“Oh,” she replied with a blank look. Then, focusing intently, “You do?”
“Harris told me that day at the river.”
Maggie readjusted the transport box in her arms, but her face was drawn in private thought. They began walking again along the path.
Ella struggled to find a way to ask the question that was preying on her mind. Finally, she asked hesitatingly, “Do you think he won’t leave her?”
Maggie swung her head around and said boldly, “I wish to God he would.”
Ella faced her and the two women shared a smile filled with commiseration. Ella saw a woman who could give to her family, to the birds at the center, to a friend and still have compassion left to share. And despite her generosity—or because of it—she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind.
“What’s she like?” Ella asked, needing to know.
Maggie clamped her lips in thought. “Beautiful is the first thing that pops to mind,” she replied after a moment. “Manipulative is the next. Why he can’t see that she’s using him, and that he’s wasting his time hanging on to that disaster he calls a marriage, I’ll never know. He should cut her out of his life like a tumor instead of always being there for her when she’s broke or needs a place to stay or whatever. I see the way he is with you. How happy he’s been. Ella, this is a guy who hasn’t been happy in a very long time. I’m sure he loves you.” She paused again. “But mark my words. Fannie will return. And when she does, I just don’t know what he’ll do. Some patterns are hard to break.”
Hearing it, Ella knew it to be true. “It’s a chance I’ll have to take.”
“So, you love him that much?”
“I do.”
Maggie shook her head with foreboding. “Then I hope it all works out for both of you. Just know that I’m here if it doesn’t. For Marion, too.”
“Thank you, Maggie. That means a lot to me.”
A few steps on Maggie added, “My house isn’t too far from here, you know. We live just minutes away. You should bring Marion by more often so she can play with Annie. We’ll drink coffee or have lunch. It’d be good for both of them.”
Ella understood the unspoken offer implied in this invitation. It occurred to Ella that Maggie was very good at listening and was good at keeping secrets, too. Both good qualities in a friend. She hadn’t had a friend in a long time and confidences did not come easily for her. Harris she could talk to, of course, more and more each day. But should a Problem rise between them, she might need someone who would understand and have her interests at heart.
“I will. I promise,” she replied.
There was nothing more to say on the topic so they walked in silence until they came upon a large clearing in the woods surrounded by trees, some of them gray and scarred with death. In the center was a ten-by-ten chain-link dog pen, and in the center of this was a blue dog kennel. Clustered around the fence, peeking inside, were five vultures, both turkey and black.
“Well, here we are,” Maggie said.
“What are the vultures doing around there?”
“They smell the food. Did you know that vultures have an acute sense of smell? At least turkey vultures do. The black vultures kind of come along for the treat. It evolved to help them find food. Those hungry guys over there are sniffing the leftovers I brought down earlier. We dump them here every week. The vultures, being smart, know this and are waiting to be served. Take a look,” she said, pointing to the surrounding trees.
Sitting in the tops of trees, hunched with their black wings partially spread to the sun like kites, were another six to eight vultures. Waiting.
“Now I see why you call it The Restaurant.”
“Yep. Vultures are communal. That’s what makes this setup so perfect for these babies to learn about their own kind. We’ll put the Tweedles in the kennel for a while where they can look out and identify with the other vultures. Then we’ll wean these babies from the kennel to the wild. They’ll have to learn, or else.” She grinned. “It’ll be a heck of a thing to get that kennel in the trees!”
“It’s kind of unnerving seeing them all up there,” Ella said, looking at the vultures gathered high in the surrounding trees.
“Nah. Think of them as just lining up, waiting for The Restaurant to open. It’s a shame that vultures have a bad rap. My grandmama used to tell me to beware of being touched by a vulture’s shadow on account you’d be touched by sickness or death.”
“I was told that if I was bad, a vulture would catch me and peck my eyes out.”
“See? That’s exactly what I’m talking about! Most people think of vultures as these disgusting birds that only eat dead things. But what they don’t know is that they aren’t killers at all. They clean up those dead things that otherwise would make this a pretty dirty planet.”
