The Hawk
by Christina Chapa
Death was no stranger to twelve year-old Luke. He had seen his fair share of it in his short time on earth, and had caught a glimpse or two for himself. After his oldest sister's dazing funeral two years ago, Luke decided that death simply had to be accepted as a large part of his life. He was forced to face it each day when he passed by her untouched room.
So it wasn't all that shocking when he heard a shrill scream, followed by several disrupted tree branches crackling, in response to a body beating against them. Luke's oldest brother Tristan was right in the middle of a serve when the strange sound happened, and the taller boy didn't bother to stop until the point was fully played out.
It had only been about an hour since the two brothers left their house, and already Luke was beginning to think that they would have been better off staying at home. He tried to convince his brother that he wasn't in the mood to go practice tennis. As usual, Tristan made it clear their relationship was not a democracy. Luke even attempted the, “But Mom said I can't exhaust myself,” card. It didn't fly, and since there's only so much a twelve year-old can do against a sixteen year-old, Luke ended up dragged into the car, regardless of his feelings.
The resulting ride was mostly in silence. Tristan asked Luke if he had taken his medicine, Luke grumbled yes, and then they didn't speak to each other again for the rest of the ride. Luke hated it when his brother asked him that question because it reminded him every time that he wasn't a normal kid. “Normal” kids didn't have heart defects. “Normal” kids weren't from families that lived and breathed a professional tennis schedule. “Normal” kids had brothers that couldn't care less about their physical well-being and didn't force them to exercise.
Forty-five minutes later, standing on the other side of the tennis court, Luke twisted his head around at the sound of a careening body snapping against several branches. He lost focus until he completely forgot all about the fact that he was smack dab in the middle of a point. In their sport culture, that was taboo.
Tristan's serve curved down into the corner of the service line, and he used the force of his swing to throw himself into an aggressive offense straight for the net. Luke jerked into action too late from being distracted by the strange disturbance that recently echoed right outside of their fenced-in court. His desperate return came straight for the waiting Tristan, who stepped right into an unflinching volley. The ball thumped down past the service line cross-court, forcing Luke to abandon his passive stance behind the baseline.
“Hey, didja' hear that?” Luke called over while absently clouting a weak return straight into the heart of the pale net at the center of the court, earning his brother yet another 40-0 lead. The tennis ball bounced cheerfully back, its vibrant neon yellow color illuminated by the bright lights bearing down on the scuffed court. Tristan reluctantly halted the game to come meet Luke on the other side of the net, wiping his face with the hem of his sweaty sports shirt. The two lean brothers stood adjacent with only the weaving white cords keeping them apart.
“Yeah. Looked like a big bird or something.” Tristan peered over past the bracket holes in the gray fence surrounding them. Luke followed his brother's gaze, but all he could see were the harsh shadows of the trees casting their long-armed gloom on everything outside of the radiantly lit tennis court.
Eager to grasp any excuse to dismiss their match, Luke glanced over to Tristan with the wide, green eyes of a curious youngster determined to stumble across a fantastic mystery. “Let's go find it.” He decided in a voice that carefully built up suspense, a mischievous grin beginning to form across his narrow face.
“Let's not and say we did.” Tristan flippantly shot down his kid brother's suggestion, bouncing a ball on the sweet spot of the racket's strings. He was clearly ready to continue their game, so Luke attempted a last-ditch effort to get away from the court and towards a far more interesting mystery.
“I'll race you,” he goaded sneakily, his eyes squinted into challenging slits. Tristan returned the strange cat-like stare with a clear pique in interest. Since the boy was presently the oldest of Luke's siblings, and clearly the more responsible one, it was normally his job to act as the good influence—in other words, he was a killer of fun. Luke thought for a second that his attempt to bait was hitting deaf ears as usual. Then in a rare fit, Tristan responsibly smacked his brother on the back with his racket and cleared the net in a single bound. He shouted maturely over his shoulder,
“First one there gets to hold the hopper!”
