The Summer of the Falcon

by Jean Craighead George

  “Where is he then? I mean the talking and moving part that was Will?”

  The brothers looked at their sister and said, “When you are sixteen you figure death a long-needed sleep.”

  June pondered it from her thirteen years. “A sleep? No more than that? Why does aliveness go away? Nothing else does, not the chemicals and minerals and all—only the aliveness.” She looked at the twigs on the maple tree, the blue sky shining through. She stared at her falcon and her own warm hand. “I can’t believe in being dead.”

  Charles straightened a feather on Ulysses’ breast, lining up the specks. “No one can for themselves, really. Even at the last I am sure no one really believes. Maybe they know it, but they don’t believe it.”

  June ate another piece of grass. Zander watched a beetle on a blade. Charles rubbed his hand through his hair. “I wonder what was on the other side of my life—I mean before I was born. No one has a word for that. It’s not death, not heaven, not hell—I wonder what it was?”

  They said no more.

  They were still quiet at dinner that evening when Uncle Paul came over to taste their food and make them smile. But he wasn’t hungry.

  “I guess we won’t hold the Falcon Hunt,” Charles said. “It would be unkind since Will thought of it.”

  Uncle Paul took a blueberry in his brown fingers. “He would be furious if we didn’t. He was unhappy only when the excitement ended. So we’ll keep the world busy and full and giving, in memoriam.”

  Everyone knew that was how it should be.

  6. The Falcon Hunt

  JUNE PUT BOTH FEET out of bed the instant the sun brightened the top of the willow. She had decided the night before to stay in bed, very restrained, patient, exacting...until that moment when the light turned the purple shadow to yellow leaves. If she did this, Zander would fly to success. This was her talisman game on the dawn of the Falcon Hunt.

  Then she stood before the window and saw a pink sun. There was a thread of August haze over the creek. The swallows were flocking to depart. A knock came upon the door and Rod put his head in. He was wrapped in a black piece of cloth with a pointed hat on his head. He danced through the room and out.

  “Rod,” she called, “who are you?”

  He dashed back, “I am Merlin on the way to a Falcon Hunt! I have cast a spell. Zander will return.”

  “Heel squil lors (You are crazy)!”

  They laughed hard and were glad about each other.

  As Rod danced out, June opened her bureau drawer and for a fleeting minute wondered if she should dress up for the Falcon Hunt. She touched the green bag. It still held the paper dents where her fingernails had dug it closed. She opened it and peeked in...just as Don came running up the steps, and skidded to a stop at her door.

  “Junie, come on! We have a surprise for you!” She kicked the drawer to close it. It stuck. She shoved. It would not budge. She spread herself awkwardly before it to hide what lay there. “I’ll be along in a minute,” she said. Don ran off and June looked down to see Fingers run through the door. As if a magnet were pulling him, he bounced to the drawer and climbed in. He was designed for the drawers, the closets—the dens of the house—and found them as water finds the sea. June picked him up and opened the closet to release him into that house-cave. He made contented raccoon noises as he went. “That’s bigger,” she said.

  Then she stood over the drawer and knew she would not dress up. I don’t want to wear it, she said fiercely to herself. I don’t want to see people die. I want to stop growing right here. She pushed the drawer closed and as she did she tilted her head and peered in the mirror. “I wish I were beautiful, maybe then I wouldn’t mind being a woman,” she whispered to the glass. But the day was calling her.

  She leaned out the window and yelled to her brothers, “Here I come!” Over the roof she ran to the post, climbed down, and skipped to the maple tree. She caught her breath.

  There sat Zander—in a hood.

  Don and Charles had been working for days on the project. They had followed an old book on falconry they had found in the Library of Congress. They had made patterns, cut fine leather, and worked out the mechanics of the falconer’s tie that permitted the hunter to undo the hood with his teeth and one hand, while the other hand held the falcon. They had decorated the creation with red feathers from Uncle Paul’s fishing box...and had led everyone to believe they were making the hood for Ulysses.

  June moved as if weightless and cupped her hands like a globe around the bird. Slowly she touched the red feathers. “It isn’t for Ulysses. It’s too small.”

