The Crow’s Soul Weighs Heavy

Growing up I had my favorite yard birds. The cardinal and the blue jay were obvious favorites because of their bright colors, but the crow was appreciated for reasons that were different and far more profound. 

The backyard of our first house was large and square-shaped. Several old trees peppered the back yards throughout the neighborhood. I loved playing outside. At a very young age I caught a small black racer with my bare hands, fed peanuts to the squirrels, and learned how to trap and release frogs. My father always had a few bird feeders overflowing with seeds and took it upon himself to feed the local stray cats. The yard was always buzzing with activity. 

One day when I was about six years old I was standing in the dining room when my father came in from the back yard. The heavy wooden door creaked as he pushed through. Annoyed but not surprised he said “One of the cats caught a crow” as he walked past me.  

Curious, I ventured outside. 

I never saw the cat or the crow she caught, but I was taken aback by what I heard. 

A chorus of crows, all coming from the same tree. Loud and panicky, yet unmistakably focused. The sun was low in the afternoon sky behind the tree. Beams of light poking through the leaves illuminated the silhouettes of fluttering wings and open beaks. I had never seen so many crows in one tree. I had never heard such collective chaos. I was used to the typical calls of crows, but this was entirely different. 

“They’re saying goodbye” I whispered to myself in astonishment.

I stood there for several minutes, watching, listening. Right on the edge of the concrete slab; I never crossed into the grass. As intrigued as I was moving in to get a closer look felt like intrusion. This was a ritual. 

They were experiencing sorrow.

They understood what they had lost. 

They gathered to mourn the dead. 

Young as I was, I knew about death. A short time prior to this my mother’s dog got hit by a car. Patches was older and had been a part of the family long before I was born. My parents had friends over and it was dark out when they left. We were all in the driveway and everyone was exchanging small talk when patches got out and ran into the street. A young man driving by hit her. I remember the commotion as everyone rushed down to the street. The young man felt terrible. He said he didn’t see her until it was too late and apologized. My parents held no grudge. They knew she was old and it was dark out. They moved her up the driveway closer to the house. 

She was completely still. A small trickle of blood was slowly moving from behind her head. My mother, crying, knelt down beside her gently petting the soft, curly fur around her shoulder. She was already gone, but my mother still wanted to say goodbye. 

I had watched my mother perform the ritual of letting go. I could recognize it when I saw the crows do it. What I found so compelling about the crows was that it was the first time I witnessed a group of animals expressing grief. 

Growing up Catholic I was often confronted with people who claimed that animals didn’t have souls. When I was younger I didn’t know what to say so I would just nod politely. But I never believed that. Even if I couldn’t define it I knew something was there. Something bigger. Something magic and profound. The crows could feel it too. 

Alpha

I’ve been working out here for the last four years. After my wife left I went back to school for biology. I barely passed. Sometimes I think the only reason I got this job was because I was the only one who applied. But I like it alright. I get to be outside and I don’t have to deal with people much.

Bob, the ranger who was showing me the ropes after I got hired said the lone female had come to the park about five months before me. She was a little smaller than the other Grey Wolves so they thought she was a juvenile at first. Now they think she might be a little older but they can’t be sure. They have never been able to tag her.  

They don’t think she was born in the park. She just showed up one day out of the blue. It didn’t take her long to become the alpha female of her own pack, but about two and a half years ago things went south. The winters have been harsher. Their prey started leaving the area earlier. Some members of the pack died, others migrated out, most broke off into smaller, scattered packs. She was normally alone after that. 

I thought she’d do what the others did, but she never left the area or joined another group. Sometimes I wouldn’t see her for a while but I knew she was out there. I’d still find her tracks every now and then. The right rear paw print was always the faintest. It must have been from an old injury. When you saw her you could barley tell she limped but her tracks gave away that she never put her full weight on it. 

I started calling her Alpha. Even though she didn’t have a pack you could tell she was an alpha female. Her ears were always erect, and she had this direct, almost confrontational, wide-eyed stare with her golden eyes. It was rare for a female to be without a pack, but after her original group disbanded she seemed to keep to herself. It was an odd trait for animal that evolved to survive working together. 

Even stranger was that she appeared to visit other packs. Occasionally, she’d be spotted with the prairie pack. She would play with the pups and sometimes participate in hunts with the other females. She was never threatened, or treated aggressively by the wolves in the pack. She was allowed to come and go peacefully. We had thought she was fully accepted by the pack but she would only stay with them one or two days at a time. Then she’d go off on her own again. 

Me and Bob had hoped she’d find a mate and start a pack. 

