Silas flew hard, paying no attention to his surroundings. He was thinking about Fox’s challenge, how Fox had found enough leverage on Momma Bear to turn her into a furry four hundred pound tank, used to lay siege on the Forest Council.
But what was really sticking in Silas’ crop was how Fox’s real challenge was never about him, Silas, at all. Fox had used the murders as a distraction, a sideshow using the weaker Council Members. And it was not so much to distract Silas, but to toy with him. Fox’s real focus had been on Momma Bear. Silas hated admitting it, but his ego had taken a hit realizing it was not he, but someone else, that was the center of Fox’s focus … even if that attention was coming from a serial killer.
Maybe Harvey was right. Maybe Silas was only interested when he was the center of attention. Perhaps that was why all the animals had just assumed Silas was running for Forest Council. After all, a Perch on Forest Council would serve to put Silas in the spotlight.
But so what if there was a part of him that needed recognition? He knew there was an equally large part of him that wanted a quiet life — one on the sidelines, where meaning was found in the mundane, comfort in the ritual of surviving through another day. Maybe it was Silas’ craving for the quiet life why he found reasons for escape into the city, like he was doing now, where there were less animals, a slower pace of life for birds.
The large southern red oak mushroomed from the front of the lot, and behind it, Grace Winsworth’s Victorian. Silas tucked in his wings slightly, angling into a shallow, spiraling dive circling the property.
Right as Silas was about to plummet to Grace’s bedroom window, he saw a large dark figure launch out her window, taking off into the sky. Silas veered back, diving into the red oak, hiding among the branches. The bird was large, soot black, with a large hooked beak. Silas stayed unmoving deep in the branches, his heart beating fast.
Tony Crow. What was he doing here? Did he know Silas was still alive? But how did he know Silas visited Grace, and where to find him, deep in Nashville?
Because forest animals talk, Silas answered himself. That’s all they do.
Silas needed to see Corey, alert him to the danger. But the driveway was empty, and his car wasn’t parked on the street. He had seen Tony fly from outside Grace’s bedroom window…
A rising dread crept over Silas. It was a mild March day. If Grace’s window was left open for air…
Silas needed to get inside, check on Grace. He bent his legs, which felt rooted by fear into the branch, willing himself to launch into the air. He flew straight for the window; he could hear pigeons cooing in the eaves, but didn’t look up. Silas landed on the sill. The window was wide open. Grace lay in her bed, sleeping. Silas felt awash with relief.
“Grace! Grace! I was worried … I saw Tony Crow here, I didn’t know if you were…”
Silas trailed off as he looked around the room. It was wrecked. Pictures that had been on the wall littered the floor smashed in their frames; the lunch tray was tipped over, spilled on the bed; the newspaper was scattered and ripped, strewn on the foot of the bed and floor, Grace’s puzzle page half finished. And on the far wall, where the pictures used to hang, were huge red letters, dripping wet:
YICSKL
The C and K were circled.
Brakes squealed outside, a motor killed in the driveway. Corey was back. Silas felt so many emotions at once he didn’t know how he felt, but someone in there was fury: fury at Corey for not being here; fury at himself taking precious minutes listening to Momma Bear’s story; at Grace for dying (for part of Silas knew she was dead); Tony Crow for what he did; Fox for sending him; Silas was even furious at the pigeons on the roof. He wanted to shriek, to fly after Tony, break his wings in flight and watch him plummet a hundred feet onto asphalt.
But he knew he couldn’t do that right yet. He needed a minute with the crime scene before Corey blundered through ruining it. For the first time since the fight with Momma Bear in the barn Silas looked, really looked, to pay attention to his surroundings with his excellent vision. He used his robin-bred ability to see energy distortions.
The magnetic fields coming off Grace were weak, and fading… too faint for any living human. The life support equipment beside her bed was unusually mute. Silas studied the machines, tracing the rubber ropes that usually connected into the wall. The ropes connected into a hub; Silas traced its cord: unplugged.
Silas looked close at the electric rope casing. There were bite marks indenting the material; the pattern showed stress where someone pulled it from the wall. Scratch marks were in the paint below the socket, from Tony’s claws, no doubt, as he pried the wire out of the wall.
