This spot of earth was Home.
THE DESERTED CABIN
THROUGH AISLES of aspen and pine Brighty headed for Uncle Jim’s cabin. He ignored the man’s pull on his tail and the whining cry behind. His small hoofs, caked with ice, shuffled in and out of the snow with rhythmic strength. He could feel rope burns on his sides where the straps had rubbed, and his pack had grown very heavy, but there was happy purpose in his step.
Confidently he entered the lane winding down into the meadow. But now as his eyes saw it, he stopped dead. A chill of fear swept over him. The meadow was a glaze of white, a sealed-in land, all emptiness. There was no sign of life anywhere. No creature stirred, no man nor mule nor hound. Not even a bird. Everything had changed. Where green grass had been, there was instead this smooth crystal sea. And the cabin was most changed of all. It looked littler, and it crouched down in the corner of the meadow like some white-haired crone with window-glass eyes.
Brighty stood helpless in the quiet world of white. Except for the black smudges of his eyes he was snow-frosted, too, like the meadow and the trees, and the little cabin.
The rainbow had faded, and the low sun threw only the palest of shadows across the snow. Slowly Brighty shuffled toward the cabin. He stopped in front of the porch and sounded a long-drawn bray. His ears tipped forward, listening. But there was no answering sound. All he heard was his heart beating, and all he saw was a spume of snow churning in a little gust of wind.
The cabin door remained closed.
As the silence continued, Irons came alive. He let go Brighty’s tail and glanced up at the cabin chimney to make sure the gray wisp above it was cloud, not smoke. Then he stamped onto the porch and knocked loudly on the door. He waited a moment, his breath making a hoarse whisper in the stillness. Then turning sideways, he threw his body against the door. It flew open so easily he fell sprawling on his face.
Brighty stepped in over him and halted in bewilderment. The place seemed colder than the out-of-doors. A hat and a jacket hung on a wall, but the smells they gave off were old and faint. He brayed to bring the place alive, but all it did was to stir Jake Irons.
The man sat up, rubbing his shins while he stared intently around the room as if his eyes might be playing tricks. He picked himself up and pushed at the walls to make sure they were real. When they did not budge, he closed the door behind him and gave Brighty a jolt with his knee. “Not bad, jughead,” he laughed harshly. “Not half bad!”
Still remembering his dream, he shoved a trunk-sized box against the door and then looked about. He noted the readiness of the room—the bunk made up, the logs stacked beside the fireplace, the canned goods lined up store-neat, and the kerosene lamp with wick trimmed and waiting.
He blew on his hands to warm them, then picked up a log and whittled chips for kindling. He shook some kerosene over the kindling and laid on two logs. Lighting the fire, he cackled in relief as the flames leaped up.
The heat felt good to Brighty, too. He gave himself a violent shake, spraying snow over the entire room.
“Get away from me, you wet rat!” Irons swung around and struck Brighty with the flat of his hand.
The startled burro backed up, his hindquarters pushing against a door that squeaked open. Irons shoved him on through and peered into the darkness of a small lean-to. He grinned when he saw the little room was filled with logs. Not bothering to remove Brighty’s pack, he stooped his way out, letting the door whine shut behind him.
Brighty paced restlessly in the blackness. He hungered for light and warmth and, most of all, for food to quiet the pinching of his belly. He butted the door, then turned and kicked it. But suddenly he felt very tired and his kicking was half-hearted.
A boot came crashing against the door on the other side, and a second boot, and after a while there were fainter noises—tin dishes clicking together, the slurping sound of soup and coffee; and after many minutes, a watch being wound, followed almost at once by a steady snoring.
When the trembling in Brighty’s legs had quieted, he peeled a log with his teeth, slowly chewing the bitter bark. Then he nosed carefully along the wall, trying to find the green logs. Halfway around, his muzzle touched something that gave to his bunting. He bunted it again. The thing was rough-textured and it made a rustly noise. He remembered that noise! Oats! Exquisite oats! With a grunt of joy he ripped a hole in the gunny sack, and then his muzzle was in among the plump kernels.
