Unfinished Business

Before he thought to wonder how it had come to be placed so precisely on top of the fence post, what struck him was how perfectly clean the little skull was. There was not a speck of flesh, cartilage or even dirt anywhere on it. It looked as if it had been meticulously washed after being buried in an anthill. It was completely intact and so perfectly white that, even under the frail light of the moon and the distant street lamp, it shone as if illuminated from within.

Although he spent much of his time these days seeking out little mysteries to ponder or little happenstance encounters that held the possibility of adventure, he was more than a little unnerved by this finding. The skull rested atop a fence post separating the street from the creek and the manicured expanse of the golf course beyond. Had he stumbled across it hidden in the brush or even lying exposed beside the trail, he would have been delighted. He would have considered it a gift. He would have felt obligated to do something meaningful or symbolic to reciprocate. He may have taken it home to give it a proper burial. Or he may have taken it to use in some arcane sculpture. But before taking it, he would have performed some small ritual to show his gratitude and respect, to give something back for taking it. But this find was so obviously unnatural that it sent a shiver through him and he was unsure how to proceed.

It wasn’t only the skull’s precise placement that was uncanny, it was also its pristine condition. He had found enough bones and other remains to know that such finds were never completely free of flesh and debris. Never so completely free of the detritus of decay. And never had he found a skull so completely intact. He thought it was an opossum. A young one. The bones were so tiny and fragile. It seemed impossible for the jaw to still be connected, for the teeth to still be set firmly in place. No, this finding was not at all natural.

As he turned the situation over in his mind, he suddenly felt exposed and vulnerable. He peered blindly into the shadows beyond the fence, looking down into the softly rushing creek and the dense brush lining its banks. On the broad expanse of moonlit fairway, nothing moved, nor on the small pond to the other side of the lane. The street was empty at this late hour; the night air cold enough to keep people behind closed doors. The yellow light emanating from distant curtained windows did little to penetrate the gloom.

How could such a meticulously prepared skull suddenly appear in such an unlikely place? His mind flipped through possibilities, each one wilder than the last. Whatever killed the little creature, coyote, hawk, owl, or something else, obviously did not do so perched atop a fence post beside the road. It had been deliberately placed there. But only after having been thoroughly cleaned, and in such a delicate way as to prevent damaging the paper-thin bone or allowing the loosened teeth to fall out. Inexplicably, someone had either killed it or found it already killed, carefully cleaned it, and then placed it where it would be easily found. Something in the way the skull was oriented, looking as it did out over the darkness of the wooded creek, felt to him as if that too was by careful intent.

He was also keenly aware that, whomever had placed the skull there, had done so less then twenty-four hours ago. He had walked this same path last evening. There was no way he could have walked past without seeing it. That, in fact, was one the puzzles turning over in his mind. It stood out so starkly against the dark fence post that no one could walk by without seeing it. And, even in the frosts of early winter, these streets and trails were frequented by all manner of walkers, joggers and cyclists. And he didn’t believe anyone, upon seeing such an odd and strangely beautiful artifact, could walk by without disturbing it in some way.

He wondered if whomever had put it there was still out there waiting, watching him from the shadows. He didn’t feel any eyes upon him, as the cliche goes, but he did feel very exposed. He felt as if he were meant to find the skull, as if it were placed there just for him to find. But was it a gift? A trial of some sort? A primitive attempt to make contact? Maybe even a cry for help? He couldn’t make any sense of it. But he didn’t doubt that either he or someone else was meant to find it. He didn’t doubt that behind the puzzle was agency and purpose.

He heard a soft rustling in the brush beside the creek below him. Leaning over the railing, he peered into the darkness, trying to see up underneath the low bridge. All was darkness and shadow. He waited but heard only the soft murmur of the creek. Nothing moved in the dark tangle as he pondered how to proceed.

If, by some infinitesimal probability, the appearance of the skull was the result of some purely random sequence of events, then what he did next was of no consequence. If, however, it was placed deliberately then it must have been done so to some purpose, some expected or hoped-for outcome. If that were the case, he knew, however he responded could bring consequence.

