The Bark of the Bog Owl

by Jonathan Rogers

  For the first time since Aidan had arrived at the Meeting Hummock, a smile covered Dobro’s face. He clamped Aidan in a headlock and flipped him into a mayhaw tree, just to show how much he appreciated his kind words.

  “Say,” said Dobro, as he helped Aidan back down, “how ’bout we find one of them fishing parties? I believe some fishing would do me good.”

  Aidan agreed, and the two boys headed for the main creek bed. The dry ground of the hummock soon ran out, and Aidan found himself slogging through the very swamp he was trying to avoid when he first fell in with Jonko and Rabbo. Soon the sound of exuberant whooping echoed through the cypress trees.

  “Sounds like Doyno and Branko,” said Dobro, slowing down to listen. “They must be over at Mussel Bend. They’re the best fishermen you ever gonna meet. If there’s a catfish left in that creek, Doyno and Branko can find him.”

  Dobro quickened his pace, energized by the whooping of the fishermen. “Are they going to have enough poles for us?” asked Aidan.

  “What kind of poles?

  “Fishing poles.”

  “Naw, naw, naw. This is serious fishing. We ain’t got time for fishing poles—not when it’s nearbout time for the feast already.”

  Aidan’s curiosity was aroused. What sort of fishing would be more serious than pole fishing?

  “There they are!” announced Dobro pointing through the trees where the main channel ran. Aidan saw only one person where Dobro was pointing, a feechie youth about his age standing in water up to his chest. Suddenly, the water beside him exploded in a huge splash, and a second person emerged, holding a big gray catfish that reached halfway to his shoulder. Doyno and Branko resumed their victorious whooping.

  “Where did that catfish come from?” Aidan asked, his mouth open with wonderment.

  “He grabbled it.”

  “He did what?”

  “He grabbled it. He caught it with his hands.”

  Aidan gave Dobro a sidelong look. Dobro explained. “Nearbout every stump, every fallen log, every abandoned muskrat hole in this swamp got a big catfish hiding in it or under it. And that catfish believes he’s the true and rightful owner of that spot. Any other fish—redbelly, bluegill, punkin seed, pike, bigmouth, bugle mouth, warmouth, garfish, jackfish, mudfish, shad, eel, anybody but a catfish—you come poking around their hole, they scoot off in a hurry.” He waggled his hand to simulate a fish’s hasty retreat. “But not Old Whiskers. He’d rather fight you. So when you wiggle your fingers in front of his face, he’s sure to grab aholt of you. Then you pull him out. Only he’s going to be trying to pull you in.”

  Aidan stared in disbelief. “Have you ever done it?”

  “Sure,” answered Dobro. “All the time.” He showed Aidan his forearm, scarred from the rasping jaws of many catfish.

  “Doesn’t it hurt?” asked Aidan.

  Dobro thought for a second. “Yeah,” he said with a chuckle, “I reckon it does.”

  Another loud splash drew away Aidan’s attention. Branko had gone underwater. Half a minute later he broke the water’s surface again. In his right hand he gripped not another catfish but a cottonmouth snake. Its terrible white mouth was open so wide that it seemed to be folded inside out. The snake twisted and writhed, struggling to find something to sink its fangs into. “Haaawwwweeee!” whooped Branko.

  “That’s another thing,” Dobro pointed out. “Sometimes them holes and stumps got cottonmouths. Snapping turtles too. That’s something you got to watch out for.”

  Branko held the huge cottonmouth out where Doyno could get a good look at it. Then, to Aidan’s horror, Branko heaved the deadly snake onto his fishing partner. Doyno caught the snake like a hot potato and slung it into the woods in a single motion. Branko howled, laughing at his own joke. Doyno didn’t think it so funny to have a venomous snake thrown on him.

  “You trying to kill me?” Doyno bellowed. “Put ’em up, Branko. I aim to feel your short ribs.”

  Doyno shinned up a nearby cypress tree and dove down onto Branko’s back. The opponents whirled and splashed like a waterspout, lost to sight in a cascade of creek water. Dobro and Aidan jumped into the water and waded across to the place of combat.

