Owloween
II
OCTOBER 24
A car pulled down our gravel lane early in the morning when I was doing chores before school. It was a Mercedes Benz. It was black. And it didn’t have a scratch on it. It stopped in a puff of dust and my Grandpa Joseph strolled out of the barn to see who it was. I stopped what I was doing and studied the visitor as he stepped out of the car. He had hair with a little gray in the sides. The man was lean, with a powerful jaw. He looked like he could have been the President of a cyborg race. He talked with Grandpa Joseph for a little bit and then stepped back in his car and drove back down the lane. The car seemed to ponder for a bit at the end of the lane. Then he slowly pulled out onto the road, and drove over a hill out of sight.
We don’t get a lot of visitors. Sometimes we have people that come out to use our land for hunting, but that’s about it. Grandpa Joseph stood in the lane out in front of the farmhouse, smoked a cigarette and stared into the wind. I knew that he tended to do that when he’s thinking. Although it appeared he was simply leaning forward to brace himself from the cold wind, I always felt he could be on the verge of discovering some secret of the universe. He stood very still. The wind accelerated the cigarette burn between the two forefingers in his left hand. The creases on his face always seemed deep and plentiful like all the rivers that run to the Mississippi. He doesn’t scrunch his face or raise his brow though. It’s a wonder how someone with that many lines on his face never really changes his expression from stony silence. Grandpa Joseph normally doesn’t have to talk though. He just has to look and I know exactly what he wants or what he feels. When he’s upset he looks the same as when he’s the happiest man on the planet. When he talks his voice sounds like a combination of the wind and dirt. It’s the softest gravelliest voice in the world. I thought he could calm down a raving tiger. People in the town love him. He’s sort of an honorary mayor.
About 30 years ago, the elected mayor ran off with a bunch of the town’s tax money and no one heard from him since. The town decided that mayors in general were no good and figured it was best not to have one. Now if anyone wants to get anything done they call up the farm and talk to Grandpa Joseph. He doesn’t seem to like it when people call with their problems but he always helps them out just the same. When someone comes out, just like on this particular day, a car will drive up the dusty lane scaring the cattle and Grandpa Joseph will stand there and light a cigarette in the blowing wind and stare at the car like he thinks it's a flying saucer.
He stood in the lane in one spot forever so I took a deep breath, turned off the skid loader and finally figured I’d go out and see what he was thinking about and ask him who that was. If I didn’t go out there, he would stand there for eternity waiting for someone to come talk to him. Although I’m not really sure about that statement because I’ve never tried it. When I come back from school or music lessons, he’ll be standing there in the lane or sitting on the porch with that same expression on his face gazing out over the field.
When I walked up through the grass he didn’t acknowledge my approach as usual.
-Hi Grandpa.
He didn’t turn.
-Hello Buffalo.
-What’re you thinkin about?
-Another one is gone.
-Really?
That was when I knew what I saw the night before was true. For the past couple years it had been his most perplexing thing to think about. A lot of times he would talk about weird things when it came to the cattle disappearing. He thought it was ghosts punishing him. He thought it was vengeance from the creator for enclosing cows in a field instead of letting them roam free. Or he suspected it. He’s Lutheran so I didn’t know if he actually believed it. But he had no other explanation. I’m not sure if he prayed about it in the church, but I know that he probably prayed about it. After what I saw and felt the night before, I thought he might be onto something with his God vengeance ideas. Suddenly he reached up a bony finger and pointed down the pasture.
-You see how the maples and oaks line the creek down there.
-Yeah, I said.
-Well, you notice how they are all yellow and red.
-Yeah.
-Well, look at that one towards the middle where the creek bows away from us, he said. And then he took a drag from his cigarette.
-It’s orange.
-Yeah, it’s bright orange. The only one down there. The cattle won’t go near it.
I looked down the hill at the pasture and noticed that all the cows grazed on each side of it. The yellow and red trees blew in the wind and the orange tree stood out like a pumpkin on a Valentine’s Day card. The emerald green of the pasture leading up to the picturesque scene was so beautiful. It was times like that when I was overwhelmed with emotion. It always happened when I saw something beautiful in nature. It wasn’t a picture in my mind’s eye, but a real scene that smelled real. It was like we were walking among a brown flannel blanket with subdued tones of pine green, orange, and maroon. I loved standing next to Grandpa Joseph as he pointed out something around us.
