“Don’t go,” Hold On said again. “Wait until morning and then I’ll go with you.”
Estrella nodded reluctantly and joined the rest under a small stand of willows where they would sleep for the night.
It had been a long day, and the colts had lain down on the powdery dirt under the tree to sleep. The rest locked in their legs for standing sleep and soon their heads were nodding. But not Estrella.
She shifted her weight from one hip to the other. She tried reengaging the joints in her forelegs, then her hind ones. She thought flies were nipping at her and swished her tail half a dozen times at nothing. There were never flies at night. The tiny figure of the horse danced so lively in her brain that sleep was impossible.
Her gaze kept drifting toward the spirit city. She wondered if there would be more carvings up there.
A rising moon bathed the rock dwellings in an eerie glow, but the windows stared out blankly. A thick cloud passed over the moon, nearly quenching it. The cloud hung for some time like a scrim, filtering the moon’s light so the city was dappled in silvery gray shadows. Sometimes a wind came along, combing the cloud into strands so thin that they were almost transparent. The strands seemed to play with the light, as if daring the moon to shine its brightest.
Something sprang from the deepest shadows of the cliff dwellings. Estrella blinked. It swirled out of a window like one of the outlier whirlwinds of a dust storm, but unlike dust, it appeared to sparkle.
The rest of the herd was still sound asleep. Estrella took a step forward. A branch cracked under her hoof, and Hold On flinched and swished his tail. Estrella stopped, waited, and then moved on. She walked slowly, setting her hooves down as softly as possible. It was not easy to move silently. She was no longer the same filly; she’d grown heavier on the grasses they’d grazed. She had grown stronger and faster as well.
She watched the dark windows from which the sparkling whirlwind had jumped. Several times, she thought she saw a shimmering cone of light and with it came a thin, reedy sound. The glow reminded her of the sun ponies the herd had seen on the morning of the mountain cats. Should she be afraid? The sun ponies were meant to bring good luck, but they had brought only bad things — the mountain cats, like the one that had killed the fawn, and the coyote that had picked the skull clean. Estrella felt a shudder pass through her.
The light appeared to beckon her, as if to say, Come, come, horse, don’t be afraid. Estrella flared her nostrils and blew softly toward the light, then peeled back her lips and sniffed the air. The only scent she caught was the pungent fragrance of sagebrush cutting the night. As she drew closer, the light seemed to steady, even glow. It settled in a large window near the ground, and a liquid sound drew her closer. The sound, so faint before and louder now, flowed through her. She felt it as one might feel a dream, except that she heard it so strongly, felt it all the way down to her bloodstream. Her own heart seemed to beat the rhythm of the sound.
In one opening in the cliff dwelling, the light glowed deeper and turned to a tawny golden hue like a dawn mist. Did the mist have a shape? The sparkling light began to shift, then dance in the darkness. Estrella stepped across a threshold. A soft breeze stirred the air, and the mist swirled and took form. Suddenly, there was a dewy fawn glimmering before Estrella, dancing and skipping, sometimes bucking, sometimes prancing on its hind legs.
Fawn? she asked.
Yes. I never thought you’d come.
I hear you, but there is no sound.
That’s lucky. We wouldn’t want to wake the rest of your herd.
But how can this be? How are we speaking with no sound?
It’s spirit language, the fawn replied.
I’m not a spirit. I’m not dead. You are. I saw your bones.
Oh, those bones, the fawn said dismissively.
How can this be?
The Once Upons like you the same way they like me. They are drawn to you.
The Once Upons are here?
Of course they are. You said so yourself. They heard you tell the other horses that their spirits were here. The fawn tipped his head, beckoning Estrella. Follow me.
Estrella gasped, for a wall suddenly loomed ahead that revealed a herd of tiny figures. Horses! And they looked just like the one she had seen in the wall with the crystals.
Indeed! said the fawn. Tiny, tiny horses — smaller even than fawns like myself.
