He wasn’t dead. Dead robins could not feel so sore, or so tired.
He hopped into a still pool of the stream. He gyrated his body, agitating water over his feathers. The water was cool — cold, even. It felt as good as Silas felt beat.
The sun was already up, the sky a lethargic blue. Silas closed his eyes, refusing his body’s plea for the rest he so wanted to take.
Silas had hopped two miles from the Fox Den. His wings had still been trussed with string as he hopped through the forest, not daring to slow his pace. He wanted distance between himself and all the animals who worked for Fox. While he hopped, Silas had time to fantasize about the string tying him unwrapping from his own body, then flying around Fox's neck, the bat’s, the flying squirrel Josh Glider’s — Weasel and Tony Crow and all the rest of them. He got a thrill of visceral pleasure seeing their face swell, their eyes bugging out from not breathing. At this point in his fantasy, Silas cawed in triumph before plunging his beak into each of their eyes, their cries of agony delicious retribution for the shame of Silas' capture.
Silas had used the rocks in the creek bed, sawing up and down on a jagged piece of shale. The tension on the string broke, blood free to flow again in his wings and breasts, but hesitant, like a prisoner on his cot whose cell door unexpectedly swings open. He flexed his wings, fanning them, flapping them. They hurt, but they worked.
With his freedom came a heady rush of spite, the feelings self-justifying and vindicating for Silas, damning for Fox. Fox would pay for everything. Today. Silas would see to that. No more games. No more murders. No more challenges.
Hadn't Fox admitted outright to kidnapping the cubs?, thinking his overcomplicated attempt to kill Silas would bury the secret with Silas, four feet deep in lava-hot berries?
It hadn't worked, and here was Silas, plotting revenge. But wasn't it really justice? Revenge was personal, and had it just been between Silas and Fox, Silas’ plan for retribution may have been just that. Justice, though: That carried the weight of all the wrongs in the forest, righted in one stroke. Silas would go see Barnes, rally the forest animals to crush Fox once and for all….
Silas' splashed water in his face. His wings drooped.
After breakfast. Silas had left his energy back in another life, two days ago, before the Forest Council meeting where everything had changed so suddenly. Breakfast would give him enough of a jump-start to go talk with Barnes.
Silas shook his feathers of excess water. He sighed, stepping out of the shallow pool, flying to the top of the creek bank. He took off for Corey's feeder.
"Who dumped you out of the nest this morning?" Mitch Birdsly asked, making room for Silas at the bird feeder. "You look terrible."
"Thanks, Mitch."
Silas reached in the feeder hole. It was the same buckshot Corey had been passing off for seed. Of course. Silas swallowed mechanically. The deck was a menagerie this morning; all the perch space at the feeder taken up, Flash Goldplume the only bird eating with gusto as he attacked the feeder hole opposite; Colin Squirrel was there with his girlfriend Sadie; Ziggy Chickadee was in the middle of the thick of birds, given first priority for a feeding slot; Mack Starling was finishing a joke about a human bird hunter who mixed up his mating calls, but Mack was eyeing Silas — Silas knew he was going to say something about his appearance. Mack always had something to say.
"Silas! Glad you make it! It's Zig's last day before he flies back to New York to pick up trash with his beak … We're celebrating. Having a going away breakfast. But look at you! You look like crap, Silas. Your wife leave you for a bird who wasn't so ugly?"
Laughter. Silas joined in, but he had to reach deep to pull off the sounds of laughter, like his paltry remains of good humor were at the bottom of an empty barrel.
"Nothing like that, Mack. Just when your wife's first eggs hatch — if some have red breasts, that wasn't me."
Mack bobbed his head, taking in the comeback. He and Silas had been flying this formation since they met. Still, he knew something was up.
"At least someone's getting something out of that old rooster," he said. "Really, though, Silas … you okay, buddy? You look like you've been chased by a fox."
"Funny you should say that. You guys won't believe what happened to me last night." Silas told them about the Fox Den, sneaking in, the skulls he found in Fox's study, being trapped, and Fox confessing.
"But how did you escape?" Flash Goldplume asked. "If your wings were tied, and you were put in the bottom of a barrel, watched by Fox and the rest of them … I mean, that's something! How did you do it?"
