While he was waiting to get a haircut at Duke’s Barber Shop, Roy was reading an article in a hunting and fishing magazine about a man in Northern Asia who hunted wolves with only a golden eagle as a weapon. This man rode a horse holding on one arm a four-foot long golden eagle around the shore of a mountain lake in a country next to China from November to March looking for prey. Beginning each day before dawn, the eagle master, called a berkutchi, cloaked in a black velvet robe from neck to ankle to protect him from fierce mountain winds, rode out alone with his huge bird. The berkutchi scoffed at those who practiced falconry, said the article in the magazine, deriding it as a sport for children and cowards.
“Eagles are the most magnificent of hunting beasts,” said the master. “My eagle has killed many large-horned ibex by shoving them off cliffs. He would fight a man if I commanded him to do so.”
The berkutchi’s eagle, who was never given a name, had been with him for more than thirty years. He had students, the article said, whom the berkutchi instructed in the ways to capture and train eagles.
“I can only show them how it is done,” said the master, “but I would never give away the real secrets. These secrets a man must learn by himself, or he will not become a successful hunter. A man is only a man, but the eagle is the god of birds.”
“Roy!” Duke the barber shouted. “Didn’t ya hear me? You’re next!”
Roy closed the magazine and put it back on the card table in the waiting area.
When he was in the chair, Duke asked him, “Find somethin’ interestin’ inna magazine, kid?”
“Yes, an article about a guy in the mountains of Asia who hunts wolves on horseback with an eagle.”
“How old are you now, Roy?”
“Almost twelve.”
“Think you could do that?” Duke asked, as he clipped. “Learn how to hunt with a bird?”
Duke was in his mid-forties, mostly bald, with a three day beard. Roy had never seen Duke clean shaven, even though he was a barber. His shop had three chairs but only one other man worked with him, a Puerto Rican named Alfredito. Alfredito was missing the last three fingers of his right hand, the one in which he held the scissors. When Roy asked him how he’d lost them, Alfredito said a donkey had bitten them off when he was a boy back in Bayamon. Roy never allowed Alfredito to cut his hair anymore because Alfredito always nicked him. He got his hair cut on Thursdays now, which was Alfredito’s day off. Duke told Roy that Alfredito worked Thursdays for his brother, Ramon, who had a tailor shop over by Logan Square. Roy wondered if Alfredito could sew better than he could cut hair with only one finger on his right hand.
“I don’t know,” Roy answered. “Maybe if I grew up there and had a good berkutchi.”
“Berkutchi? What’s that?”
“An eagle master. The one in the magazine said the eagle is the god of birds.”
The door to the shop opened and an old man wearing a gray fedora came in.
“Mr. Majewski, hello,” said Duke. “Have a seat, I’ll be right with you.”
Mr. Majewski stared at Alfredito’s empty chair and said, “So where is the Puerto Rican boy?”
“It’s Thursday, Mr. Majewski. Alfredito don’t work for me on Thursdays.”
“He works tomorrow?” asked Mr. Majewski.
“Yeah, he’ll be here.”
“I’ll come tomorrow,” Majewski said, and walked out.
“You want it short today, Roy?”
“Leave it long in the back, Duke. I don’t like my neck to feel scratchy.”
“I used to shoot birds when I was a boy,” said Duke, “up in Waukegan.”
As he was walking home from the barber shop, a sudden brisk wind caused Roy to put up the collar of his leather jacket. Then it began to rain. Roy walked faster, imagining how terrible the weather could get during the winter months in the mountains of rural Asia. Even a four-foot long golden eagle must sometimes have a difficult time flying against a cold, hard wind hurtling out of the Caucasus, Roy thought, when he saw a gray hat being blown past him down the middle of Blackhawk Avenue. He did not stop to see if it was Mr. Majewski’s fedora.