by Bobbie Pyron
Unbeknownst to the friends, the crow watched from high atop the tall pine at the edge of the glen. Mischief had heard all the talk too, including the parts about himself. Normally, he loved being the topic of conversation, for good and even for ill, because it was, after all, about him.
But this time a war of feelings wrestled in the crow’s black breast. Feelings so heavy, he could barely lift his wings and fly away.
22
Mornings with Minette
Still, Trouble was lonely.
As the days passed, he even missed Mischief. At least the crow didn’t sleep all day like Rosebud and the owl, nor did he have children to care for like the fox. And Mischief was every bit as curious as he was.
If it hadn’t been for his talks with Minette, the loneliness would have been unbearable.
They met every morning in a small cove on the lake where the cattails and duck grass crowded the bank. At first they met there because it was the place where Trouble could easily keep out of sight of humans. But it didn’t take long for Trouble to realize that, to most humans, he was invisible.
“They don’t see things that are unexpected or out of place,” Minette explained in her melodious voice.
“Is it because of their small eyes?” Trouble asked.
Minette thought this over. Finally, she said, “Perhaps, but I think it is mostly because they are involved in their own world. Except for the children,” she amended.
They talked of many things on these mornings. He told her about his family and his home beside Singing Creek. She told him about her life with the poet. She remembered very little of her puppyhood or her parents, whether she had had brothers and sisters. “My memories begin in the warm sunlight of Madame Reveuse’s apartment,” she said simply.
Mischief watched from his perch in a sycamore tree as the poodle trotted up the long hill to her human. She stopped once and looked back over her shoulder at Trouble, barely hidden in the hedgerow.
“Hum,” Mischief said. “He’s getting careless. Somebody’s going to spot him and then . . .”
He gave himself a good shake. “Oh, who cares,” he said. He pushed off from the branch of the sycamore tree. “Not me,” he cawed. “Not me.”
He flew across the park to the far north end, where, in the forked roots of an ancient oak tree, his treasures lay hidden.
He plucked the curtain of twigs and pine needles aside and gazed on his wealth: buttons, coins, candy wrappers, marbles, watches, rings, shiny strings of colorful beads, a tiny plastic car, a baby’s rattle, a driver’s license (with a most unflattering picture), sunglasses, and, most recently, Vera Trumpowski’s ring of keys.
But today, his bounty brought him very little pleasure. His mind kept returning to other things—Trouble to be exact.
Trouble telling Minette he was forgetting what home is. Trouble laughing and playing on moonlit nights in the glen with the fox and the owl, and that possum.
“Oh, excuse me,” Mischief said aloud. “I meant opossum.
“Who cares?” The crow covered his treasures and lit out for the city.
It certainly wasn’t because he cared about that crazy coyote that he flew back to the place where they’d first met.
And it certainly wasn’t because he cared that he spent day after day watching the fresh-produce truck Trouble had stowed away in. Noting how it came at the same time every other morning and left late in the afternoon. Noting that the female driver was very careful but the male driver was not. And before long, Mischief knew which days the female driver stepped out of the truck cab and which days the male driver did.
Not that Mischief cared. He was just—curious.
And so we shall say that it was curiosity, not caring, that propelled Mischief up into the sky one afternoon to follow the fresh-produce truck away from the city.
23
Hiding in Plain Sight
Mischief had been right: Trouble was becoming careless.
As soon as the poet and the poodle claimed their usual bench, Trouble stopped whatever he was doing, barely bothering to keep out of sight. After all, it did seem to be as Minette had said: humans did not see the unexpected, especially when they held the small square things in their hands and against their heads. He reckoned he had been in the park for over seven moons now, and not a single human had noticed him except that young human. She was just a pup, though. And Vetch? Trouble’s worries about him disappeared with his dreams.
But the poet saw. Like all artists, she looked for the unexpected. Her inspiration came from small miracles. Like the unexpected miracle of a coyote in Central Park.
