It had been following them for the past four days. As soon as they left the house in the morning for the mile and a half walk to their small country school, it was there, never getting close, but at the same time never letting them out of its sight.

It was following them now. The look in its eye was unreadable. The boy looked back over his shoulder. He felt that the look was unfriendly.

         The boy glanced at his older brother. Jarod seemed totally oblivious to the silent black shape behind them. That was not unusual—Jarod was usually unaware of anything that didn’t require his immediate attention. His brother was twelve, bold and brash, his frame already hinting at the large sturdy man to come.

The boy was just ten, a quiet soul who thought about what he said before he said it, and about what he did before he did it. His attitude toward the world was gentle, but he would defend himself if he had to, and if he couldn’t, it was known that Jarod would back him up.

In return, the boy helped his older brother by mentioning possible consequences that Jarod hadn’t considered or didn’t care about. If Jarod did something anyway, he knew that his younger brother wouldn’t rat him out. Most of the time, the unspoken arrangement worked well.

As they walked along, the boy got more and more nervous. There were now several black shapes trailing after them, flitting silently from branch to branch. Crows were normally a noisy bunch, but these uttered not a sound. They were intently focused. There were no random exploratory flights off to the side, no pecking at things to check edibility. Nothing distracted their attention from the boys. It was most un-crowlike.

The boy nudged his brother. “Hey Jarod, let’s take the flat way home today.”

The flat way led across a field and then through a small wood, hardly more than a copse. The path they usually took skirted the bluffs overlooking the river.

“Nah, I’m hungry. And I got homework.” Jarod’s crafty sideward glance told the boy that the homework part was BS.

 “Fine,” the boy agreed reluctantly. He looked back over his shoulder. There were now at least twenty large crows patiently following them.

“Jarod, look behind us. That’s really weird.”

Jarod glanced back and said, “Just a bunch of stupid crows.” He bent down to pick up a rock. The boy grabbed his arm and said, “Please don’t do that. Let’s just get home.”

Jarod examined his brother closely enough to see genuine worry. Normally he would have gone ahead and did what he wanted to do anyway, but for once he acquiesced.

“Whatever. Bet I could hit one again, though.”

You probably could, the boy thought. And that was the problem. On the way home last week they had come across a pair of crows picking away at a dead squirrel on the path. Jarod had thrown a rock at the birds and hit one of them. The crow had squawked loudly and tried to fly away, but it couldn’t. The rock had broken its wing. The other crow had escaped to the safety of the trees.

In the way that boys often do, devoid of purposeful malice but also unmindful of inflicted harm, curious yet thoughtless of consequence, unconsciously wishing to assert dominance over a smaller creature but heedless of how the creature might feel, Jarod had followed the wounded crow, chucking a couple more stones at it before picking up a stout stick to poke at it and kill it. The boy had tried to stop his brother, but Jarod had shrugged him off, asking him what was the matter with him? It was just a dumb old crow. As they had walked away from the murder scene, the boy looked back to see the other crow drop down out of the tree and push at the dead one, and then scream loudly. Jarod didn’t even turn around. By the time they got home, Jarod had completely forgotten the incident, but the boy had replayed the scene over and over in his mind until deep into the night.

They kept walking without talking. The path started to steepen as they approached the bluffs. It would rise over eighty feet by the time they reached the crest where the river below had carved an oxbow turn into the bluff. The riverbanks were covered with loose rocks, broken tree trunks, and the ubiquitous collection of discarded tires.

As the path ascended, the birds became more agitated, occasionally letting loose short squawks. A cold finger of fear prodded the base of the boy’s skull and walked slowly down his spine.

“Uh, Jarod. Look.”

The flock of crows had drawn closer, their beady black eyes fixed upon the boys.

Jarod grunted and shrugged. “”Wonder what they’re up to. Must be a dead animal at the top.”

“Let’s go a little faster.”

“What’s wrong with you, bro? You afraid of some stupid birds?”

By now they had reached the top. Here the path ran close to the edge of the bluff with a drop-off that went straight down to the rocks. The boy instinctively stayed away from the edge, but his older brother strode fearlessly along, his feet barely a foot from the void.

There was a sudden whistle of large wings as several crows flew closely over their heads and lit on the ground about twenty feet ahead of them. The boys stopped. The remainder of the flock landed on the ground behind them. All the birds stood facing them, motionless, waiting.

“Jarod, I don’t like this. What are they doing?” the boy asked nervously.

“Don’t know and don’t care,” Jarod answered. “But they’re not going to be there for long.”

He bent down to pick up some throwing stones. As he straightened, the boy thought he saw a shadow approach his brother from the rear. A strange look came into Jarod’s eyes. His fingers relaxed and the stones fell to the ground.

“Jarod?”

The boy reached out to touch his brother on the shoulder. Jarod’s head snapped around and he eyed his brother, his head moving from side to side in short jerky movements.

“Jarod?” the boy asked again, his voice shaking.

Jarod sudden spun around to face the cliff. He bent down and extended his arms. With a powerful downbeat, his arms started flapping as he ran to the edge and launched himself into the air. The boy was frozen with horror as Jarod disappeared. A couple of seconds later he heard a muffled thud. Fearfully he inched towards the edge and peered cautiously over. Jarod‘s broken body was draped over a large rock at the river’s edge. A small pool of blood was starting to form under his head.

He felt one of the crows fly past him to sail in narrowing circles down to the dead boy below. It landed beside the body and gave three shrill screams that sounded strangely like triumph.

Quaking with fear, the boy crawled back from the edge and turned around. The crows had formed a semicircle around him and were staring at him silently.

As the boy stared back at the crows, he suddenly understood. He knew he should have stopped Jarod from tormenting the crow last week. At the very least, he should have tried harder than he actually did. But he hadn’t. Tears filled his eyes and he wept, wept for the loss of his brother, wept for the suffering of the crow and its cruel death, and lastly, wept for himself for he felt sure that the crows would have him follow his brother into death.

When his tears were finally exhausted, he drew a halting breath. “I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “I’m so sorry. I would do anything to change what happened. I’m so sorry.”

He sat and waited. The crows started to caw, squawk, chide, and squabble. The cacophony went on for several minutes until one crow emitted a piercing scream. The flock fell silent.

The boy sat on the ground for an hour, numb with horror and grief, while the crows kept vigil. Finally he crawled back to the edge of the drop-off for one last look at the shattered body of his brother. Then as one, the flock rose and flew away, except for a single crow that remained behind. It was the one that had flown down to inspect Jarod’s body, but the boy had no way of knowing that. The birds all looked alike.

The boy dragged himself home and explained to his heartbroken parents that his brother had stumbled and had fallen over the cliff. His story was believed because Jarod was known to be a daredevil.

Those were the last words the boy ever spoke. The crow took up residence in the large oak tree next to the house. It is still there.