The Raptor Revolution Save Christmas Mountain

War Today

Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.

– John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, Jul. 17, 1775

THE LAND LAY OUTSTRETCHED before him. Untracked territory to the left of him beckoned his natural curiosities, but today was not the day for exploration. It was for personal reasons that he wrestled against the will to fight and the pull to flee. His Aunt Mary summoning him at such an early time in the morning was another reason that held him to his ground. His family depended upon his sound judgment. 

John searched every inch of their forest, to the Cove and to the Bounds, producing no result. His cousin was MIA, and as usual, he figured Samuel was enjoying the sounds of his voice squeaking out in frustration. He was more likely a shadow following him this whole time as a sick joke, and on days like these – that was not a laughing matter.

The rustle of leaves and the scent that was unmistaken proved his intuition to be correct.

I know you can hear me. Aunt Mary sent me to come and get you. She knows you have strayed too far from the boundary. Why you forget she has friends in high places is beyond my understanding? Must you always try your best to fall into trouble? Can’t we just at least live one day in peace without ...?  

John’s voice trailed and sounded a thousand miles away.

The air changed. His nose lifted higher, eyes beady now, alert for danger, sensing the familial squawk. There was a dreaded step more or less to his death on any occasion to go out alone. He knew that, and that was the very reason he would scoff at Samuel and box his ears out once he found him. 

He smelled again, and he relaxed. All clear.

John called out with caution, Samuel. Samuel.

Samuel peeked around the thick trunk of the fallen maple and questioned, John? 

Then, in his operatic voice that made John seethe with agitation, he began his taunting in his best musical rendition, Oh, Johnny-Boy, Johnny-Boy. Where for art thou, Johnny-Boy?

Will you shut your fat cheeks and get over here!  

John always liked to use the trees, but Samuel was a walker. He felt regal and claimed it was the more gentlemanly way to travel, walking on his hind legs as he’d seen the many avid deer and turkey hunters who had frequented the public game lands and hunting grounds near Oakleaf.

He watched Samuel flip headfirst, missing an animal trap set by the fur traders for the foxes by a half-inch. Samuel circled it, providing a critique as he admired the well-camouflaged handiwork. 

John was too busy worrying over Samuel that he found himself in a pile of bear scat. It was rare that John found himself in the middle of an embarrassing situation, and he knew Samuel would never let him live it down. He used the bark of the tree and the leaves of the oak to wipe off the best he could. 

Samuel snickered. He waved his furry tail in the air and let one escape. I must admit that has nice earthy perfume smells. It is a mixture of the cone from the pine and the robin egg that might have already been a little on the rotted side.

That explained why John had difficulty finding Samuel, and knew he should have gone to the most obvious place first. Samuel and John were always finding rotting this or that or the most unusual discoveries in Samuel’s best friend’s, Hancock’s, rat stash. 

John asked, Have you been to Hancock’s this morning? You must have because you came out of that hole with too much sass to be so early in the morning.

With the smell lingering, Samuel bowed and said, Samuel Adams Squirrelly at your service. SAS was the perfect initials for me, and I must say Mother knew what she was doing when she named me.

She should have named you Garrett, so we could call you GAS for short. That would be better suited for you, dear cousin.

John moaned and jerked with over-exaggerated disgust, then fell over in a possum play the dead position. When he could breathe again, he squeaked, You can start by shutting up those cheeks, too. Be useful for once in your life.

Samuel’s face twitched and John knew he’d hurt his feelings. Samuel once told him they always compared him to his groomed appearance, his intelligence, and his quiet disposition. It was more in the way he spoke, this eloquent way that got everyone’s attention.  When John recollected that, he felt a sting of guilt. He knew more than anything that his cousin wished for nothing more than to be heard. 

John’s mind was so preoccupied that he found himself in yet another predicament. He scurried from log to log and tree side, trying not to step on any more scat, yet now found himself stuck in a hole of a fallen log.

