The Pikesville Buffalo

“Me?” She shrugged. “Mostly, hon, I think I just keep deciding I want to.”

It was a long while before the tears stopped completely and Daniel felt ready to lie back on his pillow. Ethel brought him warm milk, and he actually drank it. And it was after two when he awoke the second time, to the sound of the porch door swinging open.

Instantly, he was bolt upright. “Aunt Ethel?” he called. Grabbing his pants off the chair, he hurried down the darkened hallway, through the living room onto the screened-in porch. The side-yard lights were on, flooding the tiny yard.

Ethel was by the screen. Fifteen yards away, right where the grass disappeared into the stand of pines that marked the edge of her property, the cheetah crouched on its haunches, its tail whapping at the dirt. In life, even more than in its photo, the thing looked ancient, its yellow eyes rheumy, its fur discolored or missing entirely. It also had its disconcertingly tiny head cocked, its mouth open, and one front paw crossed over the other. There was something almost cocky in the pose. Composed, at the very least. Like a gentleman caller.

“Oh my God,” Daniel mumbled. “How on earth did it…”

“Mack’s home,” his aunt said, and glanced just once over her shoulder at Daniel.

“What?” But he was thinking of the buffalo on the wall. The ones Ethel and Zippo both insisted they hadn’t named, just called by name. “Aunt Ethel, that isn’t…”

Smiling, she stepped out the door.

It was those next, fleeting moments Daniel would remember, years later, at Lisa’s three-years-clean checkup, and again at her five years, when the doctors told her she didn’t need to come back every six months anymore, she just had to stay vigilant, always. Or at least, it was those moments he would focus on. Not what came afterward. From then on, when he let himself think about this night, he would picture his aunt’s bare, gnarled feet in the grass. Her lumbering gait as she approached the cheetah, which hunched, coiled, its purr — or growl — audible even from the house. The pink bo

This shouldn’t have been hard. I mean, a strange tale inspired by Poe should be like breathing encouraged by air, right?

Maybe that was the problem. Great and terrible and awe-inspiring as he can be, Poe has become the Pachelbel of horror, so ubiquitous and familiar as to be drained, if not of his own impact, at least of his power to spark.

At least, that’s how it was for me. When first contacted for this anthology, I went straight to “A Descent into the Maelstrom,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Black Cat.” They are all as grand as I remembered, and also over-familiar. So I started to read around in some of the stories I remembered less well.

Finally, in desperation, I turned to pieces I’d never before encountered and discovered “Morning on the Wissahicon.” There, I found first that universal writer’s longing to get off the well-traveled path, to discover — primarily by walking, and getting lost — hidden places where adventures are possible and stories flourish. Near the end, I came across the following anecdote:

“I saw, or dreamed that I saw, standing upon the extreme verge of the precipice, with neck out-stretched, with ears erect, and the whole attitude indicative of profound and melancholy inquisitiveness, one of the oldest and boldest of those identical elks which had been coupled with the red men of my vision…

A negro emerged from the thicket, putting aside the bushes with care, and treading stealthily. He bore in one hand a quantity of salt, and holding it towards the elk, gently yet steadily approached… The negro advanced; offered the salt; and spoke a few words of encouragement or conciliation. Presently, the elk bowed and stamped, and then lay quietly down and was secured with a halter.

Thus ended my romance of the elk. It was a pet of great age and very domestic habits, and belonged to an English family occupying a villa in the vicinity.”

Immediately, a memory surfaced, and a Baltimore memory, to boot: visiting a farm in the suburbs populated with exotic animals. Llamas, I think. Snakes. Definitely buffalo. There may have been an elephant. I visited this farm in the company of two aunts I dearly loved, one of whom is dead now. I asked the surviving aunt whether I was misremembering, and where that farm was. And she told me a story about the day the buffalo got out. And suddenly— finally — I had myself a Poe-derived tale to tell…