The Mount
Chapter Two
Suddenly yelling and yelling. I jump up and look out. They come. Out from the forest. Down from the mountains. Yelling. Hordes and hordes and hordes! Savages. But us…. Us! They’re killing and killing…. Really killing, dragging Hoots out of their houses, beating on them. Even the Tame ones of us that live here are joining with the bad Wild ones. Everybody’s jumping over the wires and nothing’s happening to them. The sparks are turned off. Bonnie Blue Bonnet grabs my hand and tries to make me jump, too, but I don’t want to be like all the others.
Everything is confused, big clouds of dust fly up—into the moonlight. Some of my kind have poles. That’s not allowed.
Bonnie Blue Bonnet lets go of me and jumps the wire by herself—if you call that jumping. And then I do, too. I know what to do. It’s what I’ve wanted ever since I got here.
We’re not allowed in the Hoots’ houses, but now I run to the big one with the gold flag. There’s two Hoots sprawled right outside the doorway. I hope they’re not dead. If they are, then I’ve seen my first close-up dead thing. But I don’t have time to think about it. The door is so low I have to stoop, and stoop all the way down the hall. I’m like a giant… like a clumsy savage … like those others of us from the forest. And I feel even more so when I get to the first big room and look around. I have to stop. I never saw anything like it.
They believe in having beauty around them. That’s one reason they like us so much, we’re so beautiful, our muscles and all. And here, everything is of us, lamps made out of our shoes (brand-new ones, black and shiny), brand-new surcingles with silver on them dangling from the ceiling to hold up paintings … of us… all of them, of us! Groups of us in the arena or out on the long-distance trails with the forest as our background. In silver frames! I start across the room to look for Little Master, but I have to stop again because I see a portrait that I think might be my father. At least, it’s a long face and long nose. I go close and I’m right. Under it there’s a silver plaque that says BEAUTY. A little farther along there’s my mother, MERRY MARY. After that, there’s my picture. Even mine! SMILEY under it. They care about us so much! How can my kind turn against them!
I go on, to the far end of the house. (In these larger rooms I don’t have to stoop over.) I look in all the cubby-holes along the walls and finally find my Little Master, all alone in his crib. He has a soft doll of one of us, black-haired like me, in fact just like me. He’s hugging it, but when he sees me he lets it go and stands up in his crib—all wobbly like they always are—and reaches up for me to take him as if it was the most natural thing in the world, and I do.
We’re not allowed to touch them, especially not His Excellent Excellency, Future-Ruler-Of-Us-All, but I pick him up and help him get around my shoulders. I’m not wearing a surcingle, so it’s harder. He hangs on so tight I’m afraid I’ll choke. I speak to him though that’s not allowed except at playtime. I can hardly get the words out. “Can’t. Can’t breathe.” And he stops and hangs on, just as tightly, but to my hair. I hunker down and crawl us outside. The Hoots have begun ho-hoing all at the same time. So loud it’s as if ringing inside my head. I can’t think with that going on. My kind is still beating on his kind. I wonder if those Sams and Sues have plugs in their ears.
I leap us away from the sound and the dust and all the banging and bumping of us on them. I don’t think about good form or that my hairdo is a mess or that I shouldn’t bounce my Little Master, I just get us away, past the fields and into the trees. At first it’s hard because so many of us are coming… coming and coming in the other direction. I fall a couple of times, but I do it as I’ve been taught, leaning into my arms and shoulders so as to keep His Excellent Excellency from getting hurt. I keep going until we can’t hear any yelling anymore, though I can still hear the ho-hoing, but not as if right inside my head. I’ve never before trotted so hard and so far at one time, nor over such rough ground. It’s good there’s a big moon so we can see pretty well.
We stop by a river (partly because I need to rest and partly because I don’t know how deep it is. I might drown my Little Master). I help him dismount. He’s shaking. He’s wet himself and me all down my back. We rest until I can catch my breath. I’m supposed to walk around like they taught me, so as to cool down from so much running. You’re not supposed to ever just stop. But I don’t. After resting, I stand Little Master on the bank and clean us both up. I can’t do much about his whites, but it’s better if they don’t shine. When we’re all cleaned up, I find a resting spot, hidden by bushy trees, and we cuddle in together.
So I’ve saved him just as I hoped, but I wonder if there’s any of them left to know about it?
How could we! Us!... I’m ashamed to be a Sam. They’ll bring disaster on themselves, not on the Hoots. Disaster, like the Hoots have always told us and told us. There’s nothing we could ever do to hurt them. They’re smarter than we are, they grow the food, and they have all the tools and weapons. They always say to make peace with the way things are. How live without rules the same for everybody? How live without helping each other? They always say it takes strength of character to do your duty under difficult circumstances. They say the work of the world is never done, and they mean themselves, too. Would we like to lie in bed all day? It’s not only “Go, go, go,” it’s “Do!”
