A Murder of Crows

Sensitive content: Scenes of death and loss

A Murder of Crows

    I’ve made this trek for twenty years now. Every year, at the start of November. Somehow, the weather is always the same—damp, cold, and overcast. It’s like that from the stretch of empty highway where I’d left my car, through the dark forest, and down into the mouth of this canyon.  

    I ease off my backpack and set it to rest against some driftwood piled along the pebbly sandbar. The rush of water nearby churns and eddies through a mass of slate-strewn boulders. Wind whips along the face of the river, bringing with it the metallic smell of rock and a wash of emptiness. Misty clouds cloak the valley.  

    My hours-long hike felt longer this year, and now every layer of my clothing is drenched in sweat. Standing there in the sweep of wind, I start to shiver. Then I realize I can’t stop.

    I need a fire, I think, and search for dry deadfall beneath the forested rim of the riverbank. As I search, my boots crunch through gravel--too loud somehow in this barren landscape.

    And then the memories begin.

    Five-year-old Jacob, grinning widely while he hauls a tree branch three sizes bigger than himself out from the woods. “I got some firewood, Mama!”

    My laughter. “Careful, honey, steer clear of your sister.”

    Janie, all wide eyed at Jacob’s find, jumping out of the way.

    Then, once the wood catches and bursts into flame, the memory of Janie pleading, “Mama, would you tell us a story? One from that book?”

    She meant the Spooky Campfire Tales book.

    And so I’d told the twins’ favorite ghost story. The one about the river goblin with a taste for small children. It was extra spooky in this setting, I thought. I used my high-pitched goblin voice, telling the children about his red beard and gnarled staff. Then told how he summoned the birds in the sky, how he spun them into a frenzy until the sky was dark. I drew out the ending, about how he lured the children toward him with his song.

    I pounded on a rock, saying, “And then he smashed his mighty staff against the stones. This sound summoned up the water. It coursed in over the bedrock, whooshed down the valley, and washed every single child away. Never to be seen again.”

    “Ooooh!” they’d squealed, snuggling in close to me.

   But it’s just me by the fire tonight. I warm some soup and slurp it down. I’m ready for bed, ready for this ritual to be over.

    Why can’t I stop coming to this place? But Jacob and Janie are five forever. The least I can do is visit another year.

    I unzip the army green tent, worn with age, and throw my gear inside. Then I sit to remove my boots. I line them up, just outside the tent, and tuck them up beneath the rain fly. Janie’s boots were yellow, with little ducks marching in a row around the base of her heels. Jacob’s were speckled, covered with camouflage greens and browns.

     The air inside the tent is still, and somehow warmer. My sleeping bag is a comfort—pillowy soft and warm. I pull the backpacking lantern from my pack, then loop the cord over a hook near the back of the tent. When I turn it on, an arc of light plays around me, swooping and swinging as gusts of wind buffet the canvas tent shell. It’s cozy inside. I imagine what the glowing dome of this tent might look like from a distance—like a warm sliver of safety in this sweep of wilderness. I picture Jacob and Janie, their little faces pinched with cold, searching for me and finding me here.

    Then I slide the wooden box from my backpack, my hands shaking. But not from the cold.

    The pictures spill out onto the tent floor. In one, Jacob and Janie grip their teddy bears and grin toothless baby smiles up at the camera. In another, they sit in high chairs, their faces streaked with chocolate icing. Janie even got icing in her hair--which stands straight up for the photo. Her head is cocked to the side. This was always Janie’s signature pose for the camera, even at that early age.

    There’s a close-up of Janie, her image reflected in the shiny surface of a Christmas ball. And a photo of Jacob flinging himself skyward on a swing. Then Jacob’s smirk as he holds up a golden egg on Easter morning, his baby blue suspenders bright against his white dress shirt. There’s one of the twins in a swimming pool. Jacob’s arms are a blur, water droplets crystallized above his head. In that instant, Janie’s glee has transformed into a grimace as she spies the incoming splash.

