As the Crow Flies

by Craig Johnson

  It was only when my hand was drawn from my side in sharp yanks that I realized he was pawing at the twine attached to my hand. I froze and then began backing down the opposite side of the dune, rapidly unwinding the string.

  I felt the pull again and started untangling myself at a higher speed, when I heard someone speak to me in the standard Cheyenne, man-to-man expression.

  “Ha’ahe!”

  “Ha’ahe!” Having used up a good portion of my formal Cheyenne, I spoke again, this time in English. “Hey, I’m not sure where you are, but there’s a bear over here, so I’d be careful.”

  “Is it a black bear or a white bear?”

  I remembered that the Cheyenne old-timers used to refer to grizzlies as white bears and yelled back. “He’s a black one, but as big as a grizzly.”

  The twine that I had unrolled in my scramble to get away began retracting at an incredible pace as if it were on a fishing reel, yanking me toward the summit of the dune where the gigantic bear towered on his hind legs.

  “Good,” the bear said. “For a moment I thought we were in trouble.”

  The bear sat next to the crescent dune and grunted to himself as he wove the twine between his enormous claws like a cat’s cradle. “The line is connected to you.”

  I was still trying to get used to the idea of carrying on a conversation with a bear, but he was pleasant enough. I stared at him and figured that it was all a part of some kind of dream. His voice sounded familiar, but I kept getting distracted by the fact that it was a bear talking.

  He grunted again. “Of course, it is only your line in the sense that you picked it up.” His massive head turned toward me, and I was struck by the smallness of his eyes in the context of his enormous head, but the eyes seemed familiar, too. “Why did you choose this string?”

  I shook my head, unsure. “It was the closest.” I studied him for a moment as he played with it. “Do you mind telling me where I am?”

  “What?”

  “This place, do you think you could tell me where it is? I mean, I can see the mountains, but I’ve never seen sand dunes like this out in the Powder River country.”

  He nodded but said nothing.

  “Are we in the Powder River country?”

  He shrugged.

  “I mean, from the angle of the mountains…”

  He suddenly growled and shook his great head. “How should I know; I am a bear.” He glanced around. “This place is not mine, it is yours.” He nodded at the string, threaded through his claws, and I noticed that he did not hold the end of it, that the one end was wrapped around my hand but the other disappeared over the next dune. “Perhaps it is the one that interested you the most?”

  “What?”

  He sighed. “The string.”

  I answered carefully, aware that I might not want him agitated. “I suppose.”

  The furry hump shifted. “Have you considered what is on the other end?”

  “Not really.”

  He smiled with close to fifty teeth, some of them exceedingly large, and I noticed that there were strands of gray in his fur. “This is the strength of your character, and you do not know?”

  I looked down at the twine still wrapped around my palm and closed my hand into a fist. “The strength of my character is string?”

  “The strength of your character is in following this string.” He adjusted his forelegs, and the twine sprung loose. Then he rolled onto his front legs and lifted himself up on his hind ones like a running back, turned toward the direction of the disappearing twine, and sniffed the air. “The string is like the bread crumbs in your mind, consumed until the mystery of this thing becomes a part of you. You have no choice but to follow it until it gives a secret up to you or reveals another mystery, both equally irresistible—it is your nature.”

  I stood and walked past him, taking up the string as I went and thinking about what he was saying. “What if I don’t like what I find?”

  His voice echoed through me. “There is always that chance.”

  I nodded. “This quest you are talking about is not why I’m here, you know.”

  He studied me but said nothing.

  I took a deep breath and climbed up the side of the dune, pulling the twine out of the sand. “I don’t have time to follow strings; I’ve got things to do. My daughter is getting married.”

  “Yes, she is.”

  I turned back to look at him, now only a couple of yards away. “And I’m standing in an imaginary desert with a talking bear.”

  He nodded but now refused to speak, his feelings hurt, I guess.

  “What if I just let it go?”

  This got a rise out of him. “You will not.”

  “But I could.”

  “It is possible, but what would become of the living thing that is on the other end—have you asked yourself that?” His wide head canted in a quizzical manner. “The mystery, the story of whatever is on the other end, would be lost forever.”

  I was traipsing around in my own head, both the conscious and the unconscious, and pretty sure that the events of late were all products of my mind, but they seemed so real that I was becoming distracted. He was watching me when I looked back up. “Have you ever heard of a fellow by the name of Virgil White Buffalo?”

  His smile broadened. “I knew him well.”

  “I bet you did.” I chewed the inside of my lip. “How about Henry Standing Bear?”

  “I know him, too.” He grinned, but I’m not sure if it was a smile or if he was just showing his teeth. “But not as well.” He looked off into the distance, away from the mountains.

  I had a feeling that our time together was coming to a close and I was sorry for that, in that I was enjoying his company, cantankerous as he was. I held up the hand with the twine wrapped around it. “So, you’re saying that whatever I do I shouldn’t let go of the string?”

  He shrugged again.

