I took a deep breath as we left Blackwell Falls behind and felt the tension in my shoulders ease. Hawk had been right: I’d needed to get out, away from the house and away from my parents’ papers and the message it felt like they were trying to send me from beyond the grave.
We passed cows grazing in pastures and horses running through fields, farmhouses and barns dotting the bucoliclandscape. Remnants of early morning fog were just beginning to lift from the long wild grass, painting a picture that looked like it belonged on a postcard.
We’d been driving for about a half hour when Hawk eased off the gas and turned onto a dirt road.
I looked around and didn’t see anything but an old red barn in the distance. “Where are we?”
“You’ll see.”
He slowed down as we approached the barn, then pulled to a stop outside the building.
He turned off the car and got out, reaching for the cooler and a blanket he’d thrown onto the back bench.
It wasn’t until I joined him at the front of the car that I realized something: this wasn’t just a field trip. Hawk was bringing me to his secret place, the place he disappeared to when he left the house alone.
He set everything down outside the barn and opened a big sliding door, then reached for my hand.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“It’s my reality check.”
We stepped into the building’s shadowed interior and I caught the scent of old wood and hay. Dust motes danced in the air, illuminated by the sunlight shining from windows up near the hay loft.
A rusted tractor sat to one side of the cavernous space, along with a workbench and shelves cluttered with old tools.
And there was something else too: the scent of leather and something musky and earthy I recognized as Hawk’s smell.
A moment later I heard the flutter of wings.
“What is this place?” I asked.
Scratching sounded from the shadows, followed by a soft chirp.
Hawk led me into the shadows, and then, in a shaft of sunlight from one of the high windows in the barn, I saw the cages.
“These are my birds,” Hawks said. “Hawks, to be exact.”
There were two cages, about ten feet wide and eight feet long, with plywood walls and areas of vertical metal piping that seemed to act as windows for the birds inside.
I looked up at him, suddenly understanding: the times he left the house alone, the smell that was so uniquely him…
“You’re a… a falconer?” I asked. “Is that what they call it with hawks?”
“It’s nothing official,” Hawk said. “They’re my companions, my friends. But yeah… falconer is the word.”
More fluttering of feathers, like a dog shaking itself after a bath.
“Can I get closer?” I asked.
One of the birds called out:kak-kak-kak… kak-kak-kak.
Hawk nodded. “Just move slowly. They’ll be nervous at first.”
I moved closer to one of the cages and peered between the metal bars.
The space was surprisingly large, with low wooden perches and several padded blocks on the rubber floor. A large bird sat on one of the perches, peering at me with sharp, curious eyes.
“That’s Ares,” Hawk said. “He was my first.”
