Dipper of Copper Creek

by Jean Craighead George

  Tippit’s breast feathers kept tickling, and when she put her bill into them to scratch and pull, feathers came out and floated away on the water. She had pulled out so many lately. Something was happening to her.

  This day in the bright sun her father paid less attention to her than he ever had before. Occasionally she called to him as he winged above her with food, but he rarely stopped. She did not know that she was almost entirely stone gray, that the buffy feathers of her fledgling days were all but gone, and that her yellow bill was turning dark. She was taking on the colors of the mature dipper, and her parents were not inspired to feed her any more.

  Tippit accepted her independence and spent many hours of the day by herself. She stayed near her family however, listening for them as they fed Diver, who, for some reason unknown to her, received much attention.

  From time to time Cinclus would find Tippit and hunt with her. At these times he would lead her to the water-washed sides of the rocks where the caddis flies laid their eggs, or to the rapids where the larvae clung to the pebbles.

  Tippit was not concerned that her parents no longer saw to her feeding, for it was exciting to go down under the stream surface in search of her own flies and crustaceans.

  She liked the white water where the bubbles passed her eyes like spinning wheels. Always below them was calmer water where she could walk down the cracks of the boulders to the floor of the stream. Life teemed in these inaccessible places, for the trout were the only other creatures that could go where Tippit went. She was wary of the trout for Cinclus had taken her to Cutthroat Pool one day. She had seen what the big fish could do. Salmo had frightened her badly.

  Down under the white foam between the boulders Tippit learned to catch elusive insects. It took great patience, for the insects could vanish with the twist of a current or the turn of a stone. She found that if she stood in the shadow of a rock, the insects and crustaceans could not see her, and she could almost always spear a larvae or a tiny crayfish.

  It was not long before Teeter and Cinclus relaxed their constant care of Diver. He was going to live.

  In three days they had overcome his three days of starvation and retarded development. Now the adults lost interest in the young. It was the seventh day after fledging that Cinclus and Teeter fed their young for the last time. It was the end of the first week in August.

  On August the twentieth, the first snow fell on Belleview Mountain. Autumn was upon the land. Already there had been one hard frost in Gothic Valley and the sneeze weeds and harebells had faded and gone to seed. The blue gentians colored the meadows. The bright green had slipped from the alpine grasses and the roadside was splotched with the umbers and tans of October in the lowlands. The sunspots and asters still bloomed—hardy little plants that could withstand several frosts.

  The days were still warm but many nights were freezing now and storms chased over the mountains. The cattlemen looked at their fattened stock and made arrangements to take them down to the railroads.

  Bill and Doug made several more trips to the mine, and Mr. Lander took the ore to the smelting house in Pueblo.

  One sunny August day a check came for William Smith of Gothic, Colorado. The old prospector sang about the ghost town in the sky from the time he opened the letter until he and his horse went down to Crested Butte. He paid off the grocery bill, then sat on the store steps in the lonely town and counted the profits.

  One of the old residents, who had not moved away when the mines closed, saw Whispering Bill Smith and his horse, Lodestone, take the road to Gothic within an hour of their arrival. He wondered what the old prospector had found in the mountains that took him away so soon. Then he remembered it was autumn in the high country, that the aspens would be turning to sunshine yellow, and that there would be good hunting up Gothic way. Nobody who had spent his life in the Rockies would miss autumn in the high country— except those who were too old.

  Doug was surprised when his grandfather returned from town so quickly. That night they each took their share of the small profits, and tied it in a sock. Then they stoked the fire, for they expected another heavy frost. The cabin was dark and cozy when Bill finally spoke what was on his mind.

  “We really ought to do a little prospecting,” he said to Doug. “We’ve worked that mine enough for the year. Maybe up Gothic Mountain, we can find some new veins. I know this country is still rich.”

