Brighty of the Grand Canyon Page 5

  Up in the pine tree, right up in the open sunlight, the lion glanced from side to side. His enemies were closing in. On the rim above, the men with rifles ready; behind him, the panting, blood-hungry hounds; and far below, the yawning chasm. But near below, his cunning eyes spied a gray creature traveling with the wind, his back a safe landing place.

  As a fish leaps when it is hooked, so the cougar made one stupendous leap. He landed with a thump on the burro’s back, and the jar drove Brighty to his knees. Then he was up, bucking in terror as he fled, trying to shake loose his fearsome rider. The ledge was narrowing into the face of the cliff now, and he tried to scrape the lion off before they would both go hurtling into space. He tried again, a desperate bucking and a scraping, but the weight was still there.

  And now the ledge tapering finer and finer, and death riding on his back and rocky death below, and his blood beating with the powerful urge to live. He wheeled on his hind legs, and his forelegs went clawing up the bare wall toward the patch of cover. Above him three rifles pointed and three bullets pinged the silence as a mass of fur and fangs and claws went mushrooming into the briar. Almost at once a lasso whirred through the air, encircled its thrashing prey, and pulled the great beast to the rim, the hounds yelping behind.

  Brighty shuddered his coat to make sure he was rid of his burden. Except for the stinging scratches on his neck and shoulders, he found he was not really hurt. So with a happy grunt he went bounding up to join the mules and the men.

  The President and Quentin and Uncle Jim, too, made a great fuss over him, as if he were a hero come home from the wars. No one could tell whose bullet it was that had killed the lion, but each of the hunters secretly felt sure it was his own.

  When Uncle Jim saw that the claw marks on Brighty’s back were not deep, he busied himself skinning and butchering the cougar, throwing a piece to each of the hounds. He talked while he worked.

  “Fear instinct, I’m thinkin’, is what told Brighty to come toward us ’stead o’ leapin’ into the abyss. But now, gentlemen, if he’ll pack this skin, then he’s a hero sure ’nough.”

  The President and Quentin stood silent, watching while Uncle Jim used his knife with quick, sure strokes. When he had loaded the meat on the pack mules, he rolled up the hide and tied it with a thong.

  “Now, don’t ye do this if’n ye ain’t a mind to,” he said to Brighty. “If ye’re frighted o’ the lion smell you just skedaddle and I’ll hoist ’er up on my ole mule.”

  Brighty took a whiff of the skin and seemed to know that now it held no danger. He stood transfixed, letting Uncle Jim lace it on his back while Quentin stroked him and whispered into his ear.

  The President was mightily impressed. “You’re game, Brighty!” he exclaimed, looking into the quizzical brown eyes.

  “Ye’re durn tootin’ he is, Mister President!” Uncle Jim agreed. “ ’Tain’t easy to pack yer enemy, dead or alive. I kin see his heart tappin’ to double time and his nose hatin’ the job. But he’ll do ’er!”

  That evening the party made camp in Brighty’s grotto at Cliff Springs. Freed of his burden, Brighty hung back at the entrance, standing with the hobbled mules, watching Uncle Jim throw down the bedding and build a fire to cook supper. Then as no one urged him, he haltingly stepped inside. He went over to his pool, sniffed all around it, and at last drank deep of its mountain freshness.

  Everyone was in fine appetite, the men and the hounds eating lion steak, which the President pronounced as delicious as venison. Brighty, however, preferred the frijole beans.

  After supper the hounds settled around the fire, licking their cuts, while the two men and the boy sat in a semicircle, facing out across the chasm. Brighty joined them, sitting as one of them.

  The slanting sun was at work on the opposite wall of the canyon. It looked as if some giant painter over on the South Rim had mixed all his reds in a bucket and tipped it over the brink, spilling liquid fire down the rock layers.

  The spectacle put an awed silence on the men. But as the color dimmed, there was talk of many things. The President confided his dream of making the Grand Canyon a National Park. And Uncle Jim told him how fine a thing that would be; then badmen wouldn’t dare hide in the side canyons for there would be too many visitors nosing about.

  As the shadows deepened, Uncle Jim began at the very beginning and recited the murder mystery of Old Timer. When the story was done, Quentin leaned forward. “But you’ve got to find the killer, Uncle Jim. You’ve got to!”

