The Summer of the Falcon

by Jean Craighead George

  Elizabeth Pritchard turned on him in astonishment. “So soon?”

  He nodded. “Al Sparter and I want to see the whale migration off the coast and fish a bit. Mary and Mrs. Sparter will stay here.” There was a hiss at the door. Hungry Windy was on the back of a porch chair, calling to get in.

  “Why are you awake?” Charles called to the owl as he opened the door. Windy flew in and perched on the kitchen mantel.

  “That’s a great owl,” Will said.

  Elizabeth nodded and added, “He’s been acting strange lately, wilder, more distant. I think the twins ought to tie him up awhile.”

  Will looked at sleepy June, “And how is your falcon, little cave climber?” She smiled. Suddenly he said, “Hey, what about a falcon hunt when Mr. Sparter and I get back? Your Zander,” and he turned to the twins, “your Ulysses, Jess, Screamer, Bobu, Windy, the whole gorgeous affair. All these falcons, and I’ve never seen one do anything but go up and down the yard on a leash.”

  “Well, sure,” both twins said at once. “About the end of August when the weather’s not so heavy. When will you be back?”

  “The twenty-sixth—we aren’t staying long.”

  “How about the twenty-eighth?”

  Will Bunker said “Fine. Fine!” and rocked back and forth on the chair.

  Charles nudged June. “You’d better train your bird.”

  But her mother said, “June, get the tubs out and put them in the yard. The water’s boiling, and I don’t want this laundry to drag on all day.”

  And all day June was “too busy,” and did not fly her falcon.

  When dawn came the next day she remembered too well the sweet joy of yesterday’s sleep. She did not awake early the next, nor the next, nor the next. And the twins were right. If the birds weren’t flown before breakfast, life in the Pritchard house became too full to stop.

  And then there was Emily Barnes. Emily lived up the road in the old stone house, and although she had been there for years, June barely knew her...

  Until the day she came running down the road, head back, eyes crinkled and lit with highlights, to tell June that a band of gypsies had camped in the meadow overnight. At dawn the gypsies had stopped at Mrs. Bunkelbarger’s house and forced her to give them all her egg money—seven dollars. Then they took a drink from her pump and drove away. Emily said, “I must go see where they have been.” And June untied her apron to follow her, for poor, starving gypsies, unloved, unwanted, were June’s idea of the most romantic people in the world. She often dreamed that a band would come to her yard at night and carry her away to sing and dance in the fields and meadows. She smoothed her springy curls with her palms, thrilled to hear that gypsies had been near, and ran out the back door with Emily.

  “You’d better fly Zander,” the twins called.

  And June called back, “In a minute, in a minute.”

  The dust puffed under the four running bare feet, and the minute became four hours.

  On Friday night her father came up from the city. She did not run to meet him, for his first question was always, “Well, how’s the training coming?” And what could she say? Almost ten days had passed and she had merely thrown sparrows to the falcon as she and Emily ran off to the meadow to talk under the jimpson weeds about the beautiful world of romance.

  To avoid her father June threw a piece of meat to Zander (sometimes when wild food ran out the falcons and owls were fed beef chunks or chicken necks). Then she ran to the creek to swim with Emily. At dinner it was apparent to Charles senior that his daughter had not done much falcon training. He said, “It really doesn’t matter, I guess, except that you’ll lose your bird if you don’t train him. Unless, of course, you just want a tethered bird on a perch—which is different from a bird on wing with spirit.” He paused and added, “But as long as you feed him and are gentle to him, I guess I can’t complain.”

  June was annoyed. Her father was telling her again to see a project through to the end. She felt incapable and irritated. She wanted to get angry with him, but did not know how.

  After dinner all the Pritchards gathered by the canoe landing to sing and talk. In the middle of a song her father said, “Look at Windy.”

  The old owl was sitting on the back of the rocking chair on the porch and was swinging his head in enormous circles. His eyes were focused on the sky beyond the barn. There seemed to be an urgency about him.

