Now the Chickaree would leap into his sugar pine — a wide space to cross, but he has run to the end of the sequoia bough, is in the air, outspread, as flat as he can make himself. But the breeze is blowing the pine branch! It is tossed far over to the side! He cannot reach it — he will fall! As he gropes frantically, instinct turns his flattened tail. It has twisted, changing his direction. He swerves to the branch, his feet touch it, and he clutches the downy foliage, frightened but safe.
For a moment he clung motionless, while the branch dipped. He looked down more than sixty times his own length to the dense brown earth. His heart still raced — but the amazing thing that his tail did was a new trick that belonged to him. It was something more added to his skill in the trees. Digger squirrels subsisted on foods that they could gather without courage, nimbleness or grace. Whether the Chickaree was inspired by a more ambitious appetite, or some lift of the heart, he left the earth’s safety for the birds’ world, substituting daring and agility for wings. He never could sail into clear sky as the Grouse could, but the perilous leaps he made so willingly kept him in high, resilient spirits. He took the bright chance, and its touch fell upon all his ways.
Now his bounds as he crossed the sugar pine fairly glinted.
“Qui-ro!” he cried.
All the rest of the way, each of his motions tweaked out a joyous musical sound.
While the Chickaree had been weaving his flap, clouds had risen and covered the sun. Rain had begun to fall as he came through the trees. Now he would get the moss quickly and return to his fir by the shortest route.
He climbed the stub, passed the nest hole with his family’s unforgettable scent, and ran up to the top. The rain was coming down heavily, so he pulled off his mouthful of moss at once. He turned — but stopped, horrified, to see the Weasel and three of her kits climbing the stub. One weasel was a frightful enemy. Now four were blocking his way.
The weasels had not seen him. They were going into his old family nest. They disappeared, one by one, while the frozen Chickaree watched from above. He slid back out of sight on the snag. There he crouched, legs crowded under him and his tail in a close curl over his back.
Soon he was the center of one of nature’s wildest battles, a mountain storm. Like the snarl of a wolf, its thunder leapt. The stub under the Chickaree quivered as if it had been struck. Around him the trees and the wind began to struggle. The boughs bent, swung, defended themselves against the force that was beating them. Some broke. The end of one fell upon the Chickaree. It stunned him, and he rubbed his paws over his head to try to clear it.
Rain pounded him, plastered the fur to his small, chilled body. It seemed to fall on his naked skin. And lightning flashed with unearthly brilliance, revealing him to a great horned owl in the nearest tree. To his nose came a blend of wildcat, coyote, and weasel scents, the odor of creatures that live by taking lives, the transmuted scent of their victims. Twice the Chickaree started to risk a dash past the weasels, but each time he smelled them he moved back. The dangers of his treetop life had schooled him to keep his nerves in order, and that training was helping him now to resist panic.
Finally the great anger was discharged. The storm, like a wolf with a full belly, moved away. Its thunder was but a muttering in its throat; the lightning’s gleam was mild. Even the owl did not look so threatening, seen more clearly as the shower thinned. Its head was hidden against the tree. Soon sunlight slipped from the clouds and fell upon the Chickaree benignly.
A scratching below meant that the weasels were leaving the hole. The Chickaree peered over the edge. One was emerging from the nest. It turned … down. Another came out and descended the trunk. Another and another. The Chickaree was safe. He shook the water from his fur, rushed back to his tree and up the trunk to the nest. He looked within. Undamaged by the storm, it was dry and snug.
He had forgotten to bring the moss, but in himself he could feel a drag, and the impulse to lose it was stronger than his urge to finish the entrance flap. He lay along a branch, hind legs outstretched, paws under his chin, tail loosely hanging. His consciousness sank, and rose, and sank. For a while he was lost, then his eyes partly opened and into them swam the image of lacing branches and shimmering needles. Near him a bee’s gold body hung between the two blurs of its wings. An Audubon warbler flew up through his tree, easy as an indrawn breath. Behind it a downy feather floated, and caught in a cobweb.
