Frightful's Mountain

Frightful lays two more eggs and turns them to keep the yolk suspended and not touching the shell. She eventually lies on the eggs to warm them; when they reach 70 degrees, cells begin to divide and eyases start to develop. Frightful’s mate brings Frightful food and takes a turn on the nest so that Frightful can exercise.

Watching Frightful on her scrape on the Delhi Bridge, Sam whistles for her, and when she does not respond, he knows she is incubating eggs and is thankful that she will be able to raise eyases. A week later, repairmen begin work on the bridge. Their equipment creates loud noises and shakes the bridge, and although Sam warns that a peregrine falcon is nesting on the bridge, a worker named Joe Cassini explains that they have no choice but to continue the repairs. While no one is watching, Sam climbs the bridge to Frightful’s scrape, lies on his belly, and speaks gently to her, keeping her calm in the midst of the chaos and noise below so that she will stay with her eggs.

Meanwhile, down on the bridge, Leon Longbridge approaches the foreman with four local kids who love peregrine falcons. They know that Frightful is nesting on the bridge because one of them, a 10-year-old named Molly, can see the top of the bridge from her bedroom. When they ask the workers to delay their repairs until the eggs are hatched, Joe again refuses. The kids decide to write to the governor, asking him to halt the construction.

When 426 returns with food for Frightful, he is too afraid of the noise and vibrations on the bridge to land. Sam realizes he will need to feed Frightful. He resolves to camouflage himself on his perch on the bridge, as well as to bring a vest so that he can blend in with the workers when climbing up to Frightful. After remaining with Frightful all day, Sam returns home once the workers are gone and the bridge is calm.

Sam continues to sit out of sight on the bridge with Frightful for 15 days while the work continues. Frightful withstands the noise in her brooding trance, but 426 does not land when work is ongoing. He brings food for Frightful and stays nearby but does not take a turn brooding. As Frightful feels the chicks moving inside the eggs, she becomes even calmer. Joe and his coworker Dan Martin notice the sticks Sam placed on the bridge as camouflage, and Dan, who knows a little about peregrine falcons, is suspicious since he knows they usually like bare ground.

Sam builds a lean-to on the mountainside near the bridge so that he is eye level with Frightful’s position. When the noise dies down, 426 comes to brood the eggs so Frightful can exercise. Otherwise, on noisy days, Sam makes sure Frightful stays fed and in place on her eggs. One day, he hears Leon Longbridge and Jon Wood talking about moving the eggs. Neither their efforts nor the letters from the kids have had any effect on postponing the bridge repairs, and Leon and Jon think there’s a good chance that Frightful will follow her eggs to a new location.

The next morning the kids of Delhi gather for a parade to save the falcons. They bravely approach the bridge workers and ask them to postpone their repairs. Joe again explains that they can’t. TV reporters turn up to cover the cause to “save the peregrine falcons” (134). Even one of the bridge workers joins in. The noise level drops somewhat over the next few days, and 426 continues to take turns brooding when things are calm. Sam watches from his lean-to, and Molly observes with a spotting scope from her bedroom window. However, the work on the bridge still isn’t over, and painting is up next.

Leon Longbridge places a wooden scrape for Frightful’s eggs in a nearby sycamore tree. Recognizing Frightful as Destiny, Jon Wood carefully takes Frightful’s eggs and places them in his backpack near a hot water bottle for the transfer. He fends off Frightful’s attacks as he transfers the eggs to the wooden scrape in the tree. He and Leon hope that Frightful will sit on her eggs in their new location, but she flies away with 426. After an hour, the eggs start to get cold, and Jon decides to return them to the bridge. There, Frightful sits on the eggs once more, although she feels no movement inside the shells. While painting the bridge is due to begin, Joe Cassini and Dan, the worker who joined the cause to save the falcons, decide to postpone working near Frightful’s position for as long as possible. Knowing that Frightful needs food, Sam takes advantage of an intense rainstorm to sneak up to feed Frightful. Frightful finally feels the chicks move again, and the next day, which is day 29, one egg begins to hatch; the other two soon follow, even with the bridge being sandblasted. Sam watches all three chicks being born from his lean-to, while Molly and other children watch from her room.

At first, the chicks live off of egg-sac food. Then, Frightful and 426 start sharing small morsels of food, and the chicks’ digestive systems start working. Frightful’s mothering instincts take hold, and she carefully tends her babies, named Oksi, Blue Bill, and Screamer. Meanwhile, Joe plans the bridge painting so that they won’t disturb Frightful until the babies are 10 days old. As Joe shares his plan with Dan, a green pickup truck comes to the bridge, and two men introduce themselves as Flip Pearson and Dr. Werner from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. They have come to relocate the eyases, and they retrieve the babies from the bridge. Molly sees the men from her bedroom and quickly calls her friends to meet at the bridge. They hurry there and ask to see the babies, but remark that Flip only has two babies when there should be three. He claims there were only two and leaves with Dr. Werner to take the eyases to an undisclosed location. Hughie, one of the children, wonders aloud where Leon Longbridge is, and the kids run to his office to tell him about the relocation of the chicks.