So Tony had pulled Grace’s life support, starving her body of the tools keeping it alive. Silas flitted onto the bed. He hopped around the covers over Grace; her body felt unnaturally stiff, like ground just beginning a thaw. Her eyes were shut, her face peaceful; maybe it was just Silas remembering how she always was, but he thought there was … not quite a smile, but maybe what was contentment on her face. If it wasn’t for her waning energy field, Grace looked like she could still be alive… Silas tilted his head, studying her neck. There was something wet there …
Silas flew onto her shoulder, leaning in and smelling. Blood. He wedged his body into the crook between her head and shoulder, prying to expose her neck. There was a horrific tearing of flesh; Silas could see sinews and a large artery where the skin was torn away. Surprisingly little blood had run down her neck and under her nightgown.
No blood splatter. So at least Grace had been dead before Crow had torn into her neck, using it as an inkwell for writing the code on the wall.
Silas searched the room for feathers, anything incriminating. He found nothing. Anger flared again in Silas at Corey. The room was wrecked by the killer, but the grime tracked over Grace’s covers, the walls, the floor … that was careless nestkeeping. Then Silas detached his emotions, reexamining the grime, finally considering that maybe it appeared only where the killer had tracked.
Silas followed one trail of grime over the bed that went onto the newspaper still on the bed. It was Grace’s puzzle page. Where before he thought it was only partly filled in, Silas saw half was done in dark ink, in Grace’s shaky print. He leaned closer. In faint, nearly perfect printing, were pencil marks. The pencil filled in every block Grace had not, circled every answer Grace hadn’t. The pencil circled the letters in the word find … corrected some of Grace’s entries in the crossword … filled the blanks in the word jumble.
As he studied the page, without consciously thinking to, Silas unscrambled the letters on the wall.
“Sickly.”
Talons clicked on the window sill.
“Didn’t think you were smart enough to do puzzles.” Silas hadn’t looked up, but he would recognize the voice of Larry Palomita, the pigeon gang leader, anywhere. Like floodgates lifting, the rage Silas had harnessed, putting it to use studying the crime scene, unleashed all at once through Silas. Larry Palomita was oblivious to Silas’ threatening posture, looking around the room.
“Geez, Louise! What happened here? Is that… Is the old lady dead?”
Silas collided with the pigeon, closing the distance with preternatural speed. They hurled off the sill, slamming onto the lawn outside. Silas was on Larry, spearing his beak at his head, Larry barely managing to dodge the blows.
“What the…” Larry blustered. He struggled out from under Silas, flying off around the side of the house, looking to get back to the safety of his flock. Silas flew hot on his tail, Larry plotting an evasive pattern over the pyracantha bushes, around Corey’s car, then up to the eaves. Larry’s gang cooed in surprise, seeing their leader flying for his life, a robin the source of his distress.
One of the pigeons called out, confused, “Hey, Larry, is that that forest robin? What’s he doing —”
The pigeons ducked from their perch on the eave as Larry and Silas flew over, their undersides grazing the city birds’ heads.
“Don’t just perch there!” Larry wheezed, “Get him!”
Silas chased Larry in circles around the red oak in the front yard. They spun around and around the trunk; Larry flew up, heading for the safety of the branches. The rest of his gang was finally catching on, taking off from the eaves and coming after Silas.
They wove and darted through the maze of branches. Larry landed on a branch, bending his knees to take off again. Silas putting on a burst of speed, launched upward into him. Larry squeaked as the air knocked out of him; he fell, almost hitting a lower branch, pivoting around it and catching air just in time. The other pigeons were in the branches now, too, cooing up a ruckus. Larry’s confidence started to reassert. Calling to his gang, he shouted, “Kill this piece of trash!”
Silas had to change course to avoid a pigeon intercepting him. He flew up through the branches, drawing the gang away from Larry, who was directing his goons from the bottommost branch. Silas broke up through the top of the tree, flying straight up, the gang following. Then Silas stopped beating his wings. He went zero gravity before going into freefall. The pigeons under him yelled, surprised as he was suddenly falling back their way. They scattered as he dove through them, wings folded so his body was a red streaking bullet. He shot down through the top of the tree, dodging the branches by pure instinct, ruddering with twitches of body and tail.
Larry, still perched on the bottom branch, shouted to his gang. “You guys catch him?”
In the second before collision, Silas jerked his feet out, hitting Larry like a missile. They slammed onto the ground at the base of the tree. Larry was a crumpled heap. A groan told Silas he was still alive.
