Snow Falcon

by Harrison, Stuart

  ‘A couple of miles out of town.’

  The guy grunted and sauntered over to the window where he asked the woman for an employment form. ‘We start at seven and go through until four. You get a break around noon unless it’s busy. The work comes first, that’s my rule.’

  He gave a belligerent look, challenging Michael to find fault with his terms. ‘You start on minimum. If you work out you get another three fifty an hour. What’s your name?’

  ‘Somers. Michael Somers.’

  The manager started writing on the form. ‘How do you spell that?’ Michael spelt it out but the manager hesitated. ‘I heard that name somewhere. Seems familiar somehow.’ He peered at Michael.

  ‘Jay…?’ The woman in the office beckoned. ‘Can you look at this a minute?’

  She gestured to something on her desk and the manager scowled. ‘Just a second,’ he said to Michael.

  They talked with lowered voices, and though Michael couldn’t hear what was said he saw the woman glance at him quickly, and he guessed they were talking about him.

  The manager came back. ‘I just remembered. The job’s gone.’

  ‘I thought you said ...’

  ‘Hey, I told you the job’s gone.’ He screwed Michael’s application into a ball and tossed it into the trash, his mouth turned down in a sneer. ‘It won’t be any different anywhere else. Nobody wants you here, don’t you get that? People have kids.’

  As the guy started to turn his back, Michael grabbed his arm. He didn’t know what he was going to do. The manager looked startled and glanced to a wrench that was just behind him on the bench. Michael wanted him to reach for it. The anger came from nowhere. He was gripping the guy’s arm so tightly the tendons on his wrist stood out like thick cords. Then as quickly as it came the anger flowed out of him and he let the manager go.

  The woman behind the window was watching everything. She glanced at the phone as if she was thinking about calling the police.

  “Forget it,’ Michael said and turned to leave. He shouldn’t have let his anger get the better of him. People were people and when all was said and done they had reason to be concerned. A memory of Holly flashed in his mind, her expression of terrified confusion.

  The manager called out after him. ‘Don’t come back around here again either. Next time I’ll call the cops and have them throw your ass back in jail.’

  Michael tried a few more places, but it was the same story with differing reactions wherever he went. Once or twice he thought he saw a glimmer of an emotion approaching regret or maybe embarrassment. If they didn’t turn him down outright they said they’d let him know, but he knew he’d never hear from them. He didn’t argue but by late morning he admitted he was wasting his time.

  At midday he went into the diner. He was aware of the looks he got from one or two people as he slid into a booth by the window. The waitress came over.

  ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘Just coffee thanks.’

  ‘Nothing to eat? The food’s pretty good here if I do say so myself.’

  Her friendliness surprised him and he wondered if it was because she didn’t know who he was. ‘What would you recommend?’

  ‘How hungry are you? We do good home-made soup with fresh baked bread.’

  ‘Sounds good. I’ll try some.’ He was grateful to be treated like anybody else rather than some kind of pariah.

  Though he wasn’t hungry when he went into the diner, when the soup came it was undeniably good. After he finished he sat drinking his coffee and wondered if coming back to Little River was such a good idea. He had a house and a store that had both stood empty for years and needed work doing on them if he was to stay, and yet he felt no attachment to either. With a limited money supply and no prospect of finding work, he considered the alternatives. Perhaps he should go back to Carl Jeffrey and tell him he’d changed his mind. If he sold up he could go somewhere nobody knew him. The idea was appealing except that he thought he’d escaped from this town and his past once before only to be proved wrong.

  Across the street a woman came out of the real estate office and headed towards the diner. He watched her absently and then realized she was his neighbor. She came inside, took a seat at the counter and started chatting with the waitress.

  He found himself thinking about Louise. It was an old memory from a long time ago, a fragment of intimacy when she put her arms around him and rested her head against his chest. He recalled the warmth of her body and the smoothness of her skin. All at once it was like a hole opened up in him and he stared into it, seeing only emptiness and everything he’d lost. Without knowing how it happened, he felt his coffee cup shatter in his hand.

