The Snow Falcon (16 page)

“Don’t worry about her,” Tom said as if reading Michael’s mind. “You did what you thought was right. If it wasn’t for you, she’d be dead by now.”

“What would you have done if you’d found her?”

Tom considered the question for a moment before replying. “I’ve been taking care of animals all my life, but you can’t do this kind of work in country like this without having some respect for nature and her ways. It’s hard for us to understand sometimes, isn’t it? We like

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to root for the underdog, I guess. Show us some animal that’s helpless and injured and we want to take care of it, but the fact is that it’s the strongest and smartest of a species that survive. Your falcon here was just unlucky. Maybe out of the nest she came from, she wasn’t the one nature decided was going to make it.”

“Except it wasn’t nature that shot her,” Michael pointed out. “Are you saying she ought to be euthanized?”

“No, I’m not saying that. Now that she’s here, I don’t see it can hurt to give her another chance. There’s a guy over near Williams Lake I might call if I can find his number. He came in here once a couple of years ago with an injured hawk that he’d trained; he might be able to help.”

“Help in what way?”

Tom explained an idea that had occurred to him. “The best thing would be to immobilize the wing to allow time for the fracture to heal, and then train her to fly free. She could build her strength up, and we’d see if there was any problem before she was let loose. At least that way she wouldn’t starve to death. Maybe this guy would take her on.”

Michael thought back to the bird he’d glimpsed in the slightly eerie twilight of the clearing outside his house, certain it was this falcon. He was equally sure she was the same bird he’d prevented the hunter from shooting several days earlier. It seemed they were fated for each other, he mused, only half serious, and yet as the falcon met his gaze, her bright eyes shining with a fierce intensity, he wondered if maybe that wasn’t so far from the truth. He couldn’t explain why, but he’d felt some kind of empathy with her as he’d watched her soaring high and free in the mountains.

“What if / was to train her?” he said.

Tom looked at him curiously. “Are you serious?”

“Why not? What exactly is involved?”

“Well, frankly, I don’t know.” Tom paused. “It’s something you ought to think about pretty carefully. There’s a lot to consider.”

“Like what?”

“Like the time it’ll take, for one thing,” Tom said. “She’s going to need to stay here for a few days while I do something about that injury; then the wing’s going to have to be immobilized for a couple of weeks. You’ll need a place to keep her, fresh food.”

“I’ve got the time,” Michael said. “The rest I can organize.”

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“If you’re going to train her, you’ll need to learn how.”

“You mentioned this guy you were thinking of calling. Maybe he could help.”

“If I can find his number,” Tom said. He went over to his desk and started looking through his papers. After turning out the contents of three drawers, upending them on the desktop and sorting among the debris, he found what he was looking for. He came back with a piece of paper on which he’d written a name and number. “His name’s Frank Dobson. Maybe you should speak to him before you commit yourself. Leave the falcon with me for a few days, and let me know what you decide.”

“No need for that. I can tell you now that I’ll be back for her.” Michael was as certain of that as he was of anything. The idea had occurred without forethought, but now he was sure this was something he wanted to do.

Tom nodded, seeing that he meant it. “I believe you will. Do you live far from Little River?”

“Just out of town. My name’s Michael Somers.”

Tom didn’t react, though he recognized the name sure enough. He’d known Michael’s dad before he died, and he knew that Michael had been to prison and for what, though what he read in the papers he always regarded with a degree of skepticism. He’d heard something about Michael’s coming back to town, and the things people were saying. He saw the way Michael was watching him, a little uncertain, maybe a little defiantly, as if he expected the mention of his name to provoke a particular response.

Tom held out his hand. “Welcome home.”

Michael hesitated, then took it. “Thanks,” he said, and for the first time since he’d been back, he started to feel as if maybe he really was coming home after all.

THE SOUND OF a vehicle slowing and then pulling off the road drifted down to the clearing, and then a few moments later a police Chevy appeared through the trees and pulled up behind Michael’s Nissan. Coop got out, took his sunglasses off, and then put them in his pocket. He looked over the clearing and the house, and when his gaze settled on Michael, he inclined his head in a brief, barely perceptible nod.

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“How’s it going?” He walked over and introduced himself, extending his hand, one foot on the bottom step of the porch. “We didn’t meet properly yesterday.”

Michael felt the strength in his grip, the hard callused palms, and met his unflinching gaze. “The name’s familiar,” he said.

Coop nodded. “We went to the same school. I was a year ahead of you, so I guess we didn’t have much reason to know each other well.”

Michael remembered him then, but only vaguely. “This just a social call?” he asked.

Coop considered his answer. “Not entirely, I guess.”

Michael waited for him to go on, finding Coop’s honest answer amusing in a way. “Coffee?” he offered eventually. “I was about to have a cup myself.”

He went into the house and poured two cups from the pot and took them both outside. “You said this wasn’t a social call,” he resumed.

Coop nodded. “I thought you might want to tell me about what happened yesterday.”

Though he knew he ought to have expected the question, Michael still tightened his jaw. “Nothing happened. I gave the boy a ride home, that’s all.”

“That’s right, you said. You picked him up on the road out of town.”

“That’s right.”

“You know how he got there?”

“Why don’t you ask him?” Michael said.

Coop just nodded. “His mother was half out of her mind with worry.”

“I saw him walking on the road. Next time I’ll be sure to just drive by. I thought I was doing him a favor.”

“Well,” Coop said, “no harm done, but it might be a good idea if you remembered the way things can sometimes appear to people. Might be sensible to stay on your side of the woods.” Coop looked back toward Susan’s house.

“Are you trying to tell me something?”

“Just offering advice, that’s all,” Coop said. “You can’t afford any misunderstandings with you being on parole.”

