Dipper of Copper Creek

by Jean Craighead George

  No other male came to challenge Cinclus. Already he felt that this was his territory. He even relaxed at times and flew right into the falling water. He did not go down with it, but burst through into an airpocket behind the falls. Here he settled on a small ledge, looking out at the water-blurred forms that were the trees and mountains. At these moments he felt completely secure. No land enemy could track him, nor could the red-tailed hawk that combed the mountain meadows see him. He was beyond all doubt the safest bird alive, so well protected was he by the water for which he was so marvelously adapted.

  On the third morning after his arrival at Vera Falls, Cinclus was feeding at the bottom of the roaring flume.

  He watched for an upriding current, hopped into it and was shot to the top of the water. He floated in to shore with the current. There was another dipper sitting on an old beam at the dam.

  Cinclus challenged, but this time the challenge led to no fight. Dip, dip, dip he went. He dropped his wings and fluttered them. The other bird watched but did not acknowledge the greeting. Teeter, a female, had arrived, but Cinclus was not yet sure that she was not another male. There were no bright colors or other markings to tell him.

  Cinclus chased her into the meadowland and then for the first time he realized that this new bird was to be his mate. She did not fight back. Eagerly Cinclus led her along Straight Edge Pool, past Bar Rapids, around Beaver Pond, to the quiet waters of Open Flat. Then he grounded and faced her, for this was the upper limit of his territory. There was another pair of dippers beyond.

  Teeter stopped, for she understood the limits of their land. Cinclus poured out his flowing song, and Teeter listened. Cinclus was an extraordinarily beautiful singer, and Teeter dipped her acknowledgment.

  When the song of the upper end of the territory was done, the two birds took their way downstream to the lower reaches of their land. They flew, swam, and hunted along the crystal stream, taking time to enjoy the runnels from Gothic Mountain, blue-shadowed and restless.

  At the bridge where the branch of Copper Creek met the main body of water, they stopped and fed. Cinclus would not go beyond the invisible line that he and his neighbor had marked off before Teeter’s arrival.

  After feeding awhile, Teeter winged all the way back to Vera Falls without stopping. There she alighted on the jutting beam of the old dam and studied a dome of intricately woven moss fastened on the face of the canyon wall.

  THE BOY WHO CAME TO GOTHIC

  THE TRAIL to Bill’s claim was still snowbound.

  The day after Doug arrived, Bill looked at the white peak of Avery and the snowy edges of the high meadows and judged that it would be two weeks before they could do any mining. The winter snowfall had been heavy. It would be June before the upper trails were open.

  Two weeks was no time at all to Whispering Bill, for time rides swiftly for a man of sixty years, but to Doug two weeks was a long, long time. When Bill made this decision Doug gasped. His enthusiasm for the summer work exploded and almost was replaced by tears. He did not see how he could wait that long.

  Doug was in his teens and everything within him needed action. He would run rather than walk. He broke dishes in his haste to be done with them. He never crawled into bed, he jumped. Now he felt that the decision of the old man was preposterous. What were a few snowdrifts? They could cut a path through them. If Grandpa couldn’t, he could!

  He was about to beg, when he saw that Whispering Bill was rocking quietly in his chair, reading the mining news. He looked as if he were settled for two weeks. Doug banged out of the cabin, slamming the door.

  He strode down Copper Creek watching the rushing, bubbling mountain water that was more in keeping with his spirit.

  He stopped when the stream became too treacherous to follow and looked about him. Gothic Mountain rose like a cathedral before him, its Gothic spires distinct in afternoon light.

  There seemed to be no life for miles and miles around. With a sob of disappointment he threw himself on a sand-colored boulder and wished with all his strength that he were back in Crested Butte.

  It had been a deep struggle for Doug to leave the Butte and come to the high country to dig ore with Grandpa. His mother had not wanted it, but he had finally convinced her to let him go, only to discover that he was unsure. He carried it through, however, and it was with a brave face that he rode up the long, lonely road to Gothic. The excitement of the first day was proving it a wonderful idea; then suddenly, this afternoon, everything burst. He was as unhappy now as he had been happy a few hours before.