  The waitress came over with a cloth. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she told him when he apologized. ‘We got plenty more of those old things.’ She peered at him. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ He stood up, aware that people were looking over, and muttered his apology again, then dropped some notes on the table to cover the check and quickly left.

  ***

  ‘So what do you make of him?’ Susan asked as Linda put the broken cup in the trash. She watched Michael through the window as he crossed the road, until he was out of sight. When he broke the cup the volume of voices in the diner had suddenly hushed and eyes followed him to the door. Now the atmosphere was returning to normal.

  ‘He seems like a guy with things on his mind.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you be if you were him?’

  Along the counter Rudy Pearce was talking to John Helsinger from the auto repair shop on Sixth and Barker. ‘I read the other day about some crazy sonofabitch who went into a Pizza Hut in Texas with a shotgun and started blasting everything all to hell. Couple of people were killed before the cops got there.’

  ‘Uh huh.’ Helsinger stuffed half a cheeseburger in his mouth and mayo dribbled down his chin. ‘That’s what I’m saying. How do we know this fella won’t get it in his head to go and do something like that? You see the way he looked just then?’

  ‘Listen to them,’ Susan said disgustedly.

  ‘Well, can you really blame them? I mean these things do happen, Susan,’ Linda said.

  ‘You mean you agree with them?’

  ‘No, I’m just saying you have to understand how some people might feel.’

  ‘Did you know he had some kind of mental breakdown? People get sick, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to turn into some kind of crazed killer.’

  ‘You’re thinking about Jamie, aren’t you? This is different, Susan.’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe I am thinking about Jamie. People think because he doesn’t speak he’s subnormal or something. Some people anyway. I worry about him. But it isn’t just about Jamie. It doesn’t seem fair the way Michael Somers is getting treated, that’s all. Let’s change the subject.’

  ‘Okay. So how’s the good policeman?’ Linda grinned.

  Susan groaned. ‘Please. Maybe I’ll just have my coffee to go.’

  After lunch Susan went back to the office and spent an hour catching up on running through her prospective clients list. People often sounded her out when she met them on the street or in a store, and she’d gotten into the discipline of following up on these random connections. Now and then a casual question about the market ended in a sale.

  She came across the name Carol Ferris and on impulse she picked up the phone right away. Carol’s husband, Jeff, had lost his job a few months back and when Susan ran into her recently Carol said they were thinking about moving to Idaho Falls, where Jeff’s brother ran a digital print shop. A couple of days ago she overheard somebody saying Jeff had gone there to try it out for a while. Carol answered on the fourth ring and it turned out Jeff was working with his brother.

  ‘He likes the job,’ Carol told her, ‘and he’s getting on well with his brother. He was worried about that.’

  ‘So does that mean you’re going too?’

  ‘I don’t know. Jeff wants us to, but I’m not so
sure. Everybody we know lives around here and there’s family and all.’

  Susan understood her reluctance. Carol had two children under four years old and as long as she was in Little River she could rely on help from her mother and sister. It was a tough choice but in the end it came down to being wherever there was work. She didn’t like to push people, but experience told her if she didn’t move fast a competitor from William’s Lake might get the listing ahead of her.

  ‘Listen, why don’t you let me come over and give you a valuation?’ she suggested. ‘It might help to make the decision easier.’

  They made a time for that afternoon, but it meant she wouldn’t be able to meet the school bus so she called Linda and asked if she would meet Jamie.

  The valuation didn’t take long and by the time Susan left, Carol had made up her mind to list the house so long as her husband agreed. When Susan got back to town Linda came over from the diner. As soon as she saw her, Susan knew something was wrong.

  ‘What is it? Where’s Jamie?’

  ‘He wasn’t at the stop. I’m sure he’s okay,’ Linda said. ‘I called Coop straight away and he’s looking for him now. He can’t have gone far.’

  ‘Maybe he missed the bus,’ Susan said. ‘Did you call the school?’

