Brighty of the Grand Canyon Page 6

  Brighty, with the man following close behind, made his way up the cliff. His pack scraped against the wall at each cautious step. The storm tore at him, and only the anchor of heavy ore held him to the narrow trail until he came to the platform.

  Below him he saw the river heaving boulders from its bed, grinding and crashing them together, and tossing along whole trees with roots upturned like bony arms waving for help. The wind was in league with the river, whipping the cable back and forth, shaking the cage like some wildcat with its prey.

  Jake Irons seemed to gain power from the elements. With great long sweeps of his arms he worked the cable, pulling the cage in toward the platform.

  At sight of the oncoming thing Brighty reared up on his hind feet. But the man was cat-quick, grabbing him, choking him with the belt while the cage went hurtling back to center. With one viselike hand on Brighty, he ripped off his shirt and tied it over the burro’s head as a blindfold. Then with savage strength he worked the cable again, bringing the cage back onto the landing. His eye measured the width of the gate, and quickly he took off Brighty’s packs and loaded the bags far forward on the floor of the cage. Then he shoved Brighty aboard, let down the slats, and climbed on top to work himself and his captive across.

  As the cage began zooming down the cable, a wild dread seized Brighty. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t breathe. He flung his head up, grabbing the shirt in his teeth, biting it, ripping it open. And then in a flash he saw he was boxed in a tiny, barred prison. The prison was more to be feared than the river! He kicked wildly at the bars, but only a few splintered, and the wind carried them off like matchsticks. There is no knowing how Brighty wheeled around in that tiny space, yet he did, and with a mighty leap he was over the gate. But the belt around his neck caught on a stud post and there he hung, suspended over the river, his body thrashing wildly to free itself.

  Up on his perch Jake Irons clung to the framework in desperation, trying to keep from being pitched into the current. His legs hugged the bars, and his frenzied hands fished for a knife, found it, and slashed Brighty’s neck-strap where it hung on the post.

  With a mighty splash Brighty fell into the river. His body sank for a long moment while the raging waters wrenched off his cinch and swirled him around and around. He struggled against the waves, but cruel eddies kept pulling him down. He tried to keep his nose above water. He gulped for air. It stank with the odor of dead fish, but he sucked it into his lungs and felt his body rise. He gulped again. He swam a stroke or two and again drew in the foul air. A floating limb struck him across the neck, then glanced off as if it had met its match.

  He grappled and swam his way toward a boulder, clawed for footing, but it was slippery with mud and he slid back into the water. Now the river was driving silt into his coat, weighting him down, and weariness was heavy in him, too.

  On the bank he saw a lone beaver eyeing him forlornly. How far to that shiny eye? Two breaths away? A dozen? He fixed on the eye as on a goal and swam toward it, against the brown flood and the driftwood. Wave after wave slapped him down, but his body seemed made of rubber, bouncing up to the surface again.

  Maybe it was that shiny eye pulling him up out of the river, guiding him like a beacon. Or maybe it was his great lungs developed in climbing canyon walls. Whatever it was, from deep within, Brighty drew one mite more of strength. And now he was scrambling up on the beaver’s rock, gasping for air.

  When his sides stopped heaving he shook his coat, spraying water and mud over his furry little savior. Then he tossed his head. The neck strap was gone! He shook his body to make certain the cinch and the bags of ore were gone, too. Yes, he was free! And back on his own shore! He showered the beaver again and sneezed when the little fellow returned the favor.

  THE BATTLE SCARS O’ FREEDOM

  THE NARROW shore lay wet and snagged with uprooted trees and broken rock. Brighty wanted to roll, but there was no room. It was the wind that finally dried his coat. It chilled his body, too, so that he shivered violently. Yet a fever burned in him and he was hot and cold at the same time. The beaver had long since deserted him and he felt lonely in the wind.

  Finally he crumpled into a little heap among the drift and fell into a heavy sleep. Black night came, and gray morning. Stiffly Brighty got up, and his gaze climbed the north wall until it met the sodden sky. Where was the white boundary of snow? Where?

  He blinked solemnly under his hairy eyeshade. It had been there the last time he had looked—a solid fence of white. Now it was gone, and up yonder, up over the rim was refuge! He tried his legs and they moved woodenly over the masses of drift, moved slowly toward Bright Angel Creek.

