White Bars

by David Dagley

  IX

  LATER THAT SAME day, Blair, a young loud blue jay, flew to the edge of an oak tree forest over looking Raccoon Straits and Angel Island. The oak trees had been carved by a harsh wind. Blair landed on the top branch of one of the trees and bobbed as he turned around, searching the hillside below. Blair saw what he was looking for, a large pile of sticks at the base of an oak tree. He flew down closer and screamed, “Hey! Hey! Is anybody home?”

  From the pile of sticks came a voice. “Yeah. Go away! Who’s askin’?”

  “It’s Blair from Fern Springs.”

  “Blair, huh? What brings you to Contact Point?” the voice said slowly and suspiciously. At the entrance to the pile of sticks a nose appeared, sniffing feverishly. A watchful eye squinted up to see Blair. A countryside pack rat emerged slowly and asked, “Did you see anything moving this way that I should know about?”

  Blair shook his head, then thought of something the pack rat might be interested in. “There’s nothing coming, but there’s a skunk road kill down on the lower road not far from here.”

  The pack rat nodded with appreciation and asked, “Does your clan know you’re out here? I could send word for you for cheap, maybe a couple of acorns you have hidden around these parts?” The pack rat relaxed at his entrance and continued, “It’s gonna be dark soon, and the fog’s a-comin’ in the mouth of the bay.” The pack rat pointed at the coastal mountains and continued, “Makes for no visibility. Low flyin’ noise makers such as yourself just askin’ for a headache. I remember ol’ Gus a-flyin’ inta windas cuza the fog. You remember ol’ Gus, don’t ya boy? He’d fly straight inta ..... “

  “Quiet, please. Have you seen Virgil yet? It’s important,” exclaimed Blair.

  “Why no. He’ll be along shortly. I heard him barkin’ up top the hill a bit ago. What’s on your mind, boy? I can tell him for ya easy enough,” offered the pack rat. “You seem a bit more nervous than usual, doin’ all that bobbin’ and weavin’. I’m a-thinkin’ you need to slow down, take a deep breath, and then tell me what’s goin’ on.”

  Blair took a deep breath and explained, “Reo flew into the Fern Springs with a red-alien from the pet shop. It turns out to be Romeo’s lady friend. Reo took a BB to the chest. He asked me to fly here and get word to Carleton, a man, through Virgil, the dog.”

  A fog horn blew. Blair flew back to the top of the oak tree and looked out over the bay. Fingers of fog grew in the valleys running down the mountain ridge. A red bridge vanished in the fog.

  ‘Where’s ol’ Reo the crow now? At the springs, ya say?” asked the pack rat while he chewed on a twig. He put his elbows on a ledge near his entrance of his home.

  Another pack rat coughed from a large ball of sticks high up in a nearby oak tree. His house was centered on an abandoned bird nest filled with down feathers and soft thin grasses. The nest was partially covered by a dome of sticks. Around the edge was a walking path. The pack rat in the tree pointed up the hillside and said, “Virgil’s over yonder by the slump pond below Poison Oak Grove. He’s a-wallowin’ in the pond from yesterday’s rain. I heard his master tryin’ to keep ol’ Virg from coolin’ himself off. Doesn’t the man know?” The pack rat shook his head and said, “They’ll come along shortly.”

  Blair looked back down the tree and saw a small colony of rat nests. He flew down to an inside branch and continued to hop down the tree. The forest was peaceful. Pack rats began emerging from their nests. Blair noticed that all the nests were made of oak tree twigs and bay leaves piled high. Some nests had lots of entry holes around them, and other nests had only one. All the pack rats watched Blair suspiciously, while sniffing and listening to the winds - waiting for the familiar jingle of Virgil’s dog tags or some sound of recognition.

  While they all waited, one of the pack rats stuck his head out of a hole and asked Blair, “Hey, whose house looks better to you?”

  “Oh, don’t start with that. The bird just got here,” responded another pack rat, lounging on a makeshift twig bench.

  “Well, I want to know,” spoke a third rat.

  Blair thought he would be polite, and told the first pack rat, “Your house is very nice.”

  Other pack rats began laughing. One pack rat raised his voice above the laughter. “That house is not nice, it’s a dump.”

