The Master Falconer: A Penguin eSpecial from G.P. Putnam & Sons by Box C. J

Author:Box, C. J. [Box, C. J.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Published: 2011-04-19T04:00:00+00:00

THE NEXT MORNING, an hour after dawn, Nate launched himself down the cliff face. The northern wind had picked up and was starting to buffet the tops of the cottonwood trees two hundred feet below on the banks of the stream, making a liquid sound. He was protected from the wind by the rock wall, but he could hear it howling above him as well.

He rappelled down, feeding rope through the carabiners of his harness, bouncing away from the sheer rock with the balls of his feet. Tightly coiled netting hung from his belt.

Fifty feet down was the nest. It was a huge cross-hatching of branches and twigs and dried brush, cemented together by mud, sun, and years. It was well hidden and virtually inaccessible from below, but he’d located it the year before by the whitewash of excrement that extended down the granite from the nest, looking like the results of an overturned paint bucket.

As he approached it from above, he noted the layers of building material, from the white and brittle branches on the bottom to the still-green fronds on the top. The nest had been built over generations, and had hosted falcons for forty years. Nate couldn’t determine if all of the inhabitants had been peregrines, but he doubted it. The original nest, he thought, had been built by eagles.

The nest came into view and Nate prepared for anything. Once, he had surprised a female raptor in the act of tearing a rabbit apart for her fledglings and the bird had launched herself into his face, shredding his cheeks with her talons. But there were no mature adults in the nest. Only four downy and awkward fledglings. When they saw him, they screeched and opened their mouths wide, expecting him to give them food.

He guessed by their size that they were two months old, and would be considered eyases, too young to fly. If taken now, they would need to be immediately hooded and hand-fed until their feathers fully developed, and kept sightless in the dark so they didn’t know from whom their food came. If the birds saw their owner, the falconer would be imprinted for life as the food provider and the birds would never hunt properly or maintain their wild edge. Nate didn’t like taking birds this young, not only because of the work involved, but because of the moral question. He no longer wanted to own his birds, preferring instead to partner with them.

But here they were. So where was mom? He almost wished she would show up and drive him away.

He spun himself around and the landscape opened up as far as he could see. The sun was emerging from a bank of clouds on the eastern horizon and lighting the trees and brush with burnt orange while darkening the S-curves of the river. There were no birds in the sky.

Without extracting the net from his web belt, Nate sighed, kicked himself free of the cliff face, and descended to the creek bottom.

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