Category Archives: -Phil Rosette

Crow Story, Part Eight

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For Laramie, Whenever I May Find Her

 

I come to find out that the dog’s name is Winter. The poor dog is a bright fluffy white, except for the specks of dirt and leaves and the red splotch around her rear left leg. Having felt her shiver in my arms and heard her whimper in the car all the way over here, knowing her name is of slight consolation. Knowing she has humans to take care of her would be better.

She was not wearing a collar, but thanks to a microchip implant, the doggy doctor is able to track down the owner. It just so happens that Winter lives about four doors down from me. I have never seen her before, nor do I recognize the name of the owner. Sign of the times, I reflect. A man never cares about his neighbors anymore, but will put a microchip in his dog when it runs away.

Gracie and Joker have been waiting patiently in the car for about 15 minutes by now. I told the receptionist that I would not be leaving the dog’s side until her owner showed up, but I am also conscious of my dogs and their bladders, so I decide to call my wife.

“Phil?”

“Hi, dear.”

“Where are you?”

I proceed to tell her the story of Jeremy’s re-appearance, the chase, and discovering Winter. “It was crazy, Mo. I’m still catching my breath.”

“Did they find the dog’s owner?”

“Yeah, he’s on his way. He lives a few doors down from us… Hey would you be able to come by and pick the dogs up? I feel like I need to stay here with Winter.”

“Why do you need to do that? You just said the owner was on his way.”

“Call it a hunch. Nothing this bird has done so far has been an accident. I’m guessing there’s something more to him leading me to this dog than just a rescue mission.”

“Well, alright then. I was about to go shopping anyway.”

We exchange our “love-ya’s” and our “see-ya-soons,” and hang up our phones.

Sitting here in the lobby of the doggy hospital, I struggle to put it all together. From the moment this bird entered my life, everything has had a mystic air to it. The feeding frenzy he procured for his flock after scaring that squirrel into the jaws of my dogs; the charm bracelet with the due date of our miscarried first-born; rescuing the fawn in my underwear in the park; and being led to a broken dog in a tipi. None of this can be coincidental. It simply must have a purpose. I have seen far too many coincidences to believe in them anymore.

I recall the video lessons of the Crow Stalker, but learning the calls and the body language of the birds only gives me the substrate. I recall the Legend of Sun Breast, but it doesn’t make any more sense to me than it did the day I read it. Herman Blackclaw died in Laramie at the same time my wife and I were on our honeymoon. But what does it mean? I resolve to spend some more time on the Seven Suns website when I return from the pale green waiting room of the pet ER. There’s got to be something I’m missing.

The pictures of the tipi Mo and I stayed in – now carried in my wallet – stand in stark contrast to the drab surroundings in which I currently sit. I pull them out, unfold them, and flip back and forth. My eyes pour over the creased Kodaks. Unsure what to look for, I frantically dart back and forth from detail to detail. Maybe all I’m missing is a single puzzle piece, some minute point within these images to trigger a memory, to make a connection, to turn into that eureka! moment that I’ve been so desperate for.

The photos of the inside of the tipi offer no such moment. The headdress, the animal skins, the owl… the white owl. Well, it was the same color as the broken dog I just rescued, and they were both on the inside of the tipi. The words “seems like a stretch” slip out of my mouth. Nevertheless, I add “owls” to the things to look up when I return home.

On the outside, the bison and horses dancing on the plain on the outside of the tipi vaguely remind me of the dogs at the park, if the dogs were about 4 times bigger. Pitched against the rolling field of wheat, they appear playful. The brave, standing tall with his bow and his hatchet, looks stoically off in the distance. And then there’s that damned black bird, watching, waiting, knowing. The way the photo is creased, I can flap the bird’s wings by folding and unfolding it.

That provides some slight amusement for a while. My brain has been grasping for a pattern that doesn’t want to present itself – an unmanifest destiny, I think, and chuckle aloud. I have been thinking about this for too long. And lo, in this brief state of mental relaxation, I see something I had not seen before in the photos: a man in the background. “What? Who are you?”

At that very moment, the bell above the door swiftly clangs, and a tall, determined man enters. He wastes no time moving to the vacant reception desk.

“Where is my dog? Where is Winter??”

“Just a moment!” comes a voice from the back. The man raps his fingers on the desk and nervously leans back and forth. I decide not to introduce myself until he’s been assuaged by the receptionist. Impatient, he turns and looks directly at me. A sudden glimmer of recognition sweeps his steely gaze, as though I return it with a furrowed brow. Just as he opens his mouth to say something, the sweet voice of an elderly woman drifts through the doors.

“Are you Mr. Nomee?”

“Yes, yes. You have Winter?”

