Fire in the night

You wouldn’t think that a town in a state halfway down the east coast would be so cold tonight. But here it was, it was freezing, the damp parts of the earth iced over. The breath of anything moving and hustling in the clear air created misty puffs of condensation. “What did that boy call it? Smoke, that’s right the Rennard boy called it smoke, but it wasn’t. I know what smoke is, smoke comes with fire, and fire brings the burning.” High in the tree the old barn owl contemplated the night, slowly rotating her head. “Burning,” sense memory of smoke and heat filled the owl’s mind. She had lived in this area since she was a chick, seen many people come and go, but she had only seen one house fire.

Thick swirling clouds of smoke plumed into the air. The owl twisted her head as she watched it, curious. This wasn’t the normal smoke, the smoke of the chimney. This smoke was black and had an acrid smell. It stung her sensitive nose, and most of the other animals that made their home around the one-story rambler had already fled. But not the owl, she was young and this was interesting. Leaning forward she spread her wings and launched from the branch, her long raptor claws closed and drew up into her plumage.

Soon she was flapping to gain momentum and height then she was wrapping her claws on a branch and she drew her wings in. Aside from the wind which whistled in the cold night, the homestead was quiet. She knew as a night hunter that humans slept now, and it was late, the darkest part of the night. Very little moonlight shown down, and there were none of the electric lights that had filled the city streets and homes. She scooted herself to the left one foot at a time rustling her feathers, clawing the branch, hating that smell, the smell of smoke.

Although she didn’t often see people, she had seen the humans who lived here a tall man and three children, two girls one boy. There was a woman, but she hadn’t been here in a while, the smell of lavender that was the woman’s scent long faded. She had seen other children, seen that some were mean, destructive. The children who lived here didn’t seem that way to the young barn owl. She stopped a sound behind her on the ground, she whipped her head around on a pivoting swivel, an involuntary HOOOOO escaping her throat and open beak.

On the ground in the leaves was the red fox. His eyes gleaming. If foxes could grin, then this fox was grinning and it was dark and menacing. The owl took in the fox, examining him, knowing she was completely safe in the tree, but wondering why he had stayed, and why he seemed pleased. Hearing her claws scrape the branch as she turned to face him, the fox looked up to the owl. In a gravely and almost undecipherable voice the fox spoke to her, “Surprised to see you are here, thought all the birds left.”

“Not that it is your business fox, but I am not a bird, I am Owl.”

“Stupid bird, an owl is a bird,” he sneered up at her, “why are you still here?”

The owl could feel anger and hatred flowing from the fox, the feeling was uncomfortable, she shifted, adjusted her wings, and almost left. “Not your business, but I am here because of the smell, I am curious about it.”

“Oh,” the fox said and the owl could almost hear pleasure and laughter in his voice, “You mean the fire? Yeah, the smoke is bad, but even worse because of the bad water.” He shifted his eyes back to the house, and he starred at the windows and they were now orange with the growing flames inside the home.

The owl saw the reflection in his eyes and turned her head over her shoulder to look and she saw them too, “The fire, the bad water? What are you speaking of fox?”

“I’ve killed the people.” The fox said coldly, matter-of-factly, his gravelly voice cut her and she held her breath as he spoke again, “Soon the man and his pups will be dead, and there will be no one to keep me from the hens.” The fox now began to salivate at the thought of it.

The owl turned her body to match her head, pivoted her neck, and could hear faintly the scared cluck of the hens from the hen house behind the barn. “What do you mean you did it, how did you do it?”

“Doesn’t matter owl, go on and leave, nothing for you here, burnt human stinks you don’t want that smell, if you don’t like the smell of the burning bad water, you will hate the smell of burning man.” The fox chuckled to himself.

“Why?” was all the owl could manage.

“What? Did you ask why?” The fox was astounded, looked at the owl and the contempt for her naivety was thick in his reply, “Human’s are the alpha killers owl,” his voice deepened, “They took her, them and the filthy dogs took her,” the deep gravel gone and it was replaced by the sound of a scared pup who watched his mother get dragged from the hole where they nested, watched the terror in her eyes as the teeth of two then three and then countless other dogs bit in and pulled her from her two pups. Suddenly he was back, “They kill everything, birds, dogs, foxes, the hens, they don’t care what they kill, so its time for them to pay so I can eat.”

The owl listened and she knew that many creatures, even she killed to eat. “Don’t they have to eat too?” her voice thin was still heard by the fox.

“THEY DIDN’T EAT MY MOTHER!” The fox snarled and spit at the owl, froth at the corner of his mouth, his calm demeanor gone, “Those killers wanted her tail, threw her body in a ditch!” His eyes glowed angry and fierce, “My brother died without her, and I wanted to be dead, but now I am glad I am here to watch them burn.” He was calm again, his voice smooth and cold.

“The man and his family, killed your mother?” The owl asked unsure.

“What does it matter, they are all the same, if it wasn’t them, it will be, the pups will grow up and kill, but these pups won’t,” and the foxed laughed out loud at the idea.

Without another word, the owl sprang from the tree and was flying straight for the house. Her large wings flapping and gaining speed.

The fox was startled at first and didn’t know what to think. He stood watching the owl as she sailed toward the home faster and faster. “What…”

Before he could finish his words, she crashed into the window on the side of the house. On the window of the man’s bedroom, her head collided with the glass hard, the loud thunk and shear sound of breaking glass filled the night. The glass was a spiderwebbed pattern of shatters from a large centered circle spiraling outward on the top pane, her attack hard and powerful but not enough to break the glass open. She bounced back from the window and thudded to the ground firey needles shooting down her neck and through her spine. Her ears rung and the world teetered on blackness.

In a flash the fox was up and running, “Stop that you pissy bird!” The fox screamed at her as he ran toward the home. The flames on the backside of the home had now consumed the back porch and the knocked-over kerosene lantern was blackened twisted metal amongst the burning boards and wood. The crackling pitch and cry of the wood echoed as his paws dug into the cold hard ground and he closed the gap between them.

The owl’s head spun literally and figuratively, her mind and world a blurry mess. She could hear somewhere far off the snarling call of the fox, “YOU LET THEM BURN BIRD, YOU HEAR ME!”

She remembered and turned over and was on her feet as the fox leapt at her, there was just enough time to rear herself back and bare her talons at him. The fox's white teeth filled his open mouth as he lunged toward her. His muzzle close and snapping only held back by her claws in his neck. “No.” was all the owl said. She dug her claws hard and deep into the fox’s throat.

“Yeah,” the owl said twisting her head, the cold was now deep in her bones. She looked at the field mouse running across the open clearing, “that’s not smoke.” The old barn owl was off the branch and in the air, slower than that night so long ago, but as silent as ever. On the ground, her long curved talon held the mouse down and she looked at it, her left eye cloudy and scared with the marks of a fox's claw, “Yes little one, we all kill to eat.”