by lee king
“Are you hungry?”
“No ma’am.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Are you Lola Robin?”
“Yes, young pigeon! Yes, I am.”
“Will you go see where the barn went and look for my momma? Her name is Savanna; she has feathers all the same as mine.”
“Yes, I will go now, little pigeon. Stay here. It may take some time. You are welcome to stay here as long as you like.”
******
Shortly after Granny got the displaced squirrels settled into her summer home, she stuffed her jowls with sunflower seeds the way chipmunks do and headed over to feed them to White Robin.
White Robin did not want the sunflower seeds Granny offered. He just stared out at the hay bales where the barn used to be, where his momma and the older pigeons used to dance and whirl around on the hay bales in front of him and the other baby pigeons; like the people had done at the hootenanny that was held in the barn a week before. Granny shelled a dozen sunflower seeds and piled them at White Robin’s feet. Please Great Spirit; please bring his momma home safe. We need her.
“I have to go tend to my family, White Robin, but I’ll be back as quickly as I can.”
******
Over at Grandma Hokum’s house, Drew opened the cellar door and peered out. “It’s safe to come out now, Miss Hokum.”
He led Grandma Hokum up the steps and the few feet to her back door, and saw her safely inside. He returned to where Rick was standing in the yard. “We should canvass the neighborhood and see if anyone needs our help.”
Rick let Levi out of his cage. Levi was terrified of lightning. He’d get in his cage and close the door whenever he heard or saw lightning. “Go scout the area, Levi, and report back to us if anyone needs help.”Levi took to the air like a seasoned veteran delivering disaster assistance.
“The storm wiped out your sister’s barn,” Drew said. “But your place and mine are still standing.”
“Then we were lucky,” Rick said. “It probably jumped right over us.”
Chapter 4
Her ears were much better than her eyes, so Lola flew low, just higher than ripe corn in a kitchen garden. She was heading for a crumpled up pile of tin and timber, all that remained of the old barn, lying behind Drew’s cabin in the vacant lots near the next street over.
Levi flew up treetop high, heading over to the hay bales where the barn used to be. “Caw, caw, caw,” calling his crow buddies to assemble. Six crows flew out of the cedar tree that was growing on the fence line where the honeysuckle and possum-vines had grown out of control in the back corner of Rick’s yard. The crows formed rank on the hay bales and stood at attention. Levi landed and paced back and forth in front of his recruits; he was thinking up a plan.
“At ease, troops,” he finally said. “We’ve got work to do! We’re searching for storm victims. I want three of you on my left flank and three on my right flank, a power-pole length apart. Make lots of noise so they can hear us looking for them. Now take off and fan out.”
The duty-call took place earshot away from Lola Robin’s nest. It caused a new sense of hope and pride to well up in White Robin.
As he watched the ceremony, Granny Gray squirrel’s words reeled through his mind like a calling. He knew right then what she had meant, and he wanted to make a difference in his kingdom, and to be a leader like Levi, that big black bird with a shiny thing on his leg.
******
Levi and his band of part-time outlaws traced the storm’s path from the hay bales, through the apple orchard, over the vegetable garden, caw, caw, cawing, on across the side street and all throughout the huge maple tree lying on the ground, in Drew’s yard. The floodwater had pretty much drained away, down through the gulch, leaving behind the four baby squirrels. Two were washed up against the chain link fence between Drew’s cabin and the abandoned mobile home down, in the gulch. The other two were crushed under tree branches. Sadly, none were alive.
Levi and his troopers flew onward, and then converged on the spot where the barn roof had dropped like a piece of crumpled up tinfoil. Like Lola Robin, Levi hung his head in dismay; for they had found several deceased baby pigeons and a couple of adults, but no sign of Savanna or any other pigeons.
Chapter 5
Down in the Arkansas River Valley, fifty miles south of White Robin, Savanna and the remainder of her flock of fewer than a dozen pigeons were being nursed by another flock of pigeons. The funnel cloud had carried them over the mountains and the National Forest where the big woods were, and dropped them in the valley at an old grain elevator and a really old water tower, next to a retired railroad track. The faded lettering on the water tower read, “Junction Pass.”
