Red Feathers

Oscar snuck through the brush towards the poachers’ camp in the light of a half moon. Insects and nocturnal creatures murmured around him to the wild night. He was careful not to make a sound with each footfall he made in the grass.

His heart was in his dry throat and his dark clothes stuck to his body in the humidity. He believed that fighting poachers was the right thing to do, but he’d be lying if he said that was the only reason he did this. The thrill of sneaking up on poachers at night and robbing them of their immoral livelihood excited him.

Oscar smiled to himself as he crouched behind a tree and pulled on a black ski mask. They’re not gonna know what hit them, he thought.

As he approached the poacher’s camp, he spotted the poacher’s quarry locked up in cages in the back of a flatbed truck: wild scarlet macaws, beautiful parrots that sold for a pretty penny in the illegal pet trade.

Those birds would be worth a lot, he thought, pulling a set of bolt cutters from his backpack, if these poachers held onto them long enough.

Oscar crept along the forest’s floor in a crouch, careful to keep an eye out for anyone.

He was about to continue sneaking toward the cages in the back of the truck when he noticed something: a thin, nylon cord along the ground.

A trap.

They're expecting me this time. Maybe I should be honored that they're going through all this work to catch me along with the birds!

Oscar knew he should turn back. This was too dangerous. But that truck full of birds needed to be rescued... and besides, he was having too much fun!

Oscar quietly put his bolt cutters back into his backpack and kept low to the ground. He had no idea how many traps there might be around him. He needed to find a way to that truck. He would have to walk only where the poachers walked. But that also meant he might walk right into one of their patrols. He found himself stuck, not knowing which way to go.

So he took off his ski mask and listened closely to everything around him. The forest talks at night. When you're being hunted by a predator, it's when the forest gets quiet that you really need to worry.

He heard a group of chirping insects go quiet to his left. He turned his head that direction and scanned the forest.

There! Oscar spotted the shape of a man slinking through the forest with a rifle in his arms.

Oscar only got more excited with the danger. He began to follow this poacher on his patrol around the camp, always staying a dozen yards behind him. This poacher would know where the traps were and how to avoid them. Now if he could only get closer to that truck...

A branch snapped under Oscar's foot. He froze in place.

"Eh?" he heard the poacher say, turning around.

Without hesitation, Oscar sprung forward, grabbing the poacher's rifle.

"Help! Intruder!" the man shouted before Oscar wrested the rifle from him and shoved him away. The man stumbled backward, then his leg suddenly shot out from under him as he was hauled bodily upside down by a leg snare trap. The man flailed and screamed in the air.

As floodlights flared to live in the camp, Oscar watched as a set of car keys fell out of the poacher's pocket and landed on the forest floor.

"Gracias!" Oscar said, picking up the keys and sprinting away.

"Stop him! He's going for the truck!" shouted the poacher hanging upside down from his leg.

Men shouted in alarm around him. Oscar yanked the car door open, and jumped inside right as the first gunshots went off behind him. He put the key in the ignition. The car's engine struggled to turn over.

"Come on!" he shouted, trying to start the truck.

A bullet exploded the sideview mirror. Another bullet shattered his window.

Oscar gave the truck some gas and the engine finally turned over. He floored it, launching himself down the road.

***

When Oscar was far away enough from the poachers' camp, he started releasing the birds from their cages back into the wild. One of them had died in its cage, hit by a stray bullet in their escape.

"I'm sorry little guy," Oscar said, holding the dead macaw in his hands. "This won't happen again. Not if I can help it."