It is an early spring morning that Brad Peppers and Jerry Cooley, find themselves traveling along the northeast end of Crows Crossing Road. They are parallel to the Saddle Horn river, in fact the Saddle Horn is the reason for their visit to the land of Crows. They have heard tales of the legendary Trout and Bass fish that call the Saddle Horn home, and they have high hopes in stealing a prize or two, from its freezing depths. It is on this morning that Brad Peppers is driving as his life long friend Jerry Cooley is relating to him a highly regarded fish story as Brad Pepper’s truck approaches Bane’s Bridge, he sees in the distance a man standing on the side halfway across. He cautiously moves the truck around him as the man shoot a menacing glance at Jerry Cooley, when they reach the opposite end of the bridge Brad Peppers looks into the rear view mirror to see the man climbing over the guard rail of the bridge as if to jump. He slams on the Brakes and yells to Jerry, “He Jumped!” both men get out of the truck and look back in disbelief, a light rain begins to illuminate the two lane blacktop of Crows Crossing at Banes Bridge, both quickly run to where the man took his almost certainly fatal plunge into the Saddle Horn.

Bane.



It is at the time of late winter early spring of nineteen hundred and thirty nine, and the fifteen miles that separates the two small townships of Settle and Colville are experiencing some unseasonably warm weather for the time of year. The grass seems to roll into spring early as its green hues return in preparation for summer, along with the early bloom of the wildflowers that grow along the lengths of Crows Crossing Road. It is here along this fifteen mile strip that Melford Bane calls home. He is a sullen withdrawn drifter that lives between the two townships and can often be seen walking from Colville to Settle and back, searching for food and a nights shelter. While the citizenry of both townships seem to tolerate the drifter for the most part, and even though he is anything but unruly, he is often looked upon by many individuals with great disdain because of his unkempt appearance. His hair is long and dirty and he seldom finds the opportunity to bathe unless it is in the freezing waters of the Saddle Horn River. It is in the early evening in late march when Jennifer Walken is driving several children home from evening services at the Colville church, she is three miles from the turn bridge where Crows Crossing switches the raging Saddle Horn from its right hand side to its left. The storm clouds seem to appear from out of nowhere and within seconds she finds herself driving in a heavy down pouring rain, just one mile behind her, there are two other vehicles on their way to Settle. As she approaches the bridge in the distance she can see Melford Bane walking in the opposite direction, she tries to slow down on the treacherous bridge when disaster strikes. Her brakes do not respond and the large motor coach that she is driving veers out of control, and careens over the side of the bridge and into the raging Saddle Horn. Both cars behind her stop and people are frantically trying to decide what to do. Melford Bane without hesitation, leaps over the guard rail and into the waters of the Saddle Horn River to give aid to Jennifer Walken. Slowly one by one Jennifer and the children are pulled to safety, each time with Melford Bane returning to the waters to pull another child from its clutches. The last time he dives into the freezing waters, Melford Bane is never seen again. At least, not while in the world of the living.

Present Water.



The water is high here, it almost reaches the bottom of the bridge, cautiously, Brad Peppers and Jerry Cooley slowly look over the edge of the guard rail, along its edge they can clearly see the hand print left by someone who appeared to be hanging onto one of the girders down the side of the bridge, someone who had long since grown tired of waiting for someone, anyone to pull them free from the dangerous currents of the angry Saddle Horn. This is Banes Bridge, a place endeared by Crows of all kinds. A place where human character and unquestionable courage still dwell, and still serves as a reminder to all residents here, that it isn’t what’s on the outside that makes a person worthy of respect. Its what every good crow knows, here on Crows Crossing Road.

Scratch. © 2007

First Glance.



