1 Frightful Takes Off

Frightful Takes Off Frightful had not been quite two weeks old when she first saw Sam Gribley. He had lifted her from her nest on a cliff. Small as she was, she had jabbed him with her already powerful talons as he carried her to the ground. "I'm going to call you Frightful," he had said. "You are a raving beauty." Then he carried her to the gigantic hemlock tree on the mountain and into its hollowed-out bole. This was Sam's home. He fed her four and five times a day. He carried her on his gloved fist and talked to her. Before long, Frightful thought of him as her mother. He nurtured her like a peregrine falcon mother would. When she was older, Sam made a perch for her and placed it outside his tree. He taught her to fly to his hand. When she was full-grown, he took her hunting with him. By now, the memory of her parents was pushed far back in her mind. Sam was her family. At night and on winter days, Sam brought Frightful inside the huge old tree. She perched on his rustic bedstead and warmed herself by the clay

fireplace. On spring and summer days, she would sit on her perch outside and watch the birds, the butterflies, and busy Sam. Patiently she waited for him to take her hunting. It was her greatest pleasure. She loved the sky. She loved the updrafts and coiling winds, and she loved "waiting on," hovering above Sam until he kicked up game. Then she stooped, the wind singing in her feathers. Frightful was an excellent hunter who rarely missed. The food was shared. Their lives depended on each other. She must find Sam again now. Frightful crouched to fly. She could not see. She folded her gray-blue wings to her body and straightened up. Hooded and tethered, she had traveled with two strange men for several days. One of them had taken her from the perch beside the big hemlock tree. He had a deep jerky voice and a face like a condor's. She looked intently at him before he slipped the falconer's hood over her head.

Sam had begged and pleaded with the man not to take her away, but he had pushed Sam aside and carried her down the mountain to a pickup truck. A leather perch had been presented to her feet. She had stepped up on it as Sam had taught her to do. A door had closed, and she was inside a camper on the truck. The motor rumbled, and she was moving. A falcon bell tinkled nearby. A sharpshinned hawk had shifted his feet. A prairie falcon called out a single note. They, like herself, were sensing the direction of the moving pickup—east, northeast, east, then straight north. Several feedings later, the second man put Frightful on a perch in the pine forest. The prairie falcon and the sharp-shinned hawk were there, too. She could hear their bells tinkling. Although they were birds who would readily attack her, she was not afraid of them. Frightful was a peregrine falcon. She was faster and more agile than any other bird or beast the world around. Her long pointed wings; wide shoulders; and strong, tapered body were sculpted by the wind, the open sky, and the nature of her ancestral prey—swift birds.

Frightful sat calmly under her hood, turning the sounds in the pine forest into mental images. A song sparrow caroled. A cardinal chirped. They told her she was in a forest clearing edged with bushes where song sparrows and cardinals lived. A northern waterthrush trilled. Frightful envisioned a dashing stream shaded by a majestic forest, the summer home of the northern waterthrush. She heard the stream in the distance. It had many voices as it spilled down a stairway of rocks. Suddenly the cardinal screamed an alarm. A predator was approaching. The songbirds stopped chittering. The forest became silent. Even the insects ceased stridulating. Frightful pulled her feathers to her breast. The enemy was low and coming toward her. The sharp-shinned hawk flew off his perch in terror. His bell tinkled. He was stopped by his leash, which was knotted to a steel ring at the base of his perch and to the jesses on his legs. He jumped forward, fell back, and beat the earth with his wings. A killing snarl colored the air red.

An eastern coyote had killed the sharp-shinned hawk. The killer, bird in her mouth, ran toward her pups in the woods. With a jerk, she, too, was stopped by the leash. She turned back and dug at the base of the perch until it toppled and fell. The next sound Frightful heard was the clink of the ring at the end of the leash bouncing over the ground. The sounds faded into the woods. A wind twisted Frightful's silky pantaloons of pinstriped feathers, which hung down over her enamel-shiny legs. Her tail flicked. She was nervous. Human footsteps approached. Their sound did not conjure up the image of the men she had been traveling with. Wary, she lifted her wings to fly. A hand touched the front of her legs, and she stepped up onto it as Sam had taught her to do. "Hello, Frightful." Her name; but not Sam's voice. The tone was soft, like the call of a mourning dove. "What are you doing here?" the voice asked, and Frightful recognized Alice, Sam's sister. In her mind's eye, she saw a rosy face with sea-blue eyes

and yellow hair. Frightful relaxed. Alice was family. She liked Alice, who ran and jumped. She also darted. Frightful liked movement. A spot in her eyes that connected to many nerves gave her an instant focus on movement. Running, leaping Alice was a member of Frightful's home forest. Sam must not be far away. Frightful eased her grip on Alice's bare hand. She lifted her talons. "Frightful," Alice said softly. "You've got to get out of here." The young girl's voice brought back images of the one mountain among thousands of mountains, the one hemlock tree among millions of trees—and Sam. "I'm cutting your jesses," she whispered. "You are surrounded by enemies! Fly, fly far away. "Fly away, Frightful! Sam is not allowed to have you. He has to have a falconer's license, and he's too young to get one. Fly, Frightful! Fly far!" A quick slash of a knife, and Frightful's jesses and leash dropped away. The hood was flipped off. And Frightful could see. "Fly!" Alice urged.