The other pigeons landed around Silas, four in total. They circled him. The first to strike was the one behind Silas. He anticipated it, rotating around the peck, clouting the pigeon with his wing. Two flew at him at once. Silas rolled under them, hopping on one’s back, biting at his head. The pigeon shrieked, throwing him off. One pigeon locked talons and feathers with Silas. Another edged around his back, trying to take him from behind.
The pigeon wrestling Silas, a big, fat one, said in a deep voice, “Ready to squawk, little guy?”
Silas got out of the pigeon’s hold, wrapping his feet around the bird’s neck, his wings holding the head in place. “You first.” Silas slammed his beak into the big pigeon’s skull. There was a cracking sound, and the bird went limp.
The pigeon who had been sneaking around Silas’ back suddenly backed up, holding his wings out in supplication. “We’re cool, man! We’re cool! I don’t want to fight!” He flew away.
Silas turned back to Larry, who had gotten up, testing his wings and shaking his head. “You’re dead, Oaktree. You were dead the second you flew into me…”
“When did Crow get here? If you told him about Grace, that I come here…”
Larry ignored him, leaping at Silas, looking ready to kill.
Silas side-swiped him with a wing, then his other, then again. Larry was stunned, wobbling to stay on his feet. Then Silas planted his wings on the ground, swinging forward as he lifted his legs, double-kicking Larry square in the breast. Larry sailed back, slamming into the tree trunk.
When you grew up in the Projects of the Daniel Boone Forest, you learned to fight dirty.
Silas pinned Larry Palomita against the trunk. He shouted into the pigeon’s dazed face. “When did Crow get here? What did you tell him?”
“Pluck you, Oaktree,” Larry said, his eyes half-closed.
“Wrong answer!” Silas used a wing to slam Larry’s head into the trunk. “I’ll ask you again: What did you tell Tony Crow? How long’s he been coming here?” Silas raised his wing, ready to strike Larry again.
Larry choked on his tongue. “Okay! Okay! I saw him go in the old lady’s window — That’s it, I swear!”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t talk! Crow is always shaking birds down for information! What did he ask you about me?”
“He didn’t talk to none of us today,” Larry said. “He came after that fat human parked over there left. Just went in through the window. He was here yesterday, too, after you came. Said he followed you. Said you were a friend. Wanted to know about the old lady … why you visited her.”
Silas looked back at the driveway. Corey had seen the end of the fight. He was getting off his phone, struggling to put it away, work off his safety belt, and open the car door, all at the same time. Silas turned back to Larry.
“What did you tell Crow? Don’t lie to me, Palomita…”
Larry coughed and sputtered. “I’m not! I’m telling you! That Crow’s one scary bird. That deep voice, you know? Eyes look like they read right through you, into your head, you know? I just told him you knew the human dude, the one that comes to watch the old lady. That you were, like, friends.”
“And?”
“That’s it! I swear! Maybe I told him I thought you were a little weird, but that was it. When I asked the crow who he was, he just warned me to not ask questions. I didn’t need telling twice. So when I saw him today, I wasn’t flying over to chitchat, you know? When he flew in, he just said, ‘I’m not here for you pigeons.’ In that creepy booming voice of his, you know? I wasn’t gonna chum up next to him on the branch..”
Silas looked up at the branches. He imagined Crow perched here, dark and forbidding, waiting for Corey’s car to leave the driveway, for Grace would be alone….
Silas looked into Larry’s stupid face, looking for a lie. “Is that all?”
“Yeah!” Larry said, a note of pleading in his voice. “That’s all! Will you let me go?”
Silas nodded his head. “Okay.” He slammed Larry’s head into the tree, knocking the pigeon unconscious.
Corey jogged over. “Silas? What happened? You okay?”
Silas turned on him, suddenly fierce. “Where were you?” he shouted.
“What?” Corey looked nonplussed, not sure why Silas was yelling. “I was getting some lunch. Talking with Jen, making sure where she was…”
Silas felt his temper slowly deflating.
“Corey, I’ve got some bad news. It’s Grace…”
He took him inside, showing Corey what had become of his patient and friend.
* * *
It was later that afternoon, the sun yellowing in the sky. Silas was in his nest, a stack of old newspaper from Grace wedged in a nearby crook where branch met trunk. He was refeathering his nest. Rather than be therapeutic as his wife had suggested, Silas’ anger just ripened from the time to stew in his thoughts.
