moving, forcing Midnight to stay close to her side. The white starlight
dimly outlined rocks and trees. They came to an open meadow but she
did not halt. Midnight forgot the fear that had very nearly paralyzed
him. He wanted to stop and rest. In the center of the meadow his mother
halted and let him drink. As he eagerly fed she kept testing the night
air, stamping her feet nervously and looking back down the trail. When
Midnight had finished his lunch she moved on toward the high, dim hills
looming above the canyon.
The cougar followed the trail of the horses for a while, but his
smashed shoulder was giving him much pain, and he finally climbed on a
ledge where he stretched his tawny length on a rocky bed and fell to
licking the gash. Had he escaped unhurt he would have circled above
the mare and her colt until he found a ledge from which he could attack
again.
Lady Ebony kept moving throughout the night. The gray dawn found her
going steadily upward. Just before noon they entered the oak belt at
the base of the Crazy Kill Range. There she found a stream and an open
meadow. Midnight insisted upon lying down to rest. No amount of coaxing
would rouse him. He lay stretched out in the sun and closed his eyes.
Lady Ebony was hungry. She began feeding close to where he slept. By
the time he had finished his sleep she was grazing peacefully.
Mother and son spent long, sunny days in the meadow surrounded by oak
brush. Lady Ebony seldom thought of the high mountain meadows. She had
no desire to go anywhere at all. Midnight was beginning to feel that he
was a grown horse. He danced and kicked and raced around. He even tried
to make his mother do what he thought she should do. When she calmly
ignored him and went on feeding he would lay back his ears and bare his
teeth, nipping at her until she humped her back and threatened to lash
out at him.
Many enemies passed the meadow and several paused to look at the fat
colt and his mother. Two old lobos halted and calmly watched the colt
at play. Coyotes trotted through the meadow in pairs or singly. An
old bear shambled out of the oak brush and charged after a ground
squirrel. He passed close to the frightened mother and her son but paid
no attention to them. The killers were finding life easy. The hills
abounded with grouse and rabbits as well as every species of squirrel.
There were many mule deer, too. Old does watched over playful fawns
growing strong and independent. The killers need not face the lashing
feet of an infuriated mother horse to kill all they could eat. So they
looked and went their way.
Midnight tried to make friends with the does. They were not afraid of
him but they were not friendly. They stared at him out of calm eyes
when he came near them, and they snorted and trotted at him when he
tried to run with their fawns.
One evening Midnight saw a deer feeding at the edge of a clearing. He
trotted over to the big-eared one in a friendly manner. But this one
was different from the does. He had long, branching antlers and snorted
aggressively when he halted and whinnied eagerly. Midnight stood
staring at the strange deer with branches on his head. The buck snorted
again. His horns were beginning to harden and the velvet was dropping
away from their sharp spikes. With the hardening process his shoulders
had begun to swell and his temper was becoming uncertain.
Midnight moved a little closer. He humped his back and kicked up his
heels. The buck grunted angrily, then snorted. With a shake of his head
he lowered his sweeping antlers and trotted toward the colt. Midnight
circled and the buck circled. Midnight whirled and raced away. This
fellow wanted to play. He’d give him a run around the meadow.
The buck jerked up his head and shook it. He had routed the enemy and
was satisfied. He began feeding again, cropping the weeds and shoots,
champing steadily. Midnight circled and galloped back to the old buck.
This time the big fellow charged. The colt realized that the antlered
deer wanted to fight and not play. Kicking his heels high he fled to
his mother’s side.
Lady Ebony ran toward the buck and the big fellow bounded into the
timber. Midnight felt he had won a great victory. He celebrated by
charging around the meadow at a terrific pace. Lady Ebony watched him
as he ran.
But a day came when the mare felt an urge to move on. Summer had
slipped away and fall had brought frost and sharp winds from the peaks
above. The high, barren reaches above timber line were white with new
snow. Lady Ebony remembered the roundup when riders came to the high
mesa and drove the horses down to the feed grounds in the valley. She
moved about restlessly and finally struck off up the slope. Winter was
coming and she was ready to go down the long trail to the home ranch.
Her brief training with the wild band was forgotten, she was again a
willing captive of man’s way.
