The Pilgrim Hawk by Glenway Wescott Page A

a great lift of her legs and two or three strokes of her wings, she climbed up on top of the air, and above the lawn, and across the pond. It was lovely. Her searching looks still, this way and that—to discover why she had been loosed, what quarry there was for her—made her appear to be shaking her head, saying no, no.
    I lost sight of her when she passed behind a tree; again, when she rose beyond the scope of the kitchen window. Down she came then, with neck and wing and tail and legs all out—in the shape of a six-pointed star, big and dim, collapsing. She rested her weight on the air again for an instant, and alighted on a post in the far corner of the garden. It was one of two posts from which Eva hung Alex’s lingerie to dry early in the morning. The gesture of alighting was lovely: her rigid hands clutching the top of the post like a living victim. It might have been a little angel seizing a tall man by the hair. Then there she sat, still wondering what in the world—what, in terms of a hawk’s simple murderous instinct—this liberation meant.
    Meanwhile, of course Cullen too had gazed up at her, gazed across the pond at her. Now like a ninny he waved good-bye, good-bye. Then he turned and ambled back through the bushes. Jean and Eva and Ricketts, in their matrimonial or adulterous absorption, had not seen a thing. I was thankful for that; I also felt a childish optimism because of it. I waited a bit, to give Cullen time to get settled in the living room. Then I dashed out of the kitchen, and knocked at Alex’s bedroom door, and shouted through it to Mrs. Cullen. I simply said that Lucy was no longer on her perch. Then I hastened away to see what state of mind Cullen was in. There he sat in the living room, one leg over the arm of his easy chair, stoutly puffing; sorrowful and also smug, I thought, and somewhat sobered by his exploit; that at least was a blessing.
    â€œThe hawk has got loose. It’s not on the bench. I’ve called Mrs. Cullen. She’s coming to look for it. It must have untied the leash itself.” I said this as emphatically as I could, to suggest to him the line he should take.
    â€œBut what about the hood?” he asked in an infuriating little tone. “I cut the leash myself, damn it all.”
    Whereupon I groaned or I cursed; I can’t remember which. I didn’t want him to confess; I should have spoken to him before I called his wife; now it was too late. She came rushing from the bedroom; and it was as if the news had instantly disheveled her from head to foot. She shuffled, her fine shoes half unlaced. Her perfect dress hung or clung around her one-sidedly. She was pulling on the blood-stained gauntlet; and as she crossed the room she impatiently ran her other hand up through her hair, which fell down on that side over her cheek. She did not close her mouth between her voluble exclamations. “Damn, damn. Oh, I am so unhappy. I must get her back, I can’t bear to lose her.”
    At the sight of her, Cullen pulled himself up out of the easy chair and stood at a kind of attention: but badly, not a bit brave. She must have seen him; she took no notice. I had a sense of her knowing what had happened, who had done it. She looked like the type of old Irishwoman who has second sight: countrified, frumpy, and frightened. And in spite of her outcries and panicky movements, it seemed to me that she had an air of experience and familiarity; familiarity with fright.
    â€œOh, Mr. Tower, can you get me the other half of that pigeon?” she begged. “The pigeon I fed her. She hasn’t, I hope she hasn’t, gone far away.”
    Upon which her husband behind us chimed in as usual, worse than usual: “Madeleine, Madeleine, surely they’ve cooked it. That’s the dinner, you know, pigeons with white currants.”
    She took notice of that. She swung around and answered in a devilish voice, “Of course they have not