-What did that man want?
-Wanted to know if I’d had any cattle missin.
-What’d you tell him?
-That I hadn’t.
-But you had.
-He knew that.
I stared at the wind too; sometimes Grandpa Joseph made me do that. I looked out again at the cows in the pasture avoiding the orange tree. I didn’t know what it could mean. After the night before, I figured an orange tree was the least of the cows’ worries. Grandpa Joseph was only 1/8 Ojibwa, and I used to think that was why he knew so much, and seemed to know what was going to happen before a dog did. But I didn’t seem to get that gene. Now I know that was a silly stereotype – it is just because he’s seen so much and I’ve seen so little. Not that he’s seen it, but that he’s tried it and absorbed it and learned from it. As he always says, ‘it’s better to have an open mind, but it takes a lot of practice to get it open all the way.’ He is calm and uncluttered, and sees everything, while I can only see a little bit. And back then I wanted to see a lot.
-There’s something else he would have been more interested in.
-What’s that? I asked.
Grandpa Joseph walked down the lane and through the gate into the pasture. I followed him. He walked right down through the center of the pasture through the cattle and over the ridge down to the orange tree. Then we found a little cattle trail through the trees. And that’s when I saw it. A large dead owl splayed out behind a bush, just like the one that was on the roof. The owl was about 10-15 feet long. Its feet were grotesque. Like dirty bamboo shards sculpted together.
I didn’t know much about owls back then, I have to tell you. I remember that Grandpa Joseph knew it was a great horned. The largest and fiercest of the North American owls, he said. He said that his great great Ojibwa grandfather used to put a great horned painting over the front door to ward out evil spirits. Grandpa Joseph told me that the old Ojibwa believed that shamans can travel by night as owls. He said that you can tell the evil ones from the good ones because of the light in their chest. When you see a light crossing the sky, that is the evil shaman and you don’t want to let him inside your home. That’s why you have to put an owl over your door. To keep them away. All I figured was that owls are supposed to be wise from the cartoon owls wearing glasses and looking studious. I told him that I didn’t know that owls could be that big. Grandpa Joseph nodded his head and stared down at the carcass. He was thinking about the future. The owl’s eyes were dull and glassy. Its beak was covered in dried blood. The pleated chest looked lumpy and hard. It didn’t move.
-I mean, it’s just so big, I think said next.
-A normal one don’t get to more than a quarter of this size, said Grandpa Joseph.
-Do you think it took the cow last night?
-This one here looks like it died before last night.
-So it couldn’t have taken the cow last night?
-But I think it might have taken some of the other ones.
-You think there’s more than one of these huge owls?
-Yep. I looked up into the sky, frightened.
-Don’t worry Buffalo, he said, they only come out at night. Here, pick up a shovel; let’s bury this beast.
I’m not sure why I didn’t tell him about my owl visitor the night before. I figured it wouldn’t do any good. He already thinks there's more than one anyway, was what I thought. I considered telling him as I walked back up to the house. It didn’t feel right holding back something from Grandpa Joseph. I suppose I wanted to see where it would lead, or if the owl would come back tonight before I told him. Or at least that is what I told myself.
I was pretty much done with my chores and it was time to go to school. Even Grandpa Joseph himself says that the difference between reality and visions are predicting the future. So what if what I saw predicted what would happen that day, us finding the big owl and what if it didn’t really happen? The screech of the outside screen door broke me from my trance and then sifted to a halt before it also slammed shut. I ran up to my room and jumped on the computer to look up owls.
I had a computer next to a chair shaped like a taco. Before my grandma died, she once told me that my interests were eclectic. It just means that I have a wide variety of things that interest me. And it is true. My room is a study in that. My only favorite colors are orange and green. And I painted the room so that the walls facing each other on the east and west are orange and the ones that face north and south are green. The green is dark and foreboding like a deep jungle. I painted it that way because of the northwoods where I live. But I wanted something to tickle my brain, so I painted the other walls an orange that is so fluorescent it will give you a seizure, or so Grandpa Joseph says.
In one corner of my room I have some sort of alpenhorn stuffed with lavender stones. And a doubloon - a relic from some sunken ship they rediscovered.
