Dark Sky (Joe Pickett #21)(14)
Nate was a self-described “outlaw falconer” with a Special Forces background. He was proficient with large-caliber five-shot revolvers, especially the .454 Casull and the .500 Wyoming Express, both manufactured by Freedom Arms in Freedom, Wyoming. He was also a master falconer, and that had captured Sheridan’s imagination to a greater degree than his shadowy past or weaponry.
She could recall the first time, in her early teens, when she’d accompanied him to a small series of willow-choked beaver ponds in the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains. After releasing his peregrine to the sky, he’d waded into one of the ponds, gathering up paddling ducks who were too scared to go airborne. She’d never seen anything like it and it had opened her eyes to a natural order of things she thought long bypassed by the twenty-first century. And it had made her want to become a falconer herself.
Over the years, despite both of their individual journeys, they’d tracked each other. He’d presented her with a tiny kestrel and taught her how to feed, nurture, and fly the smallest of falcons. When it had flown away and never come back, he took her aside and explained that it happened to the best of them. A falconer could “train” a bird to always return, but only at the cost of breaking its wild and predatory instincts. It was better to watch a bird fly away than to turn it into a parakeet. It was a hard lesson.
Nate’s relationship with her dad was contentious, yet devoted. It was also very complicated, since her father operated by the letter of the law and Nate operated under his own. She knew they’d had serious disagreements, and she’d witnessed some of them. It was only after she’d gotten older, after graduating from college, working as the head wrangler on an exclusive dude ranch, and returning back to Twelve Sleep County, that she’d realized in a moment of revelation that the bond between her dad and Nate was very much like the bond between Nate and his falcons.
That bond was deep, but predicated on achieving the same goal in the end. With a falcon, it was delivering its next meal. With her dad, it was achieving an end, even if he didn’t necessarily approve of every step taken to get there.
Her mother’s relationship with Nate was even more complicated. Sheridan couldn’t help but notice how her mother lit up when Nate came into the room. Despite some of the crimes Nate had been accused of—several of which Sheridan had no doubt he’d committed—her mother was absolutely loyal to the falconer. She’d once overheard her mother telling her best friend after one too many glasses of wine that if anything ever happened to Joe she’d know where to turn. Sheridan tried hard not to think about that very much.
And, of course, Nate had found Olivia Brannan.
* * *
—
For the past year, Sheridan had shadowed Nate on bird abatement calls throughout Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, and South Dakota. She’d also spent the long winter reading through Nate’s library of ancient Scottish falconry tomes and modern techniques. It was her job to feed Yarak’s Air Force, which consisted of nine mature falcons and two “trainers.” Feeding them was easy because they were voracious, but keeping a supply of their food—pigeons, rabbits, mice, gophers, sometimes ducks—was an elemental and bloody business. She’d finally learned to think of prey species as exactly that, although she still found herself turning away when a bird ripped a living creature limb from limb and ate everything: bones, hide, guts, and head.
“Circle of Life” from The Lion King was a fine song and she’d loved it growing up, but seeing nature, red in tooth and claw, as Tennyson wrote, up close was gritty and difficult. Although she revered the birds of prey for their capabilities and grace in flight, she had come to be wary of them for their ruthlessness and cold-blooded disposition.
* * *
—
The cliff face Sheridan was negotiating now, above the meandering Twelve Sleep River, was remarkable in that four of the six species Nate used in his bird abatement business (redtailed hawks, prairie falcons, peregrines, and the occasional gyrfalcon) maintained nests there. Since he preferred to use birds he caught himself, it was an amazing resource. No one but Liv and now Sheridan knew about the location, and it told Sheridan a lot that he trusted her enough to show it to her and ask her to rappel down its face.
She rotated her shoulders so she could turn her head and look down. His Jeep was just arriving at the base of the cliff after dropping her off twenty minutes before. The road he’d used was rocky and washed out and it had taken him a while. The top of the fabric roof was a square far below her. Once the Jeep stopped, Nate got out and looked up.
He flashed her a thumbs-up, and she extended her left hand and reciprocated. Her right hand gripped the rope beneath the rappel anchor.
Before descending farther, she checked to make sure the carabiners were screwed down tight where the rope would thread. She knew they were—she’d checked everything twice as instructed—but a third time was always a good idea.
Sheridan relaxed the tight muscles of her legs, bent slightly at the knees, and pushed off while letting the rope slide through her right hand until she dropped four feet. Then she did it again. She wasn’t yet ready to fly down a mountainside in a single graceful swoop.
Her thin-soled climbing shoes gripped the texture of the sandstone and she could feel the cold of the rock on her feet. It was still a couple of hours until the sun would warm the surface of it.