The pigeons were battered and confused from twirling and tumbling around in the huge funnel cloud. It was like being put in a giant garbage can full of scrap-junk and pieces of lumber and rolled down a hill. They didn’t even know where they were, much less where their homeland was.
A young cinnamon-colored pigeon with white wings named Cindy took to Savanna and stayed by her side constantly.
“I must find my baby! He cannot yet fend for himself,” Savanna cried over and over from her sick bed. “He needs me.”
“You need to regain your strength and your memory first, Savanna. You hit something sharp and got a big gash on your head. You’re lucky your brains didn’t fall out,” said Cindy Cinnamon.
Cindy was an orphan and had had to learn to fly and fend for herself two weeks earlier than a normal pigeon cycle of growing up.
“I will look for him until I find him,” she promised Savanna. “Like I learned from my own momma before the sickness took her, I sense through you that he is well and safe. Rest assured, Savanna, I will find him and reunite him with you.”
Savanna kept her spirits up by bragging that her rare baby boy was white as the cloud the Great Spirit rides on. “Like an angel, he’s a natural born leader-to-be,” Savanna boasted.
Each time Savanna spoke of her baby boy Cindy Cinnamon became that much more fascinated with him; a pure white pigeon. She had never seen one. But legend had it that just like cinnamon pigeons with white wings like hers; pure white pigeons were very special. Cindy pondered seriously about all the tribulations she had in common with the pigeon.
Somewhat like the dove who returned to Noah with the olive branch after the great flood, Cindy clenched a sunflower seed in her beak for luck, and struck out to look for a pure white pigeon, her same age. She circled the radius of her kingdom, broadening the circle a little more with each trip. Although she was growing weary, young Cindy Cinnamon was not a quitter.
Fearing the doldrums of doubt might creep in and dampen her fortitude, Cindy went to see the wise elders and seek their guidance. After she told them of her ambitious quest, they explained to her that the storm had blown in over the mountains and through their valley from the north. Therefore, she should enlist the help of some fellow pigeons and search the small towns and farms along the railroad tracks north of their river valley kingdom. “Talk to the crows,” the leader advised her. “They roam far and wide all throughout the region, and they like to spread stories of mayhem and mysteries everywhere they go. And a whole flock of pigeons being sucked up into the sky and disappearing will be a very big story for many generations to come.”
Chapter 6
Unlike robins, crow eyes are far better than their ears, so Levi and his troopers flew higher than the tall sycamore tree in their kingdom. They spread out to create a line formation, as Levi had instructed them earlier. They followed the tornado’s path for six miles east, all the way to the Interstate Highway. There the damage had ended, so Levi reasoned that was where the twister had played out and gone back into the clouds.
He decided to call off the search and dismiss his troopers. As he was heading back to Rick’s house he chanced upon Lola flying low, a few feet from the ground. He flew down to give her a report and tell her that she may as well turn back
. He said the pigeons were probably carried over the mountains and dropped in the river valley.
“That’s where the southbound storms usually break up and fade away. Don’t loss faith, Lola. Some may even find their way back home,” Levi said.
Lola shook her head sadly, then turned around and headed for home.
******
Lola stopped by the woodpile under the mulberry tree at the front corner of Drew’s yard. She scratched up a red-worm from under the moist and rotten leaves, then glanced across the side street to her nest. What in the world is that young pigeon doing?
White Robin was flapping his wings wildly and hopping from limb to limb all through the apple tree. To Lola it looked like he was fighting off a bumblebee. He was practicing to fly so hard that he didn’t notice Lola land by the nest with a worm in her beak.
Lola clutched the worm with her claws and said, “Surely with all that practicing you’ve worked up an appetite, little bird? I brought you some lunch.” She held the worm in her beak and wiped the dirt off it with her foot.
