The Apprentice

by Jana Barkley

  “Hey, there,” said a familiar voice. It was Mike from the mini-meet. He came up to join her at the fence.

  “Hi,” she said, smiling large as he opened his arms to give her a hug.

  “How’s the new apprentice?”

  “I’m fine—we’re fine.”

  “So you and Hank haven’t killed each other, yet?” His grin made her laugh.

  “Not yet.”

  “Which bird’s yours?”

  “See the little male red tail over there?”

  Chance had bated and regained his perch.

  “Nice looking little guy. Caught anything yet?”

  How she hated that question right now, and she knew she was going to have to answer it a couple hundred times today.

  “Almost, but not yet.” She put on her best hopeful expression.

  “It’ll happen,” he said. But everyone said that: it’ll happen.

  Mary Kate joined them. She hugged Mike. “Jim Terry’s caught a white tail.”

  Mike turned to where she pointed and, indeed, there was a young man with a large, hooded red tail on his glove. He was holding what had to be a giant rabbit in his other hand. His face was one big grin.

  “Not bad,” said Mike, obviously impressed.

  “He’s Tasha’s apprentice,” Mary Kate explained, leaning toward Sam.

  “His first wild catch?” she asked.

  The others nodded. Sam wanted to go somewhere and sulk.

  “Geez, a white tail,” Mary Kate said. She leaned her back against the fence. “We don’t get white tails down where we live. They’re giant, Sam. Our black tails can get up to eight or nine pounds. These monsters can get up to twelve.”

  Sam’s eyes grew wide.

  “Definitely gotta have a large female to do that.”

  Hank perched Remo out in the yard close to Farley. The two of them were accustomed to hunting together and, in true Harris hawk fashion, would be comfortable perching together. He joined them, leaning against the fence to hear what they were talking about.

  The sight of the white tail gained an approving nod from him.

  “Hank,” Sam said, pulling his attention to her. “His red tail has a hood on. I never thought to ask why we haven’t tried to hood Chance?”

  He leaned in closer, resting his weight on the fence top.

  “Look at your bird in the yard, right now.”

  Chance was settled in on his perch and had started to preen.

  “Okay.”

  “Now look at that red tail over in the corner by the tree.”

  The repetitive clanking of the loose metal ring on a bow perch holding a large red tail caught her attention. Every time the bird bated, the metal ring to which the leash was tied clanked against the metal body of the perch. This was a stressed hawk wanting nothing to do with the weathering yard.

  She glanced at Hank with concern.

  He nodded.

  Tom, the weathering yard warden, was speaking to a young man who must’ve been the hawk’s handler. The young man agreed to whatever Tom said, and then went over to pick up his bird. The anxious hawk had her wings extended and hackles up. In a moment, her handler reached into his pocket and produced a hood. After a couple of tries, he managed to get it on her head and secure it. It wasn’t long before the large hawk settled down, and he backed her up onto her perch for a rest.

  “It’s a freshly trapped hawk,” Hank explained. “The weathering yard is a great place to teach new hawks to adjust to stimulation. But that bird’s only been off the trap a few days. Her handler will expose her to stress in stages, until she can handle this without having to wear the hood.”

  “Okay, but why didn’t we bother hooding Chance?”

  Hank had a mysterious grin on his face, and then shrugged as he stared down at the ground. “You can still hood him. It’ll take longer. But what’s the point?”

  She was confused.

  He knew this and took a characteristic pause to gather his words. “It’s a skill you’re going to have to learn, and you can and will do it. Most people hood their wild, trapped birds from day one, and it’s a good system. I’ve done it myself.”

  He stopped her before she reiterated her question.

  “Listen. You’re going to hear from a lot of falconers this week. There are as many opinions and ways to train hawks as there are falconers in this sport. And the crazy thing is they’re all right—for them. Experience will teach you to take and use what you find works and let the other stuff go. Some techniques that work fine on one bird will be the wrong thing to do on another. The trick is to know the difference.”

  She waited, knowing he meant to say more.

  “The key is the relationship with the bird.” His eyes squinted in the winter afternoon sun as he searched her face to see if she understood. “Is whatever you are planning to do going to build rapport or destroy it?

  “Now, I could teach you to follow a recipe that says every wild bird gets a hood put on its head fresh off the trap, and you’d probably end up with a great bird in the end. If there was a general rule of thumb, it’s all trapped passage birds should be hooded from the start.”

  He paused, suppressing a grin.

  “From the day we trapped your little red tail and I watched you work so hard in your living room to get him to stand on your glove, you’ve had an intense, one-on-one relationship that has blossomed into a true partnership. Think about how things would be different with Chance—not any other red tail—if you had been putting a hood on and off him.”

  She remembered the hours she had spent with him those first days, talking, walking into the room, picking him up, carrying him everywhere in the house, the yard. She smiled.

  “Perhaps this little guy is an exception to the rule. If I had thought you two needed hood training back then, I’d have worked with you on it. But I think this rascal needed to see what was going on around him, much like his falconer.” He smiled at her with such warmth she had to look away.

