A Second Chance

​The clouds hung low over the prairie grass as Sonny trotted along, making his way around the pond, his favorite spot in the ranch. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flutter of movement coming from the edge of the pond.
“Hmm. I wonder what that is. I should check it out just in case the rancher should know” he thought to himself as he made his way to the far corner of the pond carefully stepping closer to the edge.
Suddenly, with a powerful stroke of his wings, a hawk jumped from the water, trying to find a way out of the water. Startled, Sonny jumped back, but he soon realized that the hawk was desperately trying to find a way out of the water and onto the safety of land.
“Is everything alright? Are you hurt?” asked Sonny.
“My wing – I can’t move it! Please help me!” cried the hawk.
“I’ll be right back Mr. Hawk! Stay strong!” Sonny turned on his heels quickly, knowing exactly what he had to do. He bolted towards the ranch house, where he knew the rancher would be resting.
Stopping right at the door, he took a deep breath and started to howl, knowing that he would get the rancher’s attention. Almost as soon as he started to bellow the rancher stormed out of the door, knowing that something was wrong.
“What is it boy? What’s wrong?” he asked Sonny. Quickly, Sonny ran back towards the pond where the hawk was, knowing that the rancher would follow him. Confused, the rancher made his way to where Sonny had taken off to. When he got there, he carefully climbed down to the edge of the pond only to see a beautiful, big, brown, hawk struggling to get out of the water.
Frightened by the rancher, the hawk shrieked to Sonny, “You brought a human to help? I can’t trust a human!” Before Sonny could reassure him of the rancher’s intentions, the rancher tried to carefully pull the hawk to safety. Scared and angry that Sonny had not told him he was going to get a human, the hawk sunk his long talons deep into the rancher’s hand and locked on. The ranched grimaced in pain, unable to get the hawk off of him.
Quickly sprinting into action to help his rancher, Sonny bellowed to the hawk, “you have to trust him! He’s trying to save you! He wouldn’t have taken the risk if he didn’t want to help you!”
The hawk, growing tired from fighting with his wounded wing realized his mistake quickly. He slowly let the rancher’s hand go and lay still so that the rancher could carry him to warmth and safety.
“Good job Sonny, you saved this hawk’s life” said the rancher, scratching the top of Sonny’s head. “As for you,” said the rancher to the hawk who was now enjoying the warmth of a nice stall and good food, “I think we should name you Garuda after the legendary warrior bird.”
“I like that name” said Garuda to Sonny. He raised his wing, signaling his approval to the rancher.
“Garuda it is!” said the rancher and went off to do his chores as Garuda finished his dinner.
For the next few months, Garuda stayed happily with the rancher, carefully nursing his wounded wing back to health. One day, when the rancher came into the barn to check on the hawk, he noticed that the stall was empty and there was no sign of Garuda. Suddenly, he heard a loud shriek coming from the outside of the barn. As he turned to look outside there was Garuda, looking strong and majestic cawing to the rancher. With a powerful stroke of his wings he took off, circling once around the ranch to say his final thank you and goodbye to the rancher and Sonny before flying into the distance.
“Goodbye Garuda” said Sonny, as he watched the now powerful bird go off into the sunset.
 
And that’s just another day at Cloverfield Ranch!