Twenty years. That’s how long it’s been since I pulled the khaki-colored socks up to my knees, or fought my way into the khaki-colored short-shorts that would mortify even the most hardened 70s-era gym teachers, or plopped the khaki-colored hat with the khaki-colored chin strap on my head. I swear, the thing makes me look like the genetic refuse that’d be left over after a one night stand between a Canadian Mountie and my Aunt Ethel. If you really want the truth, it’s the main reason I decided to stop birding in the first place–because every time I looked in the mirror I couldn’t convince myself a wildlife logbook and the pastiest pair of thighs east of the Mississippi were viable pathways to procreation (read: getting laid).
Two decades later, it turns out birding had nothing to do with it, but that’s not why I’m back out here in the Uwharries. In my own backyard. Coming out of birding retirement as well as outright retirement to answer the call of the wild. Because it’s not everyday you have a chance to see an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. No sir. It’s the most elusive avian creature on the East Coast.
See, it just so happens I still maintain relevant sources embedded deep in the birding community. Old Hank Pierpont is one of them. He’s a cashier at the feed store in Troy and he said to me, “Burt, there’s a lot of rumbling coming out of them woods.” Then he told me about the sightings and I knew it was time to dust off my gear and hit the trails. If I were lucky, I’d become the first birder in decades to capture, on film, the holy grail. All thirty inches of it. The largest woodpecker in the world. An endangered species.
And I couldn’t have been out in the park for more than thirty minutes or so before I thought I saw one. Oblong and black with a blaze of white feathers across the shoulders and a stripe down its back. A plume of bright red on the ridge of its brow. It clings to the bristling bark of a Virginia Pine and pokes its sharp bill into the pulpy, tree flesh. A sparkle of sunlight knifes down through the canopy and sets a blinding spotlight on the bird, making it impossible to capture a worthy photograph. So I search for a better angle, and the only one I can find is among the branches of a Tulip Poplar.
I pack my camera and binoculars in my belt bag and begin the ascent, and as I rise in the branches the bird comes into clear focus. It’s an Ivory-Bill. There’s no doubt. I point the camera on the bird and notice the meddling fingertips of an outstretched tree branch encroaching on my otherwise glorious shot. So I reach for the next highest branch and pull myself up a few more feet into the clearing.
And that’s when I hear it. CRACK!
The branch under my foot groans and lurches. I wrap my arms around the trunk and hold on for dear life. The woodpecker stops pecking and looks me in the eyes. There’s a flicker of recognition in them as if he were saying to me, “Nice try, asshole.” Then it spreads its massive, black wings and launches into flight. I watch as it fades off into the silent recesses of the forest.
Then I look down. Huge mistake, because all the brush and the bushes and the rocks below look like the miniature props on a toy train setup. The ground starts to spin and I feel sick. I shout, “HELLLP!!!” But all I hear is my own voice calling back through the trees. My shoulders and my hands start to quake and burn against my will. I claw at the smooth bark of the poplar and feel the crotch of the branch falter a few more inches. Sweat drips down from my forehead and stings my eyes. “HELLLLLP!!!” I shout again. Nothing. I don’t know what to do. My muscles won’t hold out much longer and then it’s straight down, and even if I survive the fall there is no one around for miles to help me. That’s when panic sets in. “HELLLLP!!!! PLEASE! SOMEBODY HELLLLP MEE!!”
And this time I hear something shuffle through the brush below, and then there’s a voice. A deep, growling, irritated kind of voice. “I’m coming. I’m coming. Hold your damn water.” The shuffling grows louder and more intense until a figure appears at the base of the tree. There’s a large shotgun in one hand and an upside-down turkey in the other. It’s not moving. A fuzzy, white beard hangs down on his camouflage hunting jacket. He lifts the bill of his cap to get a better look at me. “Well, would you believe this?” he says. “Damn city-folk don’t even know how to walk a trail.”
“I climbed up here,” I tell him.
“Oh really? I thought maybe the tree sprouted itself a mighty ugly leaf.” The branch creaks and I slide a few inches down the trunk.
“Look, can you help me get down?”
He doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, just strokes his beard methodically. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’m not one to do something for nothing.”
“I have money,” I shout in desperation. “You can have it all. Just get me down!”
He holds up the turkey. “I don’t have much need for money. Get all my food from the land. You’re gonna have to do better than that.” I can barely breathe at this point. The skin on my forearms is red and scratched from sliding a few inches at a time down the trunk.
“What do you want? Just name it?”
“How about a story?” he asks.
“What? Fine! Just get me down and I’ll tell you ten stories. Anything!”
“Nah. Not interested in ten stories. Just one. Up front. And I gotta like it.”
“Up front?! Can’t I get down first?!”
He doesn’t say a word, just stands there staring at me and holding his turkey and his shotgun. There’s another CRACK! and the branch snaps and breaks off. I watch it twist and turn and crash into the undergrowth. The old man looks up at me and shrugs.
“Okay,” I say, “Once there was this man who lived in the forest, and–”
“Nah. I’m not interested in hearing some story about a guy just like me. I know all them stories. Start over.”
“Fine….uhhh….How about this one? There was this mad scientist and–”
“Not realistic enough. Try again.”
“There was a wily, old knight and–”
“How about a true story? Maybe something about your life.”
“My life? I don’t–” Just then my hand loosens its grip and I start to drop. My heart pulses into my throat and I hug the tree as hard as I can. My descent is halted for the moment.
“Better tell it quick,” he says. An amused smile stretches across his lips.
“One time, I peed my pants during a school play and–” And that’s about all I can take. My fingers fail first. Then my hands. Then my arms and my shoulders, until I’m fully disengaged from the tree trunk. There’s a brief moment–a semi-second–where I’m floating there in midair, able to stare down at the brush and the turkey and the shotgun and the old man. And I’m fully aware in this moment that I may not survive the very next. Then the arms of gravity take hold and my stomach is in my chest and I’m hurtling to the ground and I make contact and the wind rushes from my lungs. And the old man just stands there and laughs and points, and points and laughs.
When I catch my breath, I look up and see what the old man sees–the cracked remains of the fallen branch jutting out from the trunk of the Tulip Poplar. It’s only ten feet off the ground, a far stretch from my original estimate of ten thousand feet. And the old man just points and laughs until the tears start to spill down his cheeks and disappear into the bearded abyss. And it pisses me off.
“What the hell?” I shout at him.
“I got you down, didn’t I?”
“You made an ass out of me! You could have said something!”
“I felt bad for you, son. I figured, at least the next time this sort of thing happens you’ll have a story to tell.” He steps into the brush and heads back toward the trail, still chuckling under his breath.
“Yeah…thanks a million,” I grumble behind him.
“Don’t mention it!” he shouts.
I lay there on the ground and watch as he fades off into the silent recesses of the forest.
About:
Frank Morelli is the author of the young adult novels No Sad Songs (2018), a 2019 YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers nominee and winner of an American Fiction Award for best coming of age story, and On the Way to Birdland, a 2021 Shelf Unbound Best Indie Book. His middle grade mystery novel, Breaking News (2022) was featured at Louisiana Book Fest and the inaugural Lexington Book Festival.