“Winter? Yes, she’s sedated right now. That gentleman there brought her in.” She points at me, and he turns around with the same faint memory in his eyes. He opens his mouth again, but instead of words, he opts to bow his head in gratitude. He wears a long ponytail that is starting to grey, with dark wheat skin that is beginning to crack.

“Would you like to see her?”, she asks. He nods and follows her through the doors. As they disappear down the hallway, the receptionist begins to ask him the 20 questions required of any owner who unexpectedly needs to get a procedure done on their pet. Some thank you!

My phone goes off; my wife is 5 minutes away. I decide to step out for a cigarette.

 

The cold air that once brought shivers to my spine this morning is now a bright, hot July day. I can hear my dogs whining in the car. I go to give them some pets, but not before I glance overhead to check for crows. None found here.

I return to my photos and study the man behind the tipi in the outdoor shot we took of the brave and the crow, at the tipi’s entrance, but all I can make out is his skintone: a burnt orange. Even with my reading glasses from the car, I can not make out a distinct facial feature. The man is not looking at the camera, but at the tipi itself. His body is hidden from sight.

Faintly, I hear: Caw! Caw! Caw!

I shiver. Looking around there is no bird in sight. I wait for more calls. None come.

My cigarette seems less appealing now, and I toss it as it is halfway done. My wife’s car pulls in as I walk through the door, and my dogs start their whining again.

Back in the office, Mr. Nomee is sitting in the chair that I had previously occupied.

“Phil Rosette,” I say as I offer my hand.

“Alfred Nomee. Thank you.”

“Of course. What happened?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. I let her stay outside last night, and this morning she is not there.”

“Funniest thing: I found her in a tipi.” Pausing, I decide not to tell him the bit about the crow leading me there. “I’m not sure what made her gimpy but it looked like she had just crawled in there to hide.”

My wife walks in to the office.

“Hi, Honey. Maureen, this is—”

“Alfred Nomee. I thought I recognized you, Phil. Now that I see your wife, I know where from. Laramie, Wyoming.”

Suddenly, everything is very cold again.

Crow story, part seven

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By Phil & Jack Rosette

My wife is a great organizer, for things important to her, anyway. Twenty-plus years of nursing probably has something to do with that. I find our three honeymoon photo albums on the bookshelf right between the wedding album and the one dated 1990. Boy, we sure took a lot of pictures back then, I think as I take the last of the three honeymoon albums to the desk and start thumbing through it.

Like the albums, the photos are in chronological order. I find that, in fact, we were in Laramie, Wyoming on August 23rd, 1989: the same day Herman Blackclaw (a.k.a. Crow Stalker), died in that same town. A quick thumb to the back of the album and I see we were in Las Vegas three weeks later, on our way home and pregnant.

We were in Laramie three days, but I remember spending only the first night in the tipi. My wife’s notes back me up on this. I look at the pictures. Both the inside and the outside of our tipi were decorated with paintings. Inside, a headdress of eagle feathers and silver, red and yellow beads hangs high on one side. Opposite is painted a large white owl. A metal cooking pot sits in the center of the split-log floor, and skins of animals act as rugs. There is also a small table with a couple of candle holders on it, but not much else. Outside, images of bison, eagles and horses expertly circle around the outside of the tipi. Over the entrance is the image of a brave holding high over his head a hatchet in one hand and a bow in the other. The brave is staring up to the sky, and above him is a black bird in flight.

Weird is fast becoming the new norm.

I take the photo album downstairs to my desk. The Jeremy-Julia charm sits on top of the baggie, right where I left it, and it seems content to stay put if it’s not inside; not ‘bound’ as the legend says. Looking closer, nothing appears to have changed; it still weighs the same and looks the same from what I can tell. If this thing possesses magic, it isn’t clear to the naked eye. It is nothing more than a gift from a crow; a sign of gratitude to me, for effectively providing its murder an easy meal. Or is it?

I did watch the first three of Crow Stalker’s videos a few days ago. I could follow it through subtitles and now know what some of a crow’s basic movements mean, like looking at you with only one eye, and turning their back to you. He explains how crows ask questions with calls and head movement simultaneously. Pitch and repetition indicate important differences that they had to learn. The videos are short so I replay them several times until I think I can hear some of the subtle differences. Now I need a crow to test them on.

Since my mind has mostly gone to the birds in recent days, I look forward to returning to the park the next morning. It is cold outside, unseasonably so for late July. Taking my coffee on the back deck, I had to grab a jacket. The pockets were full of dog treats from the last time I wore it to take Gracie and Joker to the park. Forward thinking.

The chills in my shoulders make me mistake the smoke from my cigarette for the fog of my breath. Is it really this cold, or is it just me? The dogs pawing at the door to be let inside seem to think so. I put the smoke out, gulp down the rest of my coffee, and head back inside. As I approach the door, off in the distance, I hear a familiar, chilling sound.

Caw! Caw! Caw!

