Snow Falcon

by Harrison, Stuart

  ‘What if I was to train her?’ he said.

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Why not? What exactly is involved?’

  ‘Well, frankly I don’t know.’ Tom paused. ‘It’s something you ought to think about pretty carefully though. There’s a lot to consider.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘The time it’ll take for one thing. She’s going to need to stay here for a few days while I do something about that injury, then the wing’s going to need to be immobilized for a couple of weeks. You’ll need a place to keep her, fresh food.’

  ‘I’ve got the time,’ Michael said. ‘The rest I can organize.’

  ‘If you’re going to train her you’ll need to learn how.’

  ‘I could contact the guy you mentioned.’

  ‘I suppose you could,’ Tom acknowledged. He went to his desk and hunted out the number which he wrote down. ‘His name’s Frank Carter. It might be an idea to speak to him before you commit yourself. Find out what’s involved. You can leave the falcon with me for a few days and let me know what you decide.’

  ‘Alright,’ he agreed.

  As Michael was leaving, Tom said, ‘I didn’t catch your name when you came in.’

  ‘It’s Michael Somers.’

  Tom recognized the name. He’d known Michael’s dad and remembered Michael as a quiet, withdrawn boy. There was a lot going on in that house back then, and though Tom only knew some of it he was sure it would’ve affected any kid. Years ago, when he read about Michael in the papers, he wasn’t really surprised. It wasn’t long after Michael’s dad died, and he always wondered how much the one event had to do with the other. Now, after all the time that had passed, Tom could still see the boy in the man; the same withdrawn manner and the turbulent emotions in the depths of his eyes.

  He offered his hand. ‘Nice to have you home.’

  CHAPTER 12

  Coop slowed at the top of the track. He almost changed his mind, but then told himself he was just doing his job and he made the turn and drove down to the clearing and pulled up beside the SUV. As Coop got out of his cruiser, Michael came out of the house.

  ‘We didn’t meet properly yesterday.’ Coop offered his hand and introduced himself. ‘Most people call me Coop. Actually we were at high school at the same time, though I was a year ahead of you.’

  ‘I think I remember.’

  Coop looked around at the house and the shed to the side. The paint was peeling in places and the place looked like it could do with some work.

  ‘Is there something I can do for you?’ Michael asked.

  ‘Not really. I just thought I should stop by.’ Coop was aware that it sounded like a lame excuse. Little River might be a small town, but he wasn’t in the habit of personally welcoming every new resident to the area, as he was sure Michael knew. ‘The truth is I wanted to talk about what happened yesterday,’ he admitted. He gestured towards the trees and Susan’s house beyond. ‘When you picked Jamie up.’

  ‘Like I said, I gave the boy a ride home.’

  ‘Where exactly did you pick him up?’

  ‘A couple of miles from here I suppose.’

  ‘His mother was half out of her mind worrying about him,’ Coop said. ‘You can’t blame her. It probably would’ve been a good idea if you’d called her, don’t you think?’

  ‘I was going to, but then she turned up. Look, I don’t know why you’re here. I already told you all this. I saw the boy walking home and I stopped to give him a ride. Next time I’ll be sure to just drive by. I thought I was doing him a favor.’

  ‘I think everyone understands that,’ Coop said. ‘Nobody’s saying anything different. But you have to appreciate how things can sometimes look, and you can’t afford any misunderstandings with you being on parole.’

  ‘Like I said, next time I’ll drive by.’

  Coop wondered why he was really there. He told himself it was because Susan felt bad about the way she reacted, and so he’d promised he would call by and explain to Somers. But he wasn’t sure that was really the reason. The truth was he thought it would be better all around if Somers stayed away from Susan and Jamie. He was surprised Jamie had even got in Somer’s car. He wasn’t sure if it had been him who stopped, that Jamie would’ve done the same thing. It was all he could do to get him to acknowledge he was alive, let alone accept a ride. It was because of Susan, Coop thought. Jamie didn’t like it when he came around the house.

  ‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’

  Coop realized Somers had asked him a question. ‘I guess not,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to clear that up.’ He hesitated. ‘Look, Jamie’s got a lot of stuff to deal with. It’s complicated. The best thing would be for you to steer clear of him. For your own good. I hope you understand.’

  He went back to his cruiser, not entirely sure how the visit had gone.

  CHAPTER 13

  The gyr falcon stood on a perch made from a length of timber run across the width of the woodstore behind the house. Her injured wing was bound with a fitted leather brail to prevent the joint from moving. The X-ray had showed a fracture in the ulna as Tom Waters had suspected, but the good news was that the radius was intact so an operation hadn’t been necessary. The brail around the carpus joint was secured at the humerus, which immobilized the joints on either side of the fracture. Tom’s advice had been to leave it in place for about two weeks and then he’d take another look.

  Right now Michael was concerned about a more pressing problem. Several days had passed since he found her and in that short time her condition had deteriorated. Even in the gloom of the woodstore it was plain to see that she was thinner. Confinement in a wire cage at the veterinary surgery had resulted in some of her flight feathers getting broken, which added to her look of neglect. But the real issue of concern was her refusal to eat. Two hours ago Michael offered her a piece of beef which she refused. It remained untouched on her perch where he left it. Tom Waters warned him that sometimes when a wild animal was brought in to the surgery, it refused to eat and failed to respond no matter what he did. It was just the way things were, as if sometimes they just chose to die rather than be imprisoned.

  The falcon was shivering in the cold, her ability to keep warm depleted through lack of energy. The gleam in her eye had lost its luster, and Michael was certain that if she didn’t eat she wouldn’t survive another night.

  ‘What can I do?’ he asked when he called the veterinary surgery.

  ‘Not much I’m afraid.’ Tom replied. ‘You can’t force her to eat.’

  Michael refused to accept that he was helpless. Outside the window of the kitchen, where he was calling from, a pair of rabbits emerged from the edge of the trees to nibble at roots. ‘There must be something I can try.’

  ‘What are you giving her?’

  ‘Fresh beef.’

  ‘It might help if you could try her with something she’s used to,’ Tom suggested. ‘Falcons don’t usually eat cow. I don’t know if it’ll help, but it could be worth a shot.’

  Michael looked back to the rabbits at the edge of the clearing. ‘Thanks.’ He hung up.

  ***

  ‘Hey,’ Susan said. ‘Want a cookie?’ She offered Jamie a plate of Oreos and he took one and munched it while he looked out the window. She took one herself and sat at the table. The dog was lying on the floor at Jamie’s feet.

  ‘We could take Bob for a walk,’ Susan suggested. She felt like getting some air. It was Saturday, and instead of going into the office she’d stayed around home doing odd jobs. Jamie had spent most of the day playing computer games in his room. Around lunchtime she went to the store and took Jamie with her. On the way home she stopped to see Fran Davies and encouraged Jamie to hang out with Fran’s son, Peter. Ten minutes later Peter came into the kitchen to say he was going to hang out with some other kids in the neighborhood.

  ‘Take Jamie with you,’ Fran said.

  ‘I already asked him, but he doesn’t answer.’

&nb
sp; Through the window they could see Jamie idly drawing shapes in the snow. Fran gave Susan a helpless shrug.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Susan assured her. ‘Have a good time,’ she told Peter. ‘Maybe Jamie will go next time.’ It was Fran who told her about the kids who’d been bothering Jamie at the bus stop.

  ‘Jenny Harris went out to break it up but some guy was already there. It was your neighbor. The Somers guy. She said the kids ran off, but she knew them. It was that little rat Craven and the Jones kid. You should call around and see their parents, Susan.’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. It might just make things worse.’