Silas waved Flash's question aside. "Never mind that. What's important is Fox confessed to taking the cubs. Linking that to the messages at the killings, especially Mole's, where he mentioned the Bears, he outed himself for both sets of crimes. I'm headed over to Barnes right after this, going to tell him about the whole thing, get a party together to raid the Fox Den. We’ll get that menace out of our woods for good."
Flash chewed his tongue, looking doubtful. He dipped back into the feeder, eating ravenously.
"How can you eat that seed like that?" Silas asked, irritated. “I can barely manage to choke a little down.”
Flash shrugged. "I'm not picky, I guess. I was locked in a cage for years by this crazy old woman. She kept me in her house, but didn't think to feed me more than once every couple weeks. I'd eat this molding old seed she's put in the cage. I learned to ration it — you know, not eat it all at once. That's what kept me alive."
Mitch shook his head. "That's terrible. And she never let you out?"
"Never. She kept my cage in her foyer — that's kind of like a room when you go through the front door in a human's house. I could see part of her around the corner in the living room. She sat in her chair, knitting all the time but as far as I could tell, never finishing anything. She knitted while listening to sermons on her television."
They all knew what television was, seeing the spectral glow pulsing nightly in nearly every human's home in the development, capturing the humans in a trance like deer in headlights.
Flash shook his head. He looked like he didn't want to go on, but felt compelled to.
"This old lady, she didn't leave her house much. Hardly ever. But when someone knocked on the door — my cage was right there, in the foyer — she would pick up my cage. It was heavy, but small for my size — I'll admit, when I saw Quail's murder, how they put him in that small cage … that reminded me of me. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. But anyway, the old lady would carry me to the laundry room, threaten not to feed me for another week if I made a sound, then would go get the door. Usually a neighborhood kid offering to mow her lawn, or selling cookies."
Mack clicked his beak. "Jumpin' jitter bug … and you lived with this crazy hag?"
"Had no choice," Flash said, shrugging. "I was born in a pet store. Didn't have much of a choice when she bought me." He lifted a foot, showing a metal band welded on.
If Zig Chickadee felt shorted with the spotlight going off him at his going away breakfast, he didn't show it. "How'd you escape, Flash?" he asked.
"I had all the time in the world to plan it. I spent hours and days and months planning my escape. I went on like that for years. The years built up in that cage, the bars caking with my filth. The old lady would only change the newspaper at the bottom when I squawked long enough — and probably not even that's what did it. She probably couldn't stand the smell anymore, or didn't want to embarrass herself when the neighborhood boys came by asking to mow for her.
"She'd lay out new paper — not often, just every once in a while — and that became the only thing I had to look forward to. Though that witch was there threatening me about what would happen if I tried to get out of the cage, in that moment … the cage door was open. I could imagine what it felt like to be out of there. And that's when the fresh newspaper would come in. She'd lay down the comics pages — she thought the only part worth reading were the obituaries, talking and laughing to herself from the chair, cheered up that others were dying while she still clung on. Miserable old grub,” Flash said.
"Those pages became everything to me. Through the bottom grate I would read the comics. Those cartoon characters were my only friends …" Flash was staring unseeing into the distance, transported to his old life. "She'd hurt me if I made too much noise, reading and working out the comics. That's how I learned to read.
"To answer your question, Zig — sorry, by the way. I shouldn't of commandeered your party like this. Just guess I needed to get it out. So yeah, I finally escaped. It happened one night when the hag was watching her public access sermons. I had a newspaper, excited by the fresh set of comics . That was my life — the only time I felt alive. I'd be careful to poop off in the corner … I hated it when that or my molting covered parts of the paper, and I couldn't reach a wing between the bars and move it…. Sorry." Flash laughed, seeing the look on their faces. "Gross, I know. But at the time, nothing else mattered to me.
"I was reading a news article in the paper. It wasn’t the comics, but I was excited — excited in a way I had never felt in my entire life. Like I said, the only fresh air in my life was that paper. But one of my feathers fell through the floor bars. I was trying to move it out of the way so I could finish reading the article. I wanted to finish it. Needed to. I was making a lot of noise, I guess — enough for the old lady to keep shouting for quiet, that she was couldn’t hear her sermons.
"I really wasn't listening, so I didn't notice her until she was right outside my cage, looking ready to kill me.
“She almost whispered it, saying, 'I told you to be quiet.' That's what made me stop trying to move the feather. I looked up, and there she was, towering over my cage. She stuck a finger in, trying to hit me. I bit her, and that got her mad.
