He headed down the lane toward the corral, watching with pleasure as Brighty pranced along beside him. He lifted the gate poles, and Brighty started to go through the opening. But halfway in, he hesitated. He raised his head skyward as if pondering some great decision. Then quite suddenly he backed out of the gate, his muzzle grazing Uncle Jim’s shoulder. With a flirt of his heels he bounded away toward his trail, a winking gray fleck in the dusk.
Uncle Jim put the poles back in place. He stood looking until he could see Brighty no more. Then he smiled his slow, understanding smile as he trudged back to the cabin, alone.
SPIDER WEB OF STEEL
DURING THE next few years, Brighty’s trail from rim to river was pounded down by many feet—the split hoofs of mountain sheep and deer, the pads of cougar and coyote, the hoofs of horses and mules, and the booted feet of men.
Men felt the pull of the canyon, not in the way Brighty did—for its winter warmth and browse—but for its brooding mystery. More and more of them came, explorers and geologists, and students of birds and butterflies and bees. And sometimes an artist set up his easel on a bulge of rock and painted, and tore up what he painted, and began again.
Brighty, on his treks up and down, greeted these adventurers with hearty brays and often took potluck with them.
He spent several weeks with a bushy-haired artist, a giant of a fellow, who was an excellent hand at baking. Brighty grew sleek and fat on johnnybread and hot biscuits and sugar cakes. In return, he did some light packing—an odd assortment of brushes, canvases, and tubes of paint. It was a pleasant arrangement for both. While the artist daubed his colors, using his hair as a brushwiper, Brighty was free to come and go.
What ended their friendship was a freak accident. One evening the man swung astride the burro to ride uptrail a way to their camping spot. He had never done this before. Everything might have gone along all right in spite of the weight of the man and the upward climb. Even the picture frame poking Brighty’s ribs was not too painful now that he had some fat on them. But a yellow jacket made a surprise landing on his rump and punched its stinger deep into his flesh.
“Ai—yee! Ai—yee! Ai—ai—ai!” Brighty yowled in anguish. Up he went skewering into the air, while the unfortunate artist fell off backward, almost toppling into the canyon. As if this were not ill luck enough, his big boot smashed right through the newly done painting.
Even in his upside-down position, the artist broke into a rage. He jerked the picture off his foot, got up, and ran after Brighty, who was rubbing his hindquarters against a rock. He stood towering over the burro a moment. Then gripping the painting with both hands he lifted it high and brought it down—crash!—over Brighty’s head. It stuck there at a crazy angle, like a clown’s collar.
“You jackass!” he cried, picking up a rock. “Get out of my sight!”
Brighty needed no urging. The stinger was a poker of fire, driving him up and up the rocky ledges.
It was hours later that a lone hiker, a little man with a butterfly net, came upon the burro sitting in the icy waters of the creek, crying in pain. The man put down his net, and when Brighty backed up to him showing no intent to kick, he examined the situation and soon removed the stinger. Then he lifted the picture over Brighty’s head and studied what was left of it. He began to laugh. “Whoever painted this gaudy mess should’ve smashed it! But why,” he wondered aloud, “why over the head of a poor little defenseless burro?
“Say, I know who you are!” he exclaimed, a light of discovery in his eye. “You’re Bright Angel! You built this trail!” And he regarded the burro as if it stirred his pride to associate with so famous a character.
Once more Brighty’s days were pleasant, although the butterfly-man ate but two meals a day and they were puny compared to the artist’s. As payment, he asked only small favors—the carrying of a few jars of formaldehyde, and sometimes a light bedroll.
But in time the man began to act as if he owned the burro. He wanted him at beck and call every waking moment. If Brighty so much as played in the creek or ambled off to browse, the man made a great to-do. Had he not rescued Brighty? That ungrateful wretch!
Some nights Brighty would purposely wander into a side canyon to be alone. And when morning came, he delighted in listening to the call of his name as it rang from cliff to cliff. Snorting to himself, he just rolled over and went right back to sleep.
