Black Wings

The thick, humid air vibrated with the sound of cicadas around the stagnant little pond. Two older gentlemen sat in lawn chairs near the bank, fishing poles in their hands and a cooler between them. Neither spoke a word. They simply sat and sipped on beer, occasionally reeling in their lines and recasting.

All of a sudden, the cicadas and the birds in the tree line fell silent. An air of tension fell over the pond. Across the way, an alligator slipped off the bank and back into the water as if taking cover.

Gerald and Kalvin scanned the tree line before exchanging meaningful looks.

“Here we go,” Gerald muttered, sighing heavily.

Both men realled in their lines. Kalvin polished off his beer and tossed the can into the cooler.

A sound drew their gaze to the trees. A group of men clad in black and red and carrying rifles emerged from the woods led by two middle aged men, one with a salt and pepper crew cut and one with a thick beard and a long black ponytail.

Kalvin and Gerald rose to their feet and stood shoulder to shoulder.

“What’s this?” the man with the crew cut asked looking around. “Some kind of trap?”

“Gunnar,” Gerald greeted him. He looked to the other man, “Feris, you look like a damn hippie.”

Gunnar scoffed a little, ignoring an annoyed glance from his cohort.

“Even your cousin agrees,” Kalvin said. “I imagine you're here to kill us. My dying wish is that you get a goddamn hair cut.”

“Where are your pets hiding?” Gunnar demanded.

Gerald and Kalvin became stone faced and silent in the face of the question.

“Where’s the old woman?” Feris asked.

“Dead,” Kalvin answered grimly. “That’s why we’re here. She has kin in the area.”

“Yeah right,” Faris scoffed.

Kalvin reached into his pocket and took out his wallet. He opened it and extracted a small newspaper clipping, passing it to Faris.

“Freak accident with a truck hauling rehbar? Are you kidding me?”

“Iron being one of the only things that can kill her kind,” Gunnar observed skeptically.

“We have doubts that it was an accident,” Gerald said.

Gunnar looked at him, a smirk crossing his weathered face. “You guys are a piece of work.”

“We could take them alive,” Feris suggested.

“It won’t do us any good,” Gunnar shook his head. “We’ll just have to drag them along on the hunt.”

“You won’t find them before the brooding season is over,” Gerald grinned. “You cowards won’t attack them unless they’re vulnerable.”

“You old bats think we were spinning our tires searching all over hell and back for you for the past fifty-sum years,” Feris stepped forward. “We’ve been amassing soldiers and resources this whole time. All you’ve accomplished is giving us time to prepare a greater army and giving us a bigger target. The minute your females start nesting, we’ll sniff them out.”

“You can try,” Gerald crossed his arms.

“We’re just wasting time here,” Gunnar sighed.

“If it’s worth anything,” Feris raised his rifle. “You two have made the past thirty years of cat-and-mouse interesting.”

“Can’t wait to see you boys in hell,” Kalvin stepped right in front of the barrel.

The rest of the small militia raised their guns. A short burst of gunfire rang out through the summer air and the pair dropped to the ground.

Gunnar approached the lifeless bodies, leaning over Kalvin, “I’ll see you there, and I’ll bring those abominations you’ve been protecting with me.” He stood up and turned to face his followers. “Search the area, find out who they’ve been talking to. Get cameras set up in all the swamps in the area. We’re looking for any large, black animal. We’ve got a year, if we’re lucky, to find these things.”

Men scattered in all directions as Gunnar returned to Feris.

“Do you think the old woman is actually gone?” Feris asked.

“Does the article say there was a body?”

“Declared dead on scene,” Feris quoted the article.

“If she faked it,” Gunnar sighed, “she’s damn good. Either way, our duty remains the same. Figure out who’s next in line.”

Kayse’s little white sedan rumbled down an old dirt road, kicking up a cloud of red dust over the seemingly endless patchwork of green and golden fields. She’d been in a daze for nearly a week, ever since a lawyer tracked her all the way to a hotel in SoCal to inform her that her great uncle, whom she hadn’t seen once since she was twelve or thirteen, had been gunned down in Florida of all places. To add to the shock of his strange and sudden passing, she was informed that he had bequeathed his entire estate in Wyoming to her, the runaway daughter of his estranged niece. He had taken her in a few times when she was a kid, but she never thought he held so much affection for her.

