The Druids of Albaton

Johnson: The sight of the Druid's Grove in Albaton left me haunted and drained. At some moments of the day here in this cramped office, the filing cabinets would become the stone pillars of that place, each filing drawer dissolving into the skull niche cut into each of the three pillars. There was a deadly serenity to the place, much like a funeral home, but in a far more enigmatic and comforting way. As the weeks trudged by, I found myself booding over these sensations of my experience, sitting like a corpse at my desk.

     It was during this funk that a friend of mine remarked that when ever they had seen me lately, a group of crows was always nearby; usually within twenty yards or so. I dismissed it as coincidence until I realized that these crows were roosting on the fire escape railing just outside the window of my apartment and peering into my window.

     In a short time, I came to recognize all five of them by the shape of their beaks and how they held their gleaming black wings. Always, they were perfectly silent. No matter how noisy the other crows cawed like surly Manhattan deli patrons, these five paid no attention. And, when one of their squawking brothers swooped down to join them, they drove him off in a sudden furious barrage of beaks and claws.

     After a few days, their lurking began unnerving me. They perched on the railing all business-like and devoid of character; brooding, reincarnated G-Men on some eternal stake out. The peevish hauntings of the dark birds banished my dark fascination with the Druids. Their black-eyed scrutiny ruined all concentration. As soon as I saw them watching me, I paced the room until I couldn't stand it any longer and I'd throw open the window and drive them off with a broom. But soon enough, they'd come back. And after a while, even the broom wouldn't work anymore. I altered my routine, rising earlier and earlier in the day, walking different routes to work and class, varying my return home; but always I found them huddling silently nearby, never taking an enigmatic black eye from me.

     As luck would have it, I went down to Fort Madison to interview Dr. Clayton Webster of the Department of Zoological Studies of Georg von Podebrad College and update the progress of his pursuit of the Lee County Yeti. While during most of the trip, my avian compadres were out of site, I found them roosting on the hotel's carport as I pulled up. My heart sank.

     I found the white-haired and hooked-nosed Dr. Clayton in the hotel bar in an equally unhappy state nursing a tall glass of vodka and White Grenache. His team had lost track of the beast when they discovered the tiny device lying in small clump of fur caked with dried blood and pus. He concluded the capsule had caused an infection and that the beast managed to squeeze and tear it out of its body. With the spring thaw coming on, he didn't know if his project could likely go on.

     In the same spirit of melancholy, I told him about my five strange companions outside. Dr. Clayton became instantly intrigued and asked me to show him. We went outside to look at them.

     "Hello. Hello!" the doctor chattered. They returned his greetings with rooftop aloofness.

     "My, but you are all lovely," he chattered again. Then he produced some saltines and expertly tossed a few frisbee-like up to them. They ignored the offering which fell into the bushes below.

     "How very odd," Dr. Clayton remarked. "How very odd, indeed."

     I told him about trying to chase them away with a broom, and added, "Crows in Iowa City are notoriously weird. They eat anything and have attacked people for trying to close dumpsters or pick up road kills," I protested.

     "Well, maybe they've been scavenging your trash for so long they now associate you with food. Maybe through smell."

     "They didn't want your crackers," I pointed out.

     "Maybe they'll eat them if you throw 'em," he said.

     He handed me a few packs of saltine crackers from the bar. I unwrapped them and flipped one up in air in front of them. Instantly, the bird nearest it snatched it out of the air with its beak. Amused, I threw crackers up to the remaining four and watched as each one snapped the cracker right from the air as it spun up in front of him.

     "Oh, terrific!" I shouted. "I don't need pets."

     "Aggressive, you say?" Dr. Clayton said, squinting up at them. "They really attack people?" When I nodded, he added, "Might do to examine one up close."

     He wheeled about and went out in to the parking lot to a jeep and brought back a rifle and a small pet cage. He undid the catch and opened the gun, revealing a tranquilizer dart loaded in the chamber.

     "If you'll distract one with a cracker, I'll pick it off. Won't hurt 'em a bit, just make them groggy for a while."

