The Bitching Tree

by Scott Hungerford

“Great. That makes me feel so much better.”

  Cobb lowered his voice to a whisper. “I think I’m going to find his lair. His crows are leading me to it. Do you know when the package is getting here?”

  “It should be there within the next day or two, assuming nothing happens to it along the way. I’ll check the tracking tomorrow and make sure nothing went wrong.”

  “I hope it gets here soon,” Cobb said. “I think I’m going to need it.”

  “So, they took the tree?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Cobb said. “They just cut it up and took it. Nobody knew to stop them.”

  “Just the trunk?” Hawna replied, thinking.

  “Yes, just the trunk. They killed the sacred tree, Hawna. How does the Red Crow keep using its power? How is he sending spirits and tormenting you and me with dreams?”

  “This actually makes some sense to me,” Hawna replied. “I’ll need to talk to some people, but I suspect he’s making a totem pole.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He’s carving the trunk with saws and axes to make faces and shapes in the wood, like animals and birds standing on top of one another. Totem poles have a lot of religious significance up here. But Torvo told me that you can make other kinds of totem poles as well, including shame poles for vengeance against the oil companies, or sacred ones used to intensify or channel nature’s power.”

  The very idea horrified Cobb. “So, he took our tree to make it into a …” He couldn’t find the words.

  “Into a talisman. Into an item that will allow him to channel the sacred tree’s power in ways different than nature intended.”

  “Well,” Cobb said. “I’m going to need a chainsaw for sure then.”

  “That would do it,” Hawna told him. “Or burn it. Or chop it up with an ax. If you do that, if you break it or disfigure it, you’ll ruin its power.”

  “After I find the lair I’ll go buy one. A new yellow one, just like Torvo’s.”

  “I have your number now,” Hawna said. “I’ll call when I get home again. But I don’t want to leave him alone right now. It feels like when I’m with him the Red Crow can’t get to him. It’s ridiculous but it feels right.”

  “I miss you,” Cobb confessed. He gave Kory’s picture on the desk a little nod, as if apologizing. It wasn’t that he disrespected Cobb’s love, but Hawna was his … whatever she was.

  “I miss you too, Cobb,” Hawna replied, without hesitation. “But be careful. You’re going to have to hurry. I don’t know how much longer Torvo has.”

  “I understand,” he said, then hung up the phone after saying goodbye. Turning the radio back down again, he settled on his bed. To calm his nerves, he drew crows from his own flock flying through the air, dozens of them silhouetted against the setting sun, until he could see the outline of Hawna’s face in the white space in between.

  Even though Cobb didn’t sleep well, he slept that night without dreams. The arrival of the feathered cacophony around his building at dawn stirred him awake. Even as he closed the blinds, the other residents of his building shouted and banged brooms on their windowsills in attempt to make the noisy birds go away.

  Cobb managed to sleep for a few more hours, then woke up starving. After eating a couple more cans of soup, he waited patiently for the day to turn to dusk. He drew some art, sorted some clothes into drawers that felt right, and then gave in and read through the pile of papers and letters on his desk. A lot of them were just advertisements, like the ones he watched on television. Others seemed to involve words like “last notice” and “overdue.” In the end there was nothing useful, though the pile of opened envelopes made for a nice neat stack on his desk, which made him feel like he’d accomplished something, in a very peculiar way.

  As the sun started to fall closer to the western horizon, Cobb put on his disguises again and limped outside, then made his way down to the same bus stop to wait and watch. A few of the alien crows harassed him and stayed with him for a while, curious if he was somehow their prey. But after a little while they left him and joined their flock again, seemingly disappointed that he wasn’t their target.

  As dusk approached, even before the first few crows began to make their passage down the hill, Cobb left the bench with the intent to get ahead of them. After stripping off and hiding his first disguise, he cut over a few blocks, then made his way down the hill as fast as he could run, keeping an ear out for the noisy stream of birds that should be raucously catching air somewhere off to his right.

  By the time he reached the location where he’d lost them last night, the crows were just starting to flock. Then it was just a matter of keeping out of sight of the main group and following the stragglers down toward where a bridge cut over a giant concrete highway carved deep into the earth. To the west the busy highway ran toward downtown Seattle. But to the east the road ran out over the giant lake, with cars packed bumper to bumper all the way to the far shore, more than a mile away.

  Still following the crows, Cobb cut down from street level, down one of the switchback staircases to an eastbound bus pickup area alongside the highway. Unable to see the crows for a few moments because of a row of high trees, he could still hear the noisy birds as he ran down the on-ramp, cutting over between zooming cars when he saw a gap. Once he reached the median, then he ran like a mad thing, needing to see where the fliers were going. Trees and park and open land were visible on both sides, along with a few bright boats and sailboats out in the water ahead of him. Within a few moments Cobb could see the crows again, now flitting through the trees. But then he abruptly stopped, skidding to a halt on dusty gravel when he saw what they were doing.

  He’d expected the crows to fly over the highway. But instead, they glided, flew, and bitched as they angled away from the huge bridge—then headed out over the lake! Watching both the closest crows and the distant dots, he could see that the entire flock was flying over the giant body of water spreading out before him, thousands of them flapping in a thin, ragged line over the open water, all safety abandoned as they navigated away from the refuge of the floating highway.

