The Legend of Thunderfoot (7 page)

Once on the soft sand, with nothing to stumble over, he started gaining. He'd never run so hard in his life. Never wanted anything more badly than he wanted to beat this loudmouthed, obnoxious bird.

Thunder's nose was almost touching Rocket's tail when they reached the rocks and boulders that formed the dam. There he fell behind once more. His stupid feet slipped and stumbled on the uneven surface. He hated his feet!

Once on the sand he gained quickly. The sound of his heart pounded inside his head. It was almost as loud as the sound of his huge feet thundering on the dirt. There was no time to glance up and see if Agile'eka, Speedette, and Brisk were watching. He knew they were. He ran harder.

Rocket's tail feathers brushed against Thunder's wing when he caught up with him. They were side by side. Neck and neck. Beak to beak.

Watching from the corner of his eye, he felt a sudden burst of energy when he passed the other bird. He'd never felt so strong. So fast. He was winning! He was going to make it back to the rocks—first!

He was so intent on winning, Thunder thought about nothing else—saw nothing else—but the finish line. It was a second or two before he realized Rocket was no longer chasing him. There wasn't the slightest sound of his quick little feet. Rocket was gone.

Just like him
, Thunder said to himself.
He knew he was losing, so he probably stopped to preen his feathers. Either that, or he's pretending to be sick so he'll have an excuse.

Thunder glanced back. To his surprise, Rocket was still running, only he was running in the wrong direction. He was racing back toward the dam. Thunder was almost to the rocks. But there was no one to cheer him on. No Agile'eka. No Speedette. No Brisk.

A movement caught his eye. It came from behind one of the rocks. A black nose wiggled when it sniffed the air. Then Thunder saw brown fur on a long snout. Two sharp ears. Brown eyes. And the biggest, broadest head he'd ever seen.

Coyote!

Thunder was too close to stop. Just as the coyote leaped from its hiding place, he dodged to his right. There was only about ten yards of open ground, then the canyon walls rose straight up. He could never make it ahead of the coyote. So he turned right again.

The thing was huge! Close! Heavy paws almost shook the ground as the coyote closed in on the roadrunner. To Thunder's left were the trees and thick brush that lined the creek bed. His fat feet could never make it through that. He remembered the first part of the race. He'd stumbled and
tripped over the twigs and limbs. Just one mistake now and the coyote would have him. He started to make another right, but from the corner of his eye, he could see the coyote almost beside him. He could see the sharp teeth. Slobber dripped from the longest ones.

There were two choices. Run for the tall thick waterweeds that Speedette called cattails, or the sandy bank around the lake. He raced straight ahead. Down the hill. Toward the lake. Coyotes are slow when they run down hill. Trouble was, roadrunners are even slower.

Thunder spread his wings. No matter how hard he flapped, he got only about eight inches off the ground. Still within easy reach of the coyote. He hit the sand, running, and tried again. This time he only got six inches of air beneath his wings.

At least it carried him to the flat near the lake. The sandy bank stretched out to his right. There were no sticks or rocks to trip over. If only . . .

The coyote must have sensed that he wanted to run that way. He stayed to Thunder's right, steadily inching his way closer as they neared the water. Now there was only one choice!

Beak forward and wings tight against his sides, Thunder charged into the cattails. He knifed
between the tall blades. He could hear the coyote right behind him. It didn't knife between the blades, it crashed through them. Closer by the second. There was a strange sound beneath Thunder's big feet. A sound he'd never heard. The bottoms of his feet were hot—first from the long race around the lake, then from the sprint to escape the coyote. Now, for some reason, they felt cooler. Stronger. Faster.

Maybe. Just maybe . . .

Then he tripped. He heard the huge jaws snap behind him. Felt the pain.

Once clear of the cattails, Thunder raced for the open valley. His tail hurt, but he dared not stop to see how badly he was injured. Any second the coyote would be hot on his heels again.

Right after he felt the pain in his rear end, he heard a loud, shrill yelp. There were other noises, too, sloshing and flopping and more whimpering. He didn't have time to look. Even the split second it took to glance back might mean the difference between life and death.