One of the things my grandma got me when I was younger was a subscription to National Geographic. I suppose that was because my parents were traveling all over the place and she thought I might be interested in the wild stories about our planet. So on one wall I put up a poster of the world as customized to demonstrate the various biome flora. I have a map of the Sahara desert next to a map of Patagonia. The Maldives are tacked up next to a picture of ruins in Guatemala. San Pedro de Atacama is next to Switzerland. And my National Geographic Magazines lined the bookcases next to books on almost any subject. These were also gifts from my grandma. I have a TV on an old chest of drawers by the window. It is next to my globe. Standing next to the chest of drawers is my trombone case. But I have a lot of other weird things I kept - a lot of these things were given to me by my grandma from her own travels, like my Paraguayan national soccer team coat that I always kept on the back of my chair.
My hardwood floor is covered with an alpaca rug that my grandma got in a flea market in Rhinelander. She gave me some Swiss Francs from her trip to Switzerland. My grandma went a lot of strange places, but always without my grandpa. He had to tend to the farm. In the Lake Bawshkinaway Gazette, my town paper, when someone in town went on a trip, they always listed it in the leisure section. You didn’t even have to tell the paper you were gone, because Duke Beverly, the editor somehow always found out. And whenever someone in town asked my grandpa where Pearl was- that was my grandma’s name- he would say, ‘check the paper.’ A baby shark is suspended in formaldehyde on my desk. Grandma found that somewhere in Southeast Asia. I found a picture of a goldfish wearing a hat that cracked me up at an art fair in Appleton. So I got it for a couple bucks. I love colored glass. I found some strange decanters that I line up on my desk next to my computer.
Everyone said my grandma would die on the road and she died about five years ago on a trip to Tanzania. I’ve been trying to accumulate some other things that I like on my own in her memory. She always knew what I liked. Which she said was, ‘everything’.
My Grandpa Joseph didn’t talk for over week after she died. But he never cried. I cried like crazy - especially at the funeral. For some reason, the funeral was when I realized that Grandma was not going to be around anymore. The wake didn’t seem to do anything to make me believe she was really dead, mainly because she was lying there like she was a wood carving of herself taking a nap.
But Grandpa Joseph never cried. I didn’t even see him cry the time he smashed his thumb with a hammer when he was putting a nail up in the barn. And his thumb turned black as night after that. He yelped and stomped and stammered and twisted but he never once cried. If my thumb looked like that, I probably would have died from dehydration because I cried so much.
Jumping off the computer, I realized I was late and raced down the lane, with owls on my brain. I looked over the trees and the big orange tree and thought about the camouflage of the owl feathers lying there in the woods. My first class was calculus. You could classify my abilities in calculus as ‘brutal.’ I slipped in class a couple minutes late as Mr. Kechner stared down his nose at me. I slouched deeper in my chair hoping he wouldn’t give me a tardy. He studied my face for any signs of deviousness. I tried to keep it completely expressionless. He decided that my tardiness was an altruistic mistake. Thank god, I thought, I was squeaking by in class enough as it was. He was more concerned about keeping people awake than whether or not I participated. And he’d have a lot more than that to be concerned about soon. So I’m glad I didn’t hate him for giving me a bad grade. Because I feel bad for him now and would have hated myself for hating him. As Grandpa Joseph always says, hate destroys its maker.
I daydreamed the rest of class, looking outside at the sun in the wind and the trees like Reese’s Pieces blowing around. When the bell finally rang, I jumped out of my seat to go to art class where I would be able to talk to my friends and feel at home in a subject. I wore art class like a set of comfortable clothes. And I was dying to tell my friend Noah about the owl, but wasn’t sure if I would. If Grandpa Joseph didn’t say anything to the guy in the suit, I wasn’t sure if I should say something to Noah.
In art, the desks didn’t follow any logical pattern. Miss Callahan was always allowing us freedom like that. I made a beeline for my friend Noah. A pumpkin was already sitting on top of the table.
-Man, that looks like oompa loompa snot, he said, scraping away the sticky seeds and mush with a spoon.
I wanted to tell Noah but I was afraid someone else in the class would hear. And then it would spread like wildfire throughout the entire school.
