Mulak Reader - Adversaries

I wrote this after seeing a play in which the unfolding of the story was explained by different people giving their version of the same event. It seemed to me that a similar approach might make for an interesting twist on a grouse-hunting piece. Humans suffer from the idea that fate plays a role in the unfolding of their lives. In the case of animals (in this instance, grouse and hawks) the predictable habits that are signatures of the species are substituted for fate.

I used three different typefaces to delineate the three different points of view—one for the grouse, one for the hunter, and a third for the goshawk. Adversaries appeared in Gray’s journal in August of 1993. Later, I incorporated this same story in the opening chapter of Wings of Thunder.

ADVERSARIES

Whether 'tis nobler of the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them?

Hamlet III, i, 56

She avoided the sunlit opening and instead glided beneath the overhanging oaks. Around the old cellar hole songbirds, caught on their perch, flattened against branches. A squirrel scampered into a knothole. She perched for a moment, then took wing again after concluding that the squirrel did not have a companion. Until the trees leafed out here on the ridge the goshawk would have to be more lucky than skillful to surprise her prey. She heard crows in the valley, and continued her patrol in that direction.

He and the ten other chicks scattered and took shelter in the cool green shade beneath the emerging ferns. The hawk had appeared suddenly, and now they all held still, playing a waiting game with the adversary perched unseen in the oak tree. 10 minutes passed.
At length the hen mother broke the stillness and began feeding on the fern tips around them. After a moment he and the other chicks came out of cover as well. The danger in the oak tree, if it ever existed, was gone and forgotten. Following the lead of the hen, the chicks moved toward the thick brush along the pathway, feeding on ants and spiders as they passed through a carpet of white flowers. Then they heard a sound that was new to them.

          "Frank, isn't this bloodroot?" The woman bent and picked a single white flower.
          The man held the blossom to his nose. "There's patches of it all around this old foundation... Hey look at this." He pointed to where a small fuzz ball ran across their path, followed by another and then a third. "Hey, guys, where's your mom?"
          "What are they?"
          "Grouse chicks. There's probably more right here—They're hiding, so watch where you're stepping."
          A large bird broke from cover, but after flying only a few yards fell to the ground.
          "There she is. That's the hen." The bird dragged her wing as she walked, crying pitifully. "We ought to follow her. She's trying to lead us away from her chicks."
          "She's not hurt?"
          "Naw. That's an act." The man stepped gingerly into an open area then took the woman's arm as she did the same. Then the man squatted for a moment, much as an adult will bend to address a child. He grinned at the unseen chicks hiding in the undergrowth. "Good luck, guys. See you in a few months."

***

She heard the bell in the distance. The sound meant man, and man meant danger. The goshawk had been sitting among the shadowed summer foliage of the white oak, watching the old abandoned farm where she had taken a half-grown grouse a week earlier. Now, as the bell grew louder, she took wing. She flew just above the treetops down off the ridge. After putting the danger of the unseen man behind her, she side-slipped back down into the foliage, searching as ever for prey.

With his five remaining broodmates he dusted in an open area. A cold week of rain in mid-May had killed four of his siblings. They learned to fly from foxes and raccoons, although a feral cat had taken several tailfeathers from one of his gray-tailed brothers. There had been an abundance of Gypsy moth caterpillars in the oak woods and the brood had grown sleek on the high protean diet. They had become expert at using the dense understory to hide from aerial predators. But there was no defense from carelessness, and just a week before one of his broodmates had been taken by a goshawk. Now the group graveled and loafed and dusted in the late summer sunshine beneath the sparse oaks.
He heard a noise that he had only heard once before, long ago: the approaching tinkle of a brass bell. He listened for a danger call but heard only the bell, growing ever louder. From beyond the old stone foundation he heard the mother hen flush noisily, followed by two of his broodmates. Why were they risking flight? With his gray-tailed brother he retreated among the ferns. They waited, more curious than frightened. The bell noise stopped. He tensed.

          "Hold steady, Rusty. I'm coming." The man walked to where the Brittany's bell had gone silent. The dog stood motionless in the shoulder-high ferns that surrounded the old cellar hole. At the man's approach a steel-tailed grouse with several missing tail feathers took wing, passing beneath an old oak and down into the valley beyond. The man stopped, and after a moment a second grouse erupted from the dappled sunlight to his right. It was a young bird, he knew, because it flew into the oak and sat on a branch, looking back at him.
          "You'd better get smarter than that before next month, Pal, or you'll end up in Ol' Frank's gamebag." The man pointed a finger at the brown-tailed bird, but nothing happened until he took a step. Then the bird dived from the tree branch, instinctively away from the man so that the bole of the tree shielded him from view.
          The man waved his finger in an imitation of a pistol, then said, "I never would have had you—Maybe you'll do okay after all."