“A lot of dying happens in the wild.”
Maggie nodded in agreement. “Did you know that vultures still gather at Gettysburg?”
“As in the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania?”
Maggie nodded again. “Fifty thousand men died in that battle,” she began. “And countless horses. They say the fields were flowing in rivers of blood and the carnage of men and boys littered the field. After it was all over, they did their best. Eventually, the army buried the men, but the corpses of the horses were left lying where they fell. So the vultures did their job and cleaned the fields. They began appearing the day after the battle ended. More came every day, from all over. That winter they didn’t migrate but stayed on, probably because there was a steady food source. Since then, more than nine hundred black and turkey vultures have returned year after year to the Gettysburg National Park.”
While Ella listened, she watched as several more vultures gathered overhead, their black, broad wings gracefully circling, checking out the action below. When Ella and Maggie reached the dog pen in the middle of the field the vultures dispersed to a safer distance but watched carefully in their hunched-shouldered stance.
“Okay,” Maggie said, opening up the chain-link gate. “Let’s see how the Tweedles like their new digs. Welcome to your new home, guys.”
It didn’t take them long to prepare the kennel and lay a meal for the orphans, then to lock them inside the fence. Before they left, Maggie and Ella emptied the bucket of leftovers on the ground a few feet from the kennel.
Ella wrinkled her nose. “If those vultures have any sense of smell at all, they’ll catch a whiff of that.”
“Oh, they know,” Maggie said, looking at the rustling of feathers in the trees.
They had not even left the clearing before the vultures flew to the carrion and began feeding. Sure enough, a few minutes later, the two orphans inched their way closer to the fence, closer to the adults, curious as to what the furor was all about.
Maggie and Ella smiled with satisfaction.
“Nature will out,” Maggie said.
Harris received the phone call from a counselor at Lincoln High first thing the following morning.
“Hello, Mr. Henderson? This is Madeline Dreskin. I’m a counselor at Lincoln High School. I’m calling about a student who has been referred to me because of a fight that broke out on the school grounds. I was hoping you might find the time to come to my office and talk? The student’s name is Brady Simmons.”
Harris arrived at Lincoln High before noon. Ella had convinced him to wear a tie and it felt like a noose around his neck as he sat in a hard-backed plastic chair waiting for Miss Dreskin to finish with her appointment. Harris hadn’t been in a high school in more years than he could remember. Were the boys always so big and muscular? he wondered. And the girls… Some of them looked like fully grown women and dressed like it, too. He felt like an old man in his tie and pressed shirt among all these kids in jeans, T-shirts, tattoos and body piercings.
The office door opened at last and a slight, fair-skinned young boy with acne slunk from the room with his eyes averted, as though embarrassed to be seen coming from the counselor’s office.
“Mr. Hend
erson?”
He stood to meet her. Miss Dreskin didn’t look much older than the students. She was small-boned and had an athletic prettiness. However, her suit and oxford shirt marked her as “the other” as clearly as his tie did, and coming close to shake her outstretched hand, he saw fine lines in her deeply tanned skin. Still, he bet she had her share of lovesick boys in the high school to fend off.
After they sat down on the standard, government-issue chairs, she folded her hands on a manila file on her desk and looked at him earnestly.
“I have to be honest, this is a complex case,” she began. “At first glance, I thought Brady Simmons was just another poor, toughened kid with no respect for authority, no care for his future, just biding his time until he can get out. I see a lot of those boys and there’s not much I can do to help them. Then I saw the police report about that incident with the eagle. After I got past my flush of fury, I read on that he’s been doing community service at your place. Seemed to me a just sentence.” She opened the file and riffled through the pages. “The Coastal Carolina Center for Birds of Prey, right?”
Harris crossed his legs and nodded. “That’s right.”
“How long has he been working there?”
“Since mid-January. He came twice a week. Now he comes three times a week.”