Silas flew from newspaper to nest and back, tearing strips of paper with a savagery that worried Crystal, who watched, immobile on her roost, as Silas bit the paper into shape, violently pounding the fibers into the weave of the nest. It wasn’t helping Silas’ mood that, in spite of telling Crystal about Grace’s murder by Tony Crow on Fox’s orders, and Fox’s manipulation of Momma Bear, Crystal didn’t have enough sense to keep her big bill shut, micromanaging his work. It was Crystal’s idea to carpet the floor of the nest with the paper, saying it would be softer on the chicks’ feet than the bare twigs. But Silas didn’t see her getting up to help, sitting on top of the eggs like a throne from which she cast orders — “just suggestions,” as Crystal had called them when Silas snapped at her, like he was the one being unreasonable.
Silas chewed a wad of paper, a technique he learned off a traveling chimney swift, softening it into a mushy pulp, spitting it out, mashing it over the floor of the nest. Up until today he had thought he was fighting Fox for the good of all the animals: because Fox was a killer, a force contrary to the good of the forest. But Silas didn’t care about any of that anymore. Moral reasons, fighting for what was good, couldn’t have felt like more of an empty and meaningless excuse than it did to Silas now.
Now he wanted to fight Fox because it would give him pleasure to hurt him, to kill him. Silas was no longer standing against Fox to stop him; rather, Silas stood to match him. As Silas chewed the paper mercilessly, working it over the nest, dutifully ignoring Crystal’s observations of which spots he had missed, he schemed.
He would start with Fox’s human mercenaries. He didn’t know how a bird his size could take down two large hillbillies armed to the teeth, but right now, Silas felt so vicious he thought he could go paw-to-wing against Momma Bear. Besides, how could Silas even feel pain anymore, after seeing Grace’s body, lifeless and mutilated?
There was a yip and a growl from the base of the tree. Silas was oblivious, caught up in his work, his circuitous thoughts traced over and over through the same pattern until the anger was worn in a deep groove. The yip came again, and Crystal looked over the side. She chirped a cry of fear. “Silas!” she said.
Silas looked over the side. Fox was pacing back and forth below.
“So it’s true!” said Fox. “You’re alive!”
Silas was going to plummet down, do to Fox what he had done to Larry Palomita, but worse. Crystal read what Silas was thinking. She hissed, “Don’t, Silas! Don’t! Please… stay here… for me… the eggs…”
Silas had to hold himself to the nest. “What do you want, Fox? Come to gloat about Grace, you coward?” It disgusted Silas that Fox had sent Tony Crow to kill his friend, not even deigning to do it himself.
Fox seemed not to have heard. “When I heard the talk, rumors in the forest… I thought, they couldn’t be true…. How? How did you escape the barrel, Oaktree?” Fox sounded incredulous, emphatic in his need for an answer. Silas said nothing, chewing his tongue. Looking at Fox, his narrow, conspiring face; the mouth partially open, demanding an explanation for Silas’ escape, the fox’s curiosity even now more pressing than any satisfaction from having killed Grace. Silas despised him more for it, his focus on Fox a white-hot beam of hate. Fox twitched his tail.
“How?!” he shrilled, breaking the quiet. “I designed that challenge so it was impossible for you to escape! What happened? Did that flying squirrel Glider loosen your bonds? I will kill him within the hour….
Silas chirped derisively. “It wasn’t Glider. I escaped on my own. Your challenge was weak.”
Fox yelped, taken aback Silas would insult his challenge. He raised his hackles. “It was not weak! It was inescapable, Oaktree! You were trussed; the barrel was too high to climb out. How did you get out? TELL ME!” His scream sent birds flying out of the trees.
Silas took pleasure in Fox’s distress. “Why would I tell you? So you can learn how to kill better? Extorting Momma Bear failed. You heard already: Barnes is alive, so is Washer. Me too. I know about the humans you hired, too.”
Fox stopped pacing. He stared at Silas, surprised to hear all Silas knew. He recovered quickly, a sneer twisting his face. “You think that will save anyone, Oaktree?, knowing about the mercenaries? Small comfort, seeing as they have guns. You probably think Washer is safe… that I don’t know he’s in hiding in the red cedar grove? Did Barnes think a few pungent trees would throw me off?” Fox barked derisively. “Or that Barnes’ protection will be enough to save him from my hunters? I own the muscle in this forest, Oaktree. Because I know how to find leverage on anyone… something you can’t understand.”