White Robin was starving. He had already eaten the sunflower seeds Granny Gray had left for him. He hopped over to Lola’s nest, crawled into it, closed his eyes, puffed up his feathers, and opened his mouth wide, the way young pouter pigeons do at feeding time.
Lola jammed the wiggling red-worm way down in White Robin’s throat and held it there until the young pigeon swallowed it. He gagged, and hacked, and coughed.
“What was that nasty thing?” he yelled.
“Don’t raise your voice to me, little pouter bird. It was a red-worm; they’re rich in vitamins. You need food like that to build lean and strong wings. The oily seeds that you’re accustomed to only make you fat and lazy; if you really want to grow strong quickly and be able to fly through the eye of a storm, and do backward somersaults and roll-outs in mid-air like your cousins, the famous tumbler pigeons in the circus, do, then you must acquire a taste for grasshoppers, crickets, and worms.”
“Looks like I’ll have to, or go hungry,” he grumbled.
“Long ago when the big house was first built,” Lola said, “the owner raised tumbler pigeons and trained them to entertain his guests. After he left this world, his family donated the most talented pigeons to a traveling circus from Savanna. The others were turned loose. Granny Gray named your momma Savanna after the most famous circus pigeon in the world—she was your great-grandmother.”
“Do you have any news about my momma?”
“I will not stand for you ignoring your family history.”
“I’m sorry, Lola Robin. I guess I’m still blank from all that has happened. I can’t seem to think straight through a single thought.”
“I understand. I am not experienced in this area either, little bird.” In fact Lola was mortified to have to tell White Robin the bad news; but he already knew why she was stalling. Why else would she come back alone?
“I have no news for you,” she said at last. “But I believe with all my heart that Savanna is well and trying to make her way back home to you. In the meantime, you are my responsibility until she returns.
“Now, if you will excuse me for a while, I’ll let you get back to your practicing. I have to go see how Granny Gray Squirrel and her family are doing. And then I have to check on Muumuu.”
Levi was sitting high up in the tall sycamore tree, eating leftovers from a ham sandwich that his master, Rick, had given him. He studied the woebegone little orphan awkwardly hopping around in the apple tree. Levi dropped the bread from his sandwich to the sparrows on the ground, then sailed down to the apple tree one row over from White Robin.
“Caw, caw, caw! Get over here, squab. I want a word with you!”
His loud and commanding voice spooked White Robin. “I can’t make it that far!”
“Sure you can! Go to the top of your tree and spread your wings out wide, like this.” Levi showed him how to hold his wings out. “And jump!”
“But, but—I can’t make it over there. It’s too far.”
“No fear, boy! Man up to it!” Levi had heard his master Rick say that to his grandson many times.
White Robin hopped up to the top of Lola’s apple tree and peered over and down at Levi perched in the other tree. He was terrified. If he missed the branch where Levi stood then he would crash to the ground, and Granny Gray was not around to help him this time.
“Jump squab!” called Levi.
He spread his wings wide, pushed his fear down to his trembling legs, and jumped.
“Keep your eyes open and look straight at me,” Levi cawed.
It was a reckless and wobbly flight. It reminded Levi of the first time Rick took the training wheels off his grandson’s bicycle. Levi cringed and squint his eyes, then and now, as White Robin approached his limb. Just before he reached Levi’s branch, Levi extended his wing out and stopped White Robin from overshooting the limb.
“I did it! I did it! I can fly now!”
“You did fair, squab. Flying comes as natural to a bird as swimming underwater does to a rabbit. They don’t believe they can do it till after they done did it. Give it a day or two and you’ll be flying better than any land-loving robin ever could.” White Robin beamed with pride.
“They call me Levi,” said the big burly crow. “I keep the peace in these parts. This is my badge.” He dangled his leg out to show off his shiny I.D. bracelet. “I can talk to people. They took me into a big white room with bright lights, placed me on a shiny table, put me to sleep, then cut my tongue down the middle like a snake’s. Now I can talk like they do. If a dangerous outlaw goes on a tear, I tell the people, they get their guns, and the problem gets solved. What does Granny Gray call you, squab?”
