Aunt Vi scanned with the binoculars. “Where’s Wyeth?”
“I see him,” said Payton. “See, Aunt Vi? Over on that hill. He’s trying to come to the water hole, but Sargent won’t let him.”
“It’s time,” said Aunt Vi.
Maya shifted her gaze and saw the lone horse wander away. “Time for what?” she asked.
“To leave the family. The stallion drives the mature males away when they’re between two and three years old, to prevent inbreeding. And because the young male’s desire is to be rambunctious and disruptive. Ever heard the phrase ‘sow his wild oats’? That’s what Wyeth will do now, until he’s ready to settle down.”
“Aunt Vi,” said Payton. “Can I ride back?”
“Go ahead. Keep Homer steady at the lope and don’t let him work into a gallop.”
“Yes! Meet you at the trailer.” Payton ran toward his horse.
Aunt Vi laughed. “Sometimes it seems as if that boy is already sowing his wild oats.”
“It seems so cruel … to the boy horses,” said Maya.
“Oh, it’s not much different in human families. There comes a time when children must leave home and find their own way in the world. Like your mother did, like you and Payton will do someday. As heart-wrenching as it seems, in a few years, Klee will be sent away from the band, too.”
Maya and Aunt Vi lifted their binoculars. Maya watched as Artemisia nibbled Klee’s neck and then wrapped her large head and neck around his body. Maya felt a pang of jealousy. Had her mother ever cuddled her with such devotion?
“She’s a good mother,” said Aunt Vi. “And a good lead mare. As much as I miss her, I can tell she’s happy.”
“How did Artemisia get to be the lead mare?” asked Maya.
“The mare who puts herself in the position of leader becomes it,” said Aunt Vi.
“But how did Artemisia know she was the leader?”
“Oh, Maya, there’s so much we humans don’t know about ‘knowing.’ With horses, it’s not the biggest or oldest who is the lead. It’s the horse who has the confidence to guide the family in times of danger, who has knowledge of the land and knows the routes to safety, who is herd-smart and can make alliances with other mares and keep peace. Some mares have the ability. Others don’t. Think about great human leaders. They have many of those same qualities.”
Maya thought about what Aunt Vi had just said and lowered her binoculars. “Like you, Aunt Vi.”
Aunt Vi continued to watch the horses for a few moments, then set the binoculars aside and swiped her forearm across her eyes. “Maya … remember how I told you about how much your mother loved the Sweetwater and how it filled up her heart like no other place could?”
Maya nodded and turned to look at Aunt Vi, whose eyes shined a little too bright.
“I never married or had a family of my own … and your mother … filled up a place in my heart that I didn’t think could be filled up ever again … until …”
Payton appeared behind them, holding all three horses by their reins, breathless and panting. “Aunt Vi!”
She smiled at Maya. “Guess he saved me from falling into the mush pot. What is it, Payton?”
“Aunt Vi … there’s a ’copter … in the canyon!”
Aunt Vi sucked in air, and her face crumpled with disappointment. “No!”
“What’s happening?” asked Maya.
“Come on!” said Payton. “Hurry.”
Aunt Vi hastened toward the horses, and Maya ran after her. As they mounted, Aunt Vi said, “At least you got to see them … before …”
Maya demanded, “Before what?”
The clapping of helicopter blades and the buzz of a motor intensified. The machine appeared on the horizon, swooping and zigzagging like a giant bumblebee across the wide canyon. Miles of net fencing had been set up as a trap, wider at one end of the canyon than at the other, funneling into a narrow chute and ending in a large circular holding pen.
Wild horses pounded forward, panicked and snorting. Their coats glistened with sweat. A young filly hurried to keep up with her mother. A stallion stumbled and was jostled forward with the stampeding throng. A mare struggled behind, lame. Horse screams echoed in the canyon.
Maya, Payton, and Aunt Vi sat on a ridge and watched. “It’s a gather, but it’s not pretty, is it?”
Maya shook her head. The word gather sounded so gentle. But there was nothing gentle about this. “Why are they taking them?”
