Eagle in the Sky - Smith Wilbur - Страница 79

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them of her best.  The goodrains fell steadily, always beginning in the

afternoon after a incoming of tall clouds and heavy air filled with

static and the feel of thunder.  In the sunset the lightning played and

flickered across the gilt cloud banks, turned by the angry sun to the

colour of burnished bronze and virgins blushes.  Then in the darkness as

they lay entwined, the thunder struck like a hammer blow and the

lightning etched the window beyond the bed to a square of blinding white

light, and the rain came teeming down with the sound of wild fire and

running hooves.  With David beside her, Debra was unafraid.

In the morning it was bright and cool, the trees washed sparkling clean

so that the leaves glinted in the early sun and the earth was dark with

water and spangled with standing pools.

The rains brought life and excitement to the wild things, and each day

held its small discoveries -unexpected visitations, and strange

occurrences.

The fish eagles moved their two chicks from the great shaggy nest in the

mhobahoba at the head of the pools and taught them to perch out on the

bare limb that supported it.  They sat there day after day, seeming to

gather their courage.  The parent birds were frenetic in their

ministrations, grooming their offspring for the great moment of flight.

Then one morning, as he and Debra ate breakfast on the stoop, David

heard the swollen chorus of their chanting cries, harsh with triumph,

and he took Debra's hand and they went down the steps into the open.

David looked up and saw the four dark shapes spread on wide wings

against the clear blue of the sky, and his spirit soared with them in

their moment of achievement.

They flew upwards in great sweeping circles, until they dwindled to

specks and vanished, gone to their autumn grounds upon the Zambezi

River, two thousand miles to the north.

There was, however, one incident during those last days that saddened

and subdued them both.  One morning, they walked four miles northwards

beyond the line of hills to a narrow wedge-shaped plain on which stood a

group of towering leadwood trees.

A pair of martial eagles had chosen the tallest leadwood as their mating

ground.  The female was a beautiful young bird but the male was past his

prime.  They had begun constructing their nest on a high fork, but the

work was interrupted by the intrusion of a lone male eagle, a big young

bird, fierce and proud and acquisitive.

David had noticed him lurking about the borders of the territory,

carefully avoiding overlying the airspace claimed by the breeding pair,

choosing a perch on the hills overlooking the plain and gathering his

confidence for the confrontation he was so clearly planning.  The

impending conflict had its particular fascination for David and his

sympathy was with the older bird as he made his warlike show, screeching

defiance from his perch upon the high branches of the leadwood or

weaving his patrols along his borders, turning on his great wings always

within the limits of that which he claimed as his own.

David had decided to walk up to the plain that day, in order to choose a

site for the photographic blind he planned to erect overlooking the nest

site, and also in curiosity as to the outcome of this primeval clash

between the two males.

It seemed more than chance that he had chosen the day when the crisis

was reached.

David and Debra came up through the gap in the hills and paused to sit

on an outcrop of rock overlooking the plain, while they regained their

breath.  The battlefield was spread below them.

The old bird was at the nest, a dark hunched shape with white breast and

head set low on the powerful shoulders.  David looked for the invader,

sweeping the crests of the hills with his binoculars, but there was no

sign of him.  He dropped the binoculars to his chest and he and Debra

talked quietly for a while.

Then suddenly David's attention was attracted by the behaviour of the

old eagle.  He launched suddenly into flight, striking upwards on his

great black pinions, and there was an urgency in the way he bored for

height.

His climb brought him close over their heads, so that David could

clearly see the cruel curve of the beak and the ermine black splashes

that decorated the imperial snow of his breast.

He opened the yellow beak and shrieked a harsh challenge, and David

turned quickly in the old fighter pilot's sweep of sky and cloud.  He

saw the cunning of it immediately.  The younger bird had chosen his

moment and his attack vector with skill beyond his years.  He was

towering in the sun, high and clear, a flagrant trespasser, daring the

old eagle to come up at him and David felt his skin crawl in sympathy as

he watched the defender climb slowly on flogging wings.

Quickly, and a little breathlessly, he described it to Debra and she

reached for his hand, her sympathy with the old bird also.

Tell me!  'she commanded.

The young bird sailed calmly in waiting circles, cocking his head to

watch his adversary's approach.

There he goes!  David's voice was taut, as the attacker went wing over

and began his stoop.

I can hear him, Debra whispered, and the sound of his wings carried

clearly to them, rustling like a bush fire in dry grass as he dived on

the old bird.

Break left!  Go!  Go!  Go!  David found he was calling to the old eagle

as though he were flying wingman for him, and he gripped Debra's hand

until she winced.  The old eagle seemed almost to hear him, for he

closed his WIngs and flicked out of the path of the strike, tumbling for

a single turn so that the attacker hissed by him with talons reaching

uselessly through air, his speed plummeting him down into the basin of

the plain.

The old bird caught and broke out of his roll with wings half-cocked,

and streaked down after the other.  In one veteran stroke of skill he

had wrested the advantage.

Get him!  screamed David.  Get him when he turns!

Now!

The young bird was streaking towards the tree-toops and swift death, he

flared his wings to break his fall, turning desperately to avoid the

lethal stoop of his enemy.  In that moment he was vulnerable and the old

eagle reached forward with his terrible spiked talons and without

slackening the searing speed of his dive he hit the other bird in the

critical moment of his turn.

The thud of the impact carried clearly to the watchers on the hill and

there was a puff of feathers like the burst of explosives, black from

the wings and white from the breast.

Locked together by the old bird's honed killing claws, they tumbled,

wing over tangled wing, feathers streaming from their straining bodies

and then drifting away like thistledown on the light breeze.

Still joined in mortal combat, they struck the top branches of one of

the leadwood trees, and fell through them to come to rest at last in a

high fork as an untidy bundle of ruffled feathers and trailing wings.

Leading Debra over the rough ground David hurried down the hill and

through the coarse stands of arrow grass to the tree.

Can you see them?  Debra asked anxiously, as David focused his

binoculars on the struggling pair.

They are trapped, David told her.  The old fellow has his claws buried

to the hilt in the other's back.  He will never be able to free them and

they have fallen across the fork, one on either side of the tree.  The

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