“Well, now that was a help. Thanks,” Bill said, when the three of them stood on the firm trail again. Doug felt wonderfully important.
Rounding the wall of the glacial bed, the three walked into a powerful wind. It took strength to stand against it. It roared as it blew out of the cirque and flowed down the moraine.
Lodestone dropped his head, and Bill leaned with him. There was no trail here. The horse picked his way along a narrow stony ledge. They pushed forward slowly for about twenty-five feet, before the trail appeared again. They were standing on the rim of the glacial basin of Mt. Avery.
The wind was less. Doug held on to the rocks and looked at the grim land before him. At the bottom of the glacial cut there was snow. Around their feet were the dwarf trees and plants of the true alpine meadow. The flowers were intensely brilliant above the last fortress of trees. Beside Doug stood a spruce tree. It was more a beaten-down twisted mat than a tree, though it might have been seventy-five years old. The biting cold winds cut it down to the snow level in winter so that in all its long life it had not grown more than one foot high. Its stunted limbs twisted in the direction of the winds, and it reached low over the ground in the lee of a protecting ledge.
Lodestone began to climb with spirit. He scrambled to a cliff, which was reddened with the presence of iron ore, and trotted around it to another meadow. Here he stopped. Grandpa patted his neck, and trudged slowly toward them, squinting in the uncovered sun and trying to catch his breath in the rarefied air.
“There it is, boy!” Bill said with excitement. His weatherbeaten eyes were small glittering creases in his brown face.
Doug stood still and looked. A large hole, about as tall as a man and as wide as three men, was cut into one of the bare rock veins on the mountainside. To one side of it was a rock pile, the dump where Bill discarded quartz, granite, and feldspar.
Doug climbed up to the tunnel and looked into the dark shaft. It did not glitter. It was dark, like any other hole in the ground. He came back silently and helped Bill set up their tent, unroll the sleeping bags, and get the old sheepherder’s stove placed out of the wind.
It was well past noon when they sat down to brown bread, cheese, jam, and tea. They had been climbing for six hours and Doug was so tired that his legs shook. He rolled onto the thin mat of dwarf willows, miniature grasses, sedges, and pink rock phlox. He fell asleep.
Whispering Bill did not sleep, he sat against a stone, with his hat pulled over his eyes, and listened to the unending wind. Lodestone grazed the alpine meadow.
Late in the afternoon when all of them were refreshed, Bill took Doug into the mine and showed him the vein of rock that they would blast in the morning. By flashlight it did shine, but not like gold or silver. It was black ore, and heavy.
“It’s rich,” Whispering Bill said, as he broke off a piece with a pick. “There’s gold in it, silver in it, some lead and maybe a little copper.” He turned it over and over as he spoke, as if his words would bring the precious minerals flowing out of the ore into his hands.
For supper they ate beans and pemmican, dried venison pounded into paste with fat and berries. When his tea had cooled to the point where he could pick up the tin cup, Doug drained it and crawled joyfully into his sleeping bag.
He was getting warm and sleepy when a horrible moan brought him up, shivering with fright. His grandfather reached out and patted him.
“It’s just the wind,” he whispered. “It doesn’t like it up here and it’s trying to find its way down to Gothic.” Doug wriggled deeper into his sleeping bag.
The wind howled, the tent shook, and the rocks rolled down the side of the mountain. Doug lay awake listening in rigid fear.
Suddenly he was sitting bolt upright, staring into the blue shadows of the night. His nose was cold, his chin was icy, but he did not feel them. He was listening to a terrible sound, and it was coming closer and closer.
It seemed as if great stones were breaking off and plunging down the mountain. Now they seemed to be torn from the mountain right above his head. With a gigantic rumble they exploded and broke. He threw off his sleeping bag and shook the old man, crying, “Grandpa, Grandpa! Quick, let’s run. The mountain’s falling!”
His grandfather sleepily lifted his head and listened. Doug grabbed his pants and shoes and was halfway out of the tent when the old man said slowly, “That slide’s two miles away. Go back to sleep.”
