The Ever-Echoing Tragedy of Mr. Ahab Croesus

Mr. Ahab Croesus had accounted for all enemies but one.

“Money,” says the Scripture, “is a defense,” and Mr. Croesus had plenty of it – he had inherited both his father's money and his father's ruthless genius of increasing it. He was a multinational billionaire who had among his many dreams the goal of pushing Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk right off the road in the race to be the world's first trillionaire.

While other men hired security companies, Mr. Croesus had an entire private army, well-paid by intermediaries to divide its brigades between his properties. If you were not on the approved list and you tried to get in to see Mr. Croesus, you could die for your trouble. He had let that happen in more remote regions of the world to make a point – local police had been his army's target practice victims many times.

Local police had wanted to visit Mr. Croesus many times because he lived the life of a man without any restraint except not wanting to damage himself. He was 40, six feet four, black-haired, blue-eyed, solidly built, well-trained in martial arts – he could do what he wished with just about any other human being, and quite often did. If there was something he liked about a person, he went easy. Yet he despised most people, and enjoyed breaking them like toys and discarding them.

Mr. Croesus especially enjoyed breaking people for their real estate. Not that he did not have enough land, but men and their land were intimately linked, and the longer they and their families had owned it, the more fun it was to break the link.

And thus, on this fine evening, Mr. Croesus had been well-pleased as he hiked through his newest property – private land with a nice bit of forest included as an extended front yard to a gorgeous ranch-style house – in the evening shadow of the Grand Teton Mountains of Wyoming.

Already, a private army brigade was in position around the property. Command officers were stationed at the gates of the private road that came up from the Snake River and wrapped around the house before proceeding through the forest portion of the property and connecting past another set of gates with John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway, which links Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park.

The man who had owned this beautiful property came from a family that had resisted the attempts of the United States of America to add it to one or another national park. Yet this heir had fallen to Ahab Croesus. Mr. Croesus had relished this reality with the same enjoyment with which he had imagined drinking the heir's tears – and blood – as the heir had relinquished both his land and the earth forever.

As the sunset shed its last red-gold glory through the blue spruce trees, Mr. Croesus returned to the road, where the golden streetlights cast a pleasant glow on his steps as he heard the increasing calls of the great horned owls. In his plans, their days on his land were also numbered, but there were some nice things about their presence as he walked to the house.

Mr. Croesus enjoyed being alone, for he was in a deep, passionate love affair with himself. Now there were always people trying to work their way in, even with a private army standing guard – lawsuits and such for a half-trillionaire with an utter disregard for the laws that bound other men were a matter of course.

But, Mr. Croesus had a foolproof method for such things: he consulted with all the top lawyers in a particular region, state, or country before settling anything of importance, so that those lawyers could not represent any of his opponents in future lest there be a conflict of interest. So, his opponents were forced to find lawyers who would automatically be no match for Mr. Croesus's lawyers.

Mr. Croesus enjoyed setting up those kinds of situations, because again, the point was: who dared trouble him? The great horned owls picked up the question:

“Who-who-WHOOOOO-WHOOOO-WHO?”

Who had ever crossed Ahab Croesus, or gotten in his way, and come out the better for it?

“Who-who-WHOOOOO-WHOOOO-WHO?”

There was no answer save the question, echoing through the forest and being asked again by the local great horned owls as the sun fully set. However, Mr. Croesus indulged a bit of imagination for another question he relished: who could do as he pleased, with this land and any other he might want?

“Who-who-YOU-YOU-YOU.”

Mr. Croesus intended to make the property into a resort for the millionaire tourist set, centrally located between Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, with every possible amenity that the “low rich” liked. He did like the property, but not enough to make it a personal residence over the long term.

Now Mr. Croesus had enjoyed the house in the short term; a bunch of cute little maids had been there when he arrived, and he had his way with all of them. It was easy when he flashed cash but also let them know he knew not only their undocumented status, but also which of their children they had brought over the border with them and would go with them to the cages on the border. Thus they accepted what he paid them for their “double service,” and nodded meekly when he ordered them to come back and bring certain of their friends with them the next day.