  “You’d better leash him, Charles,” Elizabeth said to her son. Quickly he moved forward to take the bird’s jesses; but it was too late. The old owl, his eyes on something far beyond human sight, dropped to the ground, ran with wings lifted and took off. He flew east. He alighted in the white pine at the edge of the yard. June watched her brother follow the bird to the tree and start to climb.

  Everyone whistled and called, for obviously something was happening to Windy. He seemed neither to hear nor to remember. No one could get to his brain. And then, still not looking back, still seeing only the sky, he took off for the roof of the house just as Charles reached out for him. There he ran across the peak and lifted himself softly to the chimney.

  Don ran up the porch post, like a native up a palm, rolled onto the roof and jumped against the wall of the house. His fingers in the whirligigs, toes in the decorative wooden flowers, he clambered up the side of the house to the top of the sleeping porch. Then bouncing, flying, he leaped across the porch roof to the slate peak of the house, and balancing with his arms out, lightly ran to the chimney.

  A few feet away from the owl he stopped and held out his hand. “Windy,” he called; then softly, “Windy look at me. Come on.”

  The owl circled his head, swung it low like a pendulum over his feather-fuzzy feet and kept his eye on the sky. Even Don’s hand did not distract him. Often the owls would fix on a stir of the curtains, the twirl of a light cord; even meat stuck in front of their eyes would not be seen, so single-minded are they. But a whistle, a sound, usually would get to them. Now, nothing seemed to penetrate the small brain of the beloved barn owl.

  Far down in the yard below the Pritchards watched breathlessly. Each remembered the cave and the owl’s warm obedience. But all this had suddenly disappeared. Windy was a stranger.

  “He’s wild again,” said Elizabeth Pritchard. “It’s as if he were another bird.” And with that, as Don swung upon the jesses, the owl lifted himself onto his milky-tan wings, and, beating them silently and deeply, flew over the white pine, the railroad, the store, past the hill farm to his speck in the sky.

  And each knew he would never see Windy again.

  Rod ran to the edge of the yard, holding his hand high, saying nothing. Aunt Helen looked up, her brown eyes glistening wet. June dropped her head.

  Under the quilt that night she lay wide awake, feeling the stitches on each patch, the ribbon that circled the edge. She felt these things to stay open-eyed, for when she closed her eyes she saw Zander at the Falconry Meet watching the sky...to fly to Windy. And no whistle, no call, no food would bring him back.

  She must arrange to avoid the Meet.

  The stars were still big when she got up the next morning. She went down the back steps to the kitchen, found a sparrow wrapped in paper in the left-hand side of her mother’s icebox, and sat outside on the porch until Zander could see in the dawn. Then she flew him ten times to her hand, giving him a nibble each time to reward his effort.

  The following morning at dawn June worked Zander again. Half an hour later the twins came down to exercise Ulysses and Comet, the Cooper’s hawk. The other Cooper’s, Screamer, was not training well. As Charles picked her up he said, “You know, I might as well let Screamer go. She’s a sluggish, lazy bird...and stupid. She’s really not worth the time I’m putting in on her.

  “It’s funny,” he went on, “how different birds can be. They’re like people; each has his own personality and characteristics and there isn’t much anyone can do about them. Now, there sits Comet—lively, fast, energetic—out of the same nest as Screamer
. And I’ll bet Comet will be a sensation at the Meet, and Screamer will go up in a tree and won’t remember which is hand and which is air...she’s so dumb.”

  Screamer picked up a foot and scratched her head with a toe. Charles whistled her three notes and she did not budge. He whistled it again and she scratched her shoulder.

  “She’s starved,” he said, “yet she forgets that this whistle means food. I have to show her the food, then I have to whistle until finally the rubbery old wheels grind in that small head and she says to herself, ‘Oh, food!’ just so surprised as if it had never happened before.”

  He showed Screamer the food. She packed her feathers down to her body with interest and then scratched again. Charles stepped back and whistled. She cocked her pretty head, remembered the food she had seen, and flew to the gauntlet on Charles’s hand. She ate and came to him twice again. Not fast, not brightly, but methodically.