  “Hold on there, boys,” said Dobro, raising his voice above the noise of the battle. Branko and Doyno stopped where they were, surprised to hear another voice. Doyno was holding Branko by the hair, about to dunk him under the water. “I hate to bust up your little frolic,” Dobro continued, “but I got somebody here ain’t never grabbled for catfish and wants to give it a try.”

  Aidan gave a start. He wanted to do no such thing. “Oh, I don’t know,” he began. “I don’t think that’ll be—”

  “Of course, sure, sure,” said Doyno, releasing Branko and wiping his hands on his tunic. “I know just the spot for a first-timer.”

  He led Aidan and Dobro across to a fallen tree, the roots of which jutted out of the water. “They’s usually a big one lurking up in there,” he said, pointing to the tangle of roots. “Every time I pull one out, next day one just as big has took his place. Just poke around in there. You’ll find one.”

  Aidan sidled over to the root tangle and pretended to feel around underwater. But his heart wasn’t in it. He had no desire to get bitten by a big catfish, and he certainly had no desire to get bitten by a snapping turtle or a cottonmouth.

  “Naw, naw, naw,” coached Doyno. “You won’t never catch him that-a-way. You got to reach way down yonder. If you ain’t ducking all the way under, you ain’t reaching down deep enough.”

  Doyno, it seemed, genuinely wanted Aidan to succeed. “Here,” he said, “I’ll go down there with you and show you where to look.”

  Doyno dove underwater, and Aidan saw no choice but to go after him. In the murky water, he could see very little besides light and shadow and movement. But he could see enough to tell that Doyno was pointing with animated jabs toward a shadowy spot near the creek’s sandy floor. Aidan halfheartedly stuck his hand in the gap where Doyno was directing. He didn’t wish to disappoint Doyno, but on the other hand, he wouldn’t try any harder than he had to.

  Aidan had hardly gotten his hand in the hole when two bony jaws clamped down on his wrist. His hand was in the slimy innards of a creature big enough to swallow his hand whole! His first reaction was to snatch his hand away. But the creature wasn’t letting go. Aidan pulled and strained, but the jaws only tightened on his wrist. As the struggle continued, Aidan could feel himself getting dizzy; he had blown out all his air in the initial shock, and he was getting desperate for a breath. He willed himself to make one last tug, and he pulled loose.

  When Aidan broke the surface of the water, his attacker was still latched onto his arm. It was the biggest catfish he had ever seen—a brownish, spotted monster with dull bluish eyes and whiskers as big around as Aidan’s little finger. The fish was as long as Branko’s cottonmouth and nearly as big around as Branko himself.

  “Haawwweeee!” whooped the feechies exultantly.

  “I ain’t never seen a first-timer do that!” yelled Doyno. “This here civilizer’s got what it takes!” He was thrilled with his student’s success and secretly felt that he deserved at least some of the credit himself.

  Aidan thought they were giving him too much credit. It was the catfish, after all, that had caught him, not the other way around. Nevertheless, the four fishermen, three feechies and a civilizer, marched their catch triumphantly to the Meeting Hummock, where the festivities were just getting started.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Another Feast

  The feasters marveled at Aidan’s catfish, and they all congratulated him for his skill and bravery. The cooks, who were beginning to doubt they would have enough fish for a proper feast, were especially grateful to have such a large quantity added to their store.

  Unlike the treaty feast at Tambluff Castle, there was very little pomp and ceremony at the feechie feast. The feechies wore the same clothes they had worn earlier in the day. They sat where they p
leased, or stood, if that’s what pleased them, for there were no tables anyway. There was no trumpeting or standing up or sitting down when Chief Gergo showed up. And whereas only the great nobles of Corenwald had been invited to Darrow’s treaty feast, the feechie feast was for the whole band, right down to the littlest wee-feechies.

  There were no entertainers at the banquet. The feechies entertained themselves with games and frolics of various sorts—tree-climbing contests, fire-jumping contests, a spitting contest (which Mrs. Turtlebane won), vine-swinging exhibitions, and the most ferocious wrestling matches Aidan had ever seen. Also, a few good-natured fistfights broke out, which was the custom at all feechie celebrations.

  Just as the games and contests seemed to be winding down, Aidan heard whooping and yodeling out in the swamp. Then the feechie feasters began a rhythmic chant:

  Alligator, grabble-gator

  Welcome to the feast.

  Catch a gator, snatch a gator,

  Scaly, scary beast.

