Snapper by Brian Kimberling Page A

the nest flag from there, but I could see the den. Most important, there was no way that he would be able to see me. It had dawned on me as I moved that this man might be connected to Dart and Loretta’s predicament—that I might be, in short, alone in the woods with an armed Klansman. I remembered that girl selling her encyclopedias from door to door. In retrospect, I am sure I should have fled the scene, but I was young, and someone was tampering with my work. I didn’t need the flags to remind me of nest locations, but the references wereimportant. I couldn’t expect to get paid if I filed a report to the university stating that Pedro’s kids were all fine.
    The vixen’s face appeared, and she was watching the nest flag.
    I couldn’t predict what he would do next, and I couldn’t be certain of sentries like Rory and the fox. Some birds are born watchdogs: cardinals in particular will raise an alarm at any hint of trouble. Most birds, however, like most animals, will sensibly hide, unless you are actively poking your fingers into their nests.
    I could track him only by sound—not the sounds that he made, which I was not close enough to hear, but by following the wake of silence he left on the map of birdsong in my head, and occasionally the uproar he caused if he pissed off an ovenbird, or some other sensitive species.
    Wood thrushes were my best informants. Neighboring pairs sing to each other in a chain of call-and-response that occurs in every wood in the Midwest. If one pair fell silent I could place the intruder within fifty or sixty feet of a nest tree. A male indigo bunting will try desperately to get your attention if you stray near its nest—usually, in my experience, by leading you into the thorniest, muddiest, hottest smilax thicket nearby. Any outcry of bunting chirps would give him away instantly. Warblers are passionate about warbling and any reticence from them was a likely sign.
    It helps in tracking by sound to close your eyes. I kept well back and moved slowly, looking every few steps at the ground to make sure I didn’t trip on a root or snap a twig or run into a tree. I heard an angry bunting. A pileated woodpecker laughed and winged noisily toward me. I concentrated on what I heard to my right and left and behind me—business as usual. Ahead, canopy birds with a long view fell silentfirst, and their cousins nearer the forest floor followed suit. A number of nest flags ahead of me were gone—that, with the silence from that quarter, was a sure sign I was heading in the right direction.
    The creek bed diverged and he had taken the left or eastern branch. I took the right or western. Between them lay a huge ridge, and five hundred yards along that I climbed up and lay on the lip on my belly to peer into the valley below. It had been logged the previous summer, and I doubt he knew that. I was going to get a good look at him in the clearing if I could, but I wouldn’t risk binoculars in the sun.
    He sat on a tree stump smoking, an indication that he had given up on stealth. He might as well have put on his white bedsheet. He didn’t carry binoculars or water or food that I could see. I was still a hundred yards off, and I didn’t recognize him at all. Perhaps up close he would have been one of Dart and Loretta’s neighbors, but to me he was a vague outdoorsy type—long brown hair in a ponytail beneath a backward camouflage baseball cap, baggy camouflage shirt and pants that hadn’t seen much use—not by my standards, anyway—and new boots that wouldn’t stand up to smilax very long.
    A bluebird I called Larry landed on a tree stump twenty feet from his. He lifted his shotgun and blew it away.
    There was nothing I could do about it. He spied a brown-headed cowbird watching him and he shot at that too. Unfortunately he missed. Cowbirds are parasites.
    He waited for more birds to appear, but they didn’t, so he began retracing his steps. This time he made no attempt to creep. In mid-stride