Any delay in his butterfly hunt infuriated the man; so he made a bell out of a tin can and a pebble and tied it around Brighty’s neck. “Now,” he said, clapping his small hands in triumph, “I’ll be able to spot exactly where you are!”
But he had not reckoned with burro wiles. By practicing a little, Brighty learned to walk without the slightest nod of his head or the least sway of his body. Then the clapper in the bell hung silent! It turned into a regular game. The minute Brighty knew he was wanted, he tiptoed very slyly right behind the man, or went off and hid. When the need for him was past he came trotting back, the bell tinkling merrily.
One morning, however, it was not to be free of the butterflyman that he sneaked off. It was a curiosity that pulled him. Deep in the inner gorge of his canyon there were strange thunderings. They belonged to neither wind nor river nor sky. They were sharper, louder than thunder, with long spaces of quiet between. Each time the rumble came, the very rock on which Brighty stood quaked. The tremors went running up and down his legs and through his whole body. What could it be? It was frightening and exciting, too. Brighty had to know.
He turned tail on the little man, and once out of earshot swung happily along, letting the bell tinkle as it would.
Down, down, down he went, stopping only to quiver and snort when the racket let loose. Once in the inner gorge he half ran to the river, and there he burst full upon the scene. It almost made his ears leap out of their sockets.
Across the four hundred feet of water the opposite shore was alive with mules and men and tents and rigging of all kinds. And more mules, with great planks strapped to their sides, were footing their way down the face of the wall to the little hive of activity.
Brighty trumpeted his excitement. His eyes darted from mules to men and back again. Then all of a sudden a white cloud of smoke belched out of the black cliff above the scene. A terrifying explosion followed, with rocks bursting into air. Brighty felt the world shake beneath him. A steamy sweat broke out over his body. He ran for fear the smoke and rocks would leap the river. Heart pounding against his ribs, he hid under the green umbrella of a cottonwood tree. He stayed there a long time until the roaring of the river told him the explosion was over.
Then cautiously he crept back to the river’s edge. Nothing much had changed. Men were still moving about like ants busy on an anthill, and the mule train was still angling down the wall. As for the white smoke, it was gone, leaving in its place a gaping hole above a great spilling of rocks.
Fearful, yet fascinated, Brighty could not tear himself away. For two days more the explosions continued. When they finally ended, the busyness of the men increased. It even reached across the river and tapped Brighty on the shoulder.
What he saw on the third day was the cage swinging over the river toward him. When it reached his shore, a workman began unloading a wheelbarrow and big white bags. Done with his unloading, he wiped his sweating brow with his bare arm and looked around. Suddenly he spied the burro, and his face broke into a smile.
“Hey! You must be Brighty!” he yelled in a pleasant, booming voice. “Come here. You and me are going to build the bulkhead to hold the new bridge. That old cage’ll soon be a goner.”
In spite of Brighty’s fear, curiosity was strong in him. He took a step forward, eyes and ears showing great interest.
The workman turned out to be a nice fellow—particular, too. He studied the texture of the sand down the river and up in the washes. “Too silty!” or “Too coarse!” he would say, testing it between his fingers. At last in a side canyon made by Phantom Creek he found some pockets of s
and he liked.
“Just right!” he shouted.
He coaxed Brighty into packing load after load of it. Then he mixed it with the cement from the white bags and built a bulkhead.
Meanwhile, two big cables were pulled across the river. To Brighty they looked like the beginning of some huge spider’s web. He watched by the hour. Watched brave men, dangling in rope slings, anchor the cables high in the rock wall. Watched riggers work themselves along the cables, fastening hanger-rods in place. Watched floor planks swung out and then eased onto the web. Watched big rolls of fencing unfurled and fastened to the side rails.
As the web grew, men scrambled over it and under it, and some seemed to be held in it like flies. Week on week the thing grew, and the steel of it shimmered in the sun and the wind tossed it as if it were a web.
Late one afternoon Brighty was sitting on his haunches, his gaze on the swinging bridge and the men painting it. There was a look of yearning in his eye as if he longed to cross the bridge to see what was on the other side. Green grass? Mesas to thunder across? Little long-eared creatures like himself?
