He was not sure how long they had been swimming, but soon Tijo felt Hold On’s hooves striking the creek bed again. Tijo slid back toward his rump, still grasping his mane as Hold On heaved himself from the water up the steep bank. Then the stallion began to shake the water from his body. Tijo gripped with his knees as hard as he could to keep astride.
Hold On felt the pressure of the boy’s knees. One leg seemed to grip tighter than the other and was not quite as strong, but he soon grew accustomed to it. What he was not accustomed to was the boy’s weight. Never in all his years of service to the Ibers had anyone felt so light on his back.
There was no bit, no bridle, no spurs, and yet the boy was guiding him. He urged Hold On up from the creek’s banks to the higher ground with muted signals, by shifting his weight ever so slightly. Hold On could see shadowy images. They were blurred, but it was more than he had seen since the fire in the canyon. He began to trot and still the boy did not try to hold his mane or fling his arms around his neck. He might as well have been carrying a feather on his back. Hold On broke into a gallop and still the boy kept a perfect balance despite his short, weak leg.
He puts no saddle on my back, no bit in my mouth, not even a rope, but with this boy I could go far. He is my eyes. Mis ojos. He neighed, then nickered. Mis ojos!
Tijo cocked his head and listened. It sounded as if Hold On had almost said his name. We have named each other! he thought happily, and stroked Hold On’s shoulder. I am not lonely! I can live without a village. And I am not a ghost, not in the blind eyes of Hold On. In his eyes I am a boy — and not just a lame boy.
A cold wind swept down upon them and steel-gray clouds were building in the west. Estrella saw Bobtail squint and peel back his lips. Some said that the bright bay stallion had a weather eye, but it was more a weather nose. Bobtail’s scent organs were large; his dark muzzle was much broader than that of most horses.
Estrella watched the stallion nervously now. He’d caught something that made him pin back his ears. She hoped with all her might that it wasn’t the scent of decaying flesh — Hold On’s carcass rotting somewhere.
“Bobtail,” she asked, barely concealing her anxiety. “You don’t smell something dead, do you?”
“No,” he said, flaring his nostrils and dancing to the side. “Though I wish it were dead.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I smell might be human.” The stallion cast a baleful eye at Estrella. The meaning was clear. We should have left off this useless hunt earlier.
The word human sent a tremor through the herd. The horses began tossing their heads, their manes gusting up past the ears they’d pinned flat to their skulls.
“Then we have to leave!” the colt Sky said. His eyes were frantic as he thought of how his legs had been hobbled by the ropes of the Ibers. The feeling of their lariats settled like snakes around his neck.
The other colt, Verdad, jigged in place, as if struggling to keep his legs from dashing off on their own. “I was broken once by those fool Ibers. Never again. You don’t know what it’s like, Estrella.”
“Yes, I do. They tried to break me at the City of the Gods.” They had “twitched” her muzzle with a rope twisted over her upper lip, and hobbled a front foot to a hind one. The memory of the pain, the sudden loss of balance, flared throughout her entire body.
“That doesn’t count!” Verdad shot back. “It’s time to stop looking. Are you trying to get us all killed? You are no leader. You’re just a filly.”
“You think because I am a filly I cannot lead!” Estrella shook as she fought the urge to charge the colt.
A silence fell upon the herd. After a long moment, Grullo began to speak. “Estrella, you are the one who first shared your vision of the sweet grass, but now it calls to all of us. We promised that we would wait one more day for Hold On. That day ends when the sun sets this evening.” Grullo’s head dropped, as though it’d taken a great deal of energy to say the words.
The tide of anger welling up in Estrella’s belly began to subside. Now wasn’t a time for anger; it was a time for meadow wisdom. It suddenly became very clear to Estrella what she must do. Grullo was right. Their quest was about more than finding the sweet grass and filling their bellies. Bobtail had picked up the scent of humans! Humans with saddles and bits and bridles, the very things that would make a mockery of any notion of being free or wild. It was the knowledge of human cruelty that had always made Estrella carry on, carry on despite the loss of her dam, and now despite the loss of her dearest friend. They had been hobbled, tethered, beaten, thrown into shark-infested waters, tricked into entering a fiery canyon. There was no choice but to go on. It was time to go. It was time to lead.
