The Bitching Tree

by Scott Hungerford

  By the end of the evening, when the fire had burned down low and the storm was coming on hard, Torvo had read through the first story in the book—and felt completely exhausted. It felt like he was translating the book from one language to another, from one viewpoint to another. It was one thing to guess at what a street sign said. But to read a book aloud, to translate the pages into sound through the cipher of his human brain, was very difficult.

  As the wind whipped and tore at the walls of the tent, Torvo simply nodded at Cobb’s success. He got up out of his chair and returned the spare lantern and the book to the tool room. When he came back in, with a final click from his remote the two of them were left in darkness with only a few coals glowing in the woodstove. Cobb, a little irritated at such an abrupt goodnight, listened as Torvo undressed in the dark and climbed into bed. Cobb soon did the same, setting his shoes next to the old man’s boots so they were facing the right way, then climbed into his own nest of covers, hoping that sleep would come soon.

  It did, and with it came the nightmare.

  Cobb was a crow again at the college, deep in the wild green lawn by the brick building, the one with the human statues overlooking the front steps. Taking respite from the sun amid the shade of a towering pink rhododendron bush, he was stalking worms, or better yet, salty, crunchy bits left behind by careless students. As he investigated, he tossed dry leaves with his beak, nudged aside a trundling beetle, then fluttered a bit when an overly inquisitive gray squirrel came just a little too close for comfort.

  When the coast was clear, he strutted out into the open and briefly investigated a water sprinkler head sunken into the ground, tapping three times on the rattly plastic surface for luck. Next to it, oddly enough, was one of Torvo’s red shoelaces tied to a piece of rusty metal grill. Cobb tugged at the shoelace for a bit, curious if he could somehow get it free. The grill didn’t want to move; the bit of fuzzy string didn’t either.

  Then dusk started to fall, too soon, too early. Looking up, Cobb saw the sky was suddenly filling with crows, hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands of fliers, nobody he’d ever known or met. The sun and sky were blotted out by their feathers, the world filled with the noise of their screaming cries. Terrified, he flew to the cover of a nearby tree, to a protective branch where the invading flock would be less likely to see him as they whirled and circled above. But he could sense that the evil was looking for him, trying to find him, that it wasn’t far off now.

  Looking this way and that, he saw something over by the road where the cars had all come to a stop, their insides abandoned, headlights cutting into the deepening gloom. On the grass by a bench, thousands of crows were blanketing something struggling on the ground, standing and pecking, fluttering and stabbing as if they were fighting one another for the best morsel. Every once in a while the thing would try to get up, or manage to flail a bloody limb in an attempt to wave them off. But the flock was too strong. For every crow that was knocked away, five more would come to take its place, their collective caws drowning out the creature’s feeble screams.

  Cobb did nothing. He watched with horror as the flock ate and ate and ate, then started to fly away with bits of dangling bone and flesh, some struggling to gain altitude under the weight of their purloined pieces. Those lucky enough to get good pieces of meat were chased by their brethren, swooping and dodging through the trees until they were either caught and divested of their prize—or managed to escape into the darkness against all odds.

  When the flock was gone, their meal exhausted, Cobb glided down to land next to the remains. The largest bones still lay there, and the grass all around them were smeared with blood, gore and crow droppings. It had been human once, before the flock got to it, took the eyes, tore the flesh, ate the insides while the creature was still alive and screaming.

  That’s when he saw the remains of its hand, gristle and bone, sinew torn, fingers clutching a shiny object in its palm.

  It was the diamond engagement ring, the one he was going to give to Kory—

  Waking abruptly into the sound of the wind howling and raging around the tent, Cobb sat up and screamed into the darkness until he had no air left to give. It was dark upon dark, as the embers in the stove had gone out and it was still a very long time until dawn. He heard Torvo grumble something, turn over in his bunk, and then say nothing, ask nothing as he went back to sleep.

