Well, it's a complicated story.

This was a few years back, by now. I was trying to get up toward St. Arringer's, I'd had a message from a cousin there was work to be had. So I was catching long distance busses when I could afford em and hitchhiking when I couldn't.

I got dropped off just after sundown by a trucker. Horned lizard, handsome guy, woulda offered to share a motel room if his route hadn't been about to turn the wrong direction. Not fifteen minutes later a thunderstorm blows up, out of nowhere. A real gullywasher. So I sprinted for the only shelter I could see, which turned out to be a bus stop.

Now, I dunno if you've ever caught a bus out in the prairie states? But the bus stops are in these shacks, on account of the blizzards they get some winters. If the road gets snowed in and the bus is late, then people waiting for it need shelter or they'll freeze, right? They got lights that run off a solar panel on the roof, never seem to last more'n a couple hours past midnight, and they got little charcoal stoves, though usually somebody's swiped the charcoal.

Even if that's not what the place was meant for, they're a good place to duck in a downpour.

I get in, and there's other folks in there, which, not unusual: Older lady, bison, overalls and big waterproof boots. Guy in a bus line uniform, bobcat, probably a relief driver if I had to guess. They're stooped over the stove, trying to get it goin.

Then over in the corner is an old skunk, scrawny, maybe got some otter or ferret in him. Was sleeping in here, by the looks of him, and got woke up when folks ducked in from the storm. At first I think he's drunk, and then I think he's sick, and then I think he's both so I decide to stand on the other side of the stove. No offense, a course, god knows the world aint gentle with none of us, it's just I'd been riding the busses and the rails long enough to know how to keep my mouth shut and not make eye contact.

Didn't work this time.

“So!" the skunk gets to his feet, unsteady like, “You wanna know how I got this feather?!"

All three of us freeze.

And it's one of those moments, like, where I don't have to even look at the bison or the bobcat to know we're all three thinking the same thing: if one of us says 'no, nobody asked' is that gonna rile him up? While we're stuck in here with him?

He comes closer, into firelight, and he holds out a crow feather.

What?

No, it's not this one. It's a different one.

I'm getting to it, like I said, it's complicated.

So he stares at the feather he's holding—which is NOT this one I've got, I shoulda specified—and he says “Johnny Boy could'n play the fiddle worth a damn." Like we're supposed to know who that is.

“Didn't stop him tryin, much as we all dearly wished he would," and the old skunk steps over the bench and sits hunched over the fire, which was when I guessed it was too late to stop him. “Every night, he'd show up at the juke house with the beat up ol' fiddle his uncle useta play. Didn't have no case, his Pa'd pawned that, years ago, afore he skipped town. Johnny Boy jes carried it round by the neck."

“Uh, sir," the bobcat says, the kinda voice where you could tell he's used to having to tell people things they don't wanna hear for a job, “I don't think I know the fellow in question."

“Oh, don't worry none, you don't got to. The feather's the important part, anyway!" The skunk either can't tell we didn't want to hear the story or is pretending cause he doesn't care. “So Johnny Boy'd turn up at the Juke House. And every night when a fella least expected it, when yer jes tryin' to knock back a whiskey'r two to make yer back stop achin' from work afore you get on your way home, suddenly there's an almighty horrible screechin' noise, and by the time you caught yer balance and stopped choking on the whiskey you swallered wrong, he's announcing that screechin' was s'posed to be My Old Kentucky Home, and did anybody have any requests?"

If I'd been quicker on the uptake, I would've said something right then about, yeah, sure is a bad deal when someone barges in and starts up a whole-ass performance at a group of strangers who don't want it and didn't ask for it!

“How long he got put up with would differ from night to night, but t'weren't never long. Sooner'r later he'd get laughed out or shouted out or kicked out, he'd swear up'n down that one day he'd prove us all wrong, he'd be the best damn fiddle player anyone'd ever heard, then he'd scurry off home with his tail twixt his legs and his fiddle in his paw. But he was always back the next night." The old skunk stares into the burnin stove through the bedraggled fringe of the feather he's still got a death grip on. “Till he wasn't."

