The Summer of the Falcon (10 page)

Realizing that he was depending on her earth-boundness to help him, she rushed through the cut clover and alfalfa to stir a mouse. None skipped out. She circled wide. The bird circled wide. She found a stick and beat. Once she looked up at him. His eyes were riveted to the twist of her hair in the wind, the flash of her feet—to every movement she made.

“What do you see?” she shouted. “The petals on the timothy? The antennae on the butterfly? Is everything very sharp and detailed in your keen, keen eyes?”

The bird moved forward a foot, plowed the air, and waited. June laughed to him. Then she ran back and forth up the hill.

She ran faster and faster. With a burst, a sparrow, feeding in an open spot in the hayfield, shot into the air.

The blue sky streaked with the falcon, coming down so fast she almost missed his descent. He had pumped twice on high, turned his head earthward, and fallen. He dropped toward the life that would die to give him life. Feathers burst from the prey like the dandelion in the wind. And the song of the earth was repeated as one life became another life.

June ran to Zander. He, like other falcons, was covering his prey. As she came closer he raised the feathers on top of his head and moved a shoulder over his food. His actions said, “This is mine.” June respected his feelings, and she spoke to him softly, “I don’t want it. I don’t want it,” then lifted him carefully off the ground and held him on her fist. The warm sparrow breast was against her hand. Zander, at home on the lifted hand, relaxed his feathers, stopped covering, and stared at June brightly.

“There! All on a sunny day we know the secret of life,” she said to the black-eyed, red-backed bird. “Now, if I liked sparrows and clover, you and I could live forever in this field. I would build us a grass hut to protect us from the storms. You would catch food for us and we would need no more.” She paused and added wistfully, “except ...”

“Bravo!” came a cry from the edge of the field. “We saw him do it!”

June spun to see Don and Charles, fishing poles in their hands, running over the hay stubble toward her.

“It was great! Perfect! Beautiful!”

“Don’t feed him but a small bite. We want to get movies.” They ran back to the house, their brown legs bowing at the knees.

During the past winter the twins had become expert photographers with their hard-won camera. They used the birds and pets around them as subjects. National magazines had bought their pictures and their articles as they began at seventeen to work out their careers. Now they were being called upon to lecture with movies, and the story of the first flight of a falcon was just the tale they wanted their cameras to tell. Both came hurrying back to fill the field with tripods, hoods, lenses, cameras—and argument. When Don and Charles worked together they argued, loud, long—as a person argues with himself when he comes to a decision. Their mother often shouted, “Stop arguing,” and they would look up and say, “Who’s arguing? I’m not arguing. I’m thinking out loud.”

For the rest of the morning they worked long and hard.

Zander performed beautifully, catching first a mouse (the film ran out and he had to do it again) and then a shrew. On the second kill he flew right into the camera and flashed the undersides of his wings—black and white—so that the sun bent off them as if they were gems.

As Zander hovered over his food, and the camera clicked out the climax of the young falcon’s first hunt, Don said, “Wow. I’m starved!”

“Oh!” June said. “I’m supposed to be cooking something.”

“Just get some sandwiches,” Charles called as she ran toward the house. “Cook the big meal tonight. We want to get Zander being carried home in his hood.”

She ran all the way to the kitchen, put bread, butter, and jelly together hastily, and ran all the way back. The twins were loading cameras. She passed her offerings. Don bit deep into one, chewed and turned suddenly upon her. “What the devil is in this?”

“Jelly,” she answered, worried. “Why?”

“You’re not trying to get even with us for leaving the dishes at the canoe landing, are you?”

“Oh, no,” she said, and watched in fascination as he slowly pulled his sandwich out of his mouth, spewed the contents, and turned it over for inspection.

“These are pure blue sandwiches,” he said, and thrust the mess at her. The bread was feathery with summer mould.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I’ll make some more.” Startled that her job wasn’t going according to her mental picture of an easy, smooth week, she was eager to run back to the house and try again. But the twins only wanted to get on with their work.

