“It’s a plumb silly idee, Sheriff. He ain’t a-goin’ to like it. See how his feet’s planted in the sand? He’s spoke his mind a’ready.”
“Blast it, Jim. ’Tain’t what he likes. Remember, I’m the law and I’m telling you to hobble him so’s he can’t blow before I get back.”
Uncle Jim reluctantly did as he was told. He took off his neckerchief and twirled it until it was no thicker than a cord of twine. He led Brighty to a little place where he could browse. Then he tied the burro’s forefeet just above the fetlocks, half hoping he would kick and refuse to be hobbled. But he stood calm and unruffled, even as the two men walked away and got in the boat and put out for the opposite shore.
The river was four hundred feet wide at this point, and swift in spite of the silt it carried. Brighty stared after the boat, watching it bob up and down in the brown foam, watching it head for boulders, then suddenly whirl around to miss them.
A lone, desolate feeling came into him as he watched. He was glad when the ring-tailed cat and her train of kittens came rubbing against his legs. He nosed them, sneezing into their fur.
A butterfly flew over his head, taunting him with her freedom. He scared her away with his ears and began eating the burro-brush, still looking on as the boat reached the swift center of the river and then the quieter waters on the far side.
No sooner did it touch the opposite shore and discharge a passenger than it swung about for the return trip.
Somehow Brighty seemed to know that it was coming back to seize him. Yet he did not fight his hobbles nor try to break loose. He stared with solemn, unblinking eyes as if his mind were hobbled, too. He tore off more brush but only held it in his mouth, his eyes watchful, expectant. The boat rose and fell with the waves, now half-lost in foam, now in full view. On leaping water it was coming to get him.
Now the sheriff stood up in the boat, poled it in to shore, pulled it up on the sand. He was coming toward Brighty, dragging a wire along behind, dragging it over the boulders. Now he was half running, a noose of rope in one hand and the tag end of the wire pointing sharp at Brighty.
And still Brighty made no move. Not until the sheriff was close on him, so close that he could hear him pant and see the shine in his eye, not until then did Brighty move so much as an eyelash. Then with a high snort that was almost a laugh he leaped into the air, bounding in his hobbles like a rabbit, bounding up over boulders and through brush until the knot in the kerchief loosened and he was free.
“Come back!” the sheriff’s voice screeched. “Come back, you tarnal . . .” He stamped up and down, clawing the air.
But Brighty was freedom bound, climbing up and up, a wild feeling inside him. And far away on the opposite shore, a spry-legged figure cheered him on.
A FREE SPIRIT
BRIGHTY WAS in a kind of glory. Released from his fear of the mad, sucking river he climbed, flying. Each deep-drawn breath filled him with a pleasure so piercing he did a light-hearted buck over his liberty.
He noticed afresh the joys of his world—the mesquite shrubs dangling their sugary pods, the sweet pungence of sage, a water ouzel diving into the spray of Bright Angel Creek. “I’m free!” his hoofs beat time as he ascended. “I’m free! Free! Free!”
A hawk came swooping low over his head to snatch a plump chuckwalla lizard. But just in time the lizard spied him, scurried for the nearest crevice, slid in, and blew himself up to fit. The hawk wheeled, soaring against the reds and blues of the walls until he was lost in the distance.
For days Brighty savored his liberty. He had for company all the small creatures that scampered among the rocks, and all the birds that sailed the sky.
And then one twilight as he was loafing along his trail, something in the wind brought his head up. Mule smell! Camp smell! His laziness was gone. He threw wide his jaws and let out a whistling bray. To his delight the echoes were not alone in their answer. Mixed in with them were answering brays.
He ran leaping in their direction. And suddenly, around an elbow in the trail, he came full upon the scene. Two mules hobbled, and two men building a fire. One of the men, squat and red-bearded, was eating a cracker with one hand and feeding the fire with the other. For an instant they all regarded each other, and then Brighty was snuffing noses with the mules and the mules were dancing in their hobbles.