  He thought of his mother. Last fall she had made arrangements for him to deliver groceries during the summer. Everything had been arranged until Grandpa snowshoed into town for Christmas. He enlivened the evenings with tales of gold strikes, silver veins, and men who came down from the mountains and bought whole towns.

  Doug’s mother had sighed as she listened to her father, for she remembered other details, omitted from his stories. There had been the cold nights, the hungry weeks and months that went by, her mother taking in laundry to feed the family, and the bubble of a fortune that always burst just before Grandpa reached it.

  Then she would remember that this was many years ago, and that Grandpa was a good storyteller. It was not unpleasant to see him sitting by the fire with her two younger boys, telling once again the tales of the high country.

  One morning Doug came to his mother and threw his arms about her.

  “Ma!” he said, “Grandpa is going to use me this summer. He has given me a job helping him in his mine.”

  For a moment Mrs. Kriserich could not believe her ears. What did her father have in mind, telling this youngster that he could give him a job? He could barely support himself.

  “That’s ridiculous,” she said with finality. “Tell Grandpa you can’t go. Everything is settled for you to work at John’s store.”

  “That’s no fun; that’s just plain dull!” Doug had shouted. Mrs. Kriserich had stood back and looked at Doug curiously. He meant it. She spoke to Bill later when the boys were out.

  “Pa, please,” she said. “We suffered so, we hated the ups and downs. You don’t know the shame we faced with you never getting more than a few dollars here and there.

  “You just can’t take Doug up there prospecting. He’s having enough trouble trying to settle down and find his place. I don’t want him to be a good-for-nothing.”

  “Well, Peggy,” Bill whispered with a twinkle in his eye. “Better a good-for-nothing, than a Mommy’s boy. Eh?”

  When Grandpa snowshoed off into the white wastes, he left the family in a dither, as usual. Doug was beginning to feel the need for independence and wider horizons, and Peggy was beginning to realize how much she did run her boys’ lives. There was no social life in Crested Butte since the mines had closed, and the energy she had once put into the church and school socials was now directed into her home. She had turned the full force of her organizing ability on Doug, and she knew it.

  For many months mother and son discussed and argued, until finally Peggy consented. After all she could not pass on to her son the miseries of her own childhood. He must go and find out for himself. Furthermore, spring was coming, and the ice fields would be melting. There would be avalanche lilies and purple iris blooming in the snow. The crystal cascades would open and splash down the mountains. When she thought of spring and summer in the high country, she almost forgot the sorrows.

  She had managed to get a message up-country to Grandpa by way of the ranger who was going to the hills on patrol. For if she knew her father, now that he had stirred things up, he would already have forgotten the invitation he had so generously extended. She was not going to have Doug disappointed the moment he walked into the dreary cabin.

  Whispering Bill got the message and was truly moved. Indeed he had forgotten the tempest he had stirred in Crested Butte, but the thought of having a grandson spend the summer with him made him happy. He had wished that he could remember which boy it was goin
g to be.

  The first night in the cabin, the old man and the boy spent a wonderful evening together. Bill told vivid stories of the mining camps, and Doug listened to this high adventure with all his heart. He was the perfect audience for the old fellow, and when they retired that night, both were matchlessly happy.

  The following afternoon when Bill announced the two-week delay, the elusive bubble that his mother had so often described appeared and broke.

  Doug returned from the rocks of Copper Creek an hour later, and found Grandpa sitting on the old timber that was the step to the cabin. He was doing nothing, and the sight of him forced Doug to whine, “Grandpa, what’ll I do for two whole weeks?”

  Whispering Bill shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t believe in telling a young fellow how to spend his time. Loneliness would create something or the boy would not be worth his salt on the desolate trail.

  A “gnad, cheese,” sounded from the spruce limb above the woodpile, and Whisky banged out of the boughs to tell Bill that he was hungry.

  Whispering Bill squinted at the jay and spoke real words to him.

