Parting

Annie arrived as I was leaving. She wasn't hard to pin down, to love. She was a bird, a crow. She was, for this story, tame. She was trained. She believed people were her friends. She'd been treated well. Much of her knowledge was based on her faith in me, in people like me. I think that if Annie could have held the concept of justice in her head, she'd have been all for it.

One night, I woke to blue-flashing lights and the smells and sounds of people congregating close together. A cougar was treed. Well, that's the way it's put. She’d actually climbed her way up a phone pole. She had traveled miles down from the mountains, her terrain, looking for water, food. Any good idea. Something she understood. Her instincts were all off. She panicked. She wasn't herself anymore. She'd been threatened to the core. Why else would she act that way? Somebody saw her. The law got called. Fifteen sharp shooters answered. One of them sunk a bullet straight into her skull. She thundered to the pavement.

This should not be a surprise to anyone. But yet it is, isn't it?

Not too long after, they tried catching Annie with a net. At least at first. But she didn't go for it. Maybe the same men, maybe not. Different guns, though. Takes a slug of shot for something that size.

But I was already gone.