Jeremy Crow was riding his favorite air current, the one that took him up, out and over the cliffs, to swoop deliciously down, down until his wings barely cleared the rocky cliffs at water’s edge, only to be grabbed swiftly and  harshly by a counterpoint swirl, a jab of air forced through one of the clefts in the jagged rocks, thrusting him back up into the blue skies, trembling from the joy of his daring.

He’d been practicing this run all morning, each time allowing the current to brush him closer to certain death. But death was not in his plan, not this day. He had known of this air current before, after hearing the tales told by the Old Ones, of many brash young crows losing their lives through a foolish ride on the treacherous twists of air.

Those stories had only made him curious. None of his clan had ever dared the ride, not for many years. The horror stories had served their purpose well, to frighten young crows away from that stretch of rocky cliffs along the twisting river. Few even knew the exact location. He had only recently learned of it when he had accompanied one of his uncles to a distant Crow meeting during the last moon phase. A scarred ancient whom Jeremy Crow thought of as Old Crooked Wing had croaked out his tale of how he had, as a young and strutting crow, attempted to ride the whipping winds. Old Crooked Wing had survived his crash into the rocks only because he’d attempted the run in the early spring, when river waters ran high.

Instead of hitting stone straight on, he’d hit enough water so that only one wing was injured. He then told of spending many days stranded and broken on a sandy island further down the river, where his unconscious body had floated after the crash. He waited to die from his wounds, but one day he found he could move his wing, and eventually, he gained enough strength to fly away from that place, never to return.

This story gave Jeremy Crow enough information to begin his search for the cliffs with the strange rock formations and even stranger air currents. Each morning he would stay only a short while with his clan in their constant search for food. Once the group had settled into a good place, he would soar over and away, toward the river.

One day a quick summer thunderstorm had wracked the skies with fierce winds, blowing him further west than any of his brothers usually flew. Here the river changed direction, taking him closer to the distant range of peaks.

He returned many days after that, always cruising further upriver, watching for anything that could form a sandy spit, when he spied the dark cliffs hanging over the river.

Of course! This must be the place. The cliffs nearly met one another, reaching across the river. It was a land where rocks appeared to have been thrown down from the skies. They were jumbled and tumbled, creating many crevices where air currents would swirl into vortex, causing point, counterpoint of wind meeting and dancing with itself.

He screamed out his clan call. The screaming torture of wind slamming into wind told him this was not a happy dance. He shivered, knowing he would have to study carefully the place where Old Cripple Wing had crashed at the bottom of the cliff. He could see the wind beaten rock had formed a long tunnel that could be flown, if one had the strength and the courage to fly.

He remembered asking Grandfather Crow one morning:

“Grandfather, how do Crows fly?”

“You are where you are, who you are, and what you are—

by agreement, made long, long ago. Crows fly because they do.”

Jeremy had the strength to fly; he was certain. Courage, however, that was different. He knew he could not falter for a second, once committed to the leap.

That opposite force of wind at the bottom had him worried. How could he avoid the trap that had taken the lives of so many brave young crows? He would be competing with equal yet opposite forces in a battle with Brother Wind, the one going down and the other going up, all in a narrow jagged rock tunnel.

Jeremy Crow knew the place had given his ancestral clans many deaths for as long as their spoken history had been told.

But danger speaks its own language. Jeremy heard it singing only his own glory and name, to be sung at every moon phase Crow Gathering for many years to come, telling the tale of his daring flight with wind and rock.

He knew he was special. He had more strength and greater flying skill than any crow in any clan. He would prove to his clan that he was a hero. But it took many more days of careful thought and study before he found the way to fly through the cliffs.

He’d been studying the base of the jagged cliff when he saw a leaf streak screaming down the shaft of wind, hesitate for only the briefest of beats, to disappear up, into the opposite shaft. And suddenly he knew the path to fly. He would fly with the wind.

The first time he dipped into the deadly flow of current, his heart had raced with a joy that also gave pain. Would his idea work? He tossed a few sticks and light pebbles down, but nothing except his own body and mind would be able to combine into perfect balance at exactly the correct moment, then to breathe hard, exhaling, relaxing into a complete loop. If he pushed himself even slightly in the wrong direction, he would be smashed against the rocks.

“Banish you, my doubts and fears,” he shouted. “I am Jeremy Crow, a hero-- a real live Hero!”

Leaving his doubts and fears behind, he flew up, circling the clifftop. He was ready. “Yahooo! Jeremy Crow is a real live HERO–“ he cawed, then focused himself, aiming direct and true for his target, knowing he was going to succeed.

He returned each morning after that first wild flight, gaining more confidence with each ride. He rode the current cautiously at first, until he gained enough knowledge of its twists and turns to be able to thrust himself with his own momentum into the last mad dash swoops that nearly took away his breath, but bringing joy and exultation into his crow soul.

Tired from his long day, he drank deeply. Dusk was obscuring the far side of the meadow when he settled himself in the branches of a twisted pine. It had been a good day. He was a hero.

~~~~~