Doug dropped to his knees. At first he was relieved, then embarrassed. He half-hoped he was right. He looked out of the tent into the shadows of the alpine tundra. The side of the mountain was still. The peak loomed above them, a firm pyramid in the sky.
Gradually the roar of the slide died away, until at last only a few bumps and thuds echoed around the boulders. Grandfather was right. They were in no danger.
The next morning Whispering Bill awakened Doug before sunrise. The boy stumbled from the tent and stood shivering in the freezing dawn. He felt exhausted and as mean as a weasel. He saw his grandfather busily at work, starting the fire, boiling melted snow for oatmeal and humming happily about the camp. He knew he should help, but all he was able to do was put on more clothing and thaw his hands by the sheep-herder’s stove. He was not a cheerful companion as he poured canned milk and sprinkled sugar on his tin of cereal.
“Good morning,” he finally managed.
“Well, you sound like a rock slide yourself,” Bill chided. He grinned as he pressed his lip against his hot tin cup of coffee, testing whether it would blister or just sear.
Doug was not amused. He ate without speaking, feeling less and less pleasant as the sun rose over the peaks and lit them with soft pinks and yellows. When they had eaten, Bill took the tin cups and plates to the edge of the snow field and scoured them with ice and sand. Doug watched him. So that was all there was to dishwashing. The old man tossed the utensils into the grub box and went to the mine.
Doug huddled by the stove, nursing a thumping headache that threatened to grip his whole body.
Fifteen minutes later, old Whispering Bill appeared. He was bouncing with energy. His thin gray hair lifted with his steps. He got out the dynamite and caps and began to plan the blast.
Doug knew he should be interested. He tried to ask a question, but only tears came to his eyes with the effort. Bill looked up from his work, saw the misery in the boy’s face and decided to help him. However, he couldn’t resist a little fun. It was part of the miner’s initiation of the novice who had not yet learned how to cope with the alpine country.
“Well, boy,” he began. “Looks like you’re not getting enough sleep up here. Out star gazing all night, eh? Were you listening to the pebbles roll? Well, son, beauty is beauty, but a man has to sleep in this country to work.”
Doug was well aware of his terror of the night, and looked at his grandfather with anguish. If only he could have been right. He would have led them to cover in the mine, and then he would have been a hero. Suddenly he felt angry and kicked a stone in frustration.
“I wasn’t scared,” he said in a small voice that almost broke, and the memory of his mother’s warm house and kind presence came to him. It would have been so easy to work in the store. He wanted to be home, his head hurt, his bones ached. He had failed to stand up to the test, and he wished himself away.
The old man had had his game and as he went back to his dynamite and caps he said, “Well, son, I jumped out of my tent and stabbed at grizzly bears the first night I slept in the high country. Half froze to death I was, out of my sleeping bag so much. Wasn’t even a rock slide; just wind. I had to spend most of the next day patching up the holes I’d jabbed in the tent.
“I’ll tell you what. I wasn’t planning to do much but blast the ore today, and I can do that alone. Why don’t you crawl into that tent and go back to sleep. You’re pretty game to even get up.”
Doug smiled for the first time that morning. He appreciated Bill’s story and because he did he could almost laugh at himself. Laughing tears une
xpectedly poured from his eyes. Without another word, he fell on his sleeping bag and did not move until a muffled boom and a tremble in the earth awoke him about noon.
He sat up. His headache was gone and his body was refreshed. Before the sound of the blast had died away, Bill’s head was in the tent and he was shouting victoriously, “Doug, boy! Doug, boy! Get up! Come see what we’ve hit.”
They ran to the tunnel. Doug was about to rush in when Bill grabbed his coat.
“Wait. Wait until the smoke clears or you’ll have another headache.”
Doug sat down. The old prospector paced restlessly while they watched the smoke of rock dust and T.N.T. curl out of the mine. It went so slowly. Finally it cleared and they stepped carefully into the tunnel and picked their way back to the vein the old man had opened. Bill lifted a chunk of ore and walked back with it to the light. He turned it over slowly in his hand and his face crinkled with joy.