Estrella suddenly began to tremble. The fawn sensed her fear.
There are only stories here, he said. Stories of first creatures. Creatures as they were when they entered the world, before men killed them or rode them or herded them. Stories from when men were as free and as wild as we are.
It was as if the pieces of a puzzle were falling into place. Estrella wondered what would have happened if the herd had not stopped by the rock wall with the crystal horse that afternoon. Would she have found this city of spirits?
Estrella followed the fawn as he led her deeper into the rooms and winding pathways of the cliff dwellings. Music seeped from the walls, blending into a soft symphonic sound that swelled in the darkness like a night-blooming flower.
Where are we going? Estrella asked.
Wait. You’ll see.
But you’re blind. How can you see to lead me?
The little fawn made a puffy sound that sounded like laughter. I can see now! And two bright little sparkles where his eyes would be began to scintillate.
They had been following a path that wound through several connected dwellings. They passed tables with bowls in which grain had been ground and left as if ready and waiting to be eaten. There were tools in one corner waiting for the hands of a Once Upon, and water dippers as well as lovely bowls and pitchers with intricate designs.
They left everything, Estrella whispered.
Spirits need little, the fawn replied.
Soon, they had entered a large circular room. Estrella was suddenly confused. She thought she had been following the fawn on a spiraling path that led down into a region beneath the earth, but now it felt as if she had climbed through a hole in the night and emerged onto a shimmering plain made of stars. She felt herself wrapped in the radiance of a pearly light. It was almost as if she were on a border between time and place. Where am I? Her hooves were buried in a dust of stars that swirled up to her hocks.
Suddenly, there came the wonderful fragrance of the wind grass, the sweet grass. A small herd of tiny horses, much smaller than the fawn, danced across the luminous dust. Even the tallest of them hardly came up to Estrella’s knees.
Estrella stood very still, watching the dance of the spirits. And as she watched, an overwhelming sense of peace came to her. Shoals of stars washed against dark. Swaths of silvery light undulated like the manes and tails of wild horses tearing across a strange landscape. She wished the tiny horses would dance closer to her, but they kept just out of reach.
Why don’t they come close? Estrella asked.
You are so big compared to them.
I’d never hurt them.
They don’t know you yet. You’re so like them, but at the same time unlike them. Half strangers to one another.
It was as if Estrella were peering at these creatures over a stretch of time as vast as any sea.
Estrella felt a need to tell the little horse in her mind’s eye her story. Little horse, she said to the figures before her, I smell the wind grass as my dam did. I saw an image of you flash in my dam’s eye before she died. I feel wrapped in the light of her silvery coat. Am I on the right path to find the sweet grass, the wind grass? Am I going where I am meant to be?
I cannot tell you that, said one of the little horses. I can only know where you came from. You have to look up to look down.
Look up to look down? I don’t understand. Where are we going?
That is for you to find out, said the little horse. You are the leader of the first herd.
Estrella was almost desperate now. She wanted to ask more about the wind grass and the original he
rd, but the little horse began to dissolve like dewdrops in the morning sun, and soon he and the fawn were gone.
“Why are you mumbling to yourself?” Azul nudged Estrella’s flank with her head. Estrella shied and bumped into Hold On.
“What’s going on here?” Hold On snorted somewhat grumpily.
Estrella looked around. How did she get back? An eyeblink before, she had been in the spirit city with the little horse and the fawn, and now she was back with the herd. She had no recollection of leaving the spirit city.
“Where are they?” she whispered.
“Oh, for the sake of the Virgin, she’s mumbling again,” Azul said.
Hold On nipped Azul on the shoulder. “We don’t do that here.”
“Do what?”
“Swear by the Virgin. We are in the New World now. We don’t have bits crammed in our mouths, our heads forced into harnesses. We are not saddled. We forget all that along with the Iber gods.”
“But Estrella was mumbling all night!”
“I couldn’t have been. I wasn’t here,” said Estrella.
