A shiver ran through Woodrow as he settled in for his watch. He kicked off a few bits of snow before he decided the endeavor was hopeless. Snow was everywhere, it was freezing, and he was just going to have to live with it. At least he’d come prepared.
A voice crackled in his earpiece. “I have a question.”
“It had better not be about my sweater,” replied Woodrow.
“Were you able to haggle down at all, or was Cruella de Vil pretty firm on her price?”
“Was that entirely necessary?”
The voice did not relent. “Why did your wife decide to knit black chicken pox onto that thing?”
“Come on, it’s freezing out here. She wanted to help,” Woodrow said. “Honestly, it is toasty.”
“I want you to look me in the eye and answer me honestly – would you rather wear that atrocious thing or die of exposure?”
“You’re talking to me through my earpiece from three miles away,” countered Woodrow. “I’m on some god-forsaken frozen tree in the middle of nowhere. How am I supposed to look anyone in the eye, let alone a shift comms operator with a truly terrible attitude?”
“I’m going to check in with the others, by which I mean farm some more jokes,” the voice said. “Yell if you need me.”
Woodrow felt a shiver course through his body. He adjusted his feet, lifting each and trying in vain to shake out the cold. The sweater was hideous, there was no denying, but he was very glad to have it. Wolf watch was unglamorous enough with also coming back frozen half-to-death.
“I don’t understand why you insist on taking wolf duty,” the comms guy said a few minutes later. “They never come down this way.”
“Until the day they do,” Woodrow answered.
He would never admit it, but Woodrow took the duty out here because of its solitude. Though smart and not disliked, he’d never felt entirely a part of the group with the watch-bird group. Volunteering for the bad shifts was either a way to engender himself to the others, or to avoid being nearby camaraderie that did not have space for him.
For ages, the birds and the forest’s herd animals had developed something of an understanding. Grazing areas were pretty well known, and so too were the game paths that ran between them. It was no trouble for the elk, deer and moose to assign a spotter to the known paths that they all frequented. Should the wolves come down a path, advance warning would be easily called out.
But wolves are crafty, and they’d found a few other ways to navigate the forest. So the birds had offered their help. Spotters would be placed above the wolf highways, and the bird network would call out any sign of an approaching pack.
“At least that demented birthday cake is keeping you warm.”
“Mock all you want. It’s doing a bang up job.” Quietly, he thanked his wife for making it and foisting it upon him before he left the nest this morning. She was always one to be prepared.
It dawned on him then that perhaps her knack for preparation was washing over him like sap covering bark. Normally, wolf duty was closer to punishment than plum gig. And yet this was the third time he’d volunteered this month. Of course, he’d spent the first two days fending off insanity-by-boredom. The first day, he hadn’t seen anything except a distant crow glide its way south over nearby trees. Nothing at all had stirred for the entire shift the second time.
“Any movement elsewhere?” he asked, his words paired with little wisps of frozen breath.
“Nothing,” came the comms reply. “Probably too cold to hunt.”
“Famous last words,” Woodrow answered.
An hour passed with a few more jokes about the sweater, but Woodrow let them slide off him like ice off an angled branch. He moved around often, to keep the blood flowing, and felt the warmth from his chest radiate out to the exposed parts of his body.
So impressed was he with the phenomenon that he only heard the pack when they were very nearly beneath him. Startled, he flapped his wings and nearly knocked the sweater clean off.
There were maybe ten of them. A moment after he spotted them, they careened by the trunk of his tree.
“Pack!” he hissed, hoping comms was paying attention. “Pack coming through location 9 dash R. A dozen, maybe, and they look…”
Now that he got a look at them, he thought something might be wrong. They looked panicked rather than hungry. And there was a strange sound coming from behind the soft swish of their wide paws through the snow. Some kind of growl. If it was enough to scare them, it was enough to scare him.
He adjusted the sweater and took to the sky. He screeched a warning, but there was no reply. With burgeoning concern, he realized the cold might have damaged the earpiece.
He had planned for this so many times, but he never imagined he’d actually need to do it. It took him a few moments to run through his mental notepad. Soon enough, he came up with the entry: pack sighting, broken earpiece, posted in the magical and terrible Land of the Snow Queen. As it turned out, the action plan was rather simple.
Shriek. Like hell. And fly toward home. So he spread his wings and took to the air.
Somewhere behind the pack, there was a dull boom. He’d never heard anything like it, but it spurred him on. He banked hard to the right and pumped his wings like he’d never pumped before.
Every five seconds, he let out the simple whoop that was the traditional red alarm. It dated back to the time before technology made it possible to calmly say, in a normal volume, “Enemies are here. Let us vacate the area.” Maybe it was the adrenaline, but he thought he might prefer the more visceral old-world action plan.
Once he reached a copse of trees with a lighter shade of bark, he began to holler at the top of his little lungs. No timed or carefully modulated sounds now. It had been twenty minutes since he left his post, and he had no idea if his response to the pack had been heard.
Luckily, preparation paid off. His wife would be entirely proud. The sweater flapped around his torso as he flew toward the local watch-base with half a dozen birds on duty. They’d picked up his traditional cry. Already word was being filtered throughout the forest. There was a pack, and everyone needed to make themselves scarce.
He alighted with a tired chirp on the soft padding of the base’s landing strip.
“Yes, sir. That’s correct,” one of the birds was barking through his earpiece. “It’s some kind of demonic sweater. It’s taken over the 9 dash R watch-bird.”
Woodrow threw up his arms in indignation. “This is serious! Something’s coming. You can’t hold back the jokes for two minutes?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Where’s the commander? Does he know?”
“He’s around the other side,” the comms staffer pointed. “He’s the one who first heard your calls. Ears like you wouldn’t believe on that guy.”
With some awkward hopping and flapping, Woodrow maneuvered around the large nest. The watch commander, a svelte hawk with dark brown markings on top of tan feathers, turned to see his approach. The big bird dipped his large head in appreciation.
“You did well today,” he said.
“Thank you, sir,” Woodrow answered. “Do you know what’s chasing the wolves?”
“I don’t. If we’re lucky, we’ll never have to find out,” the hawk said. “We sent word around the forest. Everyone’s headed to safety. Orders are to hunker down here and only report if we make contact with… whatever it is.”
Woodrow nodded. His heart raced, but he felt enormous pride that he’d fulfilled his role.
“You showed very good forethought today, young man. Did just what you should have in a pinch. There will be a raise in it for you, I think.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“It’s only fair,” the hawk said. He then pointed at Woodrow’s sweater. “We really can’t have you going around in that.”
Woodrow laughed, but then answered honestly. “If it’s alright with you, sir, I think I’ll keep it. My earpiece froze out there today, but the sweater kept me warm. When I needed to take off, I didn’t feel even a moment’s creak in my wings.”
The hawk laughed and patted Woodrow on the back.
“Well alright then. But if whatever’s chasing the wolves shows up, I’ve been ordered to throw you out in front of it and hope that one look at your sweater will turn it to stone.”
Woodrow smiled. “It’s nice that everyone can find some time for fun during a crisis.”
“Go grab a drink, son. You’ve earned it,” the hawk instructed. Something came over Woodrow, and he decided losing the battle might mean winning the war.
“Yes, sir. Maybe I’ll get a glass of red wine and find a very unsteady branch where I can enjoy it.”
The hawk commander laughed, and Woodrow heard more laughs from around the far side of the nest. His comms were still on, and the radio team had overheard. They were laughing with him, not at him.
A warm feeling spread through his chest, and he knew it wasn’t from the sweater’s warmth. Not this time.
The Tall Tale Year 