The Owl Hunt

by Richard S. Wheeler

  Even as they pulled up, an enormous man emerged from the cabin, his wavy hair tinged with gray, his black gabardine attire a feeble effort to maintain some gentility. It would be Yardley Dogwood himself. In short order, half a dozen other cowboys boiled out of the small cabin and stared.

  “I do believe we’ve caught the rustlers red-handed,” said the nameless cowboy who had brought them here.

  Dogwood peered into the wagon bed, observed the antelope, and sniffed.

  “Ah declare, you’ve caught them straightaway,” he said. “I guess we’ll perform some immediate and final justice.”

  “What’s so pissant pleasant about this, Yardley, is that this pup is no less than old Skye’s half-breed brat, and that’s his old squaw,” the captor announced. “And it ain’t over. This pissant boy, he’s the property of the government of the United States, the same that had its way with Texas. This pissant, he’s the teacher over there at the Wind River Agency, teachin’ them red buggers how to steal cows, looks like.”

  “You don’t say. An employee of the damned United States government? Guilty as sin,” Dogwood said.

  “We haven’t rustled a thing. We were hunting!” North Star snapped.

  “That there antelope, it’s sure dead. Now, boy, that antelope was rustled. Fact is, I own every antelope, deer, elk, bear, wolf, raccoon, weasel, prairie dog, and mosquito on this range. And you’ve gone and rustled my meat. Everything on my range is mine, boy, all mine.”

  North Star felt like shouting, but there was no replying to an argument like Dogwood’s.

  “Speak up, boy, speak up! Yoah lookin’ a little pale around the gills, yes sir, even through that Injun face. Must be Skye blood making you pale. What you want? A trial? We’ll have us a trial. Ah’m the judge and this here’s the jury and you’ll get a measure of real Texas justice.”

  It was best not to speak. Victoria was cackling.

  “Old witch, shoulda took care of her eight years ago when she crossed my land without my say-so,” Dogwood said. “But now justice knocks twice.

  “Now, then, the prosecution’ll bring the charges. There’s forty beeves gone, give or take, and who knows where they went? Feedin’ the nits and lice over yonder, beyond the red mountains. Now we got us a wagon with a dead antelope in it for an excuse. You got anything to say, boy?”

  There wasn’t.

  Dogwood heaved his weight forward a little. “Gents? What’s your verdict?”

  “Rope!” yelled one.

  “Two ropes!” yelled another.

  “Yonder’s a mighty fine lookin’ cottonwood,” Dogwood said.

  twenty-two

  Dogwood hefted himself around to face Dirk and his mother Victoria. He scratched at his chin whiskers and lifted in his vast belly so it would set better over his belt.

  “Ah do declare, you’ve had yourself a proper jury trial, and them jurors, they came up with a conviction, fair and proper. Therefoah, I’m condemnin’ you to hang by the neck until expired. Any questions?”

  Dirk knew better than to say anything. But Victoria laughed, her faint wheeze sandpapering the assembled drovers and Yardley Dogwood himself.

  “You got the funniest sense of humor I ever did see,” Dogwood said.

  Off in the cottonwoods, the magpies were making a ruckus. Dirk saw scores of them, white-bellied black birds, rowdy as blue jays, insolent as crows. It looked to be a magpie convention over there, with more magpies flying in from everywhere. That was odd; magpies didn’t flock, and they wintered in the north. But there they were, collecting among the cottonwoods.

  “All right, let’s get this here act of justice a-going,” the rancher said. “Jason, you git the wagon down there under the limb, and it’ll be a handy drop.”

  Jason grabbed the lines and drew the wagon toward the cottonwoods, setting up an awful cackle among the magpies. Victoria whickered, and Dirk thought the old woman was daft. But Magpie was her spirit helper, and her magpie medicine had been with her all her years. Many was the story she told of the ways Magpie—she always used the proper name—had come to her and Dirk’s father in moments of trouble.

  Jason led the wagon under a limb of a noble cottonwood and let it rest there. The rest of the cowboys, all still on horseback, collected there, and Dogwood drove his black buggy there also.

  “All right now, we’ll do this right smart. Someone make some nooses.”

