Shadow of the past: I have taken a break from the writing to “visit the folks” out at the old mining claim in Boulder Gulch and do my “walkabout.” I like to visit the old pines and granite boulders and commune with my great-grandmother, grandmother, grandad, and my brother Ronnie. I like to think these departed loved ones hear and see me. I ache for their love and counsel when I don’t know what to do or what I should be doing. Whether it’s true or not, I find comfort in the thought that they are with me in a way that transcends our limited physical “reality.”
I walk up the hill behind where the “main” cabin used to be. Ronnie and I, on one of his infrequent visits with our mother, sled down this slope on barrel-staves one winter when we had a nice snowfall. The old cabin had served as a cook shack until grandad, with some “help” from me, had added on to it. In the summer, we would move the old, wood cook stove out of doors and cooking and eating took place under the pines.
Great-grandma (always “grandma” to Mom, Ronnie and me) took up residence in the other cabin. How I miss sitting in her lap while she would read to Ronnie and me.
I stand under the tall, old pine where I shot the hawk. I was feeding the chickens and rabbits when I spied the Red-tail land on the very top of the tree. The .22 Remington single shot was, as usual, close at hand. I always kept a gun close in case of Indian uprisings, bear and lion attacks and the usual calamities which were sure to occur to a “pioneer woodsman” in the “wilderness” (Thanks, James Fenimore Cooper).
Unfortunately, the only round I had with me was a “short” already chambered in the gun. Now I know, looking back, that the Red-tail was probably not a threat (unlike owls and the wild donkeys) to our livestock. But it was a real enough “threat” at the time to me as a child and, carefully shouldering the .22, I took aim and fired. The hawk came tumbling down through the branches.
Running up the hill, I saw the hawk. He was standing on his legs, lop-sidedly, bracing himself with his right wing on the ground much as one might use a crutch, and breathing heavily. His bright, intelligent eyes pierced me. It was soon obvious that, due to the low velocity round and his natural “bullet-proof vest” of feathers, that the small bullet had only knocked him off his perch. The fall had probably done him more hurt than the small slug.
I entertained the thought of doing him in with the butt of the rifle but, for two reasons, did not. One: I might damage the gun and, two: I simply could not bring myself to do violence to such a noble bird when he was so obviously at such a great disadvantage. I won’t flatter myself as to which of the two objects of reticence were most objectionable. I’d like to hold to the latter, and nobler, motive.
For some reason, perhaps my Choctaw Cherokee heritage, I struck up a conversation with the Red-tail while he huffed and puffed, gathering his strength and getting his wind back. Now those of you not familiar with the ways of a boy in the woods might have cause to wonder about having a conversation with a hawk (or any other critter) that is lacking in the social grace of making small talk. But, for me, it seemed perfectly natural that I would be discussing the nature of his present discomfiture and “explaining” what had happened.
The Red-tail did not seem particularly impressed with my explanation; in fact, he seemed rather in a hurry to terminate the discussion with little regard to the polite niceties of civil conversation. Looking back on the incident though, I’m reasonably sure, had the hawk been able to voice his opinion of the affair, he would have added greatly to my, then, woefully, deficient knowledge of maledicta.
Teetering back and forth, he brought his dragging wing back up into normal position and, taking an experimental hop, began to hop, hop, hop, down the hill, his wings taking a couple of practice flaps. After a few yards of this exercise, he gathered speed enough to make a low-level take-off. Wings now fully distended, he glided downhill slowly a couple of feet off the ground. Then, with a few, slow flaps of his wings he began to gain altitude. Finally, he was high enough to soar over the opposite hill from me and out of sight.
As I stroll the hills among the rocks and trees, the old, familiar sites bring on both the aching melancholy and the precious memories of precious loved ones. My readers of some years have heard most of the stories. I know you understand the state of mind and heart that keeps drawing me back to this site and a few others of like preciousness. These are the “pilgrimages” that help me to maintain a perspective of the “best of the child” in me, that nourishes the poet and keeps butterflies and trout streams not only relevant, but essential; and most essentially the gentleness of strength to confront evil and to love sacrificially without any sense of sacrifice. How else I often wonder, to love God and one’s neighbor as oneself?
