Raptor Read online

  “So that’s why Montanans talk so much,” I said.

  “You’re catching on,” he replied.

  “Neil,” Avery said. “Wait up. I want to show you something.” When everyone had gotten ahead of us he whispered, “March lost his job at Freezeout because he refused to shoot that bear. It’s kind of a sore subject.”

  “I won’t mention it again,” I replied.

  Everybody quieted down as we got further into our hike. You have to concentrate to keep up with a bunch of birders older and fitter than you, and there is something about walking through a forest anyway, putting one foot down, picking it up, that is hypnotic. If you do it long enough, it takes over thought, possibly even caution, but it would take more than a few miles for me to forget there was a grizzly out there who might want me for lunch. It gave an edge to the hike and sharpened the senses. I could imagine the fear and immediacy of being a little brown bird or a little gray woman when the shadow of a raptor passes overhead.

  We went on like this for an hour then stopped beside a river and had a snack of nuts and seeds and some cold water from our canteens. The river, which whispered softly as it passed over its rocks, was liquid jade.

  Avery took a sip from his canteen. “‘You have left your home and birthplace,’” he said. “‘You depend on clouds and you depend on water.’”

  “Did you make that up, Avery?” asked Bea.

  “No. It came from a Buddhist monk, Zen Master Dogen, in thirteenth-century Japan, but it reminds me of the gyrfalcon alone on her first flight south. ‘The inconceivable virtue of following the wind.’ Dogen said that, too. Now there’s something the gyrfalcon knows all about.”

  Something invisible sang near the live branches of a red cedar. “What’s that?” asked Marcia.

  Muriel: “American goldfinch?”

  Avery: “Pine siskin.”

  “How did you know that?” I asked. “You can’t even see it.”

  “Piece of cake. The pine siskin’s song is coarser than an American goldfinch’s and they are usually heard in flight. Often it’s easier to identify a bird by sound than sight. Many birds look alike, some you only get to see at a distance or in flight, some you never get to see at all. Sometimes you just have to rely on jizz.”

  “Jizz?”

  “It’s kind of a sixth sense you get when you do a lot of bird watching, a picking up of subtle or subconscious clues, seeing the whole, maybe, without being able to identify all the parts.”

  Something chattered loudly from a nearby tree. “What’s that one?” I asked.

  “Squirrel,” said Bea.

  As we began to climb again, one foot after the other, I thought of Joan, her enthusiasm and her stamina, her secret life and bliss. Would sighting the falcon have been worth the trek to her? Would it make any difference? Maybe the trek itself was the point: the companionship, the going up, the coming down, one foot and then the other, the falcon only the excuse.

  Finally we reached the rocky ledge where the gyr could be sighted in the cliffs across a jewel of a mountain lake. Falcons like water because their victims congregate there, they like cliffs because they can spot the prey. March had been here before and he knew the gyr’s habits. He walked to the edge of the ledge next to a cedar and began to set up his scope while the others got out their binoculars.

  “I don’t see a thing,” said Bea.

  “Maybe you don’t know how to look,” replied Avery.

  I looked down over the ledge into the lake, which was similar in color to the river, only deeper and bluer, an intense blue-green. The blueness of the sky was reflected in the green of the water. It was a color that you could get lost in, a color that could make you forget all about divorces and partners and an office on Lead.

  “See those rocks around the lake?” March said. “A lot of marmots live there. Grizzlies consider them a delicacy; they’ll dig all afternoon to catch a marmot while the marmots just sit around and laugh at them. It’s possible the gyr has been eating marmots, too, as there don’t seem to be that many birds around and something is attracting her to this spot.”

  While he adjusted the scope, I noticed slashes running up the tree next to him, parallel lines scratched in the bark like someone had been keeping score.

  “Are you keeping a record of your sightings here?” I asked.

  “Bear,” he said, without even looking up. “It climbed that tree.”

  I moved in a little closer to our leader. He got the aerie in his sights. “Let me focus this a bit,” he said. “There it is. Right there, you see, there are three red cedar trees and next to it an opening and if you look very carefully into that opening you can see the gyr sitting still. Look.”