  The cowboys stared at one another.

  “I seen it done,” one said, “but I never done it.”

  “Well, give her a try.”

  Several cowboys undid the lariats from their saddles, and tackled the noose knot, with little effect. The magpies were making loud complaint, their white and black bodies springing from limb to limb, or sailing around the gathering.

  “Maybe we’ll shoot a few of them magpies if they get pesky,” Dogwood said. “Anyone got a scattergun?”

  No one did.

  Dirk felt a deepening sickness in his heart.

  Two or three more drovers wrestled with nooses, but they all came undone, or wouldn’t let a rope slide through.

  “I ‘magine we’ll just have to do her with lassos,” one said.

  “That would be fine, mighty fine, fittin’ and proper,” Dogwood said. “I declare they’re gonna swing from lassos. Suits rustlers mighty fine.”

  Two lassos were thrown over that fat limb, which disturbed the magpies even more. Some sailed by, curious about what was disturbing their gathering.

  Jason drove the wagon until it was directly under the limb.

  “Lady and gent, you gonna stand up for the fitting of the necktie, or do we stand you up?” Dogwood asked.

  The rest of the cowboys were crowding close now, most of them on their horses, watching the proceedings with glinted eyes. One of them swallowed hard, and others were licking their lips.

  “Well, don’t just set there on your worthless asses, help out!” Dogwood growled. Jason was adjusting the lassos higher, but the pesky magpies were swirling around him.

  “Damned birds; what’s wrong with them, anyhow?”

  He yelled and cussed and flapped his arms, but the magpies didn’t cease pestering him, dodging his swings and fluttering close, black and white bellies and wings, iridescent feathers, and raucous chattering.

  “You don’t need to tie up; just roll that rope around a time or two, and it’ll hold long enough to bust a couple of necks,” another drover said.

  “Gotta get the length right. You two stand, you hear?”

  There was no escaping this. Nothing left.

  “Stand up now, Granny,” a cowboy said.

  Victoria set aside the blanket that had wrapped her and stood quietly. A cowboy dropped a lasso over her shoulders and pulled it snug. Then he rolled the other end twice over the limb, leaving enough to hang onto if the rope slipped.

  “All right now, breed boy, yoah next for the fitting.”

  The sky turned black with magpies. Hundreds of them, whirling everywhere. Magpies alighting and departing, landing on horses, pecking at rumps, landing on Yardley Dogwood, black on black.

  “Yeouch!” Dogwood yelled, flapping at a magpie that had just pecked him in the neck. “Varmints outa hell! Chase ‘em away!”

  The collected cowboys howled and waved ropes and waved arms, but the magpies only whirled closer. One landed on a horse’s head and began pecking the eyes of the horse. It screeched and sawed its head, but another began pecking its rump until the horse began bucking.

  A dozen landed on a cowboy’s horse and began pecking rump and ears and nose and eyes. Another handful landed on the cowboy, pecking neck and face and hands and shoulders. The horse exploded, and birds whirled away.

  “Ow!” yelled the cowboy, lashing every which way.

  Another army of magpies descended on other horses, pecking rumps and heads, necks and withers, while still more landed on cowboys’ hats and shoulders, splattering white stuff over the horses and men, cackling all the while, until the cackle turned int
o screams.

  Dirk sat in the wagon, agog at what whirled before him, unaware that no bird assailed him or Victoria or the dray or the wagon. Victoria quietly removed the lasso from her neck, and stood watching, while magpies swirled everywhere, wheeling into combined bombardments, assailing one horse and rider after another, until most of the horses were wheeling and rearing and pawing, and cowboys were tumbling off and running away, pursued by still more birds.

  “Stop this here wicked business, bloody birds, or ah’ll whup you Texas-style,” Dogwood cried, but a magpie landed square in his face, its claws clutching his big nose, and began pecking his eyes and cheeks. He screeched, and tumbled backward, his hands finally flailing the bird off.

  Birds sailed to the ground, lashed by horse tails, only to wallow back to their feet and flutter away, regrouping for another assault. Some magpies landed on slouch hats and began pecking at heads, working through felt to rap at skull and hair, until vexed cowboys lifted their hats to shake them off. Other magpies settled on the back of the agency dray, waiting for a chance to enter the fray again.

