Sparrow Man

by M. R. Pritchard

  “I know this already,” I tell him.

  “So the men attacked you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did it hurt?”

  “Yeah,” I hear my voice lower. Hurt like hell, worse than any of the smacks my daddy ever laid on my trouble-making ass.

  “Did Jim save you?”

  “No. Jim showed up afterwards.”

  “Oh.” I watch as Sparrow rotates his arm up and plucks a leaf from a tree that we pass under.

  “Let’s talk about something else,” I suggest.

  We walk for a while, our footsteps echoing off of the blacktop in the night. I find myself savoring the smell of the fresh air and the feeling of being out in the open, not locked in a twelve by twelve cell.

  Sparrow interrupts the darkness. “What’s your favorite bird?” he asks.

  “I don’t think I have one,” I tell him.

  “That’s preposterous, Meg.” He sounds thoroughly appalled at me. “I’m sure you have a favorite food, a favorite drink, why not a favorite bird?”

  “Yeah, I do have a favorite drink.” A few actually. Ice cold Diet Pepsi and lime flavored beer. My stomach growls at the thought of it all and on a night as calm and quiet as this, I’m pretty sure Sparrow hears it. Still, he doesn’t say anything.

  “I think my favorite bird is the loon,” I tell him.

  “The loon?” he asks.

  “Yeah, they make that sound on the water.”

  “Like this?” I hear Sparrow take in a breath and replicate the sound into the night air. An echoing tremolo. And I swear that I’m sitting on the lake in the misty morning with a cup of coffee in my hand.

  “Yeah, I like that,” I tell him.

  He stops making the noise and we are back to listening to our hollow footsteps.

  “I like owls,” he tells me.

  “That’s nice.” I’m not making any owl sounds for him. “Can we stop soon?”

  “Yeah,” his hands flutter in his pockets. “There’s a barn up here just a ways.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Just do.”

  “How? I don’t understand. I’ve never seen you around this area before and here you are, knowing things about this road and perfect places to stay. How is that?”

  “When the shit hits the fan, people migrate. I’ve been through here before,” he tells me, suddenly stopping and turning. He walks to the edge of the road. “We’re here.”

  I look ahead of him, in the direction of his gaze. “Great.” Maybe this was a barn at some time, but right now, it’s not really looking like a barn, more like a haunted dilapidated building. There’s not much of a roof visible in the early morning light, but the moss stringing across the open space tells me there has to be some roof left. I can see spider webs gleaming with dew and stringing across the holes in the walls.

  We step through a hole in the door. The inside of the structure is nothing more than a shell of a barn filled with forest. I look up, seeing broken and dry rotten slats of wood.

  “We have to get up there.” Sparrow turns and looks towards the door. “Sun’s coming up.”

  It’s all the warning I need to move. I know what comes next. I search for a ladder and come up with nothing. The only things I see are ferns and saplings and squirrels running across the rafters.

  “Over here.”

  I follow the sound of Sparrow’s voice and find him standing along one wall of the barn that doesn’t have a hole in it. There isn’t a ladder, just a haphazard pile of wood next to the wall. Sparrow reaches down and picks up a long board. He shifts it, leaning it on the rafters above us. Stepping one booted foot on the board and stomping on it, he tests its strength.

  “Come on.” Sparrow holds a hand out, waving for me to get moving.

  I walk, mostly stumbling on my weary legs, to where he’s standing. Needing no instruction, I begin climbing the ramp. When I get to the top I see that he’s set the board against what looks like the only section of the second story that remains covered by a roof. I kick the loose twigs and piles of leaves off of the space.

  Sitting, I open my bag and pull out the package of crackers and one of the sodas. “Want some crackers?” I ask Sparrow.

  “I’m good.” He wanders along the edge of the loft, stomping in a few places, testing its strength.

  “If I fall through this floor while you’re doing that,” I tell him as I rip open the package of crackers, “I’ll never forgive you.”