-Oh my god, you guys, did you hear about Chief Odayin? Said Olivia Evans, confirming my suspicions of gossip spreading.
-Did he wander naked through town again? quipped Noah, with his dry humor and lazy voice. Noah was so laid back it drove most people crazy, including our football coach because he was our best receiver and sometimes wouldn’t run routes as hard as he could. But the coach couldn’t really do anything about it because Noah was the only one that could both run and catch on the team. He ran his fingers through his greasy hair, getting it of his eyes, which always seemed half-shut and barely visible.
-No, she said with her lips pursed. But hilarious Noah, she said sarcastically. All they found in his cabin was a piece of his baseball hat. His front window was shattered.
-Really?
-And blood. Lots of blood everywhere. On the floor, on the walls, on the rug, on the window shards. Blood here, blood there-
-Olivia! Said Miss Callahan, let’s carve our jack-o-lanterns without so much discussion of blood.
-Blood? I whispered, leaning over.
-Oh yeah, just everywhere, blood everywhere! Said Olivia, her short sandy brown hair flipping all over the place, ignoring Miss Callahan.
-Jesus, said Noah.
-Yeah, so they’re trying to find him.
-They don’t know where he is?
I was shocked to hear that someone would be missing after that kind of trauma. Although Olivia was prone to exaggeration from time to time.
As we continued working on the pumpkin to Olivia’s chirpy voice, elaborating the story in more gory and grotesque ways than I even knew she was capable of, I knew then that I would have to go down and see what happened myself. Olivia’s embellishments were not good fodder to rely on when you can see with your own eyes. As my Grandpa Joseph said, don’t rely on anyone’s eyes except your own. My grandpa was going to be upset about what happened. Him and Chief Odayin were great friends. But they hadn’t found the body, so there was some hope.
Just then Cedar Ontonowa walked by with her carving knife, her hair in strings over her eyes, on the knife, on her sweater. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her. She had apparently wandered away from her partner as usual and was staring off in space.
-Forget about it, said Noah. You have to stop coming in here and drooling all over that freak.
-She’s not a freak.
-Dude, she only wears the color lavender. What am I thinking? I’m talking to a guy that painted his room green and orange. And she always wears that lavender sweater with the picture of the elephant on it. It’s so frickin apeshit crazy. One of these days Sarah is going to find out you are pining over her.
Sarah was one of the best looking girls in the school. She is the kind of person who asks people out, they don’t ask her out because she intimidates them. I didn’t understand why she wanted to date me in the first place, but I’ve been with her since. I’m not saying I’m bad looking, but I’m not sure what the fuss is about Sarah. Cedar was more my style. She had jet-black hair. Her eyes were spooky blue. She was really weird. Everyone thought she was weird. Really really really weird. Even I thought she was weird and I was in love with her.
I loved that elephant sweater. Someone asked her once why she wore it every day and she said, ‘because elephants mourn their dead.’ Why does that excite me? And she wore lavender pants. Besides the lavender, she dies the tips of her hair red. I thought maybe the black had grown out and she was just waiting for her hair to grow out. But it wasn’t true, she actually keeps the tips died red and then puts them up in a bun on top of her head. In this way she sort of looks like she has a red roll of bread on her black countertop head. I suppose that doesn’t sound too attractive, but believe me, it was.
Because elephants mourn their dead
She always carried around a purple notebook with a Middle Eastern design on it and opened it up and stared at what’s inside, once in a while scribbling vigorously without any regard for her surroundings. I liked that about her, and I always wondered what was in the notebook. One time she brought a dead raccoon to biology and wanted to revive it. Another day she stood in front of the school and shrieked out the words to the Alfred Tennyson poem, Charge of the Light Brigade. Afterwards, the only time I'd ever talked to her, I asked why she did that. She said she had just heard the original recording by the poet reading it. I didn’t know what she was yelling at first and found out later. Most people just thought she was a raving lunatic. Even the principal, who expelled her for the following week. I never dreaded school so much as that week she was gone. That was when I realized how much I really liked her. She mumbles to herself too, and then she’ll quickly scribble in a notebook afterwards. I also loved it when she did that. I mean, I suppose I’m a little weird for liking it when someone mumbles. Most people probably aren’t big fans of random mumbling. Someone told me that her notebook was filled with poems about dead dolls, but I wasn’t sure about that. Most people thought she was some sort of devil worshipper or death ritualistic practitioner. But she really wasn’t, she just liked different things than most people liked. And she didn’t hide it.