"I'd say she lost her mind, but she was already crazy. Because that's when she took out her teeth, and struck them through the bars to hit me with them."
Silas was dumbstruck. "She did what?"
Colin grimaced. "Take out her teeth? How could she take out her teeth?"
"They were fake," Flash said. "Fake teeth. She took out the upper row. They were dirty. Yellow, with food and beer stains. She whacked my beak, my head. I wasn't even thinking. I fought back, biting and grabbing. She was getting crazier. She dropped her fake teeth in my cage. That's when she had to open the door. I managed to get past her. That's when I escaped. All those years of planning, and I got out when I least expected it."
Some of the listeners let out a low whistle. Mack shook his head slowly. "As long as you've lived here, Goldplume, you never told us that. It's no wonder. Sounds like a nightmare."
Flash nodded. "That's why when Silas tells us how Fox captured him, tied him up, and he escaped … that impresses me. Silas, you're my hero —" Some of the birds made a sappy Aaaah! sound. Flash waved them down. "No, really. I know what it's like to be caged. It’s no way to live. You said Fox admitted to having the Bears. You've got my support, Silas. Being held prisoner is against nature. Nail that son of a grub to the wall, just like he did to Mole."
The others cheered their agreement.
“Alright,” Silas said. The thought of punishing Fox filled him with energy. More so, he wouldn't admit, than the prospect of rescuing the Bear cubs. He hopped to the rail, getting ready to fly. "I'll go see Barnes now. Zig, have a good flight back to New York; we look forward to another mouth to feed next winter with our scarce food supply. And Flash …" Silas nodded at him. "Thanks for sharing your story. I'm sure it wasn't easy. But I needed to hear that. Needed to know someone was behind me … this whole Fox thing…."
Zig Chickadee said quick goodbyes to everyone, joining Silas on the railing. "Jeepers. I should be heading out, get in a good day of flying. Can't say I'll miss you bunch'a misanthropes, but I'll say it anyway. Silas, I'm going your way. North's on the other side of the barn, if that's where you're headed."
They took off in the direction of the barn. Before long Zig spoke in his heavy northeastern accent. "Mind if we pull ovah onto a branch, Silas? I've got a darn lot of miles between me and Long Island, and before I go, I've been wanting to run by beak with you. Have been wanting to since I seen you caught up with this killah and mystery business! Now let's get on a perch before I wheeze myself to death."
They went onto an elm branch.
"You've been living here in this forest for a couple years now, isn't that right, Silas?"
"Yes." Silas knew Zig was a talker, and Silas needed to see Barnes. But since Silas had met Zig two autumns ago, when Zig came down to winter in the forest, Silas knew him as a straight flier. If he took Silas aside to talk, there was a reason for it.
"Pretty hard start to spring down here, killings and all." Zig pronounced hard as haaard.
"Yep."
"I know you and me haven't talked much,” Zig said, “More acquaintances than friends, as sorry as that sounds."
"I think we're friends, Zig."
Zig waved a wing impatiently. "No. I mean friends who talk about things that matter, the worm that's crawling deep in your gut no one else knows is there."
"Umm,” Silas said. “if you think I have digestive problems, you didn't have to take me aside —"
Zig cut him off.
"It's not that you ain't funny, kid. It's just you're not getting what I have to say. I come down here every winter from New York. Between the hours of dawn and dusk, I'm either napping or crapping, small talking with you birds round a feeder. And I wouldn't have it any other way. You come to be my age — and they're ain't no prize for guessing, so don't bother — talking with pals over a slow meal is about all you care to do.
"But that don't mean I still can't separate the worm from the dirt."
"Meaning?” Silas asked.
"Meaning tell the difference between the important and the not so important. And I know something else, too, because I’ve been in something similar to where you are now. The texture’s different, what you’re dealing with now, but I’d bet a bucket of worms the flavor’s still the same. You’re headed to talk with Barnes in a few about Fox. Don’t get me wrong — that dog needs putting down. I don’t have a note of lament in me if you get Fox locked up, or killed. He probably deserves it ten times ovah.
“But every other animal in this forest is up against Fox, too. You might have a history with him, Silas, but you’re not the only one suffering at his paw. What makes you different is what keeps you hopping, though your wings are tied, and you haven’t snooze in days.”