  I peered into the scope, saw the opening and an ominous shadow, a shadow of death, peering out of the doorway, but what also interested me at this point was the setting: the cedar trees, the opening in the cliff, the way the rocks were arranged around the opening. The pattern itself had significance as it does in dreams or the mind of the Anasazi (the ancient pueblo Indians), in the place that deals with symbols and meaning.

  “It reminds me of the cliff dwellings in Canyon de Chelly in Arizona,” I said to March, “where the hand- and footholds are carved into the cliff leading up to them. It’s high, inaccessible, you could see trouble coming from miles away.”

  “The gyr sees a meal. Trouble comes from on top of her and she can’t always see that. Actually, the nest is not as inaccessible as it looks. It would be hard to climb up, but you can climb down from the top of the ridge fairly easily. You see to the right of the opening there are sort of natural steps in the rocks, and the ledge is plenty wide enough for a man to stand on.”

  “There she goes,” Marcia called out. “She’s taken off.”

  The other birders had their binoculars out, rapt with rapture at sighting the raptor. I fumbled with the clasp of my case.

  “Look at the spread of the wings,” said Avery. “Wow.”

  “How white she is.”

  “What a beauty.”

  “She’s rising up. She’s spotted something down by the lake.”

  “Maybe she’ll stoop.”

  I got the binoculars to my eyes, but the best lenses in the world were no good out of focus. All I saw was a blue smear and then, as I lowered the lenses, a gray one. Meanwhile the gyr flew gracefully somewhere, a legendary creature of uncanny speed and beauty, alert and untamed. I heard all about it, but I couldn’t find her. I fiddled with the knobs, zeroed in on a section of cliff, a cleft in the stone, and then the three cedars finally came into needle-sharp focus. Binoculars have no peripheral vision. You can see very clearly, but only what you are focused on. Something cut across the lower edge of my lenses with a swift and fierce motion. The gyrfalcon, gone into a stoop, about to pluck the heart from some less fortunate bird? I stuck with the sighting. It was a rapid, rapier-sharp plunge in a straight line, the shortest distance from the cliff to the ground, but there was a certain clumsiness in the fall. It wasn’t a bird that was making the dive, it was a man, a man in free fall, wingless but with a jacket flapping around him as he plunged. The thought occurred to me that this was some perverse joke, that my high-powered lenses had their own agenda, like those trick Japanese cameras with naked men leering at you from inside. But it was real, all right. A clothed man in a death spiral crashed broken and bloody onto the rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

  Someone screamed. Apparently, it was me.

  “It’s just a bear looking for a marmot,” said March, grabbing my shoulder, noticing where my binoculars were pointing. “It’s a long way away.”

  “It’s not a bear,” I said. “Look.”

  I handed over my binoculars and he focused on the spot. What he found to recognize in the bloody pulp I didn’t know, but he called it. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “Sandy? Sandy Pedersen?”

  4

  IT WAS MURDER. That’s what the federal prosecutor, Wayne Betts, claimed. He had gotten involved, he said, because the �
��murder” took place on federal land. The prime suspect sat opposite me the next day in the coffee shop at the Aspen Inn poking his coffee with a dirty spoon.

  “A guy falls off a cliff in full view of you and me and five sharp-eyed birders and that’s murder?” I asked.

  “Yes,” replied March Augusta. He and Avery had spent the night guarding the body and escorted it back this morning by helicopter. I’d met them at the airport in the van. By now it was midafternoon and Betts had already talked to everyone who had been on the field trip. The front had moved in and dropped freezing rain on Fire Pond. I’d offered to buy March a cup—he looked like he needed it.

  “How do they figure that?” The coffee tasted like it had been suctioned from a dark and stagnant puddle. I pushed mine away, watched March add a packet of sugar to his.

  “Someone set a trap on the cliff near the gyrfalcon’s aerie. Sandy crawled into it.”

  “For the sake of argument only, mind you, how did you do that when you were bird watching with the rest of us?”

