Owls Well That Ends Well

by Donna Andrews

  I arrived to find that the crowd had completely blocked the road for several hundred yards, and the police were trying to clear a path for the patrol car that was inching its way through. I spotted someone in the back of the car— our neighbor, Mr. Early. He was shaking his fist at the crowd and shouting. The closed car window and the clamor from the crowd drowned out what he was saying, but I could guess what he was unhappy about.

  The crowd milling about in front of our house contained a rather large number of sheep. Dad would probably insist on calling them a flock of sheep, but I would argue that they needed to be a lot more cohesive to qualify as a flock. Not to mention better behaved—could these really be the same sedate sheep I remembered dotting the pasture across the road and waddling slowly up and down the hillside? These sheep appeared enraged, or perhaps possessed. Okay, perhaps they were merely spooked at finding themselves in the midst of a large, noisy, unruly crowd of humans. But I had never imagined sheep capable of charging into people and knocking them down. And they were larger than I thought sheep were supposed to be. Giant economy-sized sheep. Did I have the wrong idea about sheep, or was Farmer Early breeding some kind of mutant fighting sheep?

  The New Life Baptist choir was belting out an enthusiastic version of “Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow.” Easy for them to take this philosophically; they were up on the porch, where only the most demented of sheep was apt to venture.

  I panicked briefly when I saw red splotches on several of the sheep, but I quickly realized that it wasn’t blood. Apparently Cousin Deirdre had found a new supply of paint and was running about happily spattering the fleeing sheep.

  I spotted Michael at the edge of the chaos, looking tired, and possibly in need of rescue, since he was talking to one of my uncles.

  “No,” I heard him say as I drew near. “I don’t think I’ve ever lived anywhere that had a 4H Club I could have joined.”

  “No experience with sheep, then?” the uncle said.

  “I’ve eaten quite a few,” Michael said. His tiredness probably made his voice sound a bit more savage than he intended.

  “I don’t really think that’s going to be helpful here,” the uncle said, sidling away.

  Michael nodded to me and stood staring at the passing sheep.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “I warned them that they were trespassing,” Michael said. He was panting slightly, as if he’d been running around after the sheep. “Did they listen?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “They’re idiots.”

  “Some of them started taking down the fence, to make it easier to get to their booths and tables,” he said. “You should have seen how surprised they were when the first few sheep came trotting down the hill. And then when Early showed up with his shotgun and started firing over their heads and yelling about trespassing …”

  He fell silent and rubbed his face with his hand, as if exhausted. I put an arm around his waist and we stood together for a few moments watching the crowd.

  Both sheep and humans were dispersing. The music dissolved into shrieks when a particularly bold sheep trotted up onto the porch, sending the choir members fleeing in all directions.

  On the plus side, by evicting the unauthorized bazaar from his field, Mr. Early had convinced many people that the fun was over for the day. Except for the customers lined up at the yard sale checkout, people were mostly heading for their cars.

  On the minus side, once they got to their cars, they weren’t having much luck departing. Every few yards, you could see a sheep standing on the road, gazing thoughtfully into the distance, seemingly unaware that half-a-dozen cars were lined up behind it, honking their horns and shouting at it. No sooner would one sheep amble off the road than another would saunter out.

  But there were really only a small number of sheep playing in traffic. Where had the rest of them gone?

  “What are we supposed to do about all this?” Michael said. He wasn’t puffing anymore, but he still sounded tired. “They’re incredibly stupid, and trying to get them all to go where you want them to go is nearly impossible, but the minute one of them does something destructive, dangerous, or just annoying, every single one of them goes and does the same damned thing.”

  “All true,” I said. “But we can’t do anything about the people, so let’s talk about the sheep.”

  “I was talking about the sheep,” he said, with a faint ghost of a smile.

  “They’re a problem, too,” I agreed.

  I spotted several of my relatives in the crowd. And, unfortunately, they had spotted me. They were pointing at me and waving, and heading this way. Probably to ask me what I planned to do about the sheep.

