A soft snore came from Pego. In his recumbent position, she could see the gleam of his shoes. He was so proud of those. But with or without them, he would still be a horse with the bloodlines of the Jennets and the Barbs, those Arabian ancestors about which he was so vain and spoke so often. As if he were the only one who shared those bloodlines. They all did, according to Hold On.
What a peculiar creature Pego was.
Pego stirred in his sleep as dry lightning flared behind a herd of thick clouds. He was soon awake and, rousing himself, wandered off a short distance. The lightning sheeted an eerie silence across the sky. A shadow stirred in a bush, and the stallion shied. It was a coyote. The fox dog reared up on its hind legs, and for just a second, it took on the aspect of Pego’s old master Don Arturo with his crooked legs, the man who had named Pego for the star god.
Pego was fascinated by the creature before him. The rest of the herd was frightened of coyotes, but not he. Between his star god in the sky and this crafty fellow, Pego felt in good company.
“How can you go wrong?” the coyote said, seeming to read Pego’s mind.
“You spoke?” asked Pego. “I thought you were an Iber, my old master. What happened?”
“Ah, a trick of my trade! You can be a master, too. A master of this herd.”
Pego’s ears pricked up. “Who are you?”
“I am Coyote. Some call me First Angry.”
“That’s a strange name.”
“It is indeed. It doesn’t fit. You can’t be angry and do what I do. You have to be calm to think.”
“What exactly do you do?” Pego asked.
“You’ll see. Stick with me, horse. I can slip through anything.”
“Stick with you to where?” asked Pego. He kept one ear toward the coyote and turned the other to the sleeping herd behind him.
“Deep into the canyon where the shade cools. Lead them in and I shall then lead you out — out of fire, out of death. Out as master!”
Dawn tinted the horizon, and a slight wind wrinkled the surface of the river. The wind was warm, too warm for this early in the morning, this late in the year. As soon as Estrella awakened, she felt empty, as if the world had turned hollow. She walked down to the banks of the river and peered at her reflection. Her face had changed. Her head was different, longer. She still had a star on her brow, but it was partly obscured by the long black forelock that flopped down between her ears. But it was her legs that amazed her. She waded in a bit so she could see more of her reflection, and wished her dam were here to see how she had grown. Her legs seemed so long and the white “stockings” had grown with them. It was an odd word, stockings. Estrella recalled a conversation she had had with her dam once.
“What are stockings, Mamita?”
“They are clothes the Ibers wear on their feet.”
“But, Mamita, these are not clothes! These are my feet, my legs, my coat. Why do they call them stockings?”
“Because it is the Ibers’ world, and they are the namers.”
Estrella had accepted that then. But now they were in this new world and they were free. They did not wear saddles or bridles or the iron shoes of which Pego was so proud. Just then, she heard the clink of Pego’s shoes on the stones of the riverbank. He turned his head toward her and nodded respectfully.
“Still the hot wind blows!” Pego said.
“Yes,” Estrella replied.
“I hope you don’t feel that I am intrusive,” he said in a gentle tone that Estrella hadn’t heard from him before.
“Yes?”
Pego hesitated. “I understand that you lost your dam. She was killed in a most unfortunate manner.”
“Yes!” said Estrella. “We were thrown overboard during a long calm, and a shark —”
“I can’t imagine how terrible that was for you.”
Estrella stared at the stallion. It seemed as if he had changed overnight.
“I am so fortunate,” Pego continued, “to be reunited with my filly Azul at last. You know, I never saw her even as a foal. Her dam and I were separated on First Island.”
“That’s sad,” Estrella said.
He nodded. “But not nearly as sad as what you went through.”
Estrella said nothing. She simply could not understand the change in the arrogant Pegasus.
“I — I …” He hesitated, even seemed to falter slightly. “Look, these winds, they’re hot. Take it from an old desert horse.”
An old desert horse! Pego never referred to himself this way. He made it sound as if he were a nag who had just wandered over.
“I’m not sure how long these winds will blow,” Pego continued, “but the heat will wear us down. It’ll be cooler if we travel near the river. We’ll be near water. And it seems to me that the river might lead into a canyon, which means protection from the hot winds.” He paused. “These winds aren’t exactly going our way. They’re against us.”