Madame Reveuse unclipped the poodle’s leash and gave her a parting pat. She watched bemused as her elegant Minette gamboled on the green grass and splashed along the bank of the lake with an uncharacteristic frivolity.
Trouble watched a fish swim lazily along the edge of the lake. He had given Minette a frog once, and several fat mice, but she had politely declined to eat them. Perhaps a fish.
He crouched low and gathered his hind legs beneath him.
Just a little closer, a little closer . . . Trouble pounced! He thrust his long coyote snout under the water and, before the fish knew what it was about, grabbed it and flung it onto the grass.
Minette watched as the fish flipped and flopped.
“Eat it,” Trouble urged. “You’ll love it.”
Minette placed one paw on the fish and regarded it mournfully as it gasped for air. Really, this was absurd. She knew Trouble meant well, but still . . .
Gently, she picked up the fish and placed it back in the pond. She watched as it floated, stunned, then darted away in jubilant panic.
Trouble sighed. “Aw, come on, Minette. That was a fish. Do you know how hard they are to catch?”
Minette gave him an affectionate nuzzle. “My friend, that fish needs to live more than I need to eat. Madame feeds me well.”
“It’s not the same,” Trouble pouted. “It’s wild.”
Changing the subject, Minette asked, “Has the Professor found anything to help you find your way home?”
“No,” he replied. “Not yet, but that’s okay.”
“You don’t sound particularly unhappy about that—not like you used to,” Minette pointed out.
Trouble nosed a round plastic disk he had seen some of the dogs playing with. Perhaps he would take it back to Rosebud. She always found such clever uses for the things he found.
“It’s not so bad here,” he replied. “There’s plenty of food, and it’s easier to find than back in the woods.”
“Yes but—”
“And there are so many curious things.” Just the night before, the fox had introduced him to the fun of sprinklers.
“Don’t you get lonely?” Minette asked, her eyes full of concern.
“Lonely? I have Rosebud and owl, and fox, and you,” he said with a shy, low wag of his tail. “Back home, I didn’t really have friends.” He could imagine what his mother would say if he had made friends with a fox, much less an opossum. He could hear his mother’s voice say “You cannot be friends with members of one of those clans! It’s just not done!”
“But what about the moon?” the poodle asked.
“What about it?”
“I never hear you sing to it at night anymore.”
Trouble considered this. It was true that he had not howled his moon song in many nights, but he had found other things to do with his friends.
“Rosebud and owl don’t sing moon songs,” he said. “Even the fox doesn’t pay that much attention to it,” which, in all honesty, Trouble found rather odd.
“Besides,” he said, “Rosebud is afraid of the full moonlight.” Although, with the help of her friends, she was becoming less afraid.
“Well,” Minette said, standing and stretching. “I for one miss hearing you sing at night.”
Trouble gazed adoringly at the apricot-colored poodle with the ring of sparkling stars encircling her long, graceful neck. “If i
t will make you happy to hear me sing at night, I will sing,” he said.
Minette trotted across the glen and scrambled up the rock, Trouble on her heels. She stopped beside her poet, napping in the morning sun, and nudged her hand.
The old woman’s eyes opened. Blue eyes met yellow eyes. “Ah, bonjour, mon ami.” The old woman held out her hand.
Trouble took one step forward. His heart pounded. This was a Human, after all. He heard his mother’s voice growl, “Nothing good comes from Makers.”
Trouble whirled and raced down the apron of stone, past the girl Amelia following the trill of a song sparrow, and into the bracken. “Listen tonight,” he yipped to Minette. “Listen!”
That night, when the moon rose and settled in the eastern sky, Minette heard Trouble sing. But the song was not about Mother Moon. Nor did he sing about missing his home. The song he sang this night was about her.
You are my moon, you are my star.
I will stay beside you
and never stray far.
I will never forget
my friend Minette.
My friend Minette.
The owl groaned. “You sound like a besotted schoolboy rather than Canis latrans.”
The fox sighed wistfully. “I thought it was perfectly lovely.”