“I understand you don’t have leverage on me,” Silas said. “That’s why you tried to kill me in that barrel last night. You’re scared that you’re ridiculous ambitions to take over the forest are about to be squashed by a robin!”
Fox snarled. “Unlikely, Oaktree. That’s something else you don’t understand… thinking I’m doing it just for the power….” He giggled. “Maybe we are alike, in a way. At least as far as living for the challenge. That’s what it’s all about … Life is all about the challenge —”
“A challenge?” Silas said. “Is that why you sent Crow to kill a defenseless old lady, for the challenge?”
Fox didn’t answer. He stared at Crystal, who was watching him over the nest. It gave Silas a crawling feeling on the back of his neck. “You come after my wife or me, I’ll kill you, Fox.”
Fox blinked, like he was coming back to the present. He refocused on Silas. “I told you, Oaktree. The wager on the challenge. You escaped the berry barrel — I don’t know how, though I will find out. The agreement was I would not touch you, or any of your family ever again. I will not try to hurt you, as much as I would love to see you die.”
“How reassuring,” Silas said sarcastically. “I almost believe you. Too bad you’re a homicidal psychopath I wouldn’t trust if you said your fur was red.”
Fox smiled, or bared his teeth. “You have my word, Oaktree. You, and Crystal, and your deformed little eggs — all safe from me. You could dance on my teeth, and I wouldn’t bite the life out of you.”
Silas considered Fox. Could he trust what he was saying? Not a chance. Fox had been killing an animal a day for the last three days; it hadn’t even been twenty four hours since Fox had had Silas tied and tried murdering him. “What about the Council?” Silas asked. “Will you call off your mercenaries? You can stop this, you know.” Silas didn’t like how magnanimous he was sounding to his own ears. He seemed to be offering a truce to Fox — but it was too late for that. As far as Silas was concerned, Fox had sealed his fate with everything he had done since the Forest Council meeting.
Fox coming here stirred up a lot in Silas. But like with Grace’s murder scene, he needed to master himself, to work on what he could control while he still had a chance. Fox had showed his hand: his human hunters knew where raccoon Council Member Rex Washer was hiding; Silas would bet his brightest feathers they were on their way to take him out now. Silas needed to find Mitch Birdsly, to get going, now.
Still, there was always time to incense Fox.
“Great,” Silas said. “If I’m so immune, then you won’t mind my doing this.” Silas swooped out the nest, dive bombing Fox’s head. He pulled up before he was in jaw’s reach, dumping a wet load of poop on Fox’s head. Fox howled displeasure, Silas taking off to find Mitch, feeling a peevish satisfaction from his stunt.
A few minutes later he landed in Mitch’s tree, a handsome sassafrass. Mitch was settling in for the evening, sharing a late grass seed dinner with a pretty female finch.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Silas said. The finches looked up. “Mitch, I need to borrow you.”
“This better be good, Silas. I had a raspberry saved for dessert.”
Mitch and Silas flew hard. Silas led them toward the interstate exit, where it met a county road. “Sorry about taking you away from your date. That was a nice looking girl sharing your branch.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Mitch said. “She was too high maintenance for me anyway. Always preening, making me feel self-conscious of my own grooming. What is it we’re doing?”
Silas told him about the two human mercenaries, how Fox had hired them to kill off the rest of the Council, and how he had a strong feeling they were out for Rex Washer right now. “Barnes hid him in the red cedar grove. He didn’t even tell me where Washer was, which I guess makes sense, though he wanted me to go into hiding too. Lot of good it would have done: Fox came to my nest just now, told me where Washer was. He knows Barnes’ secrets.”
“So what are we going to do about it? Get Rex out of there before the hunters get to him?”
“Yes,” Silas said. “That, and put an end to these mercenaries. Now.”
Mitch nodded. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. Mitch and Silas both grew up in the Projects. They understood something about the hard side of life the animals of the high-resource state forest they lived in now never would: When a conflict came up between you and another, you had to put them down before they put you down. That was nature. Silas wished he could have told Zig Chickadee that years ago, before he had lost everything to not taking action.
They flew along the country road, using a straight trajectory to overtake the vehicles moving below, which had to wend and curve around the bends in the road. They were looking for the truck Silas had seen in Barnes’ photos of the two mercenaries; he described the black and chrome truck, wishing he had not forgotten the pictures in Grace’s bedroom, so Mitch could have a better idea of what he was looking out for.
