Screaming Against the Rock

The hunter dissects the blue sky with wings spread, gliding over trees and rock with great speed, faultless eyes scanning across the mountain and locking on target. The wings pull back and the falcon makes a spectacular dive, with a sharp black beak like the figure head of a warship cutting through the sea, and then the wings extend outward and the talons come forward and predator and prey fulfill their destinies in the great cycle.

I live high in the mountains. My home is modest and I have no neighbors. I live here for the hunt. Life on the mountain is grand. A boundless blue sky scratched by tall evergreen pines. Elk grazing during summer afternoons and one silent arrow through the heart to kill it, dead before it hits the ground. The only sounds are the thrum of my bowstring and the thump of the prey’s death fall on the earth. The gods of the hunt created a paradise for their own pleasure and I sought to take it for myself.

I swept across the mountain, slaying all manner of beast. My home is decorated with rugs and wall hangings made from pelts, and teeth and claws are woven into my clothing. At night the gods unleash their fury, blasting a cold wind around the mountain that whistles through crevices and howls through caverns. The wind screams against the rock.

My wife is buried on the far side of the mountain, next to a little brook that runs down the rock face. A small cairn marks her grave and only I, and the gods, know she is dead. She came with me up the mountain and we built this home together. But soon she felt frightened. She said that we were dishonoring the gods and we should leave. I told her that I will become master of this mountain and I would not leave and she would not leave me. She tried to leave, but I struck her down with my axe. My rage had cost me my wife, and I felt ashamed and heartbroken. I buried her on her favorite spot of the mountain two moons past. I anointed her grave with blood from three great elk, to protect her while she was in the great valley beyond and to make homage to the gods for this one thing I ask of them.

I did not build a coffin for her because I know Mother Mountain will give her back to me. In exchange for my wife’s resurrection I vowed to leave this paradise and never return. The gods sent me a messenger while I buried her. A falcon perched on a long branch above the site and in those black pool eyes I saw the covenant made.

Ever since that night the falcon had followed me on the hunt. Or was I following it? A slash of red feathers across its breast, the falcon blazed across the sky like a fiery comet.

When dressing game outside my hut, the falcon watches from above perched on a pine. The first cut into the game and the spill of blood triggers the falcon into a high pitched screech. I can hear its wings thrashing above, stirring up small gusts that stir the pine needles on the ground. I discard the bloody entrails to the side and the falcon darts to the ground and tears them apart with tooth and talon and swallows bloody chunks before grasping all it can and flying away across the mountain, to report to the gods what I’m doing. The smell of meat cooking over fire draws the falcon back and it perches on the same branch and watches the flames. The fire burns bright and the falcon’s red breast glows just as bright, but the flames are extinguished in the falcon’s black pool eyes.

On the final night of the third moon since my wife’s burial, I went to her gravesite. I waited for her to rise out of the earth, and we could leave this place and start anew. But all night I waited, and she never came. The cairn stood dark and still, timeless and indifferent. The moon sailed across the sky and the sun came chasing behind it. My wife remained in the ground and I named the gods cowards and backsliders. That day I spent hunting, slaughtering game where they fell and nailing pelts and heads to trees. The gods have their fury at night but the day belongs to me. That night the falcon came tapping on my window.

Tap tap tap went the beak. Through the smoky glass all I could see was a dark oblong form, but I knew from how heavy the tapping was that it came from the falcon’s large beak.

Tap tap tap the falcon insisted. The gods had something to tell me. I did not know if it be a truce or an act of aggression.

I opened the smoky window and revealed the falcon, absolutely black with a faint silver silhouette. It sat still on the window sill. I turned and grabbed a candle from my table and struck a match and lit the wick. I turned back with the candle in my hand and the falcon glowed in the faint orange light. In its beak was a woman’s finger.

Bloody all over, torn from a hand, pale and pathetic, the small digit looked like a grubby worm. The falcon dropped the finger and it fell to the floor of my home and then falcon screeched and spread its wings and the wind blew through the open window and extinguished my candle and blew me down, my empty hand coming to land atop the severed finger.

The falcon flew away into the night and took the wind with it. I picked up the finger and held it close to my face to see it in the dark but then the finger began squirming like a worm and I threw it out the window and shut it. The wind began screaming again and did not let up until sunrise.

