The Falcon Always Wings Twice

by Donna Andrews

  “So the odds are that we just soared to the top of Chief Heedles’s suspect list,” Faulk said.

  “You probably haven’t,” I said. “Worst case, she’s probably a little testy right now because checking you out is going to be a whole lot more work. But she’s definitely not going to take their word against yours without checking.”

  “Why not?” Faulk asked, sounding puzzled.

  “Because in case you hadn’t noticed, Riverton and Jessop are like the Hatfields and McCoys,” I explained. “When I told her you’d been to the Jessop ER, she said she hoped there wasn’t anything serious wrong and suggested getting a second opinion from someplace competent. If your story doesn’t match theirs, she’s not going to take their word for it without checking.”

  “But what can she check?” Faulk looked a little less gloomy.

  “Did either of you use your cell phones while you were there?”

  “I have no idea if I even brought mine.” Faulk shrugged. “And what difference would it make?”

  “Why didn’t I think of that?” Tad exclaimed. He pulled out his phone, touched the screen a couple of times, and peered down at it. “Yes. I checked my messages at one twenty-one. And at two fifteen I called up to get my bank balance, in case we had to pay cash for anything if they ever got around to seeing us. And at four-twelve, when I was on my way back from the doughnut shop, I got a call, and I answered it because it had a local area code and I thought it might be the hospital. Junk call.”

  “And this helps us because…?” Faulk asked.

  “The call would bounce off of the nearest cell phone tower,” I explained. “Which will be in Jessop, not Riverton. And speaking of the doughnut shop—did you pay cash?”

  “No!” Tad beamed. “I used my bank card. And I bet the cops will remember me.”

  “Cops?” Faulk asked.

  “The place where I got the coffee was an all-night joint—definitely a cop hangout. The only other people there were a couple of cops. And boy, were they giving me the once-over—not only an unfamiliar face, but a black one. And okay, one of them was a local cop, so maybe the hospital can co-opt him, but the other one was a state trooper.”

  Normally the notion of being subjected to extra scrutiny because of his race would have infuriated Tad—but now the idea had him grinning with relief.

  “And hey—look at this!” He held up his phone.

  I peered at the tiny screen. I couldn’t exactly read what was on it—a document of some sort. No, make that a form.

  “Did you photograph the entire admission form?” I asked.

  “Just the top part with Faulk’s social security number on it, so I didn’t have to make him take out his wallet if they asked for it again. But it’s got the time I finished filling out the form.”

  “Excellent,” I said.

  The sound of a hammer tapping a couple of times on an anvil brought us back to the moment.

  “I’d better go out and make sure the boys aren’t bashing each other’s fingers.” Faulk smiled at us and slipped out into the main part of the forge.

  “Thank you,” Tad said. “We’re supposed to be keeping him stress free. Not going so well this weekend. But it should be a little better now that you’ve talked us off the ledge. I should have thought of the cell phone thing.”

  “You don’t have an insatiable mystery reader in your family,” I said. “I know all sorts of normally useless things thanks to Dad.”

  “Of course there’s no guarantee,” Tad said. “The cell phone tower information could be inconclusive. They could claim I lied on the form. The cops could pretend not to remember me so no one accuses them of profiling. But Faulk doesn’t need to know any of that.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “I’ll see you later—I’m going to check on Grandfather.”

  “And I have to get back to my patrol.” He straightened his shoulders, assumed an expression of almost comical gravity, and strode out.

  I followed him outside and watched the beginning of the blacksmithing demonstration. The boys were good—amazingly good for their age. I wouldn’t complain if one of them followed in my footsteps and took up the trade. Nor would I be disappointed if one or both emulated Michael and went into acting. They were talented at that as well.

  And then I reminded myself that it was a little early to be planning careers for them. And that I still hadn’t checked on what Grandfather was up to.

  I waved at Faulk and the boys and slipped into Falconer’s Grove.

  Chapter 32

  I found Grandfather and Greg giving a demonstration to a small crowd.