  “Now you can teach him to take the hood. It’ll take longer than the ‘just shove it on and make him adjust’ method. But now you have a relationship from which to build the skill, slowly and with trust.”

  She watched her hawk. He was content to hang out in his personal space in the yard, without bating, and it made her feel good about what they’d accomplished so far.

  “There will be times in the field when a hood comes in handy and you’ll be glad you have one. Maybe it’s a bad setup or a dangerous one—a stray dog shows up, or another raptor is there and wants to chase your bird—and you need to move to a different field. So, you pull your hawk in and secure him while you’re walking back to the car. If you flush a rabbit on the way back and he’s tied to your glove, he’s gonna resent you for not letting him chase. In that situation, the hood will preserve his trust in you, because he can’t see the slips he’s missing while you change fields. Again, it’s about preserving the relationship.”

  Probably sound advice for human relationships as well, she mused. If more people took the time to build trust slowly, they could weather the bad times better because they had learned to rely on each other’s strength. She could never imagine Hank rushing into anything, relationships included. And of course her overactive imagination went into full swing, wondering if Hank spent as much care and attention nurturing a loving human relationship as he did with his birds. It left her longing again—just sick with longing and she closed her eyes.

  ****

  It was near four o’clock, and sunset was early on these shorter winter days. Chance was used to perching in Sam’s family room, watching TV beside her with a tucked foot, and eventually burying his head beneath his wing to sleep. Mary Kate was used to doing the same with Farley, so the two of them set up separate spots in their room to perch the birds. Nestled in his own little corner of the room near Sam’s bed, Chance settled in for the night.

  A large room off the main lobby of the lodge was set up for selling falconry gear. Many falconers
were skilled at making equipment and worked all year to have plenty to sell at the annual meet. The professional falconry outfitters were there, too, with boxes full of gloves, hoods, books, and videos. After dinner, Sam had the pleasure of getting lost in the room, going from table to table and getting acquainted with more people.

  A tap on the shoulder made her turn to find Hank beside her. He tilted his head sideways as a gesture for her to follow him.

  Stopping before a table loaded with all sizes, shapes, and colors of hoods, he nodded hello to the man selling them.

  “Hey, Gerard. How’s it going?”

  “Not bad.”

  “You flying the sky trials this year?”

  Hank shrugged. “We’ll see.”

  Sam grinned, knowing Hank wasn’t about to let anyone in on his plans until he was ready.

  “This nice lady needs a hood for her red tail.”

  “Female?”

  “Male. About 740 grams.”

  The man nodded and began to select an assortment of hoods from the table. The ones he chose were all beautiful, but Sam was inclined to pick the simplest.

  “Go get your bird,” said Hank.

  Sam surveyed the packed room. “In here?”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Okay,” she said, uncertain, and moved off to her room.

  How Chance would handle all the people in that room she had no idea. Still, Hank was no fool, and if he wanted her to do this, she would find a way.

  When she returned to the lobby with the little hawk on her glove, she felt Chance’s body tense. His wide, golden eyes flew to her face for cues, uncertain about how to handle this new situation, and she tried her best to keep her own energy calm. How could she keep him from feeling her anxiety over the prospect of a bating, terrified hawk in the middle of all these experienced falconers? Stupid apprentice to bring a green hawk into such a stressful situation—it’s what they’d all think, she was sure. Chance sat like a coiled spring, his feathers slicked tight to his body, his talons gripping her glove, and she contemplated taking him back to the room and risking Hank’s ire. But no, Hank must have his reasons.

  Chance’s agitation mounted as they moved to the entrance of the vendors’ room. She reached up with her free hand under his breast feathers and began to coo and talk in a soft voice, stroking his chest. Past experience had told her he didn’t care much for that, but tonight he leaned into her hand and closer to her chest in spite of his wild nature. He must view her as the least of his worries walking into an immense sea of humanity. Her biggest fear was someone would bump into them, sending the little hawk into an outright panic.

  Sam saw the table with the hoods, where Hank and the vendor were talking. Look at me. She,willed him to turn and see them and make some room for them to come in. Strangely, he turned around. His eyes locked onto hers for a second, reading the fear she felt, and then the smallest smile turned up the corners of his mouth. He looked at all the people between them and motioned her to him.

  I’m trusting you, Hank, I’m trusting you. She took another breath and stepped in. The world seemed to move in slow motion as she turned her shoulder toward people approaching too close. To her surprise, the group parted, and she understood why. These were falconers, and the sight of a raptor close at hand caught their attention. They gave way, continuing their conversations and making room for her to pass, a few of them nodding.

  By the time she reached Hank, Chance was leaning against her, his eyes wide and his pupils dilated. He was way beyond his comfort zone.

  “Hank…” her voice was anxious, pleading.

  “Come here,” he said, leading her behind the hood vendor’s table, out of the crowd. Chance regained himself a bit in this haven of open space and scanned the room for an avenue of escape. Sam kept talking to him. Whenever he seemed ready to bate, she pulled his attention back to her.