  “Ah declare, death on all magpies,” Dogwood cried, withdrawing a small revolver from somewhere in his ample clothing. But a magpie landed on his face again, pecking fiercely even as the revolver discharged.

  Another cowboy withdrew his iron, this time aiming at Dirk, but a dozen magpies landed on his face and others on his shooting arm, causing it to spasm, and the shot went wild. Dirk ducked and pulled Victoria with him, but she swiftly clambered to her feet again, joy permeating her seamed face.

  No bird had touched her. Or Dirk. Nor had any bird assaulted the dray, or the wagon. Not even the dead antelope in the bed. He stared, unbelieving, at the magpies everywhere. They were no longer darkening the sky, but were ganged up on targets: a cowboy here, a frantic horse there. One cowboy broke for the line camp a hundred yards distant, slapping and howling, and then others broke, too, and then Yardley Dogwood clambered up, lifted his belly over his belt, and lumbered after the rest, chased by scores, hundreds, uncountable numbers of magpies driving them away.

  The lassos hung forlornly from the great tree.

  Dirk couldn’t fathom what had happened but he knew they remained in great danger. There would be rifles in that line camp. He leapt to the ground, gathered the lines, got onto the seat, and urged the dray away, turning the animal directly away from the camp.

  “Best get low,” he said to Victoria.

  She ignored him. A hundred magpies alighted on the walls of the wagon box, and rode quietly with the wagon, and dozens more settled on the back of the dray, swaying with the horse’s movement.

  Victoria laughed.

  “I don’t get it,” he said.

  “There is nothing to get, North Star. Goddamn magpies, they didn’t like those Texans.”

  The magpies rode the wagon as if it were a victory parade, swaying with the wagon as it progressed.

  “But Grandmother, this was your medicine.”

  “I’m too old for medicine.”

  “But Grandmother, this couldn’t just happen. It’s impossible.”

  “Then don’t believe it happened.”

  “But Grandmother…” He gave up. There could not be an answer. There would not be an explanation in the white men’s texts. No naturalist could explain it. And then he knew all this was something outside of the world of white men. The men huddled in the cabin would blame it on the season, or molting, or hunger, or the approach of fall, or something, anything, else.

  “I will be North Star, Grandmother.”

  “Your father would be pleased, North Star.”

  “I can never tell this to anyone.”

  She laughed softly.

  “Maybe Owl. Maybe Owl would know,” he said.

  “Damned boy. He don’t know nothing.”

  They drove around a shoulder, up into sagebrush, and the magpies deserted them. They took off in bunches, abandoning the walls of the wagon box, and seemed to rise as a cloud, and then vanished.

  North Star watched, troubled, wanting to see them fly away. But they were gone.

  He reined the dray to a stop. Suddenly he felt drained. In the briefest of time, he had gone from life to death to life, and had seen something beyond fathoming. He sank deep in his wooden seat, utterly lost to anything but the fact that he lived. Blood coursed his veins. He saw, he heard, he thought, he felt.

  Grandmother Victoria leaned across and drew his hand into the parchment of her own, and held his hand. How could an eternity have come and gone? But it had, and now he was back in the world he knew. The Shoshone world, and the world of his mother, the Absaroka.

  He rested, not wanting to start the wagon moving, but just to sit in static wonder in this hollow choked with sagebrush, which smelled aromatic in the moist air. Victoria said nothing, but held his hand in her ancient one, sharing wordlessly what they had seen and felt, and the mysteries of all of it.

  “How long ago did Magpie come to you, Grandmother?”

  “I was a girl, maybe twelve winters. Who gives a damn?”

  “When you had the vision, where were you?”

  “Up in the hills at a sacred place. I didn’t cry for four nights and days. I just spread a robe and waited, and if a vision would come, I would be pleased. That’s all.”

  “Did Magpie promise you something?”

  “I’m too old to remember, North Star.”

  “Did you foresee Magpie coming into your life?”

