Falling from the sky part 21

The wizard walked ever deeper into the verdant fastness of the ancient forest. The light herein was subdued, the rays of the sun occluded for the most part by the thick canopy of greenery overhead. The rich smell of good black soil, of green growing things surrounded him like a comfortable mantle. Just ahead on his left, the wizard espied a flat-topped gray rock, a boulder, if the truth be told. The wizard estimated its weight at well over a thousand pounds. There, bathing in the golden glow of one of the few places on the forest floor that actually received direct sunlight was a rattlesnake of no mean size. Its body, the wizard noted was easily the thickness of his arm, and glossy with the iridescent sheen of good health.The diamond like pattern of black upon a deep brown background served, the wizard knew, to render the serpent all but invisible as it glided along the forest floor in search of its prey. Today, obviously the huge fellow was not hungry and merely desirous of soaking in the warmth of the sun. The wizard tipped his hat in friendly fashion and said 'Hello there, it's good to see you' ('As opposed to NOT seeing you and maybe stepping on you') he amended mentally. The serpent's lidless eyes, amber orbs, shifted toward him, their elliptical pupils widening slightly. The wizard counted 18 rattles at the end of his tail. The snake's head rose from the sun-warmed rock, it's tongue, deeply forked and blue-black flickered forth, questing.'No, no...don't get up' the wizard said, his eyes twinkling. 'I'm just passing through.' Suiting his actions to his words, the wizard continued on his way, chuckling to himself. He wondered fleetingly what the significance of this meeting might be. Various cultures differed widely as to their attitude toward snakes. While some found them to be potent symbols of regeneration, others took them to be powerfully magical allies and benign if unmolested, while still others held them to be the personification of evil and would no doubt take an exceedingly dim view of such an encounter. What could it mean? he puzzled. 'Of course,' the wizard spoke aloud, 'It could just be that when you're in the woods, you might run across a snake, eh?' The wind crooned softly through the overhanging branches, the trees creaking with what sounded suspiciously like laughter.'All right, maybe not' he conceded. 'We'll just see.'As he rounded the next turning, the wizard came upon a large crow perched  on a branch some fifteen feet above the forest floor. Odd thing, that, the wizard mused. Crows were more creatures of fields and peripheral woodlands than deep forests. Odd too was the fact that he'd had no audible warning of this notably noisy creature's presence. The wizard tipped his battered old fedora back on his head and squinted upward, looking more closely at the glossy black bird. With an ungainly hop and a flutter of ebony wings the crow shifted to a position now directly facing the wizard.Its shiny shoe button eyes looked directly at him as the crow tipped his head from one side to the other.. 'Well hello, old Trickster' the wizard said 'What brings you so deep into the woods?' For a wonder, the bird did not fly away at the sound of the wizard's speaking, but remained on the branch, its beady eyes still scrutinizing him. 'Mind you behave yourself, now' the wizard said evenly. He dug in his pocket for a moment and produced a liberty head dime, solid silver, of a type long since discontinued. The wizard flipped the dime high into the air, its shiny surface gleaming even in the subdued light. With a croaking squawk, the crow launched itself into the air and as the tumbling coin reached the apex of its ascent, the bird deftly plucked the glittering ten cent piece from midair. Deep black wings well over a yard in span fanned out as the feathered trickster wheeled in  flight and landed once more upon its perch, the shiny coin held firmly in its long black beak.Chuckling and cooing to itself in apparent glee, the bird seemed to have forgotten the wizards presence. Laying the dime upon the branch it perched on, the crow nudged it along the length of the sturdy limb for a few inches, then snapped it up, flinging it high into the air, only to catch once again in that long sharp black beak as it fell.'Well and good' the wizard said to the crow. He tugged his battered old fedora in place and looking up once more, he pointed an admonitory finger at the preoccupied bird. ' Remember this, my friend...you owe me 'the wizard shook his overshirt comfortably around his shoulders.Patting the gleaming steel head of the Hammer that he kept always at his side, he slipped off down the winding forest path, deep in thought.1

TO BE CONTINUED2

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