  ‘No, he was on the bus. The driver said he definitely remembered him and he got off in town, but I was a few minutes late. By the time I got there Jamie was gone. He probably just wandered off. You know how kids are. I’m sorry, Susan, this is my fault.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Susan assured her, trying not to let on that she was worried. Like Linda said he probably just wandered off as kids do. She knew it was really no big deal. It wasn’t like Jamie wasn’t old enough to look out for himself and Little River wasn’t exactly the projects in Chicago or anything like that. She started thinking about where he could’ve gone. Maybe a friend’s house, only he didn’t really have any friends any more. Maybe he was at her office. She went to the door but it was locked. As she wondered where else to look, Coop pulled up in his cruiser and rolled down his window.

  ‘No sign of him yet?’ he said. ‘I’ll take a ride through town, he’s most likely just lost track of the time.’

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ Susan said.

  The radio in the cab squawked and Coop picked it up. ‘That was Miller,’ he said after a minute. ‘A trucker said he saw a kid sounded like Jamie getting into an SUV out on Deep Ridge Road.’

  ‘He must’ve been walking home.’ A million news stories of kids who vanished exploded through Susan’s mind. She experienced the clutch of terror that any mother would. ‘Is he sure it was Jamie?’ she asked, her voice sounding panicked.

  “It’ll be fine,’ Coop assured her. ‘It was probably somebody local who recognized him. Get in your car and follow me out there.’

  It was a fifteen-minute drive to the place where Jamie was last seen, but it seemed to take forever. Susan tried not to worry. Coop was probably right about it being somebody local who just gave Jamie a ride, but somehow she kept thinking about those news stories. Why hadn’t Jamie waited at the bus stop? He knew she always met him and the rule was if she was late he was supposed to either wait for her or else head for the office. What was he doing miles from town? And wouldn’t somebody who stopped to give him a ride at least call her to tell her he was okay? He was just a kid. She checked her phone but there were no missed calls.

  By the time she reached the track leading to her house, Susan was panicking. She wanted to believe he would be there waiting for her but she wasn’t thinking rationally by then. Something was wrong. She felt it in her gut. She made the turn too fast and the back end of the Ford slewed sideways then plunged down through the trees. She saw the dark-colored SUV outside the house and stamped on the brakes. A figure got out and she recognized her new neighbor, but there was no sign of Jamie. Susan yanked open her door and got out.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded. ‘Where’s Jamie?’

  Before Michael could respond, she heard Bob barking and the dog ran around from the back of the house with Jamie close behind. Relief swamped her like a tidal wave.

  ‘I found him walking back from town so I brought him home,’ Michael explained.

  Susan regarded her neighbor incredulously. Her relief turned to fury. ‘Are you crazy? Didn’t you think I’d be worried about him? He’s just a child.’ She ran to Jamie and fell on her knees, crushing him to her. ‘You scared me,’ she said into his hair. ‘Why did you do that?’ Tears blurred her eyes.

  Coop’s cruiser rolled down the track and stopped behind Susan’s car. He got out and took in the scene. ‘What’s going on here?’ he said, looking at Michael.

  ‘I gave the boy a ride. He was a long way from home.’

  ‘You okay, Jamie?’ Coop asked.

  ‘He’s fine,’ Susan said and got up off her knees. She told Jamie to go inside. Belatedly, her reason returned and it struck her that Michael Somers hadn’t received much in the way of thanks for what he’d done. She felt bad about the way she’d reacted. Complex emotions clouded his expression, and wordlessly he turned towards his car. Susan suddenly realized what she’d said, asking him if he was crazy, and she was horrified.

  ‘Wait!’ she called out. ‘Look, I’m sorry about what I said before... I mean I was worried... I didn’t know what to think.’

  She wanted to explain that she hadn’t meant it to come out the way it sounded, that she understood how it must feel to have people think that about you, but she couldn’t find the words. Though she was relieved that Jamie was okay, a part of her was thinking she really didn’t know Michael. She didn’t know what he’d really done in the past, or how it happened, or if he was capable of hurting somebody again, and she knew deep down, that no matter what she said or would like to believe about herself, the truth was she would never be comfortable having this man around her son.

