'Alala

I drive the compact rental car through the large open gate, under the curved sign spelling out Hale Aina, Hawaiian for "house of the land," in lazy cursive letters of forged iron. The Blanchards own a lot of land--the ranch is the third largest privately owned parcel in the islands, and everything I can see, and much that I can't see, they own.
      It's dry this time of year, and hot, and a cloud of red dust trails behind me. To the right and left of the road is scrubby grass with a few tall spindly canes of wild sugar mixed in. Blanchard's own farm bred cattle, huge Brahma-crosses, don't bother to look up from grazing, but a man on a rangy gray horse shields his eyes from the sun to stare as I go by. The family still employs Hawaiian cowboys to look picturesque on their ranch. When the cowboys get too old to ride, they drive trucks and let their sons do the riding and posing. The Blanchards call them paniolos--as fifth and sixth generation descendants of missionaries they feel they've inherited the Hawaiian culture along with their lands on the Big Island.
      I came to the ranch several years before--wanting to study the native crows, as some of the most basic biological facts are still unknown: their habitat needs, annual and seasonal food requirements, social behavior, and demographic characteristics. But Mr. Blanchard refused to allow me to see them. At the time there were still a few nesting pairs left in the sanctuary set aside for them in Hualalai, but now the only Hawaiian crows left in the world are the fourteen that live in the forest on the ranch and the nine in a captive breeding facility I run on Maui. The rest have died out due to loss of land and breeding sites, predation by non-native animals, and disease. The fourteen remaining wild crows, if "left alone" as Mr. Blanchard wishes, will likely die out in ten to twenty years.
      At the crest of a hill sits the house of the land. It's white, with black shutters, and looks from the front like a large New England farmhouse. The original Blanchards were missionaries from Boston. One of the kids answers my knock. He's about sixteen, the oldest of the children. Though the family's business is cattle, the mother and all of the children are vegetarians. The one on view looks tall and spindly from a diet of greens and fruit, and nut brown from a summer at the beach.
      As a greeting he says, "The 'alala are happy here." His voice is low for someone so young, and his Adam's apple is prominent and strangely mobile.
      I nod in agreement--why get into it with him? A baby Medici has no power to grant me the crows I need. He looks momentarily confused, perhaps he was anticipating a challenge. Maybe he now thinks I'm not the scientist he was anticipating, but a salesman or Jehovah's Witness.
      "You're here to talk to my father about the 'alala, right?"
      "Yes, that's right," I say.
      He makes no move to lead me to him, instead looks me up and down. "You're the scientist guy sent by the state," he says doubtfully. He's too young to have watched "Gilligan's Island," unless in reruns, but probably was expecting someone more along the lines of the Professor.
      "Dr. Byrd," I say, holding out my hand.
      He thinks I'm joking; his Adam's apple bobs up and down as he laughs.
      "Seriously. It's spelt with a Y. Haven't you ever noticed how people often choose professions that go with their names?"
      He stops laughing but keeps looking at me. I'm his amusement for the morning. Although his voice is deep, the kid seems younger than his age, naive, a little on the simple side.
      "I can call the 'alala out of the trees," he tells me.
      "I'd like to see that."
      His narrow face clouds over--he suspects a trap. He brushes his curly brown hair away from his face. "I'll find father," he says, turning, and pads silently down the hall, bare feet sliding on polished wood.
      A painting of crows in an 'ohi'a tree hangs opposite me. It's surprisingly good, capturing the cunning look in their eyes. Crows are intelligent birds when they aren't inbred. The crows here are of different genetic stock than those at the captive breeding facility. At this point, even if my birds were to reproduce wildly, they would probably only continue to produce a feeble population. I need some new blood.
      I wander, uninvited, into the large living room. The walls are paneled in koa; the wood glows in colors of the sun: red, orange, yellow, and a molten brown. Madge Tennent paintings of large, lounging Hawaiians--their skin the same rich brown as the wood--hang on the walls. They live in a world of ease and contentment; a world nearly as extinct as the native crow.