Michael wondered if he was being given some kind of warning, which is what it felt like, but as if Coop could see what he was thinking, his expression creased into a smile of sorts.

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“I’ve always liked it here,” Coop said, looking toward the mountains.

“Yeah, I like it too,” Michael agreed.

Coop looked back at the house, unhurriedly drinking his coffee, then passed over his empty cup. “I should be going. Thanks for the coffee.”

“Anytime,” Michael said with faint irony. He watched Coop stride back toward his cruiser. There had been something in his tone, something vaguely proprietary in the way he not very subtly told Michael to stay away from the house across the woods. He wondered if the woman there had asked Coop to come over. Or was there something else to it? Did Coop have his own reasons for warning him off? Michael watched Coop back around and drive up the track, the sound of the motor slowly receding down the road.

“What the hell was that all about?” he asked himself.

THE GYR FALCON STOOD ON A PERCH MADE from a length of timber run across the width of the woodshed behind the house. Her injured wing was bound with a fitted leather brail to prevent the joint from moving. The X ray had showed a fracture in the ulna, as Tom Waters had suspected, but the good news was that the radius was intact, so an operation hadn’t been necessary. The brail around the carpus joint was secured at the humerus, which immobilized the joints on either side of the fracture. Tom’s advice had been to leave it in place for about two weeks, and then he’d take another look.

Right now, Michael was concerned about a more pressing problem. Several days had passed since he’d found the falcon, and in that short time her condition had deteriorated. Even in the gloomy light it was plain to see that she was thinner, and the ragged appearance of her feathers, some of them bent and some broken from her confinement in a wire cage at the veterinary office, only made her look worse. The piece of beef he’d left on her perch remained untouched. During her stay at the vet’s she had also refused food, and when Michael had collected her, Tom had warned him that sometimes when a wild animal was brought in, it refused to eat and failed to respond no matter what he did. It was just the way things were, as if sometimes an animal simply chose to die rather than be imprisoned. The falcon was shivering in the cold, her ability to keep warm depleted through lack of energy. When Michael had looked in on her early that morning, he’d been alarmed to see that the gleam in her eye had lost its

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luster, and he was certain that if she didn’t eat, she would not survive another night.

“What can I do?” he asked Tom when he called the veterinary office.

“Not much, I’m afraid.” Tom’s voice sounded heavy with regret. “It’s her choice, in the end.”

Michael refused to accept that he was helpless. He was standing on the upper landing in the house, looking out of the window across the woods while he talked. A magpie flitted between the branches of a poplar, settled on the snow, and began strutting about. Two rabbits on the edge of the trees nibbled at roots, occasionally looking about nervously, ears twitching, alert for danger.

“There must be something I can try,” he said into the phone.

The line was silent while Tom considered what he could suggest. “What are you giving her?” he said at last.

“Fresh beef.”

“You could try something a little more tempting. Maybe something fresh she’s used to,” Tom suggested. “I don’t know if it will help, but it might.”

Michael’s eye went back to the rabbits he could still see at the edge of the clearing. “Thanks.” He hung up.

“HEY,” SUSAN SAID. “Want a cookie?” She offered Jamie a plate of Oreos and he took one and bit half of it off and munched while he looked out the window. She took one herself and sat down at the table. Bob was lying on the floor at Jamie’s feet.

“We could take Bob for a walk,” Susan suggested. She/felt like getting some air. It was Saturday and she hadn’t gone into the office that day but had stayed around home doing odd jobs; earlier, she’d gone to the market. Jamie had stayed close to the house, alternating between being outside with Bob and playing computer games in his room. Trying to be casual, Susan had said that she needed to see Fran Davies on the way back from the store, and she asked Jamie if he’d wanted to stay awhile and hang out with Fran’s son, Peter. Jamie had stayed outside when they arrived, but ten minutes later Peter had come into the kitchen, where Fran and Susan were having coffee, and announced he was going skating with some other kids in the neighborhood.

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“Take Jamie with you,” Fran had said.

Peter had glanced at Susan. “I already asked him, but he doesn’t answer.”

Through the window they could see Jamie outside, idly drawing shapes in the snow with his finger. Fran had given Susan a helpless shrug.

“It’s okay,” Susan had assured her. “Have a good time,” she told Peter. “Maybe Jamie will go next time.”

It had been Fran who’d told Susan about the kids who’d been bothering Jamie at the bus stop. “Jenny Harris went out to break it up, but some guy was already there. She said the kids ran off, but she knows who it was. It was that little rat Craven and the Jones kid. You should call around and see their parents, Susan.”

But Susan had shook her head. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. It might just make things worse.”

Now, as Susan nibbled on her Oreo, she wondered how long this bullying had been going on. The school had never said anything about it, and Jamie just looked away when she tried to ask him. Fran had heard from Jenny Harris what the other kids had been calling Jamie. Kids were cruel. Though Jamie’s teachers all said he was bright, how was this going to affect him if it went on? How long before getting called “dummy” and “stupid” stuck, and what would that do to a small boy’s self-esteem? She felt so powerless, so unable to intervene, to get past this wall of silence that Jamie had built around himself and refused to let anybody breach.

She’d guessed it had been Michael Somers who’d stopped the kids at the bus stop from hassling Jamie, and through a laborious question-and-answer process Jamie had eventually confirmed it on the ride home. It made the blood rush to Susan’s face to think about the way she’d thanked her neighbor for his trouble. When it came down to it, she was no better than the rest of the people in this town, and she was ashamed of herself. She was thinking about what she could do to make it up to him, and decided that all she could do was apologize. She was thinking that she ought to go right then, before it got dark.

THE PORCH STEPS creaked as she climbed them. She knocked at the door. It swung open on its hinges, but nobody came. Susan looked at

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