  As Susan nibbled on her Oreo, thinking about her conversation with Fran, she wondered how long this bullying had been going on. The school hadn’t mentioned it and Jamie just looked away when she tried to ask him, but according to Fran, Jenny Harris heard those kids calling Jamie dumb. Kids were cruel. Though Jamie’s teachers all said he was bright, how was this going to affect him if it went on? How long before getting called dummy and stupid stuck, and what would that do to a child’s self-esteem? She felt powerless, unable to intervene, to get past this wall of silence that Jamie had built around himself and refused to let anybody breach.

  It was a surprise to hear Michael Somers was involved. When she talked to Jamie he eventually confirmed it, though of course it was actually her who did all the talking while Jamie either nodded or shook his head. So not only had Michael Somers given Jamie a ride home, he’d intervened when Jamie was getting bullied. Her way of thanking him had been to accuse him of being crazy. Terrific. When it came down to it she was no better than the rest of the people in this town. She wondered what she could do to make it up to Michael, and decided all she could do was apologize. She ought to go right then, before it got dark.

  She told Jamie where she was going and that she wouldn’t be long, then changed her mind and decided he should go too. They put on boots and coats and headed off through the trees. Lights were on inside the house, but when she went to the door and knocked nobody came. She tried again, then tentatively tried the door. The hallway was gloomy and smelt faintly musty from the place having been shut up for so long. A staircase straight ahead led up to a landing and turned the corner, vanishing out of view.

  ‘Hello? Anybody home?’ There was no answer. She went along the porch and peered in through the windows. She was curious now that she was here. The house had been empty ever since she’d lived next door and she’d never given it much thought, but when she saw the old, heavy dark wood furniture inside she wondered about Michael Somers growing up there. What his parents had been like.

  There was still no sign of anybody at home and she turned back to tell Jamie they’d come back again in the morning. Jamie, however, had gone. She looked around, wondering if he’d wandered into the house, which was great because she would have to go in and fetch him, and then Michael Somers was going to come back from wherever he was and find them snooping around his home, and how was she going to explain that? Then she saw tracks in the snow leading around the house, both adult sized and tracks clearly belonging to Jamie. She followed them.

  ‘Hey, where are you?’ she called out, though not too loudly.

  He was standing at the doorway to a shed around the back, and when she reached him and looked inside the first thing she saw was Michael, crouched back in the gloom, the next thing she saw was the dim, pale shape of a bird of some kind. They made a strange kind of tableau. Michael was so deeply absorbed in his thoughts it took him a while to register their presence. When he did he turned around in surprise. Susan pulled Jamie back out of the way and a moment later Michael appeared and closed the door behind him.

  ‘We didn’t mean to intrude,’ Susan said. ‘I knocked at the house, but nobody answered.’

  ‘That’s okay.’

  ‘Is that a falcon in there?’

  ‘She’s a gyr falcon. I found her up there,’ he gestured to the mountains. ‘She’s injured.’

  ‘Is she going to be okay?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s not eating.’ He paused for a moment as if wondering whether to go on. ‘She needs fresh meat, rabbit or something like that.’

  ‘There’re plenty of those in the woods.’

  ‘I don’t have a gun. I’m not allowed to own a weapon.’

  There was an awkward moment at the reminder of who he was and what he’d done.

  ‘Look, I came over to apologize,’ Susan said. ‘About the other day. I heard what happened at the bus stop with those kids. I’m grateful for what you did, I guess I was just worried, I didn’t know what to think ...’ Her voice trailed away. She thought she ought to shut up before she dug herself in any deeper. ‘I just wanted to thank you.’

  He didn’t accept her apology or even acknowledge it, and she couldn’t blame him. In a way he looked as if he hadn’t really heard her, like his thoughts were elsewhere. ‘I hope your falcon is okay,’ she said. ‘Come on, Jamie, let’s leave Mister Somers alone.’

  They were at the corner of the house when Michael said something and she turned around.

  ‘Thanks for coming over,’ he repeated before he turned and went back inside the shed.

