by Jana Barkley
She stepped back to wave at Mary Kate as she got out of her van.
“You have your hawk with you?” Hank asked her, taking on his usual persona, but his hands were slow to let go of her.
Sam nodded.
“Why don’t you put him in the weathering pen, and I’ll go get Gally ready.”
“Hey, boss,” called Mary Kate.
“Hello, yourself.” He scowled as he buttoned his shirt and turned to go into the mews.
Mary Kate waited for a cue.
“Not yet,” Sam said, and went to get Chance.
They walked the narrow trail down to the landing, Hank in the lead with Gally and the two women following behind. Once out on the open plain that rose above the beach, they moved up beside him.
She met Hank’s worried eyes and held his gaze for a moment until he changed his focus back to the ritual of getting Gally ready to fly. She could feel how divided his attention was and regretted being the cause of his distraction. Stepping up to his right side, she touched his arm and earned a loving peck on the head. It didn’t seem to matter to him if Mary Kate saw an expression of his affection for her. He took confidence from her touch and unhooded the falcon.
The small peregrine was eager to fly. When he took off, he headed into the wind, beating the air with sharp strokes. Up he circled in his usual style, mounting higher and wider with each circle. Hank led them forward into the stiff breeze blowing in off the ocean, the late afternoon light glinting off turquoise waves cascading on their right beneath the landing. Gally was soon out of human sight, and she realized Hank didn’t have his binoculars. Not that he used them much, she thought, smiling. It was her job to fret and try to use them. A useless effort, considering up until now the falcon always worked his way back before she found him in the lenses.
At the far end of the landing, a large flock of what had to be ducks flushed up off the beach below and flew farther along the coast in a southerly direction. A black bullet streaked out of the sky in hot pursuit, his line of flight ending out of eyesight as he pursued whatever it was he was chasing down below the edge of the landing.
It was impossible to know what had occurred, for the distance of the chase was beyond their range of sight. More birds, large and black, rose in the air and started flying farther down the coast away from them.
Hank swore, and she knew he wished he had his binoculars. Taking out his lure, he whistled and swung the leather-skirted pod in large circles. Nothing happened, and Sam’s heart constricted.
After a minute or so, Hank let the lure drop and stared at the southern sky.
“He’s either down on one of those ducks or he’s chasing another one down the beach.” He shook his head. “Haven’t had to do a telemetry chase on this rascal for ages, but…” He rubbed his face and stared at the southern beach, which snaked around following the coast highway. He spoke only to Sam on his right. “Really didn’t feel like doing this today.”
His comment raised her concern, but he shook his head and stuffed the lure back into his bag.
Pulling out his telemetry receiver, Hank extended the arms of the antenna and walked south on the landing, searching for a signal. The repetitive beep was there, but not as clear as Sam had heard it before.
The two women jogged to keep up with his energetic stride, but after about twenty yards, Sam felt her chest constrict in a spasm of pain similar to the one she’d had the day before. Stopping to cough, she waved Mary Kate on when her friend stopped. Hank was too concerned over his missing bird to notice.
Sam walked slowly, struggling for breath and sweating. “Not now, she whispered. “Please not now.” Her eyes followed the anxious form of the man she loved, striding ahead to find his falcon.
The landing touched the coast highway on its easternmost border and ended in a gradual, twenty-foot drop above the beach on the opposite side. As Sam struggled up beside them while they stood scanning the expanse of beach below for any shape resembling a falcon, she noticed a narrow trail that zigzagged down to the beach.
The strain on Hank’s face tormented her. She was unused to seeing him less than in control, less than assured. Until then, his flights with this falcon had appeared carefree, a thing of beauty to behold as he seemed able to let go of the little peregrine and trust his return. But Hank was human and vulnerable to this kind of loss, as they all were.
Sam suppressed a cough and stared back down the trail.
“That’s it. Let’s head back and get the truck.” Hank turned and strode off.