The roar of the river shut out the lesser noises behind—hoofs sinking in the sand, men’s voices, mules snorting. Not until the party was full upon him did Brighty start to his feet.
BRIGHTY, B.A.
HE WHEELED, almost colliding with a white mule. And above the mule’s face, looking between his ears, were the twinkling eyes of Uncle Jimmy Owen. Brighty’s breath snortled. He pawed and pranced as the men on muleback laughingly rode herd on him until the whole little company was in among the cottonwoods, away from the roar of the river.
Uncle Jim swung a leg over his mule’s head and slid out of his saddle. He went to Brighty and stood eye-to-eye with him. “Our whole canyon’s changin’, feller.” His fingers worked gently in Brighty’s mane. “Old Timer wouldn’t like this newfangled bridge. Traffic comin’ and goin’. And folks pokin’ and pryin’ into his life.”
He turned to a big-built man sitting a big horse. “Excuse me, Mr. Teddy,” he said, “for harkin’ to the past. Sure sign I’m gettin’ old, ain’t it?”
Theodore Roosevelt smiled, flashing wide-set teeth. “It’s a natural feeling, Jim. We all buck change the way a mule bucks a strange load.”
He dismounted, then glanced in Brighty’s direction. “Isn’t that the same fellow . . .” He broke off his sentence in the middle. “Of course it is! Brighty! You probably don’t remember me. But I’ll never forget the day that wild cougar leaped on your back.”
Uncle Jim elbowed Brighty’s neck, and Brighty’s head gave a nod as if he remembered, too.
“Well, by George!” Mr. Roosevelt laughed. He turned to the other men who were gathering around. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I’d like you to meet Bright Angel, the gamest burro in the world.”
At Uncle Jim’s signal, Brighty nodded all around—to the government officials, to the engineers, and to the Governor of Arizona, too.
All the visitors bowed in mock dignity. They were feeling good after riding safely down the long trail. Now each took pride in tying his mule to a tree and pulling off the saddle without help from Uncle Jim.
Then they limbered up, stretching to relieve aching muscles. One by one they went off in different directions, as if the majesty of the canyon were a thing to worship alone.
When they came back they found Uncle Jim making camp in the small spot shut in by the cottonwood trees. He had coffee simmering on a fire and sticks sharpened for broiling lion steaks, and bread baking in a Dutch oven.
The night wind flowed down the canyon, and the men closed in around the fire while they ate their supper. Brighty joined them, his back against Uncle Jim, ready to accept any little handouts offered.
After their meal, Theodore Roosevelt polished his spectacles and settled himself in enjoyment of the blazing fire. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I’ve come a long way to dedicate the new bridge. You have asked me to be the first to cross it.”
He paused a moment, his eye looking back up the winding trail he had come. “But,” he went on, “as I followed our guide down the twenty-one miles from the North Rim, I had time to do some thinking.”
The others nodded as if their minds had been busy, too.
Mr. Roosevelt leaned forward, his eyes pleased and eager. “If it meets with your approval,” he said, “I should like to have Jim Owen, a true frontiersman, dedicate the new bridge and be first to cross it.”
There was a little silence while the men looked to each other, then into the fire.
The Governor of Arizona was first to speak. “If that is your wish, Mr. Roosevelt, I for one will be glad to honor it.”
The other men agreed. One said, “Uncle Jimmy has bagged over three hundred mountain lions that were killing off the deer and threatening cattle and sheep. He’s made the canyon safe for tourists. I would like to make a motion that Jim Owen be the first to walk across our newly finished bridge and so to dedicate it to the peoples of the world.”
“I second that motion,” the Governor said.
Theodore Roosevelt smiled at Uncle Jim. “Well?”
The old man loosened his neckerchief as if it were choking him. Then he took off his hat and let the wind pick up what was left of his hair.
“Mr. Teddy,” he faltered, “it ain’t as if I didn’t want to, but my back is up agin a li’l ole burro what is a frontiersman. Ask any old-timey canyon man. Ask trappers and miners and prospectors. Ask the Mormon sheepherders and cattlemen. They’ll all tell ye, every last one o’ them, it’s Brighty here who’s the real frontiersman. ’Twas his hoofs gouged out the trail which we all taken today. Ain’t no engineer in the world could’ve built better!”