  Don laughed. “Well, it’s sort of a reward for getting Zander trained.”

  She turned swiftly upon her brother, “But I don’t think he is. I’m sure he’ll fly away...and it’s fall; and we leave for the city soon and...I don’t think I’ll fly him.”

  “Yes, you must!”

  “The hood is beautiful. But I must not fly him.”

  Slowly she lifted the hooded bird to her finger. Zander did not move. He was alive, but dead. He sat without fluffing or making a noise. He did not even cock his head. June was frightened. “He’s so...nothing,” she said to her brothers in awe. “What’s happened to him?”

  “It’s the hood. He’s in black darkness, so he won’t move. It’s instinctive for the daytime birds to sit without a motion in the dark. It protects them from predators. In the dark they must be as still as a tree stub to keep from being killed. The ancient falconers found this was a good instinct to use. They could hood the birds when they carried them on horseback to hunt, and the birds wouldn’t flop and break feathers. Birds are not like us; if they can’t see, they don’t get scared. They get calm, still, tree-stub still,” said Don. “You know how Zander is when you carry him—particularly when he’s hungry. He looks at everything, he’s nervous, excited. He has to be that way if he’s going to live by hunting. With a hood you carry him to the field quietly, and he stays quiet until you take the hood off to hunt.”

  “It’s horrible,” June said.

  “It’s not horrible. It’s kind.” Don looked at her, “Now stop feeling as if you’ve been blindfolded. You’re not a bird. Zander likes the dark! He’s calm in the dark. He doesn’t hurt himself.”

  “Here’s how you work it,” Charles said. And he showed her.

  June took the hood off and put it on again. “Let’s get this Hunt over with,” she said. “Tell everyone to come at ten instead of two.”

  “One thing you learn in falconry,” Don said firmly, “is that nature cannot be rushed. There are inner clocks in all plants and animals and it will take another six hours before Zander and Ulysses and Comet are hungry enough to perform right. After all, we fed them yesterday morning. They’ll be hungry at ten; but they’ll be eager at two. Go read a book!

  “By the way, has he cast today?” Don was speaking of the neat pellet of fur and bones that all hawks and owls cast up daily about ten hours after eating. “If he hasn’t, you’d better take the hood off. It makes it difficult for him to cast.”

  He left for a plunge in the creek, and June felt very much alone.

  During lunch she practiced not being worried. She decided to live through the worst that could happen. Zander would get away, and she rehearsed, “Well, that’s that.” But no matter how firmly she said it, her stomach continued to churn.

  And so it became two o’clock.

  Down the road strode the Barneses, Emily laughing and running ahead. She came into the parlor to find June and her enthusiasm was so contagious that June ran happily to get her falcon.

  Up the road came the Clarks and the Humphreys, the Sharks and the Drummers...and when the edge of the field was staged with people her mother looked around and said, “All Will’s friends are here. This is the nicest tribute we can pay him.”

  Comet, the Cooper’s hawk, was to fly first. Charles carried her into the field. Don opened the burlap bag and a starling flew out, zigzagging across the field in the sudden sun. Cha
rles, his body angled like a discus thrower, threw Comet at the prey. His gauntlet was black against the sky.

  The hawk beat and flashed her wings as she chased the black bird. When the starling had reached the apple orchard, the hawk broke her flight with a twist and turn of her wings, pulled and looped them among the branches. This was a flight for which a Cooper’s hawk was created— chasing prey through wooded areas, maneuvering among twigs and branches. Each species of hawk is designed to hunt its food in a different area, so as not to compete with another. The Cooper’s is a woodland hawk, the duck hawk needs open river beds and space, the sparrow hawk, the fields and their weedy edges.

  Comet flew according to her heritage—driving relentlessly after her prey.

  There was a burst of feathers...“Halloo” Don called, and both boys ran to the orchard after the victorious hawk. Charles picked her up and carried her across the field on his gauntlet, hand high. Comet covered her food by lifting all her feathers like a seeding thistle. Her wings spread over it protectingly. Occasionally she lifted her head to cry a warning to other predators who would stalk and take her catch. There were none, but the millions of years of her family’s successful line had bred this into Comet and she could not change her heritage. Charles said, “To Will—with love,” and he held the bird high.

