Snow Falcon Read online

  Copyright Stuart Harrison 2012

  Published by Stuart Harrison

  Cover design by Damonza

  Interior layout: www.formatting4U.com

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes:

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  The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author.

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER 1

  The falcon shifted uneasily, sensing danger. Far below, a figure crossed the open snow. He was a mile away, a solitary blemish against a vast white landscape. He carried a rifle slung over his shoulder and the deep tracks he made led back towards the trees.

  Every now and then the man stopped and turned his face to the sky as if searching for something. He shielded his eyes against the glare of the sun and then, after a moment, he walked on. Instinct made the falcon wary of him.

  A week ago storms had ravaged the area, bringing high winds and snow from the north. For days the winds had blown the falcon south from the ice-bound land she knew as home. For much of the time she had sheltered as gales whipped up blizzards and turned her world into a maelstrom of swirling white. In the end, hunger had driven her into the air and she had been carried in the path of the storm. Now she found herself in an unfamiliar landscape. The mountains stretched to the distance where they became blue-grey against the sky. The valleys were forest clad, dark green. High up above the tree line there were only rocky cliffs and snow.

  In some of the valleys there were rivers, and lakes of deep aqua. Food was plentiful. Two days ago she had killed a ptarmigan, stooping down from above as it flew across open ground but now she was hungry again. A breeze blew across the cliff where she stood and the falcon let her wings hang open, the flow of air teasing her feathers. She was dusky cream on her back with chocolate markings across her breast and thighs. Her wing primaries grew darker toward their ends. At twenty-six inches in length, with a wingspan of more than three feet, she was of a race of falcon that are the largest and swiftest on earth. She had no natural predators. Only man threatened her.

  ***

  Three-quarters of a mile away Ellis paused for breath.

  ‘Goddamn it.’ Phlegm rattled in his throat and he spat to the ground. He was tired from the long climb. With each step he sank to mid shin. It was heavy going and his head ached.

  If it hadn’t been for the lure of the money he would still be home in bed. He shifted the strap of his rifle and looked to the sky. There was nothing there but the odd drifting cloud. The glare off the snow made him squint. It felt like needles being shoved through his eyes into the back of his head. Ahead, dark rocks rose in a sheer bluff four hundred feet high. He wiped a thin sheen of sweat from his brow and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. He shouldn’t have drunk so much the night before. He figured he’d spent more than sixty bucks buying rounds after he told Red Parker and Hanson he was about to come into some money. Should’ve kept his big mouth shut.

  Ellis frowned. Maybe he’d exaggerated things a little too and the way things were going there wasn’t going to be any money at all. He’d been walking for two hours and there was no sign of the falcon. His head was hurting and his mouth felt like he’d been chewing sand. He knelt down and took off a glove to scoop snow into his mouth. It tasted slightly bitter but it quenched his thirst and he took off his cap and rubbed a little over the stubble on his scalp. It helped to ease the pain. He blew on his hand before he put his glove back on. Once he stopped walking it became cold real fast.

  It could be the falcon was long gone. Maybe it wasn’t an arctic gyr anyway, though he was pretty sure he recognized it from when he worked in Alaska. Uncertainty worsened his mood. He thought about turning around in his tracks and heading back to his truck and for about two seconds it was an appealing notion. Then he thought about the money Tusker was going to pay him and decided to give it a while longer.

  It occurred to Ellis that for all the trouble he was going to, it was still Tusker who was getting the better deal. They’d agreed a thousand for the gyr but now that he thought about it Tusker had rolled over with hardly a murmur, which probably meant Ellis was getting stuck with the short end of the stick.

  He first saw the falcon after he made a lumber delivery to a guy who was building an extension on his house over toward Williams Lake. The guy really screwed him on the price, but business was lousy and any kind of sale was better than no sale at all. He made up for it by putting some second-rate stuff in amongst the load, which the guy wasn’t going to find until it was too late. He saw the falcon when he stopped to take a leak driving over the pass. Damn thing was sitting on a rock no more than fifty yards away. He knew they were rare, especially this far south so he called in to see Tusker.

  Tusker was working on a grizzly when Ellis walked in the door. It was standing up on its hind legs with its teeth bared. In the dim light of the workshop the damn thing looked almost alive. Tusker saw his expression and thought it was funny.

  ‘Looks pretty good, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I guess so.’ Ellis didn’t like to go to Tusker’s place; the stink of the chemicals made him feel queasy.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ Tusker said, straightening up and wiping his hands on a grimy rag.

  ‘I might have something for you.’

  ‘Business ain’t so good right now.’

  Ellis bit back a retort. Tusker always said business wasn’t so good just so he didn’t have to pay much for the animals people brought him. The showroom out front was filled with Tusker’s work. Raccoons and beavers, foxes and coyotes slinking through grass, salmon mounted and fixed with a plaque all ready to be inscribed. There was a good trade in selling trophies to fishermen who went home and bragged about the fight their fish had put up before they finally hauled it in. They wanted something to show for the hours they’d spent ass deep standing in freezing water.