* * * * *
With the passing of summer Sam grew more listless and weary. He hated
to take his daily walk in the padded yard behind the high walls which
shut out the sight of his mountains. He preferred to sit in his cell
and stare at the changing cottonwood branch. He had chalked another
fall on his cell wall, but he thought about it for a week before he
put the mark down. He was tired but he’d get over that once he was
back on his mountain mesa where he could sit in the sun and watch his
neighbors.
7. The Way of the High Country
There were many inviting meadows along the trail which led up to the
high mesa. The aspen groves were inviting in the daytime, the rugged
hillsides were rich with herbs and frost-ripened grass. Lady Ebony and
Midnight did not hurry. Indian summer filled the valleys below with
purple haze and the air was warm and smoky. They passed through a wild,
rough country, across a high ridge by way of a deep saddle, then they
dropped down to the mesa where Lady Ebony was born and where she had
spent all her summers except one.
Below the mesa the aspen belt flamed in garments of brilliant yellow.
The rustling leaves would cling to the branches for a few more days.
The first gale sweeping down from the snow peaks would loosen them
and send them sailing to their beds along the slope. The oak belt,
below the aspens, was red and purple like the upholstery of a piece
of expensive furniture in its design and blending of color. Fall was
flaunting its brightest colors for a few short days. Lady Ebony stood
on the edge of the meadow and looked across the brown grass to Sam’s
cabin, silent and deserted. She nickered softly and trotted toward
the weathered cabin. Halting before the closed door, she pawed the
ground and whinnied louder. There was no answer. Old Sam did not come
shuffling out to give her lump sugar.
The old yellowbelly sentinel chuckled from his perch on the high rock.
He did not seem to understand that the black mare had been away. He did
not shrill his warning whistle or jump down from his high perch. The
calico chips dashed about in frantic haste, their cheeks pouched out
with seeds and dry bits of roots. They realized that there was but a
short time in which to complete their work of filling caches of food.
The fat-bellied rockchips sat and stared into the blue-and-purple haze.
They intended to do a little more work but the sun was warm and they
were fat and lazy.
A saucy chipmunk jumped to the top of a weed and sat there, swaying
back and forth. His high-pitched “chock, chock, chock” rang across the
meadow. Instantly every member of his tribe mounted a sing perch and
their chorus rang out. The song pitched higher and shifted to “check,
check, check, chir-r-r-up.”
At the far end of the meadow the dog town burst into excited barking
and saucy “squit-tuck’s.” Lady Ebony tossed her head. This was home
and her welcome back was what it should be except for the closed door
of the old cabin. Midnight bounded around, kicking his heels high
and bucking. Lady Ebony walked around the cabin and sniffed eagerly.
Her nose told her something was wrong. The familiar smells were dim
and cold, the taint of Sam’s rank pipe, the pungent smell of the man
himself, a smell so definite and different from that of the dwellers of
the wild. Midnight raced about. He was not greatly interested in the
cabin, though he had never seen or smelled anything like it before. He
wanted to play, so he galloped away across the meadow, dry clods flying
from his pounding hoofs.
Lady Ebony settled down to wait. She expected Sam with his lumps of
sugar and she expected Tex and the boys from the ranch. These thoughts
were rather vague, but they were strong enough to keep her in the
meadow and to overcome her uneasiness as her nose warned her of coming
storms. A week of Indian summer passed with warm hazy days and snapping
cold nights. Both Lady Ebony and Midnight had grown thick, warm coats
and the nights did not bother them. Frost carpeted the meadow with
white jewels every night, and every day the sun melted the frost. Sam
did not come and Tex did not come galloping out of the timber at the
head of his roundup crew. The crew had finished its work in the high
country the week before Lady Ebony’s arrival, and had left the brown
grass and the everlasting green spruce to the blizzards and the deep
snows. The horses and the white-faced cattle were all accounted for.
One afternoon a change came in the weather. The air had been snapping
cold for days with the sun’s rays softening it but little. It became
softer and warmer. Gray clouds raced over the timbered slopes, rolling
low, touching the tops of the highest spruce. The gray wall swept down
over the spruce and over the meadow. Snow began falling, big, soft
flakes that sailed down like loosened leaves. The snow settled through
a deep silence which filled the woods and lay heavy on the meadow. The
chickaree squirrels in the tall spruce worked frantically, cutting
cones from the branches, dropping them to the ground with steady,
thumping sounds. They chattered and scolded as they worked. The old
yellowbelly left his perch and romped to his den under the castle rock.
