The Crows

CHAPTER ONE

The crows cawed a warning. Then came the gunshots. Three in succession, a pause, then two more.

The sound was close—too close—and a shiver of fear slid down my spine. Those shots had come from somewhere in my woods.

I immediately stopped walking and listened. This was April, not September. The wrong season for hunters to be shooting. At least, the wrong season for hunting deer.

As birds flew from tree top to tree top, a sickening, giddy sensation invaded my stomach. On the winding path ahead was my four-month-old Rhodesian Ridgeback pup, a potential show dog that had set me back fifteen hundred dollars. If some idiot poacher was playing Rambo and shot him, the guy was going to be mincemeat.

Baraka!” I yelled.

Branches snapped over on my left, and I looked in that direction. All I saw were tree trunks, brambles and junk . . . and maybe the dark, shadowed figure of a man.

Another shot sounded.

I quickly got off the trail and crouched behind a tree, all the while yelling, “Hey! Stop! This is private property.”

 The next shot whistled above my head, and I ignored the mud and rocks on the ground and dropped to my stomach, making myself as flat as possible. A poacher might mistake a Ridgeback puppy for a deer, but not a screaming, twenty-eight-year-old woman wearing a bright red and blue nylon jacket.

I was trying to decide what to do next when a reddish-brown blur came lunging through the underbrush, ears flapping and brow all wrinkled. In a few months, Baraka will be a graceful, medium-sized hound. But at four months, his feet are too big, his ears too long and his coat too loose.

Nevertheless, I was happy to see him. If any of those shots had been aimed at him, Baraka had survived unscathed.

He pounced on me, licking my face and whining with excitement. He was getting mud all over me, but I didn’t care. I was just glad to see him alive.

I wrapped an arm around his chest and held him close, then tried to hear if anyone was coming toward us.

I knew I couldn’t stay where I was. First, I didn’t want whoever was shooting to stumble over me, and second, the frost wasn’t completely out of the ground. I was getting cold, and Baraka was wiggling and twisting to get free. He might be just a puppy, but I couldn’t hold him.

Once free, he bounced around me, growling fiercely and ready to play. When he started barking, I knew hiding was impossible. My best bet was to make a run for my house. There I could call the police.

I rose to my feet awkwardly, my mud soaked jeans clinging to my legs and an equal amount of mud on my face, hands and jacket. I was shaking all over, a combination of anger and fear pumping adrenaline through my body. I’d moved out of Kalamazoo because I thought living in the country would be safer. Now I was being shot at . . . virtually in my own backyard.

Come on, Baraka,” I said and made a dash for my house.

Running through my woods was not an easy feat, not with all of the junk my grandfather dumped here over the years. In addition to trees, brush and rocks, half-buried tires, chicken wire and rusted car parts created a hazardous obstacle course.

With every step I took, my anger increased. Someone had come into my woods and started shooting. Blindly shooting. In addition to the sheriff, I was going to call the DNR. The Department of Natural Resources should do something about this. My woods were posted No Hunting. I had my rights.

My anger monopolized my thoughts, and I barely noticed when Baraka put his nose to the ground. Ridgebacks are sight hounds, but there’s nothing wrong with their tracking ability. They can pick up smells thousands of times better than any human. He sniffed the ground near the old chicken coop, then near the woodshed. From there, he traveled up the crumbling concrete steps that led to my back door.

He stopped at the storm door and looked back at me. My eyes were focused on the bloody hand print on the door’s aluminum frame. As I came closer, I could see another print on the handle.

Now that I was looking, I saw spots of blood on the concrete landing, the steps and the ground. A trail of blood. Someone had come along the same path I’d taken and had gone into my house. Someone who was bleeding.

Baraka whined to get inside, and I wished I hadn’t so easily gotten into the habit of not locking my back door when I went for a walk. I stood at the bottom of the steps and debated what to do.

Both my cell phone and cordless phone were in the house. To call for help, I either had to go inside or to my neighbors. John and Julia Westman, who live the closest, are a quarter of a mile to the northwest of my house, and both work. Howard Lowe, my next closest neighbor, lives a half mile to the east, on the opposite side of the road from my house. Lowe and I haven’t hit it off that well, not since I put up No Hunting signs all around my woods. He would probably shoot me if I stepped on his property. After those two houses, I’d have to go at least a mile before I reached another one, and my car keys were in the house.

I had only one option.

I opened the storm door, being careful not to touch the blood. Baraka immediately pushed against the wood door, and it swung open. It had been latched when I left.

Cautiously, I followed my dog into the house.

“Hey!” I called out, looking around my kitchen. “Who’s here?”

More blood spotted the linoleum—bright red drops on a faded and worn pattern of tan and brown. Baraka headed straight for the dining room, and I followed…then came to an abrupt stop.

A man lay on the floor, not more than two feet from my telephone. I saw a small hole in the back of his nylon jacket. He was face down on the linoleum, a pool of blood spreading out from under his body. Baraka licked his face, and the man’s hand moved. Just barely. I hurried to his side and pushed Baraka away.

“Are you all right?” I asked, then realized how stupid the question was. The man had a hole in his back near his heart and lungs. He was bleeding. Of course he wasn’t all right.

“Shh . . . et,” he said.

I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. “Did you say shit?”

He said it again, slurring the word, his voice weak. Then his hand relaxed.

Dead or unconscious? I wondered and checked the side of his neck for a pulse. I tried two spots and didn’t feel any sign of a heartbeat. It was then that a new smell reached my nose, and Baraka began sniffing around the man’s pants. In death, more than just the man’s hand had relaxed.

I stood up to escape the stench and stared down at the man, my entire body trembling. He was clean shaven and dressed in casual work attire. The collar of a blue-and-gray plaid flannel shirt showed above the black nylon jacket and mud covered his jeans and work boots, but they were fairly new. His build was lean and wiry, and I guessed him to be around forty. He looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t someone I knew.

Baraka started barking, and I looked away from the body. My dog was standing at the window that faced the woods, his body tense and his tail held straight out. I walked over, grabbing my cordless phone along the way. I couldn’t see anything or anyone outside, but I didn’t question Baraka. He’d seen something.

I punched nine-one-one on the cordless phone’s keypad, my hand shaking as I did and my heart beating a staccato. As soon as the phone began ringing, I looked back outside.

I couldn’t see anything. No shadowy figure, no movement in the woods. Nothing.

And then I heard a voice.