  Today there was no friendly babble to the creek. It was angry and dirtied by the storm, and Brighty floundered across it, struggling against the rushing current. His trail, too, was spoiled. New rock piles and twisted trees got in his way as he shuffled upward.

  The shaking came and went, and he could hear his breath whine in his lungs.

  Toward noon a warm April sun came out, steaming the rocks and drying the slopes. Exhausted by the constant crossings of the creek, he stopped once to rest and roll in a patch of sand that fringed it. But instead of a nice tingly feeling, he noticed only that the sand got in his nose and throat, and the cough that followed hurt deep inside him.

  He climbed in sun and in shadow, picking his way over gooseneck roots, over rock slides. Another day, he would have stopped to explore any change in his trail, sniffing excitedly and pawing it with his feet. Now he felt only the need to find the voice and hands of Uncle Jim.

  He climbed blindly on, stumbling often, but always some unseen force lifted him bodily and on he went, his stubby legs working up and up the wilderness of cliffs. A cactus spine hooked into his ankle, but even pain did not stop him. His head low, he trudged with all the power of his will, and when he coughed, it blew the dirt ahead of him.

  He passed Ribbon Falls and Roaring Springs without so much as a look-up. It was his hoofs he watched, one ahead of the other, inching their way up the path that twisted back on itself like the wriggling of a snake.

  All day he went without drinking, until at last he saw tiny cups of snow in the timber beside the trail. He wet his lips in one cup and another. Then he lifted his feet again and limped on until he was over the rim. No bucks or does or little spotted fawns were there to welcome him.

  Slowly, silently he moved along the forest aisle to Uncle Jim’s meadow. The sun was dipping down over Buckskin Mountain when he finally looked through the window of the cabin. Uncle Jimmy, with a pup in his arm, was feeding it milk from a spoon. Brighty tried to bray, but the sound that came was the merest sob. He watched sickly while the feeding went on, and then he was seized with a fit of coughing.

  Before the spasm was over, the cabin door flew open and Uncle Jim, with the pup in his pocket, stood squinting at his miserable, mud-caked visitor.

  “Brighty! You?” he whispered in unbelief. He walked around the dejected creature, examining him on all sides.

  “My poor li’l ole hermit,” he said, “wearin’ the battle scars o’ freedom.” He lifted Brighty’s foot and felt the ankle swollen from the cactus spine. “Ye sure been a target fer trouble.”

  The pup, forgotten, began a shrill yipping which was answered by all the hounds in the kennel.

  “Dang it!” Uncle Jim sputtered. “It’s so noisy around here a feller can’t hear hisself think. Ye wait, Brighty, whilst I put the pup to bed in my old wool sock. Then I’ll bring ye bottles and brews and we’ll lick yer troubles. Ye wait now.”

  Brighty closed his eyes. He had no intention of doing anything but waiting. He must have dozed off, for when he woke with his coughing, there was Uncle Jim at his side.

  “This blanket weren’t made for no li’l bitty burro,” he was saying. “It’s mule-size!” He took a fold in the middle and pinned it in place with safety pins. Next he found two flat stones, and using them as tweezers pulled out the cactus spine in a fraction of a secon
d.

  “Thar!” he said. “One thorny in the flesh is gone!”

  Brighty did not even flinch. He let the gentle hands feel the puffiness around the sore, let them wind a bandage around the ankle. “Learned this trick from Old Timer,” Uncle Jim said, talking as he worked. “First ye wraps the festered place like this, and then ye pours a strong brew o’ tea on the bandages. And by and by it draws out all the pizen.”

  The tea sloshed over Brighty’s foot. He sniffed the aroma, and a violent spell of coughing came on that made Uncle Jim reach for the bottle marked “Liniment.”

  With firm strokes he rubbed the liquid on Brighty’s throat from ear to ear. “Hot, ain’t it? And guaranteed to make yer circulation flow fast as the Colorado.”

  Brighty snorted at the smell, curling his lip.

  Uncle Jimmy laughed. “I plumb forgot how ye hates even a mention o’ the river.” A sudden thought struck him. “Could be ye got doused in it?”

  Brighty’s head was nodding with weariness.

