The Apprentice

by Jana Barkley

  The three of them climbed into the cab of Mike’s truck and headed farther out into the valley in a white cloud of dust. For most of the ride, Mike and Hank talked about birds and other falconers they knew, training techniques, and past flights with certain birds. It was fascinating to have this much knowledge laid out for her, like some falconry tidbit buffet where she could take what she understood and appreciated and file away the rest for later study. They were on such a different level she couldn’t have interacted with them if she had tried. Bouncing around in the large cab between these two men, she felt diminutive and out of place. Still, she’d rather be here than anywhere else, goshawk notwithstanding. Sam felt resigned to utter silence for the rest of the ride until Mike pulled her into the conversation.

  “If you stay through tomorrow, I bet you’ll see that red tail fly.”

  It was a nice attempt to include her, and she saluted him for that. “I have to leave first thing in the morning,” she replied, not happy about the doctor’s appointment that demanded she make an appearance early Monday morning.

  “Well, the rate you’re going, you might have your own red tail come trapping season in October.”

  Hank spoke up, making both Mike and Sam turn. “Maybe next year.” He frowned at their response. “Well there’s the test to take and a sponsor to find. That could take a while.”

  “Guess you didn’t hear.” Mike grinned. “She’s passed her test.” He laughed, giving Sam the impression he enjoyed getting a rise out of Hank whenever he could. Hank’s hard face continued to stare straight ahead.

  “This girl needs a sponsor,” said Mike.

  “Even if she finds a sponsor today,” he said, “she still has a mew to build, equipment to buy, the inspection to pass—”

  “I already built it.” Sam’s quiet voice seemed to give them both pause.

  Sam saw Hank’s icy reserve descend, and with it, so did her heart. Why the hell did she care so much what he thought of her?

  Mike broke the silence.

  “Typically,” he said, “and I mean typically,” this last word he threw at Hank, who just scowled and crossed his arms, “your sponsor is supposed to help you construct it according to the federal and state regulations.”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice betraying the anxiety she felt. “I had it constructed according to the regulations, down to the minutest detail.” She searched their faces with worried eyes, hoping to find some redemption. Of course, they were right, but she couldn’t tell these men her reasons for speeding the process up. Her personal needs demanded speed if she was ever to catch, train, and fly a red-tailed hawk on her own before…before she might not be able to do a great many things.

  Then she remembered the pictures she’d taken of the mew with her cell phone and sent to Jason before she’d left for this trip. It had been an unspoken truce between them when he had attempted to show interest in his mother’s crazy scheme. The photos showed the structure from various indoor and outdoor angles, the construction, the floor material, the roofing, the various perches, and the vertical, barred windows.

  Mike pulled the truck to a stop. Sam didn’t wait for them to get out and pulled out her phone.

  “Would you mind looking at these?” she asked.

  Mike reached for the phone, but Hank snatched it away and took his time to peruse each one. Sam saw Mike working hard to hide a grin as he got out of the truck. Dying to know what Hank thought, she waited in silence next to him on the seat.

  He was quiet for a long while. Finally, he asked, “You have a scale?”

  Sam nodded so hard her head felt like it was rattling.

  “Bath pan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please tell me you didn’t already make your jesses and anklets?” His tone was almost withering.

  Sam dared to smile again. “No. I was waiting for a sponsor to teach me how to make them.”

  She felt the tension ease but said nothing.

  Hank started to speak then stopped as if he’d thought better of it. He nodded instead, handed the phone back to her, and got out of the truck. She had no clue where she stood, but she’d take his lack of further condemnation as a plus. She took a deep breath and scrambled out after him.

  The sagebrush here was waist-high and even higher in spots. There was no one for miles, no matter which direction you searched, and Sam wondered at the heaviness of solitude out here. It was liberating at first acquaintance, all this open land and sky, but she had to wonder if the unending monotony could feel oppressive over time. There was a dangerous beauty here that could lull and threaten a newcomer if he wasn’t smart enough to know how to survive. For the first time today, she felt the danger of this journey she was taking. What right did she have to take on the care of a wild hawk when she would be struggling to take care of herself in the days to come?