  “I wouldn’t let you fall.” He wanders back to where I’m sitting, stopping a few times to inspect holes in the floor.

  “Of course you wouldn’t.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Sparrow promises.

  Pausing, it strikes me that I believe him. I eat the crackers, telling myself the entire time to only eat half of the package, but by the time I slow down I see that I’ve already gone through three-quarters of it. I chug the soda and jiggle the can just to make sure it’s empty. My stomach growls as I tuck the last of the crackers into my bag and pull out one of the survival blankets.

  “I need some more food,” I tell Sparrow as I lie down.

  “I think there’s a country store down the road.”

  “Does that mean we can stop there?”

  “That means we’ll take a look.”

  “You’re pretty bossy for a crazy guy,” I tell him between yawns.

  “Get some rest, Meg. Tomorrow we’ve got a lot of walking to do.”

  “I’m stopping at that store.” I close my eyes. “I need some water too,” I tell him. “I can’t live off of sunlight like you.”

  “Sure.”

  “Sparrow?”

  “What?” he sounds slightly annoyed. Maybe I shouldn’t have mocked where he gets his nutrition from.

  I open my eyes to look at him in the morning light. “Why are you crazy?”

  He looks away, seemingly ashamed. “I can’t remember.”

  “Anything?”

  “Every now and then I get a few bits and pieces of memories, but for the most part it’s nothing.”

  “Why do you wear that coat all the time?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Close your eyes and go to sleep.”

  I hear the boards underneath us creak as he moves and then his deep voice starts to hum, Hey God.

  …

  Tonight the air is cool. I feel a shiver run through me as soon as I wake up. Reaching for my backpack, I pull out a thin sweatshirt that I had stashed in there. Sparrow seems antsy, pacing the loft and trying to peek out of the barn through the holes in the walls.

  “You ready?” he asks as I sit up and pull the sweatshirt on.

  “Sure.” I stand and stretch, before securing my backpack and following him down the ramp.

  Walking out of the overgrown path, we reach the stretch of road that we left off on and start walking towards Oxbow.

  “The Country Store is up here,” I remind Sparrow as I notice a curve in the road ahead of us.

  “Okay,” he replies. He seems edgy and I wonder if it’s because he’s gone over twenty-four hours without adding to his feather collection or if something else is going on with him. Remembering how quickly Noah changed, I keep my distance from Sparrow, leaving a few yards between us in case I need a head start at running.

  We follow the road to a four way stop. Dark traffic lights hang over the intersection and in the middle of the road there is a visible mound of… something.

  “What’s that?” I ask, pointing at the dark object in the middle of the road.

  “I think…” Sparrow walks a little faster, headed straight for it. “It’s a crow.”

  “Is it alive?”

  “No,” he crouches down. “It’s dead.”

  Turning away from him as he inspects the bird, I notice the County Store to my left, and begin walking for it.

  “I’m going to the store,” I holler back to Sparrow.

  I hear him mumble something as I walk away, the lure of food almost too strong to contain. As I
get closer, I notice that boards are secured across the front door glass and the windows. I reach for the handle, my mouth salivating at the thought of warm soda and sugary treats. As I pull the door open I am not only greeted with the stench of stale air and sweaty humans, I’m greeted with a shotgun pointed directly at my face.

  “What the hell you doin’ here, girl?” a rough voice asks.

  I back away. Hands up, just like the troopers asked me every time I got arrested. “I don’t mean no trouble,” I tell the shotgun, since I can’t really see a figure behind it. “Just looking for food. That’s all.”

  “Yer lookin’ in the wrong place.” The voice seems to change a bit with recognition. “I know you.” I hear a step as the gun moves closer to me. “Yer’ that little tramp that robbed me of all those candy bars and condoms few years back.”

  “Okay, mister.” I keep walking backwards, far into the street where I left Sparrow with his dead crow. “I’m leaving now.”

  “Good,” the rough voice responds. “Don’t need no more trash ‘round here like you.”