The calico chips and the chipmunks and the fat-bellied brownies retired
for the long night which was to last until spring came. The mesa was
deserted, leaving only Lady Ebony, Midnight, and the big flakes of snow.
The wind rose and came roaring down. The great spruces swayed and
moaned as the wind rushed through their branches and tore at their
needles. The big flakes were powdered to fine dust and eddied in and
out among the brown grass stems. The aspen leaves danced and swirled as
they floated from the white branches. In less than an hour the uplifted
arms of the silver trees were naked. But where each leaf had loosened
its hold a brown bud peeped down, wrapped up in a warm little muffler
and hood. The round leaves whirled along the ground and piled deep on
the lee side of big trunks and in deep hollows on the slope. Under the
bed of leaves the columbine and the paint weed and the lupine felt
safer and warmer.
Lady Ebony led Midnight to the lee of the cabin where they stood with
heads down, backs to the sifting snow. All afternoon the white wall
pressed close around them. Darkness came early, a black, solid darkness
which blotted out every object, even the cabin wall close to their
noses. In the morning the blizzard was still raging furiously. The snow
was deep on the meadow, as deep as the knees of the black colt.
Lady Ebony fought her way out to the edge of the mesa and began pawing
for grass. Midnight went with her and helped. They dug down and found
a mat of rich, cured grass. With their tails to the lashing wind they
fed. When they had eaten their fill they returned to the lee side of
the cabin and Midnight had a scant but warm meal. Then he lay down.
The snow melted around his body and froze into ice at the edges of the
curves.
For three days the storm raged. When it cleared and the last of the
gray clouds scurried away over the tops of the green spruce on the
wings of the dying wind three feet of snow lay on the level mesa and
four or five feet in the hollows and drifts. In places the wind had
swept the dry snow away from the grass and feeding was easy for the
horses. But snapping, biting cold followed the storm, making their
breath plume out in wreaths of white fog and causing icicles to form on
their nose hair and chins. Their faces were covered with white frost
from their breathing.
Midnight showed keen interest in this new world. It was a white world,
a silent world of snow and green spruce. The biting cold made him
plunge through the deep drifts and snort eagerly. One other dweller of
the high country, who could not sleep through the cold months, came to
the meadow. An old timber-line buck had chosen to stay in the high mesa
country defying the cold and the snow. The does and the fawns and the
spike bucks had drifted downcountry before the storm. The two-points
had gone with them and most of the four-points. The timber-line monarch
stayed because he was wary and shunned the ranch-dotted valleys below
the storm belt. He preferred the savage cold and the stalking killers
to the rifles and dogs of the men who lived in the low country.
He dug down into the snow seeking herbs and twigs. He did not care
for the dry, rich grass, and he watched the mare and her colt without
interest, staring at them, then shaking his heavy antlers and returning
to his feeding. The old fellow knew the dangers he faced, he had met
them before and expected to meet them again.
The clear, cold weather held for a week. The days were sparkling and
crisp, the nights blue and bitterly cold, with white stars reflecting
their countless points of light upon the gleaming snow fields. In
the aspen groves trees snapped and popped as the frost sought their
hearts. Lady Ebony left the lee of the cabin and found a sheltered spot
beside one of the big castle rocks at a point near the edge of the deep
canyon. A narrow ledge trail led up to the shelter and an outthrust
layer of rock furnished a roof so that the earth under the shelter was
free from snow. A shoulder of the wall shut off the wind, making the
retreat really a barn.
A crevice in the roof of the shelter harbored a nest of pack rats.
Sticks, pine cones, bright rocks, and other things dear to the heart of
a trade rat had been crammed into the crevice until they spilled out on
the floor. The whole cave was tainted with rat smell, pungent and musty.