  Where could they possibly be going? Cobb wondered. No crow ever flew over water that wide. If they became tired or injured, they could descend and land on the bridge. Cobb knew that because they were watching his apartment all day, they weren’t foraging. Instead, they were likely starving, low on energy, and would have to labor to fly the entire way across the lake without stopping, without landing, all the while risking being tumbled into the waves below by turbulent winds.

  “Crows don’t swim, and men don’t fly,” Cobb said with reverence. Of all the things that Cobb had seen since he had returned to Seattle, this was the greatest display of the Red Crow’s power. For a crow to go against its instincts, to risk death by water rather than the safety of tree, earth, gutter, or pavement—it was unimaginably risky. As he watched, the last of the crows raggedly struggled off into the coming dark, toward a distant city on the other side of the water. He imagined that in order to reach his apartment so early every morning, the lot of them had to rouse well before sunrise in order to make the long, hard flight back to spy on him.

  It was slavery, he thought to himself. Serve or die trying. But where was Old Thom? Where was the rest of his flock? Was he too late to save anyone but himself? He just didn’t know.

  The next day went much the same, save that Cobb left the building earlier in the afternoon, long before the crows were due to flock. He made his way down to the bridge, shedding and hiding his first disguise along the way. Trying to behave like just another normal person, he shuffled down the staircase to the bus island with a horde of students—then bravely boarded the first eastbound bus that stopped for him and paid with a five-dollar bill from his pocket. While the inside of the vehicle reminded him a bit of a plane, the fare was far cheaper and there were much bigger windows for him to watch the world through.

  After the bus crossed the floating bridge, once the wheeled vehicle was back on dry la
nd, the driver was nice enough to let him off at the very first stop. He followed a pair of chattering students up a little path leading off the freeway, then Cobb took roads that led south along the coastline, toward the general area where he’d seen the crows flying last night. Jogging to beat the falling sun, he made his way down near the water, where he could see which way the flock would come, and ultimately, which way they would go.

  By dusk the first of the crows were just starting to come across the water in ragged groups. Once they started flying overhead, Cobb ran south along the lake, cutting through residential neighborhoods to try to keep track of the stragglers. By the time darkness fell and the last of the crows had passed him by, he had no idea where he was. But he had a pretty good idea of where the flock had gone, and kept his eye on the few stars he could see to guide him along the way.

  Keeping to a main road, Cobb eventually came out on the crest of a hill—and the city of lights sprawled out beneath him. Huge skyscrapers, impossibly tall buildings filled with windows, those were familiar to him. But all of the metal cranes standing among them, each with a flashing light on top, made the place even stranger than the city he’d grown up in.

  According to the path followed by the last of the crows he had seen, the roost was somewhere within the heart of this strange place. But where? Dejectedly retracing his way back to the bridge, he eventually got to the same stop where he’d climbed off the bus, but this one on the other side of the freeway. Now he waited alone at a brightly lit bus stop on the far side of the highway, with car after car passing him by, headlights washing across his tired features.

  But at the bus stop, there was a big map on a sign that showed all of the places the buses would go. From that, he learned that the name of the city was Bell-e-vue—and there were buses that would take him right into the heart of the city. He smiled a bit at this, for now he had a plan. He would go into Bellevue tomorrow on a bus, early in the day, then find high ground to see where the crows would land to roost.

  Startling him a bit, a noisy bus pulled up and rattled its door open with a scream of hydraulics. Getting on, paying his fare with another five-dollar bill from his pocket, Cobb stood right by the front, ignoring the driver, instead watching the empty road roll beneath them as they navigated down onto the giant concrete bridge spanning the lake, watching the whitecaps below with a thousand thoughts running through his head.

  As soon as he got home and shed his disguises, he turned on classical music and excitedly called Hawna, hoping that she was home. She picked up on the third ring—and Cobb nearly danced around the apartment with joy.

  “Cobb?” she asked excitedly, a little breathless.

  “Hawna,” he said with emphasis, liking this strange human ritual of exchanging names as a pleasantry.

  “I’m really glad you’re home.”

  “I’m glad to hear your voice.” Cobb stepped around the corner, pulling the receiver cord as far as it would go. “I’m on their trail. The flock went across the water, across the lake. It’s only a matter of time before I find the roost. How’s Torvo doing?”

  “Even worse. They have him on oxygen now.”

  “Oh,” he said, not liking the sound of the news. “What does that mean?”

  “The doctors are using a machine to help him breathe.”

  “Oh …” Cobb said, getting it. He was running out of time. They all were. “How are you? Are you okay?”

  “I’m scared. It’s stupid. Now that I’m older, I barely spend any time with my father during the year, but I can’t imagine living without him being just a call away. He’s my rock, if you get what I mean?”

  “I get that,” Cobb said. “When he was younger, what was he like?”

  “You all ask me that question.”

  “All the two-in-ones?”

  “Yeah. Back then, Torvo was stronger and a little quicker to take offense. He was more inquisitive. A lot less of a know-it-all.”