At length, having seen nor heard nothing more to break the silence, he decided to leave it for the night. If it were not intended for him, he did not want to disturb it. If it truly were meant for him, he felt instinctively that the giver would ensure it was still there for him when he returned. He would come back out before sunrise. If the skull were still here, he would consider it a gift.

Before leaving, he wanted to show whomever might have left it that, even if it were not meant for him, he appreciated their gift of surprise and mystery. Regretfully, he had no tobacco with him. But he did find a small stone in his pocket. He had been polishing it several days ago. He placed the stone upon the fence post, next to the skull. On a sudden impulse, he turned the skull 180 degrees so that it pointed back towards the darkened pond across the road. He set the stone directly in front of its grinning snout. In a barely audible whisper, he spoke his gratitude to the darkening night and thanked the unknown presence who left him this little mystery.

The pre-dawn air was cold and still. His breath proceeded him as he strode back along the darkened streets to the bridge where he’d left the little skull. He’d slept fitfully and awoke feeling strangely melancholy. Although he didn’t actually remember any of them, he felt certain that his dreams had been of small, dying creatures. As he had lain there, hovering in the liminal space between waking and dreaming, between memory and fantasy, their piteous cries hung in the darkness.

As he approached the bridge, he was not at all surprised to find that the skull was still on the post where he had left it. Even in the dim light, it stood out starkly white against the shadows. With sudden shock, he realized that the skull been turned back to its original orientation. Not only turned, but the polished stone had also been moved so that it remained in front of the snout just as he had placed it. But it now pointed back along the creek. To either side of the polished stone, an additional one had been placed. Each of these was set slightly back from the center. The three stones, along with the pointed snout, formed a crude arrow, pointing somewhere into the darkened wood. The new stones were of similar size and, although not of a glossy polish like the one he had left, worn smooth as if bathed for years in flowing water.

He was suddenly, intensely, aware of how completely alone he was. The eastern sky was still dark. The silent street empty. It was with uncharacteristic relief that he saw a window suddenly brighten in a home across the way, but its pale light seemed faint and unaccountably distant. The playful mystery he had marveled at the night before now felt ominous. The skull more harbinger than gift.

Where before he had marveled at the mystery and toyed with fantasies of harmless, little adventures, his thoughts now raced against a slowly rising undercurrent of fear. He no longer doubted there was intent and agency at work. Whether that had originally been intended for him or not, he was certainly its focus now. His actions, stupid and naive as they were, had effectively hooked him into whatever this was that was happening. Still feeling incredibly alone and exposed, he was glad to see the sky was slowly brightening, the distant stars succumbing to the gray dawn.

Determined not to disturb it again, he studied the orientation of the stones. The triangle they formed, he saw, did not point directly along the creek as he had previously thought. Instead, it pointed towards the clubhouse, whose lights shone stark and bright on the far side of fairways and greens. But it didn’t point directly at the clubhouse either, he realized. More off to one side, more towards where he knew the driving range to be.

As the night receded, so too his unease gave way to returning curiosity. There was a mystery here to be investigated, a puzzle to be solved. To do so, he needed more clues. If this were a game, he suddenly realized, then it was his turn. He needed to see if he could tease the other into giving him another clue.

He decided to the leave the skull and stones as they lay and stepped over to the next fence post. Picking up a twig, he broke it into three pieces, two short and one long. He placed them on top of the post in the shape of an arrow, carefully pointing it toward the clubhouse. Satisfied, he pulled his pouch from his pocket and sprinkled a pinch of tobacco over the two fence posts and their artifacts. Softly, he whispered his greetings to the dawn and issued a friendly challenge to the other. He hoped they would respond with another clue.

As the sun broke above the horizon, he turned and continued his walk along the familiar streets. By the time he wound his way through the neighborhood and reached the clubhouse, his thoughts had long since turned to other things. Cutting through the parking lot, he stepped onto the lightly wooded trail which would carry him past the driving range and eventually lead him back home.

