Stillbird

That last day began warm and sunny, hot for one working hard in the sun. But toward afternoon, clouds drifted in and chilled the sun’s warmth, and Stillbird came in early to build the fire in the hearth. She was nursing the coals and adding bits of bark and leaves, waiting for the blue flame, which always comforted her with its warmth and beauty, to flare, when a bobcat came close to the house and looked in at her. She stared back at the cat, afraid not of the cat, but of the omen that something terrible was about to happen. Then the cat was gone and Abel walked through the door telling her to wake up and that Charles was not home yet and he was worried. Charles had gone out that morning with a new horse and Abel was suspicious of the horse, probably because she loved it. It was a large rust-red mare with a spirit that the woman only vaguely remembered and recognized as her own.

  Abel watched a while as Stillbird concentrated on the delicate work of encouraging the tiny flame and then he ordered her gruffly to go look for their son. So Stillbird quietly abandoned her task and her delight and went out to search for Charles in the woods. Shortly thereafter, Abel left to look as well, as he had intended to do. He had only ordered Stillbird out into the night because he was angry that she appeared to pay no attention to him, being busier with the fire than her husband. He walked out into the dusk, feeling anxious, feeling guilty and afraid God would punish him for something--he knew not what--through his beloved son.

  As Stillbird walked through the woods, her eyes straining for signs of the kind of disturbance in the leaves or ground that a large horse would make, she saw the cat again, calmly feeding on the flesh of a fawn it had just killed. Stillbird smelled the blood even before she saw the cat, as it wafted intermittently through the chill air on faint waves of warmth from the earth. A hawk dipped and whirled overhead and disappeared with a cry into the clouds and circled back to hover over Stillbird as she made her slow and silent way through the woods. A crow and a magpie followed her as well just above the trees, flying in and out of the quickly descending mist. The sunset was a delicate tracery of gold outlining the thick, soft gray clouds that settled into the trees, an eerie close light reflected off damp leaves. Stillbird was reminded of a painting she could still see like yesterday, though she’d seen it last thirteen years ago. In the thick mountain mist, the dawn and the sunset appeared the same, exquisite and painful and always just out of reach of the earth-bound vision. There was glory behind the clouds and Stillbird yearned for it.

  Stillbird took long, deep breaths of the cold air, but couldn’t get the odor of fresh blood out of her nostrils, and she grew anxious and walked faster and faster until she was running and calling her son’s name, but the only sound that came back to her in response was the call of the hawk, the scolding voice of the magpie and the unmistakable bark of geese she couldn’t see. She stopped running and waited to let her ears adjust to the forest sounds, the creek and the movement of small animals. She walked toward the sound of the running water, and as she got closer, she distinguished her son’s voice, crying and cursing, and then all of a sudden, as she scanned the trees, she saw his red shirt and came closer, but quietly, so he didn’t hear or see her coming, and she watched him curse and beat the beautiful mare, angry because he had fallen and they were lost.

  Stillbird, not wishing to frighten the horse more, was silent and sprang into the air and onto her son as he reached back with a willow switch in hand ready to strike. She held his arm firmly in her grasp, and he turned to look at her with tears like a child on his face. “Damn animal spooked and ran off with me.” “The cat?” asked Stillbird…“I don’t know. What difference? She needs to learn …” “She’s was afraid of the mountain lion, she smelled the blood …” “She’s an animal and she needs to learn and I’m going to teach her”…and Charles wrenched his arm free and began to beat the mare.

  Stillbird jumped on him, silently still and held him to allow the mare to run, and then she pulled the switch from his hand when he turned to watch the horse run through the trees and beat him herself, shouting now, “See how that feels, see how that feels!” over and over until Abel came upon them and stopped her hand in mid-air and took the switch from her as she quieted down. There was silence then all around, for neither man had ever seen Stillbird raise her voice or exhibit rage. But then Abel, in his measured and cold way, told his wife that it was unseemly for a woman to beat her son who was a grown man, a man she should respect, and then he raised his arm with the switch, but stopped and handed the switch to his son, commanding the young man to beat the woman for her lack of respect. And Charles knew he couldn’t do this to his mother, didn’t want to do this to his mother, but Charles was afraid of his father and after the second command, he took the switch, and after the third command, given now with some heat, Charles struck her limply across her shoulders, his head down, his eyes and nose running, and she did not look at him either, but turned and walked away from the men, who turned and walked home.

  The sun had set and they were lit now by the moon. Stillbird’s heart beat with rage and a sense of freedom, for it was Charles who had kept her tied to Abel all those years, and now she would not stay to protect him. Abel’s heart beat with righteousness and fear fighting inside of him, and Charles’s heart nearly stopped with a loud, slow thud, as the world shrank small and dark around him, not even aware of when he walked inside the house and went to sleep, not sure where he woke the next day or what day it was. Charles was still in shock when his father told him at sunrise that he was going out to search for the woman. “The woman,” he called her, had always called her. And Charles could only nod and curl up and go back to sleep, afraid to dream, afraid to wake…he slept for two full days, dreaming she was home again and the scene in the woods had not happened, but finally he had to wake up and work and eat and remember that it had happened. Charles didn’t talk anymore, and Abel didn’t expect him to; her son after all. Abel knew he’d done wrong, but couldn’t say it and so he cursed the woman, but softly, under his breath, slower, until he was murmuring he knew not what, just murmuring to himself day in, day out, and day after day she didn’t come back, and sometimes he went to search for her, and sometimes he simply prayed, and sometimes he murmured meaninglessly, forgetting where and who and when he was and forgetting the woman, until some animal reminded him of her, or the sunrise, or the sunset, or the autumn leaves as they turned. Sometimes he remembered Alwyn, and when he heard the geese overhead, he thought he was a child again back in Scotland. Without talking about it, his son began to take care of him, silently, sadly, finally a man.

  Charles noticed when some things were taken from the cabin during the day while he and his father were out cutting wood, and he said nothing, hoping his father hadn’t noticed. It happened from time to time, and once he was in the cabin and heard her and pretended to be sleeping, not wanting to know or to interfere.

  Stillbird had walked back into the woods and found the bobcat, who had finished its meal, and followed it as it dragged the carcass to a cave from whence came a sweet water spring. It was necessary to crawl past the pool made by the spring to get into the large first room of the cave, and there the cat had dragged the bones of many animals, and Stillbird used these to make herself a fire and warm herself through the cold, early spring night. The cat brought more animals, leaving more meat on them, and Stillbird cooked the meat over the bones and ate, grateful for the gifts from the cat. She feared the cat might find and kill the rust-red mare, but the mare must have run very far away, for she never saw her again, and she knew that Charles hadn’t found her either, and for that she was glad. She spied on her son and the man, Abel, and when they went into the forest to cut firewood, she crept back to the house and took some things she needed in the cave, some blankets and pots and bags of beans, a kerosene lamp and flints and some clothing. She wrapped it all in a blanket and put it on the sled made of the old sweat lodge poles, which she knew she would use for fuel the next winter. Not wishing to be seen during the day, she burie
d the sled with these things under piles of leaves that had accumulated over the years and marked the spot, so she could come back by night to retrieve them. In daylight it was necessary to move quickly and quietly and stay in the cave.