  A glance at the two men getting ready to take the goshawk out of the box told her what their answer would be—if they knew.

  Mike motioned for her to step up next to Hank. The tension, at least with Mike, was gone.

  She guessed he was checking his telemetry transmitter and receiver, for she heard a repetitive beep, beep. That seemed to satisfy him. He turned the instrument off and looked at Hank. “If you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Gerard?”

  “Not at all.” Hank took the tiny metal tube and antenna.

  “When I bring her out, Sam, I’d like you to stand still and keep your hands down.”

  Hank turned aside long enough to say, “Don’t worry. This bird isn’t going to go for you like that other beast. He’s more worried about spooking her and making her unwilling to cooperate with him. Completely different bird.”

  Sam nodded, relieved he had explained the difference.

  “She’s hot today. Right on weight and wanting to kill something,” Mike said. “The only reason she tolerates me is I take her hunting and stay the hell out of her way.”

  Mike flipped open the latch to the door and reached his gloved hand inside. In just a few seconds, he secured her jesses and brought her out on the glove.

  If ever Sam were called upon to describe the true face of wildness, it was the goshawk. Wide eyes met hers for an instant—eyes nature had darkened with maturity to a blood-red hue. The large hawk jerked her head around as she sized up the environment and shifted on Mike’s glove. Grey and white striped feathers across her breast undulated and smoothed with her movements, giving Sam the impression of great strength.

  Hank made a point of letting her see him before he shifted around to mount the telemetry on her tail. Sheba whipped her head sideways, wary and unsure. There was an explosion of wings and the hawk tried to fly off Mike’s fist, but she was still tied in. Once she regained the glove, Mike wooed and cajoled her with his voice while they waited for her to calm down. Sam realized both men had expected nothing less than this explosive reaction from the volatile hawk. Again, Hank stepped forward to attach the tail-mounted telemetry, and this time he succeeded.

  Hank glanced down at her, his voice subdued. “When we move out, I want you to stay close to me, not spread out like we were with the Harrises.”

  Breathe, she told herself when she realized she was holding her breath, expecting something to happen.

  Holding onto Sheba’s flying jesses with one hand, Mike closed the back of his truck and turned to survey the landscape.

  “There.” He pointed and walked off into the heart of a great white wash.

  “You guys either stay even with me or just ahead. She gets a little schizy if you’re behind her line of sight.”

  Hank shifted into high gear to move up, with Sam running to match his strides. “Hunting with a gos is a solitary act,” Hank said while they walked. “These birds can get offended and don’t tend to like a crowd of strangers around.”

  “What would happen if she was offended?”

  “Probably she’d fly off to the nearest perch and sit in a snit until she got hungry, and then maybe come back to Mike. That’s why when you�
��re invited to go out with a goshawk, you follow the falconer’s instructions to the T.”

  They froze where they were as Sheba blasted forward to chase after a frightened jack. The rabbit was agile, turning right, then jinking left and almost backward. Sam had gotten used to seeing this in the Harris hawk chases. But as the rabbit turned to run out of reach and Sam was expecting the hawk to bank off and land like the Harrises had done, Sheba remounted her attack with blinding speed, outmaneuvering the agile jack by twisting and flipping over to grab the head before the rabbit could turn in a different direction. Mike was there in a flash, but Sam followed Hank’s lead and stayed back with him. Her mouth must have dropped open, because she noticed Hank catch her expression and raise an eyebrow.

  “I suppose it would be a little understated to say ‘Wow?’”

  Hank’s eyes narrowed as he leaned forward. “Looks like he’s going to take that jack and bag it. Go for a double.”