  “Come on,” I said to Michael. “I have an idea.”

  I strolled over to where Officer Sammy was standing, with Michael in my wake.

  “Hey, Sammy,” I said. “Could you help me with something.”

  “I’ll sure try,” he said, with his eager, 250-watt smile.

  “I figure by now they have Mr. Early down at the station, being arrested or arraigned or whatever.”

  “And we need to get our sheep together,” Michael put in.

  I winced. Sammy frowned.

  “Your sheep?” he said.

  “Mr. Early’s sheep,” I said, pointing to one of the woolly fugitives that happened to be passing by. “His sheep have escaped their pasture, and we’re trying to round them up and put them back.”

  “That’s good,” Sammy said, nodding.

  “Only we have no idea how many of them he has,” I said. “We can’t very well know when we’ve found them all if we have no idea how many we’re looking for.”

  “No problem,” Sammy said. “I’ll call down to the station and get a count.”

  While Sammy made his way through the throng to his patrol car, I greeted any relatives who came looking for me with orders that they each go and catch a sheep. Preferably several sheep. As I expected, most of them hurried to comply, and the rest, when they realized that I was asking them to work, made themselves scarce.

  Fifteen minutes later, Sammy showed up leading a sheep and bearing the news that Mr. Early had two hundred and twenty-one head of sheep.

  “And I suppose each of those heads is attached to a separate sheep body,” I said, letting myself slouch against the fence. “And every blessed one of them is rapidly trotting away in a completely different direction from every other sheep in the flock.”

  “On their eight hundred and eighty-four beastly sharp little hooves,” Michael said, rubbing the shin one of the sheep had kicked.

  “Only eight hundred and twenty-eight beastly sharp little hooves,” I corrected.

  “Did I multiply that wrong?” Michael said, frowning. “It’s been a long day.”

  “Your multiplication’s fine, but you forgot to subtract the ones we’ve already caught.”

  “That’s right,” he said. We both turned to look behind us at the pasture. So far, the combined efforts of our amateur shepherds had only corralled thirteen sheep. Fourteen, with Sammy’s contribution. And from what I could see, those fourteen were the fattest, slowest, most sedentary of the flock. Most of their more nimble comrades had already disappeared over various horizons, with or without panting humans in hot pursuit. All except for a small cadre of guerilla sheep who remained lurking near the road, ready to take their turns blocking traffic.

  “Fifteen,” Michael said, as Dad and Rob arrived with another sheep to add to the collection.

  “Dad,” Rob said, when they’d shoved their catch through the gate. “My arms itch.”

  I glanced over and saw that not only was Rob scratching his arms rather obsessively, but his face had begun to swell.

  “Oh, damn,” I said.

  “Do you suppose Farmer Early sprays some kind of dangerous chemical on his sheep?” Rob asked.

  “No,” I said. “He didn’t have to; nature already did.”

  “What do you mean?” Dad asked.

  “
Lanolin,” I said. “The wool is full of lanolin. Remember how careful Mother had to be when he was a kid? He got hives from even a trace of lanolin.”

  Perhaps the wrong thing to say in front of a hypochondriac.

  “I can feel my throat closing up,” Rob said, clutching his Adam’s apple with one hand while still scratching with the other. “I’m going to die, aren’t I? Killed by a sheep overdose.”

  “You’ve probably outgrown some of your sensitivity,” I said.

  “I’ve got my bag up at the house,” Dad said. “Come on; I’ll give you a shot of antihistamine.”

  “Should we call an ambulance?” Michael asked. I noticed that he was scratching his arms, too. And for that matter, so was I. They were starting to itch rather fiercely. Power of suggestion, or was prolonged contact with live lanolin factories bringing out an allergic reaction in those of us who’d never had a problem before?

  Dad and Rob had begun trotting toward the house, and most of our volunteer helpers trailed after them. I hoped Dad wouldn’t run out of antihistamine, given how many hypochondriacs we had in the family.