  Heart pounding, his body slick and cold with sweat, Cobb eventually lay back down and managed to dig himself back into the nest of covers, still trembling from the force of the dream. What did it mean? Why were the crows eating Kory? Why was Torvo’s shoelace there? Even the orange light of the CB radio in the tool room wasn’t a comfort tonight. It was just too far away, a point in the dark, just like Hawna, Seattle and everything he knew. So he just lay there as the storm wrought its worst, every howling gust of wind making him scrunch even further down into the sweat-dampened blankets.

  Sometime before dawn the storm finally abated, drifted off with its rain and wrath. This time Cobb slept like the dead, black dreamless sleep without end.

  The sound of firewood being loaded into the stove woke him. It was light and Torvo was already up and fully dressed. Feigning that he was still asleep, Cobb listened as the old man limped around the tent, the smart snap and crackle of the fire taking root within the stove. Soon the porridge pot was on again, with the oatmeal cannister left out on the table by the fire. But this time instead of jerky, Torvo undid a different can of some kind and dropped hunks of pink, rubbery meat into the mix.

  Knowing he should be up, Torvo got out of bed and dressed without a word, taking a fresh change of clothes from the trunk. His own were becoming a little fragrant, especially with all of the woodcutting, so he didn’t mind that these didn’t fit him quite as well. Communicating only through a series of nods and grunts, Torvo dished up their breakfast while Cobb went out to the scat tent to quickly relieve himself. When he got back, Torvo was already halfway through his bowl. Curious, Cobb took his and sniffed it, not sure what the new contents were.

  “Spam,” Torvo said without being asked.

  “What is Spam?”

  “Man’s answer to nature’s bounty. Now eat up.”

  Torvo did so, using the spoon to cut the larger blocks of the salty, porklike substance down to size. In the oatmeal, it was kind of disgusting and kind of good as well. He decided he liked jerky oatmeal better. Much, much better. But he knew not to complain.

  “Nightmares?” Torvo asked around a mouthful.

  “Some,” Cobb replied, ready to tell Torvo what he’d seen.

  “That’s to be expected. I don’t want to hear about them, though, as it’s all just random noise with faces. I’ve had my share; I don’t need to borrow yours.”

  Cobb, a little disappointed, kept his mouth shut and finished off his bowl. When they were done they washed the dishes together, tidied the tent, banked the fire. Then Torvo got his yellow chainsaw, an ax, a pair of splitter spikes and two sets of gloves from the back. Together they went down to the river’s edge, the wet stone still slick and dark with last night’s rain. Cobb saw that the river was higher by a few inches, its fluid, rippling edge close to the lip of the rock.

  “You start chopping and I’ll cut you more rounds for today.”

  “How many sticks do you want?”

  “Forty pieces by lunch, at least. I want you to stack them up over there,” Torvo said, pointing to the long row of stacked wood that he’d spent a season setting up along the river’s edge. “Add your own section to the end of the wall. It will take you a while to learn how to make a pile that won’t fall over, so don’t be surprised when it does.” Cobb nodded and got ready to work, choosing the first round he would tackle with his ax.

  The rip-roar of the chainsaw starting spooked him—but Cobb smiled nervously this time and didn’t jump away. Cautiously, reminding himself that the chainsaw was at least fifteen steps away from his stump, he tried to ignore the whining, grindin
g sound as Torvo started to cut wood. Focusing on his own work, he just measured out his own plan and concentrated on his own methodical swings.

  As he cut and chopped, dropping into a steady rhythm, Cobb’s mind drifted back to the dream last night, of the crows and the lawn and the torn-apart body of his fiancée. It disturbed him, badly. But he knew that Kory was dead now, both by the shrine in his apartment back in Seattle, and the sense of mate-loss that he felt in the dream last night. He instinctually wanted to find some way to make peace for that, to light a candle or make an offering of food. But he didn’t know whether that was truly honoring the dead, or just a vain attempt to channel his own guilt.