  ‘You ever get people looking for falcons?’ Ellis said. It didn’t come out as casual-sounding as he’d wanted and he didn’t miss Tusker’s shrewd glance.

  ‘What kind of falcon we talking about?’

  ‘An arctic gyr.’

  Tusker turned back to his work. ‘Where you going to get a gyr falcon, Ellis?’

  But Ellis had seen the sudden quickening of interest Tusker tried to hide. ‘You know some people you sell to if I remember right. Collectors and such. Think maybe one of them might be interested?’

  ‘Maybe. Thing is, Ellis, a gyr falcon, that’s a protected bird.’

  Ellis snorted with amusement because everybody knew Tusker wasn’t exactly a stand-up citizen. ‘If you’re not interested that’s fine by me. I just thought I’d give you first pop is all.’ He started for the door like he was leaving, which both of them knew he wasn’t.

  ‘You’re sure about it being a gyr falcon?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.’ He described it. ‘Almost pure white too,’ he’d added. ‘That makes it a pretty rare bird I’d say.’

  They haggled and settled on a thousand dollars, which was a lot more than Ellis thought he’d get. As he left he caught sight of a cage in a dark corner. There was a bear cub inside looking miserable.<
br />
  ‘Guy brought it in a week ago, with this.’ Tusker said and gestured to the female grizzly already stuffed and mounted. ‘He shot the mother then found the runt.’

  ‘What’re you going to do with it?’

  ‘Put it right next to its momma. Female grizzly protecting her cub. It’ll look good in some city guy’s house. He can tell all his friends about how he almost got himself killed.’ Tusker laughed.

  Ellis was sad for the cub. It felt like a sorry fate. There was something wrong with a person who could find such a thing amusing.

  That was three days ago and now Ellis decided that Tusker was cheating him. The sonofabitch was probably going to sell the falcon for five times what he was paying. If he ever found the damn bird he’d have to think about renegotiating terms.

  He stopped again for a breather. The cold air made his lungs ache. He was above the tree line, crossing a broad, open snowfield which was getting steeper all the time. He raised his glasses and scanned the sky, then swept around to the bluff ahead. Just as he was about to drop them, something moved and he swept back until he saw the flick of pale wings.

  ***

  The figure below had stopped moving. The wind coursing across the rock face ruffled her feathers. She turned her attention back across the valley in the direction of the forest. A solitary bird appeared, following the course of the slope. She could see the rapid beating motion of its wings rowing it through the air, the turn of its head as it warily surveyed the landscape, alert for danger. She felt the pull of the wind and the need to satisfy her hunger, but a deeply embedded instinct held her back. The figure hadn’t moved.

  The approaching bird was closer now. Its light grey plumage, and fat-breasted flight that gave it an awkward sculling motion marked, it as a pigeon. It was unaware of her presence, but soon it would be close enough to see her as she left the cliff, and then would have time to veer away and drop for the sanctuary of the trees. In the end, hunger overcame caution and she took to the air, leaving her perch with rapid wing beats until she felt rising air currents sweep her aloft.

  ***

  Ellis watched through the scope on his rifle, his finger resting on the trigger. He saw the color of the falcon’s plumage clearly against the dark rock as it took to the air and he knew he hadn’t been mistaken. He followed it in his sight, waiting for exactly the right moment. He was using a .22 and the falcon was further away than he would have liked, but he wanted one clean body shot. Tusker wasn’t going to pay much for a bird with its head blown off.

  He watched it dive towards the pigeon. It moved so fast he lost it in his sight, but then the falcon struck and leveled out again. The angle wasn’t right and he hesitated.

  ‘Come around, dammit,’ he muttered.

  Momentarily he thought about Rachel. He would take her out somewhere to eat, and this would be a whole new start for them. Things would pick up at the yard and they wouldn’t fight so much, he’d quit drinking the way he was. All he needed was one clear shot.

  The falcon banked and turned and caught the limp, falling body of the pigeon before carrying it towards the trees. It was now or never, Ellis thought, but though he was tempted, he knew it was too far away. Reluctantly he lowered the sight.

  His chances of seeing the falcon again that day were remote. Once it had fed it might not take to the air again for hours, but he would find it again. He lit a cigarette, then coughed and spat in the snow. His head was pounding now, and he was beginning to feel dizzy. He turned around and started back on the long walk down to the road.

  He’d come out again in the morning, right now he just needed to get some sleep, and maybe a beer to quench his thirst.

  CHAPTER 2

  The church on the edge of town looked just the way Michael Somers remembered it. Made of wood and painted white, it was surrounded by a cemetery and a picket fence. Behind it, spruce and cedar climbed the forested slopes. He got out of the Nissan he was driving, and followed the path leading to the porch through a gate, hunching his shoulders against the wind that came down from the high ground. With every step the snow crust cracked beneath his feet. In the north-western corner of the cemetery stood a solitary cottonwood, its limbs bare. This part of the cemetery was being reclaimed, new graves taking over from those so old nobody remembered the people who were buried there. The cemetery was untidy with lopsided crosses and angels missing limbs, the ground uneven.

