by lee king
Chapter 7
Across the side street at the corner house, Grandma Hokum was outside fussing and cussing around in her garden. The storm had flattened her tomato starts and washed out her squash mounds. She was mad enough to kick a cat.
Meantime, over next to the fence between Drew’s cabin and her garden, where a double row of railroad ties had been installed to stop washouts from cutting trenches across Drew’s yard, a six-foot long chicken-snake—also known as a blue racer, because they can run faster than a man—was slinking along the railroad ties. Drew called him Ole Blue. He passed through Drew’s yard every spring, heading for the Twin Creeks to find his girlfriend. At the moment he was sneaking into Grandma Hokum’s chicken coop. She owned six Rhode Island Reds that laid one egg each, daily. Punctual as the noontime sawmill whistle. Same time every day, they’d cluck and carry on real loud, mostly to remind folks of what an important job they had.
“Feeding the people.”
Ole Blue entered the chicken coop at the rear, through a knothole in a floor plank. All but one chicken probably halfway finished with her business, jumped off their nests and ran outside. Ole Blue dislocated his jaw joints, gobbled down two eggs then cast his eyes at the chicken that was still sitting on her nest. He stuck out his forked tongue at her and hissed. She jumped up, flapping her wings and clucking hysterically, and ran out through the doggy door.
Ole Blue thought that was funny; he loved to spook the chickens. It reminded him of when he was young and full of vigor; when just the sight of him made the young hens faint.
Two large eggs was more food than Ole Blue had eaten all winter long. In fact he was so skinny from being in hibernation that the shape of the eggs he had just swallowed bulged from his long skinny body.
Even a fool knows what hysterical chickens rushing out of a coop at laying time means. But Ole Blue craved just one more egg, badly enough to risk his life to get it. He was wolfing down the last egg and had just gotten it past his dislocated jaw joints when the front door of the chicken coop swung open. “Ahhhh!” Ole Blue screamed inside his head.
Grandma Hokum loomed in the doorway wielding a hoe. “You egg-sucking slimy varmint!” she shouted. “I’ve been after you for years. I’m going to chop your worthless hide to pieces and use it to fertilize my tomato plants.”
Ole Blue rushed to the knothole where he had entered the coop, but now he couldn’t get out that way. The eggs in his belly wouldn’t squeeze through the hole. He slithered behind some mason jars on the floor. Grandma Hokum reared the hoe back as if she was swinging a golf club. Ole Blue stayed coiled in the corner, peering through the glass jars at her and thinking, This is it. I’m gone. Please forgive me of my sins, Great Spirit.
Grandma Hokum busted the light bulb in the fixture above her head and got the hoe hung up on the tiny chain that worked the pull switch. It was the break Ole Blue needed. When she squinted up at the light to see what had happened, Ole Blue leaped between her legs, the whole length of the chicken coop, and landed outside the front door. That was the greatest leap Ole Blue had ever accomplished; it filled his spirit high with vigor and confidence.
Grandma Hokum dropped the hoe and rushed out after him.
Ole Blue was already across the driveway and barreling around Drew’s cabin for the home stretch. Grandma Hokum stopped in the driveway, scooped up a handful of rocks, and flung them one at a time at the wily Ole chicken snake.
Ole Blue raced toward the woodpile under the mulberry tree. The rocks were landing in Drew’s yard, several feet behind him. A couple of feet from the safety of the woodpile, way across the yard from Grandma Hokum, Ole Blue thought he was home free. He stopped and reared around to run his tongue out at Grandma Hokum, nyah, nyah, nyah, you missed me! Just then a well thrown rock, the size of a green walnut, hit him at the place where he went pooh. Ow! You wicked ole sow! You broke my butt bone. Now I can’t go pooh for a month!
Smack! Another rock struck Ole Blue where the last egg was still lodged in his throat, just past his jaw joints, and smashed the egg. OWWWH!
With his head pounding, and with his tail end broken at his butt bone and pointing out sideways, Ole Blue leaped forward, tunneled deep through the woodpile, and slithered down a rat hole.