“Many reasons and it’s complicated. The government rounds them up every few years to keep the wild horse population under control. And there’s a lot of pressure on them to keep doing just that, whether it’s necessary or not. Some ranchers think they damage the grazing land for their cattle. Some people think they drink too much water. But there’s a counter-argument for all of those opinions. Others say they’re just feral horses, broomtails, left over from old ranches and domesticated stock, that have learned to survive in the wild. Some may be, but now there are scientists who believe that mustangs are a wild species native to North America. Regardless of their origin, there are many people who wish they were more protected.”
“What’s going to happen to them?”
“The prettiest and youngest will get purchased at auctions, like the one where I adopted Artemisia. Others will be bought by people who work for sanctuaries, protected places where they can live peacefully in freedom.”
“But there’s plenty of land here, and they’re already free,” said Maya.
“That’s a point that is often made. Unfortunately, we’ve done this many times in our country, rounded up people or animals and released them someplace else when they were just fine where they were.”
“What happens to the others … the leftovers?”
Payton lowered his binoculars and seemed eerily calm. “They auction them off and lots of them are bought and killed for their meat. Then they ship it to other countries. They used to sell the horses to slaughterhouses to make dog food out of them.”
“The law to protect the horses is often challenged by legislators to satisfy certain voters whose livestock graze on the public land,” said Aunt Vi. “Wild horses eat grass and don’t make money for anyone. Their value is not understood by everybody. Yet this country was born on the backs of horses. Horses moved people from place to place so the country could be developed. They tilled the land and became our trusted mounts and allies in war. As a species, they reached out to us as much as we did to them. They became our companions. See how alive they are and filled with energy and abandon? In a matter of days, if we return to this holding pen, you’ll see how dispirited they’ve become. Imagine being free and then separated from your family and put in confinement.”
Maya didn’t have to imagine. Her emotions stirred. She looked out at the infinite and unpopulated landscape and ached for the horses. Artemisia had once been separated from her own mother during a gather. Now she might lose Klee in the same way.
Aunt Vi’s binoculars swept back and forth across the string of horses. “There’s Sargent … Georgia and Mary … and even Wyeth. He must have been trailing after them.”
The rope-waving mustangers rode abreast behind the last of the captured horses until the holding pen gate was slammed shut.
“What about Artemisia and Klee?” asked Maya.
Aunt Vi continued to study the confused and anxious horses, milling in the corral. “They’re missing.”
Maya blew out a sigh of relief. “That’s good, right?”
Aunt Vi put her binoculars in her saddlebag. Her forehead creased with apprehension. “Maybe. Maybe not. If they’d been captured, Maya, I would have had the chance to prove that Artemisia belongs to me. She still carries the ranch brand. But now … without the protection of a stallion, she and Klee are vulnerable.…”
“What could happen to them?” asked Maya.
Aunt Vi looked at her in a way that told her the unimaginable could happen.
They didn’t talk on the ride b
ack to the trailer. Or in the truck on the way back to camp. Payton slumped against the passenger door. Aunt Vi stared straight ahead at the road. Maya leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. She could not stop thinking about Artemisia and Klee, nor could she squash her overwhelming desire to get on a horse and ride out to find them.
ARTEMISIA KNEW WHAT THE SOUND OF THE REPETITIVE thwapping meant. It meant to run with panic within a frantic throng. It meant bloodied cannons from the crush of hooves, and lather so thick from exertion that it flung into one another’s eyes.
Artemisia’s instincts had told her that Klee could not survive the fury, so she had veered away from the cloud of dust and the swath of ground that had been trampled smooth by hundreds of thundering hooves.
They had been on their own for several days now, wandering north of the gulch toward the Sweetwater River. It was almost dark. A sage grouse flew from a clump of brush. Artemisia lifted her head in the direction of the rustle, her ears contorting to determine the cause. The wind shifted and she smelled the mountain lion. Artemisia kept close to Klee. With her foal at her side, she galloped toward open land where she would have a chance against an attack. The mountain lion would be alone; it was a solitary creature with no need for companionship. In wide-open space, Artemisia might be able to stave off a single predator.