The black robes of the mare and her colt grew shaggy and thick, as
the bitter cold deepened. Lady Ebony and Midnight were forced to seek
grass at the upper end of the meadow below the cabin because the wind
struck that part of the mesa, clearing the snow away. Every morning
they plunged through deep drifts to reach the wind-swept portion of the
meadow, returning again at night to their shelter.
The week of clear weather was broken late one afternoon. Clouds began
to cluster around the high spires of the Crazy Kills. They crept into
high craters and wound around the tall, granite cathedrals on top of
the world like great cats stalking their prey. Above they were silvery
white and gleamed like jeweled blankets, below they were dark gray and,
in spots, black.
A feeble sun shone on the mesa, and two yellow sun-dogs blazoned forth
on either side of it like sentinels. The air was still and the silence
deep. Slowly the temperature rose and Midnight sniffed eagerly and
plunged about in the snow. He was disturbed but did not know why. Lady
Ebony jerked up her head and tested the air. She knew another storm was
coming. Then the clouds rolled down over the spruce, blotting out the
shining mountain peaks, the big soft flakes came and later the lashing
wind. Another blizzard gripped the high mesa. With the wind came
cutting cold that stabbed through even the thick coats of the horses.
Lady Ebony headed across the meadow toward their shelter.
For many days the blizzard raged and roared and the snow fell. When the
storm cleared, the snow was deeper than it had been in many winters.
It piled in great, hundred-foot drifts along the comb ridges, in lips
which thrust themselves out over the spruce below. Slides roared into
the canyons as those lips broke and shot down the steep slopes. The
white terrors mowed swaths through the spruce and tore great boulders
from their beds, grinding them to dingy gray rivers of twisting,
roaring debris which cascaded into the creek bottoms and slid up the
far slopes. The thunder of the slides shook the mesa and the ridges,
starting new rivers of snow.
When the white death roared, Midnight always crowded close to his
mother’s side and stared up at the ridges trying to see the monster
that could roar louder than any animal he had ever heard. Lady Ebony
was disturbed but she nickered reassuringly to her son and did not lead
a charge through the deep snow.
Digging for food was a job which required all the short day. The upper
end of the meadow still offered the best feed ground, though the snow
lay three feet deep on that part of it. The timber-line buck came
down from a bed in the rocks and fed close to the horses. He ate much
grass now because he could not scoop the snow away so easily as the
horses did. And he browsed on willow growing along the stream, but such
feeding meant fighting snow six feet deep. Sometimes he followed the
horses and ate the weeds they uncovered and left untouched.
Lady Ebony and Midnight came to expect the timber-line buck to join
them in their battle for food. The three fed close together in
comradeship. Theirs was a common fight against a common enemy. The buck
no longer charged at Midnight when the little horse walked up to him.
And Lady Ebony no longer whinnied warningly when her son approached the
antlered monarch.
Life was hard for the three on the mesa, but not as hard as it was for
the killers who roamed the silent forests. The gray wolves and the
cougars hunted daily, their sides gaunt. The snowy owls beat along
the edges of the timber, their glassy eyes staring down savagely. But
there was little food. The snow had not crusted and the gray wolves
and the cougars could not overtake the hardy mule deer remaining in
the mountains. They wallowed and floundered while the deer and the elk
bounded up and clear of the clinging drifts. Night and day the killers
hunted with savage intensity, their yellow eyes flaming with savage
hunger. When one of a wolf pack was wounded or crippled, the pack
turned on him and devoured him as they would any lesser prey.
A day came when the weather moderated, the sun shone, and the snow
softened and settled. A warm wind blew from the valleys below. The wind
melted the top snow to a depth of several inches. That night the cold
returned, the trees popped, and the air was still and brittle. Frost
crystals coated the willows along the stream and made brilliant jewelry
of every branch and twig rising above the snow. The trees looked like
rock candy. The slushy snow froze into ice and the world was coated
with a hard armor. And now the gaunt killers could race swiftly over
the surface while deer and elk broke through. The killers slaughtered
savagely, gorging themselves on fresh meat until they could not run.
The coyotes and the owls fed at the tables of the great ones after the
hunters had passed on to fresh kills.