White Robin watched the whole drama unfold from Lola’s nest, quaking with fright. He imagined Ole Blue must be the famous blue ghost that his momma and the elders said could climb straight up a barn wall at night and steal baby pigeons from a nest without even waking their momma, and disappear on a fresh mowed lawn right before your eyes, even in broad daylight.
With Ole Blue lurking nearby, and that momma hawk watching his every move, White Robin decided it might be best for him to sleep with one eye open for the rest of his life.
Chapter 8
On the south side of the big woods, down in the Arkansas River valley, young Cindy Cinnamon and two adolescent purple-headed pigeons with red-rimmed eyes, headed up the old scenic highway.
They spent time asking around at the first town they came to. No one there had ever heard of a tornado picking up a whole flock of pigeons and carrying them off. But one old geezer pigeon said that when he was a boy a tornado flattened his Texas town and blew people and livestock all the way to Kansas. He told of a baby being found in the top of an oak tree, still napping in his crib, without a scratch on him, and since pigeons could fly smarter than any bird on the planet, well then, they’d be far more likely to pull through a little podunk tornado like the ones that hit Arkan—.
“This is not Texas,” Cindy bellowed to the batty old coot. “And I will not permit you to start a fever of doubt amongst my scouts.”
Two adventure-seeking pigeons from the old geezers flock—impressed with Cindy’s grit and maybe a tad bit smitten with her exotic cinnamon feathers—asked if they could travel with Cindy and her scouts and see some country.
“Well then, scouts,” Cindy cooed to her group of loyal followers. “We will go to the next town. If we don’t have any luck there, then we’ll find some friendly pigeons who will feed us and put us up for the night. Then we can get a fresh start in the morning. Failure is not an option, guys. Our fellow pigeons are counting on us to find their homeland, so they can go back and rebuild their lives.”
Cindy clenched a sunflower seed in her beak for luck, and the five of them flew up above the trees and followed the old highway north, to the next one-church town.
Savanna and the other pigeons had described a particular one-church town on a two-lane blacktop road to Cindy Cinnamon—their hometown. They said it was near where many creeks and streams came together to form a river. And, they added, there wasn’t any railroad track in or near their town, but the big shiny birds that carried people flew in and out of a very large place that had been built near their one-church town.
Chapter 9
White Robin was tired from all his practicing, so he hopped over to Lola’s nest and climbed inside. He hunkered down in it as low as he could, with just his eyes showing over the rim. He needed a nap but he was afraid to take one.
After a while he became groggy, and was drifting in and out of sleep, when suddenly he heard claws scratching on the tree near the ground. He screamed, leaped out of Lola’s nest, hopped to the top of the apple tree, and climbed out on the little branches.
“It’s me! Granny Gray Squirrel! I didn’t mean to frighten you. I brought you more seeds. I’ve been watching you from my holly tree. I thought you might be hungry from all that practicing. Now come down here and sit with me.”
Granny Gray climbed on up and emptied the seeds in her overstuffed jowls into Lola’s nest.
White Robin sailed down to the nest. He was so happy to see a friendly face that he wrapped his wings around Granny’s neck and hugged her.
“I saw you talking to Levi and looking up the sycamore tree. Was he warning you about the ladyhawk?”
White Robin looked up at the eagle nest and nodded his head.
“She’s young and she comes f
rom the big woods and she wasn’t raised well; this is her first brood. Like Levi says, I fear she may become desperate to feed her babies and cannot be trusted. Even so, she has other troubles to consider. The others live in the top of that giant pine tree in front of the big house. They are much larger than the ladyhawk and strong as an eagle. If the ladyhawk breaks the unspoken rule, they will destroy her babies and drive her from the kingdom. But do not fear them, little bird. They only come out at night. And they don’t hunt food where they live. That’s the unspoken rule. Levi’s people-friends call them Great Horned Owls. Their voices are loud and spooky, and the owl families they talk to can be heard from very far away.”
“Spooky like Levi’s voice?” White Robin asked.
