Chapter 13

Harry saw that both birds were heading southwest, rapidly ascending.

Owen stepped close to Harry, holding out his hand. “Can I see that?”

Harry handed what she held over, and Owen examined the metal band. “Copper, not much alloying, maybe a little tin. Not really bronze, though.” He worked the hinge. “But this is sophisticated. A hinge.” He pursed his lips, “A clasp that a beak could work. But I can’t imagine whoever was hammering on this, and you can see the hammer marks, was using a beak or a beak-held tool to do so.”

He handed it back to Harry. “Were I you, I’d make sure I never lost that.”

Harry laughed. “How am I going to lose something that’s eight inches across and weighs four or five pounds?”

Owen nodded. “Well, along about the time we get back to the cave, you might be thinking about it.”

Owen spoke to Jack, “You understand what just happened?”

“The birds checked us out.”

“More than that,” Owen informed him. “Yesterday, Griff did the right thing. Today, Harry did too. For us, showing open palms. Both of the birds displayed something like that.” He paused to think. “You know, I don’t think it was the display that counted. I think it was standing there, wings folded. They’re fast, but the ground is not their natural element. I bet that wings folded is their equivalent of palms out.”

“Then what was the display at the end, then?” One of the Marines asked, Chavez, Harry decided. “Game cocks do that, trying to show who’s boss.”

“Yesterday, Griff raised his rifle, but didn’t shoot. I think that was the same thing. Hey, I could mess you up if I wanted, but I don’t. Jeez, it was fast!”

“It was fast,” Jack repeated. “Harry, you could have been hurt.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Don’t knock instincts, Sergeant,” Owen told Jack. “This was a ritual, the same thing happens in human meetings, too. Exchange of signs of lack of hostile intent, followed by an exchange of gifts.”

“We’ve killed a half dozen of them,” Jack reminded him brutally.

“We screwed up,” Owen agreed. “We never let them get close enough to go through this the first day. Instead, we opened fire at a couple of hundred yards. Yesterday, Griff and his people killed one.”

“It was chasing us,” Alexis said. “It sure looked hungry to me!”

“Or maybe it had lost a family member the day before?” Owen said quietly. “That might piss you off too, if someone killed a relation of yours. You might be less curious, more hostile, at the next meeting.”

“So,” asked Chavez, “Why aren’t they still trying to eat us?”

“Griff,” Owen said simply. “He stopped to think, he got them to stop and think.”

Jack laughed. “Chavez, I don’t know about you, but I was in seven big firefights in Iraq -- six with the sheet heads and once with the Air Force. Afterwards, the zoomie CO apologized to our CO for the two guys they wounded.”

“Shit happens,” Chavez growled in agreement.

“Yes,” it was Owen speaking again. “And you just might want to think about how smart it is to realize that ... and let it go. Shit does happen; getting beyond the initial emotional reaction is pretty complex behavior. As complex as our own.”

“You’re saying that not only are they smart,” Jack asked, “but they are as smart as us?”

“When you run a foot race, Sergeant,” Owen said, “you can win, lose, or draw. Run that race against different opponents, you can get a quite different outcome. Odds are, some of the birds are smarter than others. One or two of us are smarter than your lieutenant.

“One other thing. A lot of Iraqi and Afghan politics are tribal-based. Some of those tribes are in blood feuds hundreds of years old -- we are more sophisticated in the West and we can put retaliation on hold. Look at our relations with Japan, for instance. Or the Germans and French. The ability to hold back on grudges is a sign of a sophisticated culture -- we are going to want to make sure that everyone understands that.”

Jack laughed. “Don’t remind me about the LT! Actually, remind me!” Jack waved towards the meadow. “Let me check again. Let me check a lot more carefully. We need to go forward, if we can.”

He looked much more carefully, and then they finally emerged from the trees, moving quickly, but carefully to the rock pile. Again, Jack used binoculars to survey down on the sand bar, now bereft of any logs.

“I’m going down there,” Jack told them. “Marines, watch my back. Harry, you, Alexis, and Owen, watch out for the Air Force.”