Aaron and Annie Morrison Always loved the birds that live here on Crows Crossing Road, they would come from as far away as Smithville where they lived some one hundred miles, just to watch the Crows, and sometimes when the rare occasion would arise they would even try to photograph them. On this spring morning they have followed a particular bird into the deep woods, it is unusual looking and the couple have never seen another one like it, its feathers as black as deepest night, adorned with a strip of white or silver feathers trail along the center of its small head all of the way to its tail feathers. They follow it until it comes to rest in the center of what was once a settlement, they are at first distracted by the ruins, there were several small houses or cabins that once stood here, but now all that remains are the stone foundations of every single structure. Annie Morrison follows the Crow out past the remains and stops when she sees it land on what looks like from a distance a small stone wall, it isn’t until she gets closer that Annie realizes that it isn’t a wall at all but one of the largest old water wells that she has ever seen, and when the young woman hears the first cold distant scream coming from inside of it, it stops her in her tracks.


Blood Ties.



There wasn’t many people left of the original ten families that settled here in the fall of 1901, the Minors in fact were the only ones who could seem to make a living off the land for their young family. Abraham and Celeste, Minor had fallen in love with the isolated setting in the woods, and some four years later they were still there with their daughter Michelle and young mute son Joshua. It was in the spring of 1907 when Abraham Minor first made the acquaintance of a middle aged drifter named Michael Grendel along the dirt trails of Crows Crossing while he was hunting rabbits for the evening meal. Grendel seemed friendly enough, and needed work, so the trusting settler invited him back to his home where Grendel agreed to chop firewood, in exchange for the meal he was to receive. For five weeks he stayed in the settlement with the family building and mending fences, chopping fire wood and tending to the chores while, Celeste Minor schooled the children, and Mr. Minor was away hunting.
It was at the end of the fifth week when Celeste Minor became slightly sick and sent the children out to play in the yard while she rested. It was the same day when young Joshua happened into the woods and found Michael Grendel on top of his naked sixteen year old sister Michelle, startled they both jumped up and tried to tell a scared Joshua to be quiet, but he ran into the woods, with the pair on his trail. When they’d caught up to him they found him lying on the ground with his head on a large rock, the boy in his haste had tripped and fallen, when his head had hit the rock it broke his neck and he died there within seconds. Scared of not only being discovered as lovers, but as the cause of the boys death, the pair make a drastic decision. They dump the young boys body into the water well, and decide to run away together before the father returned from his hunting trip.

The Waiting Woods.



Michelle Minor in all of the time she had been stuck in that settlement had always dreamed of bigger and better things for herself than what the woodland settlement provided her. That along with the fact that helping her father and mother care for younger mute brother wasn’t exactly her idea of fulfillment, was all the help Michael Grendel needed to coax the young beauty away from her family. They were four miles into the woods before they stopped to rest, it was still daylight and the couple knew that the father was still out hunting and the mother was more than likely still resting, it would be hours until suspicions were raised as to their whereabouts. They lay on the ground Michelle was on top of him and the coupled shared a feverish kiss , out of the corner of his eye it was the first time that he’s spotted the strange looking crow with the streak of white feathers watching them closely. He stood up and Grendel nervously chased it away.
“Did you see that creepy bird?” he asked of her.
“Never mind that stupid bird get back down here with me.”
He lay back down next to her and they continued kissing. until he looked up again to find the same bird watching them, he jumped up again and chased it away, but watched in silent awe as the bird circled around and landed once again in the same exact spot. It is then that a spooked Michael Grendel becomes convinced that they had forgotten something.
“Was there blood on that rock where he hit his head?”
The two sit in silence recreating the entire ordeal in their minds.
“If they find blood they will get the law involved, the constable and his men will come looking, if they catch us we will both go to prison.”
They decide to press on, all the while the Crow continues to follow them, now more spooked by the strange bird than ever they find themselves running through the woods Michael Grendel is running a full ten yards ahead of her, until out of nowhere she hears a shot ring out and he falls dead on the ground. Through the clearing in front of her she sees her father appear with his hunting rifle in hand. He had been hunting all day in that area and was following a deer when Michael Grendel had blindly run into the path of a bullet intended for the animal. She kneels sobbing uncontrollably over the body of her deceased lover, while her Father puts his arm around her to console her, as the Crow watches in silence.
“Honey… It was an accident.. Honey?? What.. Are you doing here?”