  Doug was not disappointed that they weren’t going to mine any more. It would be easy to make a big profit now that their bills were paid, but that wasn’t how Grandfather worked. He really liked to just squeeze by, and Doug was not too sorry. The young of the high country were beginning to break away from their families and wander the hills looking for homes of their own. The marmots, the pikas, the coyotes, the deer were everywhere. They were easy to find and watch.

  He looked out the smoky window and saw a band of mule deer coming down the meadow toward the valley. He would move back to Crested Butte about the time they did. He really did not want to go. Wintering in the high country would be living a man’s life.

  He wondered if his mother was all right. How differently he felt about her now that the summer was over. He thought of her now as a person, as well as his mother. In fact he was sure that now she would need him to make decisions and run the affairs of the family.

  Doug rested his hard brown arm on the dusty windowsill and thought about the day he had seen Molly bite her youngster and chase him into the wilderness. That had been the young weasel’s signal to leave home and find a niche of his own. The young animal had actually seemed confused. It had started to come back and play with Molly, but she had nipped him again, and when Doug saw him last, he was crawling slowly up the rocks into a strange land. Doug had often wondered what had become of the young weasel. Had he been killed as he walked over foreign territory, or had he found a good area where he could become king?

  He had thought then that this was the way people should do it. That one day they should turn their children out into the world and close the door on them. He thought that he would spend the winter in Gothic and close the door himself.

  Now, he knew that people had to do it their own way. Independence was not as clear or decisive for people as it was for the birds and animals, but it happened, and it happened when a human child could recognize his parents, not as overwhelming figures, but as persons in their own right. Going home for him was not a question of fighting or submitting: he could begin to build the relationships befitting a man.

  Doug turned to Grandpa, who was rocking quietly in his chair planning for tomorrow. He was so glad that his grandfather had turned out to be a lovable old man who never got anywhere in the world.

  “Let’s look for silver over by Vera Falls, tomorrow, Grandpa,” Doug said. “The rocks aren’t right, but the young dippers will be getting ready to go out and seek their fortunes.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Bill answered with a twinkle, “and I’ll take my gun. If I winter in I’ll want a deer or an elk to stay me.”

  THE CEREMONY OF FAREWELL

  CINCLUS AND TEETER awoke to feel the cold air blow down from the white peak. There was new snow on Gothic Mountain. Winter was on the peaks, and it would not be long before it moved down on Gothic town.

  A young dipper flew up Vera Falls and passed Cinclus as he was preening and oiling his feathers for the morning plunge in the stream.

  Cinclus let the young male alight on the water near him. Tippit and Diver were all gray now and eating on their own, and young birds from other territories could come to visit them. The more the young ones flew up and down the stream together, the sooner they would all leave. Cinclus was not a father any more, his parental duties had been done for the year, on that day two weeks ago.

  Furthermore, Teeter and Cinclus were now faced with their own problems. They could not fly. Within the last two weeks both of the parent birds had lost their primary wing feathers. They could no longer get away from the trout and the weasels,
the minks and the hawks. They hid under rocks and behind the falls, while the new feathers were growing to flight size. They still could swim, however, and Cinclus plunged into the icy foam of the stream and went under the water to hunt. He watched a young trout of the year make its way up the stream. It was too small to be a threat.

  From root to overhanging rock Cinclus made his way past Vera Falls to Flycatcher Cliff. The flycatcher had already left the canyon and flown down the spine of the Rocky Mountains to warmer lands. Only his ragged little home remained.

  Cinclus discovered that the molting period had its rewards as well as its drawbacks. He could sit under the fringes of moss along the stream and rest. Teeter and Cinclus had put in a desperate summer. They were thin and unprepared for the winter. Since he could not fly, all he had to do was hide, rest, and eat. He fattened.

  This strange molt of the water ouzel also happened to certain male ducks. It was curious that the little passerine of the alpine waters had this in common with these drakes.

