CHAPTER 10
The Greedy Eater
I FLEW SLOWLY OVER THE meadow below the beaver pond. Sure enough, there he was, making his way through the grass. Just like an owl, he was hunting for mice. Although mice were not the only things he hoped to find. It was the season to dig for grubs, and any unwary cricket or grasshopper would also be fair game.
As he would be for an owl as big as I was. He neither saw nor heard me coming as I swooped down—to land right in front of him. He jumped back, startled. He lifted his tail and stomped his front feet, turning in a half circle to display more clearly the broad white stripe that ran from the top of his head all the way to the end of his fluffy tail.
“I’ll shoot, I’ll shoot,” he chirruped at me. “Watch out! Watch out!”
Much good that would do him against an owl. I almost chuckled, but then remembered why I had been searching for this one.
“Segunk,” I hooted softly. “Smelly One. Be calm. Do not use your weapon.”
“Why not? Why not?” he chirruped again, stomping his feet a little more softly this time.
“Look at me,” I said. “I am an owl. Even if you shoot me with your weapon, it would not bother me. I would still eat you.”
This was true and the skunk knew it. We horned owls are the only ones who regularly hunt skunks. Their smell does not bother us at all. We find it rather pleasant. It does not even stick to our feathers. Of all the various creatures great and small, we are the only ones that skunks fear.
Segunk lifted his tail even higher, still threatening me but beginning to look confused. Why would an owl talk with a creature he intended to eat? Skunks are not good at thinking. With a weapon such as theirs, thought is seldom necessary.
“No, no,” he chirruped, doing a little half circle of a dance. “No, no. If I do not shoot, if I do not shoot, you will eat me, you will eat me.”
“No,” I said, speaking very simply so that he could understand. “Help me and I will not eat you. Help me and I will never bother you again.”
Slowly, Segunk lowered his tail.
The cave’s mouth was so well hidden in the tangle of dead tree limbs that it did not seem that large. But I knew that the creature that hid within that cave was not a small one. It had piled those dead branches to conceal its hiding place. I was the only one who knew that it had taken shelter there.
I could smell its thick odor. It was not a sharp stinging smell like Segunk’s—a scent that meant life, powerful life. The scent of this creature was different. Even though it was sickeningly sweet, I knew that it meant death.
Why did I know the creature was there? Aside from being able to smell it from a look away? It was because I kept such close watch over my village of human beings. I had been doing this for a dozen turns of the seasons. I had watched their nestlings grow—especially Dojihla. She had grown tall and strong over the past three winters. I liked the way she gathered flowers in the spring and wove them into little circles to place on the heads of the small children. I liked the way she told her older brother and her parents in such great detail about all the things she had done each day. (Having good owl ears and a conveniently thick tree to conceal myself in made it easy for me to listen. And I never fell asleep while she was in the middle of a story, as her brother often did.) Of all the humans, she was the one I most enjoyed watching and listening to. I even enjoyed watching her bully the other children of her own age, telling them what they should or should not do.
At times, I wondered what it was about humans, and this one human girl in particular, that attracted me. Or what it was about me.
I was now a fully mature owl, yet I had no interest in finding another owl as a mate. Instead, whenever I was not hunting or sleeping, I stayed close to the humans, watching and keeping watch.
Which had led me to this new creature. It had come crawling and skulking down from the broken cliffs a few days ago. It looked something like a big human being. But it was not. Its teeth were long and sharp, its hands clawed, its little eyes as yellow as pine pitch. Its elbows and knees bent strangely and it did not walk upright. It was one of those monsters that I had heard the humans tell stories about when they wanted to frighten their little ones into obedience.
“If you do not share your food, you will turn into one of those awful beings. You will become a mojid, a Greedy Eater.”
I loved to hide in a nearby tree when human stories were being told. Some of them were fine ones. Others, I must admit, were rather foolish, for they indicated that the Great Darkness—who they called the Great Mystery—liked humans better than all others.