Hold On blinked, for he could have sworn she had stood sleeping beside him all night.
“Where were you?” Hold On asked.
“I went to the spirit city,” she said.
The other horses snorted and gasped.
“You did?” Verdad asked, clearly impressed.
“Why didn’t you take me?” Sky seemed nettled.
“You were all too scared to go. I went.”
“You went and came back loco,” Azul said.
“Here. Here.” Hold On stomped his hoof. “No name-calling.”
Azul walked off toward a clump of buffalo grass to graze, muttering to herself. “Name-calling! I just call things the way I see them. The filly’s crazy. That’s all.”
They left the spirit city, but they ran into more and more carvings of the tiny horse as they traveled. Estrella found this reassuring. Although the scent of the sweet grass sometimes grew faint, she now felt certain she was following in very ancient footsteps. The other horses walked right by the rock pictures without noticing the tiny herds. It began to irritate her.
“Stop!” she said one day. How could they ignore the carvings? She’d stopped in front of a picture that was particularly lovely. Tiny horses were almost prancing across the stone face, as if they were dancing to unheard music.
“Why?” Azul asked. “There’s water ahead. I’m thirsty.”
“Me too,” said Verdad.
“What do these look like to you — these pictures in the rocks?”
“Pictures?” Azul said, her voice tinged with contempt. “They look like scratchings.”
“Not in the least!” Hold On replied, coming up to them. “They have four legs. The shape of their heads … they could be —”
“Horses? Right?” Estrella said.
“No! Wrong!” Azul said. “Look how tiny they are. They’re more like ants.”
“Big ants?” Corazón offered.
“They’re not ants,” Grullo protested. “Ants have more than four legs. I’ve seen enough in my time. These are like the horse that Estrella showed us on the crystal wall. Just not as sparkly.”
“Well,” Azul said, her voice dripping with disdain, “if they are horses, they are a poor excuse.”
“Really, Azul, you think that?” Estrella narrowed her eyes.
Azul laid back her ears. She was larger than Estrella, but she seemed to shrink. “Yes,” the roan replied. The other horses had fallen silent.
“Speak for yourself!” Estrella added cryptically. “You saw that horse in the crystal wall. I told you —”
“You told us a story you made up!” Azul interrupted.
“I didn’t make it up!”
“You dreamed it or something. All that nonsense about us being led here! I ask you now” — Azul swung her head to the other horses and flicked her ears — “has any one of you, a single horse here, seen a ‘tiny horse’ hoofprint? We’re following a stupid horse’s stupid dream, and she thinks she can be our leader. She has no more right to be our leader —”
Estrella gave no warning signs, no laid-back ears, no lowering and shaking her head. She just charged, slamming into Azul’s flank and knocking her onto her back.
“Stop it!” Hold On roared, and raced in between the two fillies. “No more!”
Corazón stepped forward toward Azul, who had scrambled to her feet.
“Azul,” Corazón said quietly. “What do you believe in? The Ibers, the Seeker? The men who cut off Centello’s head?”
“I believe in truth!” said Azul, her ears so flat they almost disappeared. “I’ve seen no hoofprints. That is the truth. How can a horse no bigger than a small dog survive? How did it make its way through this new world? How can she know the past?” Azul tossed her head toward Estrella.
Corazón snorted. “You think leadership is all knowledge, do you? Well, it’s not. It’s also imagination. Knowledge has limits. Imagination doesn’t. Imagination fits this new world.” With that, the old mare turned and walked away.
The horses looked in wonder at the old mare. What she had said moved them profoundly, especially Estrella. The support from Corazón, who had been so unsure at first, galvanized Estrella.
As the pack traveled on, Estrella developed as sharp a sense for water as Hold On. Not just for water but for the best grazing. And although her mind often wandered back to the spirit city, she was always alert to the slightest danger.