Rosebud studied Trouble as she munched on a mealworm. He had changed, and the changes worried her. The cloak of wildness that had clung to him, that had informed his every move, was fading.
“You are becoming like us,” she said, her eyes glittering.
“So,” Trouble said.
“What’s wrong with that?” the fox asked.
“There’s everything wrong with that,” Rosebud snapped. “He’s not one of us, can never be one of us.”
Trouble shifted uncomfortably. “But . . .”
Rosebud marched right up to Trouble and gave him a stern nip on his leg.
“Ow!” he yipped. “What was that for?”
“That,” she snarled, “was to remind you of that human, Officer Vetch. Have you forgotten how dangerous he is?”
Trouble yawned. “I bet he’s forgotten all about me.”
“I bet he hasn’t forgotten about you,” Rosebud said in a gentler voice. “If he catches you, you’ll never be wild again.”
Trouble snorted. “Even humans can’t make something that’s wild unwild.”
The owl and the fox exchanged a look of fear. “I’m afraid, dear, they can,” the fox said.
“How?” Trouble asked. “Besides kill me, that is,” he added.
“There is that,” the owl conceded, “but there is something worse.”
Trouble’s rust-colored brows pulled together in puzzlement. “What?”
“Follow me,” the owl said. He pushed off the branch and sailed as silent as a ghost into the night.
24
The Place of the Once Wild
Trouble followed the wide wings of the owl south.
They skirted The Sheep Meadow, littered with balls, Frisbees, plastic bags, soda cans, water bottles, plastic wrappers, cigarette butts (which had made Trouble very sick when he’d eaten one), several blankets, and a pair of plastic shoes.
Sprinklers sprang to life, sending great arcs of water raining down on the parched grass. Trouble paused. Oh, how he loved playing with the fox in the sprinklers!
“Come!” the owl hooted from above.
Trouble sighed. He loped after the shadow of the owl rippling on the grass, then on the sidewalk in front of him.
They veered east. Although few humans visited the park this late at night, Trouble was still wild enough to stay just out of reach of the light cast by the row of streetlamps.
A curious breeze scudded up from the south. Trouble stopped in his tracks. He lifted his head and searched the breeze, his black nose sorting familiar scents from unfamiliar.
Here he smelled the familiar deep, sweet smell of an unemptied garbage can, the acrid smell of the day’s heat still trapped in the sidewalk, and always, the salty, sickly smell of humans everywhere.
But there—just there, and not far beyond—a smell that pinned his tall ears flat against his head, a smell that tucked his tail between his legs. He smelled fear, boredom, outrage, a vague scent of menace, and worst of all, despair.
Trouble whined. He looked back the way they had come.
“This way,” the owl barked. Trouble knew better than to argue.
The smells grew stronger, scents of furred and feathered.
Trouble stopped. He pricked his ears forward and listened beyond the night sounds—the piping of bats, the rustle of leaves, the chirp of crickets, the never-ending hum and bleat of traffic—he’d grown accustomed to.
Beyond those sounds he heard mutterings, grumblings, rumblings, and whimperings from many unfamiliar, overlapping voices. “If only,” and “How I wish,” and “Once upon a time,” and “Just once I’d like to. . . .”. Trouble knew that feeling all too well. His curiosity won over fear.
A light rain began to fall. Trouble galloped after the owl until they arrived at the tall gates of the Central Park Zoo.
Had anyone passed by the gates of the Central Park Zoo that night, they would have seen this: a young, tawny coyote with improbably long legs and a bushy, black-tipped tail slip through the gap between the bars of the tall iron gates. The only witnesses to this remarkable sight were a great horned owl and the moon.
“This way,” the owl hooted as he winged low over the zoo.
Trouble held tight to the owl’s shadow as he trotted past sleeping polar bears and snow monkeys, a giant anteater and a banded mongoose. Snow leopards watched the coyote’s passing with aloof light-green eyes. Sea lions slapped their flippers together in applause at the sight of this surprise. Peacocks and puffins agreed that something was up in the zoo.