I turn around at once. Nervously, my eyes dart from tree to tree, perch to perch. The chills have proliferated; I am trembling all over.

Caw! Caw! Caw!

I turn away from the door, and the dogs follow me. I scan the whole backyard, looking up toward the roof, around the fence, in our bushes, in the neighbors’ yard, yet see nothing.

‘You got something for me, Jeremy?’ I cry out in frustration. It has been a couple of months since the last time I saw him, though I swore he called after us in the park when the dogs burst after that fawn. Despite all my recent research, I feel unprepared to greet this animal again.

Caw! Caw! Caw! Caw! Caw!

Five! Curious. I’ve only ever known him to speak in groups of three. What’s more, these don’t seem like the happy caws I heard when he dropped off his nametag. From Crow Stalker’s videos, I recognize the short bursts of monotone caws as ‘companion’ calls. He wants me to come with him.

‘Where are you?’

Caw! Caw!

‘I can’t follow you if I don’t know where you are! Show yourself!!’

I wait for a reply, but receive none.

‘Well??’

I wait for about two minutes, but no response. Exasperated, I finally walk back into the house. ‘Come on, girls,’ I say to the confused but excited dogs. ‘Let’s go to the park.’

At this, they fly inside, whining the whole way. They run circles around me as I attempt to fix their leashes. It takes a couple of the treats in my pocket to get them to sit still for ten seconds. Once I have them on the leashes, we step outside.

I open the door and let go of the whiny dogs. They know the park routine well enough to wait expectantly outside the car for me to open the door for them, instead of sprinting away to get lost in suburbia. I flip the lock and close the door, but instead of dashing to the car, the dogs are frozen in place. I look up and understand why.

Caa-AAH! Caa-AAH!

There he is, perched in the oak tree directly in front of our house. The dogs are both in prone position, waiting. I feel the blood rush from my face. My chills return. The bird repeats himself.

Caa-AAH! Caa-AAH!

This is not a companion call; this is an alarm call. He turns his head to the side and looks at me with one eye – the focused stare of a binocular creature – then does a shimmy motion with his neck. Follow me.

Before I can reply, he spreads his wings and swoops down, flying in the opposite direction. Gracie and Joker dutifully chase him through the front yard and across the street.

‘Gracie! Joker!’ I call after them, but to no avail. ‘Dammit, Fatso!!’ The bird has left me no choice. I hop in the car as fast as I can and try and keep pace with the three flying animals.

Fortunately for me, Jeremy heads straight down the long street, so I am able to catch up with them after about a quarter of a mile. The crow flies low to the ground so the dogs can play catch-up – thankfully, on the sidewalk and not on the road. I pull up side-by-side as the fork in the road ahead approaches. Their tongues flap in the wind, and their leashes drag behind them like broken chains. I momentarily consider the irony of being in a car and chasing dogs, but that thought is cut short when the bird leads us all to the left.

A brief drive down this road leads us to a dead end. Jeremy heads left again, along the fenced-in sidewalk that leads to a wooded area in the back of the neighborhood elementary school. That bird just took three left-turns to get here, I reflect. He easily could have just flown over top. He wanted to make sure I could follow. Recalling the alarm in his voice when he called from my oak tree, I shudder to think what he could be leading us to.

The dogs, by now having sprinted at least a mile, start to slow down to a trot, which gives me time to park in the dead end and try to catch up. Alas, they still have four feet to my two, and are able to run into the woods after the bird faster than I can pursue them. I lose sight of all of the animals as they enter the trees. The cold air rasps in my lungs and exits in clouds of thick haze.

Having lost my eyes, I turn to my ears to guide me. I hear the crow again – Caa-AAH! Caa-AAH! Caa-AAH! – and expect to hear barks, but instead hear whimpers and whines. Worried, I start to run.

I see Jeremy perched on a branch above a small clearing. The dogs are no longer focused on him, and as I approach I find their rear ends poking out of a structure – a tipi! Perhaps constructed by some elementary kids playing fort defense, or some teenage couple looking to steal away. My dogs are fully engrossed with whatever is inside.

I call the dogs again. They start toward me, but the whimpers continue. They return to the tipi, and I follow them. As I turn the corner to peer inside, I hear Jeremy’s calls behind me – Caw! Caw! Caw! – and the wind from his powerful wings bristles my hair as he flies away. His job is done.

Inside the structure, a white dog lay still: broken, curled up, and whimpering. I gingerly scoop it up and return to the car as fast as the wind could carry me.

 

The Legend of Sun Breast

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crow story, part six.

Sun Breast is a young warrior, a savvy tracker and the Son of the Chief of the Great Nation in the time soon after the long, long winter has passed and the lakes have returned. He is born with hair as bright as fire and with a great fire spot upon on his breast.

