THE OLD DEN

As soon as he poked his head out of the tunnel, El Garro saw the papery cocoon swinging wildly. It was midmorning, a time when the other armadillos would be sleeping, but El Garro needed little sleep during these festival days.

The young persimmon tree that overhung his den was already bearing small greenish fruits. On its lowest limb hung the noisy cocoon. The moth inside was heaving at the bottom of the cocoon, making its home smack against nearby leaves.

Transfixed, El Garro blinked in the unaccustomed sunlight, but couldn’t look away. For long seconds, the cocoon merely swayed with each heave. Suddenly, a horn-like projection poked through the bottom. Then a matching horn. The pointed oval persimmon leaves shook as if in an earthquake and then were still. As easy as that, the moth was out.

It had happened so fast, thought El Garro in wonder. The moth’s wings, though, were short and stuffy: it was difficult to see what kind it was. It crawled along the persimmon branch to an open spot, where it hung upside down. Slowly, the wings inflated as fluid pumped into them. They were large, at least as large as El Garro’s head. The wings were pale green with four dots which looked like eyes, and its tail was split. It was a Luna moth. They must hatch during the day, he thought. That’s why I’ve never seen this before. What else had he never seen?

The four strong, young armadillos who dreamed of succeeding him as Colony leader would destroy his den tonight. For the next month, he would be, once more, a vagabond without a home. Meanwhile, he would stay in the den of different family members each night and give the gift of a story, thus ensuring that his accumulated wisdom wasn’t lost to his family. And each family would gift him with a story to take on his last trip, so when he went to the Father of Souls, El Garro could tell of those who would follow. And at the end of the month, he would name his successor and be free to leave.

The worst thing that could happen would be for El Garro to die before he finished this month. He needed to be able to trek a distance away. Of course, he hoped he would see other trekkers, or spend a full night talking with Corrie - but that was unlikely; they were too far away. Mostly he needed to die alone, in a place where his body would never be found, as befitted a true vagabond. The Black Road was such an awful death because the buzzards found your body. Before he died, though, El Garro wanted to wander in the Ozarks and see strange and wonderful things, like the hatching of a Luna moth, things he’d always been too busy to notice.

He stayed awake, watching the pale moth harden its wings, and near sunset, fly away to find its first meal. After it disappeared in the gloaming, only a torn cocoon fluttered in the evening breeze.

Any other day, El Garro wouldn’t have noticed such a thing. Tonight, it was what he watched as the four young armadillos worked. They entered his den and chased out the garter snake which hesitated at the entrance, smelling the air with its tongue. The crowded armadillos parted to let it slither away in the dust to find another cool place.

A sudden gust tore a papery bit away from the cocoon; it floated gently to the leaf litter below, where ants would probably find it.

Next the crickets hopped up the tunnel and out into the open, where they were chased by squealing baby armadillos.

The wind picked up, blowing from the west, hot and dry, without the slightest hint of rain, but carrying the fragrance of wild strawberries. Later, when the night’s work was done, El Garro thought, he would find that patch of strawberries and feast.

The wind swung the cocoon right, then left, like a pendulum, but still it held fast to the persimmon branch.

From below his feet, El Garro heard small thumps as first the ceiling of the den caved in, and then the tunnel. Armadillos pressed close enough that he could smell their sharp fear that the four might be caught in the cave-in. But four black noses emerged from the soft dirt; they turned their backs on the depression and clawed dirt and leaf litter into it until the collapsed entrance to El Garro’s home was covered. Four dusty faces turned to El Garro for approval.

El Garro heard the cheers, as if from a distance. He said the right words: “Tomas, Juan, Kemen and Felix, dig your dens well this night. The family will inspect them and visit them and sleep in them for the next month, for the den of the Colony leader must be the den of all. In one month, I will decide which of you will lead.”

All the while, he was conscious of the cocoon as it swung right, then left, right, then left. Right. Left. Until, just as the crowd dispersed to watch their favorite candidate dig, the cocoon gave way, and for a moment, was uplifted and seemed to fly like the Luna moth itself. But, it, too, drifted to the leaf litter below. Another gust blew leaves on top of it, and it was buried.

El Garro felt like he was coming out of a dream as he looked around and found himself homeless—a vagabond—after such a long, long time. And his first thought was of strawberries.

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