Longleaf by Roger Reid

Author:Roger Reid [Reid, Roger]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Longleaf, Roger Reid, Alabama, Conecuh National Forest, Young Adult Fiction, longleaf pines, fiction, adventure
ISBN: 9781603060981
Publisher: NewSouth Inc.
Published: 2007-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

23

A Murder of Crows

Maybe you’re right,” said Leah.

Write it down: at about four PM on the second day of my first trip to the Conecuh National Forest, Leah admitted I was right about something. Well . . . she admitted that “maybe” I was right. At least there was a possibility I was right.

“Even if your folks had car trouble, or something like that, they’ll eventually come here looking for you,” she said. “We might as well wait here. Besides, I don’t think Carl Morris and the two idiots will bother you as long as I’m around.”

“Bother me?” I said. “Why should they bother me? I don’t even know the guys.”

“No, obviously you don’t,” said Leah, “or you would realize how dangerous they can be.”

“Dangerous for me—not for you,” I said with as much sarcasm in my voice as I could muster.

“Oh, they dangerous for me, too,” she said with a little sarcasm of her own, “but they know better than to mess with my daddy’s daughter.”

“Yeah, Daddy might shoot first and ask questions later,” I said, knowing full well it was the wrong thing to say even as the words were coming out of my mouth.

“He might,” said Leah. “He might shoot anybody who annoys me.”

I took this as her not-so-subtle way of telling me to shut up. Oh, well, I didn’t have any more to add to the conversation anyway. I dropped my backpack to the ground and found the space blanket rolled up at the bottom of it. After a couple of minutes surveying the ground to be sure there were no ant beds, I spread the blanket and sat down. Man, did it feel good to get off of my feet.

Why would the Morris brothers be dangerous to me? I figured Leah was exaggerating to make herself look like some kind of big deal. Like she was going to protect me and the whole forest from these three wicked brothers. For all I knew, Leah’s daddy was just as wicked as they were. I was thinking all of this when I realized she was looking down at me, her arms folded across her chest. The blanket is five feet by seven feet. I scooted as far as possible to one side, and nodded toward the other side. Leah sat down as far on the other side as she could get and leaned back on her elbows.

“Thanks,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” I said.

And we sat there. And sat there. And sat there.

Somewhere, not too far away, a crow was laughing at me. Of course, he could have been laughing at Leah’s Baltimore Ravens sweatshirt. Ravens are close relatives of crows. I figured Mr. Crow had seen Leah out here before and knew better than to laugh at her, though. Yeah, he was laughing at me. I pretended not to notice.

“Red-cockaded woodpecker,” said Leah.

“That’s a crow,” I said as if I knew what I was talking about.

“Listen beyond the crow,” she said.

And there it was. In the distance I

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