As soon as Sun Breast is old enough to keep up with the elders, he becomes a forward-hunter because he is such a good tracker. But mostly, Sun Breast is an adventurer who is always sprinting ahead, beyond where the others can see. He hurries the older braves, almost to the point of their collapse and his boredom. His quest for knowledge cannot be satisfied. Others cannot keep up. He is impatient.

Sun Breast learns all the stories of Spirit Lake, a mythical place where lost spirts are reborn. He is enchanted.

One day, before ten-and-four winters have passed, Sun Breast sets out to find Spirit Lake. He travels alone as he faces the cold winds for several moons. He travels past earth-shaking herds of thick-coats and thick-heads. And past groves full of berries, and hills full of potatoes and turnips. Past so many lakes dammed by beaver and full of turtle.

He eats only what he can pick until he comes upon a huge black bird standing on a log in a clearing. After many nights without meat or fish, he seizes the opportunity, steps from the shadows, and furies his blade with a true aim.

The crow does not take flight. It opens its wings to reveal a burning-red breast that repels the blade and sends it back just as fast.

Sun Breast catches the blade, but it does not cut his hand. ‘How is this possible?’ he asks.

The crow’s breast glows, and he says, ‘you cannot kill your own spirit.’

The young warrior lifts his shirt and shows the bird his own fire mark, which starts to glow for the first time.

‘Why have you traveled so far from your Nation?’

Sun Breast tells him he is in search of Spirit Lake.

The crow says, ‘At Spirit Lake, flesh turns to clay.’

‘I seek not death, only adventure. The legends are many. I want to know if they are true.’

The crow says, ‘Some truths have come before. Some have been lost forever. If you believe they are true, they are true.’

The bird says, ‘my name is ‘Red Crow’ and that the time has come for us to reunite, to travel Grandmother Island as one spirit, unbound.’

Sun Breast removes his shirt and the crow draws long his wings and they face each other a short distance apart. Their two breasts glow red, then yellow, then white as their light reflects off each other, until they shine so bright that shadows are cast in all directions. Until the Sun is gone from the sky. The two breasts slowly dim and fade to ember under a moonless night.

The next morning, Sun Breast awakes with eyes so keen he sees a moth across the field. He hears snakes slither, and the high-pitch songs only the great wings and wolves can hear and sing. He can detect dark movements in the night and feel the wind groan as it passes through the trees. He can taste the slightest scent of fear in the air.

Red Crow awakes the next morning anxious to tell Sun Breast about a dream, his first dream!

For ten-and-two seasons, teacher becomes student and student becomes teacher as each learns the other’s songs, dances and dreams, until they can communicate flawlessly.

Red Crow takes Sun Breast to a tall, tall ridge overlooking the forbidden Spirit Lake, and warns him, ‘No further, or become what you see.’

What he sees is a vast, crystal-clear, frozen lake that falls off the horizon. Above it, colorful lights dance beneath the stars and reflect off the ice. Shadows dance from the thousands of full-coated, full-color clays that stand frozen in time. There are clays of braves who have come before him, and clays of crows, but so, too, clays of fox, owl, wolf, eagle, cicada, turtle and a lean, golden-horned, pale animal he’s never seen before. All, frozen in time.

Red crow tells him, ‘Spirits know many forms and fight many foes. Not all battles are won. Look and see the many spirits who lost. Watch and see their shadows dance together. When two clays become one shadow, their spirit becomes flesh anew on Grandmother Island.’

After three harsh winters have passed, Sun Breast returns to the Great Nation with Red Crow on his shoulder. He no longer has bright hair or a fire spot on his breast, but he is now as tall as three strides are long.

He learns his father has died, and he is now Chief of the Great Nation. And the Great Nation is starving.

Red Crow guides young Chief Sun Breast and his braves to the expanding white forests where trees become canoes and firewood abounds, and to the great hunting plains where the warm-coats roam. Red Crow guides them to soils richened by swollen rivers, and to many distant lands where his people prosper, and live in tipi warmed by fire and fur. The Great Nation survives.

As time goes on, Chief Sun Breast sends many young brave and young winchinchala in all directions to find and fertilize new lands, and to bring back their riches and their stories. He has born to him many sons and daughters that pass on his spirit to many sons and daughters. Many First Nations are born.

Red Crow fathers many offspring that pass on the spirit to their offspring, and for generations too vast to count, Red Crow’s descendants have acted as guides to easy prey, and as lookouts for all unseen dangers. Descendants can tell when the winds will rise and when the rains will fall, and they can see the path ahead before it arrives. Descendants of Red Crow still roam the Americas today, guiding all First Nations’ peoples and their spirits to richer lands, in this life and the next.

End of story.

It makes no sense to me. Even if Jeremy is a decedent of Red Crow, why us? I’m not Native American. Neither is my wife.