“Never mind, we’ll go down to the store and buy some candy bars,” Charles said gloomily, and reached into his blue jeans, found some change, and led them down the road. He had enough money for ice cream cones as well. They walked quietly back to the field to finish the movie.

When the last of the short story of the falcon was filmed they went to the creek for a swim with Rod, feeling grand for having accomplished something, and therefore loud and silly. They splashed and dived and called to each other.

“June!” yelled Rod. “Get the other end of the seine, and let’s troll the bottom of the creek.” She burst out of the water and joined him.

She was feeling independent now. No one would call her to work. She was happy about her falcon and ready for a treat. The timing on the housework was up to her.

The seine and the bottom of the stream fascinated them. It made them laugh hard and long. And June needed to laugh, she needed a party mood to celebrate her pride in her bird, and the silly stream bottom seemed just right. She took the other end of the net and followed Rod into the meadow where they began their hunt.

In one dip they brought up all manner of marvelous life from the swift waters and the rocks. There were crayfish, hellgrammites, the dragonlike larva of a fly. There were stone flies in cases made from their saliva and tiny bits of sand, and each had a trap door which opened and closed. Rod held one in the swift water until it opened and June giggled at the clownlike face that poked out. Then Rod touched the door and it closed.

“Spil squid,” he commented. June giggled again.

“Spil fors,” she laughed.

“Spil predjow.” They both curled with hysterics.

“Rod,” she finally said, “why are you so wise and foolish?”

“Because I am misunderstood,” he said. “I do not want to grow up at all. I want to grow out.” They laughed again.

June saw that the shadows were long. She stood up suddenly. “It’s late! I’ve got to start supper.” Rod picked up the seine and they ran through the bouncing bets, across the floodgates that carried the water to the flour mill, and home. Aunt Helen was at the edge of the porch calling her own family to the table for dinner. June hurried to her room, dressed and, bright-hearted, stood before the kitchen table.

“I think I’ll bake a cake,” she said with cheer. One of her chores during the winter was to bake a cake every Saturday. She was very good at it.

She creamed the butter and the sugar, and was adding the egg and flour when it occurred to her that she ought to have the water boiling for the potatoes. She lit the wick on the kerosene stove, filled a pot and placed it over the fire. Then she went back to the cake. Now, have I put in two cups or one? she asked herself. It looked runny so she added another cup—and remembered, too late, that it needed only half a cup. She added a little more milk.

She could hear the potato water boiling.

“I haven’t peeled the potatoes,” she said in disgust, and rushed to the cupboard for them. There was no water to wash them in. She got water and began the job. And then she remembered that a pork roast takes a long time to cook.

She stopped peeling potatoes and took the roast from the icebox. She found the salt, salted and peppered the roast and ground garlic over it as a good French chef once taught her mother to do. Then she got the oven ready and put in the roast.

She finished peeling the potatoes, put them in the water which had now boiled low, and went back to the cake.

She added the rest of the ingredients, greased the pan, and poured the batter, gold and flowing, into the pan. When she had carried the cake to the oven she saw that she could not get both the cake and the roast in the small space. She could feel a wave of desperation break over her and would have thrown herself on the green chair and kicked her heels—except that she didn’t have the time.

She had to think.

Knowing that the cake would go flat, she took the roast out and put the cake in. Then she smelled something and wondered if the boys were burning bird feathers. The smell was coming from the stove. The potatoes were burned.

She peeled some more while she waited for the cake to bake. She peeked in the oven and noticed that it was not rising. She had left out the baking powder. Out came the cake and in went the roast.

The cake dripped as she poured it in the garbage. She tried to get the burn off the potato pan.

And then the twins came in.

“Hey, is dinner ready?” they said brightly and trustingly. “We’re starved.”

She thought she was calm, but when she spoke her voice squeaked, “No! It’s not ready!” Then in a low tone, she added, “You’d better fly Ulysses or something; it’ll be another hour.”