A pleasant feeling flowed into him as his grinders made meal of the grain and the juices in his mouth turned it into a delicious mush. He lipped another mouthful and another, and after a while he stopped eating, his small belly satisfied.
A warmth surged through his body. With his forefeet inside the bag, in the snug little nest he had made, he, too, slept and snored.
THIEF’S PLUNDER
WHILE BRIGHTY slept, the warm comfort spread all through him and he forgot he was trapped. But when he awakened, he stared about in panic. Even in the darkness of the lean-to his time sense told him it was morning. He cried out for his freedom, screaming and pawing.
On the other side of the door Jake Irons sat bolt upright, surprised to find himself in a bunk. He got up, rubbing his sore muscles, and hobbled stiff-legged to the window. All was whiteness. The sea of snow billowed away to a shore of snow-frosted trees, and the trees swept up the snow-veined slope to puffs of white cloud. But off to the north the sky was beginning to pink.
Irons rubbed his hands together, and his smile was a gash in his beard. His lips moved, forming the words “Utah! Utah!” He turned from the window and set to work, stirring the fire, piling on more wood. Meanwhile, the noise in the shed grew insistent.
“Shut up, you flop-eared fool!” Irons shouted as he thinned the flapjack batter.
Brighty heard the cakes drop into the fat with a sizzle and his nose caught the sweet smell. With one mighty kick he crashed through the door, wood splintering in all directions.
The two creatures wheeled around to face each other. In the awesome silence that followed, the man seemed to stop breathing. Then the dark anger in his face changed to cunning. “If I didn’t need you to break trail,” he bit off the words, “I’d whack this skillet over your head. Now back up, you shaggy brute. After I’ve et, I’ll give you the leavings.”
But Brighty stood his ground, stood watching while the cakes were turned.
“I s’pose,” the man sneered, “you’d like yours all doused in honey and cooled so’s not to burn your pretty pink tongue.” He squinted his eyes until they were slits. “Well, maybe there won’t be none left!” He stacked his cakes four deep and drenched them with molasses until it dripped from the plate. Then he ate his way fiercely through the stack. At last, unable to swallow more, he set the leavings before Brighty, who nosed them a long time before he could stomach the taint on them.
While Brighty ate, Irons’ hands and eyes were busy. He removed the burro’s pack and opened it out so that he could add new plunder. Last night he had been too tired to investigate the big box he had pushed against the door. Now eager fingers unfastened the lid and greedy eyes peered in. A jacket lay on top. Off with his mackinaw. On with the jacket.
Next he lifted out a pair of small-sized boots and held them up, squawking, “Wouldn’t you know it? A runt of a man!” He threw the boots across the room in disgust.
Brighty picked one up in his teeth and shook it as a dog would. Then he sat down, letting the boot lean against him.
The bearded face was back in the box. Like any pack rat the man was trading: a good felt hat for his ragged one, a pair of wool socks to be worn as mittens in place of his work gloves, another pair of socks for his own holey ones, some soft doeskin moccasins for his worn shoes.
Then back in the box again, hands seeking more—feeling in among the folds of a blanket, feeling and finding a smooth leather case. With a shout of discovery Irons lifted it out and unsheathed the beautiful rifle. Hungry hands slapped the polished stock, slid a testing forefinger
against the trigger, then along the shiny barrel, then back again to the stock, now fingering the gold plate.
Stealthily the man looked toward the window and then over his shoulder as if he expected someone to be watching.
“Only broomtail!” he whispered. Turning his back so that even Brighty could not see, he held the stock up to the light to make out the wording.
Eyes unaccustomed to reading spelled out the letters one by one. “T-o J-a-m-e-s O-w-e-n f-r-o-m h-i-s f-r-i-e-n-d, T-h-e-o-d-o-r-e R-o-o-s-e-v-e-l-t.”
For an instant he looked at the shininess of the plate, then he pulled out his pocketknife and loosened the gold screws. With a quick motion of his arm he flung the plate into the fire.
Now he moved more slowly, taking care not to forget anything—the coffee and the canned goods, the box of matches on the mantel. He packed the load on Brighty, lashing down the pots and pans and stolen things, all but the rifle. He tried to tighten the cinch, but Brighty blew himself up.