All disturbing scents from the ground were drowned in the warm pungency of cedar, fir, and pine needles. The trees were still. The only sound was the soft trumpet of a red-breasted nuthatch, lower in an adjoining tree. It piped one note unceasingly, a sweet monotony on which the Chickaree drifted back to sleep.
The Chickaree woke, stretched, yawned and curled his tongue up over his lips, and bounded away for the moss. Speeding back, he reached the Jeffrey pine next to his fir — and stopped. Two bear cubs were climbing his tree.
The squirrel picked up one forepaw, and the other. Neck far outstretched, he stared at the unbelievable. The moss dropped from his mouth, then, as he whirred and screamed. His little feet danced. His tail jerked in a frenzy.
The cubs continued to climb. Hooking claws into the bark, they moved up one foot at a time. Would they go as high as the nest? Would they trample and break it? The Chickaree drew himself up on his haunches, holding his forepaws out, limp, with anxiety.
He saw the higher, black cub turn out on the bough below his nest branch. The bear crawled along as securely as a giant furry bug. When he came to a fork he settled down among the needle sprays. Now the second cub, a brown one, reached the limb. Standing on it, he put his nose on the trunk of the tree. He had smelled a beetle working within, and tore off the bark to get it.
Again indignant cries burst from the Chickaree, seemingly all the angry sounds he knew, whistles, spits, sputters, and growls. There was nothing else he could do to frighten the bears. He knew he must not go into his tree, near those arms that crushed squirrels with one sweep. But that was his fir, his bark, his beetle — especially that was his new nest, just over the bears’ heads. Would they scatter it, as his first nest was scattered?
Since the Chickaree could not fight the bears, he would fight another animal, any that he could find. In the society of the treetops, some creatures like a combat; others will give up food or a perch for peace. The Chickaree knew what to expect of each, but today anything that moved would receive his challenge.
The flip of a wing snapped his glance to the trunk of a pine where a red-shafted flicker had alighted to lick up ants. It was a quick jump over. In along a branch the Chickaree whipped. And now he was racing up the tree, all his feet off the trunk at every gallop. But the flicker would not defend its meal. It was flying away. The Chickaree followed to the end of a bough, too far behind even to startle the bird. He might have known that the flicker would not fight with him, but he stood on the branch, thumping in exasperation.
He turned back into the pine, scolding, flicking his tail. Then with a bound he picked up speed. He had remembered a western wood pewee in the adjoining fir. A pewee was a spirited bird. Its nest was on a dead limb at the top of the tree. The Chickaree darted up and out from the trunk. The pewee was not there.
More slowly the Chickaree moved along the branch towards the nest. He never had been able to come so close to it before. He drew up to the edge and looked inside, a forepaw folded against his breast. In the grass-lined cup lay three eggs, ivory speckled with russet. Still as pebbles they lay, but much more fascinating. The rigid branch was quiet, and no creature called. The Chickaree looked at the eggs and something unexpected happened. His head bobbed forward. For the first time in his life he wanted a bird’s egg in his mouth.
The three eggs might have been reduced to two, perhaps to none, but the mother returned. Now the fury was in another breast. The pewee flew at the Chickaree with a scream and a clapping of her beak. He did an instantaneous turn and raced back off the branch. He wanted only to lose that angry bird.
Soon he did. He retreated through boughs so dense that the pewee could not follow.
The Chickaree ran to the Jeffrey pine and out for another view of the bears. Now the brown one was crouched on the branch. His brother had come in and wanted him to move, so that he could get onto the trunk. The brown one looked off into the trees, pretending not to see him. A cuff from the black bear started some boxing, but soon both cubs quieted down. Apparently nothing else would happen for a while.
The Chickaree stomped and squealed. When his little tempest accomplished nothing, he set out on another hunt for trouble. Bounding through the trees, he passed a bat, limp in sleep between a curtain of lichen and a pine trunk; no fight there. He skirted a hole where a family of flying squirrels were nesting; no hope from them either, nor from a chipmunk “wheeking” from a lower bough. Then he saw that a great gray squirrel had dared to come into his sequoia.
