- I -
Todd sat on top of the sloped lid of a backlane garbage bin with his knees clutched tightly together, his elbows tucked into his sides, and a book in his upturned palms. He was hunched, leaning into the read, peering through his oversized glasses, almost unblinking. One eyebrow was slightly raised, his brow furrowed, concentrating. A tuft of hair hung down across his forhead, like a claw, pointing at his left eye. His eyes scanned the page, with robot-like precision. Now and then his eyes would shift side to side, as though watching for someone. No one came though, except Maggie, and he didn't even notice her approach.
"Whatcha you doin up there?"
"Reading."
"No. I mean why you up there?"
Todd didn't answer, but he did slip a bit, sliding downward on the slope, quickly righting himself and wriggling back up near the peak.
Maggie just stared, standing there with a grimmace on her face, wrinkling her nose at him. She crumpled a section of her dress in a fist, and then smoothed it out again.
"Lookit I got!" she said.
Todd looked. It was a stick, with a string tied to the end, and on the end was a bone-shaped rock.
"So? What is it?"
"I'nt know. A thing. It's neat."
She wiggled the stick and the stone danced.
"Cool, huh?"
"I guess."
"I can make you one."
"Nah."
Todd pushed his glasses back up his nose, and looked back at the page he was reading.
"Why you up there anyway? Readin?"
He flicked his eyes down at her, and then back onto his page, ignoring her question.
"There's benches in the park. Why'nt you read there?" She pointed with her stick at the fence across the lane, behind which an expanse of wood and grass grew.
Todd turned a page, humming a bit to himself. Maggie crumpled her dress in a fist again, and then smoothed it out.
"I can make you one of these if you want. They're neat. You just need some string and a rock. There's-"
"Shh!" Todd said, suddenly harsh. "They're coming!"
Maggie looked at him, and then down the lane to where his eyes were. There was no one there. She looked at him again, wanting to deride him for his silliness. What's wrong with your eyes? or You're seeing things! or some such jab. But the fear in his eyes killed those thoughts like a juke box with its cord yanked from the wall. She looked again and saw nothing, and fear bubbled up into her tummy as well.
Todd's book dropped from his hands as he sat for a moment in a daze. It slid off the garbage bin lid and fluttered onto the ground like a wounded bird. The Legend of Crowfeather. Todd slid down after it, landed on his feet, adjusted his glasses, and flashed his gaze back up the lane. Then he snatched up his book in one and, grabbed Maggie's hand in the other and dragged her as fast as he could into the park.
"We have to hide!"
"Why? Who's comin?"
Todd pulled her to a copse of trees and they ducked inside, panting from the burst of running, and crouching down into hiding.
He whispered, "I like your stick thing. It's a really neat stick thing."
Maggie did not reply. She looked at it and gave it to him. He took it and wound it up as fast as he could until the stone was hard against the layer of string on the end of the stick. He shoved it in his back pocket, and turned back to looking at the gate they'd run through coming into the park.
"I'm Todd," still whispering, not looking at her.
"Maggie."
She scanned the bushes, the fence, the lane beyond. Nothing.
"You scared, Maggie?"
"H'yeah."
And she didn't even know why. But when Todd suddenly paled, tensed up, began shaking, and dropped to the dirt, struggling to get more hidden, tears started from her eyes.
"Don't be scared, Maggie. They won't hurt you."
A scruffy-haired blonde kid on a blue bike went by. Just a kid on a bike. He didn't even stop. But Todd didn't even seem to notice him.
"Who, Todd? Who's there?"
Now she was shaking too.
Todd looked back at her as she lie on the earth beside him, her cheek pressed into his hip. His eyes terrified her. They told her beyond doubt that though she couldn't see anyone, there was definitely someone there.
"Them," Todd said.
"I wan' go home," crying now.
"Don't move."
"I'nt see anyone."
"Don't... move... They're right... over... there..."
His whispering voice cracked with a whimper. He shut his eyes tight and breathed deeply, as though wishing. Maggie lifted her face, looked past him, out the bushes, and saw... nobody. Trees, grass, sky, but no people. Only tall prairie grasses in an endless stretch of field where entire neighbourhoods of houses had stood only seconds before. The fence was gone. The telephone poles with their drooping wires... gone.
But before she had a chance to wonder where the heck they suddenly were, she saw them. Them! A small band of aboriginal warriors, with war paint, weapons, and cold, cruel grimmaces on their faces. They stalked through the prairie grasses, not a stones throw from where the children lay in hiding.
"They're looking for him," Todd whispered, his sound drowned out beneath the wind in the tall grasses.
"Who?" Maggie asked.
Todd turned the book toward her, showing her the cover, and tapped it twice.
"Crowfeather."
And suddenly Maggie's vision blurred and everything went black.
- II -
Men were talking in a language Maggie didn't understand, their voices hushed, almost to a whisper, but amplified by the tension they felt. One spoke, giving orders. Another muttered a comment and was hushed. A third asked a question nobody answered. And they came forward.
Maggie lifted her eyes from the earth where she'd pressed them into her hands, trying to hide from the blurry terror. Todd was still lying there, his chin on his forearm, peering out of the thicket the two were hiding in. Maggie looked at the book he held in his hand, by his hip. The cover, beneath the title, showed a fierce yet young-looking aboriginal man crouched in waist-high grasses, staring intently off into the distance at some unseen foe. Maggie looked up but didn't see him anywhere. Apparently, neither did the band of warriors now on the hunt for him in the grass up ahead.
Maggie shook Todd's leg. He looked back at her, his eyes wild with panic.
"Where are we?" she asked him, whispering. "We're not at the park no more. How'd we get here?"
