Frightful's Mountain

When Sam takes Oksi during the storm, Frightful is ready to attack him and defend her baby, but a gust of wind sweeps her away. She waits out the storm in a willow tree, listening for 426, and checks the bridge once the storm ends. Her mothering instincts tell her to stay on the bridge.

The kids who wrote letters to the governor finally get a response. He has agreed to postpone work on the bridge, but this news comes too late. Eventually, Frightful takes flight and comes to Sam’s mountain, landing above Oksi’s box. She cannot see Oksi from where she is perched in the tree, and Sam is dismayed to find that Oksi’s hunger cries have stopped. Sam reaches Frightful when she comes to the ground for a mouse and decides to jess her and climb the tree with her to bring her to Oksi. She finally hears Oksi’s cry and goes to reach her chick, but a hawk grabs her jesses, and Frightful is spooked again and returns to the Delhi Bridge. Sam worries that he could get in trouble if someone sees Frightful wearing jesses; he doesn’t have a falconer’s license. Perry Knowlton, a falconer, spots Frightful in her jesses up on the bridge and calls Jon Wood and Leon Longbridge.

Meanwhile, Frightful returns to Sam’s mountain and locates Oksi in her tree. She finds a strange “monster” with a chicken head feeding Oksi with its beak (168). This monster is actually Sam, who has put a tanned chicken over his head and covered his body with burlap to prevent Oksi from imprinting on him while he feeds her. Frightful is scared away by Sam’s costume. Sam then moves Oksi’s box to the roof of the mill house, which is easier for Frightful to reach than in the tree limbs. Frightful finally returns to Oksi and begins to feed her, and Sam lets out a sigh of relief.

Six-day-old Oksi is finally cared for, and Sam suddenly remembers why he recognized the Fish and Wildlife officer. The man is Bate, a poacher who works with a man named Skri to illegally sell falcons to a Saudi Arabian agent. As Sam wonders where the men could be, Alice comes up the mountain trail and announces that her friend Hanni gave her a dog named Mole. The dog originally ran away from Hanni and Hendrik, but they found him again at a cabin, where two park rangers were preparing to shoot him for catching game. They rescued Mole, and now Alice plans to make him a leather collar and leaves to retrieve Mole from Mrs. Strawberry’s farm.

The next morning, Frightful is still mothering Oksi, but 426 has not brought food for his family. Frightful calls for a new mate, and Chup answers the call. Chup’s presence confirms that 426 must be dead; he would not permit another male near his family were he alive. Chup stays with Oksi while Frightful leaves to hunt, and she is surprised to find Mole in her hunting meadow. She brings back a rabbit for Oksi.

Sam greets Jessie Coon James, his raccoon friend, who returns to the mountain. Sam prepares to leave for a few days to look for Bate and Skri, but before he goes, he removes Frightful’s jesses. As he starts walking, he finds Mole and realizes the dog must have escaped from Mrs. Strawberry’s farm. Sam wins Mole’s trust, and Mole accompanies him on his journey without being leashed. Sam wishes his friend Bando could come, too, but Bando’s wife, Zella, is about to have a baby.

Frightful appears overhead on the second day of Sam’s trip, and Sam watches her hunt with Mole before continuing to the woods behind John Burroughs’s lodge. Sam has a hunch that Bate and Skri are at the cabin and finds their green pickup truck parked nearby. Sam makes a plan to use Mole as a distraction and to sneak inside the cabin and retrieve the eyases without the men seeing him. Mole does provide a distraction, but not the one Sam planned. Mole attacks a skunk under the cabin and gets sprayed. The awful spray rises into the cabin, and Bate stumbles into the kitchen where Sam is holding the eyases. Sam quickly hides in a firewood box, hoping Bate didn’t see him, and two police officers arrive at the cabin. As they are about to arrest Bate, Bate says Sam is the one who stole the eyases. Conservation officer Sean Conklin is with the police and vouches for Sam; they worked together to capture Bate and Skri in the past, and Sean knows Sam would not steal the falcons. The officers arrest Bate and Skri, and they plan to take the eyases to Perry Knowlton, who will raise them and hack them back to the wild. Sam is disappointed that the eyases will not return to Frightful, but the officers have no other choice since the birds are registered now. Sam speaks to the eyases to calm them, and Sean and his assistant, Henry, marvel at Sam’s skill.

As Oksi grows, she gradually gains independence. She is old enough now to be left alone while Frightful hunts and exercises, so Chup goes to a nearby cliff and checks in from time to time. One day, Oksi attacks first Frightful and then Chup when they come with food. Oksi starts to observe her environment as well, and Sam wonders what kind of nesting site she will eventually choose, since she has lived in unconventional environments so far in her life. As Oksi gains independence, she also faces more danger. One night, Jessie Coon James climbs to Oksi’s box and Frightful defends her eyas against the raccoon. Jessie is then attacked by an owl, and Sam treats her wounds. Sam adjusts the location of Oksi’s box so a raccoon can’t reach it in the future.

Frightful continues to hunt pigeons from the Delhi courthouse but stops landing on the aerie to deliver the food, dropping it to Oksi instead. In town, Leon Longbridge and the children of Delhi observe Frightful when she hunts. They plan to visit Frightful’s other two chicks at Perry Knowlton’s soon, and in the meantime, they continue writing letters petitioning for utility poles to be fixed to eliminate risks to birds of prey.

Back on Sam’s mountain, Oksi gets her first taste of flying, but struggles to return to her aerie. When Mole moves to attack Oksi, Frightful defends Oksi against him, and Sam decides to keep Mole inside and out of danger until Oksi learns to fly.