He turned back to Higgins. "Ma'am, I suggest you go home and wash up and maybe stay out of this gentleman's yard."
Higgins looked like she was going to explode. Her face cycled through purple, red, and a sickly pale color. She straightened her blouse, glared at me with the intensity of a thousand burning suns, and marched past the officers.
"This isn't over, Michael," she hissed as she passed me. "You will hear from our lawyers. You will hear from the city. I will have those birds roasted by Friday."
"I like mine with a nice orange glaze," I called after her.
The officers escorted her out. Miller lingered for a second.
"Nice setup," he muttered. "My wife wants chickens. I might tell her about the geese."
"They're great listeners," I said.
When they left, I locked the gate. I walked over to the shed. Lucifer came out and nudged my leg with his beak. It wasn't aggressive. It was a fist bump. I gave him a handful of dried mealworms.
"Good job, boys," I whispered. "Phase one complete."
The peace lasted exactly 4eight hours. On Wednesday, the fine arrived. It wasn't a certified letter this time. It was taped to my front door.
Violation notice. Offense: Keeping of unauthorized livestock nuisance animals. Offense: Installation of nonapproved signage. Fine, $500. remedy. Immediate removal of animals and signage.
I didn't even blink. I scanned the document and emailed it to Dave, my lawyer friend. Dave replied three minutes later.
"Ignore it. The bylaws don't define nuisance animals specifically enough to override the city ordinance, and the signs are required by liability law, which trumps HOA aesthetics. If they try to foreclose, we sue for harassment. But keep the camera rolling. They're going to escalate."
Dave was a prophet. Higgins realized she couldn't come in herself. She was too scared and she couldn't send the police. So, she went for the mercenaries.
On Friday morning, a white van pulled up. Green Thumb Landscaping and Maintenance was stenciled on the side. I didn't have a contract with Green Thumb. The HOA did.
I was in my office, which overlooks the front yard, when I saw three guys get out. They were big guys. They looked like they wrestled tree stumps for fun. They were carrying weed whackers, leaf blowers, and a very large ladder. Higgins was nowhere to be seen. She was commanding from the rear like a coward general.
I watched as they walked around to the side gate. I switched my monitor to the backyard camera feed. The lead guy, a man with a beard that took up half his face, reached for the latch. He saw the sign.
He paused. He turned to his buddy and laughed. He actually laughed. He mimicked a quacking motion with his hand.
"Oh, you poor fool." He opened the gate. "Hello, landscaping!" he shouted.
No answer. The yard was silent. The geese were in the bunker, the shed. They had learned. They didn't patrol constantly. They waited for the breach.
The three men walked in. They started their equipment. The roar of the leaf blowers was deafening. This was an invasion of noise. The vibration must have triggered something primal in Lucifer.
I saw movement in the dark doorway of the shed. The lead landscaper turned his back to the shed to blow some leaves near the fence. He didn't see the white missile launch itself from the darkness.
Lucifer didn't hiss this time. He just attacked. He hit the guy in the back of the knees with his full body weight, flapping his wings violently. The guy yelped, spun around, and tripped over his own leaf blower. He went down hard. Then the rest of the squad deployed.
It was chaos. Absolute beautiful chaos. The landscapers were armed with power tools, but they were afraid to use them on animals. You can't just weed-whack a goose. It's frowned upon.
So, they were trying to fend them off with their boots and the plastic nozzles of the blowers. But the geese were fast. They were low to the ground. They were nipping at ankles, grabbing pant legs, and flapping their wings in faces. A goose-wing to the face stings. It's like getting slapped with a dense rubber mat.
One guy dropped his weed whacker and climbed the fence. He literally scaled a six-foot cedar fence in under three seconds. That's Olympic level athleticism inspired by pure terror.
The third guy, the one with the ladder, tried to use it as a shield. He held it up, backing away. "Back! Get back!" he yelled.
Attila and Brutus weren't intimidated by aluminum. They rushed him, honking in stereo. The guy panicked, swung the ladder, hit the bird feeder, sending seeds everywhere, and then abandoned the ladder entirely to sprint for the gate.
The lead guy, still on the ground, managed to scramble to his feet. He looked like he'd been in a bar fight with a tornado. He bolted.
They all cleared the gate in record time. The last guy didn't even bother to latch it.
I walked out to the driveway just as they were throwing their gear into the van. "Everything okay, fellas?" I asked, leaning against my car.
The bearded guy looked at me. His eyes were wide. "You got... you got demons in there, man. Not birds. Demons."
"They're just particular about their grass," I said. "Did Mrs. Higgins send you?"
"Yeah," he spat. "She said it was a routine trim. She didn't say anything about guard raptors. I quit. I'm not doing this house. I don't care what she pays."
He slammed the van door. They peeled out, tires screeching. I went back inside and saved the video footage. I titled the file Battle_of_Green_Thumb.mp4.
The following week, the atmosphere in the neighborhood changed. People started walking on the other side of the street when they passed my house. I saw neighbors pointing at the enter at your own risk signs. I had become the local urban legend, the crazy guy with the attack geese.
But I still needed actual work done. My pool pump had been making a weird noise and I couldn't put it off. I called a local pool guy, a guy named Steve, who ran his own one-man operation.
When Steve arrived, he saw the signs. He didn't laugh. He called me from the driveway.
"Hey, Mike," Steve said on the phone. "I'm outside. The sign says aggressive geese. Am I going to die if I come in?"
"Stay there," I said. "I'll come get you."
I walked out with a large Ziploc bag full of frozen peas. "Here's the deal, Steve," I said, handing him the bag. "They are mercenaries. They can be bought."