Sam had wanted to suggest the trail and beach below, but it would have cost her precious air to talk, and she knew better than to pull his attention away from searching for his lost bird. Mary Kate trotted on, but something inside of Sam pulled her attention back to the narrow, eroded trail. There was no way in hell she could tell him about herself when he might end up losing his precious falcon. Two losses at once and more cause to feel betrayed. But rejection was no longer her fear; it was the pain of seeing him suffer.
They were far ahead of her now, an impossible trek for her to accomplish without slowing them down or raising unwanted questions. Again that trail and its possibilities called to her. Intuition said the falcon dove down on something and might have ended up below the landing. Logic said she had nothing to lose by exploring this portion of beach while the others headed south on the highway with the telemetry. She gazed after Hank. They were too far away for her to tell them what she was going to do, and strangely enough, the urge to do it before they saw her leave the landing propelled her forward.
Three steps down the trail, the path crumbled and gave way. Sam landed on her backside and slid down the embankment. The fall took the remaining wind out of her, and she gasped as the world turned grey for a few minutes before she could focus again. Panting like an exhausted animal, she scooted down the remaining eight feet to the beach and stopped.
The tide was out, leaving a broad, sandy expanse between her and the ocean. Checking the crumbled path from which she had come, she regretted her decision. There was no way she could climb back up in her current condition. But if Gally was somewhere around there, she would find him. She must, for Hank’s sake. They could yell at her later.
Step by step, she worked her way south along the edge of the landing, using the rise of rock and sand to lean on as she moved. She stumbled forward for what felt like an eternity and began to despair there was nothing to be found when she came around a rocky outcropping that jutted out of the landing.
A lagoon with several coots and ducks swimming on it surprised her. Reaching up with a shaking hand to wipe her brow, she realized her shirt was dripping wet. Fever. She told herself to keep looking and trust her instincts. Although it hurt, she laughed. Wasn’t that what Hank was always trying to get her to do? Stop second-guessing herself?
She trudged on but stopped short when she saw movement in the reeds at the edge of the lagoon. There in the tall grass, eating duck to his heart’s content, was Gally. Sam fell to her knees, relieved, and a choked laugh escaped her.
The little tiercel heard her and looked up. She was still too new to him, and he mantled over his catch. Sam had never been so thankful for her friends’ rule about always bringing a glove out into the field, even when you weren’t the one hawking. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out her gauntlet. It was too thick and bulky for a falcon because it was made for the crushing talons of a hawk, but it would do fine. So would the clip-strap.
Gally settled back into his meal, glancing up at her from time to time to make certain she wasn’t there to take it away. Calling him up to the glove as she had done before with Hank’s supervision was all well and good when she had some food to offer the falcon. But now, he had the duck and she had nothing.
Gally was only four feet away, but there was no way she could hold her arm up for long or reach out fast enough to grab him. A rush of light-headedness hit her hard, and she dropped down on her arm. Lying on the sand, she willed it to pass. If only she could get him cli
pped in.
The sun was setting on the ocean, and she was aware of the incredible peace surrounding her. The sound of the surf rolling into the sand and bubbling back in frothy streams was lulling. And now the crushing pain in her chest was gone. With dreamlike consciousness she lay there, the breeze blowing over her body bending the gentle wild grasses against her face. Her mind reached for the falcon. Where was he? Sam couldn’t tell how long she lay there with her eyes closed, trying to breathe. But when she opened her eyes, the little falcon was still eating. He had picked most of the meat off the neck of the duck and was working his way into the breast.
If she could get her glove onto the duck to pin it down and keep him from dragging it away from her in a panic, she’d have a decent chance. With one great intake of air, she slid her gloved arm forward and let it land on the duck’s midsection. Gally tried to tug at it and clucked in protest when he found he couldn’t make the duck budge. Sam stayed still, not so much to wait for him to calm down as to rest from the effort of moving.
Gally wasn’t about to let go and mantled over the duck, watching her with a wary eye. “It’s all right, buddy. Neither of us is going anywhere soon.”