“And why is that?”
“That third day is on his own time. He’s a volunteer.”
She closed the file and pursed her lips. “I see. Is that customary?”
“Brady’s the first case of his kind we’ve ever had. Other than a few staff members, most everyone who works at the center is a volunteer.”
“How would you describe Brady’s work at the center?”
“Good. More than good. He’s reliable and hardworking. And let me tell you, he’s had some of the worst jobs. Jobs most kids his age wouldn’t do. He had a chip on his shoulder when he first started. I’ll admit that. But he’s come a long way. I’d go so far as to say he’s part of our core team. I’m proud of the boy.” He dropped his foot and leaned forward. “What’s this all about, anyway?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Brady’s been in a scuffle with a couple of boys. Boys that up till then had been his close friends. The school’s put him on probation. But honestly? Early reports were that he started the fight. Brady would have been expelled from school except that the other boys involved refused to implicate him. And—” She smoothed her hand over the manila file in thought.
“Brady has been making remarkable progress in the past few months. He’s brought his grades up to passing and better. He took the SAT prep course, and he’s even been in to talk to the college counselor about applications and scholarships. Did you know about that?”
Harris shook his head. “No, but it doesn’t surprise me.”
“But now, a week before exams, he seems to have crash-landed. He’s been skipping classes, not handing in homework and now this. I’d like to find out why before it’s too late. You’ve obviously been a good influence on the boy and I’m wondering if you can help.”
Harris looked at his hands, quickly reaching conclusions of his own. At least now he knew why Brady had shown up with a black eye and split lip. And he had a pretty good idea why Brady had started the fight. If his suspicions were true, he couldn’t blame him one whit for knocking some sense into those boys. There’d been too many cases of his birds being shot. And he could not prosecute due to the uneasy peace between the resentful locals and the conservationists, who were seen as taking away land and hunting rights. In any case, he couldn’t discuss his suspicions. That was Brady’s private business.
He told Miss Dreskin instead about the influence of Lijah and Clarice Gaillard on Brady, giving them full credit for any growth the boy might have experienced. He concluded with the departure of Clarice from the center and the shooting of the rooster.
“I don’t think it was the loss of any one of these alone that set him off,” he said. “But maybe both of them hitting at the same time shook his resolve. I don’t gather he gets much support at home.”
“His mother tries, but she has four other children to worry about plus a job. That’s a lot to juggle. His father never returns my calls.”
Harris knew about absentee fathers and felt a sudden sympathy for the boy. “I’m not family and I only see him three times a week. What do you think I can do?”
She sighed, clearly uncomfortable with her lack of answers. “Brady has exams next week. Then he’s out for the year. This is a critical moment in his life. I’d hate for him to fail now, when he’s so close to turning things around for himself. If there’s anything you can think of…”
He stood then and reached over the cluttered desk to shake her hand. “I’ll do what I can.”
When Brady arrived at the center the next morning, Harris handed him his falconer’s glove and told him to fetch PEFA 14, the young peregrine falcon. Brady’s eyes widened with surprise, but he did as he was instructed without comment. Harris hoped a flying lesson would instruct more than the bird on the art of flying.
He chose PEFA 14 not only because the falcon needed the exercise but also because, in an odd way, he seemed the most like Brady. Young, full of promise, but a bit “batey”—too quick to jump from the perch or fist. And Harris hadn’t been blind to Brady’s preference for the talented, cocky falcon.
They walked across the wide, flat flying field with Brady to Harris’s right and the falcon, hooded, on his left fist. A breeze rolled across the field, swaying the grass and ruffling the feathers of the hooded falcon. It shook its tail, ringing the bell.
“This is far enough,” he said to Brady when they reached midfield.
