Lifting the Sky (12 page)

I huddled over my precious bundle and kept walking. I was so intent on looking back and trying not to stumble that I didn't see the figure looming above on the ledge of the canyon.

“Ho! You!”

I jumped out of my skin as the sound bounced across the walls of the canyon. The fawn's legs lashed out and I
hunched over it, trying desperately to hang on to the windmill of rotating legs as I crooked my head and squinted up from beneath the bill of my cap. A boy on a horse peered over the rim of the canyon. With the setting sun's bright glow behind them all I could see was their dark shadowy shapes.

“Ho! You down there!” the boy yelled. “You know you're trespassing? And poaching too.”

Of
course
I knew I was trespassing. And, like any ranch kid, I knew the laws about picking up wild animals. As if I didn't already feel bad enough about what I'd done! I could feel my face catching on fire.

“Could we discuss this some other time?” I hissed up to the cliff. What terrible timing!
Just leave,
I wanted to say.
You're going to spoil everything. If you don't move away, the mother antelope won't come—and
then
what will I do?

“I saw this dog runnin' around crazylike,” he called down. “Going back and forth along the ledge here. I was wonderin' what he was up to.”

“That'd be my dog. He was supposed to stay. Listen, you mind if we continue this conversation some other time?”

The boy looked beyond me. His head jerked back in surprise.

Lone One stood at the bend of the canyon.

“Eaaaaaaahhh! Eaaaaaaahhh!”
I grunted, my voice startling me by its loudness.

Lone One's eyes didn't leave the figures above as she
gave a short, sharp grunt in reply. Then she spun around and skittered away.

“What's your name—Talks to Antelope?” The boy backed his horse away from the ridge. “Catch you again,” he yelled as he rode off.

“Yeah, right,” I muttered up to the ridge. “But not if I see you first.”

I stood there while the strip of golden light above faded and cold blue shadows swallowed us up. I shifted from one foot to the other. Lifted one shoulder, stretched, lifted the other. Thought about unkinking my arms and rearranging the legs of the fawn, but it seemed to have fallen asleep. I scrunched my fingers inside my gloves. Arched my back. Kicked at the snow. Tried not to think about that nosy, rude kid. Tried to blank out the dead twin and the wolf.

I focused on the slow thump of my heart compared to the fast beat of the fawn's. At least fifteen minutes must've trudged slowly by before I heard worried honks coming up the canyon. The fawn raised its head. Lone One rounded the bend at a run and came skidding to a stop. I took a deep breath and then, keeping the fawn in full view of its mother, I did my sideways crab walk down the canyon. This time Lone One seemed anxious to follow.

Slowly we retraced my tracks to the trail. And of course there stood Stew Pot, anxiously peering down from the sheltered nook where I'd left him.

“No, Pot,” I called up, my voice sharp as a rock. “I've got a baby. Go home, Pot. Go home.”

Instantly he dropped and turned his head away so his eyes wouldn't scare the fawn or the mother antelope in the canyon behind us.

“Go home,” I pleaded, my voice all choked up and croaky. “Please. Go home. I'll be okay.”

But I didn't feel like I'd be okay. I felt like I needed the biggest doggy hug ever.

Pot didn't want to go. His job was to protect me, and here I was sending him off. But he turned and slunk away, his belly brushing the snow. When he got to the fence he darted a look back to see if I'd changed my mind. I shook my head. He slipped under the wires and headed down toward the house.

I stumbled toward the fence. What now? There were two loose wires in the four-wire barbed fence. Both my hands were wrapped tightly around my bundle. How could I possibly get through it?

I took a breath and snaked a leg between two wires, then hunched over the fawn and squeezed through them. I heard a big
ripppppppp
as I pulled my other leg through and took a nosedive into the snow, crumpling into a heap of elbows, knees, foreheads, and little fawn feet.

Of course Lone One again scurried away.

I kneeled there, blinking back tears as I stared down at the snow. I sniffed, trying hard not to wipe my snotty nose on the fawn's furry back. The tears came anyway, and before long I was bawling as if I was hooked up to a hose
and the faucet had been turned up on high. I didn't know if I was crying because of what had happened to the fawn, or because of what I'd just done, or just because it had been such a strange day. I was about to drown in a puddle of tears when I felt a soft, warm breeze on my neck.

It was a breeze that smelled strongly of sage and wild onions. It blew in my ear and parted the hair on the back of my neck. Each of her breaths held a deep grunt.

Slowly I got to my feet. Lone One skittered away once again. This time I was sure she'd return. Soon she did.

I grunted at her and took a step down the hill. Lone One followed.

One step at a time took forever, but I'd finally come up with a plan.

That night I hardly slept. I was restless in the chair I'd pulled up to the window that overlooked the homestead cabin.

Lone One had watched me take the fawn inside the cabin. She'd seen me shove the broken door sidelong across the doorway and then speed toward the house to get out of her way. But the mother antelope must've been confused by the dark shape of the cabin. She'd run back to the fence, slipped under it, and had disappeared over the hills. I'd dashed around the snowy yard breaking off branches of sagebrush and then climbed over the door and into the cabin again. “Here's something to snuggle down in,” I'd whispered to the frightened fawn as I bunched up the sagebrush beside it. “Your mama will be back soon. I hope…”

“She'll come back,” I whispered now to Stew Pot in the beanbag I'd dragged to the window beside me. “She
has
to come back.”

I tried not to think of what I'd do if she didn't. It was bad enough to have stolen the fawn from its mother. If Lone One didn't come back, how on
earth
would I keep it alive?

