long time ago from Eddie Barton’s books on eagles. You can see there’s a name of a raptor on each color of leather. That way, you can identify them.” And then she laughed. “Not that you wouldn’t be able to recognize each raptor. But you know what I mean.” She looked up at him. Joe was pure eye candy. Without thinking, she glanced down at his left hand. Was he wearing a wedding ring? No. But that meant nothing nowadays. She didn’t dare ask if he had a partner. More than likely, with his rugged looks and fabulously athletic body, Joe had a woman in his life. Maybe more than one. A bit of her found that a disappointing possibility. She closed the locker doors and gestured across the aisleway.
“This is the whiteboard where I write up the list for the coming day. The hours of the job are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. When you come in each morning, this is the first place you’ll come. I have a lot of speaking engagements and I put the info up along with the names of the raptors I take with me.”
Joe studied the huge whiteboard. Clearly, Katie was in demand as a speaker. He saw ten engagements in the next two weeks. “You are busy,” he agreed, his hands coming to rest on his hips. “No wonder you need help.” He shared a slight grin with her. Her cheeks reddened even more.
“My passion in life,” Katie said, “is educating the public about how important our raptors are to the overall environment. I made a promise to myself to talk wherever I could. The more people who know not to shoot raptors or think of them as vermin, the more I feel I am accomplishing my mission.”
“It’s a good mission to have,” Joe agreed. And it was a perfect cover being part of a cartel, too. Katie could travel wherever she wanted and not be suspected. “I trained with Eddie two to three times a week. He has the same belief as you and he does a lot of speaking engagements around the Washington, D.C., area. One time, he took his bald eagle, Jefferson, into the Senate. The senators had invited him to come and speak to all of them about our country’s national bird. Jefferson wowed them by flying from the lectern down on the floor up to where I was standing in the balcony. That got their attention.”
“You’ve got some eagle training, too?” Katie desperately needed a falconer with some knowledge of how to handle an eagle. They were very different from working with a hawk, falcon or owl.
“Yes, I do,” Joe said, “but I’m not licensed to work with eagles.”
“Right, I understand,” she said, not hiding the excitement in her voice. “But working with Eddie, you worked with his eagles?”
“Yes, every day. He has two bald eagles, a golden eagle, a harpy eagle from South America and a Black eagle from South Africa, among others.”
Katie said in a wistful voice, “Joe, you are an answer to my prayers. You know that getting an eagle license is rare? Most falconers have no knowledge of how to handle an eagle. I told Iris I was praying someone who had training with them would answer my ad.” She gazed up into his green eyes. “Truly, you are an angel.”
Joe felt his conscience bite him. Was Katie for real? She seemed like a rainbow shimmering in the sky after a destructive storm. And rainbows magically dissolved back into the sky. Yes, magical was the word for this woman who held such hope in her eyes. Joe searched her innocent features for the woman who worked for the cartel. Her resemblance to Janet, her mother, was obvious, but unlike her drug-addicted mother, Katie was engaged with her life’s passion, the raptors. They were a different kind of addiction: one that grabbed a person’s heart and spirit and never let them go.
Joe mentally compared the two. Janet had a deeply lined face with pockmarks caused by a meth habit. Her blue eyes were wild-looking, as if she teetered on the edge of insanity. Joe wondered if mother and daughter were in touch with one another. Evidence indicated they probably were, but it was up to him to prove it. He pulled himself out of his reverie and offered her a slight smile. “Eddie’s license allowed me to work with all his eagles. I’m sure you could allow me to work with that golden eagle down there?” He pointed toward Sam’s mew.
“Absolutely, I do have an eagle license,” Katie said. “Come on, let me show you my raptors.”
She was part child, part woman, and as she walked down the clean concrete aisle between the mews, Joe couldn’t harden his heart against her. Somehow, he’d have to remain immune to Katie’s charisma. Most importantly, he had to pass the tests he knew she’d put him through. Raptors knew people far better than any human did, and sooner or later, Katie would invite him to hold and handle some of the raptors. Birds could pick up on the dark side of a human, and they would never relax on their gauntlet as a result. Instead, they’d move around or, worse, try to fly off their gauntlet to get away from the person. Joe silently prayed he could remain low-key, calm and able to fool even the raptors. If he couldn’t, Katie wouldn’t hire him.
CHAPTER THREE
“THIS IS OUR STAR, Sam, the golden eagle,” Katie said proudly.
Halting in front of the huge mew, Joe admired the curious eagle. “Eddie had two of them when I was training with him.” Sam cocked his head, his piercing yellow eyes on him. Joe wondered if Katie would ask him to handle the eagle, but he hoped not. Eagles were heavy, large and given to wanting things their own way. Who could blame them? They were the apex predator of the sky.
“That’s great to hear,” Katie said, smiling up at him. She liked the way Joe was studying Sam. There were earmark traits all falconers shared. They were laid-back and easygoing. Someone who was hyper or had a type A personality couldn’t work around these supersensitive raptors. A tense, stressed human affected the raptor adversely and it would refuse to sit quietly on the gauntlet. Frequently, the raptor would open its wings or try to fly away from upsetting energy. Joe had that quiet, calm demeanor Katie was looking for.
Joe looked across the aisle. “Is this a peregrine falcon?”
Katie walked over to the smaller mew. “Yes, this is Quest. She’s an endangered tundra peregrine falcon.” Pointing to the cage next to Quest, Katie added, “And this is a male tundra peregrine from the Arctic Circle area in Canada. We call him Harlequin. They’re both on loan to me as part of a broader Canadian breeding program to bring the tundra species back to that country.”
Joe nodded. Falconers often were part of global breeding programs from other countries, programs that would rescue a raptor species from near extinction. “Looks like those two are lovebirds.” He smiled a little.
“Actually, I’m going to be putting them together next week. It’s breeding season. As you know, peregrines mate for life. If I’m lucky, they’ll mate. Once the eyasses, or babies, are hatched and grown, a member of the Canadian Peregrine Foundation will fly down here and pick them up. Canada has lost most of its peregrines to the insecticide DDT.”
“It’s a worthy project,” Joe agreed, watching the pair who sat as close to one another as they could, the mew wire wall separating them. Clearly, they liked one another and that boded well for a successful pairing. In a stoop or dive, peregrine falcons had been clocked at two hundred and twenty miles an hour. They stunned their prey by striking it with speed. On the ground, the hapless bird’s spinal cord would be severed by the hawk’s sharp beak. Peregrines mainly hunted other birds such as ducks, pheasants and pigeons.
Joe glanced down at Katie. She was smiling, her eyes soft as she studied the pair of falcons. There was no question she loved her birds. “Do you have any other breeding-program raptors here?”
Rousing herself, Katie nodded. “Yes, let’s go down to the end on the left. “I have an African auger buzzard from South Africa.”