  And the President’s voice rang strong with conviction. “Don’t you give up, Jim! In my book, the scales of justice eventually come to balance.”

  The cold night wind was rising now. Uncle Jim fed the fire, and as the flames lighted the cave, the President took a notebook from his pocket and began writing.

  “What are you saying, Father?” Quentin asked.

  “Just a moment, Son.” And he wrote on.

  When he had finished, the father handed the notebook to the boy, who read aloud in his clear young voice:

  “The canyon fills one with a sense of awe. Under the naked sun, every tremendous detail leaps into glory; yet the change is startling from moment to moment. When clouds sweep the heavens, vast shadows are cast, but so vast is the canyon they seem mere patches of gray and purple and umber. Dawn and evening twilight are brooding mysteries over the abyss. Night shrouds its immensity, but does not hide it. And to none of the sons of men is it given to tell of the wonder and splendor of sunrise and sunset in the Grand Canyon of the Colorado.”

  Brighty’s ears forked to the singsong words. They had a nice chime to them, but he hugged to Uncle Jim all the same, his eye on the dead tree trunk, remembering.

  BRIGHTY GOES TO WORK

  THE NEXT day the President and Quentin left for Washington, and life settled back into routine. But Uncle Jim felt concern about Brighty. Was he becoming a plodding pack animal? Forgetting his wild ways? Had he shaken off his memories of freedom?

  Uncle Jim decided to make a test. If Brighty would go to work for someone else, then it would be plain that all the wildness had drained out of him. What about young Homer Hobbs? he thought. Homer was the waterboy for Wiley’s Summer Camp. He was a gangly youngster with brown, doelike eyes, and arms too long for the rest of him. Though a shy one with people, he had a pet deer and a skunk and a grouse, and he seemed easy and at home with animals.

  Uncle Jim made a point of arriving at the spring one morning when he knew Homer would be fetching water. “Homer!” he exclaimed as he caught up to the boy. “Mebbe Brighty’d pack water fer ye, too.”

  Startled, the boy looked around, his brown eyes gleaming with interest. “Y’mean,” he hesitated, “I could have Bright Angel part time?”

  “Mebbe. Who knows? He’s getting to be such a workaday feller he might just be glad to help a neighbor out.”

  Homer’s shyness was suddenly gone. He looked straight into Brighty’s eyes and then into Uncle Jim’s. “I’d like that,” was all he said.

  “ ’Tain’t every man I’d loan him to, but even though ye’re only crowdin’ ’leven, ye’re Cal Hobbs’ son, and ye come by yer knack with animals nacherel. I swear I don’t know what’s got into him. Ever since he kilt a lion, he’s tame as a lamb.”

  It was only a matter of days before Brighty was dividing his time between Uncle Jimmy’s place and Wiley’s Camp.

  There was a handful of children at the camp and Brighty enjoyed their generosity. Every time he gave a child a ride he was rewarded with the most delicious treats—licorice sticks or cherry drops or slightly squashed cookies. Sometimes it was a juicy apple. And so before long Brighty was hiring himself out as a child’s mount. Of course, he went where and when he pleased and at whatever pace suited his fancy. But his gaits were so remarkably smooth that children took to riding with their arms outspread.

  “Look, Ma!” they would shout. “No hands!”

  But let some grownup climb aboard to show the children how to ride, and Brighty
turned demon. At the first kick to his ribs he took off like a bird. Then in midflight he suddenly put on the brakes. The luckless man always flew over Brighty’s head and landed like a frightened goose in front of him.

  Brighty’s second-best trick was an about-face. He would be loafing along, head down, as if half asleep. Then without any warning he would wheel and gallop off in the opposite direction. The unfortunate rider never seemed to make the turn with him, but to go forward into space, quite often ending up in a spiny bush. To make matters worse, Brighty had a way of looking back over his shoulder, showing his teeth in a wide grin.

  With Homer Hobbs and the children Brighty was meekness itself. But he seemed allergic to grownups. Once when Homer went to town on an errand, a stout, red-faced man took over his job as waterboy. He brought out the tins and began to sharpen a pine twig with his knife. Brighty’s eyes rolled knowingly. Quickly he backed up, screening himself in a little grove of aspen. There he stood, motionless, his white nose matching the white bark and his eyes like the black boles.