Todd looked away up at the dread warriors. Maggie shook his leg again, but he shoved her hand off of him and pointed.
Maggie looked, and just in time too. There was a whizzing sound, a thump, and one of the warriors, the one in the rear of the formation, suddenly grunted, grimmaced, turned and fell with an arrow in his back. The others barely noticed at first, but when he fell, he fell into the man in front of him. Then they all turned and suddenly were greatly alarmed, suddenly scanning the fields for movement, a shift of a shadow even. They saw nothing though. Neither did Todd. Neither did Maggie. Only swaying grasses on an endless prairie.
"Got him," Todd whispered. "That's one."
For a moment, Maggie thought it was Todd who'd fired the arrow. But he was simply counting. Maggie counted too, in her mind. Five left.
They closed into a circle, their backs to the centre, scanning frantically, muttering, some whimpering. Other hushed them. Finally one called out some unknown phrase, a taunt perhaps, or a challenge to reveal himself. His voice drifted across the empty plain and did not echo back. It disappeared into the wind.
The warrior began to yell something else, but -whizzzz-thump!- and another man fell, this time, from the other side of the circle. The warrior's challenge, threat, whatever it was, collapsed into a surprised whimper as his fellow fell. Someone stretched his bow and fired an arrow blindly into the empty grasses in the direction the latest attack had come. He was scolded, smacked in the arm for wasting a shot. His hands shook as he nocked another.
"Two," Todd said.
There were four left. Maggie tugged on Todd's shirt, urgently. Todd looked back at her, not raising his head. The neat little stick thing she had made swung its stone loose as he twisted to face her. The bone-rock danced beside her face, spinning a bit on its string.
"Who's shootin 'em, Todd?"
A cold emotionless whisper, "Crowfeather. They killed his brother, his mom, and his wife."
"They shount'a. That's bad."
"I think they know that now."
Whiz! Thump! Then only three remained.
The circle tightened. The men ducked low in the grass. Their panicked murmers tripping over one another. Another blind arrow flew, this time straight up into the sky, accidentally, as a shaking hand slipped. It sailed through the air in a tall arc and landed point down in the dirt, pinning Todd's shirt to the earth. Maggie gasped. A warrior spun toward them, his eyes glazed with terror and anger, glaring into the thicket. He pulled back an arrow, not really seeing anything, and was about to let it fly.
Whizzz-thunk! He fell with an agonized, gurgling growl, the arrow on his bow released, but sailed upward, above the trees where the children lay, and landed harmlessly into the distant ocean of grass.
The last two men, back to back, their voices weeping with terror, scanned the field, crying out, trying to sound brave but failing. For them, there was no north or south, no east or west, no sun, no wind. There was only death, hiding somewhere in the grass, and all they could do was wait for the next arrow to fly.
There was no next arrow. A crow cawed in the tree above the children. The warriors jumped at the sound, their faces spun toward it, and they-
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-crunch! The second last man stumbled backward with a hatchet in his chest. He grabbed at it helplessly, but it was in him to the very handle. He weakened, whimpered, and fell, muttering half a prayer to the sky before disappearing into the golden grass.
"Five."
"I'nt like this, Todd. I'm scared."
"He won't hurt you. He can't even hold his bow. Look."
The last of the six warriors staggered, stumbled over a fallen brother, got back up again and hollered in apparent grief, no longer trying to hide. He stood, tossed his bow away with a shaking hand and raised his palms to the sky. He cried out, surrender it sounded like, but got no response. Only wind. Then, like a sprouting tree, Crowfeather rose silently from the grasses behind him, clutching a knife. Both Maggie and Todd stared unblinking, mouths agape. Neither spoke. They could barely even shudder.
Crowfeather grabbed the man hard, pressed the blade to his throat, and yanked him backward, holding him fast against his own body. The man squawked out some plea for his life, half of one anyway, but Crowfeather shushed him and he fell silent immediately. Crowfeather muttered something into his ear, something cold and terrifying. The warrior moaned, helpless, gasping as though each breath would be his last. Maggie shut her eyes, expecting death. Death did not come, no sound of it anyway. Only a whimper, a restrained cry from the last remaining warrior. When maggie opened her eyes again, she saw his hair had turned white with fear. Tears flowed from his eyes.
Crowfeather spoke again, undiscerned by the children, and released the man. He tripped over another body, got up and ran, screaming like a terrified child, a fleeing animal. He ran until he disappeared from sight. Crowfeather sheathed his knife and watched him go, silent, unangry, unshaken. The wind whipped his hair. The sun shimmered on his face. Suddenly a breath of breeze caught his locks in a certain flutter and Maggie and Todd saw the cover of the book pass by like a fleeting snapshot in time, as he stared off into the distance at some unseen foe. Then he crouched, and moved off into the plains without a sound.
"He let one go," Maggie said, her voice trembling with fear and awe. "Why'nt he kill'd all 'em?"
"There has to be one survivor, to tell the tale, or there is no legend."
"Wha'd he say to that last man?"
Todd stared with blank eyes, off into the field, and then closed his eyes, remembering.
"I am Crowfeather. I move unseen, like the wind. You shall live today, but if you return, any of you, you will lie dead like these, food for crows."
Maggie shivered.
"How'd you know that, Todd, what he said?"
He held the book out toward her once again, laying it on the earth before her, tapping twice on the cover.
"It's in the book."
Maggie looked down at it, and finally understood that they were in a story.
When she looked up again, she saw drooping powerlines, and an airplane humming slowly across the sky. They were home again.
Todd moved to get up, but his shirt was stuck fast to the ground by an arrow. He grinned at her. Maggie sat up and wiggled it free, releasing him, and together they left the park.