“Now!” she said suddenly, forcing all other thoughts from her mind. The horses looked at her with confusion. “We need to go now! Right now! Move north!”
If anyone had asked how two such different creatures — a horse and a human — communicated, it would have been difficult to explain. It would have been as hard to comprehend as the wonder of a flower blooming in the snow, or a star that suddenly shoots across the sky, or those mysterious illusions that grow from the light passing through layers of quivering heat. For although Tijo used no bit, and spoke sounds Hold On had never heard, they had come to understand each other almost completely.
Tijo was as astonished as Hold On. It was nothing short of miraculous. They were communicating through a combination of touch, gesture, and soft, nearly wordless sounds. Sounds that were like music brought by the wind when it flowed through a canyon or stirred the leaves of a tree.
Tijo would often signal Hold On to stop near a certain tree or cactus, then slip off his back to strip off a leaf, scrape off a handful of bark, or collect the syrup from which he made the salves for Hold On’s eyes. Soon, Hold On became adept at smelling out just the kinds of vegetation that Tijo liked for his pack, and would begin to slow down even before Tijo signaled him.
Hold On could also smell weather hours before it arrived. One afternoon he began to snort harshly. Bad storm! Hold On felt Tijo shift his weight as he pressed his knees against the stallion’s sides and leaned back slightly. This was the signal to stop. Hold On halted, then felt Tijo stand straight up on his back. It had surprised Hold On the first time the boy did this, as no Iber had ever stood up on his back. But this boy with one leg shorter than the other did it as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He could walk the long distance of Hold On’s back from his withers to the dock of his tail, which he was doing now as he scanned the western horizon.
But Tijo saw nothing. Hold On peeled back his lips and inhaled a great mouthful of air. Tijo knew this was how the creature smelled things. He tried to do the same. Hold On shook his head and made a soft nickering sound. Tijo sensed his amusement. Hold On stopped and pawed the ground as if to say, Trust me, it’s coming.
“Snow?” Tijo seemed to exhale the word more than actually speak it.
Hold On snorted with frustration. Weather he had always been able to abide, but this weather would wipe out other scents. It would destroy any chance of picking up the scent of his herd for days. If it was rain, it would wash the scent away completely.
Snow and something more, Tijo thought. He felt a wetness in the air, and something else. The scent of rotten eggs. The scent that Hold On had picked up much earlier.
Tijo pressed his knees to Hold On’s sides and reached forward to rub where his singed forelock fell. It was a reassuring, comforting gesture. Don’t worry. I’ll find a cave. We will be safe.
There was a grove of trees nearby, but that would be the most dangerous place to seek shelter. The rotten egg smell meant lightning. If it struck a tree, even just a branch, the tree could explode into fire, especially if it was a sap tree like the piñons. That same tree that had saved Hold On’s eyes could destroy both boy and horse during a lightning storm.
They moved on toward a ridgeline of a large escarpment that faced east, away from the weather. Despite
Hold On’s dire predictions, the sun was still bright in the sky. Tijo spotted a long shadow up ahead that could indicate an overhang and possibly a cave.
That way. Tijo tapped his right toe gently against Hold On’s shoulder and they continued. The sky was becoming angry, smoldering with thick, nearly black clouds. Tijo craned his neck and spotted the dark void in the rock wall beneath the ridgeline. He urged Hold On forward. It was a cave, a deep cave, and they entered just before the fierce gusts of wind brought the first raindrops.
Hold On pinned back his ears. His muzzle began to twitch as a terrible stench filled the air. He felt Tijo tense on his back.
Vampire bats! Hold On shuddered as a terrible image flashed through his mind.
By this time the clouds had unleashed their fury. Lightning was slashing the sky. “Some choice,” Tijo muttered. “Fried by lightning or sucked bloodless by bats.” He began to rub Hold On on the crest of his neck.
“Hold On, listen to me. You cannot sleep. They don’t often suck humans’ blood, but they love big warm-blooded animals like you. I’ll stay up and try to beat them off if you sleep. You see, the cut they make is so small that you would never notice it. There is something in their bite that numbs the skin — that is what Haru told me. Numbs the skin but lets the blood flow.”