-Hey, you want to go by the Chief’s cabin after we get out of football practice? I asked Noah when class got out and we weren’t within earshot of anyone else.
-Do I want to go out into the middle of the woods where a man disappeared and left splattered blood everywhere? Why do you want to go out there?
-Long story.
-Well at some point you might want to tell it to me so I can change my mind if I think you are an idiot.
I knew I could rely on Noah. When he first heard about out cows missing, he came out and camped with me overnight in the field while we told ghost stories and pondered what happened. He scoured our entire farm with me looking for signs of cattle that disappeared. Some other farms complained of the same problem and we went looking for signs there too. At the time we were thinking UFOs. But we didn’t see anything. Until I saw the owl, Noah had me convinced with a new theory of his that we lived in some rift in space like the Bermuda triangle. Except instead of planes disappearing, the space-time continuum liked to scoop up cows and hurl them to some unknown planet on the other side of the universe. Maybe a place where cows were worshiped, or an entire planet of intelligent cows (with dark vegetation) that want to do medical experiments on our cows to learn more about themselves.
Noah’s dad’s jeep sloshed through the mud. The windshield wipers whisked back and forth, water squirted off the sides of the window. The mud splayed like ferns behind the front wheels.
We drove down the potholed lane overgrown with grass and weeds. The tall trees engulfed us. Rain splattered off the red and yellow and orange leaves of the gigantic trees and pooled in puddles.
Noah drove the jeep off the gravel road onto a dirt wheel rutted path. The potholes were so deep that we couldn’t exceed 5 mph. The jeep hopped through the ruts and banked like a horse winding down a rocky cliff. The lane had no ditch and was flanked by spruce trees and oaks on both sides – It seemed a haphazardly created avenue by wagons centuries ago. We reached a clearing. An old 1940s Ford Truck sat rusted in the middle of the yard. A table and eclectic set of chairs sat around an open fire pit. The cabin was blocked from the rain by the limbs of a tree like a woman’s face behind strands of wet hair.
-Man, this guy really lives in the middle of nowhere, said Noah.
-What do you call where we live? Somewhere?
As we neared the cabin, we noticed our town police car sitting in front.
-Stop, I said.
-Why? Said Noah looking at me strangely.
-Just because. It’s probably better that they don’t know we’re here.
He just rolled his eyes at me and stopped the jeep.
-Man, you just don’t want Capt. Terrell to see you because she’s Sarah’s mom. Correction, Sarah’s hot mom.
I motioned for him to be quiet and we closed the doors softly before walking up to the side of the cabin. The huge front window was shattered, and we could hear voices through it.
-Where do you think he ran off to? Said one of the deputies. I recognized his voice. His name was Donovan. He had a pretty serious crush on Capt. Terrell. Whenever I was at their place, he came over asking her if she needed help or wanted anything. It was pretty obvious. I squinted through the veil of rain at the dull green trees and craned my ear forward to hear what they were saying.
-I don’t know, answered another deputy named Chris, but he didn’t want to use the door. Wait a second, is this blood over here too?
-It’s tomato juice. And by the smell of it – probably Vodka. Well, we’ll just have to tell the tribal council he got drunk and ran off.
-I doubt the chief would just run off.
-Goddamnit, said Chris, it sure as hell looks like he did.
I shook my head. I knew the chief didn’t just get drunk and run away. That wasn’t in his character. Get drunk? Maybe. Howl at the moon naked? Maybe. But not run away. I motioned for Noah to move away from the shack. We walked between the large trees like curious ants in the weeds. Noah shrugged his shoulders and stepped into the woods and mud on what looked like an old footpath. The rain filtered through the light mist past the orange and red leaves. Like the glare of a fire turned back upon itself in the smoke. I followed him down through the bramble. Then out of the corner of my eye I spotted something red. It was much redder than the leaves. It resembled a rooster wattle. Noah saw it too. I jumped over a mossy log and looked down. It was the chief’s red hat, ripped through the beak – next to a massive five-foot long feather.