     So, I went and flicked a couple of crackers up in the air. And just when Dr. Clayton said he was ready and aimed the gun, they flew off.

     "How very odd," was all Dr. Clayton could say.

     We returned inside for dinner and after to our rooms. It had gotten late, so I got ready and went to bed. I had just settled in when I heard a familiar rustling and scraping at my window. I slowly parted the curtains and found my five feathered G-men still on stake out.

     Suddenly, one slammed itself into the window and fell off the ledge into the bushes beneath. The others cawed and squawked in alarm. At that point, a dark figure rushed up to the window, a rifle slung across his arm. It was Dr. Clayton. The birds flew at his face in a fury of beaks and claws. Surprised at this, the doctor covered his face and fell across the bushes then rolled off onto the ground out of sight. The birds continued their fevered assault on the man until suddenly, they flew away, squawking and cawing noisily.

     I threw on some pants and shoes and dashed outside into the cold. Dr. Clayton had gotten to his feet and had fetched out the fallen bird from the bushes beneath the window. The light in parking lot showed his face had been badly scratched.

     "They don't like pepper spray much," he shouted to me. "Could you fetch that inside?" he pointed to the base of the light pole where the pet cage and another tool box sat. I retrieved them and we headed back to my room.

     "A little heavy for a bird this size," he said, gently cradling the groggy bird in his hand. Several times, it feebly snapped at his finger until it passed out. When the bird was completely limp, he carefully drew the dart's needle from its haunch. "You were right about being aggressive," he said looking up at me.

     It was then that I saw just how savaged he had been. His right eye was shut and starting to swell; just below it a puncture wound below his eye. And there were at least a dozen deep claw scratches across his nose and mouth. I offered to clean him up but he refused saying, "First we do the science before it wakes up and we stress it further."

     At that he opened the tool box brought out a notebook and a scale. He weighed the bird and I wrote it down in the book along with all the other measurements. Then he drew some of its blood and pulled off two tail feathers, and crimped a small metal band around its leg.

     He was about to put the bird into the pet cage, when he mumbled something to himself. He handed me the unconscious bird and grabbed a long, thin silver tube out of the toolbox. After rummaging around in the box, he then brought out small box of which inside there were four tiny silver tear-drop shaped capsules lying in molded styrofoam packing. He picked one out with some long tweezers and then dipped the capsule in a small jar of alcohol and slid it carefully into the narrow tipped end of the long silver tube.

     "It's waking up," I said impatiently as the bird began to wriggle.

     "Just hold it steady on its back, I have to find a place where there's not so much muscle. Wild birds are all muscle. It's very hard to find---a---spot where---aha." He was pinching a small piece of flesh with the tweezers. With experienced precision, he gently stuck the tip of the silver tube into the skin and withdrew it. He wiped the area down with a cotton ball and some rubbing alcohol. "The subcutaneous radio transmitter I used on the Yeti. I thought it would be interesting to see where this bird goes when we release it."

     By now the crow was awake but unsteady on its feet. We put it in the pet cage and turned our attentions to cleaning and bandaging the doctor's injuries. The wound under his eye wasn't as bad as it appeared, but he said he would see his doctor the next day. After few minutes watching the crow to make sure it was fully awake, we took it outside and dumped it unceremoniously out of the cage. It stood defiantly on the pavement as if it had just been kicked out of an expensive restaurant, then flapped off into the night.

     There were no more signs of the five crows after that.

     A few weeks later on St. Patrick's Day, I was researching in the office archives when I stumbled onto a passage in a book on Druids that stated they were "notorious shape-shifters who frequently took the form of beasts of the air and land to accomplish their ends."

     A sudden dread shuddered through me. And then the phone rang.

     "Look,"Dr. Clayton said, out of breath with obvious excitement. "I was able to track our feathered buddy all the way to the western end of the state with a satellite. Stopped in a town called 'Albaton'. But listen to this. I know you're not going to believe this, I know I scarcely do. I've finished examining that blood sample we took. God, you are not going to believe this, Jeff!"

     "It's human, isn't it?" I said,

     "Yeah," he said disappointed, "How did you know?"