Blue Mountain (10 page)

Mouf laughed, and Dall hushed her with a look.

“The mountain is all around us, yes,” Dall said with care.

“Not this mountain,” Wen said. “That one.”

They all followed his gaze. Tuk stared over the vast and well-watered valley and beyond to meadow mountain, spotted with sun and green shadow. Beyond that he could see treed mountain as a dark shadow, and beyond that he could see a thin edge of blue sky in the shape of a mountain. The others looked, too, but said they could not see anything but the deep far sky. All but Tuk.

“It is a blue mountain,” Wen said.

“Wen,” Mouf said. “I will explain it to you. You are standing on blue mountain. It isn't over there, it is under your feet. But don't worry, I will teach you all the important things.”

*   *   *

Over the warm summer the band grew sleek and fat on the abundance of blue mountain, and Wen grew quick and strong.

Often when Wen played nearby, Tuk would fall silent and gaze eastward over the valley, in the direction from which they had come.

One day Wen said to Tuk, “You see it, don't you. You can see the blue mountain, too.”

Tuk nodded and said, “I will tell you a story about that mountain, Wen. Once there was a beautiful mountain with cliffs and rocks and peaks for climbing, with a fine winter valley, with mineral licks and lodgepole forests and grassy meadows for the ewes and the lambs, and fine rams for the fall. But time came when the herd could no longer live there, when man sheep ate their winter valley, and men built dwellings and trails over their grass, and the wolf and the puma feasted on the dwindling herd. It was a cold, sad time, but a nursery band heard of a far mountain where man did not come. One day as yearlings the band left to find this new mountain. As they did, one in the band promised that he would come back for them. The band found the mountain, and it was just as the stories had said.”

“Did he remember to return for the others?” Wen asked.

“He did,” Tuk said quietly.

“I know what you're thinking, Tuk,” Rim said after Wen had run off. “But the herd had its choice. I'm sorry for them, but it was the wrong one.”

“Winter valley will only be worse this year,” Tuk said.

“They know where the breach is,” Rim answered. “Let them find the way themselves.”

“Rim, think of this at least: we are small in number, and our greatest protection is that we live as a herd. Someday predators will come.”

Rim sighed. “I will come with you. That is the way our stories go.”

 

JOURNEY TO THE HERD

 

Tuk and Rim set out. They decided to travel around instead of over meadow mountain and bog valley, around and between their brother mountains that flanked them on all sides. Walking in the trees and shrubbery of the lowlands, they startled at every sound and shadow. Often they smelled man, but they set their noses toward the old valley and made their steady way.

Mornings, they shook off dreams and dark, and found forage. Together they would set out on the journey again.

After many days, they came to a wasteland. For miles all they could see were the blackened remains of trees. On the air was the lingering and choking smell of smoke. The wind blew ashes over the narrow shadows of the standing trunks.

“At least it affords long sight lines,” Tuk said.

A howl shuddered over the hills, and watchful ravens turned their heads as Tuk and Rim entered the burnt forest.

They trod out the miles in silence. Tuk seemed to not be able to remember a single story. He felt sometimes that he had dreamed blue mountain, that he had dreamed the herd. Only Rim's constant presence kept him going.

When it was too dark to see, they slept in a pocket of dry ground where two fallen trunks had made a small recess in the earth. In the morning they thought they could see the shadow of trees in the distance. They walked a little faster and often raised their noses to catch the scent of living pine.

Toward evening, just as they came to the end of the burnt forest, the gray clouds above shredded and the sky opened wide and blue.

“Do you smell it, Rim?”

“The pines?”

“Yes, but do you smell the other thing?”

Rim raised his nose. “Winter valley.”

*   *   *

More man dwellings had been erected in the valley over the summer, one as tall as the ancient trees. They saw more machines and man trails and more fences. Tuk and Rim crossed the road and began the climb to the summer meadow. They came to the stone outcropping that overlooked the valley and walked through trees up the trail that had the smell of generations of bighorn. Finally they came over the steep rocky face to the stand of pines and the small creek. They could smell the herd.