  “That trap could have been set days ago. When I climbed up to the aerie this morning there was nothing to indicate that anyone else had been there recently. The ledge doesn’t take any footprints. It was a spooky night, I’ll tell you, sitting around with Avery after you all hiked out, waiting for the helicopter to come in and take Sandy’s body away. Avery not only sees in the dark, he glows.”

  “To continue, again just for the sake of argument,” I said, “you set a trap and brought us along to see your handiwork?”

  “Well, that’s one thing in my favor.” He opened another packet of sugar, dropped it into the coffee. “I don’t think even the Fish and Wildlife Service believes I’m capable of that. But whoever set that trap couldn’t necessarily plan when Sandy would be there, or even if it would be Sandy, although that’s a pretty good guess given his record. The trap is what is called a wolf-wiper and it’s vicious. The animal, or in this case human, crawls into it and detonates .38 caliber cartridges that blast cyanide into its face. There’s enough cyanide to kill a man in five seconds just in case blowing his face off doesn’t do it. Someone wanted him pretty bad.”

  “Could the trap have been put there to protect the bird, to trap another predator?” I asked.

  “The only predator a gyrfalcon has is man. That trap was built to kill a man and it was placed in the cedars at a point where you have to crawl to get out from under a rock overhang. Unfortunately, I know a lot about trapping and the Fish and Wildlife Service knows a lot about me.” He picked up a tin pitcher, added a little milk to the sugar.

  “When I was a ranger at Freezeout someone was leaving wolf-wipers around, aiming to kill the same wolves we were trying to reintroduce, the Magic Pack we called them. Wolf hunting is still legal in Canada and the wolves’d come over the border looking for a safer place. I spent one summer pulling the traps out, hoping not to get detonated myself. I’ve still got a few loaded traps locked up in my shed. I never could figure out how to get rid of the cyanide. I had my suspicions but I couldn’t prove who was making or setting the traps. We did scare him out of Freezeout, thank God.”

  I flagged down the waitress, asked for some hot water and Red Zinger. “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Never mind,” I replied and lit up a Marlboro instead. “Do you mind?” I asked March. He shook his head no, an agreeable person. He probably wouldn’t admit minding, even if he did.

  “All right, just to continue with this argument for a minute,” I said, “you had the means—the trap. You had the opportunity—you’d been out there to see the gyr. But what was your motive?”

  “Sandy Pedersen is a sleazy guy. I can’t say I really disliked him personally and we had something in common, both being woodsmen. I don’t like what he did, but I wouldn’t kill for it; anybody who knows me knows that.”

  I’ll admit I’m not always the best judge of men, but I’d go along with that. Having just spent the night in the lonesome with the bare ground to sleep on and only the fire he’d built to keep him warm, the suspect wasn’t at his best. There were twigs in his hair and the time had long passed to change his clothes, but he had the eyes of a scout, clear, watchful, amber, sincere.

  “Sandy trapped and sold animals, endangered species, he didn’t care, whatever people would pay for. He’d get bighorn sheep as trophies for rich Texans, elk antlers for the Asian aphrodisiacs market, falcons for falconers. He was busted for dealing in elk horns a few years ago and did time, but he was paroled after six months. The penalty for poaching is supposed to be a two-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar fine and five years in jail. But basically, they let him out with just a slap on the wrist.” He sipped at the sludge. “Makes you wonder about the government’s priorities. It didn’t make much of an impression, apparently, because ever since he’s been bragging all over Montana about the birds he could get. He was in there to get the gyr. Somebody wanted it out of there, somebody wanted Sandy out of the way.”

  “What is the market for these birds, anyway?”

  “I’ve heard it’s big in this country, big in Europe, biggest of all in Saudi Arabia, where the sport has a long history and where you’re not going to find any native gyr-falcons. The birds falconers like best are passagers, falcons that are on their first migration, young enough to have spirit, not too old to be trained. That bird you saw is a prime specimen, young, big, healthy. Best of all, a white female—and nobody has to go into the Arctic to get her.”

  A white female. Having been one all my life, I’d say the mystique of that was overrated. But maybe there was a thrill to owning one that didn’t come from being one.

  “It’s probably an exaggeration, but I’ve heard that people will pay up to one hundred thousand for one of those birds,” said March.