One day I spotted her in the park with Old Grey. I was hoping their paths would cross. He was an older lone male. They were both without a pack and neither one of them had ever been caught for a tracking collar. They had a lot of similarities so I had high hopes they would be able to start a pack together. But ever since Old Grey had been pushed out of his pack he developed a bad habit of getting too close to people. We’d gotten reports of a lone wolf rummaging through garbage cans on the edge of town. He’d even been caught on a few security cameras. Then he started picking off the livestock of a farmer on the edge of the park. 

It didn’t take long before I got the call. Two hunters phoned in to the station and said they found a dead wolf. When I got out there I could tell right away it was Old Grey. Not a mark on him, but his head was arched back and his limbs were stretched straight forward in the typical “sawhorse” pose. Strychnine poisoning. It’s a long and painful death that contorts the body. He used to be so proud, now just still. I hate knowing that he suffered like that. I grab my walkie talkie and tell the station to call the University. We try not to leave them out here if we know they’ve been poisoned. We can’t risk other animals eating him. Maybe the college kids can study him; get something out of this mess. 

I had to wait a while for them show up. Nothing else to do but sit on the hood of my car and enjoy the view. After about an hour the sun started to get low in the sky and decide to go sit inside the car. Right as I slid off the hood I saw her, coming up over the hill to my left. Alpha.

Neither one of us was expecting the other to be there and we just froze. As far as I knew, she’d never gotten this close to a person. But she didn’t run away. Just still. I was right in front of the car door but I knew I’d never make it if she charged me. Just then I heard the rumble of the old university bio lab truck behind me coming up the path. She bolted around and left in the direction she came. My heart was pounding but I never really felt threatened. She was just trying to say goodbye to Old Grey. 

A few months after that we spotted her with a younger male MG-422, who had been fitted with a tracking collar. He had recently hit maturity and left his pack to be with her. The university kids got all excited. Even though Alpha wasn’t tagged she was with a wolf who was. They had been able to track them around the base of the mountain for a few weeks. Alpha and MG-422 had been working together catching rabbits, but they’d need to start taking down bigger prey if they wanted to build a pack. We didn’t have to wait long, but the info we got didn’t come from the collar. 

Jim, my buddy and one of the bar owners in town, got his grandson Tyson to visit for a few weeks. Tyson just turned fourteen and his mom finally thought he was old enough to come up by himself. Jim had been dying to show off his wilderness skills so right away they go out hiking. They were near the mountain on a ridge at the edge of the tree line, looking down towards a clearing, when they spotted a female elk with her calf. Tyson grabbed his cell phone to take a video and as soon as he did two wolves ran out from the woods towards the calf. They got the whole thing on video. They couldn’t wait to show me when they got back. 

Apparently, Tyson was filming the female elk when the wolves burst out from the woods. The calf had already wandered several feet away and was easy to separate. There were a few seconds of rushing trees and sky before Tyson’s shaking hands were able to focus on the fleeing calf. In the panic the calf ran away from its mother and towards the stream. And right behind the calf was Alpha and MG-422. I had never seen them hunt before. Alpha was racing towards the calf, head down, focused, and rapidly closing the distance. MG-422 was a little farther behind. The calf was instinctively heading to the steam. If the water is deep enough it can keep the wolves at bay. Unfortunately, the stream was shallow, even for the calf. His pause brought them even closer. He sprung across to the other side, barely ahead of them. But when they hit the water going as fast as they were, they went down hard. Alpha got back up almost as fast as she fell. MG-422, a much less experienced hunter, lost momentum and lingered by the stream. Alpha, like a bolt of lightning, knocked the calf to the ground. Her teeth were around it’s neck before it could get back up. Alpha was barring down so hard she didn’t see it coming. The female elk rammed her from behind. The elk positioned herself between her calf and Alpha, stamping and bleating furiously. The calf was bleeding badly from the neck, but still managed to stand up. Alpha, who had almost single-handedly won the battle, had to watch her prize slip away. As ferocious as she had been she was not strong enough to go after the female, not alone. MG-422 was several feet away and had cost them their biggest meal yet. It was sad to see them fail, but it was amazing to see Alpha in action. Even with Tyson’s shaky cell phone video.

Tyson said after that the elk and her calf stayed in the clearing for a little while but Alpha and MG-422 went back into the woods. He went over the story with so much enthusiasm I thought his head was going to explode. Jim couldn’t believe their luck. He’d lived here his whole life and had never seen anything like that. You could see he was beaming with pride that he got to share this moment with his grandson. He took his arm and gave Tyson a hardy pat on the back. 

“Don’t tell your mother about the wolves.” He chuckled. “She might not let you come back up.”

I didn’t see Alpha for a while after that. I found a few of her tracks in the snow here and there. The right rear paw print was even fainter than normal. When the elk rammed her it must have aggravated her old injury. She was still out there but she was alone again. MG-422 was tracking in another area. They hadn’t been seen together since the failed hunt. The university kids had hoped she migrated with him. But she was still here and her tracks were always isolated. 

