PRIDE

"Look, Steve. Look." Jon Jon poked his finger forward like he was ringing an invisible doorbell. "They're making rings out in the middle. Ain't no fish on this side--nothing big anyhow. They're over along the brush or in the deep. We need a boat."

"Where we gonna get a boat?"

Jon Jon shrugged, the tip of his fishing pole bouncing. "How else we gonna get over there?"

"We can't," the boy said. The brush is too thick. We can't get through. You know that."

"Maybe we could cut a path with Adunya's machete."

Adunya slowly worked away from them, searching the ground as if tracking a deer.

"What do you think he's doing anyhow?" Jon Jon said.

This time the boy shrugged. Adunya sometimes chanted. He sometimes bounced around. He often tracked game. He always ran screaming during a storm. The boy had come to expect odd behavior from his adopted Ethiopian cousin. He had just recently come to accept him as a cousin--Jon Jon had not.

"What're you doing," Jon Jon yelled.

The boy leaned away from his younger brother as if the volume hurt his ears.

Without acknowledging them, Adunya began hacking at a tree's low branch. It came down after two swings. Cutting at an angle he severed the bushy end of the branch, leaving him a four-foot stick.

The brothers pressed in close.

"You making another spear?" Jon Jon asked.

Adunya looked up and pointed at his ear, signaling them to listen.

The boy closed his eyes. Birds--at least three different calls. The wind...

"I don't hear anything," Jon Jon said.

Neither the boy nor Adunya answered him.

Leaves scratching in the trees. A splash. Frogs croaking. Lots of them.

"You gonna try to get some frogs?"

Adunya looked at the boy and smiled.

"I thought we was fishing." Jon Jon lifted his pole.

"Can you help me make a spear?" the boy knelt beside Adunya.

"What about cutting the brush?" Jon Jon looked back toward the water. He saw a rare raven glide over the pond and perch on a fallen cottonwood as if settling to watch a show. The water rolled as a bass or catfish or carp rose to surface feed.

"I bet we can get a hundred frogs. Listen to that," Steve said.

"What you gonna do with all them frogs?"

"The frog is very good. My father, he bring home many before rainy season."

"Eew. I ain't eating no frog."

"Just go fishing if you don't want to catch frogs." The boy shook his head.

Jon Jon stared at their backs for a moment. Spearing frogs might be fun. But he promised Mom he'd bring her a big fat catfish to fry. Steve had hooked into a monster once--before Adunya came. They had seen its wide, powerful mouth just as the line snapped. Jon Jon would go catch that fish. He'd find a way to the other side and he'd tell Dad how he caught it all by himself and Mom would fry it and everyone would say how delicious it was. And they would all know he caught it because his Dad would tell them he had.

They had searched for a way to the other side before, but impatience or trepidation always hindered their progress. On this day, Steve and Adunya were too busy to discourage or distract him and their voices, close and confident, would fuel his courage.

He ducked into the brush, his pole in one hand, a small box of worms in the other. After ten yards he had to crawl to fit through. A branch caught his collar and tightened it around his neck. He yanked it away. Through a small opening, he could see the raven. It seemed to stare at him, to consider him--as if waiting for him.

Pushing forward, Jon Jon scratched the corner of his eye on a twig. He rubbed it with dusty fingers. It stung. Like fire. He couldn't open it. He rubbed harder. More fire. Forcing his good eye open, he searched for the raven. Had it moved closer? Didn't Steve once say that if you saw a raven someone was going to die?

Jon Jon's breath felt like his eye. The raven, the water, the bushes all blurred together under the tears in his open eye. Had to get out. Had to get back to Steve and Adunya. He lost the worms and turned, reaching ahead for a passage with his free hand. Branches and thorns and grass grabbed at his legs and shoulders. The raven called.

Jon Jon heard himself whimpering and hoped Steve and Adunya could not hear it. He almost called out for their help. He almost stopped himself from crying. The line at the tip of his pole tangled in a bush. He jerked at it. The tangle worsened. Wiping tears off his cheek, he bit at the line near the reel and felt it give. He saw the edge of the brush and scurried out.

He scanned for Steve and Adunya, his face tingling with shame and wet with tears. They had not moved. They had not seen. He snapped his eye toward the raven. Gone.

He wiped his eyes with the back of his wrist as he eased toward Steve and Adunya. The raven called again. He quickened his step and did not look back until beside his older brother. The brush looked like the barbed wire above a prison fence. The raven swooped down and landed on a log beside the bushes. It cocked its head and stared.

Jon Jon moved around his brother and set his pole against a tree. He wiped his cheek one last time. "Ain't no big fish on this side anyhow."


Painting: Eye of the Raven by John Banovich
http://www.johnbanovich.com/