“It’s purty rich,” he said. “We’ll take a load down and have it assayed.”
Doug was amazed that it had to be assayed. He had thought that his grandfather was digging for pure silver and gold and certainly would recognize it when he saw it.
All at once the tremendous effort seemed silly and futile. He was exasperated. The old man had come all the way up here to get a few rocks to find out if he had a rich lode. Doug had been led to believe by all the excitement and talk that this mine was the secret of Avery—the pot of gold in the hills.
“Before we go down,” Bill said with the same enthusiasm, “we’ll have to get to timber and cut some logs to hold up this part of the roof. Go get Lodestone and we’ll do that after lunch.”
About one thirty the three lonely figures wound down the side of the mountain and disappeared into the spruce forests. They felled several sturdy Engelmann spruce. Doug chopped and trimmed all afternoon, but only one log was ready to be hauled back to the tunnel when Bill decided to stop work for the day.
After supper, Doug left the camp site and wandered over the rocks to the edge of the snow field. He bent down, for there, its roots grasping the cold snow, was a flower. The blossom was larger than the stem and leaves that bore it, and its yellow color was the most brilliant Doug had ever seen. The small plant was necessarily dwarfed here above timberline. It must escape the fierce winds and come to maturity early. Doug sat down beside it and looked at its leaves. They were thick and tough like the leaves of a desert plant. As he looked at the primrose again it reminded him of some of the blossoms he had seen one time in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. He wondered if the desert and the mountain top could have something in common. No water? But it rained up here. He looked at his cracking hands and licked his bleeding lips. They dried before his tongue had finished the sweep. The wind took all the water. That was it.
A movement on the snow field caught Doug’s eye and he looked up to see a short-legged, grayish animal trudging across the bright snow as she headed down the meadow.
It was a badger returning with a pika to her den. She wore a tawny stripe down the center of her head and a black spot behind each white cheek. She was tremendous and powerful-looking.
Doug watched the badger with pleasure, and felt a little more at home in the presence of this animal, so relaxed and at ease in the solitary mountain tops. Doug returned to camp and slept well that night.
The following day, the man and the boy got the first beam into the mine and then rested. Bill’s real belief in their work carried the boy along, until once more he felt the excitement of the summer. In the afternoon they went back for another log. They worked on the mine timbers for three more days.
On the dawn of the seventh day they loaded two bags of ore.
“I’m taking a lot of this ore down,” Bill confided. “I haven’t been kicking around these mountains for nothing. This is good. Might be worth two hundred dollars a ton.”
“Two hundred dollars a ton!” Doug repeated. Was this the fortune they had come to find? Was his grandfather crazy from the altitude, or was he telling him a prospector’s yarn so that he would not run through the streets of Crested Butte shouting “silver.”
Two hundred dollars meant that they were taking back little more than twenty dollars’ worth of ore in the two one-hundred-pound sacks.
Whispering Bill eyed his companion and saw that he was disappointed. He poked him.
“You thought it was all play, didn’t you? No sir, this is dog hard work, and a crazy way to earn a living. But look what you get. What other job takes you into the mighty heart of the mountains? What else can you do and watch badgers, and flowers that bloom in the ice?”
Whispering Bill chuckled and the sunlight shone from every furrow of his face.
The next day Doug was helping Bill break camp and tie the ore on Lodestone, before he was aware that they were working like a team. They packed some of the camping equipment but left most of the things behind for the next trip. Bill stowed the utensils that they needed at the cabin in a rucksack and handed it to Doug.
The boy was about to tie it on the horse when he realized that he was to carry it down himself. It was heavy, but he got it on his back and accepted his load. Bill led the way and they started down the mountain. Grandpa walked, too.
When they reached the beaver ponds, Doug paused. The green world was so restful to his burned eyes, and the silence of the meadow was so silent after the constant roar of the wind and rumble of the rocks above timberline.
He stood and sighed in the greenness. He had adjusted to the peaks the second day he was in them and had forgotten how noisy they were. Now the beaver ponds seemed like home, and the thought of the old cabin was glorious. The pack lightened and Doug went down the trail with a lilting step. Bill and Lodestone had trouble keeping the pace he set.