Just then we heard a rustling behind us and the man in the suit from that morning came out with Capt. Terrell, Sarah’s mom, and Bill Odayin, Chief Odayin’s brother. I tossed the feather quickly behind a bush. Bill looked terrible and distraught, his face like the roots of a dead empty tree. It was awful to think about what he was feeling.
His expression contrasted with Sarah’s mom. I had to admit that I found Capt. Terrell more attractive than Sarah. She had bright blue eyes and fire red hair. Sarah was more plain looking somehow, even though she inherited her mom’s breath-taking facial features, and was by all accounts the best looking girl in school. She was a more strawberry blonde with dull hazel eyes. But her mom looked like she was torched by lightning, and her freckled skin was always tight like a guitar string. She had Sarah when she was in high school too, just like my parents had me, it was one of the reasons that Sarah said that we should be together, although she didn’t want to talk about my parents. It was one of the things that she said we had in common. Sarah’s mom had never remarried and had probably been police chief of Lake Bawshkinaway for about 5 years now. I was always uncomfortable around her. The look on her face was always a bright fresh combination of astonishment and amazement.
-Buffalo, Noah, she exclaimed in her voice which sounded like ice falling into a glass. What are you two doing out here?
-Nothing, we mumbled.
His face like the roots of a dead empty tree
She turned to the man in the suit next to her. He had salt and pepper hair perfectly groomed. It was the exact opposite of my long mop of unkempt strands sticking out like some sort of hayfield in a storm. Or Noah’s greasy pile of moss. This guy looked like the kind of dude that used cologne.
-This is the grandson of Joseph Edgewood out on route 12.
The man nodded grimly.
-We just found this out on this path, I’m really sorry about your brother and hope he’s all right, I said to Bill, handing him the red baseball hat.
-Me too, said Noah, being courteous.
-So what brought you out here boy? The man in the suit asked me.
-I heard that the Chief went missing, I said.
-Is that all?
-Hell yes, should there be something else? I said, looking him the eye.
He reached behind the bush and picked up the massive feather.
-What do you make of this? he said, looking back at me.
-It’s a pretty damn big feather.
He looked at me with those grey intense eyes. He had been around the block, he didn’t care that I was giving him lip and talking trash. He was calm, collected. And very composed.
I always swore a little bit to grown ups that I didn’t trust.
-That’s right, he said, where do you think it came from?
-A goddamn bird.
-Most likely, what kind of bird?
-Maybe a parakeet?
-Maybe. But maybe not.
-Yep, maybe not, I said back.
I looked from him to Capt. Terrell. She was looking at me with a bemused face. She could see right through me. I felt like I was failing Grandpa Joseph with my tough charade.
-Buffalo, this is Professor Klemm from Madison. He is an ornithologist. Do you know what that is?
-I know it means that he should probably know what type of goddamn bird that feather is from.
-Buffalo! Said Capt. Terrell admonishing me.
Professor Klemm laughed. His laugh wasn’t devious, like movie-villain type, but it was strange. It was higher pitched than his low soothing voice. He wasn’t tricking me with that hypnotist shit. You can tell a lot about someone from their laugh. In his case he laughed like some sort of demented clown.
-Easy Katrina. Yes, Buffalo, he said, his words dropping like an axe cutting wood. It’s from an owl. We found a very large owl with feathers just like this outside of town. Have you seen any very large owls out at your farm?
I looked at him, then looked at poor Bill, and then I looked at Capt. Terrell again.
-Nope, I said looking straight at his face. Grandpa Joseph always said to never lie, but if you have to lie, to have enough respect of the person you’re lying to, to look them in the eye.
-Okay, he said, winking at me, that’s fine, that’s all we wanted to know. Now why don’t you kids get back in your jeep and head home?
We walked back out through the trees towards the cabin. I felt good about not giving over the information about the bird at our farm. As Grandpa Joseph says, safe secrets save somebody sometimes. I wasn’t thinking about Professor Klemm anymore, but was mulling over the fact that there wasn’t just a couple birds, but many more.
Donovan and Chris were standing outside the cabin when we got there and consulted with Professor Klemm and Sarah’s mom. Bill broke down in tears again when he was by the cabin, the stark red hat hanging down in his hands.