Two hours later the meat was roasted, the potatoes were stone cold, and she had not shelled the peas.

Don and Charles insisted upon eating. “Make gravy and that will heat up the potatoes. We don’t need peas. We’ll eat lettuce.”

She began to make gravy, adding flour as she stirred. The mixture was too thick. She added water...too thin, added flour. Too thick, too thin.

Her brothers sat on Aunt Helen’s table swinging their feet and watching, saying nothing, just swinging their feet harder every time she added either the flour or the water. When she finished she had almost a gallon of gravy —as Don observed.

Said Charles, “That’ll do for a month.” And he curled over and laughed. “Let’s eat.”

Don carried the roast into the parlor and placed it on the round table.

As he sat down he asked, “What are we going to eat on? Red gingham squares?” She had forgotten to set the table.

She ran around the table and put down plates, then ran back to the kitchen for spoons and ran round the table putting them down, next the knives, the forks, the napkins.

“Can’t you do that from one spot all at once?” asked Don, and took the silverware from her hands and placed it on the table, chuckling to himself. She wanted to dig her elbow in him, but she knew if she did she would burst into tears. She hurried to the icebox for milk.

Charles sat in his father’s seat and served. He folded his napkin in his lap, helped himself to potatoes, heated them with hot gravy, and passed the lettuce. He flicked his elbows, cut a bite of meat, and put it in his mouth. He coughed and swallowed hard.

“What is this? Roast garlic?”

“Oh, don’t tease me now,” said June, “I’m about to cry.”

“I’m not teasing, taste it.”

It was awful. Don managed to find enough meat in the very center to get one garlic-free serving apiece.

Don made some helpful remark about how he’d been taught that a cook could get the right amount of garlic in food by letting the shadow fall upon it. Charles laughed, June looked helpless. They found enough tasty food, however, to “sustain life,” as Don worded it.

After drying the dishes June crawled up the back steps, feeling her exhausted way to her room. She took off only her shoes and socks, then pulled up the covers and felt the sweet comfort of the pillow.

As she was falling asleep she heard the sleeping-porch door open, then footsteps along the hall. Don and Charles were sneaking down the back steps.

“Whatcha doing?” she called.

“Going down to get peanut butter sandwiches. We’re starved!”

She was too tired to cry. She just murmured, “And Zander became trained in only three weeks.”

A
T MIDNIGHT
, her uncle rapped on June’s door.

“We’re in for a big storm, Junie—wind and lots of water. The hurricane that hit Virginia yesterday is here. Put on your bathing suit and bring in your falcon!”

June was awake and on her feet. Outside she could see the willows bend and the underside of the sycamore leaves shine silver as the storm tossed them. The night sucked and shook and blew. The earth was on violent terms with itself.

Everybody was up.

She dashed into the wind. It snatched the breath from her throat and snapped her hair like whips against her face. Zander, Zander...he could not withstand this. He would be torn from his perch, pulled the length of his jesses, then yanked to his death. She ran across the yard, head down, into the driving, painful rain.

Her falcon was on his perch. She was amazed to see him, facing the storm, eyes half-closed. She cupped him in both hands and tried to lift him. He held tight. She pulled again, his talons dug in. He could not let go. The more she pulled, the tighter he gripped. He was designed to stay alive in a world of storm and stress, and the harder the wind blew, the more June pulled, the tighter the tendon in his rear toe grasped the perch. She remembered the night her father had told her about this tendon. They were watching Zander as he slept. When he settled down and relaxed, the tendon in the back of his leg clamped his toes shut. Now he stood in the storm because his legs were bent in the position that locked his toes on his perch. She released him, his toes opened, and she snatched him up quickly before he could grab again. She ran into the house, slammed the door and leaned against it. The downstairs hall was in a state of motion as Don came in with Ulysses, Charles with Comet; and Rod called out the door for Bobu.