This section of his walking route was familiar and comfortable. The tree line to his right, with its twisted overgrowth, mostly blocked his view of backyards and privacy fences and allowed him the illusion of deeper woods. To his left, the manicured fairways huddled in shadow behind a line of small, green hummocks. From this point on, he would escape the intrusion of nosy neighbors, with their curious stares and cautious greetings. For the next mile and a half or so, he knew, his privacy would only be interrupted by chance encounter with another walker, who was likely relishing their solitude every bit as much as he, or the occasional dog, barking unseen behind their overgrown fence. His thoughts wandered as his steps settled into a relaxed and careless saunter. In the open spaces, the rising sun warmed his face and chased the frost from his breath.

Even though he rose early everyday to immerse himself in the dawn, he still marveled as the world awakened around him. Cardinals were plentiful this year. He smiled at their piping calls as they flitted away from his path. A pair of blue jays shrieked at him from branches high above, one to either side. Greeting them, it crossed his mind that they were fortunate to be so robust in the face of constantly encroaching development. So too, the squirrels chasing each other about the trees and the rabbits ducking under brush as he approached. Sadly, however, not all of the little creatures he had grown so fond of over the years remained. He and his wife had discussed the starlings just last night. In winters past, they had sat mesmerized, watching the flock’s aerial murmurations. But they had not seen them since the canebrake along the creek had been cleared. It also saddened him to think of how long it had been since he’d found sign of the foxes and raccoons that he used to see on occasion. Perhaps that was one of the reasons his finding the opossum skull seemed so poignant. There were so few of them left here, it was unconscionable to trivialize the loss of a single one.

Ahead, he saw a squirrel scratching in the leaf litter beside the trail. Near-simultaneously, he heard a shriek and looked up to find a large hawk perched on a battered telephone pole angling up out of the tangled brush. He stopped, unsure whether to interfere.

The squirrel stopped its scratching and looked directly at him. It appeared either unaware or unconcerned of the violent death perched above.

The hawk ignored him completely, its gaze focused intently on its prey. He could practically feel the raptor’s muscles bunching beneath its feathers, coiling as it readied to launch its ambush. He stood immobile, transfixed in anticipation of the grisly scene about to play out.

The squirrel continued to stare at him, still seemingly oblivious of the imminent violence. Abruptly, it chittered and flicked its tail at him. It flicked its tail a second time, and a third. Finally, it scratched once more at the ground and then turned and ran straight down the path in front of him. It did not veer off the open trail to hide in the brush. Nor did it scurry up a tree to find safety among the empty boughs. Instead, it stopped some distance down the trail, and again began scratching at the ground. After a few moments, it raised itself on its haunches and stared back at him, still giving no mind to the hawk, whose razor-sharp posture seemed to clench even more intently towards the little creature, now some thirty yards away.

Again, the squirrel flicked its tail at him. Once. Twice. Three times. At this distance, its chittering was faint but insistent.

The hawk shrieked from its perch, piercing eyes, cruelly-hooked beak, deadly razor-tipped talons. But still it withheld its attack. For the slightest moment, it turned its attention to him. In that single second, its gaze transfixed him. In it he saw the keen intelligence and bright, feral intensity of the apex predator, a creature who wreaks death in order to live, without remorse, without cruelty. As natural as it is terrifying.

With a final scratch at the ground, the squirrel turned and again sprinted straight down the path, away from both he and the hawk.

This time, he decided to follow. More accurately, he felt somehow compelled to follow. In some inexplicable way, he felt it vital to keep the squirrel in view and not let it be swallowed up in the distant shadows. As he stepped purposefully after it, he noted the hawk still watching him.

Suddenly, and in utter silence, it launched itself from its perch, arrowing straight down the path towards the squirrel. The low sun shone brightly on its pale breast and brown-red wings, gleamed sharply on the polished razor of its beak.

He picked up his step, fascinated, terrified. He did not want to see the shredding, tearing, ripping death descending on the squirrel; he did not want to miss the evolutionary majesty of the predator taking down its prey. Adrenaline surged through him as his horror swirled together with wonder and awe.

Suddenly and with a shriek of finality, the hawk veered away. It turned skyward, climbed up and over the trees, and was gone in an instant.

