Warpaint

“Peter, do me a favor and put together a list of all the indians and divide them into groups so that I can see everyone, guys and girls, over eight or ten sessions max. This is for tomorrow. Start at sun-up.”



I heard him say, “Okay, that’s not a problem,” as I stomped off into the trees. I had to get away from Bodo before I kicked him in the nuts or worse.



***



I eventually calmed down a few minutes later and changed over to a less obvious mode of travel. Time to practice. I looked up at the leaves on the trees and down at the ground around me, avoiding the areas that looked like they were full of the dry, crackling stuff. My progress through the swamp changed from sounding like that of a buffalo to that of a smallish bear. It felt like an improvement and made me a tiny bit happier than I had been back at the hut.



Stupid Bodo. Thinking he can tell me what to do. Acting like this is all about men being men and girls being wimps. Idiot.



I’d been walking in pretty much a straight line through the trees, going in a direction I’d never been before. An area off to my right appeared brighter than the spot I was currently in, so I made a detour to see what was over there. Hopefully, I’d be able to find my way back without too much trouble. I had a plan though, in case I got lost. I called it the scream-my-head-off technique.



I arrived at a clearing in the trees to find a beautiful, wild sanctuary-looking place. Patches of water were mixed in with areas of small mounds of grasses and plants, and the entire bay-like area was ringed with cypress islands held together by their tangled webs of roots.



I sat down just inside the cover of the trees to keep the shade over my head, watching some birds hovering over the area, scanning the water below for prey. A few gators moved lazily through the algae, floating on the water and several others were up on the banks of the grassy mounds across from me.



It probably should have sent me into a state of panic seeing all those man-eating, prehistoric-looking creatures out there, but they seemed really far away from my reality and totally unconcerned about my presence. It probably helped that they didn’t look hungry to me. There was an abundance of food here for them, which made me think that going after a human might be more trouble than they were interested in.



Maybe I was giving their intelligence too much credit, but the sun was warm, my belly was full again, and I was dead tired from all the training I had done. I soon fell asleep leaning against the tree behind me.



I was having a dream about the mountains. I had taken a trip with my dad there once. We stopped outside an old fashioned general store in a small town, and there was a man sitting on the porch in a rocking chair. He was rocking back and forth, playing a harmonica. I remembered trying not to stare, but being mesmerized by his ability to make the thing sound like it was moaning and crying. It had freaked me out then, and in my dream now, it was happening all over again. It didn’t frighten me; it just made me feel like I was being transported to a different time and place.



A loud shriek jerked me out of my sleep and had me sitting bolt upright.



What the hell was that? I looked around in a panic. The sun was still up, but it was lower in the sky. No gators were swimming around nearby anymore, but there were several more up on the banks across the water. None of them were near me, thank goodness. It crossed my mind that it was probably not the smartest thing in the world to fall asleep next to a pile of man-eaters like that.



Something had woken me up, but I wasn’t sure if it had come from my dream or the swamp. But then I heard the noise again and knew it was coming from here, not my mind. I looked up and saw a large bird circling above me, calling out, an unholy scream bursting from its throat.



And then I heard that friggin harmonica sound again.



What the hell? I looked out across the water, a little to my right, and saw a figure standing on a bank. I wasn’t sure at first, but when I squinted to get a sharper view, I thought it might be Bodo. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and light-skinned, standing with an air of quiet confidence. Yeah, definitely Bodo.



I scrambled back on my hands and knees until I was once again under the full cover of the trees. I stood when I was sure he couldn’t see me. Time to test my sneaking skills in real time.



I ran around through the trees, heading in the general direction of where I’d seen him. I didn’t bother trying to be quiet here, since even if I was sounding like a buffalo he’d never hear it from so far away.



Once I got close to where I thought I’d seen him, I changed tactics, paying close attention to the leaves under my feet, shuffling them out of the way when I needed to. I paused between steps to make it less obvious that a two-legged creature was headed his way.



I could still hear short, quick toots coming from the harmonica occasionally, and they helped me stay on track. I wondered why Bodo didn’t just play the damn thing instead of honking on it like that. He sounded like a deranged goose.



I eventually ended up in a spot just behind where Bodo was standing. A few more steps and I’d have him in my sights.



Another honk came from his harmonica, and I used the noise to cover the sound of my next two steps.



I reached a large tree and stood behind it, climbing up a little on its knobby roots so I could get higher and look through a space in the trunk where a natural oval-shaped hole had formed. If my guesstimate were correct, I would be able to see the area behind Bodo easily without him being able to see anything of me. No way he’d be expecting to see my face in the middle of a tree.



I got to my spot and looked through the hole. Bodo was standing on the edge of the water, his feet submerged just a little and his arms dangling at his sides. In his left hand he held the harmonica, which I watched him lift up to his mouth, a short blast of sound coming from it before he dropped his arm down again. In his right hand he held something I couldn’t see very clearly. It appeared to be a wide strap of leather, wrapped around his arm. It moved just a tiny bit, and I heard bells again.



Bells? Where did I hear bells recently? And then it struck me. In the shower. When Bodo was getting undressed. My face screwed up in confusion. Why the hell does Bodo have bells with him?