“I hope you bust!” Irons spat out the words as he gave a mighty tug. “Tonight I’ll be rid of you. I’ll be in Utah. And then . . .” His voice was a mocking singsong. “Then I’m just an innercent beaver trapper come to sell my skins.”
He poked the muzzle of the rifle into Brighty’s flanks and with a laugh drove him out of the cabin.
IN THE KAIBAB FOREST
A WINDBLOW of fresh snow lay on the path they had tramped the night before. Making new tracks, Brighty stretched out his neck and moved gaily along. The good oats, the night’s rest, and now the thin, crackly air made him feel frisky. Even the heavier weight of the pack was easy to bear. He tossed his head, snorting and squealing, and he tried a little dance.
Jake Irons’ voice exploded like a machine gun. “Act your age! Git moving! No monkey business, now!”
The frozen snow crunched to Brighty’s feet as he wound his way between the blazed trees. If he made a right turn now, he would face Bright Angel Point and, beyond it, the trail plunging away into the canyon. If he turned sharply to the left, he would come to a remembered ranch where cattle grazed and where there would be salt chunks to lick. . . . Without hesitation Brighty charted his course for the ranch.
Irons, a stranger to the Kaibab Forest, glanced anxiously at the sun to make sure they were headed north. Satisfied, he scuffed along, his moccasins following silently in Brighty’s hoofprints, his new rifle pointed skyward.
The way humped over hills and dipped into hollows, and the forest marched in close with the littler pines in front. There was no path to see or to smell. Only the trackless ocean of white. Yet Brighty’s sense of direction and his memory hurried him along.
In silence the two moved onward, each busy in his own mind. Once Irons stopped to tighten the ropes around Brighty’s belly and to scoop up a handful of snow. Then they were off again, now out in the open, now swallowed by the forest, where only thin blades of light knifed their way through the gloom.
They saw no living thing. The deer had long since taken flight to lower altitudes, and even the mournful croaking of the ravens was gone. Brighty and the man were alone, two insect dots crawling through the vast stillness.
The sun climbed higher and Brighty squinched his eyelids to wink away the glare on the snow. They passed mountain meadows bedded down for winter, and groves of quaking aspen staring at them with black-bole eyes. Midway of each rise they paused, sucking in deep draughts of the air and blowing out clouds of steam. Then on again, topping the rise only to see the land swell and stretch endlessly away to the north.
Presently Brighty was nosing the way excitedly. Some pygmy had made queer little prints in the snow, a lively fellow! So great were his leaps that his hind feet landed well ahead of his tiny forepaws. Brighty followed the elfin trail until it ended at the base of a pine tree. And there, high up, he spied the elf—a white-tailed squirrel that lives only in the Kaibab Forest. He was a plump young one, clinging to the tree like a cub to its mother. His body and the shine in his eyes and even the tufts of his ears were black, but his tail was a luminous white plume against the trunk.
Using the plume as a parachute, he landed on a lower limb and sat holding onto his perch, watching cautiously. Suddenly there was the sharp crack of a rifle, and the body of the squirrel arced into the air. It crumpled and fell kicking to the snow. Brighty watched the man pick it up and spin it by the tail. And the next he knew, the warm thing was added to his pack and flapping against his side.
Brighty nosed a green cone the squirrel had dropped. He paused to eat it, but the rifle poked him on, jolting the cone from his mouth.
In the little time it had taken to kill the squirrel, the sun slid behind a cloud. And now the sky was gathering up more clouds and smoothing them out into a gray hood over the earth. The wind lifted and made spindrift of the snow so that Brighty had to purse his nostrils to keep it out.
He hurried along, his direction instinct sharpening. Soon now he would hear calves bawling and cows mooing and men’s laughter. Over another knoll and another, and suddenly it was there—the friendly ranch house, snug inside a cup of white.
Leaving the man far behind, Brighty galloped toward it, churning the snow as he ran, pots and pans clanking. Any moment now a bunch of cows would come lumbering at him. Any moment now the door would fly open and men would hobble out on their cowboy heels.