  June watched—and was grateful for Zander.

  On the twenty-third of August, Don and Charles announced “Z” day. “We’ll fly Zander free. You’ve worked him hard and well. He’s ready.”

  “NO!” June cried. “No, he’ll leave. Let’s wait—wait until the Falconry Meet.”

  “And have all the people scare him to death and start him off for the mountains...uh uh. He’ll be all right, honest. You’ve done a better job than you think.”

  She was sent to the icebox for sparrows. When she came out the boys were trooping off to the field, and Comet was sitting erect on the gauntlet on Charles’s hand.

  “Bring Zander!” Don shouted.

  “No!” June called.

  “Yes, you must!”

  Reluctantly she lifted her falcon from the perch and carried him to the field. “Zander first,” the twins declared.

  Don stood at the edge of the yellow stubbled wheat field, June walked into the middle. She held the lure in her hand. Zander sat unleashed on Don’s finger. He gently held the jesses.

  Don called, “Ready?”

  He was answered, “Yes!”

  He threw Zander up on the air to get the falcon airborne. June held the lure and whistled. Zander sped down the field, low over the bright stubble, coming toward her with precision and beauty.

  “Hold your hand up!” Don shouted. She did. Zander snatched the meat on the lure, it came off, and he winged up...up into the sky, carrying the food on over the field to the apple orchard beyond...and out of sight.

  “No, no,” June cried, and ran hard. She was desperate.

  Jim, Rod, Don ran. Charles took Comet back to the yard and followed on his toes. They jumped the fence and raced into the gray twisted trees of the orchard. They all whistled. There was no answer. They peered up into the branches, walked, called. There was no reply.

  “Well,” said Don, “we’ll have to give up and try again tomorrow. He’ll eat the food and be too stuffed to come back. When he’s hungry again we can call him in. He’s around here, but quiet and full.”

  The twins knew the quest was useless. They departed.

  But June would not give up. She was sure he would get his jesses caught on a limb and die.

  She sat alone in the orchard and listened to the wind splash in the leaves and the insects beat out a dull chorus, out of rhythm with the wind. It was hot. Voices from the stream made her lonely. With her head on her knees she let the tears roll. She wanted the bird desperately. She needed his bright silent companionship. She needed to love something that was safe and sure.

  She did not go home for dinner. The twins came out to get her, but she did not move. Later they came back with a sandwich and word from her mother that she had better come home—or else.

  Don said with gentle warmth, “He was always a strong-minded little bird, but that’s why you like him...and so nice. He’ll be back.”

  June had no answer. And Don left her there.

  Miserable and tired she walked among the trees calling and whistling. Finally it was night. The bird would not move in the dark. He was safe until dawn.

  She climbed the fence to go home—and suddenly heard near the edge of the orchard the soft chittering of a contented sparrow hawk. She stepped down, saw a movement, and spotted Zander.

  She knew she should wait but she couldn’t. She jumped into the tree and climbed up the gray limbs. Her sudden too-swift movements frightened the bird, and he flew into the darkness.

  “Oh, come back! Come back!” she called, and leaned far out, reaching into the shadows. But to flush a falcon in the dark might be fatal. He would blunder into an unprotected place. She climbed down and ran home.

  “Don! Charles!” she called. “I scared Zander into the night.”

  The twins dropped their books and arose. They frowned alike, a double concern. Flopping around after sundown would make the little falcon available to the big barred owls of the area. If he touched the ground the foxes and weasels would get him. Don and Charles had lost other hawks this way. They wanted to be helpful, but could only say, “Well, there’s nothing to do now. Go to bed. We’ll get up before the sun.”

  June crawled into the brass bed and lay face-down on the pillow. There came a knock at the door. “Le fours jay?”

  “Come in, Rod,” she answered in English.

  He poked his head in the door and said, “We’ll start another Clayforbia.”

  “O, spid! (a curse word)” June cried, and pushed her face deeper into the pillow.

  An hour passed and there was another rap on the door.