“Granny Gray Squirrel named me White Robin. Lola Robin said I am the great-grandson of the first Savanna, the most famous circus pigeon in the world!”
“Granny Gray and Lola Robin are well known for planting high ideas in the minds of orphans, son. I guess if their way of thinking worked on me, then it most likely will work on you. You’re the luckiest little squab I’ve ever seen. Pigeons are like starlings; if their babies fall from the nest before they can fly, they leave them for the scavengers.”
“You shut up! My momma ain’t like that.”
“I ain’t saying she never cared, squab. They’re just helpless to save their babies when that happens.”
“My momma is different! She wouldn’t let that happen!”
“Don’t ever doubt how you feel inside, son! We all need something to believe in. It’s what keeps us kicking. I’m just checking on what all the fuss over a white-feathered little squab is about; I’m inclined to believe the Great Spirit is up to something here. Like a test. I for one don’t want to miss out on any free pies and redemption that might happen to stray into my kingdom.” Levi had heard Rick say that whenever the church folks came around offering him free pies and redemption if he’d visit their church.
Levi wasn’t sure what redemption was. He assumed it was refreshments, like sweet tea or lemonade or what comes in those soft aluminum cans that Rick drank from. Either way, he sure as heck loved the pies those people doled out.
“I’m heading down to the Little Illinois directly to shoot the breeze with my cousin Dark Raven,” Levi told the little pigeon. “He’s the leader of all the corvine cavalcades this side of the big woods. They travel across the land far and wide and will pass the news that you are still kicking. If your momma is out there, the news will find her in swift time. If she hasn’t already started on a new family, then she might even be happy to hear that you’re still hanging around.”
“Big black bird, you won’t talk to me like that when I get grown, else I’ll—”
“You’d best get a handle on that temper, squab!” Levi laughed. “It’ll get you in big trouble! What I mean to say is, you’re just a day or two from getting booted out of the nest, and then she won’t have any more to do with you from then on. But don’t fret it, squab. As pretty as you are, yo
u’ll find a girlfriend or she’ll find you, and together ya’ll fill that sore and empty place in your chest back up to where it was when ya’ll lived with momma. I only know your momma in passing, son. She’s the brightest-looking thing to ever come out of that flock of culls. Look to the top of that tall sycamore tree. See that old eagle’s nest?” He cocked his head toward a nest at least a hundred and fifty feet up.
White Robin was still seething. “Yes,” he bellowed.
“Look closer, and aim that nasty temper at those hungry eyes, and not me! I’m here to ‘help’ you, son!”
White Robin narrowed his eyes and looked closer. As good as Levi’s vision was, White Robin’s was three times better. He froze in terror at what he discovered up there.
A pair of beady eyes was peering down at him, over a sharp hooked beak that was resting on the rim of the nest.
“That’s a red-tailed ladyhawk,” Levi said. “She’s got two hungry babies, and their favorite snack is little squabs like you. She can’t even build her own nest, let alone feed her babies. She’s right now thinking about how she can snatch you out of Lola’s nest when no one’s looking and get away with it. Your keen eyes are your best defense, squab. Now fly back to Lola’s apple tree and practice your circus tricks, and always keep an eye on the sky.”
Levi plucked a feather from White Robin’s head, then raked him off the branch they were perched on.
“Hey! That ain’t funny!” The little fledgling flapped his wings frantically and to his own surprise he made it back over to Lola’s apple tree, all the while cutting his eyes up the tall sycamore at the ladyhawk.
“Caw, caw, caw!” Levi laughed. “I get a kick out of your temper, squab. It reminds me of me. Back when I wasn’t so dadblame sweet and hospitable.”
The rogue leader set out for the old mill-dam at the edge of the big woods, where many streams and creeks merged together to form the Illinois River; where a giant crow named Dark Raven and his cavalcade of corvine crows were camped.