He slid to a stop as he reached the house, almost falling down in his eagerness. He pressed his nose against the window but saw only a cavern of darkness. He went to the door, pawing it, braying at it, waiting, listening. And then he heard a bellowing behind him. It was Jake Irons shouting, “You dunce! I give you hot cakes and biscuits and you leave me behind to freeze and die!”
He broke off abruptly as a gust of snow showered him. A night’s shelter would be best, he thought, and on to Utah tomorrow. He tried the door, opening it a crack, letting the rifle nose in first. Nothing happened. Full of bravery, he pushed it wide and strode in.
Brighty followed, his hoofs skidding across the smooth floor.
THE VOICE INSIDE THE SNOWMAN
THE TWO-STORY ranch house was as deserted as a schoolhouse on Saturday morning. Men and cattle were gone, far away to House Rock Valley. Except for an old wooden cupboard, the place stood empty. There were no bunks, no table, no chairs. Just the old cupboard against the wall and a gaping fireplace with a bed of white ashes.
Irons, his rifle leading, walked through the emptiness and up the ladder steps to the second floor. Here too was a chill air of desertion. The only movement was the snow swirling against the window.
He backed down in a hurry to find the burro pushing his nose against a heavy door at one end of the room. It hung on double hinges, and Brighty, with a little foretaste of pleasure, was butting it open.
Eagerly Irons darted around him and struck a match to see what the room held. “Jerusalem!” he gasped, squinting at the pinkness. One whole wall was piled high with pink salt in hundred-pound chunks. Already Brighty’s tongue was at work on the nearest one.
The opposite wall was stacked with logs, and up against them were a roll of wire and a hatchet whose blade winked in the matchlight. Irons started for the hatchet, but the flame sputtered and burned his fingers. With an oath he picked up logs and hatchet in the dark and groped his way out, letting the door swing against Brighty’s rump.
Carefully he laid his rifle on the deer horns fastened to the cupboard. Then he went to work, hacking chips from the logs. “Utah! Utah!” his lips kept saying with each stroke.
He smiled at how neatly everything was working out. “I got plenty of grub,” he was thinking, “a warm place to bunk, and then Utah by noon, probably.” “Yeah,” he said aloud, “better to stay here tonight and crash a new town by day.”
While the logs were taking fire, he brought out Brighty’s pack, and next explored the cupboard. There were three odd-shaped sacks in it—one containing a few potatoes beginning to sprout, one apples wrinkled and dried, and the third some kind of herbs or see
ds. There were tin cups, too, and plates.
Together his supplies made quite a little pile, and he decided on a hearty meal. He’d have tomato soup to start with, and then fried squirrel and potatoes, and for dessert, coffee and apples, sugared. As he drooled in anticipation, he could hear Brighty peeling strips of bark in the salthouse.
“Eat hearty, broomtail!” he laughed, pulling out his knife and skinning the squirrel. He chopped the carcass into four pieces and dropped them in a skillet of sizzling fat. Meanwhile he heated the tomato soup and gulped it down. Then he sat rocking on his heels, watching the bubbles of fat boil up over the meat. He swallowed often, hardly able to control the juices that flooded his mouth.
Outside, in the black night, the snow masses struck down at the ranch house, enfolding it in a thick blanket.
Irons ate until there was only the back of the squirrel left. He stuffed it in the empty soup can and placed it near the fire. It would make a good snack later on. At last he spread his blankets on the floor and rolled himself up, feet to the fire.
When his snoring had become steady, Brighty came nosing into the room for food. He found a mound of potato and apple parings and ate them slowly. With a curl of apple peel still dangling from his mouth, he went back to his salthouse to munch it. Then he, too, fell into a deep sleep.
Gradually the fire burned low, and cold crept into the house. Irons reached for a log and added it to the fire. For a long time he lay staring at the flames licking around it. Sleep was just beginning to claim him again when suddenly the outside door flew open and a cold blast of snow struck him in the face.
A shrouded figure broke through the mist. It was made of snow, humped and padded with snow, and its feet were chunks of ice.
Brighty of the Grand Canyon Page 10