Tuk and Rim knew they made a thin, sore sight when they finally approached the herd, but the herd looked little better. Though they had had a summer in the meadow, their range had been cut off by the forest fire, and their vigilance against predators had made them thin and tattered.

No one seemed to remark upon their approach. The herd grazed without energy. They had no curiosity about the newcomers, nor had the rams that hovered on the outskirts of the herd. Tuk knew the rams would have been forced to stay close to the main herd because of the fire.

“Please tell me where I might find Kenir,” Tuk asked Zel, one of Balus's bandmates.

“Who are you?”

“I am Tuk, and this is Rim. We have returned to lead you to blue mountain.”

“You are not Tuk,” she said, addressing him. “Tuk died.”

“I did not die. I am here, and the band who left with me also is alive on blue mountain. It is more wonderful than we imagined, and the stories that man is not there are true.”

Zel came closer. “Tuk and the others went to blue mountain which wasn't true and they dropped off the world.”

Rim said, “If I were dead, I would tell you.”

“Rim wasn't so big as you,” Zel said.

Another ewe stepped forward and sniffed nervously in their direction. “Tuk had two ears,” she said shortly.

“Yes, two ears.” The others nodded.

“Ask Kenir, the matriarch,” Tuk said. “Ask my once-mother, Pamir.”

“Tuk,” said Kenir, breaking through the herd. She looked him up, down, and around.

“I am sorry to tell you, Tuk, that Pamir died of lungworm, along with some others.” She walked around him and Rim, as if to be sure they were real. “So blue mountain is not just a story.”

“It is just as the stories said, though,” Tuk said. “It is beautiful.”

“And the others?”

“They are well, including Wen.”

Kenir said quietly, “I have looked for you every day. Now you are saving us, Tuk.” She turned to the herd. “We leave for this blue mountain at Tuk's word.”

“I knew it was Tuk,” Zel said. “I knew it was him all along.”

The rams had watched and listened from a distance, and soon Tragus, now the king ram, made his way to Tuk. “So it is true—you found the way to your blue mountain?”

“Yes, sir,” Tuk said.

Tragus nodded slowly. “My friend Dos would have been pleased. When the herd leaves, the rams will follow.”

After Tragus drifted away, Balus and his bandmates approached Tuk and Rim.

When they were within clashing distance, Balus raised his horns and his chest.

“I never expected to see you again, Tuk. I thought you had gone to join a herd of your own kind, whatever that was.”

Tuk thought carefully about what was hiding under his first moment of anger, and was surprised to find sadness. He had told himself many times that it didn't matter what Balus said, but now he knew it did matter. It mattered because the things Balus said were sometimes what Tuk had thought of himself.

But now he knew he was a bighorn, that he belonged to the mountain and to the peaceable.

“Blue mountain has room enough for every kind of bighorn, Balus,” Tuk said.

Balus glanced at his bandmates.

“Kenir has said we leave for blue mountain in the morning,” Tuk said to him, “and I would like your thoughts. Would it be better for us to leave tomorrow, or should we wait another day to see how the weather goes?”

Balus glanced again at his mates, who kept their eyes on Tuk.

“Tomorrow,” Balus said.

“Then it will be tomorrow,” Tuk replied.

Balus's mates dipped their heads to Tuk and walked away. When he realized they were leaving, Balus turned and followed, with one puzzled backward glance to Tuk.

 

OLD FRIENDS

 

Tuk and Rim decided that the way they had come around the mountains was both longer and harder, so they said nothing when Kenir led the herd down into the winter valley and toward the breach in treed mountain.

The herd was quiet when they saw the creek that climbed to the top. The spring melt had altered the stones some, but now in late summer the way was passable again. A slick of icy water could not stop a bighorn. Rim walked near the head of the line, behind Kenir, and Tuk at the end, behind the rams. Tuk remembered the journey up treed mountain, so, though he was bigger and stronger this time, he was patient with the stragglers.

On the second day the line came to a stop. Tuk made his way to Kenir at the front. She was gazing into the underbrush at a wolverine.