  There was a soft applause as the strong brothers came in from the field. They were brown and gold and their clothes were round and rumpled from the movement of their muscles and their vigorous way of life. They walked toward the crowd, and as they did, Uncle Paul’s tears fell for the man who loved boys and birds and animals and people; and who wasn’t there.

  June dug her nose into Zander’s back feathers so no one would see her tears. “Why is death so awfully final?”

  Other eyes were wet.

  Rod arose. He had abandoned his funny costume and he had brushed his hair. His shirt was soft and white. Why, Rod’s handsome, June thought as she looked at him anew. Then she realized that it was Rod’s compassion that was making him so appealing. He was standing beside Will’s wife, and he was no longer a self-centered child, he was a growing person able to feel someone else’s pain. He was sharing Mrs. Bunker’s loss and he wanted her to know. Shy Rod straightened his body, lifted his head, and said to the neighbors in the field, “I’ve been asked to announce the flight of Ulysses, the duck hawk, falcon of the kings. Ulysses will fly in honor of...” and he looked down to the gray-brown woman in the grass...“the lady who shared Will Bunker with children and friends and animals and birds...Mrs. William Bunker!” His voice dropped, and he continued, “One day Will said ‘there is something all life has in common, and when I know what it is I shall know myself. ’” Then he sat down beside Mrs. Bunker.

  Don and Charles walked into the yellow grass. Ulysses was to catch wild prey and the younger boys were called to be “beaters.” They stood in a serious line at the far end of the field.

  Don untethered Ulysses and threw the bird into the air, then held his pose, base wide, hands open, arms bent, as he watched the kings’ bird swing up into the sky. A few neighbors arose and moved slowly into the field, for the flight of the peregrine falcon is one of the earth’s most beautiful spectacles. It is perfect.

  The shape of the bird against the blue sky—the long tapered wings, the streamlined body, the fanning rudder tail—was more than esthetic, it was flight, the essence of freedom to all mankind. For those in the field it was a moment of splendor. The older men, the tired middle-aged women, let themselves fly with the falcon into the unlimited sky.

  The line of dusty boys moved forward. Then Don, watching the tiercel, decided he was high enough...some two hundred feet in the air. The bird plowed the air with his wings and “waited on.” Before they had gone far a pheasant bounced from the stubble and flew up the hill.

  Then, singing, singing, singing, using the earth, the air, the wind, the light—all of the world—down out of the sky came Ulysses. For an instant the sun flashed off his bending, braking feathers.

  The field was still.

  It was so still it was as if nothing had happened. The wind blew over the grass, the clouds flew high...and Mrs. Bunker arose. She said very softly but clearly, “There is no beginning or end. Life goes on and on and circling on. One life, the pheasant, sustains another life, the falcon, that sustains another life—in a mysterious, marvelous circle.” She was smiling.

  There was a long silence. Then Rod said, “And now let’s have the spunky, fighting Zander.” He flung his arm to June.

  The neighbors clapped, the children jumped and bounced and called “Hooray!”

  June stepped into the yellow stubble. She ran very hard up the hill to Don and handed him the motionless, hooded sparrow hawk. Then she took the lure.

  Don walked bouncily down the field toward the visitors.

  He unleashed the falcon. As she watched him June felt her lips go dry. She could not whistle. “I’ll lose him! He’ll surely go,” she murmured. She started down the hill to take back Zander in her hands, when Don suddenly threw him into the air. Briefly she glanced at the green and yellow and blue world...and she thought of Will Bunker and endings and no endings, and her thoughts went to the bird on his wings, “Either way it’s all right, little fellow.”

  Her whistle sounded sharp and clear. Zander came on and on. He dove with shining wings in a deep dip that swept him to her lifted hand.

  “Bravo!” the crowd shouted.

  “Bravo!” June said to her falcon. “And now you’ll learn to hunt like Ulysses. You’ll be as excellent as he is. I shall work night and day to make you perfect. This I promise you.”