The squirrel, he saw, was still going about its business. It scratched in the dirt at the base of the cedar stump, which had been so thoughtlessly cut down last year, occasionally pausing to sniff the air and dart its gaze back at his approach. Although it watched him closely, it did not appear anymore concerned by him than it had been by the predatory attentions of the hawk. As he drew closer, it held its ground, but its movements grew more animated. Its tail seemed to be flicking in a deliberate pattern. Once. Twice. Three times. Pause. Chitter insistently and repeat. It held its gaze on him.

He stopped before getting too close. He didn’t want to interrupt whatever it was that was playing out before him. He couldn’t help but imagine he was witnessing some sort of primitive, woodland ritual. He felt a vague sense of deja vu. He also felt he was missing some critical aspect of this tableau. Some forgotten memory hovering just out of reach.

The squirrel continued to repeat its flicking, chittering pattern. Once, twice, three times. With each repeat, the pauses between lengthened, exaggerating the drama of its dance.

With deliberate effort, he pulled his attention from the little creature and surveyed the space around him. Here, the trail curved away from the golf course and the tree line provided only thin separation from the sprawling, fenced backyards of immaculate residences bordering the fairways. It dawned on him that, although the bridge lay hidden far on the other side of rooftops and manicured lawns, he was directly facing the fence post with its odd assortment of sticks, stones and bone. He started with a sudden, shivering frisson. He knew without a doubt that the skull was pointing directly to where he stood.

He jumped, startled, at the sudden slamming of a heavy truck door. He turned to see two men emerging from a work van parked on the street beyond. Even at this distance, their voices seemed excessively loud and intrusive. He heard the men exchange mirthless banter as they went around and opened the back of the truck.

Irritated by the intrusion, he did his best to dismiss them. He turned back to find the squirrel standing up, frozen stock-still, staring in the direction of the disturbance. Where it had seemed casually indifferent to the hawk, it now seemed hyper-fixated on a threat that he was sure it couldn’t even see from its low vantage point. In a sudden flurry of motion, the squirrel flipped itself around to face him. It crouched even lower, its belly fur tickling the ground. For the briefest of moments, it locked its gaze with his. It flicked its tail a single time, and then burst lightning-quick, leaping up into the trees. Instantly it was lost, hidden among the bare and broken branches. As he gave up looking for it and turned his attention back to the men in the truck, its disembodied chittering continued to badger him from above.

One of the men, bearded, bald and wearing coveralls with muddy boots, was unloading an odd assortment of boxes and implements. The other man, clad in faded jeans, cap and flannel jacket, picked through the materials. They went about their work with the grim determination seemingly universal to low-wage earners just trying to get through another work day. Their occasional chuckle carried no joy.

He would have dismissed them and turned his steps home, had not the faded lettering on the van caught his attention. “A-1 Best Pest Service,” it read. With a tag line that proclaimed, “The only good varmint is a dead varmint!” Thankfully, it was not a modern advertising wrap, he thought grimly, else he was sure it would have sported a colorful graphic of a cartoon mole or raccoon, lying face down with its tongue hanging out and X’s for eyes.

His thoughts were a jumble as he made his way back home along the trail. He couldn’t help but feel the hawk and squirrel had deliberately drawn him into their little drama, granting him a role as an impromptu extra in their bit of carefully orchestrated theater. But why? What was the purpose of their dance? And why did the squirrel show no fear of the hawk? Does it know the hawk is a predator only when hungry? That it doesn’t kill indiscriminately?

And what to think of the fact that the drama had played out at precisely the location to which his unseen co-conspirator had pointed the arrow? He did not for a second believe these were random coincidences. It felt as if the two occurrences were set scenes belonging to a single elaborate production. A play, he felt intuitively, that had not yet reached its final act.

As he neared home, his steps taking him over the creek’s low-water crossing and behind his neighbors’ fenced backyards, he continued to turn the puzzle over in his mind. The more he pondered it, the more he felt he was missing some vital piece. He felt as if something glaringly obvious was hovering just beyond reach, some fragment of memory, like a wisp of forgotten meaning which lingers after waking from a dream.