***

She followed the brook course, her eyes searching. The first autumn color had appeared in the sumacs and popples, but she watched the shadows, looking for movement. When the valley narrowed the goshawk turned away, intending to make a pass along the ridge toward the old cellar hole in hopes of a grouse dinner. She heard the distant cries of blue jays and knew instinctively that another predator was hunting there. She turned back to the brook course. In that same instant she glimpsed a moving shadow on a stone wall below. The hawk wheeled sharply and, using a hemlock as a screen, began her descent toward the red squirrel that would be her next meal.

          He walked among the fallen crabapples, pecking ravenously, but never stopping for more than a few moments. His crop bulged. The family group in residence near the old foundation was down to four: They had scattered two weeks before, and only he and two of his sisters had answered the mother hen's regrouping call.
          He listened to a deep sound in the distance: it was his gray-tailed brother drumming, although he could not know it was him. The grouse hopped up onto the broken trunk of a fallen apple tree. He listened again to the distant booming, then, answering an almost masturbatic urge, he began drumming. He strutted from one end of the trunk to the other, pausing every few minutes to go through the brief instinctive ritual.
          A flock of blue jays sent out an alarm. He remained on the log, listening to the commotion. Then, softly, he heard the brass bell.

          The blue jays that had been following him finally fell silent. Frank glanced back into the treetops, but the foliage was too thick to confirm their absence. That was what jays did, he told himself: They were the burglar alarm of the forest. Not that he was any danger to anything today—as thick as the leaves were, he wasn't going to get many shots. But it was opening day, and who could stay home?
          The racket from the jays had distracted him, but now he listened to the music of the bell on his Brittany's collar. Of that listening, there was something of the reluctant ballpoint pen that abruptly begins to write in the middle of a signature—afterwards, the unwritten part has more impact than the inked scribbles. So when the bell stopped, he hurried toward the silence.
          He searched the thick understory for a long minute. Just beyond a broken down apple tree he finally caught a glimpse of white that was his dog on point. He crossed the opening created by an old cellar hole and approached the fallen apple tree, anticipating that which nevertheless caught him by surprise: The grouse flushed in a burst of noise and motion.
          Most of the time, a flying grouse is seen as a speeding blur of wings and feathers with very little to relate the image to finely done calendar paintings. But every now and then, when the grouse is hurtling beneath the trees in dappled sunlight, a sunbeam will catch the bird just so. In that moment, a strobe-like vision is left in the mind's eye that is complete in every detail. Frank saw the brown-tailed bird, but he knew as he pulled the trigger that he had missed.
          He replaced the spent shell. "I've got to hold above those birds—When am I going to learn, Rusty?" He spoke to his dog. Others might have thought he was talking to himself.
          As he started forward he noticed a single piece of clipped feather pirouetting in the sunlight.
          "Tailfeather." He held the tiny scrap out to his dog. "We'll catch up with this cellar hole bird, Rusty. Now he's got a notched feather in his tail."
          He directed his dog in the direction the grouse had taken, and headed off the ridge toward the stream course below.

The grouse sat in a white pine, listening. Initially he had flown toward the valley to escape the danger, but then, in answer to his instincts, his flight had curved back uphill onto the ridge. Had he been seen? The danger that had terrified him 20 minutes before was forgotten. He flew to the ground, listened for a moment, then started back towards the cellar hole, 200 yards down the ridge.

***

She darted through the leafless forest turning sharply on stout wings in pursuit of the crow. The race would be brief—the crow's only chance was a screen of evergreens ahead. Escape required recklessness, but recklessness was not in the crow's nature, and when he flared away from a hanging tangle of grape vines the goshawk struck the crow with her extended legs. Her talons drove into the crow's back, then her powerful grip ended the brief struggle. She flew off, and if her prey weighed her down there was no evidence in her effortless flight.