Once, from a high ridge, she had watched a mountain lion stalk and kill a pronghorn. The huge cat had stayed downwind and well hidden in the brushy foothills. With its tawny belly close to the ground, it sleuthed forward. Then, it waited, patient and quiet, in the sagebrush. As the intended prey drifted closer, the cat’s black-tipped ears twitched and its back swayed. It squatted onto its powerful hind legs and leaped twenty feet to the pronghorn’s back. With one vicious bite on the neck, it immobilized and killed the victim. After satisfying its hunger, the mountain lion covered what was left of the carcass with dirt and leaves to be revisited for future meals.
Now, the scent grew stronger. A shadow shifted, and Artemisia saw the crouching lion. Her ears flattened and her nostrils flared. She clamped down her tail and squealed a terrifying warning. The cat sprang, and Artemisia felt the eerie, tingling sensation of something swooshing toward her. She reared and met the attacker with pummeling hooves.
The surprised cat fled.
Artemisia huddled close to Klee. With swift determination, she chose a path and led him away. They needed to leave the area.
The mountain lion was hungry and it would stalk them again and again, until it was successful.
MAYA AND PAYTON HEARD THE DISTINCTIVE THROTTLE of Moose’s truck and raced from the river, side by side, to the campsite. Already free of the cab, Golly bounded toward the two cousins, pouncing at their feet, barking and licking their outstretched hands.
Moose and Fig climbed from the cab and moseyed forward. Moose gave Maya a side-arm hug. “Well, now, how’s the frontier girl?”
Her words spewed. “We saw the wild horses. There was a roundup, but it’s really called a gather, and Artemisia and Klee … Oh, Klee is Artemisia’s new foal.… Well, they’re missing. We looked for them all day yesterday but couldn’t find them in their usual places. Aunt Vi said they could be anywhere, but we’re determined to keep looking. And guess what? I can lope, really fast.”
“Of course you can,” said Uncle Fig as he held Payton under his arm in a headlock and tousled his hair.
“C’mon, Golly,” said Payton, breaking free. “I’ll show you the beaver dam near Maya’s tepee.”
He ran toward the river and the dog followed, but Maya stayed back.
Aunt Vi emerged from the office tent, greeted Fig and Moose, and with her usual sense of urgency, passed supplies from the bed of the truck to any willing hands. Maya accepted a bag of groceries and walked alongside them toward the campsite.
“Is this the same girl we left out here a few weeks back?” asked Moose.
Maya smiled and nodded.
“Can’t be,” said Fig. “This girl is a little taller, got more color in her face, and can lope really fast.”
“You two stop pestering,” said Aunt Vi. “Part of her is new and part of her is the same. Once I got her on a horse, she found her heart, just like her mother.”
They dropped off the bags in the pantry and headed back to the truck for another load.
“So the story you told us about the horses … that true, Maya?” asked Moose.
“Yes. I’m not lying, am I, Aunt Vi?”
“You can believe every word she says these days.”
“Vi, you think Artemisia and her colt could be along the river?” asked Fig.
They paused over the truck bed.
“I don’t know,” said Aunt Vi. “I’m not sure why they weren’t with the herd during the gather. Since Artemisia was captured once before, maybe she shied at the sound of the helicopter. Months ago, I saw her band at a clearing near the river a few times, which was an odd place for them to be since it’s so far from their usual range. Artemisia might migrate back there out of habit. Or she might go someplace completely different if she felt threatened.”
“Aunt Vi says that it would be hard for them to survive without the protection of a stallion,” said Maya, her voice sounding forlorn and desperate. “But now there’s not that many stallions because of the gather. And horses want to be around other horses. And one of the saddest things on earth is a wild horse without a family. They just wander around, sad and lonely … until maybe something bad happens.”
“Well, then, we’d better get them back, Maya-bird,” said Moose, handing her another bag of groceries. He turned to Aunt Vi. “That horse is branded and rightfully yours.”
“I know. If they’ve been taken into another band,” said Aunt Vi, “I’ll leave them in the wild. But if they’re struggling on their own, I’d sure like to bring them here.”
“Yes … we’d like to bring them here,” repeated Maya. “Can we go looking for them after lunch?” she asked. “Please?”