  Chapter 35

  “Should I go find some more sheep?” Sammy asked.

  “Not just yet,” I said. “Can I borrow your bullhorn?”

  “Sure,” Sammy said. “It’s in my car.”

  “I’m sure you know what you’re doing,” Michael said, as we followed Sammy to the police cruiser. “You always do. But just how is a bullhorn going to retrieve any sheep?”

  “It won’t,” I said. “But they will.”

  I pointed at the people still milling about the premises. Fewer than before, of course, but still far too many of them.

  “We’re offering a bounty of twenty dollars per sheep,” I added.

  “But that would cost—”

  “In the form of a gift certificate redeemable at next weekend’s continuation of the yard sale.”

  “I bow to your ingenuity,” he said.

  Ten minutes later, the yard was empty of all but the customers checking out. And many of them were jostling with impatience to get out and join the sheep hunt.

  “I certainly hope you’re not counting this sheep bounty as a yard sale expense,” Barrymore Sprocket said.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” I said.

  “Because I certainly can’t authorize—”

  “Later!” I snapped.

  Barrymore retreated, still grumbling.

  “Meg,” Michael said, sounding worried. “What if someone tries to bring in ringers to claim the bounty?”

  “What, you mean like goats or cows?” I said. “I think we’d notice.”

  “No, like someone else’s sheep.”

  “Are there many other sheep around?”

  “Oh, yes,” Sammy said. “I can think of at least a dozen other farmers in the county who have sheep. Not as many as Early, of course.”

  “Then how are we supposed to tell them apart?”

  “Well, most of the farmers don’t have Lincolns.”

  Since the only vehicle I’d ever seen Mr. Early driving was an enormous battered pickup truck, I assumed this was a brand of sheep.

  “Okay, how can we tell Lincolns from other sheep?” I asked.

  “They’re bigger than most sheep,” he said. “And they have longer wool. And they’re kind of square.”

  “You can’t blame them,” Michael said. “It’s hard to stay up with all the trends, stuck out here in the country they way they are.”

  Sammy blinked once and then focused on me.

  “Square-shaped,” he said, carefully. “You know, blocky and rectangular, rather than round and—”

  “Right,” I said. “Fleece-covered tanks. I’m sure this all makes sense to a farmer, and maybe it would to us if we had a couple of non-Lincoln sheep around for comparison, but we don’t, so how can we tell if our bounty hunters are bringing us Mr. Early’s sheep or rustling someone else’s sheep?”

  Sammy blinked.

  “You could always look at the ear tags,” he suggested, as if talking to a small child.

  Sure enough, all the sheep were sporting bright yellow plastic ear tags. I winced when I saw that they’d been permanently attached to their ears with a sort of plastic grommet, but then reminded myself that it was probably no worse than having one’s ears pierced.

  And each tag had a unique number, along with Mr. Early’s name.

  “So all we have to do is write down each tag number, and we’ll know which sheep we have,” I said. “And if anyone found a sheep with any other ear tag, they’d know it wasn’t Mr. Early’s and they wouldn’t bring it here.”

  “Unless they were city slickers who didn’t know any better like—like a lot of these tourists,” Sammy said, looking at Michael and me as he spoke. “Of course, you could get locals cutting off the tags and trying to pretend the animals had lost them. Which happens, but not too often because there are pretty stiff penalties for stealing livestock, so—”

  “Sammy,” I said. “I have a great idea! Why don’t you stay here and check in the sheep as people return them. I doubt if any sinister sheep rustlers would try to fence hot sheep with you in charge, and if they did, you could arrest them!”

  “Okay,” Sammy said. “But I think it would be a good idea to give them each a receipt, with the ID numbers of the sheep they turn in marked on it. Down at the station, we always like to give people a receipt when they turn in lost or stolen property.”