  Make that trying to give a demonstration. The Mad Monk was standing at the rail, shouting at them and shaking his fist. I could see others in the already small audience edging away and putting some distance between them and the seedy-looking monk.

  Greg looked as if he was working to keep his mouth shut—no doubt he was remembering Cordelia’s oft-repeated instructions: “The customer may not always be right, but you don’t need to tell him how wrong he is.” Grandfather, who had never been known to shrink from a battle or argument, was in what my old martial arts teacher would have called a state of relaxed but conscious readiness.

  “And you should be ashamed of yourself.” The Mad Monk turned to Grandfather. “I guess your image as a big environmentalist is all fake.”

  “Actually, falconry and environmental consciousness are perfectly compatible.” Grandfather sounded completely unruffled. “Back in the 1960s, the peregrine falcon was in serious decline. And do you know why?”

  The Mad Monk stood with his arms folded, stubbornly refusing to engage. I decided to help.

  “Let me guess: habitat destruction?” I asked. I knew from hearing any number of Grandfather’s talks on endangered species that this was always a safe guess.

  “Well, that was a factor,” he said. “But back in the sixties, the more acute threat was DDT. It was still actively in use, and among other negative effects, it makes a bird’s eggshells so thin that they break before they hatch. And thanks to biomagnification—the tendency for nasty stuff like DDT to become more concentrated as it moves up the food chain—raptors like the peregrine falcon started feeling the effects a lot sooner than their prey. Falconers helped sound the alarm on the problem, and then worked hand-in-hand with ornithologists to publicize the danger and bring about the Endangered Species Act in 1973. And not a bit too soon—by that time, the peregrine falcon was effectively extirpated here in the U.S.”

  “Extirpated,” I echoed. “Is that another way of saying extinct?”

  “Locally extinct,” Grandfather corrected. “Given how popular peregrines are for falconry, there were a fair number of them in captivity, and there are at least nineteen subspecies around the world that were closely related to the one we’d lost, so we were able to breed them in captivity and reintroduce them to the wild here on the East Coast. Not quite the original subspecies, alas, but still, much better than having no peregrines at all. Ecosystems need their predators. And our success with the peregrines paved the way for dozens of similar projects with other raptors all over the world.”

  Grandfather beamed with such obvious pride that I deduced he’d been actively involved in saving the pere- grines—though probably not by doing anything labor-intensive like hand-rearing orphaned chicks. More likely he’d helped finance the rescue—he had an almost uncanny ability to raise funds for any environmental cause he championed. And I could only imagine the effect he’d have on a bevy of bureaucrats or legislators he considered insufficiently supportive of endangered species—it would be rather like turning Gracie loose on a flock of fluffy little chicks.

  “And there’s another small contribution that falconry makes to biodiversity,” Grandfather said. “Falconers don’t necessarily keep their birds indefinitely. Many if not most of them take their birds from the wild—but they can’t take just any bird. Most jurisdictions only allow you to take a bird that’s out of the nest but not yet of breeding
age. That’s a population whose odds of survival aren’t all that great. They’re still learning to hunt, so starvation’s a very real threat, and when they’re that young they’re also more vulnerable to being eaten by bigger, more experienced predators. Somewhere between seventy and ninety percent of them don’t make it to adulthood.”

  “Nature red in tooth and claw,” I quoted. Grandfather beamed at hearing one of his favorite quotations.

  “But the birds falconers take and train tend to survive.” Grandfather nodded approvingly at Harry and Gracie. “They get a warm, safe place to live, even in the winter. They get fed, even in a bad year when game is nonexistent. They get medical care that helps them stay healthy—in the wild a lot of birds suffer from parasites, everything from mites and lice to coccidia and tapeworms—you name it. They get plenty of time to grow up, become strong, and learn to be expert hunters. And after a year or two, the falconer releases them back into the wild—and the gene pool. Everybody wins.”

  “But meanwhile they’re living in captivity,” the Mad Monk said. “They don’t choose to live in a filthy cage.”