I felt the tingle in my chest, and my throat lurched as I tried to repress the emotion that came over me at that moment – I looked at Noah, he was sniffling, looking at his shoes. And as I looked out into the woods, thinking about the Chief, I saw Cedar. She stood next to a tree observing us. It was as if I could see her beautiful soul. Her hair was matted from the rain and her marble skin seemed fluorescent in the darkening dusk. As soon as she saw me, she ducked back into the woods.
As Noah drove me home, I couldn’t help but look up into the sky for any sign of an owl.
-What are you looking at? He asked.
-The stars coming out, was all I could come up with.
-Okay, he said, looking at me like I was crazy.
As soon as I got home, I found Grandpa Joseph looking at the stove. He sat there in a trance.
-Did you hear about Chief Odayin? I asked.
He nodded his head. I told him about going out to cabin. He listened to the whole recap of the event silently.
-Well, I’m sure they’ll be out here next, he said sadly, and walked upstairs to go to bed.
After I went up to the crow’s nest and had some time to myself, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach like the day my grandma died. It felt like a miniature sun had holed up in my gut. I remembered I looked out over the sky occasionally, while reading about Lençóis Maranhenses, a national park in Brazil that is comprised of sand dunes interspersed with lagoons. It means nature’s bed sheets in Portuguese. It was a wonderful article with the most serene pictures, taking me to that otherworldly place, and providing some relief from the day. I was in my taco shaped chair listening to the Hollies Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress. Then I heard the rap on the door. I knew that Grandpa Joseph was probably sleeping, so I went down and that’s when I realized that I had set up that night to study with Sarah. She was in my late afternoon economics class. I was terrible at economics and she was exceptional. So she always offered to tutor me. I finally relented, but then when she showed up, I immediately regretted it. Her smile was bright and sunshiny even though it was pitch black outside at the end of a shitty day. Her eyes betrayed her feelings. I could tell she liked me as much as I liked her, which wasn’t a whole hell of a lot, but that she was trying to be my girlfriend because that was what she was supposed to do even though she probably didn’t feel like it.
-I heard you were out at Chief Odayin’s cabin.
-Yeah, I saw your mom.
-That’s what she said. What are you doing bothering with checking that out anyway Buffalo?
-Because I wanted to know what happened.
I could feel the interrogation coming on. I wasn’t happy about it either. I couldn’t stand when she interrogated me. One time I forgot to pick her up because I went fishing and you would have thought that I murdered someone. She really isn't that bad, and I'm exaggerating, because I guess most of the time I deserved it, especially if I forgot to pick her up.
-Yeah, but you want to leave that to the police. Who knows what kind of trouble you could get into Buffalo. I mean, he disappeared, no one knows where he is. His front window is shattered. There’s blood in his cabin. And yet you feel compelled to go out there.
-Whatever, I said, are we going to study?
I suppose I was a little harsh when I said that to her. She didn’t like my tone and was quiet for a while as she took her books out of her backpack. Her hair sagged over her head and I could see she was upset.
-I’m sorry, I said, I really didn’t mean to upset you. He was a friend of my Grandpa’s and I wanted to see what happened.
-My mom thinks you know there’s something strange going on, and that’s why you picked up that feather. You didn’t tell anyone about the feather did you? She wanted me to make sure you didn’t tell anyone.
-I haven’t. But why doesn’t she want me to tell anyone?
-Because she doesn’t want to create a panic.
-I suppose.
-I mean, there’s probably very little to worry about. Lester says that they most likely won’t attack humans unless they are provoked. Kind of like bees. And that Chief Odayin was out there in the middle of nowhere and he probably was perceived as a threat to the territory.
-Lester?
-Professor Klemm. He’s come up here from Madison. He’s an ornithologist.
-Yeah, I met him.
-Oh, I guess you did. You know what an ornithologist is? It’s someone who specializes in birds.
-Yeah.
I didn’t really like the way she was talking down to me. But she had a tendency to do that in our relationship. It is nothing against Sarah really. She’s still a friend of mine. But you know, it’s not something that I enjoyed at the time. We’re no longer together now like we were then. But I’m sure she’ll find someone. At that moment her cell phone rang.
-It’s my mom. Hello. Really, oh my god! No. Okay. I’ll stay here. Okay. Be careful mom.
-What happened?
