Matt Sterling
Illustrated by Lewis G Murray

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CHAPTER 1

Annie knew the boy had a secret as soon as she saw him. She knew because of the way he acted when he saw her coming.

It was the old days, and there was no school in Gravestone. There were not many children, either.

Annie ran along the dusty, dirt road to the tree where she could see a boy digging.

William's mother had said Annie would find him somewhere out along the road. She had said her son would like to have a friend. But when the boy by the tree saw Annie coming he moved quickly round the other side of the trunk to hide.

Annie peeked around the tree.

'Hullo,' she said. 'Are you shy, William?'

'I'm not William!' he shouted at her.

'Oh,' she said, looking about. 'Where's William?'

'That's just what my mother calls me,' the boy said. 'I'm Terra.'

'I didn't know,' Annie said. 'I'm new. My mother and father have come to work in the store.'

Terra did not answer. He got down onto his knees and began to dig amongst the roots of the tree with a broken knife.

He was hard to see under his wide straw hat. But she could see him easily enough through the holes in it, through the holes that did not have straw-coloured hair poking through.

'Why do they call you Terra?' Annie asked again.

'Go away,' Terra said.

Annie got down on her knees and peered under the hat. Peered right into his face.

'You've got freckles,' she said.

'And I've got a birth mark,' he told her proudly. He stopped digging and pulled his shirt off his left shoulder. 'See?'

Annie looked, then shut her eyes.

'It's awful!' she said. 'Hide it again!'

Terra grinned and pulled the shirt back up.

'It's hid again,' he said. 'I like having it. It used to be better. But Mom says it's going to fade right away one day.'

Annie opened her eyes just enough to be sure he really had pulled his shirt back over it.

'What are you doing?' she asked.

'Nothing,' Terra said. 'Go away.'

He dug a grub from the bark of a root and put it into a bottle.

'That's cruel!' Annie said. 'You're going fishing, aren't you!'

'No,' he said. 'And there's no water to fish in, anyway.'

'I forgot,' Annie said. 'There was a river where I used to live. What are we going to do now?'

'Nothing,' he said. 'Not with you.'

'You're going to do something secret, aren't you!' she said. 'I can tell!'

'Well it's my secret!' he said.

'Well I'm going to find out what it is!' Annie said.

Terra dug another grub from amongst the tree roots, and dropped it into the bottle.

'Go away,' he said again. 'He'll die if I don't go soon.'

Annie's eyes got big and round when he said those words.

'Ooooo!' she whispered. 'I knew you had a secret! Tell me? I can keep a secret. I can! I can!'

Terra looked quickly towards town. There was no one on the road. The small store, the hotel, the railway yards and the five houses of Gravestone were too far away for anyone to see them here.

Gravestone was a sheep town. It was right at the end of the railway. Trains only came when there were sheep to take away.

Terra looked around the bare, hot, land; but there were only sheep to be seen.

'Promise?' he said at last.

'Yes!' she said. 'Quick! Tell me!'

'Let's start walking first,' he said. He looked in the bottle. 'I've got enough of these; but I'll have to catch a rabbit or a snake, too.'

'Come on then!' she cried, jumping to her feet. 'Hurry!'

They walked quickly away from town. The red dust of the road was soft and fluffy on their bare feet.

'Promise you won't tell?' he asked.

She nodded quickly, and he began his story: 'It was two weeks ago,' he said.

CHAPTER 2

Terra first saw the nest when he was out looking for places to snare rabbits.

The nest was high in the white branches of a tall, dead tree.

At first he did not know what it was. It did not look like a nest. More like a loose stack of sticks ready for a fire.

Then he had seen the eagles. They were huge birds, when their wings were spread; and Terra was frightened of them.

The sheepmen said they killed young lambs; and Terra thought they might hunt him, too.

At home there was an old telescope. He got it and came back and used it to look at the sticks in the tree. That was when he first saw the eagles landing amongst the sticks, and knew it was their nest.

Each day he went out to watch them, and one day, when the eagles had flown off, he saw the heads of two young ones.

They were ugly things, and Terra laughed out loud at the sight of them.

They looked so stupid, poking their heads out and opening and closing their beaks as if they were eating air.

Then he saw the parent birds come back with snakes and rabbits. They stood on the side of the nest and tore bits off the snakes and the rabbits and poked them into the young eagles' beaks.

But he had not see the two men until the crash of guns had startled his ears. He saw that the men had left their horses a long, long way off. They had crept up, using small bushes to hide behind.

A moment after the gunshots one of the adult eagles crashed from the nest, dead. The other flapped over the side, one wing broken. Then the men fired again. And that one died, too.

Terra wanted to run, shouting at them in anger. But they were sheepmen, and they would just laugh and send him off. The eagles killed their lambs, they said; so they killed the eagles.

The men took the eagles and hung them on a fence. Then they rode away.

Terra waited, watching the nest through his telescope. But there was only one baby eagle, now. The other had been shot, too.

When he was sure the men were not coming back, Terra ran to the tree. He knew it would be dangerous to climb so high and so far out on a branch; but he knew he had to try.

The young one would die in the nest with no one to feed it.