“It's our old friend,” Rim said. “I see you escaped the old bear.”

“I welcome you all to my mountain,” said the wolverine. “Which of you will be my dinner? I promise you, my kill methods are most refined, second to none, the result of good breeding.”

“Hello, wolverine,” said Tuk.

“Have we met before?” the wolverine asked, eyeing Tuk's horns.

“We have. I am Tuk.”

“Tuk!” The wolverine squinted. “Never heard of you. Never heard of that Mouf either, whom I would never eat no matter how hungry.”

“We thank you for your kindness in allowing us to climb … your mountain,” Tuk said. “An animal from such stock as yourself, appearing to be cousin to the noble wolf or the great bear, would surely allow safe passage to a hungry herd of bighorn.”

“Wolf,” murmured one in the herd.

“Bear,” murmured another.

The wolverine blinked.

Finally he said, “Ah, yes. Tuk. I remember you after all, I think. You were smaller then, and you had more ears, and you were not nearly as polite.”

“Yes,” Tuk said.

The wolverine twitched and stared, and then said, “This is my mountain, of course, and I … I command all the beasts on it to let you continue on your journey unmolested. But I won't be there to distract the old bear at the river for you this time. He left me with a nasty scar to remind me the river is his.”

Tuk bowed a small bow.

“Thank you, lord of treed mountain,” Kenir said.

Wolverine's fur puffed out. He drew himself up tall and inclined his head grandly as the herd passed by him, each giving the wolverine a small bow. Balus and the yearlings looked from Tuk to the wolverine in respectful silence.

When they had all passed on, Tuk said, “Thank you, wolverine. I am sorry for your empty stomach.”

“It is surprising,” said the wolverine, “how the word
lord
can fill the belly.”

“As long as you keep your kind from blue mountain,” Tuk said, “I will tell a new wolverine story to the lambs, one about how the wolverine fought a bear and lived.”

“It is done,” said the wolverine. “You will never see my kin on blue mountain.”

*   *   *

The herd complained only a little about sore feet and poor forage as they made their journey. If one or two got too loud with their complaints, Kenir would say, “Who wants to go back and spend the winter in the old valley?”

When they were a short distance from the river, Tuk instructed Kenir to wait in the trees, back from the bank.

“I smell bear,” she said, sniffing the air.

“Yes,” Tuk said. “Stay out of sight until I call.”

Tuk walked to the bank. The bear was in his spot by the river, yawning. Tuk knew the bear would not be tricked again, and again some of the herd would not be fast enough to escape him. But he had been taught that the herd could be a protection, and so he said, “Old bear, we ask permission to cross your river.”

The old bear stood up, sniffing. “We? I see no we. Only one. You. The one who tricks.”

“We wish to cross, please.”

“
We
must come to me for bites,” old bear said. “This time no horn.”

“If you bite one, you must bite all of us,” Tuk said.

“Yes, come. I bite all.”

Tuk stepped into the river, and the bear stood up in anticipation.

“Come,” Tuk called to the herd.

Out of the trees stepped the rest of the herd—the lambs, the yearlings, the ewes, and finally the rams. It was not a large herd, but big enough to intimidate one old bear.

“We?” said bear.

“We,” said Tuk.

Tuk began to cross the river, and as one the herd also stepped into the shallow water and began to cross, Tragus last of all. As they emerged from the river they faced old bear, looking at him with staring yellow eyes.

With a growl ending in a whimper, old bear sat down.

“No bites?” Tuk said.

“Not hungry,” old bear grumbled.

“Goodbye, old bear.”

“Mean,” old bear said as Tuk and the herd walked away.

*   *   *

When the herd came to the bog, the ewes with lambs in them were exhausted.

“This we cannot cross,” Kenir said.

“Not without help,” Tuk said. “But help will come.”

A sleek female otter swam through the bog toward him.

“Welcome to bighorn bog,” she said. “You must be the creatures my mate told me about.”

“And what did he tell you?” Rim asked.

“He told me he saved every one of you his very own self from the bog, and that you declared him the king of the bog.”