  The man cupped his fat hands to his mouth and shouted, “Brighty! You come here!”

  When the burro did not come, the man stormed into the aspen grove and whacked his way through, the pine stick almost touching Brighty’s tail.

  “Consarn that fool jack!” he sputtered. “Where is he?”

  The madder he got, the more he yelled. And even though it was barely sunup, the children, some still in pajamas, came running out of tents to see what the noise was about. A sharp-eyed little girl spied Brighty and nudged her friends. They broke out in snickers at first, then they howled with mirth.

  “You kids tell me where he’s at!” The man lurched around. “And be quick about it!”

  For answer they only whispered behind their hands and laughed the louder.

  This threw the man into a rage. A second time he strode into the aspen grove and again passed right alongside Brighty, while the children’s laughter mounted beyond control.

  It was one thing to be outwitted by a burro, but being laughed at by children was more than the man could bear. Snatching up the water tins he stamped off toward the spring, muttering as he went.

  An hour later he returned puffing, his face purple with exertion. And there, coming to meet him, was Brighty, wide-eyed and innocent. In anger the man threw one of the tins at the burro, who dodged as artfully as if it had been a rock slide on a canyon trail. Then he high-tailed it for the meadow.

  Later, when the man strode over to Uncle Jim’s to tattle on Brighty, there was just the hint of a smile on Uncle Jim’s face as he listened. “Now, ain’t that a fine way to do!” he said in the tone of a parent whose boy had smashed a window. “I’ll have a talk with Brighty about this.”

  But when the man was out of earshot, Uncle Jim slapped Brighty’s hip in relief. “Praises be!” he laughed. “If ye had answered to the proddin’ stick, I’d sworn the world was comin’ to a no-good end!”

  WITHIN THE BLACK TUNNEL

  SUMMER FADED the Indian paintbrushes, and the grasses dried so that there was little taste left in them. Nights grew cold and laid a breath of hoarfrost on the meadow. Brighty took to sleeping in an old cliff dwelling, where he could nestle into the dry leaves that whirled in through the opening.

  But as the weather sharpened, mountain lions often left their tracks close to his sleeping place, and coyotes and wolves grew bolder. And when one day Brighty’s whiskers were iced by the moisture of his own breath, his mind began pulling him toward the canyon. Down there the wind would blow warm over his body, and the sand would scratch him pleasantly, and there would be water running night and day, with never a skim of ice on it. He suddenly seemed driven to leave the rimtop and he started out, his feet hurrying him toward his warm winter home.

  As he went by the cabin, Uncle Jim happened to glance out the window. He was standing at the table pouring a cup of coffee for the sheriff, who had come to pay him a visit, and he stopped with the cup only half full.

  Puzzled, the sheriff followed Uncle Jim’s gaze. “Rope him, you dang fool!” he said. “Don’t just stand there google-eyed!”

  Uncle Jim put down the coffeepot and hurried to the door. His hand rose to his mouth and he started to call out, but something made him change his mind.

  “Good-by, feller,” his lips said. “I’ll be seein’ ye again . . . when the lupine blues.”

  He stood silent in the doorway, watching Brighty step lightly along, head nodding, ears flopping. He watched until the small gray figure was swallowed by the forest gloom. “Who kin rope a wild, free spirit?” he asked with a little burst of pride.

  The sheriff let out a snort. “Humph!” he exploded. “Who’m I to say? I can’t even rope a killer I know is crawling somewhere in the canyon. It’s been ten months since Old Timer was murdered, and I ain’t found the killer yet.”

  • • •

  All that winter Brighty roamed the inner reaches of the canyon, alone. Sometimes, when the wind was still, he thought he heard voices like his own on the mesa across the big river. But soon the wind would strike up and the voices would be lost in it.

  Snow fell again on the rimtop and sifted down, building again the white fence, penning him in the canyon. No human beings angled down his trail, and the days drifted by like slow-moving clouds.

  One day toward spring when Brighty was skirting the snow line, he took a notion to make a trip all the way down to the Colorado River. Just as day was breaking he set forth.