    I examine a picture taken at the pumpkin patch, where each twin strains to hold up the biggest pumpkin they could carry. I linger, taking in their curly hair, their smiles, how they leaned into one another. This was taken right before … but I can’t stop looking at their hands—pudgy, soft, so warm in mine. How many times had I held those hands? My children trusted me. Always. Implicitly.

    When we’d set off for the hike that morning, they stuffed their new Pokémon backpacks with snacks and bottles of water. My heart was light, ready for an adventure amidst the backdrop of a nasty divorce. It was blustery, but clear when we left. For me, the bite of cold in the air just added to all the excitement.

    The children hopped from rock to rock along the trail. They marveled at the tiny squirrel tracks in the sand. Janie tried to catch a lizard. Jacob made a sword from a short, pointed stick.

    “Walk the plank, matie!” he called out to his sister, chasing her until I made him put it down.

    We laughed a lot that day. I marveled at how the light along the canyon walls shifted at each turn, the angles and shadows changing shape as the sun rose into the sky. But, before long, clouds rolled in. The wind picked up, and the entire sky became shadow.  

    Newly alert, I announced it was time to head back. Slot canyons are no place to be in a storm. The twins were playful, even as I sped up my pace.

    “Who wants s’mores when we get back?” I asked, clutching their warm, little hands and racing them back toward the trailhead.

    “We do!” they called, laughing.

    But the sky grew darker still.

    Jacob saw the ravens first. “Mama, look—there’s so many. Just like the ones from the water goblin story!”

    Janie stopped and plugged her ears. “And they’re so loud.”

    But she’d heard more than just the call of ravens.

    That deafening roar, which grew louder still, was the rush of water barreling down the slot canyon. The muddy whoosh was upon us in a moment. Jacob stood closest, and I snatched him up just as the flash flood swept us all from our feet. He clutched at my neck as I struggled to stay afloat in the rush of water. Kicking hard, I thrust Jacob’s head above the water, all the while scanning the water’s surface for Janie.

    And then, there she was, floating past. She surged ahead of us, clinging to a huge tree limb, her face white with fear.

    Her mouth was open in a scream. But the roar of water made it impossible to hear anything, to think even. We rocketed along at an unfathomable speed.

     Just ahead, Janie was swept around a bend in the canyon. I struggled to stay afloat, and Jacob’s hands slipped from around my neck.

    “Hold tight!” I screamed, hugging him to my chest.

    As we spun around the bend, I saw with horror that Janie was now pinned up against the canyon wall by the enormous tree limb, crushed there by the relentless torrent of water.  

    I swam, flinging my free arm wildly into the current until, just before it was too late, I snagged Janie’s branch. At the time, that felt like a miracle.

    “Hold tight to this tree, OK?” I asked Jacob, pulling him from around my neck. “So I can free your sister.”

    He nodded, his little arms trembling, his face drawn.

     “Hang on Janie, I’ve got you. Hang on!” I screamed.

     Wedging both feet against the canyon wall, I strained to pry the branch loose. Janie writhed in pain, struggling to breathe against the weight of the crushing branch. Finally, at last, it gave way.

    But, just at that moment, we were hit with a maelstrom of debris. It piled and hammered into us, slicing at my hands, pounding at our faces, wrenching us all loose from our branch. Then the deluge shifted, sucking sweet Janie and Jacob away from me, out of reach. Their small, frightened faces bobbed along the muddy surface for only a moment before they went under.

    Those sweet, warm hands--I never held them again. Not while they were alive.

    Mama, the river goblin got us, they called out in my dreams. Why didn’t you save us from the river goblin?

    A hoot owl’s call startles me to my senses. He sounds close, almost as if he were perched just above my head. Forcing my thoughts away from the twins, I roll onto my back to listen. The owl hoots again. He waits, as if hoping for a reply. But there’s nothing. There’s a rush of wings, swooping low, then rising into the trees. He calls out again, soft and low. After a while, desperate now I think, he shrieks--his hoot urgent. He sounds unbearably lonely. No other bird responds, no matter how many times he cries out.