My thoughts were distracted by a movement again from Bodo. He was reaching his arm out towards the water, the one with the leather wrapped around it. He looked like a zombie guy, getting ready to walk forward right into the gator-infested swamp. I almost abandoned my post to go running after him when another flicker of movement caught my eye.



A brown shape was coming towards him from off in the distance, up in the sky. It looked like missile headed straight for him.



My mouth dropped open and my ears filled with the sound of my own blood pumping like mad with the rhythm of my freaking-out heart. What the …?



My brain would not compute what my eyes were seeing. Even when the high-pitched shriek of a large brown bird of prey came to my ears, and its huge wings were stretching out to land, I couldn’t believe the vision before me.



It was only when its razor sharp claws were reaching out and grasping onto Bodo’s arm that I fully realized what was happening.



***



Holy doodle on a stick. Bodo has a bird. And it wasn’t any parrot or even a crow, either. This thing was like a friggin eagle it was so big.



It landed on his arm and then stood there, gripping the leather on his wrist, stepping a bit from side to side as it bent down to take something from Bodo’s other hand.



Bodo’s earlier injury from fighting Trip didn’t seem to be bothering him at all anymore.



“You can come out now, Bryn. I know you’re back dare.”



I sighed. Dammit. How had he seen me?



I stepped down from the tree and came walking out, moving to stand on the side of him that was opposite the bird, about ten feet away. “How did you know I was there?”



“You are not very good at da sneaking.”



“I thought I was pretty awesome, actually.”



“Well if awesome is da same as loud, den yes, you are really, really, really awesome.”



“Shut up,” I said, trying not to smile. I looked at the bird, suddenly at a loss for words. It was more than beautiful - it was almost magical.



“You like my bird, don’t you?”



“I … do. Actually, I really do. Even though it’s completely freaking me out that you have it standing on your arm and I’m pretty sure it’s going to peck your eyeballs out any second.”



“Nina would never do dat. She is well-trained.”



“Nina? You named the bird Nina?” I don’t know why that struck me as odd. He could have named it anything and I still would have thought this whole situation was outer-limits crazy.



“Yes. She looks like a Nina, don’t you think?” He moved his arm to hold her up higher, and her wings opened part way, flaring out for a moment before slowly coming to rest down by her sides again.



“Wow. She’s gorgeous.”



“Yes. And she knows it, so don’t talk about it too much. She has already a too big headt.”



Sounds like Bodo and his bird have something in common. “So … um … what’s the deal? I mean, you’ve been sneaking off a lot since I met you. I guess now I know what you were doing.”



“Yeah. I am always going away, taking care of my babies.”



“Babies? As in plural? More than one?”



“Not anymore. Just Nina now.” He sounded sad.



“What happened to the others? How many were there?”



“I started with four. Dat’s a lot. But it is my very favorite hobby to train da birds. You know, it’s called in da United States and da U.K. falconry.”



“Yeah. So you’re, like, a falconer?”



“Yah. You can say dat. I used to have four, which is too many in normal times. But I was alone a lot and hadt a lot of time becausse all da people’s dat I knew died. And I trained dem to hunt togedder, so I got to eat a lot of meat with dem. But soon da canners found us.” His voice had gradually gotten lower and lower as the story went on. When he got to the canners part, I knew this story had a bad ending.



“What did they do?”



“Dey used to be my friends. Dey were guyss in my neighborhood who went to da same high school as me, when dare was a high school with classes and teachers. Dey tried to recruit me for dare crazy group later. Dey wanted me to come and eat da people. I said some bad words at dem, and dey came back and took my birds. All of dem.” His voice broke at the end. He reached up slowly and wiped his eyes with the back of it.



Nina leaned over and plucked at his hand, giving me a small heart attack in the process. At first I thought his eyeballs were about to be a bird appetizer, but then I realized she wasn’t being aggressive at all. She was being almost affectionate.



Bodo took the top of her beak in his fingers for a second before dropping his hand and continuing his story with his eyes closed. Tears were coming down his cheeks slowly.



“Dey were my friends once, dose guyss. But dey killedt my birds and ate dem. Dey left da heads in dare mews - dat’s where da birds were alwayss sleeping. I knew dat I was next, so I left. I found Nina a week later, when she wass just a baby, and worked with her for a while and den kept walking. She followss me where I go, but she stayss where no one can see her.”



“How long have you had her?”



“I don’t know. Several months, maybe. She is imprinted, but I worked really hard to do it da right way so she won’t scream at me all da time. She’s very smart - one of da smartest hawks I ever hadt.” He reached over and brushed the feathers of her chest. She ignored him, looking off into the distance.



“Why did you hide her from me?” I asked, trying not to sound hurt and pitiful. The emotions were rushing through me like wildwaters. I had just found out that Bodo has this amazing thing about him, this huge thing in his life, and he’d kept it blocked off from me. I had kind of taken for granted the idea that he really liked me and was this big, joking all the time, up-front, simple guy; but now I knew he wasn’t just those things. He was someone a lot deeper than that, and I’d only found out about his secret life and his biggest passion because I’d snuck up on him - not because he’d shared it with me by choice. I’d never felt more distance between us, and I was standing right there next to him.