I turn to the book, Crow Stalker, the Man Who Mastered Crows. The life and times of Herman Blackclaw. This, too, is translated by Mr. Seven Blackclaw. All the stories, it says, are transcribed from videotaped interviews done between 1985 and 1987 with his father, in Ojibwa with subtitles. The original tapes are in the Seven Suns museum. You can download videos of Crow Stalker’s interviews, complete with crows. It says to understand the messages you must understand the emphasis that is put on each word or song. And to observe the physical movement of the wings, feet, eyes and their stance. ‘Crow’ is more body language than vocal.

It might be useful to see exactly what crows mean when they bob their heads or dart their stare from one eye to the other. I am curious, but my head is already dizzy from Sun Breast.

Crow Stalker’s biography is much easier to read, even with all the Algonquin and Ojibwa native words. Pictures help a lot, too, so do the images of the old posters and fliers that were used in advance of his appearances from Albany to Winnipeg. These are at least in plain, if ignorant, English.

But I want my first question answered before I delve into this old man’s magic, so I look up his vital statistics.

Herman Blackclaw was born in Joliet, Illinois in the winter of 1887-88. The exact date was not recorded. He was father to seven sons and four daughters from three winchinchala. He died one-hundred-one years later, on August 23, 1989, in Laramie, Wyoming.

‘Laramie!’ I say in a gasp.

One of the unforgettable adventures we took in on our three-month long honeymoon in the summer of 1989 was in Laramie, Wyoming. I don’t remember now if it was before or after Las Vegas, but it was the only night out of eighty-nine nights that we didn’t have indoor plumbing. We slept on bison skin rugs on a dirt-floor in a tipi to experience what life was like in Wyoming in the 1500’s. Some adventure! It rained all night with thunder and lightning that created eerie flashes on the side of our tipi.

I remember it was a cuddly-up-tight kind of a night, and not all the thunderclaps were outside the tent. But recalling that evening now, 28 years later, gives me goosebumps.

end part six.

Phil Rosette

 

Dear readers,

On September 14th, 2017, Phil Rosette passed away after a short bout with an aggressive bladder cancer. This letter is being sent by his son, Jack. Before he left us, I had promised him that I would finish this story on his behalf, in his voice, to the best of my ability. This blog entry, written for the month of September, was the last one that he had written before entering the hospital, and thus, the last completed post for the Crow Story as told by my father. I was anticipating having to write this one out from scratch, until we found this completed draft on his computer. As it turns out, I would have taken a similar approach as my father had to writing out The Legend of Sun Breast, which gives me encouragement for the future of the series. My father never gave me specific instructions to ending the series, only that it could be done in one more post or three more posts depending on a few things. Having read the series over several times now, it will likely be three more posts, as I don’t see a reasonable conclusion happening in a single entry, and I believe my father promised a 10-part series anyway. This will take the story out to the end of 2017.

A few personal notes: the service was held on Tuesday, September 19th, and was well-attended by family, friends, and fellow writers. Phil’s body was cremated, and his ashes will be spread at Brands Hatch race park in Kent, England. If you have not done so already, you can leave your respects here: http://www.desmondfuneralhome.com/obituary/Phil-Rosette/Michigan/1753137.  Phil’s first book, The Freya Project, is available to anybody who wishes to take it – just email me at jackrosette41@gmail.com and I will happily send it to you for the cost of shipping, or I can arrange to bring it to a Deadwood Writers meeting soon. He had left a note here to update everybody on the wedding, so I’ll do that now. My brother and his wife are now happily married, spent their honeymoon out in Canada, and (believe it or not) are now expecting a child. We all wish that Phil could have lived to see his grandchild, but his memory will be passed on through the lessons my brother and his wife will impart.

Thanks for reading, everybody! Until next month,

-Jack Rosette

Beautiful Day for a Murder

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It’s early morning and I pile Gracie and Joker into the van and race the sunrise to the park, two miles West of here.

I don’t see any wildlife as I pull into the park entrance with my high beams on. The road winds past the fenced-in baseball field on the right and the lake on the left. No dogs are allowed in this part of the park. I open my window and the dogs and I sniff the air. Me, for skunks. Them, I’m not sure. I’ve caught lovers – and sleeping cops – this time of day, too, but this morning both the air and the parking lot are lacking any predawn drama. The eastern sky burns away the night as I drive to the far end of the parking lot and pick a spot closest to the footbridge. It looks like a magnificent sunrise is about to be born. Easily, this is my favorite time of day.

I use my mega beam flashlight to spotlight what I know will be the dog’s first stop; the holes under the bushes by the footbridge. Various wildlife use these holes because of their proximity to the river, so there are always fresh scents for the dogs to explore. There is nothing lurking around bushes that I can see from here so I trust my nose and let the dogs out, then follow them at a much slower pace.

