The Snow Falcon (34 page)

“Somers did?” Coop decided Ellis was drunker than he’d thought. He doubted Pete had ever seen two thousand dollars at one time, let

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alone allowed himself to be cheated out of such an amount. All the same, he was intrigued. “How did he do that?”

“That damn falcon he’s got. I spent days walking around up in those mountains looking for that thing. I saw it before he even arrived here, dammit. It shoulda been mine. Had a guy all lined up was gonna pay me cash on the nail.”

Then Ellis shut up abruptly, looking away as if he thought he’d said too much.

Coop pondered what Ellis had said, wondering if it was true. After a moment he said, “Pete, you know, if a guy cheated me out of that sort of money, I don’t think I’d do what you were going to do tonight.”

Ellis looked at Coop out of fogged eyes, trying to see what he was getting at.

Coop leaned in close. He could smell the booze coming out of Ellis’s pores. “What I’d do is go get the damn bird back. That would be the smart thing, don’t you think?”

THE STORE WAS STARTING TO LOOK DECENT again. Michael had traced the damp patches to a leak in the roof where rain had seeped in and found its way down to the ground floor. With the leak mended, he’d hacked away the damp plaster and replaced sections of the board underneath, then replastered over the top. The result wasn’t perfect, but unless you were looking for the repair, you wouldn’t see it. The holes in the floor had also been fixed. He’d taken up the boards and cut them off evenly, then fitted new sections in. The result left a patchwork finish, but he thought that by the time he had the whole thing sanded and restained, it would be as good as new. He’d drawn up a plan of where he was going to put new counters and the fixtures he was going to build. All he’d need to do after that would be to paint the place, and it would be finished. It would look just the way he remembered it had when he’d been a kid, he thought.

That morning he’d gone over to the real-estate office to tell Susan he wanted to finish the new counter he’d been building. “When you pick Jamie up from the bus, why don’t you drop him off with me? We can go straight from here to train Cully, then I’ll drop him back at your place later.”

“Okay,” she’d said. “You haven’t forgotten about supper tonight?” “Around seven, right?”

He’d paused to look at the pictures of property for sale, comparing the prices with what Carl Jeffrey had offered for the house. “Business good?” he’d asked.

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“It’s quiet right now, but things will pick up in a month or so. Are you thinking of selling?”

“Just curious.”

Later, in the afternoon, Susan dropped Jamie off. While Michael finished fitting on the new countertop, Jamie sat on a box and sketched Cully, who was perched on one of the fixtures Michael had built. When he was finished, Michael glanced over the boy’s shoulder. The drawing was just of Cully’s head, and had captured something of her regal bearing, her sharp proud look.

“That’s good.” Jamie looked back quickly, startled that Michael was standing there. He closed up his pad and turned away.

Michael sat down, wiping his hands, looking around at his handiwork. It was funny seeing Jamie there. The way he sat, his expression impassive, giving no clue to what he was thinking, made Michael think he himself must have seemed that way at that age.

“This was my dad’s store,” he said. Other than a brief glance in his direction, a flicker of interest, barely discernible, Jamie gave no indication he’d heard. He went back to watching Cully as she stretched her wings up above her back. Abruptly she started flapping, disturbing the air around them, her feet gripping the fixture for purchase, then she settled again. She was hungry, eager for exercise. Michael rose and started getting his things together, and apropos of nothing except that it was a change to think aloud, he started talking.

“I used to work here after school. I’d sit on a stool at the end of the counter over there.” He pointed, picturing the scene as if it were yesterday. “My dad would be fiddling around with stuff, serving customers, writing himself reminder notes, and I’d be doing schoolwork, or maybe sometimes I’d unpack a delivery. I’d watch him when he didn’t think that I was.” He paused, lost in reflection for a moment. Jamie appeared to be paying him no attention.

“He used to talk to me while he worked,” Michael said. He’d forgotten that until now: the way his dad had carried on this onesided conversation, telling him who’d been in that day, what they’d bought, the chats he’d had with people about what was in the newspapers—all kinds of stuff that Michael had barely listened to most of the time. But it was always there, this background noise that had been comforting in a way. Something familiar. It struck him how quiet the store was now.