  Rassle gator, hassle gator

  Boss of all the swamp.

  Tug a gator, hug a gator,

  Stomp and romp and chomp.

  Tussle gator, russle gator,

  Welcome to the feast.

  Grip a gator, flip a gator,

  Scaly, scary beast.

  The feechies had whipped themselves into a frenzy with their chanting when an eleven-foot alligator charged into the crowd, pursued by five or six feechie boys waving pine-knot torches. The alligator feared nothing besides fire, and now that he had the campfire in front of him and the torch fires behind him, he had nowhere left to run. He hissed and growled, lunged and snapped at the feechies who encircled him.

  The “gator grabble” was the highlight of the evening’s entertainment. It was a simple enough game. Odo Watersnake had made a “grabbling vine”—a loop woven from forest vines. Using a branch that was long enough to keep him out of the alligator’s reach, Odo looped the grabbling vine over the alligator’s head so that he wore it like a necklace. The object of the game was simply to remove the grabbling vine from the alligator’s head, using one’s bare hands.

  Everyone seemed to have his or her own technique for getting at the grabbling vine. Most involved sneaking up behind the alligator. But an alligator’s bulging eyes see behind as well as they see in front, and every time someone came at him from behind, the alligator whipped around and sent the contestant scrambling long before he got close enough to snatch the vine. Some contestants worked in pairs, one distracting the alligator, the other reaching in for the grabbling vine. But even in that case, the alligator had little trouble putting both feechies to flight. Benno Frogger, always something of a show-off, had a technique that involved coming at the alligator from the side in a diving somersault. But this method was more glamorous than effective; he was no more successful than the rest.

  Most of the feechiefolk had taken a turn—all the hefeechies, most of the she-feechies, and even a few weefeechies. It appeared that the alligator might go back into the swamp still wearing the grabbling vine. But then it was Aidan’s turn.

  Aidan leaped onto the alligator’s back, just as he had leaped onto Samson’s back, in that safe place right behind the alligator’s head, where neither snapping jaws nor thrashing tail could reach him. From that perch, he took his time untying the vine from around the alligator’s neck, in spite of the alligator’s thrashing gyrations. When Aidan handed the grabbling vine to Chief Gergo, the crowd whooped and cheered. More than once he heard himself described in the most glowing terms the feechies knew: “That young civilizer’s got what it takes!”

  By this time, the food was ready. The fare was not as sumptuous as the food served at Darrow’s treaty feast, but Aidan was famished after such a day as this, and he ate heartily and gratefully. Rather than plates, the feechies used mats of tightly woven palmetto fronds. The meal began with a salad of wild purple lettuces and leaves from the sweet bay tree. There were plums and mayhaws and citron melons. The catfish caught by the fishing parties had been cooked in the fire and brought out on bamboo sticks. The highlight of the meal—for the feechies, at least—was the serving of the lizard eggs. They had been buried for six months and dug up for the occasion, now that they were good and rotten. The feechies considered this a delicacy. Aidan considered the rotten eggs disgusting.

  As the feasters were finishing their dessert of roasted acorns, Gergo rose to his feet. “Friends,” he began, “we’re here to jubilate a new friend.”

  All eyes turned to Aidan. Gergo continued his speech. “Aidan of the Tam been doing things today that we didn’t think a civilizer could do. He heard the feechie watch-out bark and didn’t run off. He caught the biggest catfish ever cooked and ate at a feechie feast—and not the civilizer way either, all finicky with a pole and hook, but with his bare hands. He won the gator grabble. There ain’t no question: This civilizer has got what it takes.” The crowd cheered and hollered and stomped on the soft ground of the Meeting Hummock. When the feechies settled down again, Gergo continued.

  “But Aidan of the Tam is our guest tonight because he did something else we never thought we’d see a civilizer do: He saved a feechie’s life. He wasn’t paying no attention to his own safety when he rescued our Dobro Turtlebane from a panther.” More cheering erupted all around the Meeting Hummock.

  “And that’s why I declare that Aidan of the Tam is a feechiefriend, with all the rights and privileges that are due to a feechiefriend—that is to say, his fights is our fights, and our fights is his’n.” The crowd cheered again. “Hooray for the civilizer,” and “Three cheers for Aidan of the Tam!”