Our way? Estrella wondered. Since when has Pego cared about our way? She was about to say something, but she stopped herself. Pego was being so humble.
He cleared his throat. “I know you and Azul have had your … differences. But I always tell her, ‘Estrella is the leader. We must follow.’”
At this, Estrella lifted her head and blinked.
“Really!” he said. “There’s no horse steadier than old Hold On. He follows you, and he’s no fool, that stallion.”
“That’s kind of you,” Estrella said.
She looked down the river. It was like a ribbon of gold in the early morning sun, and yet it was still fairly cool. The winds would come up and it did feel as if the day would grow uncomfortably hot. As Hold On said, the seasons were still fighting, summer stubborn to stay and autumn, winter’s outrider, trying to clear the way. She looked toward the bend in the river and saw large shadows splashed across it. If they followed the river and it really did lead into a canyon, they’d be protected from the sun by the shadows of the high sandstone walls. She had to admit it was a good idea.
The herd was just rousing itself. They should leave soon in order to get into the canyon before the sun climbed too high. Estrella turned to alert the others, but she shied and jumped sideways as she caught sight of a fleeting shadow slip out from the trees. “Did you see something?” she said to Pego.
“What?”
“A shadow or, well — I’m not sure. It could have been an animal, maybe even a man!”
Pego nickered softly. “No, I didn’t see anything. It was probably just a trick of the light.”
Pego was right. The river did run into a long, deep canyon, a shadowy cleft of dappled light. Sometimes the cliffs soared so high that only a blue ribbon of sky could be seen. But there were no carvings on the sandstone. The little horse had vanished and the scent of the sweet grass was fading as well. Estrella tried to conjure up that flash she had seen in the enormous eyes of her dam as she was dying. But she couldn’t. She tried to recall the tiny horse figure. All the touchstones that had guided her seemed to be melting away. She had never felt so alone, even with Hold On trotting beside her. And with each step that took them deeper into the canyon, Estrella felt as if she were approaching a profound danger, something she could not understand or control.
Yet Pego had been right. It was cooler.
The river was becoming more shallow. They had swum in its cool waters earlier, but now their feet scraped the bottom. Gradually, it became more a creek than a river, and within a couple of days, it was only a trickle. The trees had grown sparse and the soft sand beaches the horses loved to sleep on thinned away to small strips.
One evening, Pego, the three mares, and Azul slept apart from the rest of the herd on the other side of the trickle where they found a small patch of sand. Bella, whose girth had expanded with the foal she carried, needed a soft place to rest.
“Is her time coming near?” Estrella asked Hold On.
“Not yet. It takes a long time to grow a foal. She is not ready, but it’s hard for her and will be
come even harder.”
Hold On looked at Estrella. She had been unusually quiet since they had entered the canyon. “What’s wrong, Estrella? Something is bothering you.”
She gave him a stricken look. “I think I’ve lost the way.”
“What do you mean?”
“The sweet grass,” she nickered, so softly he could hardly hear her.
“Try not to worry. You’ll find it again. It will come to you.”
The more she thought about the haunting scent, the more elusive it became. And it wasn’t just the scent of the sweet grass that was dying away. Ever since they had entered the canyon, Estrella’s memories of her dam had begun to fade. She tried hard to bring them back, to recall them, but the only thing she could remember of her time with her dam was the stall door. She began to miss Perlina desperately, yet she could not quite remember what she was missing. The image of her dam started to dissolve, like the figure of the tiny horse.
Estrella could not sleep. Shadows scuttled across the moonlight and she heard the shuddering hoot of an owl. Estrella wandered toward a small clump of a brushy shrub that they had started to call rabbit brush since there were often rabbits around it. The rabbits scattered when the horses approached to graze, but there were no rabbits near this bush. The flowers were more white than yellow, and the bush had a different smell. Still, Estrella was hungry and she nibbled for a while on the slim tender branches with their clusters of fragrant flowers. They were delicious and the more she nibbled, the more she wanted. Her hunger seemed insatiable. Soon she had eaten the shrub down to its roots. She was left with the loveliest thoughts and she felt a soft tranquility flow through her.
