By G.R. Nanda
Father Hawk gathered himself again and eventually walked off the stinging pain. His right leg had been sprained near the claw in his fall. He didn’t know how he was going to do what he had to do.
He had flown high up above and had seen that the ravines and rivers of water had led to the mountains and canyons close to Coyote’s Rock. If he moved through the waters, he could get to the higher elevation where he could find the beady-eyed eagle.
He knew where the water was. It was wherever that gurgling was coming from. He couldn’t fly to try and see where exactly it was because he was too weak. His left wing was stiff from the fall and he didn’t dare touch or move it for fear of what might happen if he did. His right leg was too hurt to try and kick off for flight.
So, he walked around, limping, trying to avoid putting too much pressure on his right leg. He walked around in the grass, thinking of what to do. The grass was shorter than what it was near the gurgling.
He tried extending his left leg, standing on the tips of his claws, to peer over the grass, but it was to no avail. He could only see the really tall grasses where he had been just minutes ago.
He had to walk there.
But what if there was some other large animal, perhaps another bison to pummel into him? What if the same obstacle returned?
He had to protect himself.
But what if he could use the bison to his advantage if it returned?
What if he decided to use a bison to get into the water? First, he would have to figure out where the water was coming from. Then, he would have to wait for a bison to be heading into the direction of the water. If he hung on and flung himself off when he got to the water, or at least near enough, he could land in the water and then he could head forward, towards the mountains and canyons.
He first needed to protect himself and make it so that he could safely travel without further harming his injured body parts. He was already weaker than before so he needed something to work as a brace for his movement.
Father Hawk ripped off several strips of grass in front of him. He had seen Mother Hawk use braces around her legs to make it easier to walk when she was still carrying an egg that was yet to be laid. The egg had been too heavy for her legs, so she used stone braces out of asteroid rock built by a badger blacksmith to help her walk.
Father Hawk clumped together a group of ripped grasses and wrapped them around his left leg and tied them.
He walked a few steps, still limping off of his left leg, but not as much. He decided to continue walking, trusting that his grass cast would protect his leg for the time being.
Looking at his wing, he cringed. Thinking about how he was going to deal with a stiff wing made him reluctant about his journey.
He tried to move it slightly to the back, but a piercing pain shot through the wing. Father Hawk winced and brought his wing back to its original position, bent at the center, the end sticking back and extended outwards.
What was he going to do about this?
He would have to fold it somehow.
The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like there was only one somehow.
He would have to move it as much as he could until it was folded and out of harm’s way.
He cringed in anticipation and shuddering all over, slowly lowered his wing.
Pain seared all over the wing and his feathers trembled from him shaking. But he kept at it and then pressed his wing close to his body. He decided to take the wing and bend it closer to him.
Then, he clamped down on that wing with his right wing and held it there. Slowly the pain subsided and then that wing became stiff in its new position. He would have to keep it there for a long time.
He walked to the right, looking for a patch of ground with twigs and sticks. He brushed through the grasses until he got to it and grabbed the thickest and longest stick he could find. It was a rough light brown thing with splotches of lighter brown peppered in the exterior.
The whole surface was wider and taller than him. He could firmly hold it by the side while it loomed over him. It was also light enough that he could also pick it up and hold it horizontal to him.
It would have to do as a raft for now.
He clenched his beak tightly and walked through the grasses, following the incline of hightening grasses, bracing against his pain so that he could get to the bisons.
The winds rustled the blades of grass and for a long time that was all that he could hear. He would have to keep following the heightening grass in order to get to the bison awaiting him.
He walked forward and the grasses in front of him started to loom higher and higher until he had walked to a point where they were taller than him.
He kept walking, wincing whenever his right leg or his left wing coursed with pain. He told himself that he would just have to walk a bit further, grab onto a bison and once he was flung into the river by the animal’s horns, he could splash onto the river with his log and laying down on it, he could rest as the current of the water did the moving instead of his legs.
When the grass was so thick and so tall that it all nearly blocked out the sky, Father Hawk’s left wing stabbed with so much pain that he had to stop. He squeezed his eyes in anguish and gasped. He didn’t dare move anything, especially the left wing which hurt so much.
“It’s only a break,” he coaxed himself when thoughts of guilt at his pause entered his mind. “Then I’ll keep going for long, like before.”
Without warning and before Father Hawk had enough time to react and plan his path, a roar of oncoming rustling grass sounded ahead of him. A bison was hurtling towards him.
When Father Hawk opened his weary and fearful eyes, the bison grunted loudly and a thick clump of grass before him pressed down. Out of the fallen clump, a blurry and furry mass of speed and power slammed into Father Hawk. In the chaos of movement and propelling force, Father Hawk was a flattened object in the wake of the beast, stuck to the beast’s head himself.
