Night Prowler

Legend has it, there was an odd old Barn Owl he lived up in the rafters of a barn that stood for over one hundred years in a small community of about 1,200 people, give or take a soul. My distance relatives owned that barn, along with a house that burnt down in 1956, same year I was born. The barn stood standing on the thirty-five acres, own by an Uncle Larry, that I only seen periodically every now and then, like at a family reunion or other gatherings.

The Barn Owl was well known in the community, he had received the nickname of Night Prowler by the locals. Night Prowler was a feisty old critter, a survivor of sort. He received this name, because he was often seen flying above the dimly lit county jail, diving down to appear to get a look inside the building every now and then. The towns folks thought Night Prowler was searching for food and initially thought nothing of it and would often try and get his picture because he was huge and beautiful. There would often be 5 – 6 people outside the jail area trying to take his picture, causing a bit of commotion, sometimes mistakenly leaving behind coffee containers, a glove, an occasional cigarette lighter and other small insignificant items.

It seemed Night Prowler had more brains than a normal Barn Owl or maybe even more than most humans in this community. Maybe the term “wise ole owl” was true with Night Prowler.

The Sheriff, George Puctan whom oversaw the jail at night, thought Night Prowler was a nuisance, he said it brought “to much unneeded attention to the jail” and he often set out traps to attempt to capture Night Prowler, but never capturing him. Sheriff George Puctan was a lazy unethical man, a short fat mean man, trying to do as little as possible in his job. George was about 60 years old. He was married to Lucyann, she was a little petite woman, a diligent woman, and most never saw much of her. She seemed to do exactly what nasty ole George told her to do without question.

I became friendly with Lucyann, and we spoke every now and then at the local supermarket. Mostly a “hi, how’s it going,” “have a good day,” just small talk. Lucyann would go the same day of week as I did. Lucyann’s family was all grown up, so it was just her and George. When I tried to have a conversation with Lucyann, she would seem to shy away from me, giving me quick short answers, but always polite.

It was on a Tuesday night Lucyann, and I were picking through the produce in the supermarket, and it looked as if she had been crying, as if her face had been hit. I ask her “How are you doing today, Lucyann?” she jumped startled at my voice, and stuttered “I’mmm, I’m, I’m fine,” then attempted to look away from me. I knew something was amiss. I said “Lucyann, I would be glad to help you if you need help,” she then dropped her produce and ran as quickly out of the store as possible. Trying to get away so quick she dropped her wallet out from her purse. I of course picked up her wallet and tried yelling for her, but she was out the door and gone! I took her wallet home, looked for a phone number to call her and found one. I called it and it had a recording of being disconnected. Then I looked for an address to maybe bring it to her, found an address but I waited because I thought I would maybe see her again at the grocery store, but Tuesday came around again and no Lucyann. Another week passed and still no Lucyann, then I started to worry where she might have gone, and why she never came back. My curiosity got the best of me. So, I went to the address I found in her wallet. Took me on quite of bit of backroads and down a little dirt track. I finally arrived and it was quite an eerie setting. There were no other houses around. It was a run-down shack sort of, with lots of garbage in the yard, and several outbuildings that were falling apart. I seen George her husband in the yard and thought I would ask him and return Lucyann’s wallet to him.

I drive into the driveway and George starts quickly toward my vehicle. He has an obvious look of anger on his face, he is hollering at me “Get the HELL OUT OF HERE, this is private property,” I try and yell back that “I have your wife’s wallet…,” but he then says, “Take a step closer and I’ll shoot”! With that threat he shot his shotgun in the air. That was enough to make me hit my gas peddle and spin my vehicle around and get the hell out! I drove frantically fast back toward my home. Finally safe in my own home, I thought “Wow.” I thought to myself. “Why was George so angry?” “Where was Lucyann?” I questioned a lot of oddities about George at that moment, my mind raced with thoughts. I knew George being the Sherriff, that he would have lots of powers or authority that I did not have, access to weapons and crime items, etc. Time crawled forward, with little hope of solving why George was so angry and why I no longer seen Lucyann. I thought I best mind my own business as George screamed at me that day, as I was leaving his property “to mind my own business” and so I attempted to move on.

Then about a month later my Uncle Larry called me out of the blue and told me he was considering selling the old barn for the wood value and selling the property and thought I might like to go to the barn and see if there was anything there, I would be interested in, seeing’s how the old stuff was my relatives. My relatives had long passed. I told Uncle Larry “Oh yes, I’ve been meaning to ask you if I could go there and look around.” So, off I go. I get there and wander around, picking through this and that, it was incredibly quiet in the barn. As I am digging through old treasures, I hear a rustling of sort… I look around and see nothing, but I hear it again, and it was Night Prowler, way up in his perch. I must have disturbed him a bit. I thought “this is very cool,” “I’ve never seen Night Prowler up close” but utt oh, Night Prowler would have to find a new home.

Night Prowler had a fine perch in the old barn, with a broken window that he freely came and went out of. His nest was exceptionally large, much larger than what most barn owls would have. Unknown to me Night Prowler had a tendency to collect items in his nest, he was a hoarder of sort. After going through lots of old treasures and hauling many items away, I finally went to take a look at what Night Prowler’s nest looked like. It was very fascinating. I found, old creatures’ bones, cigarette lighters, ink pens, little shreds of paper, even an old coin and then I came across something very odd, it was a locket, a beautiful locket. I carefully opened this locket and there was Lucyann and George as beautiful as a young couple would have been in love years ago, the locket had an inscription engraved on it. It said, “I will always love you, George.” However, as I looked at the chain, it appeared to be old blood on it??? At first, I thought, “must be creatures’ blood from Night Prowler’s dinners?” then I thought it about it some more and worried there was much more to the story of this locket, that it might be a cry from the grave? From the darkness of evil? With that I carefully wrapped the locket in cloth, placed it safely in my pocket and off I went to see if there was indeed more to this locket. I still had not seen Lucyann in a while. It had now been over 2 months since I had seen her. So, a day later, I took the locket to a town over from the community I lived in as I worried if something had happened to Lucyann, George might stop me from figuring it out, after all he was our towns sheriff or the man in charge of crime in this town. In this town about 25 miles from the community I lived in. I found their police station and then I explained to the authorities the situation in detail, that I had not seen Lucyann in a long time and worried something might have happened to her? I ask them to please check it out.

The law enforcers did not take me all that serious until they ran a missing persons report and it found that Lucyann had been reported missing by a sister about two weeks ago. That piqued their interest. They then paid George Puctan a visit. I did not see the visit as I knew better, not to go near Mr. Puctan as he was armed and ready for a fight! However, I read the local papers to see what had happened to Lucyann, and sure enough as I feared, George Puctan unfortunately killed his wife. Story had it that George strangled her and buried her body on his property. The law enforcement had to do a lot of digging per the story to find her, she had been buried under a freshly pour concrete slab. I was very saddened to read about her demise, however if it had not been for the Barn Owl Night Prowler, her death may have gone unnoticed for a long time if not forever. The local papers read, “Night Prowler becomes a town hero” and “Town Sheriff George Puctan arrested for the murder of his wife.” There you have it, George Puctan is now rotting in a penitentiary and the Night Prowler has become an Honorary Town’s Sheriff.

Moral of this story is, ‘never underestimate Mother Nature's call from the grave.’