“One mornin', he din't turn up to work. Fellas go to check his shack, all his clothes an things is still there, even the ol' fiddle, but he ain't. Some thought he was sleepin off a mean hangover in a ditch somewhere, some thought he'd hopped a train and skipped town like his Pa afore him, some said he'd been seen out on the old cart road, where it crossed them tracks that led up'ta the closed down mines. Said he was hollerin and weepin and carryin on past midnight. Guess there were some jokes about how that din't sound no different than his usual routine at the juke house."

Thunder sounds, close enough that it rattles the windows and roof. The old skunk looks around, hunches his shoulders, like he's surprised to see us there.

“You alright there hun?" the bison says. Like she's quieting a child. She got a softer voice than I woulda guessed.

“Why…" The skunk blinks himself back into the present. “I'll be jes fine, ma'am, just gotta finish my story," he says, exactly like he was about to finish that sentence with 'before it's too late.' “We meant to kept an eye out fer him, fer a couple weeks. But you know how 'tis. You're thinkin bout' clearin' brush, bout sweepin' locusts outa the tomata patch, bout what you're gon' do if the well goes dry afore you can git the windmill fixed, and next thing you know it's been forty days'n forty nights and everybody's forgot Johnny Boy like he's Prohibition."

“Till the night he walks inta the Juke House again." The Skunk's growling now, more'n he is speaking. “Would'n blame ya none fer not knowin' him to look at. Few fellas there that night didn't recognize him at first. He looked different. Taller, harder, more sure o' hisself. He's wearing a dirty, raggedy black poncho that looked like he stole it outa a stable, and a beat up hat with a crow's feather stuck in the brim. And when he gets a couple steps inside he throws the poncho back over his shoulders, and I seen he aint got no shirt, just some odd-lookin' trousers and boots, old-fashioned, like from yer grampa's closet. But I also seen, under the poncho he's carryin' the fanciest-lookin fiddle I ever laid eyes on."

He pauses, waits for a rumble of thunder to stop rattling the windows and squeezing the roof. “I'm no wire-polisher, miself. I wouldn' know a decent fiddle from a clattery ol' devil-box less I got to hear 'em, and even then you could probly fool me if'n yer good enough or bad enough at playin' the business. But even I can tell this thing's somethin special. The body is black, as midnight in a coal mine, but it shimmers all green and purple and gold when it moves past the light.  The bow looks sharp at the end, like a bayonet on a ol' rifle, and strings is already quiverin fore it even gets set to em, like live high tension wires. And the pins at the top is tufted, like bedraggled feathers."

“Johnny Boy don't say nothin. Don't greet nobody, don't tell nobody where he been. Just swaggers to the center of the floor and sets bow to strings, like he always useta." He's huddled in on himself, now, the feather clutched in both hands under his chin, one thumb running up and down the spine, compulsive like. “I couldn' tell ya what it was he played. Couldn' hum nor whistle a note of it. But I won't never be able to get it outa my head neither. It was like having that cold blast of wind come down over you, outa the northwest, right before the rain hits. Was like walkin' past a field a dry corn, after harvest, and hearing all the dead stalks rustle one gainst t'nother though there aint no wind. Was like fallin' inta a tangle of blackberries in bloom, brambles swallow you up, thorns scrape you raw, but the smell of the blossoms is so strong you barely notice. It was like lookin' out from a window, when the shutters is bangin in the wind, and seeing a different land outside from the one that oughta be there. It was like being lost out in the dark and havin' nothing but ol' tunes from when you was a young un to ward off whatever might be out in the night watchin' you. It was so goddamn beautiful, but I aint never been so sore fraid in all my life."