“Not humans!” I hooted out one night in spite of myself when I heard such a silly thing said. “Owls are the favorite ones!”
I had been a little too loud, and the storyteller stopped his words.
“Shall I go out and throw a stick at that owl?” I heard a certain young woman’s voice ask the storyteller. I knew that voice: Dojihla, of course. She was just like me in that whenever a story was being told, she was eager to listen. As usual, I enjoyed hearing her talk, despite the rude action she had just suggested.
“No,” the old man answered in an amused voice. “When you hear an owl call that way, it is a good thing. It means no enemy is nearby. If there was any danger out there, that owl would be frightened and make a cry of alarm and fly away.”
“Gracccck,” I muttered, clacking my beak. “That shows how much you know about owls.”
I had heard several stories about mojidak. None of them were pleasant. As I watched that Greedy Eater skulk its way down out of the hills, I realized that the stories had been true. It really was unpleasant, disgusting, and dangerous.
Unfortunately, it was also elusive. Somehow it heard that first big rock I dropped and it jumped aside. Too bad. That stone would have split its head open like an egg.
It ran into the cave before I could get back with another rock. I wondered where this mojid came from. Probably from someplace where it had just eaten its whole family. According to the human stories, that is what the mojidak do—they eat each other as readily as they devour almost anything else that moves.
I couldn’t go into the cave after it. I made a pile of stones on the top of the cliff and waited patiently. But it was crafty. It refused to come out. Sooner or later, it hoped, I would abandon my vigil and it would be able to make its way close enough to the village. I didn’t even want to think about what it might do there.
It was holed up in that cave, but it was not about to starve. Somehow, perhaps when I was off gathering more stones, it had managed to catch some small creature. I had heard something whimpering and then growling in weak but brave defiance from inside that cave. But the mojid had not yet eaten it. Greedy Eaters like to torture and play with their food before they kill it. I decided I could wait no longer. That is why I enlisted Segunk’s help.
Segunk looked pleased as he stood in front of the cave mouth. There is always something self-satisfied about a skunk when it is about to confront a bigger creature that doesn’t know what sort of surprise it has coming.
“I go in now?” Segunk chirped, balancing himself on his two front legs and hopping forward. “I go in now?”
“Go,” I hooted, nodding my head.
Segunk trotted to the cave mouth, slid through the piled branches, and looked into the darkness.
“Hello,” Segunk called out. “Here I am, little creature good to eat. Here I am.” He vanished into the cave.
Although I flew up to my pile of rocks to pick a good heavy one, I could still hear what was happening below. Segunk’s little feet were picking their way in deeper and deeper. The sound of the Greedy Eater’s breathing was growing heavier as it became more excited about a foolish little one actually entering his lair.
Then I heard the mojid’s voice.
“I have you!” he snarled.
“Something else, something else I have,” Segunk chirruped.
Pssssssshhhhhhhh!
“AH-GAH, AH-GAH.” The sound of the mojid’s choking coughs as he tried to escape those stinging fumes echoed loudly.
“AH-GAH, AH-GAH.” The mojid came stumbling out of the cave. He rubbed his yellow eyes that were so blinded, he could not see anything. Including my nice heavy stone.
The sound was very satisfying. It was a combination of a thonk and a splat.
I dropped down to land by the creature’s body just as Segunk came strolling out of the cave. Almost all of his spray had been absorbed by the monster, so the little creature that came stumbling out of the cave behind Segunk was sneezing from the smell but wasn’t completely blinded.
It was the one I had heard whimpering and growling. I sat there as it came up to me. I suppose I should have flown off, but for some reason I did not understand, I stayed.
It was a wolf cub. It trotted up to me, sneezed one more time, and then looked right into my eyes. Then it whined and licked my beak with its tongue.
Segunk was quietly making his way back down into the meadow. But the wolf cub showed no signs of wanting to go anywhere. It nuzzled me with its nose.
Strange, I thought. Then I leaned forward to preen the hair on the back of its neck with my beak.