“He worked here most of his life,” Michael said. “Until he died.”

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Maybe it was something in his tone, but he looked over to find Jamie watching him. Just for a second their eyes met, then Jamie looked away again. There had been something in his expression, something questioning, but it was fleeting.

Michael picked up his gear and put on his gauntlet. “Okay, let’s

go-”

They pulled over at the regular spot high up on the road to Falls Pass, and Michael took Cully out of the back of the Nissan. With his free hand he crushed one of the pills Tom Waters had given him and sprinkled the powder onto a piece of meat, which he folded and offered to Cully. She seized it and swallowed it whole.

“Antibiotics,” he explained to Jamie. “Don’t worry, she’ll be fine,” he added when Jamie looked worried, though he was less confident of that than he let on.

He stroked Cully’s legs, gently brushing her toes. She arched her neck and peered with interest at his finger, then decided she would tolerate him and roused her feathers. She was more interested in the wide-open landscape and the sky, turning her head sideways to watch a duck fly overhead toward the ridge in the distance. It was heading toward the lake, and Michael had noticed that this seemed a regular route. Another flew overhead, and they watched until it was just a smudge-against the sky before it dropped down to the valley below.

Cully turned her head to tug at her tail feathers, working her beak along each one in turn.

“You know what she’s doing?” Michael said, and Jamie looked at him questioningly. “She’s preening herself. She has an oily coating on her feathers to repel water so that when it rains she doesn’t get wet, it just runs away. That’s why we only stroke her breast, never her back or wings, so we don’t wipe it off.”

As they watched, she worked methodically, running her beak along the shafts of each wing and tail feather, spreading oil from a gland at the base. The action also worked like a zipper, straightening and aligning the filaments of each feather so that in flight the air would stream across their surface, giving her lift when she wanted it. Each feather was a masterpiece of natural design: light, yet incredibly strong, each filament sitting snugly against its neighbor.

Michael planted the block perch in the snow, leaning his weight on it until he felt it bite firm. As he stood, he took off the gauntlet and passed it to Jamie.

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“Same as last time, okay?”

Jamie barely hesitated, then pulled the glove on. While Michael tied a piece of meat to the lure, Jamie bent down and took Cully up from the perch. She stepped back and found her footing, and as Jamie stood, she roused her feathers again, then laid her plumage sleek against her body, her eyes fixed on the lure.

“Take her jesses off as I walk back,” Michael said. He held the lure in front of his body so that it was out of Cully’s line of sight and started to walk away. The snow was unblemished, stretching around them in a sheet of pure white to the cliffs half a mile away. A pair of tracks cut a line back to the Nissan. Each step broke the frozen crust of the snow, crunching audibly, the sound mixing with Michael’s breathing. He stopped fifty yards away.

“Ready?”

There was no reply, and he grinned at his mistake. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Jamie, looking small, with Cully on his fist, her head level with his. As Michael turned he called her name and started swinging the lure. Out flicked her wings, brushing Jamie’s face as he ducked away, then she was off, pushing Jamie’s arm down with the force of her launch. She skimmed the snow with her wing tips as she made a line toward him. He’d been practicing with the lure the last few days, and now, as she drew close, he swung it smoothly in an arc parallel to the ground in front of him as he turned in to her path. At the last moment he pulled the lure in and she went on, rising into the clear cold air. For a few seconds he watched her rising, the sun on her back, the sky vast and open before her. Looking back, he saw Jamie’s expression, pinched with worry, but this time Michael was confident. Cully was turning even before he called her.

He scrutinized the pattern of her flight. Once again, the flutter and correction was apparent, which dampened the moment, but then he peered hard and thought maybe, just maybe, it had improved a little. There was no time to ponder. She straightened and came in again, and when she was close, he threw the lure out for her to catch. He mistimed his throw slightly so that the lure landed before she reached it, but she came down with her wings thrown back, her tail fanned wide, and landed gracefully. When he had the timing down pat, he figured, she ought to be able to grasp it while it was still airborne.

