We’ve been finding a lot of bones in the woods. We, as in I find them in the dogs’ mouths, the dogs find them scattered in the brushy sides of paths. Banksy found a small section of a rib cage this morning, maybe ripped from a little deer. She extracted herself a section, and had no interest in yielding it to me, so on we walked.

I’ve been steering clear of the brook because of the gray hair man sitting on the downed tree where the path winds to the top of the hill. He doesn’t want us in there, and he’s large, although I doubt he could move all that fast. It’s just him in his tweed and his small valise, he’s spectacled and far older than I. He got up as if to chase us last time I saw him, but we ran as fast as we could. I could hear his yelling all the way down the hill to the brook.

Today I thought to try to walk down to the brook. We miss it. The fires have taken away most of Santa Rosa, they’re burning after the hurricanes, after the earthquakes, and people and animals are still missing. Thousands of houses burned in minutes, flames appearing from nowhere in the dead of night. That’s why we wanted to walk to the brook. I figured if the gray hair man was there we could run by again as fast as we could and at least run over the bridge and see the brook, run by the old charred tank where I drew a giant sparkling ruby.

But on the path that way, the smell of death started. It grew into a wall. I don’t know what corpse does that, not something small, a deer someone didn’t finish, my best guess. The dogs picked up the smell before I did, noses to the air with with thrill of something to come. It started small, like all the dead things do, but grew so big as we trotted on that Banksy stopped in her tracks, rib still hanging out her mouth. Like she could see it, eyes big, taking in the smell. Then she turned around and ran. That was enough for me, no adventuring in to see if it was killed by puma or coyote.

For some reason, we’re supposed to stay away from the brook.

We followed her backtracking and decided to run all that way back to the meadow. Somewhere on the way, Banksy gave me the rib cage and I traded her back a little apple cookie for dogs. Not a fair trade, but that’s how it goes. I hung the rib cage in a tree just off the path. If someone else wants it, they can get it there.