Free Blue Mountain by Martine Leavitt Page B

away from the outpost toward the trees.
    Tuk tried twitching his ear as he would to rid it of an insect, but the device was part of his ear now, cold and heavy. In a short while he saw the others coming toward him, silent as shadows. He was still the same Tuk, a yearling with newly grown horns, but from the look of the others as they came creeping back, he might well have been sporting a set of full-curl horns.
    â€œWhat have they done to you, Tuk?” Dall said, sniffing at the device.
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œWe must go. We must leave this place now, in the dark,” Dall said. She began to walk away, and all of them followed.

 
    CLICK!
    Â 
    Even if the puma had followed them to the outpost, they reeked so strongly of man smells now that surely they would be hard to track. She would not give up easily, Tuk knew, but he hoped they had made it more difficult to be found.
    It was a long time until dawn, but Dall could not rest. They continued their climb toward the top of meadow mountain. When morning came, still the band made its winding way, wading in broad-leafed undergrowth, in shadow and sun, beneath a roof of leaves and bird call.
    From time to time the forest would end and open to untouched meadows, and they would briefly rest and feast and feel the breezes and breathe. Then again the closeness of the forest. The trees bent toward them curiously, almost welcoming, as if they had been waiting for the arrival of bighorn since they were striplings.
    When the sun was fully up, they stopped in a meadow where the bones of the mountain jutted out.
    The device in Tuk’s ear was heavy and itchy, but the worst was the unnerving sense that man was always close by. His nose told him no, but his ear reminded him of guns and nets and man’s mesmerizing language.
    Tuk wandered a little way from the band. He wished he could be a lamb again who knew nothing of pumas and wolves, guns and nets, and devices that itched and burned and clicked.
    Clicked?
    He listened.
    Nothing. Nothing.
    Click.
    Some part of Tuk had liked the way the others looked at him with admiration for having been in the hands of man and having escaped. They had stared in amazement at the device, as if it gave him a little of the magic of man.
    But now he knew something, and it took the heat out of him. He had not escaped man at all.
    The device was speaking to man.
    It clicked to tell man where he was.
    They were tracking him, just as the puma was.

 
    HOME
    Â 
    After a rest the band continued on its way. Tuk was glad for brave Mouf’s chatter so he did not have to listen to the clicks. Now when she asked him questions, he answered agreeably and sometimes asked her a few questions in return.
    In the afternoon they came to the top of meadow mountain. It was dotted with trees, but through the trees Tuk saw a rocky crest and, beyond that, the sun-washed sky.
    Slowly he walked toward the crest. Slowly he walked through the trees.
    Slowly. Slowly.
    When Tuk came out of the trees—
    When he came out of the trees and stood upon the crest and saw blue mountain close for the first time—
    When he saw blue mountain for the first time in the full light, his heart called it home.
    Blue mountain was so high and wide it could not fit in his eyes all at once. It lay like a vast sleeping bighorn, the feet swelling out in a lowland, rising to muscled shoulders, and finally to tundra and horns of rock at the peak. It was a whole world tipped over on its side.
    He could see, about halfway up the mountain, a sward already greening up from the snowmelt. That would be where Dall would establish their summer feeding range. Higher still were cliffs for the lambing, and beyond that, he could sense territory for the rams to wander.
    It was pristine. It was perfect for the bighorn.
    â€œIt’s real,” Rim said.
    â€œYes,” Tuk said. “Did you doubt it?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œMe, too,” said Tuk.