After the conversation with Melinda, Armand decided to include the village perimeter in his nightly hunting rounds. If the foxes tried something, he at least hoped he could rouse the farm animals to alert the people in time. He hooted a deep sigh as he swooped around the sheep fold. It wasn’t that Melinda was wrong about the situation, about the people and their selfishness. Armand just sensed in the core of his bones that it would be a mistake to escalate things with them. He didn’t know what the solution was to the train and the damage to the woods, but he just knew it didn’t lie in the direction the foxes were pointing.
As he came around the far side of the fold, Sadie trotted out to greet him. “Armand!” She barked, and he dropped down onto the top of the stone wall near her. “I told you I would let you know if I heard anything. Two things: first, the men are planning to cut in your wood on Tuesday—a storm is passing through this weekend, but the weather is supposed to be fine then.“
Armand felt the vole he had just eaten turn over in his stomach, but he nodded. “Thank you for the warning.” At least there would be enough time to get everyone to safety. Where safety was, Armand didn’t know anymore…. The thought of leaving their nest, where they had raised their owlets, made him feel sick, and sad.
“The other thing is Codger saw a strange kind of deer at the north edge of your wood.”
“A strange….” Armand trailed off because he didn’t know what was strange about a deer, nor why this mattered.
“Yes, one we’ve never seen before. Big bodied like an elk but squatter through the legs, with big hooves almost like a cow. And very odd antlers, wide and rangy. The weirdest thing was it had a harness on it with bells, as if someone were driving a wagon or sled with it, but there were no people in sight—just the deer walking along the edge of your wood, looking it over. And then it vanished.”
“Vanished…how?”
Sadie shrugged her ears, back and forward, the way collies do. “Codger said it was there and then it wasn’t. I said maybe it ran off when a spate of mist was between them, but he didn’t seem to think so. He said the tracks just stopped. Like it flew away.”
The strange spirit robin, and now a bird deer. Armand shook his ear tufts. “Things are getting strange.”
Sadie scratched an ear. “Least it’s not boring.”
Armand harrumphed “Typical border collie. Your village could burn down, and as long as you weren’t bored, you’d be happy.”
“That’s not true,” Sadie said, her big, dark eyes suddenly sober. “I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”
“That makes two of us,” Armand said. “Thank you, Sadie.” And he flew off to find his mate.
The Rookery 