That morning I went to my wife’s grave and found it undisturbed. The cairn atop it had not fallen over and the dirt was still packed. My wife was still in the ground and the gods were mocking me. I would hunt and kill this falcon and name myself master. My only regret is not killing every single animal on this awful rock. I spent all day searching for the falcon, climbing tall trees for vantage points and listening for its familiar screech, but there was no trace of it.

Returning to my home at dusk, the falcon was perched atop my house. The red slash of feathers looked like embers from a cook fire. I stared into its black pool eyes and stood frozen, my bow in my hand and my quiver across my back. The falcon extended its wings and held its beak open, ready to strike me like a lightning bolt. The wind picked up slowly, tossing leaves across the rocky ground, then building tremendously in force and volume, and then the falcon screeched with all the wind. I snapped out of my frozen fear and fetched one arrow and notched as the falcon came screaming towards me, carried on by its servant wind, the talons now coming forward. Just the opening I was looking for. Draw, loose, and the arrow struck the falcon in its red breast. One arrow and the falcon was dead and the wind died with it.

I would eat this falcon to mock the gods as my final act before leaving. I carried it into my home and I removed the arrow and plucked the feathers from the carcass. Taking my knife I made a cut along its breast and when I pried the flesh apart I was revolted to see hundreds of wet squirming maggots inside. The disgusting things slithered out of the bird’s carcass and the sight and stench of it made me retch. I threw the horrible thing outside and I packed what things I wanted to take with me for my departure. I would leave in the morning, for it’s too dangerous to travel at night and the sun was already setting now, like a fire growing cold.

That night I dreamt of my wife. Her blue eyes were dark and wet with tears like a rain cloud. Her mouth opened and she began to speak but I couldn’t understand her because her mouth was filled with squirming maggots and clumps of them fell to the ground with loud wet smacks. I awoke screaming in my bed, until the wind outside screamed louder and I came to my senses.

But then came the tapping again. Tap tap tap. It was the horrible falcon! I leapt from my bed and grabbed my axe and ran to the window and swung the heavy axe head through the glass but there was nothing there. That familiar screech again from outside the door and I swung the door open and stepped into the dark. The screeching was so loud it was as if the falcon was perched inside my head, damning me to hell. I swung my axe in a blind fury in all directions, but the night did not shed any blood. I stopped swinging to catch my breath and to listen for its screeching but there was no sound. In the dead quiet a silent punch from clenched talons struck me on the side of the head. The blow made me drop the axe and then the falcon was on me.

The thrashing wings kept me disoriented and the talons tore flesh away from my face. I swung my fists at the falcon but it stayed on me, now slashing my scalp and biting my fingers. I ran away deeper into the dark and soon I tripped over a large gnarled root and fell onto my chin on the rock. The jarring impact made my teeth clench and I bit off part of my tongue. I spit out the bloody hunk and the falcon darted and swallowed it. I got up and kept running, the falcon right above me, pecking and tearing at my scalp and shoulders in diving attacks. The falcon clutched my back with its talons and made ribbons of my skin and tore them off in quick pulls.

I dashed and zagged through the dark woods, keeping my hands out to guide me. I lost the falcon but I did not stop, I kept running and running and then I splashed through a brook and I tripped over my wife’s cairn and hit the ground. The fall took the wind out of me and I could not even sit up. I gasped and sucked in small quick breaths. The sky above was clear and the stars peaked through the dark. I caught my breath but then the falcon landed on my chest, blocking out the stars in silver silhouette and I was frozen again with fear, looking into its deep, dark eyes. Unlike the sky, there was nothing that twinkled in those black pools. The falcon screeched into the night and dug its razor beak into my left eye. I screamed and the falcon screamed but the wind screamed the loudest and the falcon pulled my eye out of the socket and swallowed it whole. The beak’s tooth then sank into my other eye and plucked it out like a grape off a vine.

The bird lifted off my chest and took flight, making no sound. The wind had come to a dead stop but now I wished for it to return as I felt a burning heat inside me that I had never felt before. I writhed and begged and cried but no tears came, just cold blood running down my face. I staggered to my feet and began walking, arms out in front of me, but I could not see the steep decline and I slipped and fell and tumbled down the hard eternal stone, breaking my neck upon a boulder and my body slid to a stop. Paralyzed, blind, and unable to speak, the falcon tore open my stomach and ripped my insides apart. The gods did not bring my wife back from the dead, but they have kept me alive to feed all the game of the mountain. I hope that when my bones are finally plucked clean the gods will let me rest.