"Turned them over to the university for further study," I lied.
"Well," he said to her, "you can't say our pop isn't a man of decision."
Twenty-four hours later, there wasn't a sign of animal experimentation
on the ranch.
Except, of course, that the woods were full of volplas. At night, I
could hear them faintly when I sat out on the terrace. As they passed
through the dark overhead, they chattered and laughed and sometimes
moaned in winged love. One night a flight of them soared slowly across
the face of the full Moon, but I was the only one who noticed.
* * * * *
I made daily trips out to the original camp to meet the oldest of the
males, who had apparently established himself as a chief of all the
volpla families. He assured me that the volplas were staying close to
the ranch, but complained that the game was getting scarce. Otherwise
things were progressing nicely.
The males now carried little stone-tipped spears with feathered shafts
that they could throw in flight. They used them at night to bring down
roosting sparrows and in the day to kill their biggest game, the local
rabbits.
The women wore bluejay feathers on their heads. The men wore plumes of
dove feathers and sometimes little skirts fashioned of rabbit down. I
did some reading on the subject and taught them crude tanning of their
rabbit and squirrel hides for use in their tree homes.
The tree homes were more and more intricately wrought with expert
basketry for walls and floor and tight thatching above. They were well
camouflaged from below, as I suggested.
These little creatures delighted me more and more. For hours, I could
watch the adults, both the males and females, playing with the children
or teaching them to glide. I could sit all afternoon and watch them at
work on a tree house.
So one day my wife asked, "How _does_ the mighty hunter who now returns
from the forest?"
"Oh, fine. I've been enjoying the local animal life."
"So has our daughter."
"What do you mean?"
"She has two of them up in her room."
"Two what?"
"I don't know. What do _you_ call them?"