The gray squirrel had reason to know that he would not be allowed in the Chickaree’s range. He was twice as large, but the Chickaree was more than twice as fiery; he had proved that several times. For the gray squirrel to intrude today was a special outrage — and a comfort. Now the Chickaree could really let his temper fly.
His warning cries kept pace with his feet as he sped through the Jeffrey pine, leapt into the sequoia, and was down to the gray squirrel’s branch. The gray squirrel was off at once, jumping into a sugar pine.
The Chickaree followed. Now he saw only a frost-colored tail, flowing, dodging, curving, streaming ahead of him. Down long branches he chased it, over the fir sprays, across gaps of clear space, up the tree trunks, out on dead snags. He was gaining on it. Though the tail had more balancing skill than the Chickaree’s, the Chickaree’s feet were faster.
From the topmost boughs to the ground and up again went the chase, into one tree after another, with a rattle of falling twigs, bark, and lichen. The gray one flew silently, but the Chickaree had enough energy to overtake the big squirrel and to squeal his resentment. He saw the gray squirrel leading towards a jump that a small squirrel could not make. He had only one branch on which to catch him or lose the chance. As the gray squirrel ran out on that branch, the Chickaree jumped to the bough above him, streaked to the end, dropped on the tail below, and caught it in his teeth. He bit off the tip and the gray squirrel screamed, then was sailing over the gap that no chickaree could cross.
The little squirrel crouched on the branch until he had caught his breath. But he was not spent. Returning through the trees to his own range, he bounded as though he alighted each time on the tail of an enemy. Now he must have more excitement.
He remembered that the Grouse and the Mule Deer Buck often rested under a fir at this time of day. He hurried out their way. Beneath the drooping branches, the Deer was lying down and the Grouse was dust-bathing. Like a shower of sparks the Chickaree was upon them.
The Grouse showed no sign that she was aware of him. Crouched in the crumbling needles, she was throwing footfuls of the debris under her wings and over her back. She wriggled so that the dust would sift down to her skin, and then tossed more of it over herself.
The Chickaree began his teasing of the bird. He leapt forward and back, on one side and the other, whipping his tail, squealing, whistling, and chirring. He would dart up, poke his impudent little face into the Grouse’s face, and bound away. The Grouse continued her unhurried bathing, but into her eyes was coming a wilder gleam.
Her rising feathers made her suddenly huge, then, with a violent fluttering she threw her dust all over the Chickaree. Her tail stood out like a circle of weapons, and she hissed at the squirrel, and leapt up and down in a way truly terrifying. But he was gone, already back up the fir, pealing forth protests. He wanted the whole forest to hear how the Grouse had abused him.
He climbed to the top of the tree and immediately came down again to the ground and raced out past the Grouse. She could not frighten him. He was thirsty, and she would not stop him from getting a drink.
But the Chickaree had let himself, this one time, become too agitated. He ran out to a rain pool on the Rock that was too far from the trees that were his proper haven. He put his mouth into the water and began to lap. Then his tongue froze. For he heard the scream of a red-tailed hawk.
This was not the high scream from a hawk remote in the sky; on the Rock itself was this threat. Streaking back to the fir, the Chickaree scrambled up the trunk. He climbed to a refuge among the branches, and there lay while the shrill voice cut again through the air, and again. A long silence followed, until it seemed sure that the hawk must have flown away, or have found its victim.
The Chickaree had nothing left for this day. Back in the pine nearest his own tree, he stretched wearily on a bough and watched the bears. He did not even protest as the brown one began to climb. The cub was on the trunk, as high as the Chickaree’s nest branch, and was going higher.
The Chickaree had not seen the cubs’ mother, the Black Bear, but now she called from the ground. One cub answered with his hunger cry, “Muh!” but neither started down. The Bear summoned them again. The brown cub continued to climb and the other lay on his bough. The mother started up the trunk. At this new threat to his nest, the Chickaree pulled himself erect.
But the brown cub, hearing his mother’s claws on the bark, was coming down. Now he was past the nest. Both cubs were following the Black Bear out of the tree. The Chickaree moved out on the pine bough. He waited only until the mother had reached the ground, then leapt across into his fir. He entered the nest. It was exactly as he had left it.