As they run, their tags jingle like cowbells that act as an early warning system. That’s not by accident, and I use the flashlight to scan the tree line for beady red eyes or critters running away.

Suddenly my ballcap, which I wear backwards, flies off my head and I feel a breeze through my hair, but that was no gust of wind! My heart races as the silhouette of a large bird drops my hat from its claws then flaps up to the sky. I watch it turn around as the clouds set on fire, and I get excited.

Gracie and Joker start growling and I turn the flashlight just in time to see my white dog, Joker, dart down the bank towards another hole. I can’t see Gracie. I turn back to the sky to see the clouds turning from burnt-orange to bleeding-red, but no crow. It is one of the richest sunrises this summer and wish I could enjoy it. But I spot my hat and then shine the light around for Gracie.

Three loud shrills cry out from overhead.

I turn to see Fred in his pickup truck pulling into the parking lot, but no sign of the crow. Fred is usually the first one here. He owns two dogs, too; Sadie and Taco. Both are female and get along great with my dogs. Sadie’s tan and as big as Gracie. Taco is a Chihuahua.

The crow swoops just over my head and flies straight at Fred’s truck!

I flash back to when Fatso cut off the squirrels’ retreat in my backyard and suddenly have more concerned for that stupid bird than my dogs. I run towards the parking lot waving my hands and yelling, ‘Stop!’ thinking the crow doesn’t know a truck from a squirrel! Behind me, I hear cowbells and Gracie growling something fierce, but I keep running, shouting and waving my arms.

The crow soars only a foot or two over the truck’s cab then flies up. The sky is already fading to blue.

Fred stops, lowers the window and casually says, ‘What’s up?’ He looks over my shoulder, adds, ‘Oh.’

I turn to see Joker and Gracie playing tug-of-war with a critter! ‘Gracie! Joker! Stop that!’ Gracie growls louder. I shout louder and with more growl in my own voice, then take off towards them. After a few more calls, they come to me.

Fred’s dogs listen when he lets them out and tells them to heel.

I scold my dogs as soon as we’re back in the parking lot, then look them over for bite marks or scratches, and say to Fred, ‘Did you see that crow flying at your truck?’

‘Saw somethin out of the corner of my eye. I was watchin you wavin your hands an figured Joker got skunked again. But it looks like a rabbit from here.’ He reaches into the bed of his pickup and pulls out a five-gallon bucket. But before we can take a step, a few common crows fly in and start to feast on both halves of the rabbit, now separated by about ten feet. More crows are overhead. Fred says, ‘Watch this.’

Before he can sic Sadie, I grab his arm and tell him, ‘Don’t do that! That’s what the crow was trying to tell you!’ My voice sounds strange to me and I have no idea where the statement comes from, but I say it with certitude. ‘That crow got Gracie and Joker to kill it for them!’ I nod towards the massing crows. Fred stares at me.

Fred’s an old farm boy from Minnesota; a man of few words. He just nods back and lights a cigarette.

Sunlight is just hitting the taller trees as I tell him how Gracie and Joker killed a squirrel for the same fat crow that just attacked his truck, and how I let the crow feed it to its flock. How it took almost an hour. ‘Look at the dogs! Gracie and Joker were just that calm the first time, too.’

All but Taco are down on their haunches and ready to spring into action if necessary, but they’re just sitting on the grassy edge by the pavement with their ears up, watching the birds. Taco is at Fred’s feet. There is an entire murder of crows now, too many to count, coming from every direction.

Crows are not a quiet bunch when they eat, or friendly. More and more land and all ferociously fight each other off for a piece of rabbit. There seem to be more losers than winners with some crows stealing from others in midflight.

As morning breaks, a few more dog owners drive in and I tell each to leash their dogs and just watch.

When there is nothing left, the crows fly off as fast as they flew in.

As we walk up to the battlefield, I say to Fred, ‘You only got here, what? Fifteen, twenty minutes ago?’

‘Crows don’t waste time,’ Fred says as the dogs sniff and piss. We kick the rabbit’s head and a couple of attached bone-and-pelt bits into the river, they can be dinner for some other scavenger. Mother Nature will have to take care of blooded grounds, and there isn’t much else to clean up. We set off on our morning walk through the woods with four other folks and a half dozen other dogs.

Fred and I were the only ones who saw how the rabbit died and he agrees to play dumb. It’s not something I’m proud of. Not something you boast about, especially to other dog owners. After a few minutes, the ferocity of the crows and their dazzling aerobatics are old news, and conversations drift to other things.

Fred and I fall behind the others. While our dogs play and scout as dogs do, I tell him, ‘This is the third time that crow has paid me a visit.’ I tell him about the second time, when the crow dropped the charm on my deck. I make my wife the scapegoat and tell him the fact it arrived on the twenty-seventh anniversary of the date on the back freaked her out. ‘It had the name Jeremy on the other side.’ I don’t tell him what that meant to her, or how she deduced the date to be 05/??/1990.