  “It’s a lot of money for a bird, but enough to murder for?”

  “Why not? In New York City they’ll do it for a pair of sunglasses.”

  He put down his spoon and stared morosely into his coffee, which by now was as thick and muddy as the Rio Grande in springtime. “I’m in deep, deep trouble, Neil. The feds would love to pin this on me.”

  “Why you?”

  “Because I beat them, that’s why. I was fired without a proper hearing from my job at Freezeout. It was a case of wrongful discharge. I sued for damages and I won. I might as well tell you the whole story, everybody else knows it. Remember the photographer I told you about who was killed photographing the sow and her cubs?”

  I nodded.

  “The order came down immediately afterwards to kill that bear. There was no way of telling which bear it was until she was dead and the contents of her stomach examined, so basically the order was to kill any female bear with cubs that happened to be in the area. But if you shoot the mother, you might as well kill the cubs, too, because they’re too young to survive on their own. I refused to do it.”

  I’d already heard the bare bones of this story from Avery, but I wanted to get his perspective.

  “They were within their rights to fire me, but they didn’t follow the proper procedures, so I sued and won enough to start up my guide service. It didn’t make me happy. I’ve often wished I had never done it, but my lawyer saw an opportunity and Katharine felt strongly about it.”

  That Katharine again. “It sounds like you have an effective lawyer anyway.”

  “When he works. He used to be a county attorney, and he’s had some experience prosecuting accused murderers. This would give him a chance to defend one, but he’s not here at the moment. Right now he’s sailing in Baja, fishing and looking at whales. He’s supposed to be back in two weeks, but I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  “Maybe I could help out, if it turns out you need help.”

  “That’s right, you’re a lawyer, aren’t you? The best in the West, your aunt said.” He managed a smile.

  Apparently when Joan was in Montana, she did as the Montanans did—talked. About me. Who would have thought there was so much to say? “Since it�
��s a federal crime, I can be admitted to practice in the district if I’m sponsored by local counsel. If it gets to that, does the sailing lawyer have any kind of staff who could assist me?”

  “His name is Tom Mitchell and he’s got Marie, a crackerjack secretary. She’ll help. As far as I’m concerned you’re hired. Every other lawyer I know is in bed with the federal government. I’ll call Marie and tell her you’ll represent me. Don’t worry about money, by the way—I’ll pay your going rate. I haven’t used up my judgment dough yet. Not much to spend it on here. There’s nothing that you have to get back for?”

  Only the usual condo closings and divorces. Brink could handle it—he’d have to. “My partner can handle the work load,” I said. But what about the Kid? Who would handle that? How long could it take anyway, a few weeks till the sailing lawyer got back? I’d have to send a very carefully worded postcard to the Kid. It was an opportunity I couldn’t refuse—a murder case, the top of the line in my business. Every group has its risk takers, its dancers on thin ice. In their field, they are the ones with the finely honed skills, those who dare the most, accomplish the most, fly the highest, have the furthest to fall: the high-wire act in the circus, the pitcher in baseball, novelists among writers, litigators among lawyers, gyrfalcons among birds. It was a challenge I couldn’t resist, but there was one question that needed to be asked.

  “I’m afraid I have to ask you something…”

  “Shoot.” He feigned like my arm was loaded and he was ready to dive under the table.

  “How did you know it was Sandy Pedersen?”

  “Jizz?” He smiled slightly. “I guess it was his long sandy hair; there wasn’t much else identifiable.”

  I could accept it, but I had to wonder if anyone else would. I’d hate to see it discussed in a court; I hoped it would never get that far. The evidence against March looked bad. His reputation and character looked good, but that might not be enough. If I couldn’t prove he didn’t do it, I might have to find out who did. I don’t believe in perfect crimes. It’s dangerous for human beings to be too good at anything, even crime. Perfection takes more courage than most people possess; it brings down wrath and possible annihilation at the hands of your siblings, your peers, your God, your mother. Some Indians put an error in their weavings, a black line that leads out of the blanket, so as not to anger the gods by appearing to emulate them. A human had committed the crime, a human had left the way out. I intended to find it.