  The grave Michael’s parents shared was marked by a polished black-grey headstone inscribed with gold lettering. He’d come home from college for his mother’s funeral when he was eighteen. Perhaps that was when a thread had started to pick loose in his mind. Twelve years after his mother’s death, he learned his dad had been killed in an accident. By then Michael was living in Seattle, and this time he didn’t come home for the funeral. As his father was being lowered into the ground, Michael was attending a business meeting, pretending his life was functioning normally.

  Standing by the grave, he felt the past looming like a cloud. He thrust his hands deep into his pockets and looked beyond the fence, across the snow, letting the whiteness fill his mind.

  He began to turn away, but then belatedly noticed the flowers in the vase. They were beginning to droop, their colors faded, but they couldn’t be more than a week old. He wondered who left them, and looked around as if he expected an answer to suddenly materialize.

  When he got back to his car he headed into town and drove along Main Street. Some things had changed over the years, but mostly it looked the way he remembered. He passed the Apple Market, then a house on the corner of Fourth Street where old man Spencer had once lived. Spencer would sit out on the porch all day, passing the time with everybody who went by, calling everybody by name. He had been the oldest person in town and had lived there his entire life. Michael slowed down to get a look at the house. It was freshly painted and a car was parked in the drive. Spencer would be long dead.

  Further along Main Street, a paint-blistered sign remained over the store his father had run until his death. The inside of the windows were covered with black paper so the building resembled a dark, empty hole between its neighbors. It was flanked on one side by a drug store, which had been a lunch bar when he last saw it. On the other side though, Greermans Clothing hadn’t changed at all. It seemed like the same work jeans and check shirts were displayed in the window. Seeing his dad’s store again brought on a flood of memories like fractured images, none of which he wanted to examine. He thought of his ex-wife and the daughter he didn’t know. Guilt flared and burned like a struck match held to his skin.

  Along the street, he parked outside the office Carl Jeffrey had taken over after his father had retired. As Michael got out of the car a woman passing on the sidewalk glanced his way, and for a second he felt conspicuous but there was no flicker of recognition in her features. He put his head down and hurried to the door.

  When Michael reached an outer office at the top of the stairs, a young woman looked up from her computer screen and smiled.

  ‘Hi, can I help you?’

  ‘I’m here to see Carl Jeffrey.’

  ‘Sure, I’ll get him for you. Can I give him your name?’

  ‘Michael Somers.’

  Her smile faltered. ‘I’ll tell Mr Jeffrey that you’re here.’

  She got up and went through to an inner office, though there was a phone on her desk she could have used. When she returned, she avoided his eye as she returned to her desk. Carl was just behind her, his expression creased into a wide smile that failed to reach his eyes.

  ‘Hey, Michael! It’s been a long time. How are you?’ They shook hands. ‘You haven’t changed at all.’

  ‘You look good yourself, Carl.’

  In high school Carl had been overweight, and time hadn’t changed him much. His head was round like a basketball, neck and jowls merging into rolls that flowed over the collar of his shirt. His suit was wrinkled at the arms, and stretched tight around his middle. There was a stain on his tie. He loo
ked both like his dad, and the small town lawyer that he was.

  ‘How about some coffee or something?’ Carl asked, ushering Michael into his office.

  ‘Coffee would be great.’

  ‘Jenny, did you hear that? Fetch us some coffee would you? How about a doughnut? There’s a bakery a couple of doors down that does pretty good food. You hungry?’

  ‘I’m okay thanks.’

  ‘You sure? Okay, just get me one of those cream cheese bagels,’ he told his secretary. ‘Poppy seed.’ He turned to Michael and patted his expansive stomach. ‘I’m supposed to watch what I eat.’

  Michael didn’t comment, thinking that it seemed like it was a losing battle Carl was fighting.

  Carl waved him to a chair. ‘So, how long has it been? Twenty years? When did you get here?’

  ‘I just arrived.’

  ‘I was expecting you at the beginning of the month. I was starting to think maybe you’d changed your mind when you didn’t show up, or I had the date wrong, but when I called that hospital they said you got out a couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘I had some stuff I needed to do,’ Michael said.

  In fact he’d driven around aimlessly, staying in cheap motels and sitting in diners at night watching people come and go. A lot of the time he ate junk food, stopping at a Dairy Queen or McDonalds. The hospital Carl referred to was St Mathews, which was a state institution. The food there was plentiful, but bland at best, though it was better than the prison food before that. By comparison, a Big Mac and a milk shake seemed exotic.

  When Carl’s secretary returned she was carrying take-out coffee cups and a paper-wrapped bagel. She glanced at Michael warily, though Carl didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘You want cream or sugar?’ Carl said, taking a bite of his bagel. He got up and fetched a file from a cabinet. ‘By the way, Karen said to say hi when I saw you.’