  Using a tidbit, Mike attempted several times to lure Sheba off of the rabbit and up onto the glove. When he succeeded, he stashed the jack in his vest and waved them up to join him. As they approached, Sheba jumped off the glove and back to the ground to search for the missing jack. They heard Mike yelp in pain, but he remained stock still, except for the hand he held up to keep them back.

  From where they stopped, Sam could see the gos was on the ground with a foot clamped onto Mike’s ankle.

  “She’s punishing me for taking the jack away,” Mike called out, clearly working through the pain. There was nothing they could do but wait for her to get the anger out of her system. It didn’t take long for Sheba to let go, and Sam felt her own muscles relax when she heard Mike’s sigh of relief. Unaffected by what had happened, the hawk flew up to her place on Mike’s glove and focused forward, oblivious to them and intent on hunting. With a grimace, Mike cooperated, and they all moved ahead.

  Knowing how nasty her hand had felt after her own run-in with a cranky goshawk, she felt for Mike, who kept trudging on in spite of his wounded ankle. And she admired his devotion to this rapacious monster who knew nothing better than to kill and kill again. No matter her human partner was hurt. Heaven help him if he got in the way. Mike’s dedication to doing what was best for this bird to meet its psychological as well as its physical needs was sobering. No yelling when the gos latched onto him, in spite of the mind-numbing pain. No question he would continue to slog through the field on a swollen, bleeding ankle because the bird’s confidence in him would suffer if he didn’t end the day on a positive note, which for Sheba meant killing.

  Falconry for people like Mike and Hank wasn’t about what the birds did for them, although it was obvious they loved their birds. It was more about what they did for their birds when it wasn’t convenient or fun. That brought falconry home to Sam in a blazing instant, as sharp and precise as any hit the gos made that afternoon. To touch that sort of wildness and emerge whole, although never unscathed in heart and soul, was the most terrifying and exhilarating act she could imagine. Damn the hospitals and prognostications of people who spent their safe, ordered, and predictable days in white-walled offices under fluorescent lights. Out here in the field, she was the creator of her own destiny, come what may, and her world must and would center itself on falconry.

  Rouse: The vigorous shaking of a hawks feathers; a sign of contentment

  Chapter Eight

  That evening they gathered at Mike’s house for dinner, which consisted of barbecued steaks, burgers, and some small, tasty bits of cottontail and jack. Falconers and their significant others sat around Mike’s living room, eating and sharing war stories from the field. Sam sat entranced, half listening to everyone and half watching a video of some amazing falconry flights.

  Mary Kate plopped herself down on the sofa next to where Sam was sitting on the floor. “So, what d’ya think?”

  “Think?” Sam laughed. “I think…there’s nothing else I’d rather do than be a falconer.”

  Mary Kate grinned. “Have you found someone yet?”

  Sam didn’t understand.

  “To be your sponsor.”

  “Well, it’s kind of hard—”

  “Sam, I’d offer, but you have to understand, I live two hours away from you. I know some of us got through our apprenticeships with a sponsor many hours away, but they were nightmarish situations. You want to find a guide who’s closer and more accessible.”

  “I thought of that. But you were my first choice, you know.”

  “Yes, darlin’, and I’d do it in a minute. But I’d like you to try to find someone else closer to home—with the provision that if you can’t find someone, then I’ll do it. But only as a last recourse, got it?”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  Both women laughed out loud, causing a few heads to turn.

  “There are three other people in this room who might work.” Mary Kate leaned closer, and then slid down to park herself next to Sam on the floor. “I’d suggest Karen, but she’s got her hands full with Chelsea finishing up, and she wants to spend her next season learning how to fly falcons. She’s not gonna have time to take on another apprentice.”

  Sam saw Karen and her husband, John, across the room, talking with Mike. Karen would have been someone she could talk with. What a pity.