  Hank placed the simple hood she had admired in her right hand.

  “Just like you did with Gally, bring the hood up slowly and hold it in front of him. If he starts to panic, back off.”

  Sam did so, and the little hawk’s body stiffened and leaned backward. She stopped with the hood in midair before him, waiting.

  “Watch his body. As soon as he relaxes, pull the hood back away from him a bit, but so he can still see it.”

  As confused as she was, she didn’t bother to question why.

  “Pulling the hood away is the reward for relaxing. Try it.”

  As soon as Chance’s body started to relax, she pulled the hood back. At first, he tensed again, but he stopped when he realized the hood was going away. Focused on the hood, he was no longer stressed by the frenetic energy in the room.

  “Bring the hood up again and do the same thing.”

  Sam slowly brought the hood up, and as soon as Chance tensed, she stopped. He glared at her, then back at the hood, and started to relax again. She pulled the hood away. At the outset, it hadn’t made sense. But now, falling into the rhythm of Chance’s body language, she was bringing the hood up and back, up and back, and the little hawk was relaxing into the situation.

  “Now I want you to bring the hood up to his head, but continue the same process.”

  She did, and after a few minutes, she was stunned to see she almost had the hood on his head. Never in a million years would she have thought she could do this. Pulling the hood back for what felt like the hundredth time, she focused on Chance as he stared at her. He had no understanding of what she was doing with the hood, but somewhere deep down he kept coming back to relying on the trust they had built. She felt it like she felt the trust she had placed in Hank when she walked into the room and pulled off this crazy maneuver.

  “Slowly, very slowly,” he said, his voice a whisper, his breath above her right ear, thrilling her with his closeness, “slip the hood on his head this time.”

  She moved without thinking. She moved the hood up and close to Chance’s head, and then it was on. She pulled her hand back, uncertain.

  Hank reached up and placed a small piece of jackrabbit meat on her glove by the little hawk’s feet.

  “Hold it, hold it,” he said, watching Chance’s body.

  Chance was frozen, not knowing what to expect. His body stiffened, and he started to rear backward, as if teetering on the edge of some unknown dilemma, and trying to back out from under the hood that sat unfastened on his head. Then, for a mere second, he stopped his backward lean, perhaps remembering what had made the hood go away before.

  “Okay, pull the hood off.”

  Her hand trembled, but Sam pulled the hood up and off with alacrity. The little hawk glared back with fierce eyes until Sam moved the fingers of her glove in a gentle motion to show him the reward. There was no doubt in his mind about what he was supposed to do with that.

  Hank had her repeat the exercise two or three times, and each time, Chance sought the treat with more expectation, not minding the hood as much.

  “Good, good. Now this time when the hood goes on, I want you to draw the braces.”

  Once Sam pulled the braces, the little hawk jerked his head and shoulders up and backward and clamped down onto her glove with a furious grip. As she cooed and talked to him, his feet relaxed, and his body righted itself into a natural stance.

  It was done.

  Perspiration had popped out on her forehead from the extreme concentration and tension of her muscles.

  Hank seemed relieved, too, as if the two of them had stepped outside of the known universe for a moment as they focused all their energy and will to get Chance to accept the hood. His eyes locked onto hers, telling her he had felt it too, and she wished the rest of the world would stay away. Still caught together in their private world within the chaos of the vending room, he leaned over and whispered into her ear, “Well done.” The brush of his breath against her cheek, the unexpected intimacy set her senses into overload, and it took every bit of self-control she could muster not to relax into the impulse to lean into him. No
thing could feel more natural than his warmth and touch, her body urged. She raised her head slowly, afraid to break the spell, and found his gaze searching her face. For the briefest moment, she recognized a longing not unlike her own and felt her breath catch in response. But the hood vendor’s voice pulled Hank’s old reserve back into place and he stepped back. He was just her sponsor again.

  “I don’t know how you do it, Gerard, but it’s a marvel to see.” The man selling hoods shook his head with a laugh. “I’d say it’s time for a beer.”

  Sam felt drained. Her body had pushed beyond its limit and was letting her know she needed to rest. But this precious moment was something she wasn’t ready to let go of.

  Hank prodded the edge of the hood opening surrounding the fleshy area of the hawk’s beak, called the cere. “Good fit,” he said.

  Sam hadn’t even checked the price on the hood, but she paid for it.

  Hank led her by the hand out of the crowded vending room and into the lounge across the hall. He ordered himself a beer and Sam a soda when she refused alcohol. She had no business drinking the way she felt, knowing how it might complicate her well being for the morning. She’d already pushed past her exhaustion limit and should be in bed, but never in a thousand years would she have missed that hood-training session. More than learning a new technique for her falconry skills, she had shared something strange and intimate with Hank, experiencing firsthand how he got into the mind of a raptor when he worked with it. She sat, watching him as he continued to study Chance.

  Chance was asleep, his hooded head dropped low, and his grip on her glove relaxed. Without all of the visual stimulation to terrify him and with no light at all to see by, his mind had shut down as it would at night.