As she came up over a hill, the familiar old homestead came into sight. It honestly looked like something you’d see on a truck stop greeting card. The two story white farmhouse with a bare wood front porch, a windmill in the front yard and a tall red barn with white trim and a rusty, chicken shaped weather vane. She pulled into the gravel drive and put the car into park. A horse on the other side of the fence stared eagerly at the car. Kayse reached over to the manilla envelope in the passenger seat and dumped out a key chain. The idea occurred to her to call the lawyer back and tell him to just sell the place and take his fee out of the profits. The idea alone however made her feel guilty, after all, he had taken care of her when no one else in the family would. She was still trying to gather up the will power to go inside when an old blue and white square body pickup pulled up behind her and a older woman with a long white braid stepped out, waving eagerly. With a sigh, Kayse opened the door and stood up. Instantly, the wind whipped her brown curls about her face.

“You must be Kal’s girl,” the woman greeted her cheerfully.

“Um, yeah,” Kayse sputtered, trying to control her hair enough to at least see the friendly face before her. “I’m his niece, well his grand niece. My mom was his niece.”

“I’m Whilhelmina,” the woman said. “Kal, Gery and I were old friends. I’m sure we met a few times when you were a kid.”

“Uh, yeah,” Kayse agreed, vaguely remembering the sweet elderly veterinarian.

“Oh, this wind,” Wilhelmina exclaimed. “Did Charlie get you the keys? I see Charlie got you the keys. Why don’t you let us in?”

Kayse agreed heartily and made her way up the steps to the front door.

It was as if the house was frozen in time. The tile mudroom led into a hall that connected the country style kitchen and the spacious livingroom that had doubled as Uncle Kalvin’s office. The interior wall across from the big bay windows had a desk and bookshelves built into it. A big green couch sat in the middle of the room facing a TV. An old cast iron wood stove occupied the corner nearest the window. The only thing that had changed was that the windows were now covered in thick, brown curtains. Uncle Kal had always appreciated the natural light the big, south facing window provided.

“Oh, you can take those old ratty things down,” Whilhelmina said, noticing where Kayse’s gaze had landed. “I’m afraid Kal got a little paranoid towards the end.”

“Maybe he had good reason,” Kayse said. “Have you heard anything about the men that gunned him and Gery down?”

“The police haven’t found anything,” Whilhelmina sighed, crossing the room to open the curtains. “No doubt some disturbed individuals with nothing to contribute to the world but hard circumstances for the rest of us to overcome.”

“Oh,” she exclaimed looking out the window. “Here comes the young Ward.”

“Ward?” Kayse asked. “Gery had a son?”

“Yeah,” Whilhelmina said. “But, he was a soldier. KIA overseas I’m afraid. Just about killed poor Gerald. Orion is his grandson.”

Kayse heard a truck pull up outside. A few moments later, the door opened and a young, tan man stepped in, tapping on the door frame.

“Yo, Willie, you in here?”

“Come on in Orion,” Whilhelmina called out. “Come meet the Kal’s niece.

Kayse moved to the center of the room. “Hi.”

“This is Orion,” Whilhelmina stepped forward. “Orion, this is Kayse.”

Orion’s looked Kayse up and down. “Where you from?’

“Uh, kinda all over the place,” Kayse said nervously. “We moved around a lot when I was a kid.”

“Your folks were in rodeo?” Orion asked.

“Um, no,” Kayse laughed. “Just active addiction.”

“So, you have no ranching experience?”

“Orion,” Whilhelmina chided softly.

“Do you know who I am?” He stepped forward. “I’m your business partner. Your uncle bred prize competition stock. My abuelo and I trained them. Willie took care of their medical needs. What do you do?”

“I, um,” Kayse stuttered.

“I know who you are,” Orion said. “I know Kal loved you like his own daughter and you never bothered to so much as call him. You know he always hoped you’d come back when you were old enough. That he could teach you all about this life?”

“I didn’t know…” Kayse felt heat rising in her face

“And now, he’s gone, my abuelo’s gone, and I’m going to have to take the time to teach you everything?”

“Look, vaquero,” Kayse cut his rant off. “I didn’t ask for this. ‘Loved me like his own daughter’ what? I was just some snot nosed kid that got dumped on him because he was the only person in the family that didn’t hang up immediately as soon as my worthless mother’s name came up. I don’t know how to run this place. In fact, I’m still kicking around the idea of selling it. If I do, I’ll be sure to keep you and the buyer appraised of your arrangement. If I stick around, I’ll learn and I don’t need some Don Juan - redneck hybrid holding my hand.”

There was silence for a long moment before Orion’s serious expression broke into a grin.

“What did you just call me?”

Whilhelmina chuckled, “she’s more of a spit fire than I remember.”

