The black robes of the mare and her colt grew shaggy and thick, as the bitter cold deepened. Lady Ebony and Midnight were forced to seek grass at the upper end of the meadow below the cabin because the wind struck that part of the mesa, clearing the snow away. Every morning they plunged through deep drifts to reach the wind-swept portion of the meadow, returning again at night to their shelter.
The week of clear weather was broken late one afternoon. Clouds began to cluster around the high spires of the Crazy Kills. They crept into high craters and wound around the tall, granite cathedrals on top of the world like great cats stalking their prey. Above they were silvery white and gleamed like jeweled blankets, below they were dark gray and, in spots, black.
A feeble sun shone on the mesa, and two yellow sun-dogs blazoned forth on either side of it like sentinels. The air was still and the silence deep. Slowly the temperature rose and Midnight sniffed eagerly and plunged about in the snow. He was disturbed but did not know why. Lady Ebony jerked up her head and tested the air. She knew another storm was coming. Then the clouds rolled down over the spruce, blotting out the shining mountain peaks, the big soft flakes came and later the lashing wind. Another blizzard gripped the high mesa. With the wind came cutting cold that stabbed through even the thick coats of the horses. Lady Ebony headed across the meadow toward their shelter.
For many days the blizzard raged and roared and the snow fell. When the storm cleared, the snow was deeper than it had been in many winters. It piled in great, hundred-foot drifts along the comb ridges, in lips which thrust themselves out over the spruce below. Slides roared into the canyons as those lips broke and shot down the steep slopes. The white terrors mowed swaths through the spruce and tore great boulders from their beds, grinding them to dingy gray rivers of twisting, roaring debris which cascaded into the creek bottoms and slid up the far slopes. The thunder of the slides shook the mesa and the ridges, starting new rivers of snow.
When the white death roared, Midnight always crowded close to his mother’s side and stared up at the ridges trying to see the monster that could roar louder than any animal he had ever heard. Lady Ebony was disturbed but she nickered reassuringly to her son and did not lead a charge through the deep snow.
Digging for food was a job which required all the short day. The upper end of the meadow still offered the best feed ground, though the snow lay three feet deep on that part of it. The timber-line buck came down from a bed in the rocks and fed close to the horses. He ate much grass now because he could not scoop the snow away so easily as the horses did. And he browsed on willow growing along the stream, but such feeding meant fighting snow six feet deep. Sometimes he followed the horses and ate the weeds they uncovered and left untouched.
Lady Ebony and Midnight came to expect the timber-line buck to join them in their battle for food. The three fed close together in comradeship. Theirs was a common fight against a common enemy. The buck no longer charged at Midnight when the little horse walked up to him. And Lady Ebony no longer whinnied warningly when her son approached the antlered monarch.
Life was hard for the three on the mesa, but not as hard as it was for the killers who roamed the silent forests. The gray wolves and the cougars hunted daily, their sides gaunt. The snowy owls beat along the edges of the timber, their glassy eyes staring down savagely. But there was little food. The snow had not crusted and the gray wolves and the cougars could not overtake the hardy mule deer remaining in the mountains. They wallowed and floundered while the deer and the elk bounded up and clear of the clinging drifts. Night and day the killers hunted with savage intensity, their yellow eyes flaming with savage hunger. When one of a wolf pack was wounded or crippled, the pack turned on him and devoured him as they would any lesser prey.
A day came when the weather moderated, the sun shone, and the snow softened and settled. A warm wind blew from the valleys below. The wind melted the top snow to a depth of several inches. That night the cold returned, the trees popped, and the air was still and brittle. Frost crystals coated the willows along the stream and made brilliant jewelry of every branch and twig rising above the snow. The trees looked like rock candy. The slushy snow froze into ice and the world was coated with a hard armor. And now the gaunt killers could race swiftly over the surface while deer and elk broke through. The killers slaughtered savagely, gorging themselves on fresh meat until they could not run. The coyotes and the owls fed at the tables of the great ones after the hunters had passed on to fresh kills.
Lady Ebony and Midnight found the battle to reach the cured grass under the snow much more difficult, now that the ice had come. They were forced to feed later into the night in order to fill their bellies. They pawed and smashed at the thick armor covering the drifts. A full moon shone down, its white light flashing back from the glistening ice. The air was snapping cold as night settled, but Lady Ebony delayed returning to their shelter. They had not fed well that day. She was pawing down the crust, then scooping away the loose snow. The old timber-line buck followed close behind the two horses. He was gaunt and lank. His slender hoofs made poor weapons against the ice.