So he ran. Ran even faster and harder than when he was mad and racing Rocket. About a quarter of a mile from the lake, he found a dry wash that led to the top of the cliff. It was a gentle slope. At some time water had washed the sand so it was clear of rocks and sticks. He charged up
and didn't slow down until he reached the top. Once there, he stopped long enough to look around and make sure there were no coyotes or bobcats. Then he turned right and ran a ways farther. An old creosote bush grew at the rim of the canyon. Tongue dangling out and mouth gaping, he gasped for air.

The shade of the creosote would be cool. A good place to watch for the coyote. A good place to rest and catch his breath.

There was still no sign of the coyote. Before Thunder sat, he took the time to inspect his rump to see how badly he was injured. Two tail feathers were missing. That was all. Of course, it still hurt. Tail feathers are big and strong, well rooted in a roadrunner's rump. The place where the coyote yanked his out was still sore. The pain really didn't matter. He was lucky just to be alive. No one knew that better than Thunder. He sat in the shade to watch.

Still no coyote.

A little ways up the valley, he could see Rocket. Watchful and nervous, he had stopped running. He perched on the very tip of a tall, sharp boulder, preening his feathers. Thunder shook his head.

It took him a minute or two to see another
movement. It was far up the valley on the opposite side. Two roadrunners were walking slowly, hopping from time to time to snatch up tarantulas or grasshoppers. They were too far away for Thunder to tell who they were. Deep in his heart, he hoped one of them was Agile'eka. She had always been nice to him. She was pretty and fun to talk with. He didn't know what he would do if the coyote had gotten her.
Where is that darned coyote?
Thunder looked near the pond. Then his eyes darted to the dry wash where he'd climbed to the top of the canyon.
Where can it be?

“For a minute there, I thought you were smarter than I gave you credit for.”

The sudden voice startled Thunder. Maybe the coyote had come straight up the canyon wall and sneaked up on him. His head whipped one way, then the other. There was nothing but the creosote bush and the desert.

“What? Who . . . who said that?”

“Move.”

“Huh?”

“I said, MOVE!” Something shoved against his bottom—right on the sore spot where two of his tail feathers used to be. Thunder jumped.

Between the unexpected voice and the pain on
his rump, he jumped a little higher than he intended. A big, thick branch of the creosote shook when he clunked his head. From a hole, right where he'd been sitting, two stubby, short, clawed feet appeared. Then the edge of a shell.

“Berland!” Thunder yelped. “What are you doing here?”

Half in and half out of his burrow, the old tortoise stopped and looked up. “First off, I was watching you. Might near served yourself up to Scruffy as supper.”

Thunder glanced back to the canyon. There was still no sign of the coyote. “Did he get any of my friends?” Thunder asked.

“No. They were watching. You, on the other hand, were so busy trying to beat that other roadrunner, you didn't see him until . . . well . . . if Scruffy had leaned out a little farther from behind that rock, he could have given you a kiss on the beak before you saw him. You got to watch where you're going, kid.”

“Where is the coyote, anyway?”

“There,” Berland snipped. “See where the cattails are moving?”

“They're all moving,” Thunder snipped back. “The wind's got every single one of them waving to and fro.”

“No. Look closer. There on the far side.”

All the cattails leaned to the north, swaying with the gentle breeze. But one clump, near the far bank, snapped violently to the south. It sprang up and another clump beside it whacked over and threw drops of water into the air when it sprang back.

“What's he doing? Did he find something to eat in there?”

“He's stuck,” Berland said with a sigh. “Stuck in the mud. Like I said, I thought you were smarter than I gave you credit for. I thought you led him in there because you knew your feet were wide enough and big enough to keep you from sinking. Scruffy, on the other hand, is the biggest coyote in these parts. Between his weight and his relatively small paws—I figured you knew he'd sink. But now I know it was just pure, dumb luck!”

Thunder tilted his head to the side and glared down at the tortoise. “What do you mean, dumb? You calling me dumb?”