“Eleven point two more lengths,” the owl called.
Trouble didn’t know how much more of this his keen sense of smell could take—the overwhelming smell of rotting food, the body waste of so many different animals. The smell of hopelessness. And most puzzling of all, everywhere among this extraordinary collection of wild creatures, the sour scent of humans.
They rounded a bend in the trail. Trouble skidded to a stop and gasped.
There, standing in the moonlight in his own enclosure, was a wolf. He was tall, twice the height of Trouble’s father, and broad in the chest. His fur shimmered silver and black in the moonlight.
Trouble had heard many stories from his parents about their larger cousins, the Wolf Clan. He couldn’t imagine a being so noble and wild living here. Not without a fight, anyway.
“Greetings, little cousin,” the wolf barked.
Trouble lowered his haunches and turned his head away from the wolf in supplication. He wagged the very tip of his tail.
“Greetings,” he whined. “I am honored to meet you.”
The wolf limped over to the thick plexiglass partition keeping him in and the world out. He studied the coyote pup cowering at his feet.
“How did you get in here?” he asked.
“I followed the owl,” Trouble said, lifting his chin to the bird gazing down on them. “He wanted to show me something.”
The wolf snorted. “Nothing much here to see except all of us Once Wilds living out our days being gawked at by humans.” The wolf spat the last word with disgust.
“How long have you been here?” Trouble asked.
The wolf yawned. “Who knows? It all runs together after you’ve seen as many seasons as I have.”
Trouble shivered. “Seasons?”
“Yes,” the wolf said. He picked up a large beef bone and halfheartedly nibbled the meat still clinging to the bone. “I was in another place such as this before, and then I was brought here.”
The wolf studied the coyote. He smelled the wild coursing through the coyote’s veins. He felt his longing, his need for deep forests and cold, rushing streams and family.
“I was once wild like you,” the wolf s
aid.
A tiny glint of light shone in the wolf’s eyes. “I ran forever through endless forests and across frozen lakes. Until the trap crushed my leg and the humans tried to heal me. And now this.”
“Have you ever tried to escape?” Trouble asked. “To return to your home, your pack?”
Out of the shadows, a beautiful silver female wolf walked up to the wolf and nudged his shoulder with affection.
The wolf sighed. “I would not leave her, ever.”
Trouble studied the small stream of water coursing through the wolf’s enclosure, the scattering of logs and tree limbs, the rising cliffs that did not smell like cliffs at all. “Still, they didn’t kill you,” Trouble pointed out.
The light left the wolf’s eyes and left them flat, dead. “There are worse things than death for those who were once wild,” the wolf growled. “I would advise you to leave this city, little cousin, and go home before they catch you.”
And with that, he turned his back on Trouble and limped to his den, his mate by his side.
25
The Scent of Home
The crow had flown all through the night. He was exhausted.
Crows are not migratory birds. They do not fly long distances like geese and hummingbirds. Crows are stop-and-go birds, certainly not used to flying over eighty miles. Every part of Mischief hurt.
As he flapped his weary, rain-sodden wings, he thought not about the long flight following the fresh-produce truck away from the city, over a wide river, and above more trees than he ever imagined existed in the world—no, he thought about Trouble’s family and the promise he had made to Trouble’s heartbroken mother: he, Mischief, would do his very best to bring Trouble back home to her.
Finally, he saw beneath his wings the vast green of Central Park. “Thank Crow,” he croaked. He spiraled down to the sycamore tree and called for Trouble.
Mischief called and called his name until his voice became hoarse. He fluttered down to the den of Trouble and Rosebud and walked inside. Rain dripped onto the matt of grass and leaves. A Frisbee, tennis balls, a squirrel’s tail, a plastic water bottle, and a black rubber boot littered the spacious den. But no Trouble or Rosebud. The coyote and opossum had most likely, he reckoned, sought someplace drier. Judging by the smell, though, they’d be back.