“There’s a road up ahead. Cuts into the forest,” Mitch shouted over the wind. “Runs closest to the cedar grove than any other road I know of. Let’s check there.” The wind was picking up, a negative ionization in the air alerting them rain would start soon, even though the falling sun still glowed unimpeded by clouds.
They traced over the road going through the forest. The paving turned to dirt, narrow and treacherous in parts, hugging the cliffs. Still, no sign of the truck. “Don’t know if they’re here, Silas,” Mitch said. “The road runs out soon. The grove is not a minute’s flight past that.”
“Then we’ll circle back,” Silas said, beginning to bank his wings, ready to retrace the roads until they found the truck.
Then they saw it. Pulling into the muddy clearing where the road ended, the brake lights of a large pickup lit up, illuminating human skull decals over the lights.
Mitch whistled. “I didn’t see the pictures, but what would you bet —”
“It’s them, alright.” They flew low, landing unseen in a tree overlooking the truck. They were close, but unnoticeable to dull human senses, especially if those humans weren’t looking for two small birds. Down in the trees it was already dark. The doors of the truck cab opened. The two mercenaries got out.
The man from the passenger side spoke. Silas recognized him as the one called Buck Lowell. “You said one thousand apiece for killing this coon? Why would anyone pay that much? Fur ain’t worth nuthin’.”
The driver came around the back of the truck, opening the tailgate, pulling out two rifles, passing one to Buck. Silas recognized him as Hayden Townsend, the leader. “We aren’t killing for its fur. It’s an animal that’s paying. A fox. I guess this raccoon is some kind of animal politician.”
“An animal… what?” Buck rasped a laugh, quickly turning into a cough. He spit on the ground. “I just about heard it all! An animal politician… This fox… Is it The Fox? One sells you those drugs?”
The men were silhouettes in the growing dark. A lighter illuminated Hayden’s face, nodding a yes while lighting a cigarette. Mitch looked over at Silas, looking for his friend’s reaction. Silas ruffled his feathers, incensed seeing the fire. He hated fire. Hayden exhaled smoke.
“That’s the one. He’s loaded. I don’t think I know a human with as money as that fox’s got. We do this job right, there’ll be more coming. I’m sure of it. He’s planning something. Rumor is he’s hired out a whole engineering firm — for who knows what. A war against other animals in the woods, I think.” Hayden planted the cigarette in his mouth, reaching into the bed for something that made metallic clanging sounds as he wrestled it out. “Help me with this cage.”
Buck came over. They pulled a large metal trap out, setting it on the ground. “What the hell’s this for? We’re killing the coon, ain’t we?”
“Not until we get back to Fox. I didn’t come all the way out here to bag the wrong one. They all look alike. With ten grand on the line, I’m not taking that risk. No raccoon we catch is going to say he’s Rex Washer — that’s the one we’re getting paid for. He’ll just say he’s someone else, even if we’ve got the right one.”
Buck stared fixedly at his partner. “Ten grand? You said two — thousand for me, thousand for you….”
Hayden took a drag, acting casual. “Did I say ten? No, one each, like I said.” Buck glared, studying the outline of Hayden in the dark.
“If it’s ten, I’m getting five of that, Townsend….”
They argued about it for a while, Hayden finally mollifying Buck, saying they’d settle it when they got to Fox — that without the raccoon, they didn’t get anything. They grabbed the cage, their rifles in hand. Buck said, “Sounds like we should put a bullet in the fox. Find his cash, if he’s as rich as you say.”
“We try that,” Hayden said, “we wouldn’t be getting out of the woods alive. Guns or not, every damn beast in that woods is working for him.”
Buck patted his rifle, “Don’t matter none, when you got Mr. Smith, and Mr. Wesson with you.”
Their voices grew distant in the woods. Mitch turned to Silas. “They’re so loud, Rex will know they’re coming a mile off.”
Silas wasn’t so sure. Rex had been on the Council for a while now, and had been living off Council rations and protection; Silas thought Washer’s survival instincts were dulled. “Let’s make sure. If they cage Rex, we should be ready.”
The two birds flew down to the truck. “You’re the expert here, Mitch. See what you can do. I’m going back down the road a ways. See what I can get done there. I don’t know how long those humans will be; let’s see how fast we can get ready.” Mitch waved a wing distractedly, already perched on the half rolled-down window to the cab, looking around.
Silas flew back to the part of the road hugging the cliff. He looked over the side, noting the twenty foot plummet into the