had broken wings.

At dawn on the first day of April 1870, Cora Paint stood near one of her spindly and failing apple trees a hundred feet from the river, watching the rednecked helldivers above the falls soar and plummet into the Big Sioux after carp or perch.

Most cultures have a flood myth, and the Paiutes are not exception. Instead of a dove, however, it is the little helldiver that finds land; and the land above the waters is not Mt. Ararat but Mt. Tom.