Hunters – The Hawk’s Scream Pt 1

I want to be a hunter again
want to see the world alone again
to take a chance on life again
so let me go
lyrics from Hunter as performed by Dido

He sifted through the broken glass and the overturned furniture. Aside from the vandals that had spray painted a few things on the walls, the place was untouched. Maxwell Running Cloud looked around at the room for a moment. His family was here once, it had been eight years since he had even thought of this place. He had a wife, and a daughter. But now, well, that was gone. He moved out back behind the house. There in the backyard facing the trees was a small marker. His wife wanted to be buried on the Rez. And he made sure that it was done. If I have to dig it myself he remembered telling her.

He had to leave, this place brought back too many memories, painful as they were. He knew what had happened to his wife, but his daughter… For years, he hadn’t given up hope. Now, he was reserved in facing the fact that his daughter was gone.

“Hey Max,” he heard the voice. He turned to see Chief Big Bear approaching him. “I just heard, Max. Headin’ back to university again?” The burly man shook his head. “Wish more people around here thought like you.”

Max smiled. “I’ve made an impression on some of them.” The some of them Max spoke of was a few of the high school students that attended classes on the Dakota White Cap reserve. He tried very hard for the students to enjoy learning, and for the most part, he’d been successful.

“We’re gonna miss you around here, ya know that?”

Max shrugged a bit. “I’m actually gonna miss this place. Only place I can really study them without taking them out of their environment.” The two of them looked up as if on cue, a red tailed hawk circle above them, letting out a cry.

“You gotta do what you gotta do, Max.” The Chief shook his hand and walked off, knowing Max would want some time alone. That’s all he really had now. Time alone.

He took one last look around the place before heading back to his car. It was a slow walk, and at the same time, so very long.

He hardly noticed the man standing at the front door of the broken down house, he seemed to meld with the surroundings, such as they were. “Max Running Cloud?” he called out as Max walked by.

Max turned a bit and looked in the man’s direction. “Yes?”

“Max Running Cloud? Who’s wife an’ child be gone?”

Max narrowed his eyes. “Yes.”

“Ya can mourn yer wife,” the strange man said. “But don’ mourn the daughter. The girl’s still ‘live.” The man giggled incesantly.

Max’s heart jumped into his throat. He approached the man, being quite forceful in his questions. “Where is she? Who did this? Who has her?”

The man cowered in fear. Max wasn’t a small man, by any means, for a scientist. And his size was rather intimidating to some, comforting to others. “They…they…they have ‘er. The company Crey took ‘er. They wanted ‘er fer themselves an’ they took ‘er. An’ killed the love…killed the love.”

“Took her where?” Max asked, his voice putting emphasis on each word.

“Ta the city o’ steel an’ glass. City on down south. The city o’ gov’ment.” The man began to back away.

“Stop talking in riddles. Where is she?” Maxwell was getting very irritated with this man and his constant babbling.

“The City o’ the Queen! Far from here, far from the safty of the Whitecap, far from the City o’ Bridges, far from the mighty Saskatchewan.” Maxwell Running Cloud let the man babble. He finally had two names to go by. It was time to try and find his daughter and he’d deal with this Crey at the same time.

He got into his car and started the engine, leaving the man to continue his ramblings. He had an apartment in Saskatoon which had his experiments. He studied birds, an ornithologist. His specialty was birds of prey. Maxwell had won a scholarship to the University of British Columbia with his thesis on the cry of such birds as the Red Tailed Hawk, the Osprey, Peregrin Falcon and even the Eagle. In later years, he’d even learned to mimic an eagle’s mournful sounding cry, and even amplify it. The experiments scared him a little, as he discovered the damage that could be done.

He was starting to think his idea of the costume wasn’t so bad after all. Hawk’s Scream. Well, he had some more work to do before heading to Regina. There was things he had to arrange.