Luke readily acknowledged that he would indeed want to hold that hopper, and so bolted after his brother as soon as the contest was initiated. The two boys shot out of the court and into the grass, lanky youthful arms and legs pumping, matching heads of copper hair flapping back, their heated sweat-slicked skin becoming icy as soon as they broke free of the court's gate.
The body was right there, a few yards from the tennis court at the base of a grassy slope. Tristan and Luke came to a shoulder-shoving, elbow-jabbing, racket-smacking, grass-flinging halt. Despite the fact that Tristan won the race by a distinct seven inches, Luke forgot all about their little competition when he saw a large, broken bird lying still in the folds of the grass. It glistened a strange sandy gold.
“Is that a hawk?” Luke murmured under a furrowed brow. He came close to peer at it, his hand instinctively reaching out for a poke. Tristan immediately slapped his brother's wayward fingers. After an indignant grunt, Luke glared over at his sibling.
“Don't touch dead things,” Tristan commanded.
“I'm just seeing if it's really dead,” Luke complained. He leaned away from his brother to make sure no more slapping came in his direction.
“Look at it, Luke. It's dead. You don't need to touch it to figure that out. There's all kinds of germs that could kill you.” Tristan gestured to the lifeless thing, clearly exasperated. There was that overly serious side again, Luke thought. He waited until his brother turned back to the bird before he stuck his tongue out in response. Then, after getting away with his mild retaliation, Luke gestured both hands to it.
“Well, is it a hawk or not?”
“Maybe. Looks like one of those birds that's related to a hawk. Same genus, different species. It probably got attacked by another one that was stronger than it,” Tristan diagnosed. The older boy bent down to examine the frozen body of the raptor the way a calculating mathematician would consider a commonly encountered problem. Luke recognized the set detachment in his brother's eyes; it's the kind of look you give a sad line of headstones each engraved with your name, all of them overgrown with clovers.
Luke suddenly found himself more comfortable examining the dead carcass than his brother's emotionless expression, and his hands grasped the hem of his shirt tightly while his bright eyes found the creature. Bright yellow feathers surrounded the chilled carcass like a deadly halo, and the bird's curved beak hung open just below glassy eyes that squinted in beastly horror at nothing.
“Why would another hawk attack this one? Isn't that like cannibalism?” Luke grimaced at the mere thought. He could see pretty little canaries sitting calmly on a branch; in a matter of seconds they were scratching and pecking at each other's brains.
“Dunno. It's just how nature is. The other bird must've killed it in mid-air and left.” Tristan glanced over towards the sky, his hazel irises reflecting the moon's faint glow. The circular reflection reminded Luke of an MRI scanner's mouth. He grimaced again.
“That's pretty brutal.” Luke bent down until his knees bumped his chin, his body scrunched up to crouch before the poor bright bird. He was careful not to touch it, more so from fear of his brother's abrupt discipline than any germs. The glassy eyes of the bird had the same slick shine as a coffin lid. In his mind, Luke considered the creature in front of him. Was it a girl bird or a boy bird? Did it like cloudy days or sunny days? How many brothers and sisters did it have? Why did the other bird attack it? Was it too small for its age?
Tristan eventually shifted himself until he and Luke were in the same position, side by side in their worn tennis clothes with shoulders tapped together. No net separated them this time.
Luke buried his mouth against his knees so that his voice came out as a disgruntled mix of muffling tones. “If they're almost like the same type of bird, why'd they try to kill each other? Aren't they supposed to be related?”
“Yeah.” Tristan sighed with the heaviness of one burdened by a bleak truth. “But it's competition. They probably fought over food or territory. You know, seeing who's best fit to survive. Animals do things like that—whoever's weak dies.”
“So the hawk killed it just to prove who can survive?” Luke huffed, deeply offended at the clear lack of motive. He let one hand sneak towards his chest, secretly outlining the scar he knew was under his shirt. Without even looking at it, Luke recalled its dark pink color, like a dog's tongue, and its straight shape. He could still remember when it used to ooze blood. “That's like attacking your own family. It's pretty messed up to be related but tear each other apart. The stronger one should've just been nice and helped this one.”