Orion nodded, “I’m going to go check the clydesdales.”

He gave Kayse a nod and headed for the door. As the door slammed shut behind him, Kayse turned to Whilhelmina.

“What is his problem?”

Whilhelmina’s face darkened a little, “father is a dead soldier, mother and older brother died in a fire and now the grandfather that raised him was gunned down. The boy has seen a lot of deaths, and I don’t think a single one has been by natural causes. As much I loved Gery, he was a hard ass bastard.”

“Oh,” Kayse looked down, feeling a little guilty.

“Still not an excuse for him to be a little prick,” Whilhelmina gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “Go get your stuff, I stocked the fridge when I heard Charlie found you. I’ll get lunch made.”

Kayse retrieved her suitcases from the back seat and lugged them up the narrow steps. She automatically went to the first room at the top of the stares, where she had stayed as a child. A matching white vanity and chest of drawers were adorned with little trinket boxes decorated with magazine clippings, horse figurines and mosaic vases filled with paper flowers. The bed was dressed with pink and purple quilts and plush pillows and on the nightstand next to it was a lamp, its shade decorated with pressed flowers. Photographs and childish painting and drawing hung on a cork board near the window seat that overlooked the back of the property. It was a room frozen in time. After all these years, Uncle Kalvin hadn’t changed a thing. She went to the cork board, looking over the pictures. A young Kayse smiled in the photos sitting atop a horse, holding a fish at the end of a line, sharing a banana split with her uncle. She smiled sadly, it hadn’t occurred to her that her uncle was probably the only person who ever bothered to take and keep photographs of her when she was a kid.

Downstairs, she heard the fridge slam shut and she shook free from the sense of nostalgia gripping her. Storing her bags in the walk in closet, she headed down to the kitchen. The smell of bacon cooking greeted her before she even turned the corner.

Whilhelmina was busy working at the counter, chopping a tomato.

“I’d like to take a look around the place, if that’s ok,” Kayse said from the door.

Whilhelmina turned and looked at her with an amused smile. “It’s your property now, dear. What ever you want to do is ok. If you wanna strut about the whole place in the buff, you can. Might even put young Mr. Ward in better spirits.”

Kayse chuckled a little at the thought.

“I hope you like belts,” Whilhelmina said.

“Belts?” Kayse asked, taking a seat at the rough wooden table in the middle of the room.

“belt, B E L T,” Whilhelmina explained going back to the stove. “Bacon, egg, lettuce and tomato. Your uncle kept chickens, I took them in when he passed, wasn’t sure how long it would take to find you. They lay far more eggs than I can eat. My barn cats have never been happier, or fatter. I’ll return them this weekend, of course.”

“Oh, it’s fine if you want to keep them,” Kayse said. “I don’t know anything about chickens.”

“Ah, chickens are easy,” Whilhelmina set a plate down in front of her. “Cows are tougher. You own about twenty cows and two bulls. Horses are trickier still, they think.”

“I remember the horses though,” Kayse smiled softly. “I’m glad the clydesdales are still here. Are any of Ember’s babies out there?”

“Oh, sure,” Whilhelmina nodded. “So is the old girl herself.”

“Ember is still alive?” Kayse said in disbelief.

“Alive and well,” Wilhelmina said. “And still making babies.”

“I can’t wait to see her again,” Kayse said, growing excited at the prospect of seeing the mare who had been like a dear friend to her when she was a kid.

“Well, hurry up and eat, I’ll give you the grand tour after lunch,” Whilhelmina smiled broadly. “I have a good feeling you're going to settle in just fine here.”

The blue and white truck bounced along the makeshift roads that ran from pasture to pasture. Whilhelmina explained that a majority of the property was dedicated to grazing, the stock rotated pasture through the spring and summer and into the fall if the weather was favorable. In winter, all the animals brought into pastures closer to the homestead and were fed from grass, corn and alfalfa crops that were grown on the far side of the property where a river ran through. Much of the property was left relatively untouched due to conservation incentives from the state. The northernmost side of the property was mostly hills and trees and, except for Kalvin and Mr. Ward going out once or twice a year to collect dead wood to stock the homestead with firewood for the winter, it was left alone.

“I don’t know how I never realized how expansive this place was,” Kayse said in wonder, gazing out the windows at the hills in the distance.

“Oh, it’s a sizable enough chunk of land for sure,” Whilhelmina agreed. You could spend a whole day running horses from one end to the other. We’ve only had to do that once though. Big wildfire. Moved everyone down towards the river.”