‘Crow’s tellin ya his name,’ Fred says. ‘Greeks worshiped crows. Egyptians made em gods in the afterlife.’

I start to feel all sweaty under my long-sleeve tee and jeans even though it not even sixty degrees yet. I still haven’t told my wife, but after this morning, I’ve got to tell someone before I go crazy.

‘He talked to me, Fred. I heard someone say leave it and when I looked out my window there was only that big, fat crow. Just staring at me. I swear, he spoke to me. He told me three hours before the dogs killed the squirrel; he said leave it – twice! He knew what was coming!’

After a long pause, Fred says, ‘Crows can talk.’

‘I’ve read that. They can mimic certain words, but I didn’t say that first.’

We walk on in silence. Fred starts to chuckle, then says, ‘Tell ya somethin even funnier.’

I wonder if he thinks I’m making it all up.

He lights another cigarette, says, ‘When I waza kid, growin up on my uncle’s dairy farm in Minnesota, I once saw a lone wolf chase down and kill a sick ol moose. About an hour later, a pack of coyotes chased off the wolf. A while after that, dozens of buzzards chased off the coyotes an got that moose all to emselves. Until hundreds of crows attacked the buzzards, in waves, an chased em off. Crows are social in that kinda way, but once they got the moose all to emselves, it was each crow for emself. Just like we seen here.’ He chuckles, ‘I never heard of one crow feedin another. Maybe in a nest…’

We walk on without conversation. I’ve never known Fred to bullshit, but I feel like he’s playing One-Upmanshit with me. I don’t defend my position any stronger than, ‘Tomorrow, I’ll bring the charm.’

When we get back to the parking lot, Fred says, ‘Growin up, there use to be this ol boy, Indian guide, who talked crows into huntin for em an to bein lookouts for em. Remember seein em, maybe thirty years ago, walkin along a dirt road an sure enough, there’s crows flyin over em.’

‘I’ll look him up on the Internet,’ I say, sure I’m getting more upmanshit. ‘What’s his name?’

Fred shake his head, says, ‘Owe Cousin Tom a call, I’ll ask em.’ With that, he drives off.

Maybe he does believe me, I don’t care either way. I know what I saw, what I heard.

I use a tattered bath towel to dry off Gracie and Joker before I let them get in the van. As I do, I hear three quick caws. I turn expecting to see Fatso, but it’s only a small common crow up by the pagoda. He’s not even looking in this direction.

Driving back home, I realize Fatso knows our morning routine, too. I wonder how long he’s been watching me, watching my dogs. I mumble, ‘Smart bastard needs a better name than Fatso.’

Joker comes forward in the van and I say to her, ‘What about Alfred? Or Hitchcock? He’s every bit as smart as those birds.’ But further thought of those birds is chilling. Then I remember Fred’s comment; He’s tellin ya his name.

Jeremy

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Part Two

It has been a few weeks since that fat crow swooped in and cut off the squirrels’ retreat from my dogs. After Gracie killed one of the squirrels, ‘Fatso’ crow proceeded to dismember it and dish it out to a murder of other crows. That’s right, a murder. Since that day, I’ve found out a lot about crows and that’s what a bunch of them are called; a murder. How fitting. I can’t think of anything more premeditated than what I witnessed last month.

I also learned that crows, in fact, do have a language. Three caws are thought to mean either all clear when they are short and crisp, or varying degrees of danger depending on the pitch, volume and the duration. Crows are thought to be monogamous, and generations live together in colonies in groves, like the patch behind my neighbor’s house.

All this I learned and mostly forgot since that episode, but for some reason it comes back to me today. I’m working on my computer but my mind keeps drifting. The windows are open and the morning sun warms my face when suddenly the sky goes dark for an instant and I catch a huge shadow cross my lawn. I look up but too late to see the bird who created it.

A minute later it happens again. I get up and go to the window just in time to see a fat, black bird land on the peak of my neighbor’s roof. It’s Fatso, he’s back, and my heart starts to race. I say to myself, I was just thinking of you.

It sits there and stares at me staring at it, bobbing its head all the while. It’s holding something in its beak.

I never did explore that area behind my neighbor’s house like I promised myself. For one thing, its private property and for another its largely swamp and underbrush. I look off in that direction now to see if there are more crows mulling about. I wonder if Fatso is planning another attack. I don’t see any other crows, but this one, remarkably, swoops down and lands on the birdfeeder fifteen feet from my window.

I can’t quite make out what’s in its beak. It keeps bobbing its head up and down as it looks at me first with one big brown eye and then the other. Its eyes look almost human.

It drops what its holding and the object pings against the planks. The bird flies off.