Hold On pushed his ears forward. They trembled slightly. But when will you sleep? How can I protect you?
“They don’t often attack humans,” Tijo repeated, scratching Hold On between his ears.
Often could be once, and once could be bad. A shudder passed from Hold On’s withers to his shoulders, as if the entire cloth of his skin flinched.
“But you can’t see them, Hold On.”
I’ll hear them when they come near. I’ll … I’ll … I’ll give them a licking they won’t forget.
“Licking?” This was a word that Tijo had never heard the stallion use.
Hold On himself was startled. It was an Iber word. How often he had seen an Iber approach a mule with a whip coiled in his hand and a dark look as angry as the sky was outside, swearing about giving that mule a licking the creature would never forget. Terco, that was the Iber word for a willful and obstinate mule. He had seen mules’ backs torn to bloody strips by cruel owners.
We’ll both stay up together. Hold On was firm.
“If you say so,” Tijo replied, and patted his shoulder, which had flinched moments before.
I say so. Hold On snorted.
They heard a stirring in the ceiling above them. Were the bats rousing? A wave of tension pulsed from Hold On’s withers down his shoulders. The horse pinned back his ears, then relaxed them again and swiveled each one slowly, like figures in a lovely dance. A calm began to steal through Tijo and he reached down and rubbed Hold On’s withers and whispered his name.
The stallion was an old horse and a very tired horse. He felt his eyelids grow heavy. Tijo decided it couldn’t hurt to let him sleep for just a bit. He dismounted, stretched, then walked to the cave entrance, looking out at the storm-choked night. A spiderweb of lightning filigreed the sky. The full moon was rising timidly in the east. Slow in its ascent, it seemed to be dodging the fiery claws of the lightning by hiding behind the dark clouds.
Suddenly, the lightning sheeted and the sky bleached white. A strange silhouette appeared on the crest of a hillock. “Horse?” Tijo whispered to himself. But its ears were too long, its back too short, its rump too high. What was it? Just then Tijo heard a shrill cry and a thunderous noise from inside the cave.
He ran back in, but it was too late.
A mule looked out into the night fractured by lightning. Was she a fool standing out here flicking her ears, tempting the fiery fates that raged overhead? The storm had taken her by surprise when she reached the summit of the hill. It had rained earlier that day, but she thought it was finished. Perhaps the storm was a blessing. It might discourage the men from pursuing her.
The lightning, particularly that last thunderbolt that whitened the night, had given her a very good sense of the shape of things. Seconds later, two spiky prongs had flashed down and ignited a stand of cottonwood trees growing beside a stream. The flames now reached up through the driving rain.
None of this frightened the mule. Not the rain, not the flashing bolts of light, not the fire. After what had happened in the corral that day, Yazz had moved beyond shock. She was imperturbable. Was she simply too old to be shocked? There was no denying she was old — at least twenty years old — but it was not just a matter of age.
It had begun with the new owner. He had balked at the price Yazz’s old owner was demanding. “She’s a mule,” he had argued. “Ninguna ascendencia, no posteridad.” She had no ancestry, no future descendants. It was half-true. As a mule, she could not reproduce. She was sterile. But she did have ancestry; her sire had been a donkey and her dam a fine Iber Jennet, though it was true there would be no future generations with her blood running through their veins. But even if she could reproduce, Yazz wondered what she would be reproducing for. So some cruel owner could work a foal of hers to exhaustion in a jerkline, hauling Iber silver? There was no doubt that this new owner was one of the cruelest she’d ever had. His title was Governor but some called him El Miedo, which meant The One Who Is Feared in the language of the Ibers.
El Miedo’s expedition was the largest ever launched into the New World. Its size dwarfed that of the Seeker’s, who had come with fewer than a dozen ships, one hundred men, and seventeen horses. El Miedo had the king’s ear and a thousand merchants’ purses for this endeavor — a search for silver mines that would make them all rich beyond belief.
