to record his experiences in as much detail as he had done at first.
He wrote as succinctly as possible without leaving out any pertinent
information. After a lifetime of finding journal-keeping too
burdensome, he was now unable to stop keeping this one.
He was seeking to understand the traveler by writing about it. The
traveler … and himself.
On the last day of June, he decided to drive into Eagle’s Roost to buy
groceries and other supplies. Considering that he now lived deep in
the shadow of the unknown and the fantastic, every mundane act-cooking
a meal, making his bed every morning, shopping–seemed to be a
pointless waste of time and energy, an absurd attempt to paint a facade
of normality over an existence that was now twisted and strange. But
life went on.
As Eduardo backed the Cherokee out of the garage, into the driveway, a
large crow sprang off the front-porch railing and flew across the hood
of the wagon with a great flapping of wings. He jammed on the brakes
and stalled the engine. The bird soared high into a mottled-gray
sky.
Later, in town, when Eduardo walked out of the supermarket, pushing a
cart filled with supplies, a crow was perched on the hood ornament of
the station wagon. He assumed it was the same creature that had
startled him less than two hours before.
It remained on the hood, watching him through the windshield, as he
went around to the back of the Cherokee and opened the cargo hatch. As
he loaded the bags into the space behind the rear seat, the crow never
looked away from him. It continued to watch him as he pushed the empty
cart back to the front of the store, returned, and got in behind the
steering wheel. The bird took flight only when he started the
engine.
Across sixteen miles of Montana countryside, the crow tracked him from
on high. He could keep it in view either by leaning forward over the
wheel to peer through the upper part of the windshield or simply by
looking out his side window, depending on the position from which the
creature chose to monitor him. Sometimes it flew parallel to the
Cherokee, keeping pace, and sometimes it rocketed ahead so far that it
became only a speck, nearly vanished into the clouds, only to double
back and take up a parallel course once more. It was with him all the
way home.
While Eduardo ate dinner, the bird perched on the exterior stool of the
window in the north wall of the kitchen, where he had first seen one of
the sentinel squirrels. When he got up from his meal to raise the
bottom half of the window, the crow scrammed, as the squirrel had.
He left the window open while he finished dinner. A refreshing breeze
skimmed in off the twilight meadows. Before Eduardo had eaten his last
bite, the crow returned.
The bird remained in the open window while Eduardo washed the dishes,
dried them, and put them away. It followed his every move with its
bright black eyes.
He got another beer from the refrigerator and returned to the table.
He settled in a different chair from the one in which he’d sat before,
closer to the crow. Only an arm’s length separated them.
“What do you want?” he asked, surprised that he didn’t feel at all
foolish talking to a damned bird.
Of course, he wasn’t talking to the bird. He was addressing whatever
controlled the bird. The traveler.
“Do you just want to watch me?” he asked.
The bird stared.
“Would you like to communicate?”
The bird lifted one wing, tucked its head underneath, and pecked at its
feathers as if plucking out lice.
After another swallow of beer, Eduardo said, “Or would you like to
control me the way you do these animals?”
The crow shifted back and forth from foot to foot, shook itself, cocked
its head to peer at him with one eye.
“You can act like a damned bird all you want, but I know that’s not
what you are, not all you are.”
The crow grew still again.
Beyond the window, twilight had given way to night.