Blue Mountain Read Online Free Page A

stand beside him. Dos seemed not to see that Tuk was near, and Tuk remained silent and still.
    A short time later the wind began to blow hard and cold. The herd and Tuk’s bandmates walked around Dos and away, heading toward a bit of shelter amid the rocks. Tragus came last and stood silently beside Dos for a long time without speaking. Finally he gave Dos a low-stretch bow and walked slowly away.
    Soon snow was falling fiercely, blowing over Dos and through Tuk’s legs, and Tuk saw that Dos would not be able to stand up and paw away the snow to get his food. He would starve.
    As the snow began to accumulate, Kenir called for Tuk to come. When he did not, she came and bowed before Dos. “Tell Tuk to go to shelter,” she said.
    Dos looked at Tuk as if he had not known he was there all along. “Go, Tuk, before you are trapped by drifting snow,” he said. His voice had lost its power.
    â€œIf you go, I will go,” Tuk said.
    Kenir stamped her foot. “Dos is waiting for Lord Denu.” When Tuk said nothing she nodded to something behind him. “Come for his sake, then.” Tuk turned and saw Rim waiting a few steps behind him. “He won’t come until you do.”
    â€œGo, Tuk,” Dos said, and this time his voice was commanding. “It is not the way of our kind to disrespect the elder.”
    â€œCome with me,” Tuk said.
    Dos looked away, in the direction of blue mountain.
    â€œI am for the puma,” he said softly. “After she finds me, she won’t be hungry again for a long time. You must find a way west from the winter valley to blue mountain before she hunts again.” The old king held his horns high to the wind. “Son, it is the only way to save the herd.”
    Tuk thought about that word son for a time. It could be true that the son of a king could do such a thing, could find a way to blue mountain.
    The wind blew snow into Dos’s face and eyes, but he lay still as stone, still as the mountain, and as silent. The high grasses around him bent and bowed before the wind, and then lay quietly under the snow.
    Tuk knew Dos would not speak to him anymore. “I’m ready, Rim,” he said softly to his friend. Together they trudged through the snow toward the shelter.
    *   *   *
    At the shelter, a place where two rock walls formed a wedge, the bandmates pressed close to one another. Still they suffered from the cold.
    In the dark, Tuk thought he saw, in his half dreaming, the puma child’s eyes, hungry and afraid, just before he fell. In the place where Tuk’s horns had begun to grow, where they itched and were tender, he felt the warmth and softness of the young cat’s fur when he pushed. In one horn he was glad, but in the other he was sad. Half of him belonged in the herd, among the peaceable, and half of him was a strange creature who did not belong. He wondered what a man would feel like against his horns.
    At some point in the night, the snow stopped. Tuk awoke, listening. He looked into the dark for Dos, but the old ram had not come. Again he dozed, but even in his sleep he was aware of the cold. He woke early when the wind began to blow again, but now it was a warm wind, and the snow was melting.
    â€œA Chinook,” Kenir said. “The mountain sends the warm wind in tribute to a king.”
    When light came, the herd slowly walked to where they had left Dos. Puma tracks surrounded the body of the old king, and the herd wandered away—all in silence.
    The rest of the day the lambs were solemn with their first snow. They did not speak of Dos. They knew something of the mountain they hadn’t known before, and something of themselves.
    â€œI am sad,” Mouf said.
    â€œWe are all sad,” Nai said.
    â€œBut I am the most sad,” Mouf said.
    The rams walked away from the herd in small groups, not to return to the main herd until the next fall. Tragus left last of all. On the