Strangely, he realized the thing puzzling him the most was the location. He believed enough in the existence of unseen worlds and faerie folk - or at least he had always wanted to believe in such things - that he could accept some hidden conspirator was trying to communicate with him through the skull and stones. He could also accept that he had been privileged to observe, even participate, in some ageless ritual dance between the hawk and squirrel. But the location was key. The location was the connection tying the two events together. The arrow, so precisely placed, pointed exactly to where predator and prey had drawn him into their drama.

He could think of nothing remarkable about the location. It was a relatively nondescript stretch of walking trail. Its thin line of trees separated the backyards of the affluent golf community on one side from the older neighborhood on the other. With its tangle of underbrush, it was not the most exposed portion of the trail, but it was open enough that it made it difficult for him maintain any illusion of walking through an isolated wood. No, he could think of nothing which made this stretch of trail special, other than it was one he typically stepped through quickly to get to the more isolated areas beyond.

As his own yard came into view, he felt even more strongly that he was missing some vital, yet incredibly obvious, bit of information or meaning. A clue which would enable him to connect all the dots and understand what was being shown to him. For, he had to admit, he now fully accepted the notion that some agency, some power, some person - human or otherwise - was orchestrating these events. Moreover, they were doing so in a deliberate effort to engage him, to deliver him a message.

The idea thrilled him. And terrified him. Often, especially when walking alone in the chill silence, he let his imagination wander, creating suburban landscapes full of portentous events and magical beings. To think he was being pulled into a tale resplendent of such fantasies made his mind race.

Was there something about the skull he was overlooking? Obviously, its purpose was to get his attention. And, whether his co-conspirator knew it or not, it was a bait he was certain to take. He was always keen to find little artifacts and oddities with which he would fill his pockets. He felt that if an object had the power to draw his attention, to make him note it specifically amongst all other objects and distractions, then he should recognize it in some way. Often, these things found their way into his artworks. His patio table was littered in an array of odd feathers, bones, leaves and sticks, many in varying stages of being wired and twisted into primitive forms.

The skull was an opossum. Was there meaning in that? Opossums held no special significance to him. He loved them as he loved all the little creatures of the woods. He saw their tracks often enough, especially after heavy rains, but he rarely saw them. They were shy creatures. He had been gifted with a sighting of three last winter. He had been walking this very trail, no more than a hundred yards from his own house. Pretty close to where he was now, he supposed. He remembered it was a particularly cold dawn and the sky was just beginning to grey. He also remembered he had been most surprised simply by the fact that he had looked up at precisely the right moment to see them. They were high in the branches, resting perfectly still and making no sound. He was almost directly under them when he suddenly looked up for no apparent reason. They were dark shapes huddled on the branches. None of them hung by their tails as artists liked to depict. They remained motionless while he waited for the sky to brighten enough so he could photograph them. After a couple of pics, he had left them to their peace.

The only other time he remembered seeing them was… and suddenly it struck him like a thunder-clap. At precisely the same moment the missing piece suddenly clicked in his memory, a piercing shriek assailed him and he jerked his gaze to see the hawk sitting on the ground of the green space between his backyard and the trail. Its eyes leveled on him and it stood with its wings slightly spread in a posture intuitively recognizable as protective.

An enormity of emotion washed over him. He felt light-headed and leaned into a sapling for support. Somewhere in his swirling thoughts, it came to him that this was the moment a Victorian novelist would have his heroine swoon. Well he was no heroine, he thought grimly, but neither was he any hero. It took him a surprising amount of effort to bring his thoughts under control and accept the reality of all that was happening.

The hawk stood at the precise spot he had buried the three baby opossums four or five years ago. How could he have forgotten? He had been walking his normal route on the trail. The same route he followed today, in fact. He remembered he had been out at midday for some reason, rather than his usual dawn or dusk. He also remembered the sadness he felt when he found the dead body of a baby opossum. Sadder yet after finding the other two. He could see no marks on them, nothing to indicate how they had died. Or why their bodies lay so close to the trail, yet so distant from each other. After finding the first, he had walked probably a hundred feet before finding the next. And the third another hundred or so feet beyond that. At pretty much the exact spots, he now realized with a chill, to which the squirrel had led him earlier.