Lady Ebony and Midnight found the battle to reach the cured grass
under the snow much more difficult, now that the ice had come. They
were forced to feed later into the night in order to fill their
bellies. They pawed and smashed at the thick armor covering the
drifts. A full moon shone down, its white light flashing back from the
glistening ice. The air was snapping cold as night settled, but Lady
Ebony delayed returning to their shelter. They had not fed well that
day. She was pawing down the crust, then scooping away the loose snow.
The old timber-line buck followed close behind the two horses. He was
gaunt and lank. His slender hoofs made poor weapons against the ice.
The air was still with the stillness of a dead world. Suddenly Lady
Ebony jerked up her head. From the ridge above the mesa came the cry
of an old lobo wolf and his bachelor pack. They were racing down from
the high barrens seeking prey. The old lobo had not led his sons into
the lower country. He was wise and cunning and had kept his pack high
above the ranches with their poison sets, their traps, and their guns.
He preferred the savage struggle of the snow-locked high country to the
sure death lurking in the open valleys. He had ranged above the belt
where the deer and the elk wintered and had not led his sons to a kill
in more than a week. The slaughter going on lower down the slope had
not been shared by these gaunt killers.
Lady Ebony listened intently. The pack was running down the ridge above
the mesa. She shook her head restlessly and looked across the meadow
toward the castle rocks. Turning she took a few steps toward the lower
end of the meadow. The timber-line buck grunted protestingly as he
floundered out of her way. Midnight kept on digging in the snow. He was
still hungry. The snarling of the pack sounded farther down the ridge
and Lady Ebony turned back to where Midnight was pawing. The howling
rose in savage crescendo. The pack had swerved and was heading toward
the meadow.
The timber-line buck did not wait to listen. He began floundering and
plunging across the open toward the woods where he knew the warm sun
had not softened the snow so that it crusted. Here he could double and
bound; his speed would save him from the gray ones.
Lady Ebony snorted and whirled. She took one long leap, then halted and
looked back, nickering loudly, warningly. Midnight stood looking at
her. He was chewing a mouthful of grass he had pulled from under the
snow. He swallowed the grass and thrust his head back into the hole. He
had found a good mat of grass and meant to finish it. The howling pack
did not disturb him greatly. He had never been attacked by wolves. All
the wolves he had met had loped away when he ran toward them.
Lady Ebony leaped back to his side and crowded against him. She
whinnied excitedly and pawed the snow, then whirled and leaped a few
yards toward the rocky point. Midnight pulled up a tasty mouthful of
grass and munched at it, then dived down for more. Lady Ebony was
frantic. She plunged at him and nipped his rump sharply.
Midnight’s hips jerked and he lashed out with his hoofs, striking his
mother a smashing blow. She had never bitten him so severely before and
his temper flared. Lady Ebony charged at him again. She had to make him
follow her.
Up in the spruce the old lobo heard her whinny and the tone of his
howls changed from hungry yelping to savage eagerness. Instantly his
sons, leaping at his side, took up the cry. After many days of stark
hunger the old one had led them to a kill.
The gray killers burst out of the darkness under the spruce, running
madly, their fangs gleaming, their red tongues lolling. They flashed
into the gleaming moonlight like shadows. Midnight jerked up his head.
He saw the glowing, yellow eyes of the killers, the white fangs, and
the red tongues as the wolves leaped across the crusted snow. Fear
gripped him, and with a wild squeal of fright he plunged away, breaking
through the crust, floundering, stumbling.
Lady Ebony did not rush after him. She knew they could not both escape
the swift shadows so close upon them. With a toss of her flowing mane
she plunged toward the pack. After charging a few yards she halted and
her front hoofs rose. A defiant, screaming cry came from her chest.
The wolves leaped in on her, dodging her flailing hoofs, their fangs
reaching from every side. The old lobo leaped straight at her throat
while his sons swarmed around her. One smashing hoof struck the lobo
and sent him spinning across the glare of ice. But as she hurled the
old one from her, two young wolves ripped her flanks while another tore
a gash in her shoulder. They leaped and lashed and ripped, springing
in, darting away.
Lady Ebony could not run and the deep snow kept her from pivoting to
meet the rear attack. She was doomed and she knew it, but she did not
try to plunge away. Her son was floundering to the safety of the ledge
and she had to hold the pack where they were until he reached the
castle rocks.