Nevertheless, Hold On felt that Estrella seemed to have slipped away from the herd. She often nickered to herself and he would see her twitching in her sleep. He could not help but wonder about her dreams. He felt more sure than ever that Estrella, like her dam, had an old eye and that she was not simply leading them across the terrain, but leading them into her dreams. It was as Corazón said — intelligence was not enough in this harsh terrain. One had to have imagination, and imagination foaled dreams.
And as far away as Estrella sometimes seemed, Hold On didn’t worry about her. He was much more concerned with the blue roan. Azul had become not just challenging and cantankerous but bitter. He caught her sly looks at Estrella and it disturbed him. He saw her sidling up to Angela to nicker in her ear, and watched Azul’s eyes as she cast them toward Estrella. She was obviously gossiping.
But when he really became anxious was when he saw her edging up to Bobtail. It was interesting that she chose Bobtail, and not Grullo, for her whispers. Grullo was smarter, but Bobtail, although not dumb, wasn’t nearly as steady. He, like Angela, had been slow to forget the old ways, the old gaits. And of course the bright bay had “the good mouth” so treasured by the Ibers. Sometimes Hold On caught a glimpse of Bobtail making odd motions with his mouth, as if he were searching for a bit. Or perhaps a phantom bit still haunted his mouth. Bobtail could be easily influenced by others, be they humans or horses.
The way Azul clung to her rancor worried Hold On. It was almost a matter of pride for her, as if letting go of her anger would be a sign of weakness. So she nurtured it, tried whenever possible to nettle Estrella. She seemed especially piqued whenever Estrella paused to look at the rock carvings.
“Look at her!” Azul sneered late one afternoon as Estrella approached a carving of three little horse figures. The wind shifted and carried Azul’s words directly into Estrella’s ears. Estrella wheeled about and charged the blue filly. She reared and pawed the sky just as the stallions had when they defended the herd against the two mountain cats. Azul was not intimidated.
“Looking at your ants again?” Azul taunted. She wheeled about and charged Estrella. The other horses gasped, but Estrella stood her ground as the blue roan barreled toward her. Just when Azul was upon her, Estrella shifted back on her hocks and burst forth in a tremendous leap. She leapt straight over Azul, striking down an angry hoof on the highest point of the blue roan’s rump. The blow was not hard, but it was completely unexpected. The blow smarted, but Estrella hadn’t drawn blood.
Still, Azul was deeply embarrassed. She had charged and somehow Estrella had turned the situation around. The other horses stood stunned.
Estrella trotted by. “Just something I can do with one of my six legs — is that the number ants have? I’ve never really counted.”
Grullo blinked. “Dunno, but I never saw an ant with a hoof.”
This broke the tension and several horses snickered.
Azul skulked off, but Estrella was not done with her. She followed. “What do you want now?” Azul wheeled around.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you,” Estrella said.
The other horses crowded near to hear.
“I asked what you want.”
“I want you to stop!” Estrella paused. “Stop with your poison or leave the herd.” She tossed her head toward Hold On and Sky, who were standing closest. “We are a herd. We are as solid as the rock walls of this canyon, as steady as the earth and the ground we set our hooves on. Some of us have been tested in ways you never were. We were cast into the sea with deadly sharks and we swam. Sky was nearly blinded by the lash of a crocodile’s tail, and Corazón licked away the blood from his wound.”
Azul opened her mouth as if to speak, but Estrella forged onward. “Yet we came through all that. I, who had never set hoof to earth, survived. Corazón, Angela, Hold On. Sky, who had barely galloped before he was led aboard that ship — we survived together. We survived when the Ibers became too thirsty to share their water. We swam when they thought we would drown. We ran and galloped in ways men never dreamed, fought off mountain cats and swamp creatures, and even survived when men tried to kill us and kill one another.”
Estrella was trembling now. “We will face more danger together. We know that. But these dangers should not foal from within our own herd. After all we’ve gone through, it can’t be jealousy and greed that destroy us. Humans destroy one another. We are a herd! We have a genius for this new land, this new world. I believe it. I truly believe it!”