The cleaning service was on the approved list, and would be inspected for personnel and for weapons on the way in – there would be no trouble from angry male relatives or even a more spirited female. The pay for all services would be good enough for the maids to rotate all their friends in and thus get their families out of the business after while. People played along with big money, and who was bigger money than Ahab Croesus in Wyoming?

“Who-who-WHOOOOO-WHOOOO-WHO?”

The great horned owls were a lot of fun, but, they too would have to go. The least important reason was because people found them too spooky for a plush resort; the main reason was that their forest habitat was going to be replaced with other amenities for the set Mr. Croesus wanted to attract. Mr. Croesus had made over many places in ways that were as deceptively beautiful as they were shockingly destructive to the natural ecosystem; this was how he put his unique stamp on things.

“Yes, I think right here – right here – I will have a replica of the Grand Tetons put up as a fountain that will run all the way back to the Snake River.”

Yet he had overlooked the scowl of a great grey owl, who along with his mate answered with an alto-deep, measured, but definitely incredulous “WHO? WHO? WHO? WHO? WHO? WHO? WHO? WHO?”

Not every day did a pair of such owls meet such a man who thought of removing stands of forests that were thousands of years old to put up a replica of mountains even older just to make a fountain to rival a river just as old as the mountains – as if he could remake the world, and man should look at his works and be as impressed as with those of God.

“WHO? WHO? WHO? WHO? WHO? WHO? WHO? WHO?”

The great grey owls flew off as Mr. Croesus walked on, in sight of the house, his mind now turning to his night's rest. He had tried out four places to sleep – or at least to sleep with the maids – and he was looking forward to a particular soft, deep couch to rest in after a long, fun day for the body, since long ago Mr. Croesus had stopped accounting for his soul.

And yet the great grey owls had roused a barn owl, come from an old collapsing barn Mr. Croesus had seen earlier some way behind the house – he had frightened the barn owl awake in the late morning, and it had taken refuge in the great grey owl pair's favorite tree. The great grey owls had come home and had not at all welcomed their guest, so the barn owl took its flight back toward its home in the barn, and in doing so had passed over Mr. Croesus just as he was getting to his front step.

It was the barn owl's turn to frighten the sleepy Mr. Croesus, and Mr. Croesus missed his step upon hearing its cry, its shriek like the fear of the Mexican children he had threatened, and the anger of the grandchildren he had disinherited through taking their grandfather's land, and also of the anguish he had made in countless lives around the world.

“The last enemy to be destroyed,” says the Scripture, “is death.” It was the one enemy Ahab Croesus had not prepared for, and came suddenly as his head split open and his neck broke against the door frame.

It was a hot night in July. By morning, all the small and hungry nocturnal creatures that could lick blood and lay eggs in the moist, open parts of the flesh and the contents of loosened bowels had enjoyed their eager use of a finely kept and well-fed body. Their analogs of the daytime would rapturously and numerously continue the usage.

The maids returned that same morning, and cleaned up – but not the body, save for removing all valuables. They had come in by the Snake River gate anyhow, upwind, and so just closed the front door. They knew the drill: they and their vehicles would be inspected on the way in, but not on the way out. So, in the following weeks, they stripped the house of everything of value while the hungry creatures of the natural habitat stripped Mr. Croesus's body of its rotting flesh and scattered its marrow-rich bones among themselves.

In the meantime, Mr. Croesus's intermediaries kept paying themselves and others – the cleaning service, the private army, the lawyers – for there were half a trillion dollars to spend, with interest, and no word given to stop spending it.

Mr. Croesus had properties and projects and intermediaries around the world, and so it was always assumed that he was somewhere else. And indeed, his identity was stolen and a record of his activities generated – a hundred false trails were laid, but because those who had stolen his identity did not realize how much there was to steal, they did no damage to his fortune.

Mr. Croesus's intermediaries and lawyers noticed the change in spending behavior, but it was less dangerous than normal … and so they covered what needed to be covered, paid themselves, and let things alone. Mr. Croesus had long ago made the point that he would not be held to account by mere mortals poorer than him, and people had been stripped of life, liberty, and property for trying. So, who would dare to bother him?

Only on summer nights between Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks can the answer be heard, yet the answer is just an echo of the question, ever echoing in the utterance of the great horned owls:

“Who-who-WHOOOOO-WHOOOO-WHO?”