  “Actually, they do choose to stay with their humans,” Greg said. “Oh, not at first, but these guys?” He gestured toward Gracie and Harry. “By now they stay around because they want to. In case you hadn’t noticed, the only way we can hunt with them is to let them fly free. Any time they want to, they can just fly away. They’re complete pragmatists—if they think they can do better on their own, they’re not going to stick around.”

  “And I’d hardly call the mews a cage, much less a filthy one,” Grandfather added. “Maybe it looks like a cage to you, but to Harry and Gracie, it looks like a really comfortable place to hang out when they’re not hunting. A place where they can sleep soundly without worrying that something bigger than they are, like a great horned owl, might pounce on them. It’s scientifically designed to meet their needs, physical and emotional.”

  “And you can lose that ‘filthy’ bit,” Greg added. “The mews—and for that matter the weathering yard and every tiny bit of equipment we use—all of it’s highly regulated and subject to inspection at any time. You find a mews that’s not clean and well maintained and I guarantee you the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries is going to shut it down pronto. That mews is cleaner than most people’s kitchens.”

  “There’s just no way of getting some people to see the right.” The Mad Monk lifted his chin in scorn and walked away.

  “No, there isn’t, is there?” I muttered.

  “What a moron.” Grandfather’s voice probably carried well enough for the Mad Monk to hear him.

  “How’d he get back in, anyway?” Greg muttered. “I thought Queen Cordelia was going to ban him—he’s almost certainly the jerk who tried to set the birds free last weekend.”

  “Set them free?” Grandfather asked. “What happened?”

  “It was right before closing time and almost all of the tourists were gone. I went to take a load of stuff to the car, leaving Vinnie to watch the birds. Someone lured him away with a fake emergency, and when he got back, Gracie was riled up about something, and Harry’s leash had been cut.”

  “Only Harry’s?” I asked.

  “Pretty sure he tried to cut Gracie’s, too, but she didn’t let him get close enough. Did you see those nasty half-healed scratches on his neck? Looks like Gracie’s handiwork to me.”

  “Good for Gracie!” Grandfather exclaimed.

  “A good thing Harry didn’t escape.” And now that Greg mentioned it, I was pretty sure Cordelia had put him on the banned list. So how had he gotten in?

  “Fat chance of Harry going anywhere.” Greg sighed. “To tell you the truth, I’d figured out by a week or two after I caught him that Harry was never going to be the keen hunter Gracie is. But I figured I’d give it a try. He’s a handsome bird, with an unusually good disposition—I figured he’d be good for demonstrations at Ren fairs. But he’s driving me bonkers. If I go out in one of our favorite hunting grounds with Gracie, the second I pull off her hood her eyes are darting around looking for prey. She’s ready! I take Harry and I unhood him and he’s like ‘Gee, thanks, Greg. Nice scenery. I’m ready for a little nap in the sun. You did bring the snacks, right? Because I’m getting a little peckish.’” He shook his head and looked at Harry with a curious mix of disappointment and affection.

  “Have you had him checked out?” Grandfather was frowning as he studied Harry. “That’s very odd behavior—it could indicate some sort of medical problem. Clarence Rutledge, the vet we use for the zoo—”

  “Has seen Harry so many times by now that he gives us a frequent flyer discount.” Greg shook his head. “Harry’s not sick. Just mellow. One really laid-back raptor.”

  “The hawk equivalent of Ferdinand the Bull,” I suggested.

  “Yeah.” Greg nodded.

  “That doesn’t make him a lot of fun to hunt with, does it?” Grandfather continued to study Harry with an increasingly disapproving look. “And it’s not exactly a trait conducive to survival in the wild. Could be genetic, in which case taking him out of the gene pool wouldn’t be a bad thing.”

  “I’m worried that he’s already taken himself out of the gene pool. I tried to hack him out this spring and the whole thing flopped.”

  “Flopped how?” Grandfather asked.