  Cinclus hopped down to Cutthroat Pool and watched Salmo feed. He knew he dared not go into the pool, but this quiet period of his life gave him a chance to study the habits of the big fish more carefully. It would not be a trout that would end the life of Cinclus, the water ouzel.

  Falco, the sparrow hawk; saw the helpless ouzels hopping along the edge of the stream, but Cinclus and Teeter also saw him. When he came to hunt from the tall tip of the spruce tree, the two birds vanished under the waterfall and hid in their camps behind the wall of water.

  Up near Lincoln Sparrow Point, Teeter sat beneath the roots of the alpine willow. Occasionally she would catch a fly, but most of the time she was watching the young dippers as they flew up and down the stream. They would skid onto the quiet pools and dive to the stream bottom, ride the currents and bob up on the water. They were perfecting their skills, for a water ouzel must know exactly what it is doing to live in the streams of the mountains. The few who misjudged were drowned.

  Among the gay party of young birds were Tippit and Diver. Teeter could still pick them out of the loose flock with no trouble at all. They performed their lessons well, but Teeter watched them only with the interest she had for any young ouzel.

  The gathering of the young birds and their Olympic performances were the last of the dipper ceremonies before they left the high country. It was a fine sight to witness, as one by one they flashed their wings and headed upstream. They were off to another territory to dive and swim and hunt.

  Teeter continued to doze and rest under the willows. Tippit and Diver now belonged to the mountains and the waters. There was no sadness on Teeter’s part, for the breeding cycle had ended and with it had died her great maternal emotions.

  There would be a day when she wouldn’t see them any more, nor would she want to.

  She looked up to see Cinclus stepping carefully toward her, keeping the willow limbs above him. He was no longer a big bird in her eyes, but an average-sized water ouzel who occasionally dipped and fluttered his wings to her as if to remind her that, even though they were no longer parents, there was another spring ahead.

  Tippit flew up the stream with the young ouzels. They followed the bright water to Rustler’s Gulch. She had come to independence gracefully, and accepted it as easily as she had the other stages of development.

  As she swam and floated on the currents she thought of nothing but the performance of the young birds around her.

  Tippit learned much about the water and the air. She also learned about the men who came to fish for trout. One day she was with Diver and another young male. They were trying to swim underwater against a swift current. The water was bright with the fallen aspen leaves, dashing overhead like yellow birds. A fly lit upon the water. Tippit lunged to take it. Her wing tangled in a thin string and she was held for a moment against her will.

  Any other bird but the water ouzel would have been snared and drowned, but so skilled was she at managing the currents and eddies that she slipped away from the line with ease. The texture of the fly remained in her memory. She did not go after such food again.

  Tippit was ready to go down the valley with the young birds. The white edge was gone from her tail, and its feathers were frayed and worn by the rocks and water. The beaten tail looked like those of her parents.

  One morning as Teeter was grooming herself, she heard a jay call. She looked up to see a young whisky-jack sitting on the branch of a pine tree not far from her. It was Whisky’s daughter. She had left her father and mother and was exploring the lands beyond her childhood territory.

  Canada Jenkins, like her father, was a scrabby bird, for in addition to the natural rumble of her feathers, she was molting. Small white feathers were splotched throughout her crown. She had enjoyed the easy living at the prospector’s cabin and had come to know Doug almost as well as her father knew him. However, her father was no longer as tolerant of her as he had been, and they often fought over Doug’s handouts. So just yesterday she had flown away and had come to the land around Vera Falls.

  Whisky had let a young male jay from Judd Falls come to the prospector’s cabin. For a few days Canada Jenkins had played with him, but she grew tired of him, for he permitted her father to dominate him. If he wanted to eat and Whisky wanted to eat, the young male simply flew away.