  And she walked proudly down the field.

  Mrs. Bunker met her and took her hand. But June was frightened of Mrs. Bunker’s tears. “It was nothing at all,” she said. And she laughed. But she laughed to hide her fright. Mrs. Bunker tried to put her arm around the firm, vigorous girl. June felt the warmth and the understanding, but it was more than she could accept. She ran away, the falcon flapping to balance himself.

  The services for Will Bunker were held the following day.

  As soon as she arose June went without hesitation to the bottom bureau drawer and opened it. The raccoon had scattered the garments a bit, but the rumples were friendly. They gave the terribly new clothes an old, comfortable appearance.

  June put on the brassiere. It was tight and hot. She twisted into the girdle then stole softly to the mirror to look at herself. For a long time she stood, and today it was suddenly all matter of fact. She leaped for her slip and the dress her mother had pressed for her the night before. As she smelled its clean freshness she said aloud, “She shouldn’t have to do this work for me anymore. I can do it!” then brushed her hair and walked to the door. The back steps were near but she decided not to use them. She walked lightly to the top of the front stairs and paused. The walnut bannister gleamed in a twist to the vestibule, the white steps shone clean. She stepped down, one, then two, then three...on down, glowing with happiness. It was going to be lovely to be a woman.

  The Falcon Hunt ended the summer. A few days later the Charles Pritchard children departed for the city and school. All winter June worked and learned and stored impressions and ideas. As new experiences came her way she longed for the water and sky of summer and long quiet hours to put them in their place. Eventually the school doors closed and the trunks were once again packed for Pritchard’s.

  7. The Housekeeper

  WHEN CHARLES SENIOR KICKED OPEN the doors to the house, June ran upstairs and put her shoes under the bed without thinking. It was a habit, because she had found it was practical. She could save time by finding them quickly. She walked (last year she had leaped) to the window and looked out upon the creek with joy and excitement. Her world at fourteen was pure sun.

  All winter she had been too busy to train Zander; but as she leaned far out and see-sawed on the sill, she promised on the bright water and sun and yellow flowers that she would work with him every day u
ntil he was perfect.

  And she knew she would. For at fifteen, almost, June was as positive as the law of gravity.

  She flew down the stairs and lifted her now brilliantly beautiful Zander from the back seat of the car to carry him across the lawn to the maple tree. Here she placed him on his old perch, wind-torn and insect-ridden. Zander had changed all his feathers during the winter and was richer in color. He was now a mature bird.

  He flapped his wings, threw up his head and called “killie, killie, killie,” in the manner of the male sparrow hawk telling trespassers to stay off his land. He remembered the yard at Pritchard’s and was reclaiming it.

  As she tethered the leash to the loop June announced to the world, “This summer you’ll catch the king’s breakfast!”

  Her father, coming down the yard with new canoe paddles, overheard. “And what will the menu be?” he called.

  “Mice tails and cricket wings on toast,” she answered positively...“and you’re the king!”

  “Humph,” he said with a smile. “You get that bird to hunt and I’ll eat them.”

  “You’ll see. I will.” And June raced from the tree to the porch to her father. She felt like a sparkler bursting in sixty directions, for the summer was just beginning.

  “I’m pretty safe,” he said.

  Late in the afternoon when the suitcases were unpacked and the fresh sheets spread on all the sun-aired beds, June stood before her falcon holding the lure. She whistled. Zander did not come. She whistled again and waited. It was almost dinner time when the hungry bird finally leaped on the air and winged to her hand to be fed.

  “Now let’s be faster tomorrow, Zander,” she said.

  The next night and the next night told the same tiresome story. He would not fly immediately, but sat and looked at the robins and bees.

  During the winter June had handed Zander his food. Now she had to break him of expecting food without flying for it—and it was boring work. She would bring a pillow and sit in the yard, whistling and holding up her hand until it ached. She was taunted by voices laughing at the creek’s edge and the sound of canoe paddles thumping gunnels. She wanted to run and play, but instead she tried to close her ears and concentrate on Zander.