He lay inside. The hanging still was not finished. Under its shreds the Chickaree could see that the cones of the sugar pine were nearly ready to harvest. Those in his own tree, too, soon should be cut. Tomorrow, after he had completed the weaving, he would learn the location of every cone in his range, and each day would examine them all as they ripened. Meanwhile he would find the place on the ground, damp and cool, where he would store a supply first for his mate and then for himself.
Every branch in his trees he would make his own beyond question, by knowing all its turns, its twigs and lichen, and the leaping distance from other boughs. With that experience he would be able to chase out any squirrel that might intrude into his range. He would bound swiftly and safely when he raced with a chickaree friend of his, and when he drove away jays that came into his tree to steal mushrooms.
Those jays! The Chickaree in his nest had been regaining his balance of spirit; the tensions of June eighteenth had been slipping away. But now all his outraged feelings were rising again. All his angry little sounds were pressing to be let out of his throat.
Suddenly he turned his back to the entrance and started kicking. There went the jay feathers out of the hole. There went most of the nest bed, even some of the twigs. He could replace those; send that jay flying!
Sniffing over the floor of the nest, the Chickaree found that every feather was gone. He drew himself into a ball that his tail would cover, pushed his nose into his fur, and relaxed his paws. The tree swung him lightly. Soon he was asleep.
WHAT HAPPENED TO
The Black Bear
As the sun shrank the shadows on Beetle Rock, it gave life again to the granite-hoppers. The insects were as still as stone splinters until the heat sprung open their lemon wings. Then they began their angular flitting. A coral king snake loosened his coils so that the sun’s warmth would reach more of his flesh. The flesh of the chipmunks and chickarees had its own warmth, but they took the brightness into their spirits.
A male bear pushed out into the steaming grass of a meadow and stayed until his shoulders were saturated with heat. But the sunshine seemed a threat to the Black Bear, a mother of cubs. When it woke her, in the nook where she slept, alarm shaped itself on her face even before she had opened her eyes.
She had chosen this green den because it was well concealed by a thicket. But she and the cubs had been away for five days. During that time the sun had found a break in the leaves. At the unex
pected light in the nook, the Bear lifted her head from across her forepaw. With an effort she focussed her eyes. Ferns were shading the brown cub, but a spot of brightness, paw-sized, moved on the black one’s side as he breathed.
At the Bear’s back was a sugar pine log. From behind it she heard a sound of scattering gravel. Again her ears caught the dry tumble of rocks, and again. She knew its meaning — another bear was digging into a ground squirrel’s burrow. Without snapping one fallen twig or leaf, she raised her huge body until her head topped the log. Beyond was a granite slide. The Bear drew her eyelids together as if its bald brilliance hurt, and let her nose tell her what she wanted to know. The other bear was a female, therefore no one to fear. But she reminded the mother that Beetle Rock was a gathering place for bears, including males with their dangerous dislike for cubs. At this loop in her rambling, the Bear must watch her young as alertly as a hunted creature, as a deer or even a mouse.
The mother turned back in the nook. She moved with a troubled vagueness. Except for the log, the walls of this hiding place were but small protection. They were formed of oak leaves, a delicate tangle of mountain lilac, and clusters of pine needles — walls that would hold off a glance, but not a paw nor a muzzle.
The Bear looked to the left, then the right, but not as if trying to see. She lifted a forefoot, and put it down again. She shifted half around, doubtfully, unable to grasp any clear impulse. She could not relieve her alarm by thinking. She could not analyze the menace she felt, nor plan new ways to guard the cubs. Instinct and experience had laid an uneasiness on her; she could only wait until they removed it. She let her legs fold beneath her, and lay again in the hollowed loam of her bed. Drawing a hind foot onto the rim, she licked from the sole the dried juice of grasses crushed by it.
At the end of one lick her ears reached for the splash of gravel. It had ceased. Within her thicket, she reared to full height, forepaws on the log. She still smelled the other bear and heard her breathe, but what was she doing? The mother must force her imperfect eyes to see.
One Day On Beetle Rock Page 6