      The windows of the living room have been enlarged; no missionary would have allowed this much light and view of the outside world to enter in. Outside, the pasture goes on for miles, dipping as it goes, and ending in a blue band of ocean topped with a pale airbrushed sky. From this window you might think the Blanchards owned the entire island. Looking out from this window, day after day, generation after fruitful generation, the Blanchards may have come to the same conclusion.
      If I lived here, I start to think, then catch myself. More and more my mind drifts in unproductive ways. A visiting professor at the college glances at me for the briefest of instants and I think, if only I weren't married to my wife but married to her. An architect is sketching his ideas for enlarging the biology lab, and as his pen in a second rearranges what will take months to change in stone and mortar, I wish I were him, wish I did what he does.
      Truthfully, I'm not the one with whom to trust a species. When I took over the program nine years ago I was only thirty years old and energetic. We had several healthy fledglings, our flock was increasing. I'd just published a well-received paper documenting the subtle but important differences between corvus tropicus and corvis brachyrhynchos--the common crow of North America. The wild population of the native crow was rapidly diminishing, but at the time there were still around 150 left. I felt strong then. We had decided to get pregnant. We would have a family, our numbers would increase with the crow. But a virus took over half of our flock, and we didn't have a baby. At about the same time funding dried up for the facility. Looking back, that was the last time I was truly optimistic. Never since have my emotions had wings.
      Blanchard enters the room. Tall, nut brown like his son, but broad and solid, beefy from his own cattle, he shakes my hand warmly. His gray-blue eyes are polished stone--beautiful but unreadable.
      "Welcome, Mr. Byrd, to Hale Aina," he says. His voice is low and rumbly like the noise of a bulldozer.
      "Thank you for allowing me to come here, I know you are a busy man." Surprisingly no bones stick in my throat--so far, this is easy.
      "Sit for a minute." Then what, I wonder. He motions me to a chair of bent and woven bamboo isolated on its own island of lau hala mat. The mat of fine woven strips from the hala tree is probably well over a hundred years old, and intricate with its pattern of diamonds and circles around the border. He perches his heavy frame on the delicate carved arm of a sofa. A look of concern passes over his face. "How are your 'alala doing?" he asks.
      "Unless I can introduce birds with new genetic stock they will likely die out. The crows here may precede them."
      "This is what you said four years ago." Mr. Blanchard's eyes shine, he looks happy and ready to pounce. "How many 'alala do you have now?"
      "Nine." If asked I could give each of their ages in weeks and days; each of their weights in grams.
      "Nine," he repeats, letting the word rumble around in the cave of his mouth. "Last time you were here you had twelve. And I had twelve. Now you have nine and I fourteen."
      "These numbers and fluctuations are so small as to be statistically meaningless," I answer.
      "Even so," Mr. Blanchard says, "my 'alala live in the environment they have always lived in. It's hard to believe they are better served living in a big cage."
      "As you know, the nene were saved from extinction with a captive breeding program at our facility. Without the program they would certainly be extinct now."
      A frown works its way across Mr. B's broad granite forehead. "Nene are geese," he says. "Stupid birds content with a bowl of cracked corn."
      "Come," he says, standing. "I'll show you my 'alala." He begins to lead the way to the hall. His long strides are slow, momentous, as if he were walking through water.
      I feel myself trembling with anger. "They aren't your crows, they aren't my crows," I say, surprising me, surprising him.
      Quickly, heading me off, he says, "I speak of my children. I don't own them either. I have a responsibility to care for them, just as I do for the 'alala."
      I try to get my anger under control. The truth is, if he weren't so rich that he could keep much of his land undeveloped, the crows in the wild would be gone. But it's also true that if he weren't so rich, I could come here on behalf of the state and take as many birds as I needed. Still, I'd planned to be nice first, threaten later.
      He calls down the hall to see if any of his children want to come along with us. Immediately the boy who let me in appears. Then two girls, much younger, run towards us. They are both narrow, like their brother, and unlike their broad-beamed father. I know that Blanchard has three other grown children who live in Honolulu.
      The girls, tow-headed--their hair cut straight across their foreheads--each grasp one of his large fingers and gaze up at him. They seem mesmerized.