Scratch.. © 2007.

He has heard of the magic of this place, and in his own depressed mind Harold Mathers thinks that it will help him overcome a lifetime of what he perceives to be personal failures. Harold in his own mind, has decided that he has not sufficiently provided for them in the way a that a successful father and husband should provide for his wife and child, Harold has decided that he will better serve his young family in the land of the dead rather than the living, he has come to Crows Crossing Road to die of his own volition, by his own hand. He walks into the woods towards the place called Devils Bend, it is a place on the hillside three miles from the road where a thick grove of trees slowly turns into a half moon shape along a large hillside that overlooks a rolling green meadow, this place, he has decided is where he will confront and court death. It is still early morning here, as he rounds the top of Devils Bend the sun has barely begun to rise and the green grassy field is still covered in the silk of the fresh morning dew. As he holds the hand gun at his side, Harold Mathers eye’s search for the perfect spot where his accident will occur, his feet however begin to lose traction on the wet hillside and he loses his balance and falls, his head strikes the ground as he lands, and the gun falls harmlessly from his grip landing without discharge a full seven feet from him. He can feel his head begin to pound slowly, his eye’s slowly swelling with tears, “I can’t even die right!! Can I?” he asked himself. His eyes roll back and begin to search the morning sky for some unseen answer, and when he sees the Crow slowly circling and descending on him the darkness settles in and then he sees nothing.



He can hear something by his ear, softly as though its breath whispers past him. But he sees nothing.
“Why must you do this to yourself Harold Mathers?”
“I have failed, in life, as a husband, as a father, as… a man.”
“Failed how exactly?” the voice enquires.
“I can’t seem to do anything right, can’t keep a job, can’t make enough money, can’t give them what they need.”
“Are they homeless?”
“N.. no.. we live in a small apartment. But its nothing, my little girl goes to school, and my wife takes care of her the best she can, but.-”
“And you being dead will benefit them how exactly?”
“Life insurance policy. They get 50 thousand if I croak.”
“No Harold you speak lies, you only fail your family when you give up on them, you only fail by quitting on them, by giving up on yourself.”
“I am a-”
“Failure? When you hold you daughters hand when she is ill, is this a failure?.. When you provide an honest living for your wife and child by standing to face your responsibilities as a husband and father, are these failures Harold? Your child goes to school and feeds her young mind to prepare herself for her future, she is well fed and dressed and is loved, while so many others are deserted, left to their own devices, to face their own demons at such a young age. Your child is a success not a failure, you must not give up on her Harold, you must rise to the land of the living, you must finish it Harold not for you, for them.”
He opens his eyes and sees the crow sitting perched on a stump not more than ten feet from him, he looks for the gun but it is nowhere to be seen, he sits up and shares a brief silent stare with the black Crow before it raises its wings skyward and takes silent flight. He rises up and watches the beautiful bird spread its wings across the empty morning sky. He thinks to himself. “Maybe I just need more time, one more day, to live, to breathe, to face life As a man. One more day.. Just one more.” he turns and disappears into the woods down the path leading to Crows Crossing Road.

Scratch. © 2007.