Earlier in the day, El Miedo had become infuriated with a mule in the jerkline and began to beat the poor thing mercilessly. Yazz had stood by helpless until the mule collapsed in a bloody heap, her back in shreds. The rain had started before her body was removed, washing the blood into red rivulets that streamed around Yazz’s own hooves as the proud stallion recently captured by El Miedo walked by.
“What are you doing?” he asked. Their master called him El Noble. But to the other animals, he insisted on being called Pego.
“She is dying. To die alone is a terrible thing,” Yazz replied.
“She’s a mule! Mules are constructed differently. They are incapable of such feelings. They are not like Pura Raza, Pure Bloods.”
“I am a mule. I know what a mule is capable of!”
Pego merely snorted and walked on.
“Call yourself a pure blood. I call you a pure idiot,” Yazz muttered, and turned back to soothe the mule. Jenny was her name, a popular name for female mules. “You are going to a better place. You are Jenny,” Yazz had softly brayed to her throughout the hours she lay dying.
The other horses and mules had wandered over to some makeshift shelters as the rain beat down harder. But Yazz would not budge from Jenny’s side. Her breath by this time had become ragged. There were long spells when Yazz thought she had breathed her last breath.
During Jenny’s last hour on earth, the rain had stopped, revealing a sky powdered with stars. A special constellation, El Mulo, the Mule, had risen that night. Perhaps that was a good sign for the dying mule, Jenny.
Yazz’s own mother had told her about the star picture. “See, Yazzy,” her dam had murmured. “See the design of the stars. See the long ears. See how the mule bucks. No horse can buck like a mule, Yazzy. You have bigger muscles. You have more power in your hindquarters.”
“But you are so beautiful,” Yazz had replied. “Your neck curves like the dipping stars.”
“You are beautiful, too, Yazzy, in your own way.”
“I have funny-looking hooves,” Yazz said, peering down at her oddly shaped, tiny feet. Her dam’s hooves were larger and had a lovely roundness that she envied.
“But you are stronger, Yazz. And those hooves make you more sure-footed. You will be able to go places I could never go. Steep-sided slopes, up and down, and never fall.” Her dam paused. “Beauty can’t do that
for you. And you are much smarter.”
But I want to be pretty, Yazz thought, looking up at the star mule. “How come it doesn’t carry a pack? How come it isn’t in a jerkline?”
“He doesn’t wear a pack because he has laid down his burden. He is free now and can buck and romp all over cielo de encanto.”
“But that is where dead horses go. If I am a mule and you are a horse, when I die, will we be in separate skies?”
“No! No!” Yazz’s mother nickered softly, shook her head, and thought, This is what it is like to have such a smart foal. She was just not bright enough to answer some of Yazz’s questions.
Yazz had continued to look down at her own hooves. She was such an odd combination of things — a little bit of horse, not enough. A lot of donkey, a bit too much. And where were all these brains going to get her? In a jerkline hauling Ibers’ burdens — their tools, their precious metals, their food.
A light breeze blew through the corral, taking the spirit of Jenny, leaving quietly growing resolve within Yazz. She looked up at the star mule and whispered, “Why wait until I die to set aside this burden? Go now!” She felt the first hints of freedom like a telltale wind.
Her dam’s words came back to her. “No horse can buck like a mule, Yazzy. You have bigger muscles, more power in your hindquarters.” She looked at the corral. Why had she never even dared think of leaving until this moment? Leave now before another helpless beast is beaten to death. There was a place on the north side where the wood was rotting. It would be easy.
She trotted over to it. “Hey, where you going?” a donkey asked.
“Out.” A mare turned around and blinked at her curiously and went back to the feeding trough. Yazz wheeled her rump around and bucked as hard as she could, kicking out at the split rails of the corral. It took only three kicks for the rails to break wide open, leaving a nice mule-size gap. Every animal in the corral was stunned. Yazz was the oldest of the mules. The steadiest. The most reliable in the jerkline. The most obedient. Why would she do such a thing? An Iber came running from the tent where El Miedo’s top lieutenant slept. He had a lasso coiled in his hand and was about to unfurl it when Yazz wheeled about, charged him, and then bucked. The Iber dropped to the ground as Yazz bolted into the night.