“The only thing is, the longer I listened," he sits up, a little, seems to notice us again, “the less I was sure it were a fiddle I was listening to. Started to sound like a whole mess of crows, like if crows had a gospel choir, all singin' together. Or like somebody'd… made a fiddle outa crow voices, stead of outa wood or strings."

“I," says the bobcat, “don't think I know what you mean by that, sir."

“Don't think I rightly know miself what I mean by that," the skunk shrugs, “Like I said, I couldn't tell what t'was. You'd have to hear it fer your own self. Not that I'd wish that on you."

“But you said it was beautiful?" the bison's brows furrow.

“So beautiful. And I pray I don't never hear it again, not that it does no good" He glares at the doorway, though there's nothing outside but the storm. “So, Johnny Boy finished playin'. And it was dead silent, not a one of dared even t'breathe. And he bowed slow, and he grinned mean, like he'd sure showed us. Which he had, alright, I'll give him that. So he turns toward the bar, to get hisself a drink I s'pose. I remember thinkin' that he still aint said a word to nobody, so I'm fixin to ask where he got that fiddle. When there was a sudden almighty wind, and all the lights went out."

Suddenly a gust of wind hits so hard it rocks the whole shed. The lights flicker and the fire in the stove roars, and for a second all the fear I got gets real specific: but no tornado rips the walls down, no funnel cloud knocks the roof off, and we all relax… except the skunk. His back is ramrod straight, his face is looking out the window at the black thunderlit night, and his eyes aint focused on anything I can see. He continues like he's trying to hurry. “I saw a square of less-dark darkness, and I realize the doors musta blown open. And there's a man standin' there. A tall man. Too tall. Either that, or his feet don't touch the ground none."

“Folk don't agree as what happened next. I heard em claim it was a wolf or a lion or a dragon, but I don't believe none of em could see enough to even guess as to species. Twas too dark to see most anythin'. All they coulda see'd, all I could see, was the too-tall man blowin in. He glided over to Johnny boy, cowerin' by the bar, he caught him up inta the air."

“And he kissed him."

“Next thing I know, the darkness is a great flock of crows, scatterin' every which way, cawin' and flappin' and screamin' all to hell. Everyone in the juke house's hollerin' and runnin', divin' under the tables and coverin' their heads." The rain's passed on now, there's just a gentle wind humming under the corrugated steel eaves. “By the time the lights came back on, the crows're gone. So's the tall man. So's Johnny Boy."

“Din't nobody never see him again." The skunk crumples back, a little, and he don't look drunk anymore, he just looks old and tired. And relieved. Like when you've been walking all day, and your back is sore, and your feet hurt, and you finally get home and sit down. “All I got to prove it happened is this feather."

I think he's about to say more, but the lights go out.

It's pitch black, but I hear the door creak open. I feel a breeze come in. I think I hear the skunk's voice say something, sounds like it could be 'find me?' could be 'finally?' And then the darkness aint darkness, it's a writhing riot of crows, bursting out everywhere, screaming in my face, trying to pour out the bus station door fast as they can.

The lights don't came back on. Toldya about the solar panel. But the stove does, a little. That's just enough light to see the skunk's gone. Only trace left is a feather. Not like the one he was holding, this one's glossy and new and every little fiber's neatly in place.

I shouldn't have picked it up. I shouldn't have touched it. It just… didn't occur to me that not taking it was an option, I dunno.

We wait for the bus outside. Only remains of the storm are distant lightning, off east, and if either of the other two see the silhouette of a tall man, outlined against the lightning, tall enough that maybe his feet weren't touching the ground, well, they don't say anything.

They board fast as they can, when the bus comes. I don't have money for a fare, but the bobcat says something to the driver and I get given a break. But they both sit as far from me as they can, and I don't blame them.

So yeah. That's how I got this feather. I've carried it ever since, but I don't know any more about it than that.

Except maybe... if the lights go out, any second now?

If you hear the door slam open?

If there's a wild cold breeze?

If the darkness is suddenly full of crows, and if I'm gone?

You leave any feathers you see right where they lie.