  Michael looked at her as if he could read her thoughts, and without saying anything, he got in his car, turned around and drove back up the track to the road.

  CHAPTER 10

  The falcon spent the night high on a rock face. She slept with her feathers ruffled so that warm air was trapped against her body, one leg raised, the foot clenched and tucked into her breast.

  As the sky lightened and the first faint streaks of yellow and amber appeared on the horizon, she opened her eyes and stood square on both feet. Her plumage settled sleek against her body. Her eyes, bright and intent, surveyed the landscape below. The transformation was instant. She became again the efficient predator, her lines sculpted and streamlined, her shape honed to perfection.

  High in the rocky valleys above the tree line, glacial slopes shimmered with the first touch of sun. The falcon roused herself, shaking her plumage from head to tail, then stretched each leg and wing in turn, awakening and warming her muscles. She clenched her talons against the rock beneath her feet, and bent to nip at shreds of matter that clung to their polished points. She observed the world as it came awake and felt slight currents in the air as it was warmed by the rising sun. Stars faded until their light became a glimmer and vanished, and the orb of the moon paled against the winter-blue sky. A streak of high cirrus smudged the mountain peaks to the west.

  A breeze rippled the falcon’s feathers, and heeding its call, she extended her wings, feeling the sensation of lift as the air flowed over her flight primaries. Her talons gripped the ledge as an anchor and the powerful muscles in her breast bunched and tightened. Cocking her head to one side she peered skyward. Her eyes missed nothing. In the far distance a speck rose into the sky and circled slowly; an eagle which she watched for a moment with interest. Then, with a flick of her wings she was airborne, aided by the currents rising from the valley floor below.

  Rapid wing-beats carried her out toward open space, where she found a thermal and hung on outstretched wings, allowing it to bear her aloft. The sun was above the horizon now and the air warmed rapidly. She soared higher, her gaze ranging
across the land below. As the thermal dissipated she banked sharply and dropped to the south-west, where the spruce and cedar pushed high and dark. She found another thermal and rode it aloft, repeating the same pattern over and over. All the while she observed the movements of animals and birds below. A squirrel high up on an exposed limb nibbled at a nut held in its paws, and when it sensed danger it suddenly froze before dashing for cover. She was not hungry yet. The hunt would come later. She merely soared, the sun glancing off her pale back as she swooped and turned, and occasionally her call echoed across the valley.

  ***

  Ellis parked his truck down off Falls Road on a logging track and made his way up through the trees with his rifle over his shoulder, a Thermos of hot coffee laced with whisky in his pocket. His plan was to find a place in cover in the general area that he thought was the falcon’s territory and then hope it would show up. He’d come to believe this was a battle of wits, that it was him pitted against the falcon. He knew he was being fanciful but it was like that damn bird somehow represented the way his whole life had been. Every time he got close to making a little headway it all came down around his ears and was snatched away from him. Ellis felt that if there was a God, he didn’t have time for people like himself. He was just a plaything for minor devils to taunt for their amusement. How else to explain what happened the other day when that guy had appeared out of nowhere? He still didn’t know who the hell it could have been.

  For once in his life he was going to come out on top. The bird had become a test, and succeeding would be an omen and things might improve in his life.

  Rachel had no idea what he was doing, though she knew he wasn’t at the yard. A couple of days ago she’d turned up there to find it deserted. That night they’d had a fight. She wanted to know how they were supposed to get by on what she made working afternoons at the grocery store? That really got to him. He hated the fact that without the money she brought in they would really be in trouble. What did she expect him to do for chrissakes? There was no work. Sometimes he thought Rachel was going to leave him. He knew she wished she could have her time over again. She never would have married him. Losing her would be the worst thing that could happen. If he thought about it he got a feeling like pressure building inside, and it got so bad there were times when he came close to hitting her. Jesus he hoped he never did anything like that. He loved her and didn’t understand why he felt like hitting her. He hardly knew what was happening to him sometimes.