“Much more spooky,” Granny said. “They go ‘Who, Who, Who,’ then wait till they hear their friends go ‘Who, Who, Who,’ and then they talk back and forth for a long time, in an old forgotten language that only owls can understand.”
“I heard them just before the storm came,” White Robin said. He jerked his head around and scanned the dark shadows at the top of the pine tree. “I see them. They’re huge, and they have really big eyes, and they’re watching us.”
“Like the Great Spirit,” Granny said.“I believe they are watching over us.”
“Is Levi afraid of them?” White Robin asked.
“No,” Granny said. “Levi only fears cats and lightning! Levi and his gang gave the owls a lot of trouble when he was younger, but lately he has earned their respect. Levi is a rare leader. After all, he is a crow, and he has to work harder than anyone else to earn his respect in our kingdom. You would not be wrong to trust him, White Robin.”
“If he wants me to trust him, then why was he so mean to me? I owe him a whooping, and I already promised him when I get grown, he’s going to get it!”
Granny laughed. “Levi got your temper going for a reason, little bird. He was building courage in you, so you’ll seem bold and prepared in the face of danger, and not be squeamish and weak-looking. Predators always go after the squeamish and weak. He gave you his time. And he truly wants to help you find your momma. I’ve never seen him do that with any orphan.”
“He said something about getting free pies and redemption.”
Granny laughed again. “He’s not helping you to get free food, little bird. Levi eats better than all of us. That’s just his way of holding your long-time thinking, so you won’t soon forget what he said.”
“But he’s a leader. Momma says it’s a leader’s duty to help the needy.”
“It’s not easy being a crow,” Granny uttered under her breath.“They’re looked upon as outlaws and thieves. Levi and his crow buddies used to steal baby pigeons and throw loud parties, then eat them. That was before he got captured and left the gang. The man put that shiny thing on Levi’s leg…to mark him as property. That man was evil. Many bad things happened over there. He would sit out in his yard and kill anything that wandered onto his property, even dogs and cats. He killed May, the momma woodchuck and her three babies who lived under his tool shed. Nothing will grow over there. All the trees died, and the vines and weeds took over the place. I think the man mistreated Levi till it broke his spirit. He never let Levi out of his cage. Levi still claims to be livestock. He became a leader when the man they call Rick, in that home next door, took him in and let him roam free. He even taught Levi to talk like people do.”
“Is there anything around here that doesn’t eat baby pigeons?”
Granny furrowed her brow at his indifference to her story, “You’re a robin for now. Nothing messes with a robin.”
“I saw a blue ghost go into the wood pile!” White Robin said.
“I saw him too, little bird. My eyes may be no match for yours, but they don’t miss much. Levi and his people friends call that silly fool Ole Blue, the chicken snake. You need not worry much about him. He’s too old to climb trees and raid bird nests like he used to. Besides, you’re too big for him to swallow.”
Granny looked to the woodpile where Ole Blue was hiding, then up in the mulberry tree above it. “Do you see that jaybird nest in the mulberry tree?”
“Yes. It has three baby birds in it,” White Robin said.
“We call the little one Jayleen. She’s the runt, and runts seldom survive the nesting season. I want you keep watch on her until I return! I’m going to the rancher’s barn at the end of the street with Lola to sit with our friend Muumuu. She’s expecting twins and having a rough time of it.”
“What if something happens? What do I do?”
“The jaybird on guard will alert the whole kingdom, and we will all come quickly. You, little bird, will stay in the apple tree and watch and learn. It’s called schooling.”
Granny took off through the treetops along the side street down to the rancher’s barn. The side street ended at the gate to the barn lot. It wasn’t a real barn, like the one that White Robin was born in. It was just a big metal shop building with a giant sliding door on the front of it.
The sky had cleared and the sun was high. It had turned into a beautiful spring day, with bright green grass, and flowers of every color of a rainbow were blooming on the trees and grounds everywhere. White Robin was relaxing in Lola Robin’s nest and nibbling on his seeds when all at once he realized why Lola had built her nest in that particular spot. He had what is called “bird’s-eye view” of the kingdom.