For years Clarence Rayburn had heard stories about them that originated on the road of crows, but he had never put much stock in the legends that people shared about the inhabitants of Crows Crossing. his whole life he’d lived in Cantorville, completely alone , a sullen, withdrawn , angry man who seemed to hate life itself, and would often lash out at people who had absolutely nothing to do with his misery. The dreams hadn’t started their haunting of him until he’d lashed out at a eleven year old neighbor boy whom he’d caught throwing bread crumbs on his lawn to try to attract the Crows to Rayburn’s property. He came running from his front porch screaming and yelling like a madman at the boy who was merely in his young mind trying to bring the angry old man some peace and understanding, that only the crows could bring to his miserable life, instead he was met with hostility, profanity and threats of physical violence. He’d ran from Rayburn’s property crying uncontrollably and scared out of his mind, while Clarence Rayburn stood triumphantly on his front porch smiling from ear to ear at his latest achievement. That night as he lay in bed his eyes closed tightly, as he drifted towards sleep the first vision of Dusk the Crow came for him, with human like eyes it chased him through a grove of trees, as he ran from the large bird. The next night Dusk had sat on the sill outside of his bedroom window, yelling taunts at him about repentance, and when in his sleep he rose to pull back the curtains he saw there the blood red eyes of the crow, and it swooped into the window and was upon him, the sounds of his own screams awoke him, in a cold sweat, he fell to his knees on the floor, and when his panicked eyes searched the room, he’d found himself still alone. But the dreams.. For six months would not relent.

Into madness.



He could have taken them as a sign, he could have taken them as a message, or a warning, but instead, Clarence Rayburn allowed the dreams of the crows, to drive him closer to the edge of madness than he had ever been before. Every waking hour he saw at least one that he thought to be the taunting Crow he’d come to know as Dusk, he saw him everywhere, he could feel his eyes watching, calculating his every move. At times he could be seen on the street yelling at them to leave him be, it wasn’t long before Clarence Rayburn by everyone around him was thought to be losing his grip on reality, until one morning it all came into focus for him, he was going to take his gun and go to Crows Crossing to find the bird and kill it, it would be his only solution for peace. He arrived at what he thought to be the perfect spot at Three Thirty pm on Saturday February 16th. And he loaded the weapon and proceeded into the woods along turn 28 on highway ten. He could hear it pulling him further into the deepest part of the woods, where he reached the point that he was almost running to the direction of the voice that he was hearing, he hadn’t even seen the tree stump that he tripped over, causing the weapon to discharge a bullet strait into his heart killing him almost instantly. The hikers that found his body two days later had called the sheriffs department, to report what they had found, while they thought it sad, they told the sheriff that they had come to Crows Crossing for a little bird watching, and the Black Crow that they had been following had all but led them to the body. The ambulance doors close, and it slowly pulls away, leaving in its wake yet another restless spirit to find its peace here on Crows Crossing Road.

Scratch. © 2007

It seems like he’s been draggin his tired bones halfway across creation forever, down around one bend in the road, and strait through another, nasty ass rain keeps falling here on Crows Crossing, its been falling for so long in fact, he doesn’t even feel it anymore. And what’s up with these cars man? They slow down to have a peek at the hitch hiking freak and then speed up again. People, yeah people just messin with him, they don’t know his story and it doesn’t seem as though they care to. The only ones that even bother are the Crows, he’ll see one sitting on a fence post or a road sign, when he decides to stop for a little conversation. The Crows Geezer.. that’s what he tells himself, here its all about the Crows. He stops to engage the usual suspect, he’s a big one too, perched on the highway ten sign.
“Hey buddy!” he laughingly tells the Crow. “You got a match?”
The crow twitches and ruffles its feathers against the falling rain, and then slowly leans forward cocking its head to one side as though its preparing to speak to him.
“ You know what big guy?.. It feels like I’ve been walking this damn road forever and I never seem to get anywhere, I look back and it’s the same twisting and turning miles of endless blacktop as there is in front of me, at this rate I’ll never get to San Francisco to see Jimi Hendrix play!”
He stretches his thumb and sticks it out as the next vehicle appears on the horizon, again as it approaches the driver slows down but only momentarily, and when they see Geezer they press down on the throttle and disappear in the rain. He looks back at the Crow.
“Well I guess all I can do is keep walking. See ya big guy.”
Its 2007 here on the Road of Crows, for some that pass through here their journey is only beginning, for others it never seems to end, just endless miles of life and death, and every thing that lies in between them. Here on Crows Crossing road.

Scratch © 2007