Silas spoke up. “Fox is a killer! And a kidnapper! If we don’t get the cubs back soon —”
“Save the speech for when you’re on Council,” Zig said. “Silas, I know what’s making you push so hard. And it ain’t Fox. You’ve got something crawling out your past, and it’s chewing on you every day.” He held up a wing. “Don’t try telling me otherwise. I’ve been where you are, and you can’t hide it from someone who's flown the same wind.”
“I don’t have anything —”
Zig pointed a wingtip aggressively in Silas’ face. “You’ve got a parasite from your past, Silas. But you didn’t leave it there. I’ve heard some of what you had going on up in that forest in Virginia, but I don’t think anyone else but you knows the whole story. And I don’t ask because I’m curious. I’m asking so you can get it off your back. Until you can talk about it, that parasite is staying right where he is. That parasite will feed on you until there’s nothing left … and keep chewing! You’ve got a choice, kiddo. You can talk to an old squawker like me and get it off your back, or you can keep carrying that big motherplucker around! What will it be, Silas? You can fly off this branch a free bird. You just have to say what happened up in that forest.”
Silas kept quiet. He guessed Zig was right: he did see him as an acquaintance. He didn’t want to talk about his business, especially to someone he wasn’t close to. Still, the thought of talking about what happened in the Daniel Boone Forest had an appeal. Could he really be free of it?
“Well?” Zig said, prompting.
“Zig … I … I can’t — I can’t. Sorry. There’s nothing.”
Zig pursed his beak. “You’re sure?”
“Sure. I’m just tired. I … I just want to get rid of Fox, like you said.…”
Zig nodded slowly. “As you say. You don’t want to talk, that’s fine. It’s poisoning you … but fine. Just know you can sing me your song when you’re ready. I’ll be back next autumn, you know. You fellas ain’t rid of me yet.”
“Thanks, Zig.”
“My pleasure. You asked for it, though: You won’t talk, so I’m abouta do it for the both of us. I got a story … Hoping you can get something out of it. Maybe learn you some lessons that this old bird was too dumb to learn himself.
“Now,” Zig went on, “you probably don't know this about me, Silas, but I'm not from New York."
"Oh?" Silas didn't give a mite where Zig was from, but he didn't say so. Older birds reminded him of dogs dry-humping a human's leg; they'd sidle up to anything with an ear. "Where are you from, then?"
“Thanks for asking,” Zig said wryly. "State of Maine. Bar Harbor and thereabouts. Lived in a pine with my sweetie, not too far inland."
"Why did you move?"
"That's the story. Maybe you’ll get wise from it, maybe not. Silas, don’t think I don’t know birds like me talk like ears are just holes for filling. I know you've got a lot to do. More than any other animal flying, running, or crawling this forest. So I promise, I gotta point, even if I get to it slowah than a dung beetle rolling bear turd uphill."
Silas couldn't help checking the sun. It was already near midday, and he had lots to do yet. Silas sighed. Zig cleared his throat, settling into his perch for some marathon jabbering.
"I left Bar Harbor same reason what's going on in these woods. Nature was off it's rocker. I know the whole balancing act; can't have the good times without the bad, and all that buncha compost. But if that was so, there must of been a hell of a good time right around the corner, cuz I was seeing just a wicked lot of bad. I had to get out of there."
"What happened?"
"Someone killed my wife. That happened."
"I'm sorry. Who ate her body?" Silas hoped he sounded sympathetic.
"That's the point. No one ate her. She was murdered."
"Who did it?"
"Didn't know at first. Thought it was some of the human boys, got in their daddies' hunting cabinets. A while there there was a group of boys doing just that, tramping through the woods with rifles, leaving empty beer cans, bodies of the birds and squirrels they shot. Just lying there, on the ground." Zig gesture, as if the bodies were strewn all across the forest around them.
Silas thought of his baby brother Benedict, thrown out of the nest by their mother. He thought of hearing the body thump on the forest floor. Zig's face was grim.
"You could hear the boys coming a mile off. Louder than a rampaging moose. Talking loud, laughing when they'd shoot down a bird. Never seen anything like it in my life. I'd hide up in my tree, too scared to do anything, hoping I’d be the one they didn’t see. They'd walk right under my tree, brags bouncing between them, saying pussy this, pussy that. All the pussy they were getting. Can't be sure,” Zig said, “but I think they ranked their status by the number of cats they owned, and not by their ability to sing and their colorings."
Silas pondered it. "Could be. Corey's girlfriend has a cat, and she seems to have higher status than him."