  “Is not,” said the owner.

  “Is too,” argued a neighbor.

  Another pack rat ganged up and said, “Yeah, I used to throw my garbage there until you poked your head out of it.”

  The pack rat high in the oak tree laughed with his fellow pack rats. He buckled over, holding his belly, and happened to look down at his feet. He noticed a shadow creep on to his balcony and grow, rapidly consuming the sunlight. The shadow continued to forge a path over the pack rat’s body and eventually covered his front entrance. The pack rat was pinned by a late afternoon shadow that was growing wider over him. He looked up slowly into the sun and tried to focus. A toothpick he had been working on fell out of his mouth as his jaw dropped open. His eyes widened in horror, and he yelled, “Incoming!” The pack rat put his hands over his head while running deep into his ball of sticks and braced for impact.

  Blair looked around as the other pack rats ran for cover. He looked up and saw a yellow tennis ball racing towards the oak trees. The ball collided with the lookout nest above him. Sticks exploded and fell down everywhere, sounding against the dry leaves like hail. The ball bounced down through the tree branches and came to rest against a fallen dead oak tree’s trunk. Blair flew down to a branch of the downed tree just above the ball. Virgil’s dog tags jingled louder. Blair could hear Virgil panting and thrashing through the underbrush and tall grass at a full run. Big and yellow, Virgil crashed through the forest edge bounding down the hill, nose to the ground, tongue flapping and slobber trailing.

  Virgil was in complete concentration with tail wagging, panting, “Ball, ball, ball, ball, ball, ball, ball.” He raced around a bush, paused, stuck his nose in the leaves, sniffed, turned and put his nose to the ground again, looking and smelling for the ball. He searched quickly, not looking where he was going.

  Blair shouted, “Virgil!”

  Virgil froze. His ears perked up and his tail stopped still. He cocked his head to one side looking at Blair. “Ball?”

  “Hi Virgil,” said Blair. “Look, I don’t have much time to explain. I was told to find you and tell you that Reo has fallen from the sky and is resting at Fern Springs. You are to find Carleton and take him there as soon as you can.”

  Virgil looked at his ball wedged against the log. “Ball!”

  “Take it with you, but please remember to get help for Reo.”

  “Get ball, get help, got it.”

  A man up the hill whistled and called for Virgil.

  Virgil turned his head quickly, throwing a rope of slobber at Blair which stuck to his feathers. “Yuck!”

  “I gotta go. I’ll do it. See you there,” assured Virgil. He pounced on his ball and loped back up the hillside. Virgil broke through the forest into the tall grass clearing and ran straight to his owner. He dropped the ball at the man’s feet and backed up, tail wagging, and barked, “Ball, ball, ball!”

  The man delicately picked up the slobber-saturated ball and hurled it down the hillside in another direction.

  Virgil ran after the ball, yellow body against golden grass.

  The man bent down and wiped his hand on the grass at his feet before walking after his dog. They disappeared over the ridge on their way home.

  Blair announced, “I’ve got to get back. Thanks for your help and company. Good-bye.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t be a stranger. You’re always welcome. Just keep your noise down,” said a pack rat from a nest up the hill from the others. He was standing out on a terraced entrance.

  From an older, more weathered mound of sticks and twigs, another pack rat added, “You know where to come if you want to send a message to anybody. We can reach the president!”

&nb
sp; “Oh hush. You couldn’t reach the park ranger if he kicked your pile,” said the pack rat up the hill.

  “What’s wrong with my pile? Why would the park ranger want to kick my pile?” asked the pack rat from the weathered home.

  The pack rat on the terraced entrance gathered a small pile of sticks and put them down, representing his neighbors’ house, and replied, “I know I ’d kick it. Just look at it. It looks like a pile of sticks.”

  The pack rat with the weathered home looked around at all the nests. “They all look like piles of sticks. What’s wrong with you?”

  After saying goodbye, Blair flew above the tree tops, screaming as he tried to beat the fog. The forest trees changed as Blair climbed the mountainside towards Fern Springs. Oak trees mingled with bay trees and madrones, pine trees on the ridges and the redwood trees down in the steep valleys to the west. Giant ferns bracketed the streams in the valley centers. Behind Blair, fog continued to flow over the mountain ridge along the coast.