Now, forehead pressed to the windowpane, I stared down at the cabin. With its dirt floor and three windows for sunlight it should make a good, safe place for the fawn. After all, hadn't Mr. Mac said an elk had lived there one whole winter when he was a kid?

I pushed up the window and poked my head out. A huge round moon spread its white silence over the snow-covered fields. I could see the fine, inked lines of the fences stretching across the white hillsides and the dark shapes of cows dotting the fields. Down by the cabin two rabbits hopped by, their eyes flashing red in the moonlight. Above the sounds of the creek and the wind there rose a long, lonely howl. From the hills behind the house came an answering howl and before long a whole chorus sang to the moon. I shivered and slammed down the window.

Beside me, Pot trembled and buried his head in his paws. He'd never acted this way when coyotes yipped in the hills. Why, more than once I'd watched him chase after a coyote and actually nip it. It wasn't unheard of for a coyote to lure a dog off so a waiting pack could attack it, but Pot had never been afraid of a fight. He'd always come home unharmed. But the howl of the wolf must've touched something ancient inside him, some part that said,
This howl is different….

I scrambled into the beanbag and wrapped him in my arms. “They scare me too,” I said. “And thank you, my hero dog, for taking good care of me. You jumped into the creek after me this morning, and I know you would've done something heroic again this afternoon if you'd had the chance. But, sweet Pot, there's no way you could've tackled a wolf and come out the winner….”

Outside, the howls seemed to stretch out as far as the moon. Then the sounds faded. The hills became silent again, and Pot stopped his trembling. I lay beside him scratching his ears till he slept.

I wriggled up and slipped across the dark room. I grabbed a pillow and the blanket from my bed and settled back into my chair. I don't know if it was the bright moonlight, the white landscape, or the fact that it'd just been such an incredibly difficult day, but when I glanced out at the whiteness I thought I saw the wolf running off with the fawn. I imagined I saw the mother antelope frantically, fearlessly, chasing the wolf. My heart started pounding and I closed my eyes. I imagined then that I heard the Indian kid yelling down into the canyon.

“Talk about rude,” I snorted out loud. In his beanbag beside me Pot's eyes snapped open. “I sure wouldn't want
him
for a friend” I added, and Pot swished his tail back and forth. “Oh, believe me,” I said, jabbing at him with my toe, “neither would you.”

Really, that kid could've ruined everything. It was amazing that Lone One had come back after he'd shouted
like that. It was even more amazing that she'd followed me clear to the cabin—almost it had seemed as if she'd wanted my help. If only she'd jumped in after her fawn. Now, who knew what might happen. For sure I'd have to keep the fawn safe for more than one night. Because yes, it
had
been the lame one. I checked the fawn's leg as I settled it into the cabin. Nothing was broken. I'd seen calves limping about like that because a leg had been scrunched up in the mother's belly, and usually it was just a matter of time before they'd be hopping about good as new. For sure I didn't want to “humanize” the fawn or get it used to me by touching it any more than I had to. After all, the fawn did have a mother.

Right. It
had
a mother. At least until I came along and took it away from her. I squeezed my eyes shut.
Come back
,
Lone One,
I begged.
Please …

But what if she
didn't
? What if the cabin seemed too strange—what if Lone One wouldn't jump into it? Would she understand that it was a safe place for her fawn, or would she be frantic and just want to get it out of there? What if she deserted her fawn now that I'd touched it?

Well, there was nothing I could do now but just sit and watch from the window to see if she'd come.

I pulled the blanket up over my shoulders. In the soft light of the moon I could see blue-white light streaming out from my fingertips, like searchlights exploring the night. I wiggled my fingers and lines of light crisscrossed through the darkness of my attic, making patterns along
the walls and across its slanted ceiling. I played with the lights, making them flare and then fade and then grow bright again with my thoughts.

While I'd worked on the bums I'd noticed that by imagining certain things I could boost up the power of the light. Now, sitting up straight, I stared out at the bright moonlight. I imagined breathing in all that brilliance and filling myself up with light. After a while I looked down at my hands. I watched as the light in them grew until not just a stream but a flood of golden-white light fanned out of my fingers.

All night I sat in the dark and watched the way the light streamed from my fingertips and lit up the night. I practiced turning the lights red and then blue and then all the colors of the rainbow. Purple was the easiest, after golden or silvery white. The thought of the wolf made the lights turn grayish white, and somehow those lights even
felt
different, all prickly and sharp.

It didn't take much to make the lights change. Just the thought and the—what was the word Mam had used?—“intention.” Yes. Zeroing in, being still, and thinking so hard about what I wanted that I could almost see it and taste it and feel it.

When I couldn't hold my eyes open one minute longer, I could still see the lights through my eyelids.

All night I kept watch by the window, dozing off, then waking with a jolt and searching the white landscape for Lone One.

As the first light of dawn spread across the horizon,
she came. One step out of darkness. Two. Lone One stood by the cabin doorway. She froze and stared into its shadowy darkness for what seemed like forever. Then she jumped over the barrier door.

Up in the attic,
celebration
!

“She came! She came!” I yelled, tossing my pillow up to the ceiling, catching it and hurling it at Stew Pot, who'd jumped up excitedly and now barked and nipped at my legs as I twirled across the long room to the stairway. “Let's call the fawn Light of the Dawn,” I yelled as the two of us tore down the stairs.

I threw open the door to Mam's bedroom. “Can you believe it? She
came
!”

Mam leaped out of bed. “
Who
came?” She grabbed her jeans off a chair and snatched her shirt off the chest of drawers, sending her book and hairbrush clattering to the floor. “What are you talking about? Who's here?” she asked as she wiggled her clothes on over her nightgown.

“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 prong-horns 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?”