I honestly don’t know how she made it through another winter alone. On one of his rounds Bob found the remains of a moose. It looked like it had been there a while, the crows were pecking at whatever scraps they could get. He thought he found some of Alpha’s tracks nearby but there were bear tracks too. It looks like she might have scavenged the carcass. I just hope she got a good meal out of it.

All this time we never figured out why she was always alone. She’d had a successful pack before. She been with other males and tried to start families. As far as we can tell she never had her own pups. Maybe she liked being alone. Maybe the other wolves thought she was strange. Maybe it’s just the bad hand she’s learning to deal with. But she’s still out there; fighting every day. 

Hell, if I’m being honest maybe I like her so much cause she reminds me of me. I tried to start a family but my ex walked out on me. I never had kids either. I moved around more than I wanted, worked like hell just to survive. I got tired of trying to figure out where things went wrong and trying to explain myself to people who didn’t understand. I spend too much time alone. Maybe it’s just the bad hand I’m learning to deal with. 

My whole life I felt like I was supposed to be this alpha male. Strong, dominant, in control. I felt like I never measured up. I pushed people way. I went further inside myself. But being out here gives me time to think. Watching Alpha struggle forced me to realize that I see her the way I wanted people to see me. Like no matter what happened I was going to make it. 

She could have done what was expected, but then she never would have been this tough.

She didn’t need to be have subordinates to be dominant. It was just the way she was. If she could make it out here alone then so could I. 

She doesn’t howl often, but I can always tell it’s her. Her calls are the only ones that go unanswered. But she’s still out there. 

The Demon and the Demigod

This is a short story I wrote based on a dream that I had.

Trapped in a small cave-like room I pulled frantically at the large rusted metal clamp that had been placed around my left wrist. Every time I moved the clunky chain would drag across the arm of the wooden chair I was anchored in. On the other side of the table in front of me sat a Demon. He had placed the chain on me in an effort to claim me for himself. But despite all of his attempts to gain control, he was a rather weak creature. He was struggling with an illness that he was trying to hide from me. I could see from his thin arms and his fragile frame that this once fearsome beast was losing his own personal battle.

The chain around my wrist was meant to keep me seated but the table between us was meant to maintain distance. For all of his attempts to control, it was actually the Demon who was afraid of me. In my right hand I held a large steel spike; and he knew that if he got any closer I wouldn’t hesitate to drive it through his neck. So he felt confident in his distance while I held my spike close and began to search the room.

It was empty and dark, nothing much to look at. I could hear the sound of water dripping somewhere in the distance. Then I noticed the Demigod seated at a few feet away to my left. Unlike the Demon and I in our wooden chairs, he was seated in a modest throne covered in dusty crushed velvet. It looked more like something you would find in an antique store than a throne. It was hardly fit for a ruler but you could tell the Demigod prized his modest throne by the way he arranged his body to take up as much space as possible.

The Demigod was strong and confident, much more powerful than the Demon. The Demigod wanted me to come to him. I pulled and twisted my arm to try and get free but I remained stuck. After several minutes of struggling my wrist became scraped and swollen. I raised my bleeding arm to show the Demigod and to ask for his help. To my surprise he looked down on me with eyes full of contempt. He could see the blood and he could chain but he thought my struggle was easy. And this Demigod, with all of his power, forgot his human nature. He sat unmoved and angry on his dusty throne.

If I am no damsel in distress, then he is no hero. We sit locked in our stalemate. The Demon smirks in my direction and casts possessive eyes upon me. The Demigod still looks upon me with disdain. I don’t care to be viewed upon by either set of eyes and so I turned away in defiance to face the wall. In all my time spent captive I never felt afraid, only held back.

And so I wait.

It doesn’t take long for the Demon and the Demigod to fall asleep in their chairs. By now the blood on my wrist has dried and the swelling has gone down. I slowly and steadily work the chain over my hand until it slides past my fingertips. Silent and weightless, I grab the spike and move like a breeze to the door behind me. I turned around to take one last look. The room is much darker now. I realized that it was my energy that was giving light to the cave. I think that was the reason they valued me. The same way the moon can only reflect the light given from the sun.

As I stand at the other end of the room the light I radiate flickers over their faces like candlelight nearing the end of a wick. I clench the spike in my fist. It would be easy to finish off the Demon, but in his sleep I can see that he is struggling to breathe. I take the spike and place it gently on the ground next to my feet. His illness will take him soon and I leave him to fight his last battle alone.

The Demigod sleeps comfortably curled in his throne. He seems to thrive on the embrace of that dusty chair. He sleeps soundly and I dare not wake him. I cannot trade being the prisoner of one for being a slave to the other. And so I turn and slip out the door, taking only the light with me as I go.