  It was as it had to be, since the young male had joined Whisky’s group for the winter. Whisky would be the leader of the gang during the social season, for he was older and more familiar with the land. If Canada Jenkins had remained until spring she might have become the mate of the young male, but she had an urge to explore Gothic. She left the prospector’s cabin and came to Vera Falls. In the distance she could hear the cry of strange jays. She was timid about joining them and stopped in the pine above. Tippit.

  Below her was a twin berry bush. She dropped onto it and gobbled the dark red berries. Tippit had not moved since Canada Jenkins arrived, and the jay did not see her, so exactly like a stone did she appear.

  Presently Tippit heard two young dippers coming down the stream. They were seeing how close to the canyon wall they could fly. Tippit lifted her wings and joined them as they came over the falls headed for Flycatcher Cliff.

  Canada Jenkins sensed that the water ouzels were participating in some sort of festival and she followed them as far as Cutthroat Pool. Here they all disappeared into the rapids and Canada Jenkins was left on the shore. The dipper was not her kind of bird, she could not follow them into the sparkling rapids, nor did she want to.

  She looked at the green water of Cutthroat Pool and decided to bathe.

  Cinclus, standing under the bank, watched her casually. He grew more interested as he saw how wet she became. Sodden masses of feathers lumped on her breast and wings. She fluttered, dipped, and splashed, and as she did, she grew wetter and heavier. Water certainly did not improve the appearance of the Canada jay. Cinclus stepped forward, for he remembered Salmo.

  Salmo was not unaware of what was happening. He was biding his time on the bottom of the pool, waiting until the bird came nearer.

  Canada Jenkins walked deeper into the water and reached for a drink. A fin pulled on the water and a mouth arose before her. She was too wet to fly, she splashed and fluttered toward the beach. Salmo lumped out of the water and snapped. He gripped her tail and pulled out four feathers, but he could not pull her down into the deep water with him, and he could follow her no farther.

  Screaming in terror and warning the wilderness of Salmo, Canada Jenkins managed to flutter to a dead stump and catch her breath.

  She did not see the young ouzels come out of the water and fly down to Iron Wheel Pool, for her alarm had brought the jays from the spruce forest to the trees above the stream. They scolded and “beered” and looked at the new bird, sitting wet and frightened on the stub. They hung around until she was dry enough to fly and then they took Canada Jenkins into the forest with them.

  A rock rolled on the slide above Dipper Cliff. It bounced and crash
ed onto another stone and sent it sliding. Together they pushed more and more, until the noise of the tumbling rocks caused the jays to stop screaming and listen.

  The frightened little animal, who had started it all, turned back and ran from the loose slide to the aster-filled meadow. He waited in the shelter of the flowers until the noise stopped and silence once more rested on the land.

  Marmota’s young son was round and fat. His fur was crisp and golden, but his spirit was tender and timid. He had walked from Marmota’s den for the last time this morning, and had spent many hours running from one fierce land owner to another.

  He was tired and frightened when he saw the rock slide above Vera Falls. He climbed to it hurriedly. No marmots whistled from the rocks and he was sure he could spend the rest of the day here in safety. Now, the rocks had slipped and moved, and he had to retreat to the meadows.

  He nibbled at the grass, then started on his way again. Perhaps higher, somewhere above the slide, he could find a home. He was climbing upward as Felis, the mountain lion, awakened by the cold air from the snow-covered peaks, stretched and looked across Gothic. Felis blinked his yellow eyes.

  He had not eaten well last night, for already the mule deer were moving into the valley. He would desert his mine, perhaps tonight, and follow them down-country. A bat circled his head and he snapped at it. It reeled and swung deeper into the mine. Felis scented a young marmot on the cool air, and went back to sleep. It was daylight, and no time for even a hungry cat to hunt.

  One morning in September Whispering Bill Smith and Doug stood at the top of Vera Falls. They were tired for they had been prospecting in the country around Emerald Lake. They sat down on the rocks without speaking. Bill squinted and looked at the slide that had once been such a threat to them, recalling sadly that Doug would be leaving Crested Butte in the morning.