Samuel laughed. I am useful! You’ll see. I’m useful at a lot of things, John Adams Squirrelly III. I’m useful at finding the perfect size branch that will be just the right length for your escape. If that is, I choose to be helpful on this occasion.

Sorry, John grumbled in defeat. 

No one liked to admit that they were wrong. Especially someone who always thought they were right.

Samuel tried out sticks and his rendition of the Southern drawl, What did ye say, laddie? Ye too fer down dat hole.  

He found the perfect sized walking stick that John knew he would fashion as if he were on a lovely lolly for his leisurely walk home.

Squirrels have a well-developed sense of hearing, but you know this good and well. In my humble opinion, we are the best receivers in the forest. You just want me to suffer humiliation.

Samuel launched the limb in without a necessary timber warning, and it hit John right on the noggin. His eyes wiggled around on the sides of his face, and he glimpsed a flash of light. So, what he had heard about was true, stars would appear at just the right angle of a head hit.

This is humiliation, my brother. It’s going on the Oakbook as soon as I get signal.

If you share this on your post, I will do more than box you when I get out. I’ll clock you into next week.

John scampered up the limb with a force unknown even to himself, in a desperate attempt to snatch and delete the picture from his cellphone. After a few minutes of a blow for blow wrestling tussle, both squirrels fell on their backs in exhaustion.

Samuel rubbed his rounded belly as he sprawled out on his back, Samuel laughed. I need to lay off the pine nuts.

Among other things. Let me remind you that I know who’s been getting into the malted barley. I know you are of age, but Uncle Joe wouldn’t be too pleased.

Samuel’s smile faded. He had won with words again. John was a master at earning his way out of any argument. Samuel reached into his pocket to delete the picture, but not before admiring its silliness before it disappeared.

He waved the phone in front of John’s face, letting him look at those swirly eyes caught in bewilderment. You should be a little bit more of that sometimes.

John stood up brushing off his breeches. Aunt Mary would have a field day with them, on top of adding another hole to mend. And you should be a little less. There’s a time and a place. Now, our place is calling us. We must go home. You must learn to give a little and take a little; you know life is a dance and all that.

Samuel twirled his notched stick and kicked up his heels. You are a squirrel of words. I am a squirrel of action. Actions speak louder, as I’ve been told by a certain hottie down at the news.

You call that escapade you and the boys cooked up against those red hawks a successful means of action? I call stringing up rubber chickens along the borders ridiculous. Absurd. Beneath us, truly.  

His nose rose in the air, showing off his proud nature that he sometimes, well, most often possessed.

I call it genius. Do you know how long it took Hancock to collect all those chickens? It was a masterful plan. And it sent them a message. A message that I am sure was heard. Action, my brother.  

Samuel pumped his fist in the air.

Discussing politics with Samuel was a lost cause. John was more resolute, determined to weigh out negotiations and peaceful passing of tolerable laws with the chicken hawks. Tolerance and compromise were very determined traits that took a conscious effort, not just pranks and folly.

John reminded him, The red-tailed hawks have laid their case before the courts and ...

Samuel’s mother’s voice drowned out John’s developed speech. Her demeanor was foreign to them. John could smell fear, and he didn’t like that smell. It caused him to shiver as if a cold wind had just tickled his soul.

Now, boys. Come inside. Hurry on now.

They entered their family dwelling in Oakleaf. She bolted the door, another action foreign in the daylight hours.  John heard warning bells cling-clanging in the distance. His Aunt Mary waved The Gazette in her hands. John cocked his head side-to-side, watching it tremor against the flicker of candlelight, trying to glimpse the headlines.

When he caught sight of the line, his heart thumped down into the floorboards of their terrace home.

War. It Begins.

She delivered the news, It’s just as Samuel predicted. It is upon us now. No more talking, or meetings, or even hope of reconciling. They have breached the barrier.

Samuel crossed his arms, resolute to the cause. It is today.