      As we move into the strong midday sun, Mr. B places a hand on his son's spindly shoulder and with the other shepherds the rest of his brood to a battered jeep parked next to an antique Mercedes. We had wanted children. It turned out to be my fault: a low sperm count. These are the kinds of things you learn to put out of your mind, bury; but as time drifts by they don't stay buried and seem to end up defining you.
      "Can I drive?" the boy asks.
      "All right," the father says, bestowing pleasure.
      Down the dry, rutted road we bounce, kid at the wheel, Medici beside, me in the backseat with the littlest ones. We make a turn, begin to climb. The cattle lie under a few scraggly trees to be out of the sun. It's ironic that elsewhere cattle have destroyed the native habitat required for the crows survival. The Blanchards confine their cattle to the lower elevations. I think to ask how many head he has, but don't--what would the number mean? That he has lots of cows, which is evident. That he is rich and successful? Also evident. The girl beside me starts to bounce on the seat, and the other one, competing, tries to bounce higher. Mr. B turns around, doesn't reprimand, just smiles.
      "You know," I say, "The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service only needs to invoke the Endangered Species Act and you will be forced to give us some crows." I don't know why I said us, since the budget cuts I'm the only paid employee at the facility. My wife used to work with me; several years ago she quit to open a veterinary clinic.
      Medici has no reaction to what I've said. It's as if my words have no power to cross over to the front. He must know that what I said was true. Just doesn't care. Maybe he's paying someone not to act; maybe the bureaucracy just takes years to get going. I've sent letters, I've called. Everyone cares, everyone listens. But there are many species poised to go extinct. And crows, even Hawaiian crows, don't have PR appeal. Sometimes I think, aside from me, the only one who really cares about the crows is the man in the front seat of the jeep. And he's operating under a misguided notion: leave them alone and nature will take care of them. Nature is very wasteful; there just aren't enough left to leave alone.
      We climb steadily, leaving the cattle behind. The kid isn't a bad driver--he slows when there are rocks to avoid, or a dip in the road, so we aren't jarred much. He and his father talk quietly between themselves, rude when you think about it, leaving me to my solitary, dismal thoughts, and the laughing, bouncing girls beside me.
      As we gain elevation it's cooler, there are more trees, the pasture ends and the forest begins. Where down below there were a few scrubby kiawe trees, now we see koa with their silvery green, sickle shaped leaves, light green kukui trees, and a few old sandalwood trees whose leaves take on a pinkish cast in the sun. This is a less arid environment. The Blanchard ranch is so large it encloses at least three microclimates. I'm thinking like a tour guide, wanting someone along to point things out to.
      Fading into consciousness are bird songs. Not the noisy ca-wak of the crow, but a background of trills and cheeps, rising and falling like a river of sound. Ascending, the cardinals and other introduced species give way to the native honey creepers. Near the top of a stand of 'ohi'a trees I see three scarlet 'apapanes, redder even than the spiked blossoms of the o'hi'a-lehua.
      Last time I was at the ranch I was only allowed in the house. Then I had thought that when Mr. Blanchard spoke to me in person he would see not only the advantage of the captive breeding program, but its leader's passion and farsightedness. He would change his view.
      The truth is I'm not an impressive individual. Physically the only thing anyone has ever commented on is my thick black hair and shiny dark eyes. And now I'm losing my hair. And becoming fat. Even without their money the Blanchards are imposing--including the spindly herbivore children. They seem to know they own the world. I suspect that the senior Blanchard, seeing me glum and corpulent where before I was slim and optimistic--not to say cocksure--has felt the stirring of noblesse oblige. He is going to grant me an audience with his 'alala.
      At a clump of koa the jeep comes to a stop and the elder Blanchards look over their shoulders at me.
      "We have to walk the rest of the way," Mr. B says.
      "It's a hike," the kid adds. He has inherited his father's square chin and pulls the corners of his mouth down as he talks, as his father does. When I get back to Maui, I might ask my class if they think this is genetic or learned behavior.
      "That's fine, I love to walk," I answer. The boy gives me a look of surprise, involuntary I'm sure, but no less humiliating.