  “Meg?” I turn to see Sparrow is standing not too far from me; he holds eight violet-black feathers in his hand. He must’ve pillaged that dead bird.

  The gun releases a shot and I turn, grabbing Sparrow’s sleeve and running as fast as I can.

  …

  Running, we head away from the Yellow Lake Forest area, turn onto Rossie-Oxbow Road and don’t stop. When I start thinking we’ve run at least five miles, faster than I’ve ever run in my life, I slow to a jog.

  We are in the middle of the Pleasant Lake State Forest. And I know what’s here. Nothing. No stores, no houses, no nothing for miles, until we reach Route 37, where I know there are a few farmhouses. I think of all those delicious snack cakes that could’ve been in that County Store. Maybe it’s best I didn’t get any, they’d probably just rot my teeth. Still, the thought doesn’t stop my stomach from growling.

  “I’m really hungry,” I tell Sparrow, feeling the pull of my leg muscles from the running and the ache in my dry throat. I follow that up with, “I’m thirsty too.”

  Sparrow kicks at a rock in the road. “I know, Meg. We’ll find something for you.”

  “How can you be so sure?” I ask. “There’s nothing out here. We are in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Just am.”

  As the full moon lights the highway, we stop, hearing movement in the forest. Rustling and snapping of dried undergrowth. The hair on the back of my bare neck rises.

  “Sparrow, is that-” All I can think is that the dead are up and walking early.

  “Shh!” he silences me, holding a hand up.

  The rustling continues, pauses, and then four deer waltz out of the underbrush and begin crossing the road. My fluttering heart settles. I’ll take a deer any day over a walking sack of rot.

  “You like deer?” Sparrow asks.

  “Ah, they’re okay.” I shrug. “Pretty harmless I think…”

  Sparrow drops to one knee and reaching behind his back, he pulls something out. I see the glint of a knife as he raises his arm over his head and flings it at the small herd of deer. As they begin stomping off into the forest, one pauses, then drops to the ground with Sparrow’s knife sticking out of its neck.

  “Holy shit, Sparrow!” I breathe out.

  He walks to the deer and, reaching down, he pulls the knife from its throat and starts cutting.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “Getting this ready for cooking.”

  “What?”

  “You’re hungry.” He gives me a cold look, like I’m an idiot for asking, then turns around and glances at the forest. “Go get some wood for a fire.”

  I leave Sparrow and head for the side of the road, collecting sticks and twigs and dried leaves to start the fire. I drop them in the middle of the highway, right on the double solid yellow line. Digging through my backpack, I find the lighter Jim placed on one of the inside pockets and light the fire.

  Sparrow walks towards me, carrying a slab of meat that looks like it’s still attached to the bone. He moves the sticks around and settles the bone in the middle of the small fire. In the light from the flames I can see the blood dripping off of his hands. He turns, looking crazy and dangerous with his coat and bloody hands and bloody knife. I’m pretty sure I gasp and lean away from him.

  Sparrow holds a gory hand out to me. “Give me your water bottles. I’ll go fill them.”

  “Where?”

  “There’s a stream, not far from here.”

  “How do you know?”

  He presses his lips together before answering, takes a calming breath that does nothing to cool his current mood. “I can hear it,” he practically growls.

  I tilt my head to the side and listen. I hear nothing. “Are you sure?” I ask, reaching into my backpack.

  He swipes the water bottles out of my hand and walks away, into the dark forest at the edge of the road.

  “What a dick,” I mutter to myself and wonder if maybe it was the act of killing the deer that has him on edge.

  I wait, warming my hands by the fire and trying to stop the shivers from rolling up and down my back. I can hear Sparrow walking through the forest as he returns to me. He doesn’t even attempt to be quiet. He sets the water bottles next to me with clean hands and sits, not quite on the other side of the fire from me.

  We watch the flames, my mouth watering from the smell of the meat.

  “Thank you,” I force out.

  He nods, his forehead wrinkled in a scowl.

  “You didn’t have to kill the deer if it was going to upset you this much.”