The bearded man came slowly toward Brighty, offering what was left of the cracker. Brighty took a long whiff, and unable to resist the familiar smell, began lipping the crumbs from the man’s hands.
“Look, Joe!” the red-bearded man laughed. “Tame as a dog! We can use him to pack our cameras and stuff.”
“Sure thing!” Joe answered. “Our mules have been overloaded. I’ve known it ever since we left Jacob’s Lake.”
The red-bearded man could scarcely contain his glee. “This little gray mouse has walked—wham—into a trap! He’s going to work!”
The men laughed loud and long over their good luck. “Now we won’t have to unpack the mules every time the trail gets narrow,” one said. “He can share the load.”
“Great Scott, but he’s husky! Bet he could carry two hundred pounds without batting an eyelash,” said the other.
Brighty had a good supper of crackers and beans, and because he was glad to spend the night in company, he let himself be hobbled close to the mules. In the morning he was all meekness while the men loaded a pack on his back. But when it was strapped in place, he changed his mind about carrying it. The weight was all wrong—entirely too much on one side. And the bellyband pinched horribly. It was not only too tight but much too close to his forelegs. In his dumb way he tried to explain all this by refusing to budge a step. He just stood, stupid-eyed and sleepy, his feet grounded to the earth like lightning rods.
But the men did not understand. They sweat and swore at his stubbornness, not seeing it was due to their own bungling. They broke off a willow whip and slashed it across his rump.
Then fierceness grew in Brighty, and the quick thought of freedom flashed through his brain. He reared into action, and before the men could grab him ran to the babbling comfort of Bright Angel Creek. There he stood in its coolness, ears waving defiance. “What if I were to roll now?” they seemed to ask. Without waiting for an answer, he buckled his knees and plumped over on his side in the water. Something in the pack cracked.
“Yipes!” the red-bearded man howled. “My camera!” He plunged into the creek after Brighty. “You stumblebum!” he yelled, jerking Brighty to his feet and whacking him with a stick. “You catch up to the mules now and mind your ways.”
Brighty not only caught up with the mules, he passed them. Then he went flying up the gravelly trail. Never was he more sure-footed. In and out of the creek, leaping over boulders, over little cataracts, and with every leap his bellyband loosened to greater comfort. He could hear the red-bearded man bellowing after him, and then a lasso came whanging through the air. With a corkscrew twist of his neck, Brighty lowered his head just in time to see the rope whirl beyond and tighten around a bulge of rock.
He hadn’t had so much fun in days and days. Another leap and another, and now he stood on a ledge, looking down on the men. Suddenly he let out all his wind, and with a wriggling motion of his body slid the pack forward, down his neck to the rock on which he stood. Then daintily he stepped out of the ropes and kicked the pack, sending it rolling and tumbling downward until it caught in a juniper bush.
Loud cries echoed up from the men, and into the quivering silence that followed, Brighty sent a great raucous heehaw.
OVER THE RIMTOP
WAS THERE a wildness in Brighty that could never be tamed? A need for freedom stronger than the need for companionship? Daytimes the canyon was all he wanted—winds rumpling his mane, birds whistling at him, and Bright Angel Creek talking and laughing. But sometimes at night a loneliness crept in and he would bray to the winking stars as if asking them to come down and play with him.
All winter long the world of the canyon was Br
ighty’s world. Here in the inner reaches the weather was fine and the mesquite beans plentiful, and he roamed about, snug and warm. Up on the rim, however, the snow fell endlessly. It half buried the trees and then drifted part way down the wall, laying a thick fleece on the rocks. The snow line made a regular marker for him, a white fence that kept him within the canyon eight months of the year.
But this year, with Old Timer gone, the canyon was not the snug hidey-hole it used to be. It seemed a dark, broody place, a wilderness of tumbled, jumbled rock. The wind cried and the creek blatted monotonously. Even the birds seemed depressed and kept their twitters low.
Often Brighty wandered back to Old Timer’s camp. But once there he drew into the willows. He was like a man in ambush, seeing but unseen. Day after day he watched the man, Jake Irons, climb the tree-ladder and disappear in the black mine like a mole into his run. And once he watched him climb down with a load on his back and swing across the river in the wooden cage. Then for a long time he could make out the figure crawling up the wall on the other side until it blended with the limestone and was lost.