-Mrs. Kechner was attacked. -What? Really? Mr. Kechner’s wife?
-Yeah, an owl attacked her as she was coming out of a bridge party over on 5th street. I guess the owl lifted her in the air and then dropped her on the lawn. She’s in critical condition. They had to take her to Marshfield.
-Jesus!
-My mom told me to stay here until morning. I think she’s going to warn the whole town. She said that Lester says that owls are only active at night and that I shouldn’t go outside.
-Maybe I better go tell my Grandpa, I said.
I walked down the steps and then down the hall. I’m ashamed to admit that during this wild time in my life, I was petty enough that all I was thinking about the bleak prospect of having to spend time with Sarah all night, and trying to come up with ways out if it. I feel guilty to this day. But even she would admit now that we weren’t meant to be together.
-Grandpa Joseph, I said, knocking on his door.
-Come in.
I walked in there and he was putting his overalls on.
-I’m going to head down to town, he said.
-You heard about the attack?
-Yup.
-I don’t know if you should go outside, I said, worried.
He stopped for a second, looked out of the corner of his eye at me. His eye was twinkling. It was times like that when I knew that he found me pretty comical.
-Oh don’t worry, I’ll take care of myself. You can take care of yourself too. Just stay inside and keep Sarah safe.
-Okay Grandpa, I said.
He went outside and fired up the truck, then drove down the lane. I looked in the sky - the moon was up, but no owls. I went back into my room.
-You want to go in the crow’s nest and look for owls, I asked Sarah. Her eyes got really wide.
-Are you serious? I don’t think that’s a good idea Buffalo.
-What, why not?
-What if they attack you, she said in a whisper.
-All right then, you don’t have to, but I’m going up there, I said. I want to see one of these birds flying around.
That way I realized I could get some space from her and think about what was happening and not think about our relationship.
-Oh my god, be careful, said Sarah.
She brought her hand to her mouth to show her concern. She did have a beautiful mouth, I will admit that. She had plush full lips that she got from her mom. It was like kissing a pillow, if you like that. I didn’t really like it when I was in the act of kissing her, but I did like looking at the lips. There wasn’t a spark when I kissed her. I had kissed other girls when I was a freshman and felt more of a spark. But that was another thing that I liked about Cedar over Sarah. Her lips. She had a perfect mouth – like Emma Stone. And I knew that if I kissed her, we’d start a lightning storm. Maybe a full on tornado. I don’t know why I liked it. But it was almost that it would take her more effort to say something out of that mouth. So if she did say something you knew it would be good. Where Sarah’s mouth looked like any old thing was comfortable coming out of it. Almost like there was no barrier. It wasn’t refined. And it was kind of like that when she talked.
I felt pretty guilty thinking those thoughts about Cedar while I was with Sarah. I knew I should probably break up with Sarah, but I didn’t really know how. She was kind of like my first love. I felt so guilty at that instant that I decided to stay in the bedroom with her.
-All right, maybe we should try and study some economics, I said.
We spread the books and notes out on the floor as she tried to describe different concepts to me. I just couldn’t understand anything. It’s like my grandpa always said, if everything is growing, why are some things dying? Which is all I could think about when I was trying to study it. It didn’t help that Sarah was always saying things like, ‘Think Buffalo.’ And ‘Buffalo, I don’t see why it is so difficult for you to understand.’ And ‘I just told you that 5 min ago, were you even listening to me?’ I mean, the reason I wanted to study this in the first place wasn’t because I thought she had some sort of intrinsic complicated knowledge to give to me, but because we should spend time with each other. But I should probably stop griping about that. Anyway, I finally got fed up and decided to kiss the lip pillows. We fought that battle for about five minutes and then I asked her again if she wanted to go up to the crow’s nest.
-No, that’s all right, you go up, I’m going to stay down here and try and get some sleep. It’s almost eleven.
She didn’t have calculus in the morning like I did. I’m sure it was canceled because of Mrs. Kechner, but I knew I’d have to go anyway.
I finally went up to the crow’s nest with my national geographic and left Sarah in the bedroom. I couldn’t read the article. I just scoured the sky. It was beautiful. There wasn’t a cloud up there. It was crisp outside and the stars glimmered with full force. Orion was out. The dipper was bright. But I didn’t see anything.