He could see the jaybirds feeding their babies in the mulberry tree, and the ladyhawk high up in the sycamore tree, the great horned owls higher still in the pine tree, and through the front window of Drew’s cabin, where his little dog Rudy was standing on the back of the sofa looking outside. He could see the hay bales at the end of the garden where the barn used to be, and beyond, past the little Osage Valley where the twin creeks flowed, and over the ridge all the way to where the giant silver birds that carried people landed and took off many times a day. He could see all but the front side of the big house, and he could even see Lola Robin and Granny Gray beside the huge white cow they had named Muumuu, down at the barn.
Two tiny house wrens were scratching bark off of logs in the woodpile. They stopped for a moment and sang a beautiful song. Their voices were very loud and rejoicing—louder than the voices of a redbird. Which are many times bigger than the little house wrens. How is that possible? White Robin thought. After the song they set to gathering ant and termite eggs in their beaks. When they had all they wanted, the wrens flew to a front window on Drew’s cabin, squeezed through a hole in the screen, then dropped down to a nest they had built in the corner of the window sill. One wren went inside the tiny nest through a little hole, while the other wren waited outside.
White Robin glimpsed a clump of leaves being kicked up on the ground over by the fence. He looked closer. A brown, speckled bird the same size as Lola popped out from under a pile of leaves.
It was a bush thrasher with a grub worm in his mouth. Another thrasher bird showed up and took the beetle grub from her companion. They were very quiet and did not offer any bird songs, and their markings blended in so well with the pile of leaves that aside from the bright thankfulness beaming in their eyes, it was difficult even for White Robin to see them.
The momma thrasher hopped into the shadows inside the hedges that had grown up through the fence line and paused at a hidden nest that was built off the ground no higher than the fence. Three fuzzy heads with bright yellow beaks appeared in the nest. The momma thrasher pulled bites off the grub worm and placed the morsels lovingly into the oversize mouths of her funny-faced little nestlings.
White Robin hummed a pigeon lullaby. It went somewhat like, Hush little pigeon, don’t you cry, Momma’s gonna sing you a lullaby. Tears began to well up in his eyes. “Please come home and sing to me, Momma.”
Chapter 10
Dark Raven was pacing back and forth on the top beam of a condemned bridge over the Illinois River. His tattered feathers were gray as ashes. Several hundred corvine crows were roostin
g in the trees on both sides of the river, waiting for their famous leader to speak.
“I need two volunteers to cross the big woods down to the big river and follow the sun’s path past the old fort to the Spiro Indian mounds,” he said, “and report to my brother Tar Raven. Tell him we will leave at first light and join up with his troops midway at the White Rock campgrounds near the south edge of the big woods.”
Many crows volunteered, but like always, Dark Raven chose his oldest and most trusted troopers for the mission.
Levi was watching from the far end of the bridge, with great esteem for the huge Raven.
“Levi! My cousin! Come forward! What brings you away from the safety and confines of your tiny kingdom?”
Levi crow hopped over to him. “I need a service, Dark Raven.”
“You need adventure, Levi! You are a crow, not a redbird. Join us in our journey down the big river. It will build fortitude in you.”
“My duty is to my master Rick and the members of my kingdom. I am no longer a true crow.” He held up his leg with the shiny band on it. “With this on my leg, and my tongue changed, I can never be free again. I am livestock!”
“I reckon there may be a seed of truth to that, cousin. I have seen many crows, ducks, geese, and even the Great Bald Eagle with a leg-band. Their manner changes and turns them…aloof. But Levi, you are still family, and someday soon, I’m afraid, when I am too old to travel, and being that I was born there, I plan to settle in your kingdom and let you govern me; lest it be in the way of your good standing.”
“You and Tar are always welcome, Dark Raven. It’s our birthplace; where we all return when we grow old. My standing, yours, and Tar’s are the reason I am here.”
“You know my soft spot too well, Levi. Name your favor, cousin!”
“A storm came through and carried off a flock of pigeons. Only a single squab was spared. Same as the Great Spirit, he is white as the puffy clouds before a storm.”