  “And what was your mother like?” Cobb asked, honestly curious. At this Hawna stopped, silent. After a few seconds he swallowed the growing lump in his throat, hoping he hadn’t said the wrong thing. “Did I offend you?”

  “No,” she said after another moment. “It’s just that nobody has asked me that before.”

  “I remember my own—” Cobb almost remembered the word for mother in the crow tongue, rooted down just as deep as feathers, heart, and bone. “My own mother. She was brave and brought me many good things to eat.”

  “My mother was very pretty,” Hawna replied. “She was strong, too, in mind, will and body. She and Torvo met at a tribal thing. A get-together. From what my uncle tells me, it wasn’t love at first sight, but a courtship that they both kind of fumbled through until they figured it out. When they met he had just come … across. From the wild side. He was working with one of the elders to try and get himself together. It took her love and her patience to help him understand himself, to get it all worked out.”

  “That’s very interesting,” Cobb said, imagining Torvo as a young two-in-one, fumbling to buy airport tickets and to cut firewood. The image made him smile. “You told me that she died. I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet her.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” Hawna replied. “I think she would have liked you.”

  Cobb nodded and looked down at his feet, not knowing what else to say.

  “Cobb?” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m really scared now. For Torvo. For you. For myself. I was scared before, but now it’s starting to get to me. To close up my throat, to take away my words. My hope.”

  “I’m scared, too.” He just wanted to reach through the world and hold her, to reassure her that things would be alright. But he just held the phone as close to his ear as he could and listened to her breathe for a while, listened to the occasional crackle on the line. Together, they just hung in silence, just like when they were in the cedar-scented steam—alone but together, separate but somehow not apart.

  Then they started talking again, him distracting her with questions about her growing up, talking about food and nests, about cars and boys and purloined Cheetos. About Torvo and not, about magic and belief and the hope that everything would somehow turn out alright. They talked until nearly two in the morning, until Hawna finally had to go, until she had to sleep or fall down.

  “Good night, Cobb,” she said in a sleepy voice. “Thanks. I needed this.”

  “Anytime, Hawna,” he told her back. “Good night. Pleasant dreams.”

  “Good luck, tomorrow.”

  “You too.” Then she hung up and Cobb felt like a part of himself fell away, just out of reach. But now he knew he wasn’t alone—and in his heart he somehow knew he would never be alone again.

  The next day, after sleeping in and taking a long, late shower to try and get the phone-kink out of his neck, one of his neighbors knocked on his door a little before lunch. When Cobb suspiciously opened the portal, the grumpy-looking lady handed him a small, heavy box labeled fragile.

  “Can you believe all these crows?” she complained, pointing out the spatter of white bird crap on one edge of the box. “They harass me at the doorstep and try to get into everything. I can’t get any sleep. It’s indecent.”

  “It’s hard for me too,” Cobb said, trying to be as vague as possible. Linda? Laura? He couldn’t remember her name, but his human side remembered her as being very nosy and irritating.

  “The city should just shoot them all. Or poison the lot of them.” Cobb visibly recoiled at this. He was ready to shoot people. But poisoning flocks? Even if they were his enemy, that was unbelievably wrong. He knew the horror of that.

  “They should go away in time,” Cobb told her, trying to keep his emotions under control. “They always do. They’ll find something else that interests them.”

  “All crows are filthy things. They should just all die.”

  Cobb just waited, hoping she would shut up and go away.

  “Are you doing any better?” s
he asked, putting on a sweet smile. “Since the funeral?”

  “Yes,” Cobb said, not liking where the conversation was going. He understood funerals, as both crows and humans had them, and they were very sad affairs. “Much, thank you.”

  “What was her name again?”

  “Kory,” Cobb said, then closed the door in her face. “Goodbye,” he said through the door, then peeped through the little glass spy hole to see her fuming and turning red in the face. “Thank you for the package!” he added, then waited a good thirty seconds until she turned and stomped her way down the hall.

  He tore open the paper and cardboard and inside the box was Torvo’s handgun, wrapped in a plastic bag along with four empty magazines and a few pieces of folded-up paper. When he unfolded the pages, he saw they were computer printouts, with names and addresses and maps for a bunch of nearby stores. This pleased him, as one of the stores was just a couple of miles away. At the bottom Hawna had scrawled a little note in bright green ink.

  I hope this helps. You can buy ammunition at the places on this page. I hope one of them is close to wherever you are now. —Hawna

  Loving the shape of her skritchy handwriting, he put the papers back in the box, then hid the package under his bed. When he was ready, he opened the blinds, then ate his lunch under the watchful eye of the trio of gargoyles across the alleyway. He would like nothing better than to drive the crows off, to make them stop staring at him in such a creepy way. But he needed to give them the impression that he was at home in the afternoon, when he really was off tracking the Red Crow’s minions.

  Three hours later, after closing the blinds and putting on his disguises again, he snuck out of his apartment building and walked down the hill to the freeway onramp. There, he caught a bus with the same number, this time with a helpful driver who drove him all the way to the main bus station in the heart of the city. Very pleased with his good luck, Cobb found himself standing in the middle of downtown Bellevue, undetected in the heart of enemy territory.