Lifting the Sky

by Mackie d'Arge

  “The mother antelope! She’s in the cabin. Right now. Feeding her fawn.”

  Which of course meant I had a whole load of explaining to do.

  But before Mam could ask what on earth two pronghorns were doing there in the first place, I spurted it all out—or most of it. She’d still been in bed when I got back from my excursion into the hills, so I’d just called out “Good night” as I rushed up to my attic. Now I told her about the wolf, but I didn’t tell her how close I’d been to it. I told her about how I’d picked up the fawn, and how the mother antelope had followed us home. I didn’t say one word about getting caught by that Indian kid. She would’ve agreed with him. Oh yes. I’d definitely been poaching and trespassing too.

  “I won’t tell you things you already know,” Mam said when I finished. “Or should know. Especially about picking up wildlife. What’s done is done. For your sake, as well as the fawn’s, I hope the mother accepts her fawn after you’ve handled it. As for the wolf—where there’s one, there are bound to be others. We’d better keep an eye on our calves.” She leaned down and shook Pot by the ruff. “And you stick close by. No dancing with wolves, do you hear?”

  From her bedroom window, Mam and I kept an eye on the cabin doorway. I was scared the mother antelope would be frantic about the barrier door, that she’d smash against it trying to get her fawn out of the cabin. But after a short while we saw Lone One sail over the door, stop and stare back at the cabin, and then take off for the hills.

  I tugged on my boots, grabbed my ripped coat, and rushed outside. Mam followed. In the sleepy dawn, long blue shadows stretched across the white fields. We tromped through the snow and peeked through the cabin doorway. Tucked under the sagebrush we could see the pearl-gray shape of the fawn.

  Mam planted her hands on her hips. “And just how long do you plan on keeping it here?”

  “Till the fawn’s leg has healed up enough so that it can outrun a wolf,” I said, biting my lip. “Two weeks? Three? Of course it all depends on the mother. If she doesn’t keep coming back…”

  I couldn’t go on. We’d just have to wait and see what happened.

  The sun came up summery bright and soon turned the snow into slush. Green grass poked up through the white. Birds couldn’t stop chattering, and every once in a while we’d hear the cracking sound of branches breaking off under the weight of the snow.

  So all morning we gathered branches and stacked them in piles. Later we’d load them into the tractor bucket to take to the ranch dump to burn. Some branches had broken plumb off, but others had just split from the trunk. Mam used a handsaw to finish the job. She got way ahead of me. I reached up to touch each place where she’d hacked. I wondered, Didn’t it bother her? Didn’t she see the light streaking out of the trees? All the wounded places spurted out a dark reddish purple light. Where the branches once were there was kind of an afterimage effect.

  It was midmorning when I glanced up and saw Lone One come sprinting across the hillside. She nosed under the fence and sped toward the cabin. I dashed through the fields to the cabin and then tiptoed to a window and peeked in.

  Lone One grunted worriedly as her fawn limped toward her and sank down. The mother antelope tucked her nose under her fawn and boosted it up, and then licked it so hard that it tumbled again. Finally the fawn managed to scramble up again, and Lone One crooked her head and licked under its tail as it nursed. All the while she grunted and grunted.

  Four more times that day she came back to the cabin. Each time I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

  That afternoon I sat on my bed struggling over the giant rip in my coat. I’m not a good sewer, but no way would I ask Mam for help. I mean, you should see her coat. I threaded my needle, stuffed the feathers in as best I could, tugged it all together, and jabbed through the layers. Ouch. I sat sucking my finger and studying the rip, and thinking about the fawn. It didn’t look like I’d have to touch it again. I wondered if there was some way to send healing light to its leg by long-distance. Would that work? I had no idea. All I knew was that I’d have to keep the fawn in the cabin until it was strong enough to outrun a wolf.

  Which got me to thinking about that darn kid. I felt my face get hot. What’d he been doing, anyway—sneaking around spying on us? What a jerk. He could’ve wrecked everything yelling down like that. Spooking me, almost making me drop the poor fawn.

