As background, let me begin by stating with particularity, that I was on a mission for Uncle Sam by myself, somewhere in country and tasked with getting some stuff and toting said stuff back safely to my detachment’s location where the aforementioned stuff would be disseminated per standard operating procedures. I don’t remember what occasioned me going it alone on this mission, but duty must’ve called. I served as a sergeant with a three-soldier detachment and although this mission had us down two men, even by myself, we’d still be about thirty-three percent strong.
Anyway, there I was plodding along when I saw two Apache helicopters bobbing along in the distant skies. Something must’ve got their knickers in twist because they tilted into a fighting stance and started discharging buckets of rounds. Now distracted from my normally superior sense of situational awareness, I foolishly allowed the enemy to sneak up on me.
Out of nowhere I heard a quick flutter coming from behind followed by something smacking me on the back of my head. Sharp claws dug into my skin. A big blackbird had swooped down stealthily from the cloud cover and tried to make off with my official U.S. Army issue soft cap—sergeant stripes and all! What kind of barbarous devil bird it was that leapt upon me that day I cannot say with complete certainty. Nevertheless, identifying it as a member of the corvus corax family seems appropriate. The “common raven” for those not keeping up with their bird Latin.
As a trained soldier sworn to protect Army issue headwear, I resolved not to capitulate to this raiding raven’s treachery and quickly engaged in some close-quarter, hand-to-hand combat with the eerie attacker. It had been a long year and I was looking forward to hanging up my hat, but unlike Captain Ahab, I would do so on my own terms. Hence, the battle waged on and just when I had my enemy on the run, another raven—in a swift move demonstrating a superior knowledge of Napoleonic tactics—flanked the Detachment’s left line with an enfilade of rapid clawing. A few artful hand-chops worthy of anything in Barney Fife’s wheelhouse and I soon emerged the victor over this plucky band of feathers.
It all happened so fast and even with the fog of war still gripping me all these years later, I remember looking up and seeing the two ravens perched way up high on a naked tree limb. They remained on high-level alert counterattacking with blood curdling caws and squawks, which thanks to my extensive military language studies I was able to interpret. Quoth the ravens, “Take your departure from our patch without further delay.” With my opponents now out of effective pecking range, I was happy to oblige. No bad blood here on my end; we all fought the good battle and presumably, would live to fight another day.
Outside the wire there can be a strange respect among enemies at times like this. My worthy opponents had legitimate reasons to ponder weak and weary. Some thirty years earlier, the Russians swooped in and deforested eighty-percent of the land. I doubt these two ravens were around to see the destruction of their ancestral homes, but bad blood tends to pass from generation to generation. My present enemies didn’t know a Russki from a Doughboy; they saw an invading hat and reacted accordingly.
I was a short-timer when the birds got all Alfred Hitchcock on me, and I took this as good a sign it was time to pack-up my rucksack and pop smoke. Home again to a place where everyone gets along and there’s never any fighting. A place where someday you could armchair slump it on a cold, snowy New England afternoon and disappear peacefully into a good murder mystery. Like Marcia Muller’s Circle in the Water.
Then, out of nowhere, Muller’s dogged private detective Sharon McCone tells us she’s been afraid of birds ever since a blackbird once swooped down and grabbed her head. Now I’m reliving Operation Raven Nevermore all over again. But no worries, no midnight dreary—McCone got my back every step of the way.
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Postscript
A Circle in the Water Insight
from the desk of
Marcia Muller
McCone’s fear of birds was inspired by the actual incident she described in Circle in the Water—a bird grabbing her head on her high-school senior class picnic—only in reality, it was my head! I’ve steered clear of the feathered creatures ever since.
— Marcia Muller
* * *
Marcia Muller has written many novels, short stories, essays, and works of criticism. A New York Times best-selling author, she has won six Anthony Awards and a Shamus Award and is also the recipient of the Private Eye Writers of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award (their highest accolade). She lives in Sonoma County, California, with her husband and frequent collaborator, mystery writer Bill Pronzini. Her final novel in the long-running Sharon McCone series, Circle in the Water, was published on April 23, 2024
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