  In time, Torvo was done and went back up to the tent, taking the chainsaw with him because it was still threatening rain. Taking a break from his own work, looking across the slow-moving, rippling cold water, Cobb realized that he was starting to get used to how big everything was. Though he was still awed by the majestic views and the endless expanse of forest that lay beyond every hill, he wasn’t as scared or intimidated anymore. He was feeling more at peace with every ax blow, even as he began to try to figure out what he was going to do about the Red Crow when he returned to his free his flock.

  By the time he cut his forty pieces he’d almost exhausted his whole chain of thought, from the Red Crow to Torvo, from circling ravens on the updraft to Hawna’s torrent. He was just starting to puzzle out how to start to build his wall of wood when Torvo came down the steps, dressed in a plaid coat and rough brown boots Cobb hadn’t seen him wear before.

  “I’m going to be gone for the rest of the day. Here’s lunch.” The old man handed him two of the granola bars Cobb had coveted just the previous morning.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I need to go check out our winter camp. When the first snows come we can’t survive here, not out in the open like this. I’ve got to go drag pine boughs, make sure the water hasn’t run dry, and critters haven’t got into everything.”

  “Is it a cave or something?” Cobb asked. He thought faintly of wolves and how they might hunt humans in the winter if they were hungry.

  “It’s a place where I put my extra supplies. Don’t you worry. It won’t be pleasant, but we’ll be out of the wind and the worst of the elements for the course of the winter.”

  Cobb nodded. “When will you be back?”

  “I should be back by dark. Once you’re done here, you’re welcome to spend the rest of the afternoon in the tent—as long as you don’t go into the tool room.”

  “I understand,” Cobb said. “Will you be alright? I could come with you.”

  “The wood won’t chop itself. You get to your work and I’ll get to mine.” Then Torvo turned and made his way back up the stairs without another word. A minute later, Cobb heard him splashing across the plastic channel onto shore, leaving him alone on the island.

  Cobb looked at the pile of rounds that Torvo had cut for him and decided that he was going to make his mentor proud. Taking up the ax, he went at the newest piece with a vengeance, hoping to earn Torvo’s favor by the time he returned.

  By the time dusk started to fall, Cobb had worked through every last round that Torvo had cut in the morning. By spending time studying Torvo’s wall of wood while eating his last chewy bar, Cobb got a sense of how the pieces were stacked, two this way, two that way in a kind of lattice from bottom to top, all on top of a set of railings that kept the pieces up off the ground. He’d lost count of how many sticks there were in his own portion of the wall, but he suspected he had over a hundred pieces in all.

  When he took off his gloves, he saw that his bandages were going to need bandages and that his palms were very red and sore. But it wasn’t as bad as he’d feared when he’d popped a blister earlier in the afternoon. He’d soldiered on through the pain, adjusted his gloves between every swing, and just kept going until the job was done.

  Climbing back up to the tent, he unzipped the front door and stepped into the cold room. The fire had gone out while he’d been cutting wood. Putting the ax and splitter heads down on the carpet next to his bed, he went about the process of building a new fire in the stove using the lessons that Torvo had taught him. A half hour later, after a couple of false starts, he had a merry little fire burning in the box and was able to shuck off his coat and gloves. His hands hurt something fierce, as well as his arms and shoulders. But he still felt accomplishment in what he’d done, even a touch of sacrifice.

  Now he had nothing to do. There was a table full of food that wasn’t his, and a zipped-up room full of tools and boxes and radios that were forbidden to him. He sat in his chair for a while, waiting for Torvo to return. By the time the fire needed another couple of sticks he was starting to get worried. He lay on his bed for a time, fully clothed above the covers, but the endless cycle of flickering firelight just seemed to make time go slower. He tried to sing to himself like Torvo did, but it just felt stupid to him and sounded worse, so he stopped.