• • •
As days came and went, a restlessness grew in Brighty, an urge to leave the lonely canyon. Now the sun was striking down a little earlier each day and staying a little longer. Its warm rays revived him, stirred him to the remembrance of the North Rim. Up there a little alpine meadow lay cupped in the Kaibab Forest, and nearby was his secret cave with its pool of delicious spring-fed water.
Each day the stirring within him sharpened. His eyes kept gazing up at the rim as if mere looking would melt the snow and hurry the spring.
And then all at once it came. Warm rains washed down the face of the north wall, and when Brighty glanced up one early May morning, the white fence was gone.
Now he was like a man squaring his shoulders for a big job, a job he liked doing. His loafing days were over. He had some place to go! His summer home, big as the sky, was waiting for him up there beyond the canyon rim, and Uncle Jim would be waiting, too.
He started climbing the miles as if there were no time to lose. He plunged into the rushing waters of Bright Angel Creek, almost strutting over the boulders. A willow branch whisked across his ears, bending them backward. Other days he would have taken time for a second rub, and a third, but today he hurried on.
Crisscrossing the creek was the trail he had made. He sniffed his way along, nostrils quivering in excitement. He caught the fresh scent of deer tracks, but it did not tease him off on little detours. Today first things were first. Climbing was the thing! He paid no attention to a canyon wren scolding him, or to butterflies doing figure eights over his head. Resolutely he wound and twisted his way up and up. The prickly pear and hedgehog cactus reached out with their prickles and hooks, but nimbly he side-stepped them. Today nothing must stop him.
By noon he reached Ribbon Falls, a white jet of water that shot gaily out of the rocks above, washed down the face of a jutting ledge, and then joined forces with the creek. Brighty could never resist the pretty beckoning finger of Ribbon Falls. In spite of his hurry, he took a little cut-off trail that went behind the cascade. Memory led him to the place where the water divided around a boulder. It made a peephole just big enough for his head, ears and all. Shivering with pleasure, he poked his nose through, letting the spray tickle his ears. Memory, too, told him not to waggle them, for one flick to right or left and the force of the water would flatten them to the roots. He stood there a while, showing his teeth in a burro grin, enjoying the peephole as if it had been made to size, especially for him.
Then back to the climb. And now the wall rising sharper and the trail spinning finer, and the little gray figure moving on, ears flopping, eyes unimpressed by the vermilion pillars on one side and the black abyss on the other.
Climb a hundred paces. Rest and blow. Climb. Blow. Climb. Blow. Try running in little dashes. Up toward a new voice—the distant voice of Roaring Springs. Listen to the growl, hear the hiss and howl. Then, deafened by the roar, see the chutes of water come spurting down the craggy rocks.
Blue shadows of afternoon, and now the hardest climb of all—the Devil’s Backyard. Rocks, rocks, everywhere, as if some giant-devil had ground his teeth and spit and spewed them in every direction. Smooth rocks. Jagged rocks. They scraped Brighty’s shoulder. They blocked his feet. They made hurdles to trip and hinder him. But not even the rocks could stay him. He squared off, charged pell-mell up the boulder-strewn steps until the Devil’s Backyard was behind.
He paused a moment, breathing heavily. At last the stiff climb was over! Ahead, dark evergreens and white-trunked aspen grew on either side of the trail. He was almost there, almost to the top of the world. A buck deer stood in his path, then made a whistling noise as he turned tail. With a joyous snort of his own, Brighty broke into a gallop and took out after him, crashing through the tangle of grapevine and scrub oak. Blue jays screamed at him. Squirrels scolded and scattered.
And then! And then! He was over the top, on the rimtop of the world! Gone were the cliff walls and rock temples. Here was forest so dense it swallowed up the deer.
Brighty ran soundlessly on the forest duff, weaving in and out among the pines and aspens. And just at sunset he came upon his little cup of meadow nestled deep in the woods.