Berland tilted
his
head to the side and glared right back at him. “I know your parents told you to look before you leap. They should have told you to look before you squat. Who else would plop their rump over an open burrow? Don't you know
snakes love burrows and prairie dog tunnels? If I'd been a rattlesnake, well . . .”

Berland sighed and started to back into the shade of his burrow. “You're dumb, all right. But you have to be the luckiest roadrunner I ever met in all my seventy-five seasons. If that had been Tess, even dumb luck wouldn't have saved you. She'd be picking her teeth with your tail feathers.”

“Berland. Wait. Who's Tess? Don't leave me. Please.”

Berland fussed and fumed a little, but he stayed. Thunder needed someone to talk with. Even more important, after the close call he'd had, the young roadrunner was more than ready to listen. He could tell Berland sensed that.

The old tortoise explained that Tess was the bobcat who lived down the canyon. Although she usually stayed beyond the place where the rocks had fallen to hold the water, she occasionally came to hunt in this wide part of the valley. “The crows are probably what brought the coyote,” Berland said. “Crows tell other crows when there's food. When there are that many crows, and that much noise, always be on the watch for predators. Scruffy heard them and came to see what there was to eat. It's a wonder Tess didn't come to check it out, too.”

He also told Thunder that Tess's paws and pads were much broader than Scruffy's. “If she had been chasing you, moving fast, she wouldn't have gotten stuck in the mud.”

Thunder was just getting ready to ask Berland what mud was when he saw the coyote lunge and stumble from the edge of the cattails. He was covered from the tips of his paws to his belly with a slick, slimy, gooey coat of black. He stood for a moment, panting, then shook. Little black droplets filled the air and scattered all about. He raised his right front paw and shook it. Then his left hind paw. Then his left front, and finally his right hind. Still covered and dripping, he flopped down and started rolling.

He rolled and rubbed against the sand on one side, flipped to his back, then scraped his other side in the dirt. Once on his feet again, he walked a ways, found some dry grass, and dropped to his belly. Then he crawled and rubbed and flopped some more.

“Mud?” Thunder asked.

“Mud,” Berland agreed. “It's what happens to dirt when it gets very wet. Where the cattails are, there's also decayed plant stuff mixed in. Mud can't hold you up like dry dirt. It lets you sink. Your feet were wide enough to keep you moving—as long as
you ran. If you had stopped, you would have sunk in the mud and been stuck there, just like Scruffy.”

Thunder watched as the coyote went back to the rocks where Speedette, Agile'eka, and Brisk had been while he and Rocket were racing. The coyote sniffed around a minute or two, but the trail was cold. So he checked out some nearby brush for a rabbit. When he found nothing, he crossed the dam and disappeared.

“I like this valley,” Thunder said. “Agile'eka and I talked about living here. Raising a family of our own. We're both too young, but maybe in a year or two. Now . . . I don't know . . . Scruffy and Tess . . . maybe it's just too dangerous to claim this as our territory.”

“No matter where you go in the desert it's going to be dangerous.” Berland yanked his head inside his shell. “It's a harsh place. Food is hard to find—water even harder. There are always coyotes or bobcats or something that wants to eat you or bite you or sting you. This valley is a good place. There's enough food for two families of roadrunners, and no one has claimed it. When your time comes, I don't know why it shouldn't be yours. If . . .”

He poked his head out once more. “If you're smart and strong . . .”

“But I'm not very smart,” Thunder confessed. “I'm not very strong, either. I tried to fly when Scruffy was chasing me, and I could barely get off the ground. My feet are too big. Too heavy to lift. I just can't—”

Suddenly Thunder felt something hitting his chest and wings. He glanced down. Sand flew at him again and again.

Berland always used his feet to dig. This time, he shoved the sand at Thunder—first with one foot, then the other. “You're just making excuses. There you go. Being lazy again.”

Thunder felt his head crest bristle. “My stinking feet are huge. How can I—”

But before he could finish, Berland kicked another pawful of sand. “So your feet are huge. Big deal! So what?”

“So I can't run through brush or tree limbs. I can't fly. I can't—”