Feeling himself slip away and fearing his proximity to the stampede of powerful bison limbs that awaited him if he fell, Father Hawk lunged. Amidst the disorientation, Father Hawk lunged up with his wings and clasped onto the bison’s blurry white horns.
From there, Father Hawk felt himself shaking and swinging to and fro from the horns he hung on to desperately. The bison snorted, sending hot air that pushed off Father Hawk’s legs only to have them slam painfully onto the bison’s head. The animal was shaking its head, trying to rid itself of Father Hawk. So he swung to and fro seeing only blurs of brown fur, white horns, green grass and blurred slivers of blue sky.
Pain and adrenaline consumed him, making him feel like his bones were on fire while his heart pounded and his limbs were jittery with the need for movement.
The twine Father Hawk had used to strap the log to his back still hung on, but he could feel it sliding. And if his sensations were correct, slipping bit by bit. Meanwhile, the log pounded itself on Father Hawk’s back, causing him even more pain.
“It’s either now or never,” Father Hawk realized even while he was swung side to side. He had to let go so that he could fall into the river and float away from the grass. If he was too late and the bison hurled him away, then Father Hawk would be even more hurt. With more pain, Father Hawk might not be able to make another trip to the bison territory.
He focused as much as he could on finding the blue water of the river as he swung, and his view moved back and forth from the left and right of the bison. He saw the bright baby blue of the sky for sure. But the blue of the river was hard to spot. However, he could hear what he was looking for. As he jerked to the left and up over the bison, he heard a sudden rush of water gurgling and streaming, only to have that sound disappear as soon as he was flung the other way to the right over the bison’s head. As soon as he was flung back to the left, he could hear the water’s sounds again.
He had to drop his hands. He had to fly into the water. He had to let go.
But when? It was so hard to plan something like this when he was constantly being jerked around like a ragdoll on the bison’s white horns. How could he plan? How could he see where he had to go when he could barely make out anything that he could see?
He would have to do it. He had to trust himself. Or else he would never make it out alive again.
He jerked to the left. He did nothing. To the right. He did nothing. To the left. He did nothing. To the right. He did nothing.
It was now or never.
He jerked to the left. He did nothing. He jerked to the right. He did nothing.
He was going to let go.
He jerked to the left. He did nothing. He jerked to the right. He did nothing.
Just about………………
He jerked to the left. He did nothing. He jerked to the right. He did nothing.
Now……………….
He jerked to the left. As soon as his body was flung up and far away from the bison, Father Hawk let go of its horns. The bison gave a grunt which died away from his ears as Father Hawk shot through the air, propelled by the thrust of the bison.
Father Hawk saw nothing but a blur that got even blurrier than what he was seeing before. Swaths of blue mixed in with swaths of green. Air pushed against his skin. As he whirled in the air, his head throbbed with the terrible ache of flight. Father Hawk could no longer see the bison.
His beak was open and as soon as his shock lessened, he could hear his own hoarse screaming.
The wind became louder than his screaming at intervals.
A blue strip of flowing water appeared to him, disappearing under the surrounding panorama of green grass and blue sky as he spun around. As soon as it appeared, it always disappeared, replaced by green, light blue and slivers of brown dirt.
In seconds, Father Hawk felt a crushing pain on his stomach. There was no more panorama. Only the dark brown of dirt. It was under him and in his eyes. He blinked furiously, trying to remove the stinging dirt from his eyeballs. He couldn’t use his wings which were hurting at every feather, nerve and bone. In fact, every single bone in his body throbbed and felt like they were shattered.
Father Hawk could hear rushing water. It was louder than ever. But this time, it came from the right.
It filled his entire right ear, blasting it with the loveliest sound Father Hawk had ever heard. He had never felt this ecstatic or relieved about a sound ever. He had never felt this happy while simultaneously hurting so much. Then, again, Father Hawk had never really had to work for much in his life. Hardship was something he could usually fly away from.
Father Hawk still felt the weight of the large log on his back. What a relief. If he had landed on his back, it would have shattered.
Mustering a final exertion and energy, Father Hawk grunted and shifted his weight to the right, to the water. He felt the dirt incline down to the right. He pushed gently with his throbbing claws and he slid down on the moist dirt. He no longer had to move his own muscles. The closer he got to the water, the wetter and slippier the dirt got. It worked like a lubricant that pushed Father Hawk down.
When he could see the blue water lapping out of the corner of his eyes, he shifted enough so that he flipped over and the log on his back touched the dirt that met the water. He was still for a moment. The afternoon sun shined on his eyes, forcing them closed and the water lapped at his ears.
Water seeped under Father Hawk’s back and took him away in its current.
As he floated away down the river on his log, Father Hawk saw black and slipped into a fatal unconsciousness.
G.R. Nanda 