  “Well, what use is a talking bear if you’re not going to carry on the conversation?”

  The lips curled back, and he continued to smile.

  I lifted my hand, clearing the string from the edge of the dune. “Are you coming?”

  He shook his enormous head and finally spoke. “That is not my nature.”

  I nodded. “And if you don’t mind my asking, what is your nature?”

  He lowered himself to all fours and slowly ambled back in the direction from where I had come, pausing at the top of the dune to look over his shoulder. “To question.”

  The bear picked up his pace, and I was left there with the twine wrapped around my hand, trying to fight the feeling I was a puppet. I could follow him, I could stay, or I could go on. I stood there for a moment more, knowing there really wasn’t a choice in all of this—the decision had been made when I’d picked up the end of twine in the teepee. As the Bear had said, our natures are our natures.

  Kneeling down, I tried to get a general idea of the size of the bird that had made the tracks—something not too small but not too large either. The bird moved easily on the ground, which led me to believe that it was comfortable walking, and there are only a few of those.

  There was a hop, however, and this time the bird’s talons were buried deeper in the sand. There must have been some sort of threat, and I could see where the wing tips had brushed the ground and where the edges of the pinfeathers had swept the sand.

  Bigger than I first thought—a large wingspread, two and a half feet at least.

  There were no more tracks—it must have taken to the air—so I just followed the string. Sometimes you just had to follow blind. Beyond the next few dunes I saw an outline of a burned-up cottonwood, rising out of the sand like a grasping hand.

  The tree stretched out a good hundred feet and was twice as high, with gigantic limbs and branches that reached up to the sun.

  The tough bark was matte black and covered with soot, and I could see where my twine circled the trunk and then disappeared. I walked around it a few times until the str
ing was freed from the main body and swung up into the high treetop.

  I leaned back, trying to make out what held the twine, and raised my hand to block the sun. I sighed and pulled on the string a little, in the hope that whatever it was would reveal itself.

  I’d just started tugging when she called down to me. “Do you mind not fucking doing that?”

  I looked up through the scattering of branches breaking up the sky like shattered glass. “Sure.” I looked for the source of the voice but still couldn’t see anything. “Hey, could you help me? I’m not sure what it is I’m doing here and was wondering if you might know where we are or what it is I’m supposed to do?”

  It was quiet for a moment. “Do you have the other end of the string?”

  “I’ve got a string; I thought maybe you have the other end.”

  There was a sultry laugh. “Well, sort of…”

  I stared up into the sun again. “If you come down here, maybe between the two of us we can figure this out.”

  “I can’t.”

  I looked at the string. “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Maybe you should come up here.”

  I stared at the sooty surface of the burnt tree. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  It was quiet, so I figured that there wasn’t any other option. Circling the trunk, I found a limb that was within reach and stuffed the twine in my mouth, still tasting the bitterness of the peyote, wrapped my hands around the heavy branch, and swung my boots up toward the trunk.

  I wedged an ankle in the crook and pulled myself around, the soot and grime turning my clothes black.

  “Well, hell.” Taking the twine out of my mouth, I fed it back under the limb and checked the direction it took around the main body of the tree—under another branch and then up.

  I rested a foot and tried to circle, the trunk being far too wide for me to reach around. Placing my boot on another branch, I continued climbing, following the string as it weaved its way through the tree.

  Every once in a while I had to pull slightly on the twine, and when I did there was a small cry from above. “Oww.”

  “Sorry.” I peered through the naked branches, and even though there was no foliage, it was hard to see. I placed the roll of string under my arm and wiped the black from my hands onto my jeans as I leaned back on another stout limb. “How much further are you?”

  “Quite a bit, actually.”

  “Can you see me?”

  “Yeah.”

  I looked up. “How come I can’t see you?”

  “Well, I’m smaller, and you’ve still got a ways to go.”

  I sighed and traced the path of the string as it worked its way in and out of the assorted branches. “Straight up?”

  “Yeah.”

  I lodged another foot in the crux of a limb and lifted my other leg, continuing to climb with the string in my mouth again. The trunk split at one point, and I could see where it peeled off to the west and straightened out toward the mountains. I was getting pretty high and could feel the tree creaking as it responded to my movements.

  The string led me to the western route, but the branches were becoming sparser and I was afraid that if I traveled too much farther on the limb, it might break. I took a chance and glanced down, immediately regretting it. It was a good hundred feet to the sand below, and there were numerous back- and head-breaking limbs between. I swore to myself and wrapped my legs around a little tighter. “Maybe it’s only a dream.”

  It was about then that I raised my eyes and saw her—a good-sized crow.

  Farmers and ranchers don’t care for the birds, but I’ve always thought that they are beautiful creatures. They are also capable of more than two hundred and fifty distinct calls, which did nothing to explain the very female human voice in which this one spoke to me.

  “How you doin’?”

  “I guess I’m all right.”