  I stabbed at my coat. Okay, so I shouldn’t have been out there. I knew better than to slip through someone’s fence. Not that that’d ever stopped me. And anyway, what was so special about the other side of the fence? Other than that I’d drawn a picture that looked so much like those mountains that it was totally spooky. And of course there was my special place. My hill. My wishing tree …

  I thought of that scene in The Wizard of Oz, the one where the house comes whirling to the ground and Dorothy goes to the door and suddenly everything turns into color. To me, the other side of the fence was color. Was I supposed to look past the fence at the landscape I’d drawn and not trespass?

  That kid may have caught me once, but now I’d be on the lookout. No way would he catch me twice.

  I tied a knot in my thread and held my coat up for inspection. I shrugged. So I’d mangled it. But out here, who gave a hoot?

  It was late afternoon, after my bums had been fed and closed up in their pen safe from the big bad wolf, when Pot and I slipped away. I looked left and right, up, down, all around. No one.

  “Shhh,” I said to Stew Pot. “Let’s not make any noise. Just in case…”

  It felt almost like summer again—breezy, cool, hawks floating about in a blue cloudless sky, and wildflowers so pepped up by the snow you’d think they’d been drinking caffeine. Most of the snow had melted except in the long shady draws. Pot galloped ahead while I took my sweet time. Near the top of the hill a blast of wind billowed up under my coat, almost sending me skyward like a big fat balloon. I whirled, swirled, I was a bird, a hawk, I could fly! I twirled to the top of the hill. Spun dizzily to my tree.

  I about peed my pants. Because there, in the shadowy green cave of the juniper, leaning against my tree as if he owned it, was the Indian kid.

  “Thought you weren’t coming,” he said.

  “Well,” I said breathlessly, “here I am.” Let him explain how he knew I’d be here.

  I glared at Traitor Dog Pot. I had a dog who hadn’t barked to warn me someone was there. A dog who sat wagging his tail. A dog who stuck out his paw to be shook, and then had the nerve to look back at me as if he’d just found his newest best friend.

  The boy didn’t reply. Well, I could play that game. We both stood there, him leaning against the tree, me kind of woozy and light-headed with the wind pushing against me and tangling my hair.

  He stood still as still, as if he were part of the tree—my tree, by the way. He wasn’t fidgety at all, not like the boys I was used to—not that I was any authority on boys, far from it. He had on the usual ranch-kid getup of beat-up jacket and jeans. The toes of his cowboy boots were bandaged with silver duct tape. He was short, but taller than me, and stocky, with short cropped hair. I figured him to be my age, maybe a bit older. And he glowed.

  Honestly, I’d never seen anything like it. I must’ve looked really stupid, standing there squinting and blinking my eyes. Because “glowed” didn’t even begin to describe it. He looked like he’d swallowed a star and it was shining out of his chest.

  Finally I broke the silence. “So how’d you know I’d be here?” I said, trying hard not to sound flustered.

  “Took a chance.” He puckered his eyebrows at me. “How’s the antelope?” he asked.

  “Which one?”

  “The one you poached.”

  “The fawn’s down there in the cabin. She’s fine.”

  “You feedin’ it?”

  “Why should I feed it?”

  He scratched his cheek. Let him puzzle over that, I thought. I was beginning to enjoy this game. I bent down, picked up a rock, and studied it
as if it were the most interesting rock in the world.

  “What do you think she’s got a mother for?” I finally said, throwing the rock up and catching it in one hand. “She’s come down four times already today. I think she’s plumb fine with what I did. Taking the fawn. Maybe she’s even thankful. Especially after what happened to this one’s brother.”

  His eyebrows went up. “How do you know the fawn you’ve got is a ‘she’? And the other was a ‘he’? You can’t tell the difference at this early age.”

  “Well, if you really want to know, I watched them being born. I saw the whole thing. The way the mother licked them—one under the belly and the other under the tail. Anyone could figure it out from that. I watched her through the window today and this one she licked under the tail. This one is the female.”

  I thought I caught the flicker of a smile. Maybe his mouth just twitched. “You know you were—are—trespassing,” he said, his voice stern again. “That is, unless you belong to one of the tribes.”