The sound of her voice seemed to affect him; Hank must talk to him a lot. He’d known more human company than other wild falcons during his lifetime. It made sense he found reassurance in the human voice.
He went back to plucking breast feathers from the duck, looking for skin so he could tear into the meat. If she were her usual, healthy self, she could reach in and tear off a wing to use as a pick up piece and clip the falcon in. Sam didn’t have the strength to do it, let alone to stand up. But she would try. She had to.
Sprawled out on her belly with her gloved hand anchoring the duck, she eased her free hand forward to see how close she could get to the carcass without exciting the falcon. A footing, or worse, a bite from the sharp-toothed beak of the falcon, was something she would have cringed at before. At this point, did it matter?
With closed eyes, she slid her bare hand up until it touched the glove. Gally didn’t cluck or protest, and she glanced up with renewed hope. Her fingers grasped a few of the duck’s primary wing feathers and she pulled with all her might. The wing gave, and she moved her gloved hand to grasp what she could, even if it was only feathers, then lay panting again.
Gally took her presence for granted now, understanding she wasn’t going to take his duck.
With another monumental effort, Sam pulled the wing, and her arm slipped backward toward her, making her cry out in frustration. A weary glance up showed her she had managed to pull a handful of long flight feathers. Well, he didn’t have to know there was no meat attached to the feathers grasped in her glove. She began to see a way through this.
Hope gave her more energy, and she forced herself up onto her hip, holding herself upright with her bare hand. Please let this work.
She no longer had hold of the duck, but she had a handful of feathers she now held out for Gally. Never a great whistler, Sam gave it her best. Her voice was pathetic, but she tapped her glove and called, “Gally!”
The falcon stopped feeding and raised his head to stare at her. His giant black eyes gazed at her glove, then her face, and then back to the meat under his feet. For a split second, Sam felt something shift in his body, and a strange communication passed between the two of them. She’d never felt anything like it before. Wiggling the feathers in her hand, she willed the falcon to look at the glove, tapping it with her other hand. Logic told her a falcon on a fresh duck kill had no reason to leave it and come to a sparsely garnished glove. Perhaps it was twenty-six years of Hank calling him to the glove the same way every time, because he did come to her in a deliberate leap, while clucking and complaining, and commenced to pluck the feathers from her hand.
With what was left of her energy, Sam pushed herself up and reached in with her bare hand to clip in to the falcon’s anklet. Once done, she rolled her body over to sit on the duck, hiding it from Gally.
“Sorry, buddy,” she panted, “there’s only feathers. But by the size of your crop, you’re not gonna be flying for at least two days.”
Coughing seized her, and Sam doubled over in pain. The air sparkled with white flakes, and she knew she was going to pass out. The song of the red-winged blackbirds was the last sound she heard.
Telemetry: Modern radio tracking device used to locate a missing hawk
Chapter Forty
Hank first realized Sam was gone when he reached the trail back to the house. He had been working out possible scenarios for where the falcon’s flight had taken him, trying to figure out where to go next. As a young falcon, Gally had taken several jaunts farther south in pursuit of pintails and had ended up as far as Pescadero.
His mind had been muddled with worry over Sam. The anxiety in her face had cast a cloud over the passion between them. He knew she wanted him with the same fervor he had for her. Her eyes cried out for connection, making him hungry to make her cry in other, more pleasurable ways. But his need was deeper than purely physical, and he trembled at how vulnerable he felt.
Mary Kate called to him and turned him around.
The landing was empty. There was nothing but sea and sky and wild dune grass flapping in the wind. If he hadn’t known better, he would have sworn a black hole had opened up on the coast and swallowed his bird and his woman in one fell swoop.
“What the hell is going on?” he demanded loudly.
Mary Kate was mute, but her face creased in mounting anxiety. She struck out on her own back to the southern end of the landing. He had to run to keep up with her.