  “Hell no. I went back to the village and told the shaman I’d had a vision. He honored it, but didn’t think much of it. Boys had visions. Girls, well, hell, North Star. Who knows what a woman is?”

  North Star didn’t understand at all, but that was fine. Maybe no person of two bloods could understand any secrets. He slapped his lines over the dray, and it tugged the wagon westward and out of the bottoms where improbable things had happened, things he would try to forget because they made no sense.

  “Lots of antelope where we are going, eh?” she said.

  “I hope so. Maybe we can get more.” But then he realized, sadly, that his father’s fine Sharps was no longer in the wagon.

  “I don’t have my father’s rifle, Grandmother. The cowboy has it, and won’t return it.”

  “Well, hell, boy, we got some meat to give to the People, and that’s good,” she said.

  twenty-three

  Death sat beside Dirk all the way back to the reservation. Death was there, coloring his every thought. He could think, see, feel, hear, but Death was smiling at him all the while. He felt very small.

  They reached the crest of the Owl Creek Mountains, and dropped steadily into the reservation, the wagon bouncing over a nonexistent road. Victoria swayed beside him, her eyes shut, wrapped up in the old blanket that excluded him from her world.

  When they reached the Wind River Valley, he thought what to do. He spotted an encampment of the People, and headed toward it. He saw a headman, old Giver, and drew up near his lodge even as others in the camp flooded his way. Victoria woke up and smiled.

  “Greetings, Grandfather Giver. I’ve been hunting, and I’ve come to give you meat,” he said, nodding to the antelope in the wagon bed.

  “Ah! It is a good meat, and the People will have a feast,” Giver said. “We thank you, North Star. And we greet the Crow woman.”

  Dirk stepped down, lowered the tailgate, and slid the antelope off the wagon, while the silent crowd watched. They were dancing and drumming in their hearts with the thought of real food, not white men’s flour.

  Two younger men swiftly hung the animal to a limb and set to work with knives while the crowd watched. Everything would be eaten. And the hide put to good use.

  “Where did you find this antelope, North Star?” the old headman asked.

  “On the other side of the mountains, Grandfather.”

  “Ah,” said the old one. “There would be meat there, is it not so?”

  “A little, but hard to find, Grandfather.”


  The old headman smiled. “It is a good day when we can have a feast,” he said.

  Dirk saw about fifteen Shoshone adults and a few children. It wouldn’t be much of a feast, he thought. But to them it would be.

  “We must go now,” he said, and offered his farewells to the rest.

  They watched silently as he hawed the dray toward the river. He found a crossing, made his way over gravel until he hit the channel, and water tumbled over the floorboards and the dray was swimming. Grandmother Victoria lifted her feet, and then they were driving up an incline and out. He wished he had his father’s skill at crossing a river.

  A mile farther he ran into a column from the fort. He halted his wagon and watched the trotting horses approach, by twos, and realized Captain Cinnabar himself was commanding. The column halted before the wagon, forming a wall of bluecoats on this chill day, men with elaborate mustachios surveying him eagerly.

  “You, is it?” the captain asked. “With the agency wagon.”

  North Star didn’t feel much like talking. At the moment he’d had his fill of white men, especially those with guns.

  “You remember my Crow mother, Victoria, Captain?”

  “Skye’s woman.”

  “My father’s wife.”

  Cinnabar grinned. “As you wish, young feller. And what brings you here?”

  “Hunting,” Dirk said.

  “Looks like you had no luck.”

  “And what brings you with a large patrol, Captain?”

  “Rustling, boy. We’ve had complaints. Rancher up in the Big Horn Basin says he’s lost a lot of beef, hundred or more. We’re going to put a stop to it. It’s those Dreamers hiding out in the hills, and if we catch any with beef hanging from a tree, we’ll do some hanging of our own.”

  “I see. My father devoted a lot of his time driving the ranch cattle off the reservation.”

  “Yes, and that’s caused bad blood with white settlers, boy. They have long memories.”

  “Because my father tried hard to keep them from stealing grass from the People?”

  Cinnabar grinned. “Let’s just say your pa was not popular with Yardley Dogwood and some of the others up there.”