  “A feechiefriend has to have a feechie name,” continued the old chief. “Aidan killed a panther. His feechie name will be Pantherbane—Aidan Pantherbane.”

  Gergo motioned for Dobro to come to the forefront. He removed the panther cape from Dobro’s shoulders and, placing it on Aidan’s shoulders, he said, “It’s time we gave this panther cape to the person it belongs to.”

  The chieftain then nodded to Rabbo and Jonko, who brought stone pots containing a soupy mixture of gray swamp mud. They slathered the mud all over Aidan. It gave him the exact complexion of the feechiefolk. “This keeps the bugs off,” explained Gergo. Aidan wished he had had it earlier in the day, when the yellow flies were attacking. “It gives you a better color too,” Gergo added.

  “And now,” said Chief Gergo, “there’s one last thing.” He motioned Aidan over to a stump that had been covered with a mat of palmetto fronds like a tablecloth. “Kneel down here and place your arm across this stump, with your palm facing up. Relax as much as you can. This is going to burn a little bit.”

  Gergo nodded at Odo Watersnake, who was standing beside the fire. Odo reached a pair of bone tongs into a pile of orange coals at the fire’s edge. He pulled out a smoking chunk of carved limestone. Aidan watched nervously as Odo approached him, and he had to muster willpower he didn’t even know he had to keep from pulling his arm away as Odo pressed the burning stone against the underside of his forearm. Aidan bit his lip to keep from screaming as it seared his skin. He couldn’t keep the tears from streaming down his face.

  When Odo pulled the stone away, Gergo quickly poured a slimy substance over Aidan’s forearm and massaged it into the burn. To Aidan’s astonishment, the pain in his arm melted away. He inspected his forearm. Though he couldn’t feel the burn anymore, it had left a mark: an angry red scar, about as long as Aidan’s finger, in the precise shape of an alligator with open jaws and a curling tail.

  “Now you bear the feechiemark,” announced Gergo. “You’ll bear it all your life. Any feechie who sees this mark will know that you are a feechiefriend, and they’ll be a friend to you.”

  Gergo extended a hand to Aidan and helped him to his feet. He straightened the panther cape on Aidan’s shoulders, turned him to face the feechiefolk, and raised Aidan’s arm to show the feechiemark on his forearm. “Aidan Pantherbane,” he shouted. “Feechiefriend.”

/>   The feechiefolk answered with one voice: “Aidan Pantherbane, feechiefriend. His fights is our fights, and our fights is his’n!”

  The feechie feast continued well into the night, though the guest of honor missed much of it. Exhausted from his travels and the day’s trials, Aidan excused himself from the revels soon after the feechiefriend ceremony. Benno Frogger showed him to a vine hammock high in the crown of a live oak. There Aidan slept, just as soundly as if he were home in his own bed, blissfully unaware of the raucous whooping, arguing, singing, laughing, caterwauling, and general merrymaking below.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Battle Camp

  The next morning, Aidan was up with the sun, anxious to continue his journey upstream to the lime sink and on to the Bonifay Plain. Very few of the feechies were awake to see him off, and those few were awake only because they hadn’t yet gone to bed.

  Dobro had dozed his way through the night, leaning against the base of the oak tree where Aidan slept. He insisted on guiding Aidan on his journey as far as the Western Road. Aidan was only too glad to let him, both because he would enjoy the company and because he couldn’t possibly find his way otherwise.

  For most of the trip, they traveled the feechie way— swinging vine to vine, leaping branch to branch through the treetops. With his mud-gray skin and flying panther cape, Aidan looked like a native feechie. Aidan performed treetop acrobatics he would have never attempted alone. But he watched Dobro intently, putting his hands precisely where Dobro put his hands, leaping to the precise spots where Dobro leaped, and they progressed through the forest at a clip that Aidan wouldn’t have believed possible. There was still an hour left before noon when the boys stopped to rest in a tree overhanging the limestone sink that gave rise to Bayberry Creek.

  The Western Road was in sight. Here on the verge of the civilizers’ world the two friends would have to go their separate ways.

  Dobro stared absently at the green water fifteen feet below. He spoke for the first time since they had left the Meeting Hummock. “I don’t see why you couldn’t stay with us a little bit longer. We was having a good time, wasn’t we?”