“Sam!” Mary Kate’s voice was frantic. She ran like a mad woman and didn’t stop until she reached the drop-off at the edge.
He’d never seen her so frantic except for the time her first red tail had been electrocuted.
“What’s going on, Mary Kate?” he asked, a warning in his voice.
She avoided his eyes, stubborn and resolute. Then pointing to the telemetry receiver sticking out of his bag, she said, “Give me the receiver. I have a feeling if we find the falcon, we’ll find Sam.”
He pulled out his receiver again, turned it on, and handed it to her.
She turned around in circles, playing with the volume, and then threw a hand up in despair. “There’s signal all the way around! Help me!”
Hank stepped up and took the receiver from her. “You’re getting bounce from those mountains in the north,” he said, pointing. “The signal’s weaker in that direction. That’s how you know. But this is a helluva time for a telemetry lesson.”
He tossed the receiver back into her faltering hands and walked to the edge of the drop-off.
The sun was setting. Its final, illuminating rays, which they needed to find the falcon and Sam, would soon disappear. He raked a hand through his unruly hair and fought back the urge to scream. Nighttime held great peril for a game hawk on the loose. Gally hadn’t lived in the wild since he was a passager—a first-year bird learning to hunt and survive on his own when only a few months old. Great horned owls would make a feast of any raptor not smart enough to seek cover after the sun dropped. Whether Gally had any common sense or wild instinct left, Hank didn’t know. But where was Sam and why hadn’t she answered their calls? How far might she have chased after Gally? Then realizing Sam might be lost or hurt made his heart seize up.
He was about to yell for her, but something deeper called him to a calmer place inside, and he reached out to her with his mind: I trust you, Sam. Tell me where you are.
He felt tears in the back of his throat and realized he hadn’t cried for years. Images of ocean and sand flooded his mind, only to disappear as his awareness was yanked back to reality by a flock of red-winged blackbirds exploding into the air past the edge of the landing in one large, tumultuous group. High above them, they circled and then took off in their characteristic amoeba-shaped mass. Suddenly, Hank noticed what was near his feet. He’d forgotten about the trail. It was
so old and eroded he’d stopped using it years ago.
“Mary Kate!” he yelled. “Stay put. I’ll be right back.”
He didn’t give her time to ask where he was going. He leapt down the path, coming to an abrupt stop when he saw fresh, deep gouges cut into the earth and fell away down the side of the landing. She had been there.
Hank slid on his heels down the same ruts made by Sam’s feet and landed with a jump onto the sand below. There was enough light for him to see her tracks, and he fretted at the erratic pattern her footsteps had made. The only sounds were the surf and the end-of-day twitter of little birds in the coyote bushes.
Hank hurried on and then stopped short at a rocky outcropping that obscured his view of the beach. Sam’s footprints followed on around it. A small, recessed lagoon lay beyond. Then he saw her. For a moment, she made the sweetest, prettiest picture he could have imagined, and then he noticed she was lying there, perfectly still. He scrambled closer.
Sam was asleep, and his falcon was perched and preening on her gloved arm, which rested across her belly. Like some fairytale princess, the image of her sleeping disturbed and beguiled him at once.
As he noticed her labored breathing and her hair and shirt soaked with sweat, reality laid hold of him with its own version of talons. He slid to his knees beside her.
Gally gazed up at him as if to say “Where have you been?” and then recommenced preening. His huge crop confirmed what Hank had suspected about him being down on a kill, and part of him sighed in relief. At least half of his worries were over.
But Sam—she was so pale, and she was not well. He lifted her into a sitting position, leaning her head and shoulders against his chest. Gally obligingly shifted over to her lap. She was out cold. Her body struggled for air in sharp, shallow breaths. Being in a sitting position seemed to help; she started to cough and come to, gasping for more air.
“Wake up, sweetheart,” he said, stroking her face. “Look at me. Here I am.”
Sam struggled through bleary eyes to see, and then focused on his face.