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.
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