They had not been pouch babies, fallen from their mother’s embrace. They were older than that. Old enough to be out scouting breakfast on their own. When he lifted them into a carry bag, he thought they had each weighed little more than a pound. He brought them home and buried them, saying soft words of comfort as he carefully laid them in a huddle on the bottom of the little grave.

He was certain they had been poisoned and it angered him to no end. He remembered becoming more and more irate every time he told someone the story of finding them. His wife eventually tired of hearing about it and challenged him to either do something or let it go. She was right, as usual.

He had reached out to the HOA and asked to be granted a spot on the next meeting’s agenda. In perfect alignment with his low expectations of such organizations, the self-important voice he spoke with was altogether put out by his request. After much huffing and blowing, she finally agreed he would be recognized during New Business. But only if he got there fifteen minutes early and spoke directly to her to confirm.

He spent the next few days organizing his thoughts and drafting the speech he would make to the assembled HOA members. He had done his homework, researching suburban ecospheres, the impact of development on local wildlife, safety concerns, and alternative methods of pest control. His presentation was filled with facts and data. He would appeal to his neighbors’ sense of compassion and then offer solutions other than indiscriminately killing the creatures we should be protecting. He had also drafted an opinion piece that he hoped he could get published in the local paper, and had even tracked down a contact at the local television news station who he was told would be sympathetic and likely to run his story. He worked hard to make his argument convincing and to, hopefully, avoid being dismissed as either an eco-nut-job or armchair activist.

But he hadn’t attended the meeting. Hadn’t presented his well-rehearsed arguments. Something he couldn’t remember had come up. Certainly, it was some emergency at work. Or more likely, he admitted, some trivial matter that he latched onto as an excuse to avoid going to the meeting, to avoid putting himself out there, to avoid the possibility of being rejected or even outright ridiculed. Neither had he sent the letter to the editor, nor reached out to the contact at the TV station.

The hawk patiently held his gaze, its eyes dark and penetrating. He felt a sudden flush of shame at not having had the courage to follow through. He really was just an armchair activist, he realized, ever ready to vehemently opine on social media but lacking the balls or conviction to actually do something. He studied the bird for long moments as he gathered his thoughts into a plan. At length, he nodded to the hawk, hoping it could sense his determination in the gesture. At his movement, the hawk leaped into the air and wheeled above the trees. Its fading shriek set off a cacophonous response from a nearby murder of crows.

On Thursday, he set out on his evening walk a little earlier than usual. The sun was still high above the rooftops to the west, but he knew it would drop quickly as the days were still shortening. He stepped faster than usual, more out of excited anticipation rather than worry over running out of time. He still had two hours before the HOA meeting. And that included getting there fifteen minutes early, he thought wryly. His letter to the editor, which had run in last Sunday’s newspaper, had generated lots of traffic on the neighborhood social media pages and so he expected a large turnout at the meeting. He hoped so. In fact, he hoped that it turned out to be not only a large crowd, but a loud and unruly one to boot. The reporter had only tentatively agreed to run his story, depending on how the HOA responded. But she did agree to join him there. Fifteen minutes early, of course.

As he stepped onto the foot bridge crossing over the creek, he could see something sitting on top of the fence post on the other side. He was most surprised by the fact of how little surprised he actually was. He had hoped he would be given some sign, some confirmation, that the previous events had really happened, and were not some fiction created out of subconscious guilt. Regardless of whether real or not, he allowed himself a measure of pride in what he was now doing and he was looking forward to confronting the issue with his neighbors. But still, as always, he hoped for some confirmation that his fantasies of an unseen reality co-existing within his personal Hundred Acre Wood could possibly, potentially, just maybe, be real.

Reaching the fence post, he was thrilled to find a collection of small, polished stones, carefully placed on top and formed into a near-perfect circle. He jumped as a sudden shriek broke the silence. An irrepressible laugh burst from his chest as he picked up his step and continued on his way.

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Copyright 2023 Scott Middleton