The Time Diana tried to Catch the Quail - Part Three

So Diana was single minded in her quest for the quail.  One fat quail for her plate, that's all she wanted. One crested little bird.  Each day before Thanksgiving hundreds, no thousands, of them perched in the Coyote bush and along the creek bed, watching her.  They stood like silent sentinels giving her a smirk and a wink.  When she grabbed up her broom and ran screaming at them, bansheelike, they'd take off in unison cackling at her foolishness. 

Her children took up with the neighbors and made plans to have Thanksgiving dinner downtown at the Community Center, where they knew dozens of families would offer sympathy and food.

Diana never missed them. Her purpose was the complete and total annihilation of the Quail.

She had given up on dinner and only wanted revenge.  She kept her broom handy and wished for a shotgun. She had never killed another living thing, except spiders and flies and the occasional rodent, but she would not be outdone by game.

The night before the big day found her crouching under the porch with a bottle of Rainier Ale and a rake.  She'd wait for the quail to take tonight's bait of fois gras which lay just beyond a sticky paper rat trap, which would ensnare its tiny feet, and allow her to rush at it with the rake pinning it with the tines.

She waited and she waited.

Time stood still. it started to drizzle.  A million quail sat in the bushes laughing at her. But she would not be forced into reckless action. Zenlike she hunkered under the porch, heedless of the rain drops oozing between the wooden slats above and plopping on her head.  She waited.

Finally, one perky little fellow ventured forth from the brush. He bobbed and weaved his way toward the trap, his crest aquiver on his tiny head. He looked left and he looked right, he cooed and murmered along his pathway, toward the waiting trap. He inched forward. Diana held her breath.

When he was at the trap, his nostrils clearly picking up the delicious scent of the expensive bait, she tensed her muscles, without making a sound.  The quail looked around him, before moving again, then he did a little quail dance and scampered onto the sticky paper pecking at the goosey morsels that awaited him.

Diana moved, fast, and sure her rake poised above the now hapless little bird. And then he screamed. He screamed like a bird possessed, so loud, so shrill, so unexpected, Diana dropped the rake and then tripped over it.  She grabbed at the bird, struggling to free his feet from the sticky paper and still screaming.  

Suddenly Diana was besieged by a scene out of Alfred Hitchcock. All the birds in all the woods came swooping down upon her, quail, blackbirds, crows, starlings, hawks, and turkey vultures, swooping and circling and showing their talons.

When she woke up it was Thanksgiving morning and foggy.  She lay in her bed, and considered the weirdest dream she's ever had.

She still had time to bake a squash pie and get to the Community Center in time for Thanksgiving dinner with the kids and the rest of the town.

In the bushes the quail chirped their farewell as she backed the VW out of the driveway and onto the main road into town.

The Time Diana Tried to Catch the Quail - Part Two

As Thanksgiving nears and the weather turns sullen, we return to the saga of Diana and the quail. This was in 1975, shortly after Diana had moved to the small "farm" that wasn't really a farm, just an assortment of buildings near the creek, where the Franklin family kept a few chickens and grew their own vegetables, but calling it farm made it seem romantic and earthy and oh so right for the 70's.

Diana rented the stand alone building on the creekbank, one large room and a loft. She wanted to do something different for Thanksgiving and besides that with three children and no job and a deadbeat ex-husband, she couldn't afford a turkey and all the fixin's. Oh, she could always go down to the Community Center, which in those days always had a big communal dinner and not just for poor people. About a hundred or so would gather for the pot luck, turkeys donated by the Community Center and drinks and side dishes brought by the community members.

When we left Diana, she had just been outsmarted yet again by the quail in a rain squall, and had dragged back inside to scheme some more. Her kids had been watching from the window, and now the oldest, the boy, said, "Mom," in that not quite squeaky voice teenage boys use when about to impart some adolescent wisdom.

The girls kept their distance, trying not to giggle at their Mom's dripping hair and soaked clothes. Diana gave them the "look" and made it even sterner to the boy.

"Let's just go to the Community Center. You already fed the pumpkin pie and the cranberries to the quail, and," he went on sensibly, "there won't be enough for all of us to eat, anyway."

She could have gone to the Community Center, with her kids and all of us who had made it our Thanksgiving tradition. Larry even brought Irish whiskey for his table, and there was always more than enough to eat and still send home to those who were under the weather, or infirm or just too anti-social to dine in public.

Diana was none of the above, but she was stubborn. She was determined to get that quail. Never mind that it wouldn't even feed one mouth, let alone four. It was defying her, and she would not be defied. She would not be bested by a small bird.

Or a whole bevy of them, for hundreds seemed to have gathered in the coyote bush to taunt her as they waited for the nightly feast she put under the stick and box trap. She could hear them squabbling over the bread crumbs and molasses and pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce she was tempting them with.

"You go to the Community Center," she said. "You can take the girls and ride your bikes there. I am staying here to eat my quail." She didn't raise her voice; she just made her statement and disappeared into the bathroom, where they soon heard the shower running.

Two days left until Thanksgiving.