  “Come in.”

  “In fact, you can be the mayor this year,” Rod said sweetly.

  But June did not even smile. “I don’t want anything but the morning to come.”

  She waited all night for the stars to move across the sky. When Orion showed in the left-hand corner of her window she got up. It was still dark. Fingers, the raccoon, came out from the corner of the sleeping porch, pushed open the screen door and started down the steps behind her. She picked him up and carried him back upstairs to his barrel. Bobu was sitting on the porch railing, bobbing and swinging his head as he looked over the dawning world. All the boys were asleep. The dogs were, too.

  Then Jim, sensing movement around him, awakened. He whistled to Bobu, who jumped, flapped, and ran to him. Jim saw June. He sat up.

  “What do you want, Junie?”

  “I’m going to the apple orchard. Hold Fingers, he’ll follow me.” Jim stepped out of bed and took the raccoon. Fingers stuck his hands in Jim’s pocket and mouth, feeling, feeling, with his incessant hands, for shapes and textures and something to stuff in his jaws.

  Jim threw his head back, looked into the yard and said, “Junie, I think I see Zander.”

  “No!” she said. “No, you don’t! Don’t fool me.”

  “Well, there’s something sitting on his perch and it looks like him.” Jim’s voice was sincere, breathless.

  She ran to the railing and leaned far out.

  In the blue-green light of predawn she saw her falcon.

  Her mother had told her often that at thirteen it was unladylike to climb down the rainspouts and posts, but she was over the railing and down on the grass before she remembered. She ran to the perch. Zander, handsome with his brick-red cap and black eyes, chuttered and jumped to her hand. He was glad to see her. She put her fingers over the jesses, held tight, and slipped on the leash. Then she called, called to everyone.

  “Zander is back! He’s back and on his perch!” and the house stirred and relatives came to windows or ran down steps to see the returned bird.

  “He’ll be all right now,” Don said. “He’s your bird. You’ve trained him enough to fly him in the hunt.”

  “Have I? Have I?” She felt the mystery of having done a job. It was a strange, round feeling—and she liked it.

  Three hours later while she and her mother were rinsing dishes, the telephone rang. Uncle Paul, dish towel tied around his waist as he washed pots for Aunt Helen, answered it.

  He said nothing but hello, then sto
od and listened. The towel slowly unwound and fell to the floor. Rod and Jim were playing checkers and they stopped moving men to stare at their father. They knew something terrible had happened.

  Uncle Paul hung up the ’phone and addressing none and all, said slowly, “Will Bunker is dead. He drowned yesterday off the coast of Africa... an undertow took him.”

  Rod cried, “Oh, no!” in honest simple English.

  June turned away; her throat hurt as she held back tears. She ran from the kitchen, stepped off the porch and went to her falcon. She picked him up and held him under her chin. And she stood quietly for a long, long time.

  Don and Charles came out to feed Ulysses and Comet and Screamer. June sat down near Ulysses, picked a blade of grass and bit the sweet stem. “Do you believe in God?” she said simply.

  Charles put one foot on a block of wood. He began, “Well, once I thought God was a big man with many ears, and thousands of eyes, and a soft body that floated over the top of the world, but—”

  “I don’t believe that anymore,” finished Don.

  “What do you believe? What’s happened to Will? Who says he will die or will not?”

  “No one,” they both answered.

  Then Charles went on, “According to the laws of nature Will is completely successful. He has produced children, and that is all that nature cares...that the thread of life continue.”

  June looked at them in surprise. “If I die now, am I deader that Will? I have no children.”

  June waited. She needed to know. Her brothers had read so much more than she; they had talked over so many ideas together, clearing their own thoughts through each other, that she was sure they would know the answer to death and God and the universe.

  Finally Don tilted his head. “There must be something...” he said, “because I can’t bear to know Will is dead. But I’m afraid there isn’t much.”

  “No heaven or hell?”

  “No one is really bad,” said Charles.

  “So there is only one place beyond life?”

  “Maybe there is no place beyond life,” added Don.