****
At the driveway gate Ann Goth and Black Knife faced off Sheriff Barns and dozens of armed men. A dozen National Guard armored personnel carriers were poised to drive through a hundred meter wide stretch of fence. Behind them loomed several dozen massive tree cutting and hauling machines. All were running and manned by logger drivers accompanied by rifle carrying biker and police thugs.
“Move out of our way now, all of you, or you’ll get hurt,” Barns shouted through a mega-phone, above the din. Barns tried to keep an eye on the fit looking, rifle toting Tribal policeman and the steely eyed little white woman that faced him, but he couldn’t help noticing the thrashing trees and gathering clouds and birds. It was getting darker. It was supposed to be perfectly clear today, but now thunderclouds were building up overhead unnaturally fast. What the hell was going on?
Abruptly the trees became still and the birds quiet. Even with all the vehicle engines still running, it was relatively quiet. Barns and his men looked about, seeking the cause of the sudden change.
“I AM SHAMAN OF THIS FOREST,” rang out an impossibly loud voice, as the sky flashed lightning. It was Two Bears, standing atop a nearby boulder with his great arms raised and his long hair fluttering about in the sudden wind. The voice however, came from him and from everywhere, and especially from the lightning that now continuously churned in the cloud above. “LEAVE THIS PLACE IN PEACE NOW.” It was unmistakably the voice of Two Bears, but magnified a thousand-fold into a voice of thunder. Scores of birds and animals suddenly appeared around the shaman, and advanced on the police and loggers like a flood.
Everyone heard the words of Two Bears, even loggers shut inside truck cabs to the rear of the column. Also two hundred arrested Artistic License protesters that had been chained to several saplings by the police heard the Shaman. “That’s a raven,” said one of them. Sure enough, a huge, outsized blackbird sat in one of the young trees, watching them. It dropped out of the tree and landed on the thick logging chain that all of the protesters were handcuffed to, next to the massive lock that held its ends together.
It seemed to be trying to stick its long and too thick beak into the lock’s keyhole for a few moments, and then pulled the lock open with its feet.
“That ain’t no raven, it’s a Harry damn Houdini bird!” exclaimed their leader Janet Logan, who was sitting nearest the lock. “Let’s get after those cops!” she exclaimed, as she pulled the heavy chain trough her handcuffs.
“No. Your help is greatly appreciated but is no longer needed here,” spoke the raven loudly, with a surprisingly human-like voice, perhaps with a hint of Billy-goat. “Leave now for your own safety, Artistic License. Flee further down the Mountain!” As the astonished protesters watched it fly up into the air, its shape shimmered and then stabilized into that of a gigantic golden eagle. “Thank you, but go now!” it said in the same voice, before lifting higher, where it was joined by dozens of other great eagles that also dared the still darkening sky.
Janet shrugged. “OK, you heard the talking bird thing that freed us. Let’s move down the road slowly. We’ll stop any cop reinforcements coming the other way. Let’s take the chain with us and string it across the road. That should slow them down.”