Staring at the object, I try to make out what it is and don’t notice the crow circle my house. Fatso breaks the sunlight again, and as it does the object seems to wink at me. The crow’s shadow is twenty-feet wide as it glides across the lawn. I hear three short, quick caws as it flies behind my neighbor’s house. Happy calls, if I remember right from my studies.

I rub my palms against my pants. From the window, I can only tell the object was once round and shiny.

Crows have been known to bring gifts to humans that feed them or leave out food for them. I wonder if that’s what this is. I’m thinking that Fatso, who a month ago got me to leave the dead squirrel so it could feed it to its colony, is now rewarding my good behavior. Good human, here’s your treat!

I go out to retrieve it.

It’s a charm. A bracelet’s charm with a broken loop attached to the cleft of a heart.

Dirty, bent and battered, it is hard to tell much else as I pick it up. There is writing on it, on both sides, but I can’t tell what it says. It stinks like a swamp and I take it to the sink to wash it off.

It must have been wherever the crow found it for a long time, judging by all the grime I work out with a nylon scrub brush. One side is engraved bolder than the other and I make out the name Jeremy. The other side is a date, but only the top portions of the middle numeric date are still there. Under stronger light and using a bit of numeral deduction I work it out to be either 5/23/1990 or 5/28/1990.

I take it to the kitchen table and sit. Jeremy? The name taps something in the back of my mind, but it is the date that has me excited; it could be exactly twenty-seven years ago… ‘Today! This is more than a coincidence,’ I say out loud.

I remember that feeling I had this morning; thinking about Fatso crow and then there he is. ‘This bird is playing with my mind.’ I go back outside to see if it is on my neighbor’s roof. I don’t see or hear it. Or any other crows.

Crows have the intelligence of a small primate but this goes way beyond that. I say, ‘How could a bird know a calendar? It has to be pure coincidence… and stop talking to yourself!’ Then add under my breath, ‘bird’s making me crazy.’ My heart for some odd reason is racing.

Jeremy? The name does mean something, but I can’t place what.

I put the charm on top of my wife’s mail. That way I’ll be sure to remember to tell her about what happened today, and four weeks ago. I still haven’t told her about the first episode. I don’t want to admit to her that I tried to talk to a crow, and anyway, she would not have been impressed with Gracie’s and Joker’s behavior that day… Once, after Gracie brought the head of a rabbit into the kitchen, she went after the dog with a broom! My wife is a nurse. She has no appreciation for battle trophies, or delusional husbands.

‘What’s this?’ she asks as soon as she gets home, picking up the charm. She reads the name. ‘Jeremy?’

‘That came special delivery,’ I say. ‘Read the date.’

‘Special delivery?’ She turns it over. ‘What’s the date? I can’t read it. Who sent it?’

‘It’s today’s date. May 23rd, only 1990. Or maybe it’s the 28th; it’s hard to tell. A crow dropped it off.’

She looks at me.

‘Seriously,’ I say. ‘A crow literally dropped it off.’ She rolls her eyes.

I tell her about the shadow, the crow staring at me from the birdfeeder, and how it dropped the charm on the deck. But I decide not to tell her about last month’s episode as her expression changes from her cute dear to curious to something else entirely.

She clutches her fist around the charm until her knuckles turn white and she says, ‘Jeremy,’ with a look in her eyes that I’ve only seen two or three times. The last time was the day her sister passed after a long illness. It is the look of closure, the look of final resolve; there is nothing more she, or any nurse, can do.

She starts to break down and cry and I go to her and hug her but not understanding. I can only think she must have a patient with that name. She calms down in my arms, then says after a moment, ‘You don’t remember?’ She backs away and looks at me with steel-grey eyes torn red at the seams. ‘Jeremy? Julia?’

Suddenly, I do remember!

The second name triggers it; Jeremy was going to be the name of our first-born, or Julia, if it was a girl. We made that decision on our Honeymoon in the summer of ’89, right after my wife told me she was pregnant.

She turns over the charm and says, ‘those middle two aren’t numbers, they’re question marks.’

I flash back to a store we stopped at outside of Las Vegas, where we bought a pair of fluffy baby booties. Seamed together, one shoe was pink and the other was blue with ‘Las Vegas’ stitched in red across the toes. It was specifically designed for expecting couples like us. We had the names ‘Jeremy’ and ‘Julia’ stitched on the sides, and we hung them from the car’s rearview mirror for the rest of our Honeymoon.

But our first-born was not born. My wife had a miscarriage a day or two after we got home.

Coming at the end of a fantastic three-month, 5,000-mile long honeymoon, and eager to start a family, it felt like someone turned off the perfect picture show in mid-frame.

We vowed to try again, and not to use either name after that.

We couldn’t know the sex of the child that soon, but we did work out an approximate due date. My wife had them stitch the heels of the booties with 05/??/1990.