  “Excellent idea,” I said. “And we’ll keep a carbon, so we can make sure no one tries to sneak any sheep out one end of the pasture and then bring them in the other to earn more than one bounty for them, which is what I bet a few people would try if we didn’t keep track.”

  “I would never have thought of that,” Michael murmured.

  “No wonder you hate faculty politics so much,” I said. “You have no sense of deviousness. Come on—let’s do a census of the sheep we already have.”

  Easier said than done. While the ear tags were a vivid yellow that was hard to miss, reading the numbers on them required us to get closer than the sheep liked—close enough to get kicked or butted, especially since by the time we finally caught up with our quarry, we were usually too tired to take evasive action. The captive sheep, which I had previously dismissed as the most dim-witted and sedentary members of the flock, proved remarkably deft at eluding us on their home ground.

  From the amount of sheep dung waiting to surprise the unwary passerby in the flat part of the pasture, I deduced that the sheep must spend a lot of time hanging out there, which probably accounted for my remembering that I’d seen them. Once they escaped from the flatlands to the slope beyond, as half of them did before we could get their numbers, the dung gave way to sneaky hidden rocks, all accompanied by patches of thorns and brambles, conveniently placed so you could hardly help landing in them when you tripped over the rocks.

  We never would have gotten the last two sheep identified if Dad hadn’t returned from tending Rob and used his powerful birding binoculars to read the tags from afar. He offered to search the rest of the pasture for any sheep that might be still lurking out of sight, and we gratefully took him up on it.

  “What’s Eric doing?” Michael said, pointing. I broke into a run, with Michael and the lanky Sammy behind me. One of the sheep appeared to be dragging my nephew behind him. At least it was moving too slowly to be dangerous. Though why Eric didn’t simply let go of the sheep’s tail I couldn’t imagine.

  Until I got closer and realized that Eric was trying to rescue Spike, who had chomped onto the sheep’s left hind leg and refused to let go. Or perhaps Eric thought he was rescuing the sheep from Spike. Since the sheep appeared calmly oblivious to her two hitchhikers, I suspected Spike had nothing but a mouthful of wool. His readiness to let go when Michael grabbed him confirmed my suspicion.

  “You’re letting my sheep go!” Eric wailed, as I picked him up and tried to dust him off.

  “Don’t give up the sheep
,” Michael said, nodding.

  “I’ll take it back to the pasture,” Sammy said. He captured the sheep and strolled off leading it with an ease that astonished me. How long did you have to live in the country before you learned how to do things like that?

  “What on earth were you doing?” I asked Eric.

  “Spike was helping me catch the sheep,” Eric said. “Good dog.”

  Since Spike’s only previous encounter with sheep had been in a culinary context, I didn’t approve of casting him in a real-life remake of Lassie.

  “That’s nice,” I said aloud. “But Spike’s pretty fierce. Maybe we should keep him away from the poor sheep.”

  Just then, Spike proved my point by biting Michael.

  “Okay,” Eric said. “I’ll take him back to his pen.”

  Before I could stop him, he reached out and picked up Spike. Spike not only refrained from biting, he curled up in Eric’s arms and behaved angelically all the way back to his pen. Though I did suspect he was smirking at me and Michael.

  Michael went off to solve the traffic jam by removing as many sheep as possible from the road, while I returned to the checkout table.

  An hour went by. Maybe two. Or maybe it was only ten minutes. All my running around after sheep and suspects had worn me out, and I was starting to make embarrassing mistakes in simple arithmetic.

  “I think a dollar is too much for this,” a woman announced, thumping a large, ungainly ceramic object on the table in front of me.

  I studied the object. It appeared to be a cross between a candelabrum and one of those strawberry pots with ten or fifteen different holes for the plants to stick out. Perhaps it was intended to be a vase in the shape of a stylized octopus. Whatever it was, someone had painted it in color combinations even a kindergartener would find gaudy.

  “I agree,” I said. “But that’s the price.”

  “Can’t you reduce it to fifty cents?” she said. “Since it’s the end of the day and all?”