Moose looked toward The Winds and pointed. “We can … unless that weather catches up to us.”
Veiled fingers of purple and black descended from the sky. The rain pelted. Clouds flashed and tossed thunderous accusations back and forth. The plastic chairs around the campfire were moved into the kitchen tent where the campers hunkered together. Moose and Fig dashed out to feed the horses and dig trenches to redirect encroaching puddles.
After two days of intermittent downpours, and what seemed like hundreds of card games with Payton, listening for hours to Moose read from a Louis L’Amour novel, and Uncle Fig’s lessons on the Latin names of the flora and fauna of Wyoming, Maya tired of the kitchen tent.
She poked her head into the field office, where Aunt Vi was catching up on her work. “Can I come in?”
“Be my guest. I was wondering how long you’d last in there with the boys.”
Maya looked around at the haphazard untidiness. Aunt Vi sat on a folding chair at the desk. Slick-covered horse magazines littered the floor. On the canvas walls, Aunt Vi had pinned an array of photographs of the wild horses, with their names scrawled across the borders.
“You need any help?” asked Maya.
“Make any amount of order out of this chaos and I’ll be grateful. I’d love to have those boxes unpacked. I’m working on an article called ‘The Native Horse Through the Artist’s Eye’ for a journal, and then I need to start on my fall lesson plans for my art history classes.”
Lightning flashed and illuminated the tent. Maya held her breath until the thunder crashed around them.
Aunt Vi continued to work, unconcerned.
Maya took a deep breath and began to unpack the boxes, taking out oversize art books, one by one, smoothing her hand across each cover: John Singer Sargent, Artemisia Gentileschi, Olaf Seltzer, George Catlin, Charles Russell, N. C. Wyeth, Mary Cassatt.…
Maya smiled and examined the photos of the wild horses pinned to the walls of the tent, matching them with the corresponding art books.
She studied a photo of a black stallion with a white blaze and white stockings. “Aunt Vi, this looks like the horse my father painted.”
“You’re right. That’s Remington. Isn’t he magnificent? He’s tried to steal Artemisia from Sargent’s band a few times but has never succeeded. Horses have their own personalities, their own ways to get what they want.”
“Like people?” asked Maya.
“It’s more the other way around. People are like horses. Sargent is more of a warrior. He doesn’t hesitate to fight to get what he wants. Remington would protect his own, but his approach to getting his way is different. He’s a patient opportunist, waiting until a stallion drops his guard before moving in. I still see Remington, racing along the top of a ridge with a few bachelors. He doesn’t have a mare yet. It would be nice if he was still pining for Artemisia. She and Klee could use the protection.” Aunt Vi stood and stretched. “I’m going to make a sandwich. You hungry?”
Maya shook her head. She stacked the magazines into neat piles, with their spines all facing the same direction. She aligned the books alphabetically and straightened the reports and papers. There was something satisfying in putting it all to order for Aunt Vi, and Maya found herself humming.
While sorting a stack of files, she came across a tattered envelope of photos. The contents caused her to stop and sink cross-legged to the ground. She laid the series of photographs in a line: Maya’s mother with Aunt Vi in front of a split-rail fence, their arms around each other; a four-year-old Maya holding Moose’s hand and walking in the pasture; Maya and Payton on Fig’s lap in a porch rocker; her mother riding Artemisia bareback, with nothing more than a rope around the horse’s barrel. And a duplicate of the photo Maya had in her shoe box.
Maya gathered the pictures, tucked them inside her jacket, and dashed through the rain and mud to the kitchen tent. She found Moose reading and Uncle Fig and Payton playing checkers.
She handed the photographs to Moose. “What’s that rope on Artemisia?”
He studied the photo. “Maya-bird, I’d forgotten about that. We called it a Comanche Coil. Tribes of the Great Plains Indians used this technique to ride without a saddle or reins. They wrapped a rope around the horse in a giant belly loop, sat bareback, and tucked their knees under the rope on either side. They held on by slipping a hand underneath the rope where it crossed the withers. The American Indians were such great horsemen that they could hunt and fight wars from that position.”