  Far off in the distance, he heard wolves for the first time, forlorn howls and cries as the four-footed hunters talked to one another in the dark. He swallowed hard and eyed his ax, wondering if it would be useful as a weapon if the wolves came to call. He doubted that they could find the safe passage across the inner stream, but he sensed that they could probably swim if they had to—especially if they knew there was a tasty human on the other side.

  Cobb’s stomach growled, again, and his fingers hurt and itched all at the same time. He thought about Hawna and other nice things for a while as he listened to the fire crack and pop. But in time his hunger started to outpace his increasing sense of worry. Torvo was late and Cobb didn’t know where he was.

  Giving in, Cobb made himself oatmeal in the porridge pot, adding nothing to it, then gulped down the salty slurry right out of the pan. After rinsing the dishes with water from the river, he then paced back and forth for a time in the tent, until he finally let himself outside to see if he could see Torvo coming.

  The stars were out tonight, bright and sparkling against the dark azure sky. Some constellation patterns were recognizable amid the thousands of stars he couldn’t see in Seattle. The rush-splash of the water running through the cut, the light night wind moving through the trees, all these things he could hear. But there was no sign of Torvo and he was really getting worried.

  He sat down on the camp chair by the door and pondered. Had his teacher been eaten by wolves? Had he fallen somewhere out in the wild and needed his help? Were there more pine boughs to clear away than he had originally expected? It was cold out, cold enough that Cobb could see his breath. If Torvo didn’t come back, what should he do then?

  He’d call Hawna, he decided. He’d call Hawna in the morning if her father hadn’t returned. If he could figure out the controls on the radio. He let out a deep sigh. But it was forbidden for him to go into the back room. Torvo would cast him out, would end his training if he were to violate that one simple rule. Then the Red Crow would win and Cobb would have given up his feathers for nothing.

  Torvo had to be alive, he decided. Torvo knew how to make fires and had lived up in this part of the world for a very long time. He just had to trust that his teacher would be able to take care of himself.

  Going back into the tent, satisfied with his decision, Cobb zipped the door back up and turned around—to see Torvo sitting in his rocking chair in front of the fire, boots off, socks on, reading a magazine.

  “What?!” The old two-in-one didn’t move. “Torvo? Are you real?”

  “Of course I’m real,” Torvo said, not looking up from his magazine. “And I have eyes in the back of my head. That’s a nice stack of wood you put up down below. You worked at that all day, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did.” Cobb came over to the chair next to Torvo’s and sat down, marveling at the old man’s magic. “How did you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “You tricked me. You … you got in here right past me. That’s impossible.”<
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  “Nothing’s impossible,” Torvo replied sagely. Cobb looked up at the doorway to the tool room and saw it was open and unzipped now. The truth struck him hard, the realization that it had all been a test.

  “You were in there the whole time …”

  “I was,” Torvo replied. “I had a nice afternoon reading and thinking about what we’re going to do over the next couple of days.”

  “You could have been hurt!” Cobb accused. “You could have needed me. I didn’t know where you were!”

  Torvo shrugged. “You seemed to take care of yourself just fine. Sometimes you won’t know where your friends are. Sometimes you’ll be powerless to help them. You just have to help yourself and do what you can to wait it out. Then you can figure out the right thing to do, without panicking, without throwing your own life away.”

  “I get that,” Cobb said, grasping the lesson. “But why did you do it? Why did you test me like this?”

  “I don’t tolerate thieves,” Torvo said, his face shadowed by firelight. “Or young crows that violate my rules.”

  Cobb blushed, terror rising up in his heart. “I didn’t take … I didn’t steal anything from you, Mr. Torvo. I took the oatmeal because I was hungry and I didn’t think you’d mind. Especially if I didn’t put anything in it.” It was hard to speak, hard to swallow now.

  “Don’t blow a gasket, son,” Torvo told him, putting his wrinkled hand on Cobb’s arm. “You having oatmeal is fine by me, and a good decision. I listened to you the whole time. You made a good fire, made yourself food that you knew how to cook and cleaned up afterward. The way you were pacing around, you were honestly worried for me, which means a lot.”