Raven

Chapter 1

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore…..

Jarrod jerked awake, realized he had been "nearly napping" and maybe that was why the poem of Poe's came to him and woke him up. He looked at the lawbook on the desk in front of him and chuckled. Nothing poetic about this particular "quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore." Just cold prose set out in what his law professor called FIRAC – facts, issue, rule, application, conclusion. Dull as dishwater, but it got the law across to whoever read it. Jarrod realized he would have to read it over a second time, because he fell asleep before he got through it once.

Then there came the squawk of a raven. Not rapping at his chamber door – he was in the library, not his chamber, and the squawk was coming from outside the French door to his left. It was an insistent squawk, even if it was well after dark, insistent and loud enough that it might wake the family up. Jarrod got up and went to the door.

The raven was in a tree just outside. Jarrod couldn't really see it in the light from the house until it squawked one more time and flew away. He wasn't sure where it went. He could not see in the darkness and it did not squawk again.

Jarrod went back inside, looked at the book open on the desk and decided it was past time to go to bed. He was notorious for staying up later than the rest of the family, so that he could do some work or just read, or maybe just because he was more of a night person. He didn't seem to need as much sleep as Nick and Heath who did hard ranch work all day, but he spent his days taking care of other people's problems, the family's and his other clients'. If he wanted some time to himself, it had to be late at night. He put his suit coat back on and prepared to put out the lights.

The raven squawked again, right outside the door. Hmm, it came back, he thought. He went out the door again and heard it up in the same tree when it gave another squawk.

"What's the problem, fella?" Jarrod asked. "Do you need some legal advice too?"

The raven's eye suddenly glittered in the light coming from the house. The raven was looking right at him.

"If you have a problem, I don't know what it is," Jarrod said.

The raven squawked and took off again, almost as if it were asking Jarrod to follow it, but Jarrod couldn't see where it went. He had no chance of following in the dark, even if that was what the raven was asking. Which, of course, it wasn't.

Jarrod headed back inside again, mumbling to himself, "If it says 'nevermore,' I'm going straight to a glass of brandy and bed."

But before he even got through the door, the raven returned to the tree and squawked at him again. Jarrod turned and saw it on the same branch, eye glittering again.

"What is it you want?" Jarrod asked the bird. "You're just gonna wake everyone up."

Then it suddenly dawned on him. Maybe that was the point, because as soon as he said it, the bird took off again, squawking more loudly but dipping low, staying close to the house as it sailed around a corner, still squawking.

Jarrod followed it – and there in the light coming from the house, he saw it. A small bundle of rags on the front porch. The raven landed in a bush there until Jarrod approached the bundle, whereupon it squawked one more time and flew away for good.

But now, the bundle was squawking, sounding almost like the bird. The bundle wriggled too, and Jarrod thought in horror, oh, my God.

Jarrod bent down and picked it up. It wriggled and squawked and was even louder than the bird. "Oh, my God!" he whispered out loud.

He quickly took the bundle in through the front door, to find both Nick and Heath were coming down the stairs, half dressed. "What in the world is going on down here?" Nick asked.

Jarrod placed the bundle carefully on the table in the foyer. It still wriggled and squawked. He carefully moved the rags further aside, and the squawking grew louder.

A negro baby, almost as black as the raven had been. It squawked louder. Jarrod tried to quiet it with soft "Shhh! Shh!" Then he picked it up and cuddled it on his shoulder, and it did quiet down.

"Did you see who brought that?" Heath asked.

Jarrod shook his head. He wasn't about to say the raven brought it, but he said, "That noisy bird woke me up. I guess the baby crying woke the bird up too, and it dragged me over to find this on the front porch."

The baby stopped crying as Jarrod cuddled it, and now the bird was gone too. Everything was quiet again.

Victoria and Audra came down the stairs in robes and slippers, Victoria saying, "My God, is that a baby?"

Jarrod nodded, still holding the baby against his shoulder. "I found it outside the front door."

"Who could have gotten into the yard and left it without anyone noticing?" Audra asked.

"We have both day and night crews out with the herds, now that we've got Miles and Culler's herds rounded up with us for the drive," Nick said.

The drive. Nick and Heath were to be leaving in the morning and would be gone for at least two weeks. Jarrod had considered going along until the case that was keeping him up tonight came up. He'd be staying here. The baby nuzzled into his neck.

Heath said, "Who would want to bring a baby all the way out here to leave it?"

Victoria said, "Let me have a look at it."

Jarrod placed the baby on the table again. It was sleeping now, apparently comfortable or too tired to cry anymore. Victoria unwrapped it, found it was a newborn with no other clothing and with the umbilical cord still attached. A little girl.

"Oh," she said. "Someone needs to go for the doctor right away."

Silas came in from his room off the kitchen, fully dressed, just as Jarrod was saying, "Why don't I take her into Doc Merar's right now?"

"My goodness," Silas said as he got his first look.

"Silas, get a buggy together," Victoria said. "I'll go with you, Jarrod, and hold the baby while you drive."

"You'd have to dress, Mother," Jarrod said. "Silas, get the buggy. You and I will go right away. You drive and I'll hold the baby."

Silas immediately went out the front door. Victoria covered the baby again and lifted her to her shoulder, but she immediately began crying again. Jarrod reached for her, and Victoria gave her to him. He put her against his shoulder again, and she settled down again.

"She does seem to prefer Jarrod," Audra said with a smile for her older brother.

"All the women do," Nick said.

"I know how to treat a lady," Jarrod said. "Go back to sleep. You boys have a rough two weeks ahead of you, and Mother and Audra will have to see you off in the morning. Silas and I may need to stay in town for a few hours." Jarrod looked at the little face in his arms, turned toward him and sleeping. "She is a little beauty, isn't she?"

"She certainly didn't deserve to be dumped like this," Audra said. "I wonder who she belongs to?"

"For now, she belongs to Jarrod, I think," Heath said.

Jarrod smiled, said sarcastically, "What a terrible fate," and cuddled the baby closer.