  “I don’t have a drop of Indian blood in me. I plead guilty. I’m sorry. But I did what I did and I’d do it again in an instant,” I said, putting my fists on my hips. “That fawn didn’t stand half a chance….”

  I left off. Did he know about the wolf? Or did he just think I’d picked up the fawn for the fun of it? Suddenly I felt confused.

  He studied me, frowning. “A pack of wolves has moved into this area. I saw them a few days ago. Five of them. One black, four gray. They got two of my grandmother’s calves. Seeing what they did…” He let the words trail away.

  “Well, I saw what the black one did,” I said, “and it wasn’t pretty. I suppose it has pups to feed, but still…” I shuddered. My heart broke all over again and I couldn’t bear to think about what I’d seen. I took a breath to steady myself. “By the way, my name’s Blue,” I said, just to get off the subject of wolves.

  “Blue?”

  I shrugged. “Take your choice—deep blue, light blue, sky blue, sad blue, cool blue, blueberries, bluebells, or maybe the blue of these juniper berries.”

  He looked very seriously at me as if he were thinking over each of my words. “All true blues,” he finally said.

  “And this is Stew Pot.” I shot Pot a look. Forgave him a little.

  “We’ve already met. I’m Shawn,” he said, pushing himself away from the tree. He looked Stew Pot in the eyes as if the two of them had a secret I wasn’t in on. “So, Stew Pot,” he said, “don’t let the wolves get you.”

  Without another word he walked to the other side of the juniper tree, leaned one hand on the rocky ledge, and hopped over.

  Stew Pot and I watched as the shining boy loped down the hill, knocking rocks loose and causing a landslide that startled the black-and-white horse that waited under a pine tree at the foot of the slope. When the slide stopped, the horse trotted toward him, trailing its reins on the ground. Shawn gathered them, put his foot in the stirrup, and mounted. He turned his horse and looked up. “Catch you again,” he called.

  We watched as they crossed the little valley, climbed the next hill, and disappeared over it. Shawn never looked back.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The next two weeks passed in a blur as our world dashed madly toward summer. The hills turned green and soft as velvet after the summer snow. Here in the mountains it was hard to believe that the whole state of Wyoming was in the middle of a long dry spell. Down at the trading post everyone said it was just like old times, almost.

  “But not quite,” Clyde said. “Eight years of dry don’t disappear with one snowstorm. I’ve got a feeling we’re in for a blistering summer. There’ll be wildfires all over, same as last year, if we don’t get some rain.” Stone-faced, he’d added, “Why, even with the creeks running high, no one lost any bridges. Or even any tractors, I hear.”

  “Yeah, but it sure was exciting,” I said. “The … the high water, I mean,” I blurted when I noticed the look on Mam’s face as the four ranchers standing there chuckled.

  Ignoring them, Mam turned toward the door and studied a notice tacked to the wall. She studied it so long I was sure she’d learned it by heart. She nodded a quick goodbye to Clyde and the men, and gave a jerk of her head to let me know I should hurry. She slipped out the door as a burly tourist rushed through it.

  “This place got a garage?” he bellowed. Reddish black light flashed around him.

  I lurched out of the way of his lights and tumbled into a rack full of postcards. I scrambled to gather the cards that’d scattered. Behind me, at the counter, the tourist ranted about having had two blowouts, and how he’d then driven for miles without a single gas station in sight. I stuffed the cards back into their slots and threw Clyde a quick “Sorry!” as I skittered out. Even after the door closed behind me I could still hear the man’s furious voice. I’d seen lights flash out just like that. That’s what’s meant by “bad vibes,” I thought.

  Mam was more quiet than usual on our way back to the ranch. I started to blurt out that stories sometimes got all bent out of shape as they traveled the gossip wires, but then figured it might be a good time to keep my mouth shut.

  Besides, I had my own stuff to think about. Such as the fact that my last letters had been returned. Mam had handed them over without saying a word. I’d stuffed them into the trash can.