      Ahead is a chain link fence. Nothing fancy, the ordinary kind you see everywhere. "To keep out feral goats and boar, they eat birds' eggs," Mr. B says. (And to keep out uninvited biologists, I think.) "It encloses three hundred and forty acres," he adds, undoing the padlock. The unstated question is how much room do my crows have. (About the same as if they were economically disadvantaged and living in Manhattan.)
      We proceed down the overgrown path in descending order of height: Mr. B, son, me, daughter one, daughter two. But when the vegetation thickens, the herbivore son, machete in hand, leads the way, hacking at whatever he sees. He's spent too much of his adolescence watching old Harrison Ford videos. When the kid isn't hacking, it's very quiet. This isn't a wild tangled jungle of rain forest like you'd find on the windward side, it's a drier, less humid place with tall trees, room for the sun to penetrate. The father now walks behind the son, stopping occasionally to toss a fallen branch out of the path. "How do you know where they'll be?" I ask.
      Daughter one answers for her father: "They're where the 'ohelo berries are ripe." Ripe comes out like wipe, but not bad for a five year old.
      "That's where we're going, where the 'ohelo are ripe," daughter two adds.
      "The 'alala feed mainly on the fruit of the 'ie'ie vine, the 'olapa tree, and the 'ohelo," Mr. B says. "My children have planted these all through here to supplement what was already growing wild. We've also seen them eat the fruit of the mamaki, the 'oha, the pilo, and insects and seeds." My own crows get plenty of fruit, though not 'ie'ie or 'ohelo; what they seem to like best is dry dog kibble.
      We begin a serpentine path up the mountain. "Because the plants come into fruit in different seasons at different elevations there is always a source of food," I say, ever the good student.
      He nods, then holds up his hand. Daughter one grabs hold of daughter two's arm. We're all silent as death. Faintly in the distance, crows are singing. Unlike the North American crow, the native crow can sing musically. They have a low, belting voice--more Broadway than crooner. In Hawaiian, 'alala means to cry like a young animal, also to rise with the sun. We move on, slower, trying not to disturb them. The girls place their tiny doll feet silently down, seeming to slip between the layers of leaves. But the singing stops. Churk-cawk-cawak-churk-cawk-cawak. They've spotted us, now only squawks. They're telling each other we're approaching. This is not the way a trained biologist thinks. We haven't spotted them, they might not have spotted us. But somewhere the 'alala are about, the last 'alala to fend for themselves, to raise their own families.
      I'm sweating. Yes, the exertion, but more than that, the excitement. And the tension: What if they fly off before I see them?
      Twisting up the trees are the thick woody stems of the 'ie'ie. Ahead are low shrubs of 'ohelo with bright red berries, each hanging on its own stem like a miniature cherry. We move carefully, looking up into the silent trees, empty of 'alala. We stand still. We are where they were; there are plucked stems at our feet. Son picks up a stem and twirls it between his fingers. I'm sure I smell the spilled juice of just burst berries. I want to eat one, to sample their food, but don't. Mr. B might think I was stealing food from the beaks of his crows. We wait, barely breathing; sweat runs from my armpits down the sides of my chest. Father and son don't look up at the tops of the trees any longer, but listen: their slate blue eyes narrow, their heads tilt slightly to one side. There is nothing to hear. I want to say let's move ahead. But no, we wait.
      Then the boy--this tall, stringy kid, like a mung bean grown in the dark--lifts his head, takes in a lungful of air and neighs. That's what it sounds like; loud with his mouth open full throttle, lips vibrating with the sound. The sound of a horse really, more than a crow. Ululating like a stallion hungry with desire, his face red with effort, his Adam's apple trembling--producing all of this quavering sound for what feels like minutes. And then silence.
      He doesn't look embarrassed, even though he seemed to go out of his skin, become something wild and at the same time a little silly. The father--the begetter of this child--looks unembarrassed as well, and the girls seem to think this is the normal thing to do in the forest. They remain quiet, listening, very calm for such young children. Now the boy looks back at the tree tops, and I do too, of course. No 'alala. Not yet. We wait some more. I'm willing, for awhile anyway, to not completely disbelieve this strange kid can summon them.