  “And what is hacking out?” I added. “Doesn’t sound like fun.”

  “Hacking out is what we call a soft release,” Greg explained. “You give the bird the freedom to go and let him choose when he wants to leave.”

  “We do it all the time with birds raised in captivity and then released into the wild to rebuild the population,” Grandfather said. “You provide food and a predator-resistant shelter, you let the bird come and go, and they choose to leave when they’re ready.”

  “Harry never left.” Greg sounded wistful. “I thought of trying to chase him off—shout at him and bang things. Make him scared of humans.”

  “Sometimes necessary.” Grandfather nodded. “Trusting humans isn’t a survival trait for wild creatures.”

  “But he’s a pretty lousy hunter,” Greg said. “I worry that he’d starve if I chased him off. So I plan to keep giving him plenty of chances to leave, but I’m kind of resigned to the fact that he could be around for the long term.”

  “How long is the long term?” I asked.

  “The record for a red-tailed hawk in captivity is almost thirty years.” Greg sighed and shook his head. “He’s only about two. I know it’s a little selfish of me, but he’s filling up one of my three slots.”

  “Three slots?” I echoed.

  “Falconers start as apprentices,” Grandfather explained. “Who are only allowed to possess a single raptor. After two years they can become a General Falconer and possess three. And if they keep at it, after another five years they can become a Master Falconer and own any number they like. But right now Greg’s limited to three.”

  “It’s not an unreasonable law,” Greg said. “There’s a limit to how many birds one falconer can properly care for. But the problem is, right now I’ve got Gracie, and Harry, and Delilah, an elderly red-tailed hawk with only one wing. She can’t fly, so it’s not as if I can turn her loose. I rescued her when I found her losing a fight with a Great Horned Owl and nursed her back to health, which wasn’t easy.”

  “Good man.” Grandfather said. “You might be able to find a raptor sanctuary that would take her. In fact I know an excellent one not far from here.”

  “She’s used to me.” Greg shook his head. “I don’t want to disrupt her life—not at her age. And if I keep at it, I should make Master Falconer in a little over two years.”

  “But right now, you’ve only got one falcon willing and able to hunt.” Grandfather looked thoughtful. “I wonder if we could develop some kind of training program to spark Harry’s interest in hunting.”

  “You think it’s possible?” Greg looked hopeful.

  “I have no idea,”
Grandfather said. “First time I’ve ever heard of a hawk too lazy to hunt. But there’s no harm trying, is there?”

  Greg looked more cheerful. And Grandfather was studying Harry with the satisfied expression he always wore when he’d just found an interesting new project.

  “Well, I should get back to work,” I said.

  They both nodded absently, and I left them there, staring thoughtfully at Harry.

  But as I left, I noticed that the Mad Monk hadn’t gone far. He’d merely crossed the clearing, gone a few feet into the woods, and sat down cross-legged. Had he tried to go farther in, encountered the nearly invisible black net deer fencing and settled for his present position? I think I’d have noticed that happening. Would-be trespassers usually got caught up in the net and often needed help extricating themselves. At the very least, they’d usually utter a few unflattering words about the ancestry of whoever had strung up the netting. The Monk had made a beeline to the spot and settled himself quietly—make that stealthily—with the trunk of a large tree between him and the mews. I was willing to bet it wasn’t the first time he’d occupied that spot—a spot where Greg and Grandfather probably couldn’t see him.

  And now that he was sitting down, I noticed something else. His monk costume included a scabbard, hanging from his rope belt.

  Chapter 33

  I shifted a little so I could get a better view of the Monk. I was relieved to see that the scabbard was empty.

  And dagger-sized. I wouldn’t have seen it if not for the fact that when he sat, his robes shifted slightly and the scabbard poked out.

  I retraced my steps to the fence around the mews, right beside where Greg and Grandfather were sitting. I was right—you couldn’t see the Monk from there.

  “Just so you know, the Mad Monk hasn’t gone far,” I said. “He’s hiding behind a big tree across the clearing.”