  “Whisky, where have you been? Showing off for your girl, eh? Well, you haven’t been around all day, and I don’t know as how I’m gonna feed you.” Whereupon he got up, went into the cabin, and came back with a slice of bread generously spread with peanut butter.

  Doug forgot everything but the sight of the bird coming closer and closer to his grandfather. It seemed as if the whisky-jack were answering him in hoarse jay utterances. He flew to the roof of the cabin, and from there he dropped onto the worn brown hand. Whisky twisted off a large bite, gulped it, and flew back to the spruce bough.

  Doug asked for the bread with his outstretched hand. He was afraid to speak. Whispering Bill gave it gladly. Breathlessly Doug held it out to the camp robber. The bird studied him for a full minute with his right eye and then alighted on his hand. It was a rare moment for Doug, and he did not breathe while Whisky gobbled, even though his sharp claws pricked his skin. He could see the tiny gray feathers around the bright black eye, and the dense ones of his breast. Here was something alive and friendly that had winged out of the enormous loneliness of this wilderness. Doug looked into the dark spruce forest and knew it was not empty.

  Whispering Bill tipped his hand to Whisky and went into the cabin. Two weeks was no time at all in the high country. Doug would no sooner learn the habits and haunts of the jays than it would be time to take to the trail. He wondered if he should really open the wonders of the wilderness to the boy. The birds and animals could become more fascinating than the cold silent veins of rock.

  Doug held the bread a long time before it came to him that Whisky was no longer eating, but was breaking off pieces and carrying them into the spruce grove. He listened. He was sure he had heard a second jay hiding in the drooping boughs. He walked softly across the spongy earth and parted the limbs. There on a high limb was Whisky with another bird. It looked exactly like him. They were whispering as they ate, and since Doug no longer knew which was Whisky and which was the strange bird, he sat down to figure it out. One jay was bowing and presenting the other with a piece of bread. The second jay, acting as coy as Mary Ann Bates when you asked her to dance, took the bread in her bill, then in her feet, and finally condescended to eat it.

  When he realized one was Mr. Whisky and one was Mrs. Whisky, he dropped his head against a tree and thought about the birds and how pleased his mother would be to see them. It was quiet in the spruce grove and his thoughts wandered. He was back in Crested Butte again in the living room at home. His mother was standing before him saying:

  “Son, Grandpa is a fine old man, but he has never found anything in those mountains. Just rocks, heartaches, and poverty.” Doug repeated her words. Grandpa had postponed the trip, maybe because there wasn’t anything on Mt. Avery. His mother could be right. Then Doug had an idea of his own. Maybe Grandpa didn’t really care about gold and silver at all. Maybe he was up here alone because he loved the high country.

  Whisky flicked Doug with his wing and alighted on a low branch of the tree. Doug jumped and before he realized what he was doing, he spoke to the bird.

  “Whisky, whatever is the matter?” The bird answered with a soft call, so unlike his rowdy pronouncements, that Doug wondered if Mrs. Whisky could have laid an egg.

  Actually he was calling his mate. She was not too far away brooding their newly hatched young.

  The idea that the jays might have an egg brought Doug to his feet and he decided to follow Whisky and see.

  The bird seemed to co-operate with this plan. Whisky flew a few feet then stopped and looked back to see if Doug was coming. Doug crashed after him in high excitement.

  Whisky found this game a fine one, for he was leading Doug as fast as possible away from the nest. He was delighted that his trick was working so well. Hopping from rock to bough he took Doug to the most remote corner of his territory. It was a spot he was not too sure of himself, for another jay occasionally camped there, but it was a good place to leave the boy. It was right where the Gothic branch met Copper Creek.

  Doug pushed through the willows to the water, then searched for Whisky. He was nowhere in sight, and there was no nest, not even a tree.

  Doug laughed. He knew he had been tricked. It didn’t matter, it was a good one on him. He sat down on a gray weathered boulder that was splattered with circles of red and yellow lichens, and tossed a pebble into the rushing water. He lifted his eyes and watched the dazzling white clouds sweep over the massive peak of Gothic Mountain.