Fight or Flight

Give all the power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all the power to the few, they will oppress the many. - Alexander Hamilton

Hamilton stretched his caramel wings for his typical morning glide over Raptor’s Ridge. The sights were beyond amazing, and he reveled in the thought that just one short year ago, his view was one of a lonely, darkened shed, and an occasional let out for a flight call of his master over an adoring crowd of renaissance groupie fans at the traveling festivals that he was once an esteemed member.

The pleasure that exuded in every single feather of his body was more than he could explain to another hawk without prior captivity. Words could not encapsulate the feeling. It would just have to be his secret. One who was born with freedom would not understand those things.

After Hamilton’s owner passed away, from what he overheard one medic who had arrived at the scene of the armchair incident was that it must have been because of those funnel cakes and excessive use of his elbow for fried turkey legs. From his last breath, he knew that his prospects had taken either a turn for the better or worse. He had time to weigh out his options as they called Animal Control to handle him.

He would either end up being sold to another Austringer from the archived list of the North American Falconer’s Association, become some college team mascot, confined to a zoo cage, or in that little burst of hope, be released into the wild. Good fortune was shining upon him, as the local animal shelter contacted the animal rehabilitation center the next county over.

It was Hamilton’s kind of place. Utter and total dependence had stifled his natural raptor instincts upon an owner with a gauntlet glove, holding mice in hand for easy retrieval. But at the ranch, they trained him to rely on what he was born with - clever intuitiveness and the speed that could outrun a cheetah with such ease. After a few days of understanding that he would no longer be spoon-fed, his hunger pains got the best of him, and he attacked.

Then, he conquered. Hamilton’s escape was the greatest accomplishment of his life to date. Again, and again, he could swoop and dive, barrel, and chase. No one calling him back for a show or pets on the wing that often felt more like tugs than gentle rubs, and no one to answer to. It felt so fierce to be in flight.  For the first time in his life, he was alive, and he owed his freedom to the one person at the shelter who made that call. His prior existence as a juvenile was lost to him, and even though he was on the brink of his fourth year of life, he felt as if he had just been born. Freedom brought life to Hamilton, and he would always be grateful.

Now, that life or the question of the preservation of life had come into his realm once again. And at a cost, he knew, it would be too much to bear if left alone. The threats to the little creatures that scurried below were served an injustice that ruffled Hamilton’s feathers. It was beyond the natural threat of mortal enemies or the proper order of things that kept the balance in the cycle of birth to death, as the giving and receiving that one animal must partake to survive. But this was unheard of and in his opinion would cause the downfall of their very kind, total annihilation of a food chain.

Hamilton let the wind carry him to his favorite perch because from there he could see the range of Christmas Mountain to the west, majestic and rugged. To the east, he could hear the rustling in the picturesque town that busied itself with man duties.

The Hudson was teeming with life, above and below the murky, rippling waters, Atlantic sturgeon, and the long whiskered cats to name a few, which brought him to what was becoming one of his most liked delicious dinner delights, along with the gulls, he might add. Below, he could see the blinking motions of figures, a mouse frolicking with a squirrel, but his mind was on more than just his stomach at the moment. He was growing more philosophical in his old age, reflective of his years past and praying for a peaceful future.

At what costs, we fight. Such a heavy cost.

Harlan would make talks of peace impossible. The once father figure of Hamilton, and the first to accept an outcast, a foreigner into the fold, and allowed him free reign had lost his marbles. Hamilton blamed it on Harlan’s date night with his ex-wife, Charlotte. 

They left the juveniles behind and went to an innocent Sunday concert in the park.

A chance encounter would change the course of species history. An Elvis impersonator, and by the likes of Harlan’s rendition, a hideous knockoff, gave Harlan a new identity. A calling went wrong. His alter ego emerged wearing a white sequined jumpsuit and a ridiculous tree sapped curled bang. He was no longer seen as the gentle ruler of the clan who accepted all, passed fair judgment in disputes, and put the welfare of his family first above all others.

He created the heartbreak hotel of Raptor’s Ridge, and nothing could stop him from his slaughter. Charlotte flew the coup with their young, and that drove Harlan into a deeper whirlwind. 

Harlan had soft coverings made from the blueberry die and squirrel skins