From Afar

Appeared in Midwestern Gothic, Issue 13 spring 2014

The sound of the hawk smashing into the windshield made us think the glass had cracked. It hadn’t, but there was a large smear of blood, out of which sprouted a few small brown feathers.

During our drive from Atlanta to Chicago, Stephanie and I had seen a dozen or more hawks coasting on air streams into the ghostly valleys of Tennessee, and sitting upon twisted wooden fence posts in the ancient fields of Kentucky. Their bodies like shadows shaped from rock, reminded us how nature’s grace has danced its way through centuries and surrounded us everywhere we went. Why, in the yellowed fields of southern Indiana, did that hawk find itself colliding with our windshield instead of gliding safely above the forsaken, trampled land? Hadn’t it seen that when humans and animals come into contact, bad things often happen?

When it hit, Stephanie slammed on the brakes, drawing long black streaks into the road. She pulled over onto the shoulder and a plume of dust flooded through the open windows, into our eyes and mouths. About fifty yards back, in the middle of the road, was the destroyed mass of feathers and blood and bones.

“What should we do?” I asked. Stephanie’s bottom lip shook convulsively, her eyes shimmered with unshed tears. Any harm that came to animals was more than she could bear. At eight-years old, she became a vegetarian. When she moved out on her own, she adopted two dogs that were rescued from a fighting circuit, rubbed vitamin E into their scars, taught them to sit for treats, and to snuggle before sleep. Once, she found a just-hatched baby bird laying alone on her porch. Though she tried to warm and protect it, its eyes never opened and she buried it in her yard.

Without acknowledging my question, she got out of the car and walked toward the hawk. I got out, looked both directions down the road and saw only the land and the sky. As we approached the bird we saw its wings laying limp and its neck in a twist. I thought surely it was dead, but it’s eyes opened suddenly and it squeezed and released its talons. The talons, scaley topped and razor tipped, which had ripped through flesh of shrews, moles, chipmunks, squirrels and other smaller, slower softer animals from the field and carried them to the mouths of its young, would have torn through us as well if we got too close.

Instinct told it to flee, but the injuries left it anchored to the hot concrete. I marveled at the red and white feathers on it’s chest, the intricate patterns on its wings, and the raw dignity and majesty in its face. I could only imagine this was an unfamiliar position for this bird of prey, which was a real animal, making me feel like a distant cousin too far gone to know what is really like to hunt and kill for food and it embarrassed me to be standing over it, me a coddled human with soft hands and grocery store bought bread in my teeth.

Rather than watch it writhe in pain, I thought it might be best to put it out of its misery. I’d never done such a thing before and I wondered if this was an opportunity for me to step deeper into the dismal world they call manhood where murder can be construed as mercy in certain circumstances. I didn’t have a knife with me, so a quick slice at the neck or a stab to the heart was not possible. The thought of stomping on its head occurred to me, but I knew feeling the skull crush beneath my boot was not something I could handle.

As I hesitated, Stephanie bent down with slow, steady movements, wrapped her arms around the bird’s body and picked it up. Possibly understanding and feeling her tenderness, the hawk allowed itself to be cradled. Grasshoppers sprayed from the ground as we walked onto the field of dry dirt and grass, which extended to the tree line of oaks and sycamores. The hawk seemed alert, but made no attempt to escape. About halfway into the field, Stephanie placed it on the grass, stomach down.

“This way it won’t have to flip over if it gets better,” she said.

Getting better didn’t seem possible and I imagined all the creatures that had died out there, the last breaths being gasped, the limbs trying to motor forward but eventually coming to a slow, dragging halt. Millions of mammals, birds, rodents, snakes, bugs, and all the amphibians, fish and deep sea predators that dwelled there before the water dried up and left the dirt behind. There was blood in that field, even if we couldn’t see it.

I took a deep breath and finally asked aloud,“Should we put it out of its misery?”

“No,” Stephanie said. We should leave it alone now.”

The bird’s eye continued to blink, and it flexed its wings as we walked away, toward the distant trees. There was no talk small enough to fit into the silence so we let the wind in the leaves be the only sound. We walked until we were shaded by the branches. Both of us thought of the bird. Over and over again I heard the vicious smack of the hawks bones against the glass. I wondered if I’d ever be able to forget that sound.
Walking back toward the car, we returned to where we had laid the hawk and saw it wasn’t there.

“Maybe we put it somewhere else,” I said.

“No, it was right here. I remember that rock.”

We turned circles, scanning the field. Then Stephanie pointed directly overhead.

I looked up and saw a hawk swirling in circles high above us.

“Do you think that’s it?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I stared into the sky, looking for some confirmation but was blinded by the sun.