The bark of the tree had long ago fallen from the dead trunk. The wood below was now smooth and white. Terra could not get a grip for his feet, so he could not climb the tree.

That night he had not slept well. He kept thinking of the baby eagle, alone and slowly starving, high in its nest in the tree.

CHAPTER 3

Annie was crying when he finished his story.

'What happened to the poor thing?' she cried.

'I went back and chopped the dead tree down,' he said proudly. 'It was hard.'

'But the baby eagle?' Annie asked, her eyes still filled with tears.

'That's the secret,' Terra said. He stopped and looked back along the road. 'No one must ever see where we go.'

When he was sure there was no one to see, he ran from the road into a deep gully where the earth had been washed away by water.

The gully ended at a cave; but Terra did not go to the end. He stopped where loose rocks blocked a hole in the side.

'He's in there. I found this little cave and locked him in to keep him safe,' he said. Then he called: 'Squealer! Squealer!'

'Will he come?' Annie asked. She kept back, frightened.

'Not till I move some rocks,' Terra said.  He pulled away some of the rocks. 'I just call to let him know it's me.'

He pulled some rocks away; and a young eagle waddled out, its beak open as it squealed for food.

'It's beautiful!' Annie whispered.

'It is, now its got feathers,' Terra said.

He tipped the grubs from the bottle, and pushed them into the eagle's beak; and the eagle gulped them down. 'It was really ugly before the feathers.'

'But he can't live all his life in a hole in the rocks!' Annie said. 'That's awful!' Then she remembered what Terra had said about the sheepmen. 'But they'll shoot him, won't they, if you let him go?'

Terra nodded, and fed the last of the grubs to the hungry bird, then pushed him back into the hole and replaced the rocks.

'I've got to get a rabbit for him, now,' he said. 'He's growing so much he needs to eat all the time. I've got snares set.'

'Could we take him back to town and keep him there?' Annie asked as she followed him up the side of the gully.

'No!' he snapped, angry. 'I don't want it in a cage! And they'd just come and shoot it, anyway!'

'Well it can't live in a hole all its life!' she snapped back, and turned and ran away up the gully.

'If you tell anyone!' he shouted after her. 'You promised! Come back!'

But Annie just kept running.

CHAPTER 4

Terra did not see Annie again for days.

He did not see her again until the day the distant cry of a train whistle came to Gravestone. It was a sheep train. It could be heard long before anyone could see the train itself.

People came out of the houses, and the hotel, and the store, and hurried towards the station.

It was always a like a party when the sheep trains came to town.

Annie was there amongst the people. But Terra was out hunting food for his eagle.

The people went to the van to collect mail and stores and news. Not much news ever came to Gravestone, except on the train.

Annie found a place to sit on a sheep yard fence and watched. She stayed there until the people had got their stores, and their mail and all the news they could. Then she slipped across to the van and spoke to the man inside.

Terra was just blocking his eagle back inside the hole when he heard the sound of boots.

He quickly put the last of the rocks back in place, then began scraping at the bottom of the gully with his grubbing knife.

'I'm looking for gold!' he said quickly when the man appeared.

And then he saw Annie following, and knew she had told his secret.

Terra jumped up and pressed his back against the rocks that kept his eagle in.

'You're not killing him!' he shouted. 'I'll stop you!'

'He's going to help you save your eagle!' Annie cried.

'Help me get that bird into this sack,' the man said.

'Why?' Terra asked.

'So I can help you,' the man said. 'Quick! The train is due to leave, and I have to be on it.'

Annie pushed Terra away. Then she pulled the rocks away from the mouth of the cave. The eagle came out, calling for food.

It was old enough to fly, now.

'Pick it up!' Annie said.

'Please don't hurt it!' Terra begged.

'Just get it into this sack,' the man said.

Terra picked up the eagle, and pushed it into the sack.

The man tied the sack closed with cord, then lifted it and turned back up the gully.

'What is he doing!' Terra demanded.

'You'll see,' Annie said.

They did not talk as they made their way along the gully, then began the tramp back to town.

They were only part way there when the long cry of the train's whistle sounded. It made the eagle flap and squeal inside the bag.

'They must have the sheep loaded and be wanting me,' the man said. He walked more quickly, and they had to run to keep up with him.

At the station the people had gathered again to see the train off.

They shouted when they saw the man and the children coming.

'Been off gathering a sack of wool for yourself!' one called.

The men and women laughed, and the man with the sack grinned and climbed up into the van.

He put the sack carefully on a heap of canvas. Then he leaned from the door of the van and waved his green flag.

The loco had been swung around on the turntable, and was now pushing the train. The engine driver sounded the whistle, and smoke poured up from the chimney.

'I'll let your young eagle go in the forest by Lone Pine Lake,' the man called to Terra. 'He'll find friends and freedom, there.'

The train jolted. Sheep baa-ed. People cheered. And the train began to move.

'Stand further away,' a man said. He took Annie and Terra by their shoulders and moved them a few paces back. He grinned at Annie. 'You're always playing with this little terror,' he said.

'Little terror!' Annie shouted with delight. 'That's why they call you Terra!'

She did a dance of delight in the dust.

But Terra just watched sadly after the train.

One day...one day when he was grown, he would get on a sheep train and go and see if he could find his eagle again.