  ***

  When Susan and Jamie got back to the house, Jamie turned on the TV while Susan started dinner. She found herself thinking about Michael and the falcon. It was sad to think the bird might not survive, but what struck her was Michael’s concern. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but when she saw him crouched in the shed, she sensed how much he cared about the falcon’s fate. It was almost like he needed the bird to survive.

  When dinner was cooking, Susan went out to the hall and to the door that led down into the basement. Flicking on the switch, she made her way down the steps. The bulb cast a dim yellow light that barely reached the edges of the room, and in the corner where the locked cupboard stood against the wall it was gloomy and cold. Susan hesitated. She hadn’t been down there for almost a year and a half. She reached to grope on the top of the cupboard amongst the cobwebs and dust. She felt the cold metal of the key and put it in the lock. It turned smoothly with a sharp click and the door swung open.

  David’s rifle was inside, buckled into its case with two boxes of ammunition on the shelf. She’d put it there on the day of his funeral, when her mind was still numb, and had never looked at it since. Once or twice she’d thought about giving it away, but the idea of coming down there had been too much. She was reminded that this gun had killed the man she loved. For a moment she fought the impulse to just slam the door and go back upstairs. Instead, she took a breath and she took the rifle out along with a box of ammunition, and then she hurried back up the stairs before she changed her mind.

  When she reached Michael’s house she went straight around the back. The door to the shed was closed, so she tapped and waited. He seemed surprised to see her, and even more so when she held out the gun.

  ‘Take it,’ she said, and perhaps he detected some quality in her voice that made him realize this was an effort for her, even though he couldn’t know the reason, and he accepted it. She gave him the ammunition. ‘It’s been locked away for a while, but I think it should be okay. You might want to clean it first.’

  She didn’t wait for him to thank her. She turned and fled back to her house as quickly as she could.

  ***

  After Susan vanished around the house Michael stared at the rifle in his hands. He didn’t know what to think.

  After he took it apart and cleaned it he walked across the clearing to the woods, and when he reached the banks of the river where smooth grey rocks lined the shore he practiced until he got the feel of the rifle and could hit a small fist-sized target from fifty yards. When he was ready he headed towards the bridge.

  After twenty minutes he found a rabbit nibbling at a patch of green in the woods. As a boy he’d owned a gun. He once shot a squirrel feeding on the high branch of a tree. He’d taken careful aim at the
little animal, then fired and it dropped like a stone. For about ten seconds he experienced a rush of excitement, and then he crouched down and looked carefully at the small, still warm body with a patch of blood on the breast. The eyes retained a glimmer of brightness, though already they seemed glassy. He wished then that he hadn’t killed it because there was no purpose to it. After that he only ever shot at targets he made from rocks or marked on the trunks of trees. He justified the rabbit because he was taking it for food.

  He took aim and fired and the animal dropped where it stood. He carried it back to the cabin where he gutted and dismembered the carcass, and cut pieces of still warm meat for the falcon. He showed her the meat with skin and fur so she could see what it was. She showed no interest and his heart sank, but he left it beside her and crouched by the closed door, hugging himself in the cold, watching her, willing her to eat. After half an hour she hadn’t moved. The more his eyes became accustomed to the dim light, the more clearly he could see her shivering. He made a silent pact with her that if she would eat and regain her strength he would return her to the freedom of the skies.

  Eventually he left her, certain she wouldn’t survive the night. He decided to go back and check before he went to bed, and that if she still hadn’t eaten he would take her into the warmth of the house in the hope that would at least give him another day.

  Inside he made a hurried meal and sat by the fire and tried to read. His thoughts turned to his neighbor. He couldn’t work her out. He pictured the deep ocean green of Susan’s eyes, and held her image in his mind until it dissolved slowly and reformed, becoming Louise. She was smiling and then her features twisted and her eyes grew wide with fear as she hugged their daughter against the wall, shielding her from him. He wondered what Holly looked like now and if she was happy. The only thing he ever wanted was for them all to be happy.