"That's probably so," Zig said, nodding, "But we’re getting off my point. Point is, these boys were monsters. I thought for sure if anything happened to me or my wife, it would be by them."
"They shot your wife?"
Zig scratched patterns in the bark. He shook his head. "They didn't. Bad as they were, it wasn't them. I'm saying I thought it was them. When I found my wife dead, I was sure it was those boys. No bullet wound in her. She was crushed. Like under a heel."
"That's terrible,” Silas said. “I'm sorry, Zig."
Ziggy waved him off. "It's wind blown under the wing. It's past. I ain't pretending I still don't think about it every day, but it's my burden alone. I'm telling you because maybe I can teach you something.
"Now, I went after those boys faster than if a falcon was chasing my tail. Got birds together to dive bomb them everytime they went outside. One of them had a car, a beat-up looking thing with only one working light, but those boys worshipped it like it was a suet cake tall as a tree. We dive bombed that, too. Later had a moose friend put his antlers through the windows, smash the car until it couldn't run. Even got the forest rangers involved, then the human police.
“They questioned the boys, found some stuff on one of them — not Crazy Berries, but something close. The police ended up putting him in a cage. Said he would be the female dog to the others in the cage. Don't know what that meant, neithah — The boy was a male human, but I guess men in cages have female dogs for status, too. Who knows."
Silas thought he would ask Ralph next time they talked. Zig stretched his wings out, encompassing everything he said.
"I thought all of this would make me feel better. It didn't. But if anyone tells you it doesn't change how you feel: liar, liar, wings on fire! Take it from this old Maine’ah, you'll feel different. Maybe not good, but … charged up. Like you've been flying hard for an hour, and you’re feeling pumped. You’ll feel vicious. You want to stab your beak into something; a defenseless grub, maybe. But there ain't no grubs around, and you're just there, revved up, but with nothing to fly at."
"If it wasn't the boys, who was it?"
"I’ll get to that. But that’s later. So I woke up one day, my tree swaying like it was rabid. Thought there was an earthquake, except Bar Harbor don't get earthquakes. Or like the wind was going to blow down the pine, but there ain’t no wind neither. I look down. There's this beaver, chewing at my tree."
"You tell him to stop?"
Zig gave Silas a look telling him to get serious. "No, I asked him if he wanted his teeth polished.… Of course I told him to stop! He wouldn't though, ‘cept to tell me he’d been wanting my tree for months for his dam!
"I told this beaver to get lost. Told him I knew some wicked large mammals in the woods who would be happy meeting the animal damming up our stream! Now those were some pretty big words for me; except for those boys with the rifles, confrontation was a pretty new thing for me, so I was shaking more than I wanted to let on. Talking to someone with a scar on his beak like you got, I know I'm talking to someone not afraid to ruffle a few feathers. But I tell you, I was scared. The beaver said, Lke it or lump it, he was taking my tree!
"I dive bombed, but he kept chewing the trunk. Said my poop was nothing that wouldn't wash off in the water! Damn it if that little pissah didn't fell my tree!, takin’ it off to build on his own dam!"
Silas shook his head, commiserating. "Zig, that's terrible. But hey, listen. I've got to get —"
"Going, I know. I told you I had a point. Perch tight until I get there, alright? I ain't talking to hear myself speak; I already know the story. I'm saying it for you.
"Now, like I was saying, this beaver took my tree. And I did what any good bird with a measure of self respect would do: I let him get away with it. I put my head down, found a new tree, and built a nest.
Silas had a hard time seeing himself letting someone do something like that and get away with it. Zig went on.
"I kept on, keeping on for some months. And by that I mean I ate my entire life savings of dried insects by day, then got drunk on fermented berries by night. I would hear that beaver in the woods some nights, chewing through some other sorry animal's tree. But I let it be. Too drunk to care, too busy feeling sorry for myself, with just a dead wife, and a cold Maine wintah to look forward to.
"Flocks of religious birds kept stoppin’ by. Just like scavengers, they are, circling your tree. It’s like they can smell when you’re vulnerable. Trying to get me to join their flock, hand out strips of tree bark with their Mother Spider scripture. Said they'd teach me to write. I told 'em I had nothing to write about." Zig looked sidelong at Silas. "You're not religious, are ya? No? No, I didn't think so. You don't have that chirpy happy-to-be-alive attitude that's so wicked annoying.