Without leaves on the trees the grouse had become nervous. He had lived his entire life in a canopied world, and now suddenly he felt in full view of every passing predator. To further confuse his senses, every breeze rustled the fallen leaves. Constantly apprehensive, he shunned sunlit openings in favor of thicker cover.
He walked beneath the tangles where several black feathers littered the ground. There were clusters of fallen fox grapes half concealed in the leaf mulch. The grouse plucked at them, swallowing the tiny grapes whole. He paused and stood motionless every few seconds, listening and watching. He heard the bell, and the part of his instincts that learned from experience recognized it as danger. The noise came and went, mixed with the static of blowing leaves. Confused, he fled toward thick cover. He sulked into some blackberry tangles, continuing until he had a flight path out. Then he crouched, waiting.

          The cooler weather made for pleasant hunting. Frank was in better shape than he had been earlier in the season, but still his breath came in pants as he topped the ridge and headed for the old foundation. A lump in his gamebag showed where he carried a grouse his dog had pointed in the valley. "This isn't our opening day bird," he had told his dog. "This one's got a steel gray tail with a bunch of missing feathers. I'll bet the other one is still up by that old cellar hole, waiting for us."
          He sensed the breeze as he planned his approach, and wished the fallen leaves weren't so noisy. As his dog skirted the remnants of an old fireplace he heard the rumble of wings 50 yards distant. To a bird hunter, there can be no clearer pronouncement that because his approach was just a bit too clumsy, he just flunked the grouse exam.
          His dog came in. "Which way, Rusty?" He mulled over his own thoughts for a moment, then turned and started uphill.

He was 25 feet above the ground. He had flown in the open, and now hid from the aerial predators that might have seen him. He sat against the bole of the pine, shielded from view but likewise unable to see behind him. He listened, and heard the bell to his right. There were other noises approaching, but he remained focused on only the bell that alternately seemed to get farther and nearer, finally passing to the right.

His dog was searching—not working scent, just searching. The forest had turned to tall pines with little understory, and he had gone a distance he estimated to be 'one grouse flight'. He stopped, knowing the dog would circle in front. When the grouse dived out of the tree above him, he turned at the flush and saw the bird breaking to the left, and although there was a moment when he had the safety off, the sight picture never developed. The bird was gone.

***

The goshawk had returned from her wanderings. Beyond the valley there had been a farm with an abundance of pigeons—easy hunting, but the ever-present proximity of man had caused her to return to the vast tract of woodland that was her home territory. She sat out of the wind in a hemlock grove, using her accipiter beak to clean the remains of a songbird from her feet. In the late November cold she would need more than that morning's meager meal to keep her energy up. She fluffed her feathers and waited for the snow to begin.

          He searched out cinquefoil and wintergreen leaves. He walked among the spreading juniper, passing over other foods along the way. He had never seen snow, but he answered an instinct that knew he must gather the few remaining greens before they were covered.
         Beneath the bare trees he remained vigilant, but had outlived the nervousness of October's leaf fall. On windy days he trusted to his vision more than his hearing, and he retreated to sheltered places out of the wind. He watched as he ate: The clouded sky had a peculiar quality to it but he looked only for movement.

          Frank had wondered if the dog could scent anything in this wind, but there he stood at the edge of the juniper clump, pointing. He had wanted one last poke at the cellar hole bird before the season closed and this might be it.The first few snowflakes spited by as he stepped down off the tumbledown stone foundation. The bird chose that moment to take wing and came hurtling past, making for the woods just behind him.
          It was a challenge shot—close and fast, comparable to a fastball pitcher giving some high heat to a power hitter—strength against strength. It was the kind of shot that, on another day, he'd give a 20-dollar bill for. But he could not swing the barrels fast enough and fired at the bird instead of swinging through. The grouse was gone. There was no second shot.
          "How many chances, Rusty? He beat us again. I'm oh- for-fall on that bird." He scratched his dog's ears as he stood in the waist high juniper. "But I'll bet he's headed for that hemlock grove back by that little swamp. We'll give him one more chance to outsmart us."
          The man whistled to his dog and started off in the direction the grouse had taken.

He landed and ran beneath a snag caused by a fallen oak limb. He waited among the brittle leaves, listening. He was sheltered, but the noise of the wind through the woodland clouded his hearing. He grew nervous, and knew he wasn't safe beneath the deadfall. Before the man and the belled dog could find him, he would risk another flight. He would retreat to his roosting spot. The snow had begun in earnest. He flew from the snag, dodging through the darkening woods on his way to the safety of the hemlock grove.

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