  I considered her predicament. From my perspective, I could see that the twine was wrapped around one of her legs, then her body, and finally had trapped one of her wings against the limb from which I now hung. “You mind if I ask how you got like this?”

  Her dark head shifted, and a beadlike, tarnished gold eye drilled into me. “Isn’t that just like a man to ask a fucking question like that.”

  “Sorry.” I studied the distance between us and the diameter of the limb. “I’m not so sure I can get out there to where you are.”

  Her dark, feathered head shifted. “Don’t you have a knife with you?”

  I thought about the Case I carried back in the real world and figured it was probably still in my left back pocket. “I think I do.”

  “Then just cut the string.”

  I thought about it. “I don’t think I’m supposed to do that.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, a bear told me that I wasn’t supposed to let go of the string and I’m guessing that includes cutting it.”

  The crow continued to look at me. “A bear.”

  “Yep.”

  She flapped the free wing and picked at her feathers with a pointed beak, gleaning them straight, finally turning to look at me. “You’re fucking kidding.”

  I sighed, thinking about how I was now having a conversation with a profane crow nearly at the top of a burned out cottonwood tree. “That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.”

  “Well, then, you’re going to have to come out here.”

  I looked down at the ground again. I’d heard that if you fell in your sleep it was okay, unless you hit, and then you supposedly died. It sounded like hooey—I’d probably heard it from my mother, who gave credence to those types of things.

  I edged my way out. I was getting coated in the graphite-like soot, and the fine powder didn’t make it any easier to hold on. I gripped the branch and pulled myself another arm’s length before hearing a tremulous cracking noise somewhere back down the trunk.

  The crow and I looked at each other, and she was the first to speak. “That was worrisome.”

  “Yep, and you’ve got wings.”

  “I’m also tied to the limb your lard-ass is resting on.”

  I glanced down. “I wouldn’t exactly call it resting.”

  Trying to ignore the sound and fury of the splitting trunk, I took the twine in one hand and passed it under the limb a few times, finally freeing it enough to untangle the crow’s body, which allowed her to get a talon onto the limb. “Can you pull the string enough to get your wing loose?”

  She tried, but it was obvious she couldn’t. “Why don’t you just let go of the fucking string?”

  “I told you, he told me not to do that.”

  “You usually take the advice of blathering bears?”

  I sighed. “It’s a habit, like trying to save cursing crows.”

  She cocked her head, and if it was possible, she smiled. “I need more slack.”

  More carefully this time, I slithered a little forward and was happy not to hear anymore disconcerting noises. I extended my arms and threw her a loop that trailed over her wing. She picked at it with her beak and was able to pull it partially loose, but I was going to have to get out there a little farther, perhaps a yard and a half from her.

  The limb was getting narrower, and I was feeling a little tippy as it was. I grabbed the next arm’s length and gently pulled myself out farther. There wasn’t any sound, but I waited, just to make sure. I pitched the twine again and was rewarded with a loop that went past her wing this time with enough slack to allow her to scramble loose and hop up onto an adjacent branch that faced me.

  “Thanks.”

  “You bet.” I continued to look at her and noticed that the twine was loose but still attached in a bow to what appeared to be a bracelet wrapped around her leg. “The twine is tied to the bracelet?”

  “Yeah.”

  I readjusted a little, the pressure of the limb against my chest becoming a little uncomfortable as I studied the silver chain just above her talon. “How did you get the bracelet c
aught on your leg?”

  “It was shiny, and I liked it.”

  I studied it a little closer and noticed it had a medical symbol on it. “I guess we have to make a decision.”

  She cocked her head and with one quick movement hopped onto my arm. “Yeah.”

  “Can you pull it apart and free yourself?”

  She shook her swarthy head, the feathers gleaming blue-black. “Nope—tried.”

  “So, if it gets done, I have to do it?”

  She shrugged a winged shoulder, pumped up her breast in a provocative manner, extended her wings, and then refolded them; I could feel a slight sway in the limb beneath me.

  “Maybe you’re supposed to stay here.”

  She looked off toward the mountains. “And never fly again?”

  “The bear said I wasn’t supposed to let go of the string until I found the living thing attached, but he didn’t actually say what it was I was supposed to do once I found you.” Maybe it was all just a mass rationalization, but I figured not allowing birds to fly was a crime in any reality. “Hop up here on the branch where I can hopefully use both hands.”

  She did as I requested, landing with the encumbered talon closest in an attempt to make the job just the tiniest bit easier.

  I loosened my grip and rested my wrists on the branch, trying to retain some sort of balance. I held the tab ends of the bow and laughed, mostly to myself. “Something’s going to happen when I pull this apart.”

  “Yeah, I’ll be free.”

  “No, something more than that; I’ve got a feeling.”

  She studied me. “Then don’t do it.”

  “After all this?”

  Her head movements took on a more animated quality, and I could tell she was a little annoyed with me. “I’m not fucking around; if you don’t think you should do it or something bad is going to happen, don’t.”

  I thought about what the bear had said about our natures; about how we did what we did because of who we were.