“Yeah, I know.” Tristan grunted a dismissive sound as he rose back to his feet, racket still anchored in his left hand. “It's really sad, but there's nothing we can do about it. That's just how it is.”
“Why?” Luke peered up expectantly. As much as he disliked the overly serious, hand-slapping side of his brother, he had to admit Tristan always seemed to be the one in his life to have the answers. When he was five and fainted at the playground, Tristan was the one who dialed 911 first. Tristan was the one who pulled out the book in the doctor's office and taught Luke how to pronounce ‘Aortic Stenosis'. He was the one that drew a lumpy picture of a heart to show Luke where the problem was. Tristan was the one who explained to Luke that his heart defect wasn't as bad as their big sister's, so Mom and Dad had to take care of her first—but he didn't teach Luke how to pronounce her defect.
He was the one who told Mom and Dad that Luke was getting tired too quickly during their summer practice camps, that Luke was skinnier and smaller than other kids his age, and that Luke kept crying at night because of a pain in his chest. Tristan was always the one. He spoke at their sister's funeral, he drove Luke to school and church, made sure he did his homework, and always asked him if he took his medicine. Even as serious as he was with tennis, Tristan wouldn't let Luke go any further than a set or two if he thought Luke was getting too winded. When there were nightmares, Luke went to Tristan's room. If he did something bad, he confessed to Tristan first before anyone else. When he couldn't find something, Tristan would find it. Tristan was usually like that. He just knew what to do.
Tristan sighed heavily enough for his shoulders to bump up and down. “I don't know. It just happens—things die. Don't think too hard on it.”
“I'm going to die too.” Luke didn't look up. He heard Tristan's quiet breathing for a few short seconds.
“Yeah, you will. Someday you'll die, and so will I—we all will. All the more reason to be ready when it happens.”
Luke felt his brother tap his back with his racket, a signal that their little escapade was finished and that he was to follow him back to the court. The younger brother obediently rose up, but his green eyes lingered on the brilliance of the bird's sun-bright feathers against the shadows. It was shiny like his scar— it was shiny like his sister's scar had been too. He still didn't know how to pronounce her defect, but he knew his. His was fixable—hers wasn't.
When Luke finally pulled himself away to rejoin his sibling at the court, Tristan ruffled the younger boy's hair along the way. It was a surprising gesture that didn't happen often during practice. As they came to the net Tristan started to head back over to his side. He paused in mid-stride.
“Hey, Luke.” Tristan turned and leaned on the top of the webbing, one hand lightly squeezing on the white plastic.
Luke noticed a certain pitch in his brother's voice. It was the voice he used to have a long, long time ago—a voice that was thought extinct after the funeral. Luke hadn't heard it in so long that at first he was confused. It took a few seconds for the boy to turn around until his hopeful face was staring straight at his brother. Tristan had a light, almost relaxed smile spreading carefully into view.
“Let's not finish the game. Let's just rally for fun,” He suggested.
The indescribable enthusiasm that flashed over Luke's eyes was palpable. “Fun” and “Tristan” hardly ever went together on the average day, and he certainly wasn't going to question the unexpected opportunity to goof around. He rushed over to the hopper like a skipping fawn and packed his pockets with as many tennis balls as his bulging shorts could manage, the memory of scars and dead birds now soaring far from his thoughts. Before long the sound of popping rackets, exuberant shouts, laughter, and skidding shoe soles on hard blue concrete became the only noise in the night.
A gentle wind flowed through the court, taking with it the faint echoes of joy, and as it coursed down the small hill, the hawk's body became ruffled along its sandy feathers. Its wings quivered, and the chest swelled. A fleeing neon yellow tennis ball escaped over the high fence, bumbling down behind the wind. It rolled to a lazy stop in the middle of a halo of gold feathers, a suddenly empty pocket of indented grass holding it in place.
High above, a flash of sandy gold pumping wings met the sky. The resoundingly triumphant scream that followed matched the only sounds still rising up from across the white woven net.