The young of Digs Moss for Snails grew through the spring, changing their plumage from camouflage brown to black, not as brilliant in iridescent color as it would be, breasts barred to keep suitors away, their eyes still baby-blue. They still begged for food, and the pink insides of their mouths continued to arouse their parents’ need to feed them; but they had begun to eat on their own and learn to fly, too. Short, clumsy hops that made Dar Oakley wonder how any Crow ever learned it. He’d follow Moss and the more daring fledglings to the margins of the Pine grove where her nest was hidden high up; she’d stop now and then for them to rest and gather courage, and set off again. She laughed with Dar Oakley—it was funny, it was heartening, it always had been, always would be.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s see who follows.”
She set off over the greening spring fields, and toward a big pile of saplings and waste that People had cleared there. One fledgling followed, calling, Wait, wait. Dar Oakley, suddenly troubled, went to a branch of the last Pine of the grove and watched.
An unseen Crow called for help.
Moss, hearing it, called in response, and so did Dar Oakley—the call welled up in him before he could stifle it—and Moss turned in the air, seeking the Crow in trouble. Her mate came winging in at her call, couldn’t have been far away; the compelling call for help came again and Dar Oakley cried with all his might, Fly fast, fly away fast, but it was too late.
Moss’s mate was struck first. Seeing him fall, Moss screamed and beat toward where he’d gone down. Another thud of a gun, and she twisted head over tail in a cloud of feathers and fell.
Dar Oakley raced, yelling, toward them and pulled up—nothing he could do for them—but the fledgling batted around the air that its mother had departed from, confused and crying piteously. Dar Oakley, dodging and twisting as though a Hawk were after him—an invisible Hawk he couldn’t evade—tried to push the fledgling away toward the trees, but it couldn’t listen or understand.
The third shot brought down the little Crow, hit but not killed, still flying, landing near the blind.
Dar Oakley, sensing which way the hunters must be looking—toward the woods and the nests—got himself around low to the ground and into a Poplar already in leaf. From there he could see into the blind and see the hunter: there was only one.
Dr. Hergesheimer, gun over his arm, came out from the blind, walked toward his kills. Moss and her mate were still; he gave each a glance and a kick. But the fledgling had righted herself and was staggering, dazed. Dar Oakley expected it’d be shot now, and wondered if his duty was to attack the hunter, distract him, maybe be killed himself instead. But Dr. Hergesheimer bent on one knee, laid down his gun, and picked up the fledgling. He examined it for a time. Crows were scolding now from out of range; Dar Oakley, too. Dr. Hergesheimer gently folded the little Crow’s wings against its body and put it in the big side pocket of his duster. He picked up his gun and set off, taking great strides, toward the road some distance away, followed by the curses of the Crows.
The obsequies for Moss and her mate that day were short and not well attended—this time of year Crows had duties to life, not death. Dar Oakley, crying loudly for his lady and her mate, felt a fury he had never felt before. He had known Pity. He had known Wonder. He had known a life past death. But this was an emotion unlike any a Crow had ever felt—as far as he knew, as far as a Crow can know what all Crows are capable of feeling. Dar Oakley now knew Vengeance. He wanted revenge for this, and he knew upon whom he wanted it, and he would bend all his powers to get it. He had yet to learn—but he would learn—about this cold drive and its imperatives: that it could take a long time to enact; that even when he got what he wanted, he would gain nothing by it; and that none of that mattered at all.
The remaining fledglings of Digs Moss for Snails still needed to be tended to, and Dar Oakley did that—his own hundreds or thousands over the centuries had taught him what he must do and how to do it, playing both parents’ parts. When the three were on their own—two males and a female, all now forever at threat—he began to travel. At first only around the circuit of Crows he knew, the nervous Crows of the local flocks that Dr. Hergesheimer had terrorized. And when he was sure they were with him—as sure as he could be, for Crows (like People) can listen and agree and be brave when the threat’s far off—he left the flock and went darkwise to new places and new Crows.
In all his many lives Dar Oakley had had to make his way among strange Crows, avoid being mobbed or murdered, take on the ways and words of others. He had had no single home of his own, which made him a little at home everywhere. Always careful to make the proper obeisances to the strong and the wary; always sleeping and foraging at a polite but not hostile distance. And, when he could, talking. That was what he did on this voyage: talk, when they’d listen.
About Crow-calls. About guns, and how hunters hid in blinds. What did they know, he’d ask these Crows, what could they tell Dar Oakley? Did they stay far away from hunters and guns? How did they warn young Crows that the Crow they heard might not be a Crow at all? They talked of these things at evening, the questions and answers passing from group to group, generating Crow noise that People a mile away could hear. Stay away is best, some Crows said: if you hide, you’ll be safe; they have to see you to kill you. Yes, if you hide you’ll be safe for a time, Dar Oakley would reply; but what if you banded together, went on the attack? No, no! If Crows ever could spy out hunters and mob them, they’d be shot even quicker! Well, maybe not, Dar Oakley said. A big gang of Crows might overwhelm a few hunters if they got in close enough, so close the guns couldn’t pick them out—why, they might shoot each other! Fly at them as though they were Hawks or Weasels, find them out in their blinds and let them have it, madden them with shrieking, spoil their day, steal their lunch, mob them as you would any threat—they’ll give it up. Maybe they will.
When he’d got a band of them thinking, and learned their thoughts, Dar Oakley went on. He felt, now and then, like those People the Brother had talked of: Brothers who walked alone from land to land telling their one story, carrying the rules for living and dying, winning over the strong and the thoughtful, who then won over others. Often he felt lonely: there were too many Crows in his life he missed. He’d go on.
He came to a wide region of treeless plain where there were no Crows, or at least no Crows who’d talk to him: singletons, shy and silent, not answering his call. There was a broad, shallow river as brown as earth, and a line of islands where water-loving trees grew—or rather where they had been growing, for all that remained of them were their trunks and a few large limbs. The tops had been lifted or torn away and were scattered leafless at their feet, and in the river, and for a wide distance around.
The destruction caused Dar Oakley to ponder, and to fear; he was reluctant to come close to it, as though hostile Crows kept him away, though there were no Crows at all. Far off across the flatlands a train crossed daywise to darkwise, a plume of furry black smoke, too far away to hear.