“Come, I’ll show you,” said Abigail to Armand over her wing, then she veered off toward the place where she had seen the men digging what looked like a road but what Gustav had called “the train.” When the ram had made the word, it clanked like a cowbell or a shovel hitting a stone in a field.
Abigail flew them in a looping, swooping route, now over fields sparkling dull, frosty silver in the light of a half-moon, now under the fringes of woods darker than deep water. At last Armand saw the black gash of “the train” scarring the white horizon. As they came close to it, though, Abigail suddenly pulled up short ahead of him, hovering in place as best an owl can, which is to say awkwardly, at best. Below her, a badger was bumbling his way across the snowy field.
“Sir, are you well?” Abigail asked him, for it was not at all like a badger to be out on the broad snow.
“My burrow, my burrow,” he muttered, over and over. It took a while before the owls could get him to stop and say more. “My burrow, it was stove in by those men and their machines.” He cursed in a long run of Badger the owls couldn’t make out. The animals all had a common tongue they could use to speak to each other, but each also had a cant particular to their kind.
“My good fellow, what is your name?” asked Armand when the badger finally trailed off, because he was not of their home wood.
“Eustace,” snuffled the badger. “Eustace is the name. They stove in my burrow.”
“With their machines.”
“Aye, with their machines. Great tamping things that steamed and packed the earth too hard to claw through. Nearly crushed me to death, they did. And the men were everywhere I tried to dig out. So when I finally found a spot that wasn’t fenced with boots and hooves, I ran for it, I did.”
“If you keep on the way you’re headed,” Abigail said. “You’ll come soon enough to our wood. At the edge there’s an old fox den. You can hole up there and none will trouble you.”
Eustace snorted something that might have been a thank-you and shuffled on. The owls watched him go. Armand tucked his head under a wing to scratch an itch. Abigail said, “I’ll ask Marcie to check in on him tomorrow.” Armand hooted a chuckle. Marcie was their wood’s resident badger, a spunky and determined spinster. Abigail spun her head around backwards and glowered at her mate with sun-colored eyes. “I’m not making matches, Armand. Marcie will be able to give him the lay of the land, one badger to another. Our wood is different than his in terms of where to find the good grubs and truffles and the like.”
“An outstanding idea, my Winter Moon,” Armand soothed. “And what should we do about this ‘train’ in the meantime? If my eyes don’t fail me, it is headed for our wood.” Both owls turned their heads around to look at the ominous track in the snow pointing like a black feather directly toward the tall spruce that harbored their nest–and, for the time being, Elsie the squirrel.
“I don’t know,” murmured Abigail. “This is not the kind of thing owls usually have to worry about.”
Armand nodded. His stomach rumbled. He looked up at the moon sailing its way west through the clouds. “At the end of the night, all we can do is take care of ourselves and ours.” And the owls shook the snow from their feathers and set out for the nightly hunt.
The Rookery 