Talking Big

By Jay Innis Murray

There is a lot of dying in the 66 pages of Aaron Gwyn’s new novella The Cannibal Owl (published this January by Belle Point Press). This short book tells episodes in the life of Levi English (born 1817) who lived in Texas when it was still a frontier. It is a story of orphanhood and adoption, violent loss and vengeance. Gwyn’s prose is as spare as Hemingway’s when he is narrating action, but I love the strange and lyrical turns it takes, describing young Levi’s encounters with death.

For example, on the very first page, there is Levi’s mother who died when he was a small child.

His mother had died of milk-sick the previous year. To Levi, her passing was like the passing of the moon: she was gleaming; she was gone. The fever that burned through her seemed to make her brighter for a spell. Her face shone like a jewel. Then she was laid out in a cherry-wood box with coins over her eyelids as men filed past, holding their hats.

I like those lines. Likewise, Gwyn slows down to closely observe the scene of his father’s funeral. After his father is stabbed to death, Levi lives with his uncle’s family. His uncle beats and whips him. Like Blood Meridian’s kid, Levi runs away. He finds his way to a group of Comanche people, the Nermernuh, and they take  him in as a member of the tribe. He couldn’t understand a word they were saying. He couldn’t understand why they fed and sheltered him (Page 10). He learns the language, and he grows close to an old man named Poe-Paya who teaches him the customs of making wooden bows. Poe-Paya also tells him of Pia Mupitsi, the Cannibal Owl of the title.

The People said this beast stalked the night, searching for bad children. Mother Owl carried a burden basket on her back, and in this basket was a long sharp spike. Disobedient children, children who made trouble for their parents, were taken by Mupitsi, thrown into the basket and impaled. (Page 17)

The Cannibal Owl is a strange, nightmarish figure who occupies Levi’s thoughts. There is tension in the camp. There is bad blood between the Chief of the band Two Wolfs and the band’s head Warrior, Turns in Sunlight. When the bad blood leads to violence, Levi wants to kill Turns in Sunlight and his braves who Levi feels are treacherous. The second half of the book explores Levi’s strong thirst for vengeance. There is some strong, startling imagery, as Mupitsi seems to take possession of Levi, or so Levi imagines.  

He wasn’t afraid of throwing his life away; he wasn’t at all afraid of dying; what he feared was doing it before he could put a ball or blade through Turns in Sunlight’s heart. Not murdering his enemy was what terrified him, like an actual hand around his throat. (Page 45)

He did not know where Mupitsi lived, where exactly the Owl made her home, but he asked that this beast be allowed to enter him. He believed such a thing was possible. He was expecting to live several minutes at most. He’d never asked the Great Spirit for help, and he told Him he never would again. Blind my enemies, Father God. Make their eyes fail at the sight of me. Give Mupitsi leave to swell my soul. (Page 46)

It is a dark wish granted. By the end of the book, Levi recruits a band of “Indian fighters” to grow his capacity for violence. Turns in Sunlight is still alive. This section is reminiscent, again, of Blood Meridian, and its murderous pages. Though the book is short and crammed full of events, Gwyn carefully structures it so it works as a fragment of a man’s life and a peek into a blood episode of American history.