I drove out to the Refuge on another day. I suppose I wanted to see the mound back in place with the family of owls bobbing on top. Of course, they were not.
I sat on the gravel and threw stones.
By chance, the same blue pickup with the same three men pulled along side: the self-appointed proprietors of the newly erected Canadian Goose Gun Club.
"Howdy, ma'am. Still lookin' for them owls, or was is sparrows?"
One winked.
Suddenly in perfect detail, I pictured the burrowing owls' mound--that clay-covered fist rising from the alkaline flats. The exact one these beergut-over-beltbuckled men had leveled.
I walked calmly over to their truck and leaned my stomach against the door. I held up my fist a few inches from the driver's face and slowly lifted my middle finger to the sky.
"this is for you--from the owls and me."
My mother was appalled--not so much over the loss of the burrowing owls, although it saddened her, but by my behavior... She shook her head, saying she had no idea where I came from.
-Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge
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