  “Wait!” Uncle Jimmy said. “Jest one more smidgen of medicine and then ye kin doze to yer heart’s content.” He whittled a piece of wood in the shape of a paddle and poured a mound of thick brown cough syrup on it. Then he pulled out Brighty’s tongue and plastered it with the syrup. “Now then,” he commanded, “swaller! Quick-like!”

  Brighty fought the medicine until it slobbered out of his mouth, staining the doorstep.

  “A fine how-de-do!” Uncle Jim said. “Same stuff as I give to Teddy Roosevelt years ago when he taken cold. Name me another burro what ever got a taste o’ President’s medicine. Fer shame!”

  Uncle Jimmy measured out another dose, but Brighty clamped his teeth and turned his head.

  “All righty. You win.” He screwed the cap on the bottle. “I’m thinkin’ ye had enough doctoring fer now, anyways. And maybe sleep’s the thing.”

  Some of the medicine had spilled on Uncle Jim’s hand and he licked it up with his tongue. “Peeeeuw!” he said, and spat the brown stuff as far as he could. “Grasshopper juice couldn’t taste bitterer. No wonder the President’s a great man. Anybody what’ll down this will down a heap o’ things and come up, big teeth a-grinnin’.”

  He pulled the blanket close around Brighty’s neck, pinning it tighter. Then he gathered up his bottles and brews and laid them quietly in the basin. He waited until Brighty’s eyelids closed before he tiptoed into the cabin and shut the door behind him.

  Silence filled the twilit meadow except for Brighty’s harsh breathing and the wind rustling the tiny new leaves of the aspen trees.

  THE CARROT CURE

  FOR BRIGHTY the days followed one another in a dull sameness. All around him there was the blue of lupine and the pink of spring beauties, and meadow grass showing green. But he looked out of film-covered eyes and his days were gray.

  The festered place on his ankle was healing clean. It was the cough that persisted. What hurt Uncle Jim was the way Brighty’s head nearly touched the ground when the spasms came on. And the sound he made was a kind of croaking, like an old man dying. It was worse at night, and penetrated Uncle Jim’s sleep so that he tossed and turned on his bunk, wondering what to do.

  When he awakened one morning, he pulled on his corduroys instead of his overalls and made a beeline for Brighty. “I’m goin’ to town,” he said, “fer two reasons. One is, I promised to see the sheriff, who’s heard talk of a badman hidin’ out in the canyon. But the prime reason is to buy me the tools that’ll get cough-mix down yer gullet, or my name ain’t Lion-killer Jim!”

  He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the corners of Brighty’s eyes. “Sometimes inside o’ me,” he said, “I get skeered, almost. I don’t like the way yer eyes is scummed over and runny.”

  As Brighty watched Uncle Jim ride off on his white mule, the meadow was suddenly unbearable. The silence shrieked at him and the trees seemed to be growing taller while he himself grew littler and littler. The blanket was smothering him and the forest deer were closing in on him.

  With a frightened bellow he bolted through the circle of deer, going after Uncle Jim, trying to run to him. But the path rose and dipped, and the old mule seemed to be playing hide-and-seek. Half running, Brighty followed the hoof tracks. Occasionally a shaft of sunlight struck down on the mule and Brighty ran faster, his lungs pumping for air, his blanket flapping in the wind. Running made him cough, and he had to stop and wait for enough strength to go on. And so the distance between them widened and widened until the white mule was nothing but a wisp of dust. Then even the dust was gone.

  Burro-wise, Brighty stopped in his tracks. There was no use going on. He looked about him and saw cows huddled in a meadow, and a two-story ranch house squatting in a little cup of land. Tiredly he turned in to join the cattle, who stood gazing in wide-eyed curiosity at him and his gaudy blanket.

  The ranch house Brighty had come upon had been built by Mormon cowmen and was still used as summer headquarters. Homer Hobbs was helping the men there while he waited for Wiley’s Camp to open. He had waved to Uncle Jim on his mule and was not surprised when Brighty showed up a little later.

  Even with the blanket covering the burro from ears to tail Homer recognized him and called to him softly by name. He led Brighty up to the house and coaxed him to drink warm cow’s milk. But a lick of salt and a swallow of water were all he wanted.

  With Homer’s hands comforting him and straightening his blanket, he fell into a kind of stupor and waited out the day. He was aware of calves bawling and cows answering. But these were faraway sounds, and the big-eared, brown-eyed faces were seen through a haze.