The boy dropped the canvas bag on the ground, then stood with one foot before the other, waiting. Harris reached up and deftly removed the hood from the bird. The young falcon’s eyes were instantly alert and the ridge of his brow made him look all the more intense as he scanned his surroundings. PEFA 14 was a handsome bird, not yet grown into the blue-gray color of an adult, but with the bold, distinctive mustache markings. Watching nearby, Brady’s eyes were as hooded as the falcon’s had been, but Harris could read the signs of his excitement as readily as he could the young falcon’s.
Brady stood with his broad shoulder muscles taut beneath the birds of prey center T-shirt that he’d been so proud to receive. His hair, longer now, tousled in the wind like the falcon’s head feathers. Both Brady and PEFA 14 were on the verge of soaring, Harris thought to himself. Both of them were still tethered.
He thought back to his own jumbled-up feelings at that age. Sixteen was a tough age to be, full of wildly swinging emotions and merciless self-examination. It was an age of longing to be free to make your own decisions. To branch out on your own but without the legal support or the where-withal to act. Harris knew what he had to do to train the falcon, yet he was on shaky ground with a boy but a breath away from manhood.
He asked, “Do you want to put the bird on your fist?”
Brady straightened with surprise. “Yeah! I mean, yes, sir.”
Harris acknowledged the respect that spoke well of Brady’s intentions. “Then come on over here. Have you been practicing your falconer’s knot?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve got it down.”
“Well, let’s see it,” he said, handing him the long end of the leash.
Brady knotted one end of the leather leash to his glove with impressive dexterity, then moved his gloved fist close to the falcon. “Step up,” he said, and PEFA 14 stepped up to Brady’s fist without hesitation.
“He’s yours now,” Harris told him.
Brady held the bird at a good distance and angle. The falcon sat comfortably on his fist and roused his feathers, a compliment to the boy.
Harris nodded his approval and stepped aside, giving the falconer his rightful space.
“Flying’s a funny thing,” he said to Brady, sure now of the boy’s attention. “Almost all birds can do it. But a raptor doesn’t j
ust fly. It glides, hovers and soars. And raptors are fast. Falcons, like the one on your fist, are the fastest of all. They’ve been clocked in at dive speeds of up to one hundred and fifty miles per hour. He’ll target his prey from an astonishing height, then ball up his feet, tuck in his feathers and dive, knocking out his prey when he hits it. Hard.”
He looked pointedly at Brady’s black eye, letting him know in that glance that he knew about Brady’s fight at the school.
Brady colored, catching the inference.
Nothing more needed to be said on the matter. “I reckon they fly around forty to fifty miles per hour in level flight. Not that that’s anything to sniff at.” He looked at the falcon with admiration that could be heard in his voice. “Few creatures can compare to the perfection of a peregrine falcon in the wind.”
Harris pointed to Brady’s wrist. “Watch your fist.”
Brady had been so caught up in what Harris was saying that he’d let his wrist turn in, causing the bird to foot awkwardly.
“You’ve got to always be aware when a bird’s in your care,” he said sharply.
“Yes, sir.” He quickly corrected it.
Harris looked at the boy and, in his earnest expression, read his heart. He’d worried that Brady would be insolent or churlish in training. Many young boys didn’t like being corrected or told what to do, especially not boys who’d been raised with a hard hand and harsher words, as Brady had been. This young man had heart, just as that young falcon on his wrist did. Harris could see that now. They’d both do what ever was asked of them, as long as it was asked with respect.
“There was a time when only lords and kings could fly peregrine falcons,” he told Brady. “Having one was a sign of status. A privilege. And a great responsibility, not only to the bird, but also to oneself. When you fly your bird, Brady, you fly with him. All the time and effort you work together forges a bond that is as profound as any you will ever know. When your bird succeeds, you’ll be bursting with pride. And when he fails, as he sometimes will, you must accept it and bear it privately. No moping or outward displays of emotion. The falcon will come to depend on your consistent strength and wisdom. If you cannot commit to this, cannot commit to endure the ups and downs with the bearing of a king, then you should hand me back the falcon now and not attempt to fly the birds.” He paused, then said with conviction, “But if you can, then this falcon is your responsibility to train.”
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