Brighty heard his name and wriggled closer, sighing and basking in the good feeling.
“Ye’re all big wheels in this-here world,” Uncle Jimmy smiled, looking around shyly, “an’ me an’ Brighty’s just canyon fellers. But if’n ye don’t mind, gentlemen, I’d like fer Brighty to be first to cross the bridge to the other side, where he ain’t never been!”
Theodore Roosevelt stretched his legs and got up, grinning. To his delight Brighty scrambled up, too. They stood facing one another. “The bridge is intended for man and beast,” he said. “Why couldn’t both of these frontiersmen be first to cross—Uncle Jimmy Owen with Bright Angel at heel?”
There was a nodding of heads, as if each had thought up the idea on his own.
• • •
The next morning the sun lay bright along the rim, but it was still dark in the canyon when the sleeping camps on either side of the river stirred to life. Two fires began glowing, like eyes widespread. Brighty, on the north bank, was beside himself with happiness, running off to talk with the mules, then back to camp to smell the flapjacks browning, and to nudge Uncle Jim to hurry and dish up.
Theodore Roosevelt was down on his knees, splashing his face with the clear water of Bright Angel Creek. The other men were trying to give Uncle Jim a hand with the cooking, and he was humoring them.
There was considerable talk for so early in the morning, and Brighty heard his name often. He heard it as he rolled in the sand, and he stopped rolling an instant, ears pricked. He heard it again as he munched his flapjacks, and his jaws stopped working to listen.
When breakfast dishes were done, Uncle Jim put his clean, reddened hands on Brighty’s neck and faced around to the group. “Y’know, gentlemen,” he said, “if ever was a big day fer a li’l ole burro, this here’s it. I never been one to hamper wild critters with a lot o’ trappin’s, but seems like today he could be decked out some.”
An idea struck the chief engineer. He took off the sun helmet he was wearing. “I won’t be needing this,” he said, “now the bridge is done.” He spanned the distance between Brighty’s ears with his hand, then took out his knife and cut two holes in the crown. “Here, Jim, you try it on him for size,” he said when the holes were nice and round. “I’ve heard some jacks are tickly about their ears.”
> Uncle Jim shook his head. “I’ll have to ask ye to please make them peepholes twicet as big, feller. The roots o’ Brighty’s ears is mighty stal’art.”
While the engineer was working on his helmet, the geological survey man began to sketch on a piece of blueprint paper. “That helmet,” he chuckled, “needs a fitting emblem. I think wings to represent Bright Angel would be just the ticket.” And with a few quick cuts he produced a shapely pair.
Word somehow flew to the camp across the river that Brighty was to take part in the dedication ceremonies, and a few men came over ahead of time. Danny, the cook, was one of them. He brought a pocketful of bright-colored tapes. “These came from around the hams,” he said. “How about braiding ’em into Brighty’s mane and tail?”
The men were like boys, each trying to outdo the others. The chief packer made a flour-water paste to stick the wings onto the helmet. “Paste ’em up high enough,” he said, “and I’ll paint ‘B.A.’ under the wings with the left-over bridge paint.”
The surveyor broke out in laughter. “My brother just graduated from college. He’s got ears almost as big as Brighty’s and he signs his name with a big B. A. after it. Wait’ll I tell him about this!”
Uncle Jim turned to the man. “What’s it stand for?”
“It means Bachelor of Arts.”
“I’ll be danged,” Uncle Jim smiled as he combed Brighty’s mane with his fingers, “if that don’t fit Brighty, too. He’s a bachelor all right, at least as fur as I know.”
Brighty yawned and stretched his body in a luxurious curve. He let the men crowd around as Uncle Jimmy braided the red and blue tapes into the stubbly mane.
There were no hobbles or pickets to hold him, no restraints whatever. And so he stayed in their midst, feeling happy and wanted.
Brighty of the Grand Canyon Page 7