We used to be hardcore. Hardcore in Rosendale. That meant running a series of underground tunnels with the Native American warlocks, keeping giant Smilodon tigers at bay. The whole town used to manufacture cement so there are these mining tunnels in the hills. Some of them you know about. The other ones the warlocks keep actual Cerberuses and sabertooth tigers in, waiting for their moment to pounce. They feed them farm animals to bide their time. I was on the payroll on Wallstreet but I’d drive up the Thruway every weekend to see the girls and the tigers underground. The lower you went the hotter it got and you’d have these three-headed dogs biting your leg and a half-naked dominatrix biting your ear. There was a Shaman who led me down there. Molten lava and sacred Indian rituals. They put some paint on my face and I’d sit there in the glimmering torchlight waiting for the visitation. I paid big money and then all I see is this little puny pink guy with what looks like a tinfoil wand. I remember thinking, He’s not even green. This “alien” told me a few things though.

After that I sold my car and homes and moved out to the desert. I forgot about Rosendale and lived in an Airstream, eating powdered soup every day. I’d been there about six months when Sabra showed up. I was outside under the canopy with my shirt off, smoking a corncob pipe. Red from the sun. I squinted at her as she towered over me. “Take this, brother,” she said, handing me back my old 9mm. I thanked her.

Once I had the gun I politely carjacked my way back to civilization. I found myself back on the train trestle in Rosendale with four dollars and enough pills to keep my conscience at bay for another 40 minutes. During that time I made it to the tunnel entry but was denied entrance. I did not draw my weapon. Instead I headed up the turnpike back to Manhattan and got a slice. Before long I was wearing a suit again, two sizes too small, standing in an elevator listening to the little bells with each floor passing. I reached my old office and the Shaman was there.

Later we were at the deli and still later we got to the airport. I’m glad to be back, I told him as we buckled into 2E and 2F. I couldn’t take another Airstream minute. You’ll like this place, he said as the plane left the ground. It’ll remind you of Rosendale.

You won’t remember this but you used to love watching the travelers come through the rye field in their dark suits, dragging the big rubber sacks. You’d crouch just inside your little princess tent cradling your stuffed animal dog. I’d lie on my stomach beside your tent with the binoculars pressed against my face, elbows in the dirt, waiting for the white crane to show up.

There came a day when you were finally ready to go up and meet the crane yourself. You’d outgrown your princess tent and the stuffed animals. Now you lay on your stomach beside me with your own binoculars. I think I see him, you told me. You’re right, I said. That’s the crane. Are you ready to meet him?

Yes. I looked at your bright face, your mouth very serious. Take this, I said and handed you my scythe. You rose up from the ground and pulled your hood over your head. You pushed through the rye, your black cloak flowing. It almost looked like you were floating. You brushed past all the travelers who still dragged their lumpy bags across the dirt.

The crane stood very still on its stick legs, feathers ruffled by the wind. He turned as you moved closer, your cloak flowing. Through my binoculars I could see your hand reaching out to him with your long fingernails. It looked like you were asking him something. Then he opened his sharp beak and spread his wings wide. He shrieked, sounding almost human, and in seconds the travelers surrounded you. But you swept the scythe like I taught you, parallel to the ground, and took them out two at a time, cutting through their dark suits. I watched as they piled up.

The crane took to the purple sky, still screaming. This time I knew he wouldn’t be coming back. Before long his wail was replaced by the noise of a police fanboat coming up through the swamp.

I was proud of you but sad too.

This is what I told your mother: She’s become an expert reaper. When she comes back she’ll do much better than we ever did. And your mother agreed.

Baht’s face pressed into the dry red and orange leaves, crushing them where he lay. He had collapsed half in, half out of the stone foundation of an ancient building. The air was full of black smoke and screams of monkeys and macaws. An arrow stuck straight up out of his forearm, pinning him to the forest dirt. The blood was dried and black and there were flies. An hour ago he’d been standing at the foot of the hill giving a speech “to his countrymen.” He’d waved his arms and shouted a lot, a rain of spittle exploding out every time he enunciated a great word. However, he’d been wrong to gather all the forest animals and try to educate them about the municipal legislative chambers, over which he presided. Even in his drunken state he should have chosen a better pulpit. What does a chipmunk care about percentiles and electoral divisions? A chipmunk is only interested in having his cheeks full of acorns. But they were gathered here just the same, to see the political suicide of a man who’d left his own species behind.

The badgers were the first to leave. The deer and the groundhogs followed. The venomous snakes were not far behind. The moles didn’t have far to go to get out of earshot. Still, he went on loudly extolling the virtues of his own political preferences and denigrating his enemies, now with an audience of some fire ants and a robin with a crooked foot. When he lifted his arm in a toast to his own political achievement, an arrow shot straight through his back, leaving a clean hole between ribs but missing, by sheer luck, any vital organs. He’d been born with a small lung on one side, thankfully, and the arrow merely singed it.

Stumbling then onto the old stones of the foundation he collapsed, only to have arrow #2 stick his arm to the earth. He lay in a bed of autumn leaves and opened one eye to behold his attacker: a spindly figure with dark eyes and a tall hat. The figure spoke even as he drew back his bow once more. That’s enough. THAT’S ENOUGH. He fired off the final arrow that brought first a stillness back to the forest and then the shock of complete silence.

But before long the chipmunks were chattering and flirting again and a pair of wandering sheep began to graze just over the rise. The dark figure straightened up and walked back across the moss and through the bramble patch before reaching his skiff and paddling quickly away into the violet twilight.