It lay in a pool of shadow with only slivers of gold where the sun pushed through the trees, and it smelled of the sweetness of lupine and wet earth and new grass.
With tired feet Brighty tested the welcoming green carpet. His hoofs sank deep. He doubled his legs like a jackknife and fell into its softness. A great peace came over him. For a long time he lay still, as if bedding down for the night. Then wanting to feel more of it, he began rolling blissfully, this way and that, enjoying the springiness of the grass after his rocky canyon beds. At last he rose to crop the juicy blades. A doe and her spotted twins came to share his retreat, but they gazed wet-nosed at him from a little distance.
The sun dipped low and purpled the shadows across the meadow. Brighty heaved a sigh. The meadow was just where it should be. He had rolled in it. He had eaten his fill of it. Now to find his secret cave and then to give himself to sleep.
THE FIGHT IN THE CAVE
AN EERIE moon danced its beams along the threadlike path from Brighty’s meadow to his cave. He stopped a moment to listen to the stillness of the night, but he found that it was not still at all. A bat whirled around him, squeaking, and an owl whispered, “Who, who, whooo?”
With a grunt of happiness Brighty loped along the path until it opened out into a black cavern. Here Nature had built a vast shelter with an overhanging cliff for a roof, a wide sand-swept floor, and one side open to the canyon. But what endeared it to Brighty was the pool of clean, clear water near the back wall, and the bed of ferns to lie in.
Tonight the moon quicksilvered the pool, and as the droplets fell from the cracks in the ceiling they made the water wrinkle in an ever-widening circle.
Brighty’s keen eyes looked around his lair and his ears pricked to catch the small, dulcet notes of the water. They had not changed their tune—plink, plash! Plink, plash, plink!
He buried his muzzle and drank deep. Then he settled down in a clump of ferns like a tired child come home at last to his own bed. His mouth opened in a great stretching yawn. Everything was just as before, even the ghost-white tree trunk guarding the open side of the cave.
As he lay among the ferns, watching the sailing moon, there was a sudden uprush of wings and a great flock of doves swept into his grotto. The noise was deafening. But in spite of it Brighty’s eyelids drooped as he let the doves share his pool and scratch in the sand, eating the grains. They left as noisily as they had come, and no sooner were they gone than a mule deer stole silently to the pool to drink. But Brighty had already fallen asleep, his little snorings blending with the windsong and the water tinkling into the pool.
• • •
Night wore on. The wind died. There was only the drip-drip of the water, and
a fern stem teetering back and forth to Brighty’s breathing.
Then from far below the lip of the cave a mountain lion came slinking upward, her tawny coat mixing with the lights and shadows of the rocks. Her cat eyes gleamed golden-green in the dark as she crept nearer and nearer the old dead tree. She halted there a moment, then hooked her claws into the trunk and climbed swiftly until she was even with the cave.
At first Brighty lay undiscovered in the darkness. But her eyes prowled the shadows and suddenly fixed upon his white belly. For a long time she seemed bewitched by her prey and lay watching him, her tail lashing, her mouth partly open, showing the white fangs.
At last she stole soundlessly forward on a limb, tested it with her forepaws, then with her whole body. It bent to her weight, and she steadied herself, balancing like a diver. Then with one powerful leap her body made an arc in the blackness.
At the very moment of her leap Brighty was snuggling deeper into the ferns, and she landed short of her mark. Cruel claws, intended for his head and neck, ripped his forelegs from shoulder to hoof. Instantly he was sharp awake, a fire of pain shooting up his legs. He leaped to his feet, squealing in terror as he faced the howling, hissing lion. He pawed wildly, kicking at her fireball eyes, trying to push her over the brink.
But cunningly she rolled underneath him, cuffing and stabbing with rapier claws. Brighty backed away, rearing, then came down, flailing with his hoofs. Once he landed on the soft, muscly body, but she slithered out from under him. He could feel blood oozing hot down his forelegs, but he felt no weakness. Only a frenzied need to stamp out the yellow flame of her eyes, to stop the hissing sound.