  “Then there’s John.” Mary Kate seemed uncommitted. “He knows a lot about birds, and he handles his own well. I just don’t know if he’s the teaching type. He’s never had an apprentice, maybe because he wants to spend his time in the field focusing on his own birds. When we’re all out hawking, I always get the impression he doesn’t want anyone to slow him down or distract him. But you should still consider him. He’s a good falconer.”

  Sam agreed, but she didn’t feel convinced, either.

  Taking a swig of her soda, she turned back to Mary Kate. “So who’s candidate number three?”

  “Now there’s a curious situation. If you were like most folks, I wouldn’t suggest this person, but I’ve seen how tenacious you are, and you don’t scare easy.”

  “Jesus…”

  “He lives closer to you than the rest of us. Out on the coast. He’s always been sort of a hermit.” Mary Kate laughed as if she had uttered the punch line to the world’s funniest joke.

  Sam knew whom she was going to suggest. The thought made her rise up from her spot on the floor in unspoken protest, but Mary Kate pulled her down.

  “Just listen to me for a moment, you goof.” She was still laughing.

  Sam eyed her with blatant doubt. “You can’t mean him.”

  Mary Kate sobered up and told Sam she was in earnest.

  “He wrote me off this afternoon when he heard I’d already built my mew.”

  “You built your mew?” Mary Kate choked, trying not to spit her drink. “Damn, girl, you’re motivated.”

  “I showed him some pictures of it, and he seemed not to mind so much, but he was pissed at the idea I had done it without a sponsor to hold my hand. I thought he wanted nothing more to do with me and he might convince all of you to give up on me, too.”

  Mary Kate laughed so hard the others in the room turned to see what was so funny. Mike yelled out for her to rein it in, making Sam color and sink closer to the couch. After firing off a retort at Mike, and when she could see straight, she said, “Sam, I don’t think you’re the kind of woman who needs anybody to hold her hand.”

  “Mary Kate, I don’t know about this. He’s so…”

  “Cantankerous? Hard-headed?” she suggested, smiling. “Sure, but he’s a damned good falconer. One of the best. He’s already been teaching you. Do you realize that?”

  Sam stared at her in disbelief.

  “Why do you think he dragged you out to see that gos hunt?”

  “I thought he wanted to scare me away, knowing about my bad first experience with a goshawk.”

  Mary Kate chuckled, shaking her head. “I’ve known Hank Gerard for ten years. In all that time, he’s never taken much of an interest in other peo
ple, except falconers, and only those who do things his way. But I’ll tell you this: he’s a good, solid friend, someone you can count on when he lets you into his inner circle. If he took you on, he’d be there for you through thick and thin, and God knows there’s lots of thin when you’re learning to manage your first wild red tail.”

  Sam frowned and let her eyes search the room. He was sitting at the dining room table, talking with another falconer—a “long winger” as the others referred to him, which meant he flew falcons rather than hawks. She had to admit she had liked something about him early on. Maybe that was why she’d been so upset with herself at the thought of not living up to his standards, whatever the hell they were.

  “He’ll probably tell me to get lost.”

  “So what if he does. You’re not going to take no for an answer.”

  “Mary Kate…”

  “Want me to talk to him for you?”

  “No.” Sam jumped with the force of her response. “From what I’ve seen of him so far, I think he’d expect me to ask him myself. God knows I’d hate to disappoint him.”

  “You’re all right, Sam.” Mary Kate gave her a big grin.

  “Well, there’s no time like the present.” Sam rose like the condemned going to face the executioner and meandered into the dining room. It was easy enough to do without appearing too obvious, for three other people sat talking with him at the dining room table, while others were heading to the kitchen for more food. She leaned against a hutch to his right and stuffed her hands in her front pockets. Although no one paid her any mind, she saw him hesitate as he was speaking and cast a sideways glance her way before he continued. He was like a cat. He saw and felt everything. This ability of his to be in tune with changes in even a mundane setting must mean he was intuitive when it came to working with animals.