The Legend of Thunderfoot Read Free

goner,” the roadrunner clattered. “But so are you. In fact, I think I’ll eat you for supper. My last meal.”
    The snake had barely raised its head when he grabbed its tail and slung it a third time. This time the thing flew over the round rock and landed on the far side near the cow skull. He chased after it and threw it again, and again, and again. “Yeah! Hurrah! Get him. Tear that mean old rattlesnake up,” the young mice cheered from inside the cow skull.
    â€œHush, children!” he heard the mother mouse scold. “We live in the desert. It’s a harsh place. The plants are few and far between, and in the desert everything eats everything else. That’s a roadrunner. They are the quickest and best hunters of all the animals. He would just as soon eat us as the rattlesnake. Be quiet. Don’t let him know we’re here.”
    The roadrunner ignored the mice, determined to do in the rattlesnake and stay true to his word to eat the thing for supper. Trouble was, when the time came, he didn’t feel like eating. His feet throbbed—clear up his strong legs and into the pit of his stomach. He hadn’t noticed the sick feeling or the pain before. He was too mad. Too busy. But now . . .
    Staggering, his head drooping low, he wobbled back across the open toward the creosote bush from where he’d first seen the grasshoppers. There was shade. And even though the sun was low, barely resting on the tips of the mountains to the west, he needed shade. He felt hot. Sick. The pounding in his feet was more than he could stand. He glanced down.
    They were beginning to swell. Each foot had four toes—two in the front and two in the back. The snake had bitten him on the right front toe on his left foot and the left hind toe on his right foot. He must have landed with his feet almost together. The rattlesnake bit only once, but each fang sank into a different foot.
    He took a few steps, then threw up. A few more steps and he threw up again. By the time he stumbled into the shade of the creosote, there was nothing leftin his stomach. Not even the slightest taste of grasshopper, or scorpion, or lizard. Even the sweet flavor of the skink tail no longer lingered in his beak. He was empty. Sick. Weak.
    He fell beneath the branches of the creosote bush. Resting his head on the cool sand, he lay there a moment and closed his eyes. In the darkness behind his eyelids, he could almost see his family’s nest. Perched at the top of a young cholla cactus, it was a shallow, saucerlike nest made of sticks. He didn’t remember being in the egg, or being born. He did remember his mother keeping him and his sister cool during the day and his father protecting them at night.
    Both Mama and Daddy fed them. He remembered feeling crowded, shoved, pushed. There was always noise when his parents came with food. But when he was old enough to be truly conscious of the nest and things around it, he and his sister were alone. They haggled over food, but there was always plenty for both.
    Eighteen times the sun rose, then fell behind the mountains to rest in the Great Water, before his mother and father pushed them from the nest. For the next two weeks they brought them very little food. That was because they had to learn to hunton their own. They watched. Copied their parents. Learned.
    Such a short life! What a waste. I wish they’d given me my name , he thought. Without a name no one will remember me. Without a name, there will be nothing left but dust. Dust to be scattered by the wind and forgotten. I don’t even know if I can get into the Big Desert in the Sky without a name.
    He forced his eyes to open so he could look around. Then he realized he couldn’t even lift his head from the sand. This was it. He closed his eyes and waited for the end.

Chapter 3
    There was a sound. A movement. Something rustling in the dry grass. He opened an eye. It was dark, dark as pitch.
    I must