Fire on the Mountain Read Online Free PDF Page B

ourselves with gear. Lee filled a feedbag with grain and we stepped out of the barn into the corral. Holding a bridle behind my back, I looked at the group of horses stamping and snorting in the far corner of the corral, hungry but worried. To me, in that half light, they looked big as mastodons, their eyeballs flaming with red menace, their hooves pounding like sledges on the hard earth.
    Lee handed me the feedbag. “Choose your mount.”
    I advanced slowly toward the huddled animals, feeling scared and made even more scared by my effort not to show it. I looked for my favorite, a small buckskin gelding with black mane, broomtail, long legs. This was the horse I had most often ridden the year before. I couldn’t make him out in the shifting mass of horses.
    “Where’s Rascal?” I asked.
    “Rascal?” Lee said. “Why Billy, that’s the one we’re hunting for today. He’s been missing for a week.”
    My grandfather came out of the barn with a saddle on his shoulder. “Take old Blue there, Billy. He’s the one you want now.”
    I stepped forward again, holding out the bag of grain, and now the horses came to meet me and crowded close, thrusting their muzzles at the feedbag, shoving me toward the fence and stepping carelessly on my new boots. I offered the bag to Blue, a big gray, draped the reins around his neck and led him out of the mob and back to the corral fence. While the horse ate his breakfast I climbed part way up the fence and laid the saddle pad and the saddle over his broad back.
    I no longer felt any fear. The massive bulk of the animal, his powerful jaws crunching bran and barley into gruel, his docile indifference to my activity, inspired me with confidence and affection. I was foolishly proud of the fact that such a great strong beast would submit to my purpose—at least when bribed. I cinched the saddle as tight as I could and climbed aboard totest the stirrup lengths. Too long: I had to dismount and readjust them. By this time Lee and the old man, pretending not to observe my efforts, had their own mounts saddled, bridled, fed and ready to go.
    Blue was nearly finished. I tried to take the feedbag away from him so that I could get the bit in his mouth. He shook his head, hurling me to the ground. I got up, waited respectfully until he was satisfied there was nothing more in the bag, then bridled him successfully and climbed up into the saddle.
    The world looked different from up there—better. A primitive joy flowered in my heart as I guided the horse away from the rails and toward the gate. A touch of my heels and he walked forward; a slight tug on the reins and he stopped. I leaned forward and rubbed the mighty shoulders. “Good old Blue …” I felt about ten feet tall, a master of horses and men. The wild birds crying in the desert echoed the delight of my soul.
    Lee and Grandfather came alongside, Lee on a dark quarter horse, Grandfather on his big sorrel stallion, Rocky. Grandfather said, “You ready, Billy?”
    “Yes sir!”
    “Tie this on your saddle.” He gave me a poncho, smiling at me. He faced the east; I saw reflections of the dawn on his glasses. I didn’t understand at first why he was smiling at me in so strange a way, until I felt the tears welling out of my eyes. “Do you feel all right?”
    “Yes sir.” I looked away. “Grandfather, I—I’m so …”
    “I know, Billy. I know how you feel.” He caressed my back. “Let’s go.”
    Lee moved ahead and opened the corral gate, dismounting and remounting with his usual practiced ease. We rode through, leaving the gate open, and the remaining horses followed us. When we broke into a brisk trot down across the irrigated field toward the river of sand, they halted and watched us go, heads up in solemn curiosity. I felt sorry for them, left behind.At that moment I would have felt sorry for anyone in the world, man or beast, who was not going with us.
    When we reached the west gate, Grandfather got down and opened it and we