    He’s in anguish, I decide. And then everything feels crushing, the weight of it all too much. Hot tears track down my face, pool in my ears. I need to blow my nose, but I forgot to bring Kleenex. How could I have forgotten to bring Kleenex?

    Wiping my face with a discarded t-shirt, I gather all the photos. I pile them back into the box, latch the lid, then stuff the whole thing back down into my pack. Switching off the lantern, I decide to leave early in the morning--after I’ve sent the flowers I’ve brought downstream. This place has too many ghosts.

    But when I close my eyes, the images of Janie and Jacob return. Not the happy ones—of Christmas mornings and swimming pools. Now their faces are distorted, swollen, scared.

    I try to think of my dogs back home, of a sunrise on a clear day. But I can only picture the twins.

    I have a lantern, I reason. I could head home now. I’ve done what I came to do—to remember. I can see well enough to hike back.

    I fish the slightly crushed flowers from a side pocket of my pack, then stumble out of the tent to kneel beside the river. The flowers are forget-me-nots, cuttings from the same plant the twins helped me cultivate all those years before.

    “I haven’t forgotten,” I whisper. “And I never will.” Then I scatter the flowers downstream. They tumble off and away from me. A sweep of water sucks them under, and they’re gone. I need to leave.

    It’s hard to pack up in the dark, but somehow I manage it, even if my backpack bulges out to the side in a lop-sided way. Everything’s in there. That’s all that matters, I tell myself.

    I flick on my lantern, its high beam a shock of light in the darkness. But when I swing my light toward the woods, a hunched figure stands just up ahead.  

    My hair stands on end as I jolt back, nearly falling over. A shiver runs all the way down to my toes. What in the … But the man only shields his eyes from the light.

    “Mind turning off that light? It’s awfully bright,” he says, and I think he must have a cold. Because his voice is a little strange.

    “Who … who are you? I manage to ask. What are you doing here?”

    “I live around here,” is his answer. This is strange. I’ve never seen a house, or any people for that matter, when I’ve camped out here. Not in all these years. “Kinda dangerous to be up and around in the middle of the night. Need some help?”

    And then I notice his hat. It’s straw. And he’s carrying a wooden hiking stick. The kind forest rangers use. Maybe he does live around here.

    “Nope. No thanks,” I say briskly. “Just heading back to my car.” I want to walk off, but he’s standing in my way.

     “There’s a shortcut back to the highway, just over this way. I can show you,” he says.

    I start to object, to say I’ll find my own way back. But, suddenly, I’m so tired. There’s something so benign about this man. He’s short, non-threatening. His presence seems lulling even.

     So, when he heads off along a path that skirts the river, I follow. As if I’d entered a dream.

    The trail is smooth and easy. We hike without speaking. Soon the sky brightens into a soft gray, and I’m surprised dawn has come so soon. Had I fallen asleep in the tent? I’ve lost track of time.

    The ranger’s staff is larger than I remembered. As we make our way downhill, it smacks to the earth with a loud thud with every step he takes.

    Dark birds gather in a tree, then begin to circle overhead. I think of the owl, of all the birds in the forest I can never identify. If this man is a ranger, he knows about birds.

    “Are those ravens?” I ask.

    He turns to face me. That’s when I notice his red beard, the red scraggles of hair poking out from beneath his straw hat. “No ma’am, those are crows. You know … a group of ravens is called an unkindness. And a group of crows is called a murder.”

    I back away.

    But he begins to hum, to pound his now-enormous staff against the earth. And then he sings, his other-worldly voice making my blood run cold. It echoes through the canyon as the crows circle and spin. The sky turns black.

     I hear Janie and Jacob then, their tiny warbling voices rising up, joining with a chorus of other voices. Only to be drowned out by the sudden onslaught of water.