A beaver saw them coming and slapped her rough tail as she dove into the pond. Two others answered her from the opposite end of the pond. Doug saw them and stopped.
In this back country the beavers were not wary and the old female surfaced and swam toward Doug. She was heavy but she carried her forty pounds gracefully. She focused her small brown eyes on the boy as she swam. Then with no further sign of alarm she turned toward an aspen sapling floating at the edge of the pond. Lifting the green branch in her paws she ate it like an ear of corn. Doug could see the downed aspens on the hill above the pond and the skid trails the beavers had made, as they dragged them to the water.
He moved closer and the old beaver moved back into deeper water. As Doug reached the edge of the pond, she gave her warning slap and disappeared. He waited but he did not see her again. However, behind a log on the far side of the pond there was a ripple of water. The old beaver was finishing her meal out of sight.
Doug headed down toward Gothic. He hesitated at the trail to Vera Falls. No, he would not look until tomorrow.
OUT OF THE EGG
THE MORNING after he returned from the mountain, Whispering Bill Smith packed up his ore samples, mounted Lodestone, and rode down to the post office in Crested Butte to mail his prize rocks to the assay house in Pueblo. The old man did not suggest that Doug accompany him, and the boy did not ask. Although it would have been a chance to see his mother, he did not speak out for there were things at Vera Falls that held his interest. Whisky…and Molly, the weasel, who had brought her fuzzy little kits to the woodpile last night. These were on his mind.
Although it would be good to go home, Doug was satisfied to stay when he remembered that his mother would probably plan the day for him. That would be as unpleasant as getting that pulltoy when he was ten! He was a man with a trade now.
Bill did not return that night. Doug fixed his own supper, ate it, and went to bed. His thoughts were torn between the pleasure of seeing Teeter incubating her new clutch of eggs high on the canyon wall, and the disturbing thought that something had happened to Grandpa.
The following day he made breakfast for himself. He was doing the dishes, and growing more concerned as the time passed, when he heard Lodes
tone pounding around the shed. The old man came in casually as if he had only been gone two hours. He sat down in his rocking chair and stretched. When he finally spoke his face was all smile. Something good must have come from the long trip to the post office.
“We’ll know in two weeks,” he began. “Then we’ll dig that ore out of there and be on easy street. Man, sireee.”
Two more weeks, Doug thought, but this time he knew it would be a good two weeks. Whisky’s youngsters would be flying, and perhaps the young water ouzels would be hatching.
Doug stopped planning, for he realized Grandpa was talking. He was telling about the new car they would buy, the clothes and the hotel suite in Pueblo where they’d spend a few days. Doug got into the spirit of the game and suggested that they buy silver handled six shooters. Bill liked that and his dim eyes twinkled with mischief. The boy was a good one. He could spend a mythical fortune, too. Finally Doug asked, “What did you tell your old prospecting friends last night?”
Whispering Bill began to laugh.
“You know about that, do you? Well, I’ll tell you. There’ll be a lot of old sourdoughs in Washington Gulch next week.” His laughter was infectious. Doug laughed too, and then he said something that even surprised himself. He did not realize he had become so much a part of the mountains. He looked at Mt. Avery.
“Now, it’s your turn, old Jim Juddson. Laugh! ’Cause you’ve got the last one.”
Old Bill loved it. He roared like the wind in the cirque. This was the best of the Smiths since the turn of the century. This boy would make a man.
Cinclus and Teeter had been working hard against time and light. They had repeated the ceremony of egg laying, and at last Teeter was incubating.
For fifteen days Cinclus did not sing nearly as much. He spent the time that was once devoted to caroling sitting in the little runnel that poured off Gothic mountain. He stood on his moss-covered stone and rested in the cool shadows of the spruce trees. Sometimes he preened, sometimes he just stood still. After about twenty-five minutes, he would fly to the rock in the falls and call to Teeter.
Dipper of Copper Creek (American Woodland Tales) Page 7