  Soren and Romeo were on that coastal ridge, high up on the mountain out of the fog. They sat watching the sun go down over the ocean, behind a thin band of fog pushing against the hillside below. Soren and Romeo had settled into a grove of old growth pines. The sun was setting orange over blue water. Foreboding thunderclouds with red and orange flamed edges swept separately across the sun. Smaller clouds trailed off in the distance.

  Romeo spotted something moving at the edge of a clearing down the mountainside. “Soren, there are some deer coming up into the clearing. Do you see them? The first one will be the youngest, followed by last year’s young adult, and then comes Mom.”

  Soren sat silently watching as the deer walked diagonally across the open sloping field, heads up, ears and tails twitching in all directions as they strut together, stride for stride, one after the other.

  A branch from high in a tree somewhere deep in the forest cracked and fell, snapping loudly as it hit the ground.

  All three deer froze with their heads, ears and eyes turned facing the noise.

  “What was that, Mom?” nervously asked the fawn.

  “Did you hear that, Mom?” questioned the second deer, a young male.

  “Quiet. You can’t hear anything if you’re talking. Listen,” said the mother deer calmly.

  The young fawn briskly pranced into a run. “I’m outta here.”

  The brother and mother skipped along after her and out of sight.

  A moment passed. Romeo concluded, “They’re very skittish animals, but peaceful.”

  Soren nodded and remained silent, taking in every new noise and animal he had never seen before, gradually more aware. The two listened to the wind hush the forest into evening tranquility. The shadows grew into the darkness of night. Stars began to appear, and then the moon. Romeo’s eyes dropped into sleep.

  On the forest floor somewhere up the hill and across a fire road, some animals were on the move and arguing back and forth. Soren heard it first and nudged Romeo to wake. Romeo opened his eyes slowly and then heard the commotion. Romeo recognized the sounds, “Raccoons, a small band of them. They’re the best prowlers in the area. I’ve been told many stories of how they outsmart the humans sometimes. I’ve also heard some very funny stories about their curiosity, and the trouble they get into because of it.”

  Soren watched as the raccoons moved closer, hunched bodies waddling gingerly across the fire road and down the hillside, still arguing.

  “It wasn’t my fault the vase fell. She didn’t have a rat last week, it scared me,” apologized one raccoon.

  “Is that when you decided you could fly from the second floor? Why were you upstairs anyway? The food is in the big white box. People sleep upstairs, food is downstairs,” informed another.

  The first raccoon replied, “I was curious, that’s why I was upstairs. Only one door was open so I went in. I looked in the bed and there was this big red ball of hair sleeping there, then I heard something on the table. When I looked out the window, I saw you guys, so. I waved. That’s when the rat screamed at me from its cage behind the vase. It startled me. I screamed and jumped through the window. My feet caught on a tablecloth of some sort. As I broke through the window the vase and the cage shot off the table. I think the cage broke open along with the vase.”

  “Yeah, and the rat is very probably trying to get into the big white box downstairs, like we should have been doing,” remarked the leader of the troop, a bigger shadow than the rest of them. “Let’s not talk about it anymore. I’m hungry.”

  The raccoons strolled into the tall grass below Romeo and Soren, still bickering about their bungled burglary.

  Soren thought of the rat in the pet shop. “Romeo, I think those raccoons are talking about a rat that was bought at the pet shop the other day. What’s his name? Grease. Yes, that’s the rat’s name. The black rat, Grease, was bought by a young girl with red hair. She was going to feed him to her pet snake, Rufus.”

  “I remember him. That would be his luck if he’s free and not snake food by now. That little girl buys lots of animals; none of them are ever seen again, ever. Let’s talk about this tomorrow; I need to get some rest. I think tomorrow you’ll meet many animals at Fern Springs, maybe even a young man, a friend of Reo’s, if the connection at Contact Point is successful.”

  “You mean Carleton.”

  “Yes. Go to sleep.”

  The two birds resettled into the night. Distant waves crashed and echoed up from the shoreline at the base of the mountain side. The heat of the day had pushed up and over the ridge, followed by the fog creeping through the forest.