"Anyway, I said to those birds, I said, If Mother Spider has a pattern woven special for each of us, why doesn't she learn to spin a better thread? Her eight legs must have got tangled while she was doing mine, because my life looked like a ball of crap."
They chuckled.
"Got the Mother Spider nuts to finally go away,” Zig said. “Funny how ugly they can get when you don't drink the nectar. But I couldn't shake what they said about each of us having our own pattern. Woven into the same web, but each pattern different, see? Pulling one thread tugs on the others. And so on. I don’t buy into the whole Mother Spider crap, but to borrow one from the humans, a broken clock is still right twice a day. So maybe it wasn't Mother Spider screwin’ up my web, but your pal Mr. Zig Chickadee here was sure doing a good job tangling himself up in it. I was weaving my own story about poor Ziggy Chickadee, and I'd been telling it every night before I got erased on Crazy Berries.
"So finally I said to myself, If I'm still so miserable, it’s because something ain’t settled. My wife's murder. There’s grieving, and I had that, but time had passed. Hell, Silas, it had already been three months. So it was something else wormin’ through me, chewing on me. Injustice, that's what it was. I had gotten those human boys good, that's for sure. But partah me knew it wasn't them.
Partah me always knew.Didn’t want to believe I was wrong, though. Get what I'm saying, Silas? I had a pattern I was set on weaving in my damn part of the spider web, and I didn't want to face the truth because it wasn’t the same as what I’d been weaving.
"Okay…." Silas couldn't see directly through the branches, but it looked like high noon. He shifted on the branch. "So what did you do then?"
"I went to sleep,” Zig said. “That's what I did. I told myself I'd find what happened to my wife — tomorrah. But that night? I had three Crazy Berries popped down my throat. But listen up, kiddo; this is the cream filling.
“Here’s what happened. I had set to weaving myself a new pattern, but it wasn't going to wait for me to get my worm-filled rear out of the tree! The new weaving started that night.
"The beaver came back, middle of the night. I woke up to my tree shaking. I shouted at him, still half drunk, but it was just like before. I'd learned what I could about the beaver from some other animals. His name was Buck Castor, kicked outta Eastport for causing trouble.
"I didn't know what to do. I tried dropping pebbles on him. He just kept sawing away. Don't think the beaver remembered me from before. That bucktooth grin as he looked up the tree at me — that … that I remember like it was today. It wasn't evil. Not exactly. More like a dumb pleasure doing what he did, and knowing nothing kept him from it. He was a saw. Happiest when he was sawing. Tell him he's destroying your home, and you're still talking to a saw. All it wants to do is what it’s made for.
"Silas, I told him he better stop; that he got away with it once, and if he sawed down my tree, I'd be sweet-talking the fur trappers down at the diner. He stopped gnawing at that, said he'd heard someone say that before. Another chickadee, a female.
"My body temperature dropped. I asked him when. This Buck Castor said he didn't know — some chickadee saying she was watching a friend's nest while they were gone. She was there when he started chewing it down, said the same thing about the fur trappers I did. Then he said how he asked her to come down and talk with him, reasonable-like, on the ground. That they could work something out.
"This part in Buck's story, he stopped. He chuckled thinking back to what he did. Not evil, like I said, just the uncaring you’d expect from a saw — though I guess that and evil might boil down to the same thing. That's when Buck said the chickadee landed near him. Said she was a pretty little thing, too! I remember he chuckled again. I'll never forget that. Then Buck said he turned real quick, slapped down with his tail. He crushed her. So my wife wasn’t crushed by no heel of no boy. It was a beaver tail.
"That, Silas, is when I found out who killed Mrs. Chickadee. Mother Spider or some other sick son of a grub was weaving my thread wicked fast now, right around my plucking neck. I couldn’t breathe.”
Silas asked, “Did you get him back?”
“Did I kill him? That’s what you’re asking. Not that day. What could I do? I was a drunk bird no bigger than a pinecone, against a sixty pound yellow-toothed killah. He chewed up that tree just like the other. Carried every last branch into a canal he built! I hadn’t noticed how big his pond was growing until it was too late. When he took my second tree, my part of the forest looked more like a wetland. That beaver’s pond was nearly lapping at the trunk of my tree, and I was too caught up in my web to notice. Too busy thinking the boys were the enemy, and me — the poor, oh-you-should-feel-sorry-for-me — drunk widower.
“When that tree