  All at once he realized how wonderful it was to be on his own. He had walked half a mile or more without telling anyone where he was going. Nobody, but one crazy old jay, knew he was here. It was almost like being a man.

  High up in the mountain he saw a gale start at timberline and sweep down into the meadowlands, springing the trees as it went. A few Audubon’s warblers rode down with it. Doug could see their yellow throats and crowns as they found low perches in the protected trees along the stream.

  Then the cold wind reached Doug and he shivered. He had really not put on enough clothing this morning. It had always been his mother who had thought of things like heavy jackets and extra socks. Grandpa had never said a word about what a person should and should not wear in the high country. For a moment he felt neglected.

  Then he remembered the chore that Grandpa had assigned him. He was to put the cornmeal mush on the stove for an hour each evening to prepare for breakfast. He thought of home and the ease of having Mother do such tasks. Being a man on your own was full of conflicts, like wanting to live in the wilderness, but not being quite ready to do all the dull things that went with it. Doug arose and stretched for the sprint home.

  A “zeet” rang from the stream bed, and Doug turned to see what had called. Had it been a call? The water rushed and sped over the stones and quietly pooled at his feet. Perhaps it was a trick of the water.

  The boy rubbed his eyes and looked into the pool. He thought he had seen a bird under the water, a little bird that ought to be singing in a tree. He had heard that some people got “altitude fever” the first week or so in the high country. He wondered if he had it and if it made you see birds in the water; but then he saw it again. A bird in a cage of water, hopping around way down on the bottom, turning stones and jabbing at unseen things.

  Doug started to drop to his knees. The bird apparently saw his awkward start, for it opened its wings and flew up through the water. There were a few circles where it took the air in its wings and abandoned the stream. Then it was acting like any little gray bird flying away from danger.

  Doug ran after it; splashing through the shallow water, running past deep pools on the rocky bank. He ignored the voice that called from his childhood reminding him that he should not get wet.

  He followed the bird deeper and deeper into the wilderness, now running, now wading, now climbing. From time to time he would lose it, and then he would round a bend and see
it riding on the water like a duck, or running along the shore like a sandpiper.

  He stopped in the canyon below the old assay house, for he heard ahead of him the thunder of a high falls and he wondered if he could get out of the canyon at all.

  Then he saw the bird dipping up and down on a rock in the middle of the rushing stream and he splashed on.

  Cinclus was quite a different bird from Whisky. He neither feared nor sought man. The running boy did not alarm him, neither was he curious about him. He was just a boy running and splashing in the water, much like a young fawn. Cinclus knew the whisky-jacks and had observed them begging from campers and fishermen, but man was so unimportant to him that he neither liked him as the jays did, nor feared him as the deer did. He was not shy either, just self-sufficient. Whisky was an obvious bird, bold, loud, one of the first birds or animals a stranger saw upon coming into the high country. Cinclus was gray like the stones, part of the water. One discovered an ouzel only after becoming acclimated and sensitive to the country.

  Cinclus had been hunting for an hour and was ready to rest. He flew up the runnel that dropped down the face of Gothic Mountain. He alighted on a favorite moss-covered rock. Beside it bounced an exquisite blossom of an alpine columbine, crisp and perfect. This was the very first columbine of the season, a flawless flower with snowy white petals, tipped with pale blue trumpet-like tubes.

  Doug did not see the bird go up the runnel, and he walked past him. He rounded a bend, crawled over a pile of logs and stood at the foot of Vera Falls. When he saw it he knew he must climb it. The route that he picked up the rocks was so close to the spray that it beaded his face with droplets. He gained the top, and looked up the narrow flume and saw the old dam.

  Doug walked up to the last touch of man in this lost country at the top of the Rockies. The sight of it made him desperately lonely. The men who had made it were so far away in cities, in towns, in graves. Suddenly he wanted to hear Grandpa’s voice, or see a sign of life. He looked across the flume at a dome of moss that could be a nest, some creature’s “home” in this solitary canyon. It was an attractive nest, with an entrance at the bottom like an igloo. Doug tried to think what animal would build a home there, and as he thought of some little creature living there, he felt better.