Michael decided to take a break before he flew her again, so they

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walked to the ridge and looked out at the view. The ground fell away steeply, then leveled out like a broad snow-filled shelf before dropping down to the edge of the forest. Far beneath them, on the valley floor, a river fed a small lake in which the mountains on the other side were reflected in a perfect mirror image. Across the valley, a hawk rode a thermal in high lazy turns and issued a plaintive cry. Cully cocked her head, and when she found her distant cousin, she watched with bright interest.

When they flew her a second time, she made two passes at the lure before Michael let her catch it, and this time he threw it high so that she turned and seized it midair. When she landed, he watched to see if her injured wing would trail on the ground again, but this time, though she flicked it once or twice across her tail, the wing stayed in place.

He let Jamie carry her back to the Nissan, and when she was in, he closed the door and caught Jamie’s eye. They grinned at each other, and for that moment no words were necessary.

SUSAN HAD MADE a beef casserole, simmering the meat in wine and its own juices, flavoring it with onions, beans, a handful of herbs, and garlic. She tasted it and added more seasoning. Fresh broccoli was in a pan of water just waiting to be heated, and there were dried noodles she was going to cook just before serving, then toss in butter and black pepper. A bottle of merlot was open to breathe a little. Outside, it had become dark. She stepped into the TV room, where Jamie was doing schoolwork.

“I’m going upstairs to get changed, okay?” She looked over at what he was doing. “What are you writing? Can I see?”

He showed her. It was an essay for his English class, all about Cully. She read how he’d held her on his fist, and how Michael had then called her to the lure.

“You held her yourself?” she said, surprised and faintly alarmed. There was no doubt Cully was beautiful, but she also had sharp talons and a lethal-looking beak.

He grinned at her, his whole face lighting up. Bending down, she kissed his head. His hair smelled of shampoo and his own boyish scent, clean and childlike and carrying echoes of when he was just a baby at her breast. She loved the texture of his hair, like satin against

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her skin. He let her hug him, then squirmed free, still grinning. Her eyes filled with inexplicable tears, and she wiped them away.

“I have to get ready. Michael will be here soon.”

His expression clouded for a second, then it was gone and he went back to his work.

She took a shower, letting the hot needles of water pound her skin, then dressed in jeans and a shirt. She tied her hair back and put on a little makeup, noticing that she carried a high flush in her cheeks that might have been from the shower.

Michael was on time, knocking on the door just after seven. Susan went through from the kitchen to let him in, checking in the mirror on the way to make sure she hadn’t wiped flour on her face or something. She still looked flushed, but she guessed it was from the heat of the kitchen. When she opened the door, he was standing on the porch holding a bottle of wine, wearing jeans and a dark blue sweater that was almost the same color as his eyes. He appeared freshly shaved, and she could smell a subtle cologne. His thick hair was brushed, but it was still unruly.

“Hi. Come on in.” She took the wine he offered her and showed him where he could hang his coat. While she fetched some glasses, he poked his head into the TV room and said hi to Jamie, getting only a brief glance in return.

Susan noted Michael’s slightly puzzled response as she gave him some wine. “He’s like that with people who come to the house.” She shrugged.

“I thought he was loosening up a little,” Michael said.

“Maybe he sees things differently when you two are out with Cully. He’s writing a story about her, by the way, for a school project. He’s pretty absorbed with her, I guess you know that.”

“I’m pretty absorbed with her myself,” Michael said, and smiled.

His eyes wandered around the kitchen. He seemed to be taking it all in, his gaze resting here and there. She felt a slight awkwardness in the situation that probably came from both of them. “I need to check how dinner’s coming.” She stood over her pots, keeping her hands busy, sipping occasionally at her wine while they chatted inconsequentially about her business, where she was from, how long she had lived in Little River. He maneuvered the conversation so that they never talked about him, it seemed to Susan, or maybe it was just that he asked more questions than she did.