  Late in the afternoon he started back to Uncle Jimmy’s meadow, and arrived home only a few moments before he heard the galloping hoofbeats of the white mule.

  Uncle Jim did not come to Brighty at once. He disappeared into the cabin just long enough to feed the squealing pup. Then out he came, arms loaded with a curious assortment—a bunch of carrots, a chunk of salt, and a washbasin filled with soapy water. The bottle of cough mixture he had carefully hidden in his back pocket.

  “Now, Brighty,” he smiled, “by all the laws of donkeydom ye should have a nacherel taste fer carrots. And I’m goin’ to work on ’em right here so’s to stir up yer saliva juices.” He selected an extra large carrot and cut off the top with his knife. Then with a small auger he drilled a hole down the center. “By grab!” he chuckled as he worked. “If this idea was to click, I’d feel chesty as any doctor that had cured a croupy kid.”

  He pulled a funnel from his pocket and fitted it into the hole. Then he turned his back on Brighty and poured a little cough medicine into the carrot. Next he cut off the tip end, and using it as a cork he carefully sealed the medicine inside.

  All this while Brighty stood huddled in his blanket, watching. He saw Uncle Jim wash his hands furiously in the basin, wipe them on his pants, and take a whiff of them.

  “Nary a trace o’ medicine-smell,” he said. “Funny how I’ll scrub and scour fer ye, boy, much as I dislikes the shriveled-up feeling ye get from soap and water.”

  He picked up the carrot and held it to his nose, chuckling. “Smells nice and carroty!” Next he chiseled some salt off the salt block, pounded it fine with the butt of his knife, and sprinkled it over the carrot. “No one,” he laughed, “not even a smart feller like ye, Brighty, would suspect that this-here goody is a capsoole with a nip o’ cough-mix in it.”

  Brighty’s head was nodding when Uncle Jim came over to him, the carrot outstretched on his hand. He stooped down, and for a long moment he held the carrot to Brighty’s nose. Nothing happened. Just as he was about to give up in failure, he saw the nostrils flutter to draw in the smell. He saw the tongue slowly reach out to lick the salt. Then the lips closed on the carrot and his hand was empty. He heard the crunching sound and saw the jaws working, and the dark, sad eyes regard him.

  A choking filled Uncle Jim’s throat. “By thunder!” he said softly, “I don’t know when I�
��ve been so tickled with myself! Presidents and burros ain’t so different, after all.” He laughed in relief. “If I recollect proper, I used to doctor up Teddy Roosevelt’s dose in a cup o’ hot tea!”

  As the days went by, Brighty swallowed a hidden dose of medicine with every carrot he ate. And with each dose his strength grew and his coughing petered out.

  When he was all well again, he seemed so happy and frisky that Uncle Jim had to smile just looking at him. Mornings now, Brighty could hardly wait for the trip to the spring. Often he started out first, then came running back again and again to hurry Uncle Jim along.

  The summer spent itself with Brighty acting as waterboy for Uncle Jim and Homer Hobbs, too. And he seemed more generous than ever in giving rides to the children at Wiley’s Camp.

  The sheriff came by every now and again to talk about mysterious doings at the Little Mimi Mine. He looked pounds thinner and was irritable as a mule in a cloud of mosquitoes.

  “It’s my ulcers!” he fretted. “A crime unsolved is like a fire burnin’ in the pit of my stomach. Every time I go into Old Timer’s tunnel there’s marks of fresh digging, but the digger himself ain’t nowhere to be found!”

  When autumn came again, Brighty did not head toward the canyon. Each morning there he was, sitting white-bellied and happy in Uncle Jim’s meadow.

  “Hey, feller, ye’re way late migratin’,” Uncle Jim warned one day. “Why, I got on my long-handled drawers a’ready and an extry pair o’ wool socks. Soon I’ll be goin’ over to Wiley’s to take down the tents. And next thing ye know, I’ll be tidyin’ up my own cabin and lopin’ off to Fredonia. It’d sure be funny were ye to hibernate in town with me!”

  Less than a week later the sky promised a freeze, and Uncle Jim put a question to Brighty. “If’n ye ain’t goin’ to winter in the canyon where it’s warm, how’d ye like to cozy up in the corral with my ole white mule tonight?”