  Well, I’d tried. Was I going to spend the whole rest of my life going around looking for a father? Or would I just have to learn to live with it? How could I? How do you ever forget something like a father, for gosh sakes. I gave a sideways glare at my mom. It was partly her fault. If she’d stayed in one place he would’ve tracked us down ages ago.

  We turned onto the dirt road and jounced along over rocks and ruts, swerving twice to avoid a fox and an antelope. I grabbed the armrest. Lighten up and slow down, I wanted to shout. Instead, I slumped in my seat and tried to ride the bumps loose as a rag doll.

  Halfway across our bridge Mam lurched to a stop. “Sorry,” she said as my head practically rammed into the windshield. In the back, Stew Pot thumped against the rear window. “And sorry about your letters….” She didn’t say, “I told you so.” Instead she leaned on the steering wheel and stared at the dark mudslide in the bank by the barn where the tractor had tumbled into the creek.

  I rolled down my window, poked my head out, and looked down. The creek rumbled peacefully, almost as if it were singing a song. After one good week of wild rushing water it had dropped. I didn’t know what “normal” was for this time of year, but judging from the brush and logs washed up along the banks from past high-water flooding, we’d missed that mark by a long shot.

  “Beastly tractor,” Mam suddenly said.

  I ducked back in and stole a look at her.

  All of a sudden she slapped the steering wheel and hooted with laughter. “That story,” she whooped. “I bet it gets wilder each time it gets told! If they’d only seen the whole thing—weren’t we a sight!”

  It took only a split second before I caught the bug. Mam always said I cackled like a coop full of hens laying eggs, so now I flapped my arms and crowed and the two of us laughed hysterically. For some reason I had the strangest feeling that our laughing was almost like crying, and once started with either we might never stop. I let myself laugh even harder. It was a long time before our laughing dropped off into hiccups and snorts.

  Mam wiped her eyes. “On the serious side,” she said—which only set us off again. She tried once more. “On the serious and totally humorless side,” she said, “seeing how much the creek has dropped it does seem likely that we might run short of water….”

  Her words made us sober up fast. I knew what “running short” meant—use it or lose it. If the water got lower than our headgate on the creek, we’d be in trouble. And the beavers didn’t help the situation one bit since the water they kept damming up irrigated one whole side of the ranch. The summer before, we’d been at a ranch where the creek and the well had run dry. I doubted it would be that bad up here
in the mountains, but who could predict what would happen if we didn’t get any rain?

  So that very day Mam and I made a deal. I’d attack the beaver ponds every day with her blessing, while she took on the ditches. We’d irrigate the heck out of those fields. And if we ran out of water later, well, at least we’d have made good use of it while we’d had it.

  So, what with running back and forth to the ponds and doing house chores and weeding our garden and working on my Blooming Room and checking every few hours on the state of my fawn and feeding my bums, I kept so busy I hardly had time to even think about my dad or that Indian kid.

  Or at least I tried not to. But when my hands are busy my mind’s usually off doing its own thing.

  I’d be peeking through the cabin window, watching as Lone One bent into a comma and licked her fawn as it nursed. Somehow Shawn would wiggle his way into my thoughts.

  I mean, this kid had almost bitten my head off. For sure he didn’t act like a saint or anyone special, though he’d practically put Stew Pot under his spell. So why did his lights shine as if he had a star blazing out of his chest?

  I’d only once seen someone with lights almost as bright white as Shawn’s. That hadn’t been a priest or a holy person—it was an old gray-haired woman mopping the floor at a rest station. She’d wrung out her mop and looked over at me and smiled. Pow! A bright white light flashed across the bathroom. I felt as if I’d been filled to bursting with sweetness and light and something I could only call love.

  Shawn’s lights had been even brighter. How could that be? I must’ve seen wrong—had dust in my eyes, or stardust or something.

  I’d be at the ponds, undoing the beaver dams and sorting out the neatest beaver-trimmed sticks to take back to the ranch for the chairs and tables I was making. Or trying to make. Then I’d sit on the dam with my boots in the icy cold water and throw sticks for Stew Pot to fetch.