"I hope we can catch a hawk for Jake," Chris said.
"Jake doesn't care about hawks now," Peter said. "Grandpa sent Leroy out with us to keep us from bugging them."
"I still wish we catch a hawk," Chris said.
"We only have one good pigeon. You can't catch a hawk with one good pigeon."
"I bet you can."

 

Peter laughed. Leroy had brought four tame pigeons from his coop to go along with the brown and white splotched pigeon that Chris had caught in the silo. Normally, the messenger birds would just come back to the truck when they reached the end of the line and so they weren't much good to hunt. Plus, Leroy was attached to them and did not want to see them hurt. It was a testimony to his dedication to the boys that he'd brought them along at all.

 

"You're just all excited cause you caught that ugly pigeon," Peter said. "The rest of us were trying to catch Jake and you were busy grabbing a pigeon."
"I didn't know Jake was falling," Chris said.
Besides, he thought, the pigeon caught him. It was like Jake had said about climbing the rock. He hadn't done anything and the pigeon had flown into his bag and folded right up. It was the sign of a natural hawk catcher.
"He shouldn't have stood up," Peter said. "He always wants to be better than everyone."

 

Chris shrugged. He wanted to be better than everyone too; he'd just never known how. They pulled alongside the runway. The airport didn't have much traffic and Leroy had grown up with the Emersons, the brothers who ran it. He always called ahead to check the schedule and let them know they were coming out. They'd pull their chairs outside and watch the hunt. Leroy stopped his truck about halfway down the runway and put it in park. He came around to the bed of the truck.

 

"Which one of you wants to run her out?"

 

Peter and Chris looked at each other. Peter's eyes were cool and hard. He loved to watch the utter awe in Chris's eyes when he waited for a decision. This time his little brother's eyes welled up. Peter smiled out of the side of his mouth.

 

"Let's give Chris a shot at it, Leroy," he said.

 

Chris gulped. Leroy nodded and lifted a deep-sea fishing harness over into the bed. He beckoned Chris over and fitted the harness around his shoulders. There was no rod in the rig, just the spool of heavy line and, at the end of the line, a smaller harness. The harness was nylon and woven through with a fine chain mail of constricting loops of fishing line to catch a diving hawk's feet when it struck. Leroy had invented it. Peter pulled the brown mottled pigeon from the cage and held it still as Leroy slipped the harness over its head and pulled its wings through the gaps in the webbing.

 

"Okay Chris, when we let her go you just let the line go right out with it until you can't see it's eyes anymore. Then you choke her off. The bird will panic and come down a ways. Then it'll head back up there. Once I get the truck moving it will try to fly."

 

Chris was looking down at the harness on his chest in amazement. He had not understood entirely what being a hawk catcher would entail and the harness scared him, but he did not want to show it.

 

"The hawks are ready enough," Leroy said, nodding back over his shoulder.

 

The boys looked at the tree line. At first they didn't see anything and then they noticed the black silhouette of a Cooper's hawk in the spare high reaches of a pine tree. Leroy pulled some line out and nodded to Peter. Peter tossed the pigeon up into the air. For a moment it looked like it might just drop like a rock but its wings finally opened and flapped and the line spun out. Chris's eyes danced from the pigeon to the spinning reel on his chest and back again. He tried to see the pigeon's eyes but the bird faced away from them. He shot a glance at his brother to see when to cut the line off but Peter's eyes were on the sky. Chris panicked and hit the button on the reel to stop the line. The line went taught, and the bird jerked and began to fall.

 

"Let it out some more," Leroy shouted out the window.

 

Chris looked down at his chest. Peter reached over and hit the release on the reel. The boys watched as the bird continued to fall. Leroy eased the truck into gear and drove it forward slowly. The bird caught its fall and began to flap its wings wildly, then to fly steadily along behind the truck. Chris let out a shout of joy as the line began to spin out again.

 

"Nice one, hotshot," Peter said.