  Bright Angel Creek tumbled over the rocks and babbled to him as he went along. The noise it made shut out the rumble of thunder, and he felt the small rain on his nose before he saw it. At first it was not much more than a splash. Then there were more splashes, scattered here and there in the dust of the trail. By and by the drops smalled, coming closer and closer together, and then the fury of the storm suddenly let loose! Great inky clouds rolled down from the summits. Lightning flashed in yellow veins, joining crag to crag. Thunder roared. And torrents of water spilled from the heavens. They sluiced over Brighty’s head and funneled into his ears. They spouted down the hairy watershed over his eyes.

  The wind worked with the rain, blowing and battering at him, then swirling a gray curtain around him until it was too thick to see through. He slipped on a rock and fell to one knee, while the rain pummeled him and seeped through his hair and into his skin. He scrambled up and went groping blindly, letting his feet see for him, letting them feel their way along.

  Some homing instinct seemed to guide him, for all at once he found himself on a ledge leading to the Little Mimi Mine, and then he was ducking his head in and under the roughhewn entrance of the black tunnel.

  A stench rose to his nostrils, not just of foxes come and gone and their droppings left behind, but a man-smell that pulled a trigger in his mind. Except for the rain, he would have fled from the smell, but he was cold and wet and the tunnel was warm and dry. He wriggled in and suddenly felt two human hands striking at his chest. They were trying to push him out of the tunnel onto the rocks below.

  With a startled scream Brighty struck down with his head, hitting the man’s head. It made a dull echo in the tunnel. He sledge-hammered again and again until he felt the hands lose their force.

  As he came on into the darkness, he could sense the man backing away, keeping distance between them. The tunnel was quiet now, except for the rain gushing down over the entrance. But away from the rain he heard a smaller sound—a steady ticking sound that he remembered. He sank to the floor in exhaustion, listening.

  All that night there was no letup to the storm. It loosened boulders and sent them crashing down the cliffs until the floor of the tunnel quaked.

  Brighty slept fitfully, waking to the rockslides and to his hunger gnawing. A sour-dough biscuit was flung in his direction, but it smelled of dead beaver and he only nosed it.

  With the morning, the rain petered out and a murky light filtered into the tunnel. It outlined the figure of a man, and what he was doin
g touched off a small, sharp message to Brighty. He was winding a shiny gold watch with a gold key.

  CAGED OVER THE COLORADO

  THE WIND blew in little gusts into the tunnel and worked through the dampness of Brighty’s coat. He felt the chill against his skin and shivered.

  The man mistook the shaking for fear. “Hah!” His voice made a ghostly whine in the tunnel. “You’re scairt. You’re no angel. You’re a scairt devil. And I can whop a scairt ’un.”

  Stooped like some monster ape, he advanced slowly toward Brighty, long arms dangling below his knees. Brighty stiffened. He did not dare edge out of the tunnel backward; it would mean falling to his death. He turned around. But the dark hulk leaped at him and with a sudden motion flung a belt around his neck. In panic Brighty tried to toss his head free, but the ceiling of the tunnel was too low. He felt the belt buckle jerk into place and saw gold teeth grinning at him. Then a hard flat hand boxed him across the ears.

  “Now, you bony broomtail,” the ghostly voice said, “I’ll break that sassy free spirit of yours!”

  Planting himself against the entrance to the tunnel, Irons unwound one of his puttees and made a cinch around Brighty’s barrel. He tied two heavy bags of ore to the cinch and then stood back, coldly eyeing the weighted figure.

  “You came just like I whistled for you. With two bags of samples to show in town, I’ll find grubstakers a dime a dozen. And now, broomtail, the law’d never look for a man to cross the river on a day like this. Eh?”

  He got behind the burro, pushing. Anxious to get away, Brighty ducked his head and came out of the tunnel onto a narrow sill of rock.

  Terror caught at him. The river had risen until it nearly reached the sill. The cottonwood ladder had been washed away. He and the man were standing on a ledge that was no more than a scar in the face of the cliff. There was only one way to go. The sill of rock led to a catwalk, and this in turn led to a browlike platform where a cable spanned the river, carrying the cage to the opposite shore.