      Then there's a difference, a sound of air pressing air--not a sound really--more a feeling at the back of my neck. And now, in all of their large-winged blackness, they are here. Bigger than you might think and yet smaller too; not majestic, just suddenly here as if they've always been here directly above us.
      Did the boy bring them? Of course. That's not a scientific observation, it's an hypothesis at best. But I believe it completely. My hair is plastered to my scalp with sweat. Not just my mind, but my body believes it.
      The 'alala look down at us. They're a long way up, fifty to nearly sixty feet, but I'm sure I see them cocking their heads to the side to look at us. Softer this time, the boy calls. It's the same, just not as urgent: less demanding than asking. They don't call back to us, but two hop on their branches. There are, altogether, eight.
      "Where are the others?" I whisper, slightly worried that something might have happened to the remaining six.
      "Feeding elsewhere," the boy intones, almost humming the words. "And nesting."
      My camera hangs around my neck; the telephoto lens could bring them close, but I don't want it between me and them, even for a second.
      Again the boy calls, this time kissingly soft: an invitation. As if in answer, an 'alala leaps from his branch and opens his broad wings. He drifts through the trees, looping lower and lower, then another takes off, and a third, and more, and it's hard to know where to look. The first is near ground level; dappled sunlight reaches his dull black back. He lands, flaps his wings to steady himself, cocks his head at us. Then takes a few steps, jumps to an 'ohelo bush, reaches out, plucks a ripe berry red to bursting, bites down, and tosses it back into his gullet.
      The others are landing, counting the first, eight in all. Less than fifteen feet before us. The 'alala in a small leaf-strewn clearing, lit as if for a play, regard us. They constitute more than a third of the worldwide population. So ordinary they are, not even glossy but a dullish black, so everyday, so rare. I'm flushed, breathing hard. The daughters on one side of me crouch, and nearly crow-height, they watch.
      The father quietly steps beside me. "The first to land was the eldest," he says. I feel his hot breath in my ear, he's so close. "The father." He can't know the sex. To sex he'd have to hold the bird up to check. He points, "The youngest there--see the blue eyes." 'Alala's eyes are pale blue when young, becoming brown as they mature. Blue eyes here are a sign of continuation. "Several generations," he says. "The others are nesting deeper in the woods."
      "Can we see the nests?" I whisper, a child pleading.
      He shakes his head slightly.
      "Why not?"
      "'Alala have been known to abandon their nests when disturbed." Which is true, dammit.
      Still there is so much here before me. I crouch beside the daughters; then the son, joining me, eases his long thin frame down as well.
      "You've never seen them in the wild?" the boy whispers.
      "A long time ago at Hualalai, but not like this, not this close." My voice breaks like an adolescent.
      One, the first to land, stops eating and comes forward. He walks (crows walk as well as hop) a line in front of us. Digs at something in the earth, but this seems meant to disguise his real purpose of looking us over. 'Alala must be the most human of birds. The others pay us little attention and soon he returns to the group. Still, he keeps one eye on us and I notice he always positions himself on the outside of the group--between us and them.
      "I'd like four to take back, but even two if they're young and of each sex would do," I tell the father. And fertile, I think.
      Mr. B shakes his head. "I'm sorry, no. Never."
      I look away from him to the tops of the Blanchards' silvery koa trees. There are some dark clouds now, it will rain tonight. In my mind, I trace the 'alala's flight loop through the branches, circling through the trunks, to where he's now eating. I take a few halting steps towards the 'alala. Not to catch, only to play. The last few 'alala in Christendom, formerly heathendom, formerly paradise, and all I want to do is to play, to hold, to pet. Someone behind me, the son or maybe the father, lets out a breath. It will be enough just to come as close to him as I come to the 'alala at the facility. Two steps more. He doesn't move. The others stop eating. One step. Beak black, eyes dark and shiny. Others twitch their heads, but he remains motionless. Another step. He doesn't move. He doesn't move. Powdery feathers overlaid in arcs on the wing ending in long, straight flight feathers. One step more, almost there. He bobs his head twice, and hunkers down, springing aloft. Others follow a breath behind, spiraling upward, leaving only vibrating air.
      "Never," says the father.