  Fern Springs had gone quiet as well. A small group of toads sat around the remaining embers of a fire. All their eyes were wide open, as if mesmerized by the wavering glow of the coals reflecting off their creamy white underbellies. A nearby pond mirrored the stars in the sky, framed by the dark silhouette of the surrounding redwood trees. An old log cabin sat buried in moss and fallen branches harboring the unmistakable sound of a man’s subtle nasal rhythms.

  Carleton slept on a tattered dirty mattress on top of a rusty metal spring frame. A black wood-burning stove with a broken smokestack stood in the corner. A thick candle dripped over the edge of the stove and drooled wax on to a multi-colored spire forming on the dirt floor below. A dusty chair lay on its side with only three legs. The fourth leg lay nearby broken in half. A small window looked out to the fire pit and to the pond beyond. Spiderwebs covered the corners in triangles. Powdered dead flies balled up on the sill. Rusty coffee cans and bean cans had been stacked against the wall, along with a few tins of black shoe polish. Fife slept loosely cradled in Carleton’s arms, sheltered by his trench coat. Virgil, the yellow lab, drifted in and out of sleep at the entrance. As the forest moved, Virgil’s ears twitched to listen. A raccoon washed his hands at the edge of the pond. A cricket chirped in the dark.

  Before the sun came up, Virgil rose with the birds. He trotted off through the woods on his way home for breakfast. His jingling tags faded into the break of dawn. Fife awoke and moved to perch on the foot rail of Carleton’s cot. He sat looking out the door and into the trees. The toads had long since left the fire circle leaving just their body impressions in the thick moss. The surface of the pond was glass. Green lilies huddled together on the far side. Birds began to call to one another.

  Carleton opened his eyes slowly. The sun peppered the trees and ferns with sunlight. Steam rose in translucent wisps from the morning heat. Ferns and spiderwebs sparkled with dew drops of every color. Sunlight shot through the window and struck Carleton’s eyes. He squinted and sat forward, looking out the window and then at Fife. Fife didn’t move. Together, they watched the morning stretch and yawn with life around the spring.

  “Are you better today?”

  “Yes.”

  Carleton and Fife heard a flutter from outside the cabin door. In flew Romeo and Soren. The dust and old spiderwebs on the sill jolted from the gust of their wings.

  “Ah, it’s a good
day to be free,” exclaimed Romeo.

  “Hear, hear,” replied Fife.

  “Hear, hear,” said Soren.

  “Soren, Romeo, it’s good to see you both. This is my friend Carleton. He’s come to help me get better. He’s a good man. You can trust him, I do. He means no harm to me or any of my friends.”

  Soren looked at Carleton and in a mimic said, “Hello.”

  Carleton smiled and responded, “Hello.”

  “Fife, this is the same man that dropped you off at the pet shop,” said Soren.

  “Yes, he is. It was all planned from the beginning.”

  Carleton looked at Soren. “I see you are covered in shoe polish too. You must be the other myna bird from the pet shop?”

  Soren nodded.

  Carleton reached out a finger for Fife to climb up on. Fife hopped up, and Carleton adjusted his posture to lean against the wall behind his bed. He pulled out a handkerchief and gently began taking some of the heavy shoe polish off of Fife. Fife sat motionless.

  “Hey! Where’s Juliet? She’s got to be as hot as the sun by now. I didn’t tell her of my plan at the pet shop. I’ll come back and see you all later if I can settle her feathers, and if not, I’ll just see you around the spring somewhere.” Romeo flew away, not waiting for a reply.

  “Soren, please, fly in and perch on the end of the bed, there on the rail,” invited Fife.

  Soren flew out above the fire ring, returned through the door and landed gracefully on the rail. “You look much better.”

  “Thanks to Carleton. Did Romeo show you the ocean?”

  “Yes. It was beautiful and big. Like you said, there’s a lot to see and understand about the outside world.”

  The morning shadows swayed silently across the cabin. Soren hopped up and spun around so he could look out the doorway of the cabin. He could hear the faint trickle of water from the edge of the pond and the increasingly loud buzz of insects. A ballistic insect flew through the door and pulled a U-turn in the cabin. Soren looked over his shoulder, saw the bug coming at him and ducked his head. The bug zipped back out the door and zigzagged back towards the open area above the pond. “Do you ever get hit by those things?”