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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