  “Couldn’t do anything different.” Finally, he turns to me. “You’re human. You needed something to eat.”

  “And what does that make you?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” He shakes his head.

  We both turn to the fire and let the silence settle between us.

  After a long while of staring into the glowing embers, the mood seems to lighten a bit. Sparrow asks out of the blue, “What is your deepest, darkest secret?”

  My back straightens at the question. I can’t tell what kind of a moment he’s having right now, crazy or lucid. I stare up at the night sky, watching the smoke rise, deciding how to respond.

  What the hell, no one will believe what I tell a crazy man who collects feathers. And it’s not like we have anything else to talk about out here. I start with the worst secret I have. “I killed my mother.”

  “Unpossible,” he dismisses the confession immediately.

  “What? That’s not even a real word.”

  “It is in my book.” He pokes at the fire with a stick, the end of it burning red hot. “You didn’t kill your mother. Don’t believe it.”

  “Yes I did,” I argue. “Pulled her placenta right off as I busted through the birth canal. She bled out and died before daddy could even call 911.”

  “That’s not your fault.”

  “Daddy thought it was, made me pay for it too. Every single day of my life.”

  “What do you mean?” he stops poking the burning twigs and squints at me.

  “I mean every morning I woke up in our crappy trailer and my daddy didn’t say good morning or ask how I slept. He started my day by saying, you killed her and don’t you forget that.”

  Sparrow looks at me with his mouth hanging open. He sets his stick in the road and stands.

  “Where are you going?” I ask.

  Sparrow walks to the edge of the road. With the full moon illuminating everything in a yellow hue, he bends and picks something off of the ground.

  “Here,” he says as he walks back towards me, holding his hand out.

  I hold my open palm up to him and he drops a tiny white flower into my hand. “What’s this?” I ask.

  “Nothing.” He sits down near me and continues poking the fire with his stick.

  Now, I’ve seen a lot of nothing in my short time on this earth, but a guy giving me a flo
wer, that has to be something. Jim never even did that.

  “I hate cats,” Sparrow says as he pushes at the deer meat with a stick.

  “Oh really?”

  “Did you know when cats came to America they decimated the wild bird population?”

  “Had no idea about that,” I reply. “Who brought them, Columbus?”

  “Spanish. Before Columbus. In South America. Didn’t you pay attention to your history?”

  “I’m pretty sure we never learned that in history class. Not that I ever showed up much for history class.”

  “Hmm.”

  “What’s your obsession with birds, Sparrow?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “What’s your obsession with sins, Meg?”

  I stare at the roaring fire in front of us, the smell of the roasting meat making my stomach growl louder. It seems neither of us is going to answer the questions we have asked each other. Sparrow stands and pulls a stick from the fire with steaming meat on the end of it. He hands me the end of the stick and I wait for it to cool before devouring it.

  Now I’ve had deer before, usually in stews and stuff, but this has got to be the best deer I’ve ever tasted. Maybe it’s because I’m so hungry. I clean the bone, eating until my stomach is full, bursting at the seams with roast deer. It’s not what I really wanted to eat, but it’s better than raw rat.

  When the sky starts to brighten and the songbirds chirp high in the pines, Sparrow stands and starts stomping out the fire. “We need to move.”

  “But,” I start. “We never slept.” My voice sounds whiny.

  “You ate, Meg. You got fresh water. We are in the middle of a state park, no better place to walk during the day. Shouldn’t be many people-alive or dead-for miles.” Sparrow starts stomping on the fire and breaking up the burning sticks.

  I stare at the deer carcass. “Do we just leave that in the road?”

  “Yeah. There’s a turkey vulture down there,” he points behind us. “He’s been scouting that deer carcass for hours now.”

  “Oh.” I look behind us and see movement on the side of the road. “Are you going to pluck some of its feathers?”

  Sparrow laughs. “No. Turkey vultures are huge and mean and we really, really need to get walking.” He looks around. “Walking during the day, we’ll need to move fast.”