A dark shape flitted by. Coyote? she thought, not even afraid. She pricked up her ears and decided to follow it.
Two bats swooped through the air. Estrella thought she spotted a small patch of light ahead. As she walked toward it, the patch seemed to glow brighter, as if a piece of the moon had fallen down through the night. The shape of the patch was vaguely familiar to her. A stall door! she thought suddenly. But a stall without walls? The door hung in the night between two rabbit bushes. Estrella blinked. How could this be? She was a bit woozy in her head, but the ground felt like ground. She stepped up cautiously and through the door. Would she see the little horse?
Not the little horse, but your own dear dam. A misty figure melted out of the darkness.
Mamita? Estrella was flooded with joy.
Hold On woke suddenly. Something was wrong. The stallion sensed it immediately. Where was Estrella? He got up, found her tracks, and followed them to a shrub with an oddly familiar smell. Estrella had been here grazing, but why would she eat a strange plant down to the ground? Some horses were known to eat odd things when they were disturbed or nervous. Was Estrella truly losing the scent of the sweet grass as she had feared? Hold On was stumped.
Everything seemed upside down. The proud stallion Pego had become much more agreeable, even companionable, and so had Azul. Pego finally seemed to acknowledge that Estrella was the leader of this herd. He would not break away from them, Hold On believed, not until Bella had foaled. It was very possible that after the foal arrived, Pego would leave with his three mares and the new foal to start a new herd. But for now, Pego and Azul were both behaving well. So what was there to bother Estrella?
Hold On continued to follow Estrella’s hoofprints. Then he came upon an unbelievable sight. Estrella was speaking to a coyote, speaking to it as if it were her dam. Suddenly, it all made sense to him. The plant, the one she had eaten to the ground! It was flora loca — crazy plant! It grew in the Old Land as well, but horses learned to avoid it because of the strange behavior it caused. But to talk to a coyote! Hold On charged forward.
“Mamita, I’ve been trying to find you,” Estrella said. Her dam’s back was to her, and Estrella couldn’t see her face. She so wanted to see those dark, reassuring eyes.
“Have you?” her dam replied, still turned away. “Have you really?”
“Of course! But I thought you had left me! I don’t understa —”
“Oh, let’s not talk about that!” Her dam shook her head dismissively.
“Sorry,” Estrella said quietly. Her dam didn’t seem to hear her. On the other side of the door, something stirred. Was it the little horse? Estrella wondered, beginning to turn her head.
Her dam wheeled around, her eyes glowing a pale greenish yellow.
Had Mamita’s eyes always been that color? Estrella didn’t speak out loud, but her dam knew exactly what she was thinking.
“Yes, of course, Estrella! You never noticed, I suppose.” Her tone was sharp. Perlina never spoke like that. Never!
The joy Estrella had experienced moments before began to drain away, leaving a terrible hollowness again. Perlina’s yellow eyes narrowed, and her lips parted into a hideous grimace.
“Mamita?” Estrella asked, trying to control the trembling in her withers.
A cackle slithered from the creature as her grimace split to reveal a mouth studded with sharp, bloodstained teeth. The creature began to circle Estrella, coming closer each time. But Estrella could not make her legs move. She was rooted to the ground. She smelled carrion breath. Then her dam’s head seemed to split again. A new face rose as her dam began to wither away. Estrella shied as the new head, sly and dun-colored, with fresh blood dripping from its muzzle, barked. A coyote reared up before her. The night shredded with its savage yips for fire, for blood.
There was a loud crackle and hot gusts began to rip through the canyon. Grullo gave a piercing whinny, followed by the squeals and shrieks of the herd. Estrella reared and screamed as the coyote lunged at her.
Its eyes glittered with malice. “You thought I was your dam, fool!” The rabbit bush caught fire and flames whipped around them. The coyote rose on his short hind legs and began to dance through the flames untouched. His eyes rolled madly in his head as he sang.
I am coyote,
I am coyote.
I slip and slink
Into your head
So you can’t think.
I am the dream stealer,
The fantastic concealer.
Crafty and sly,
I’ll sell you lies.
A merchant of death,
I’ll swipe your breath.
I am coyote,
I am coyote.
And now the fire winds shall blow!
The canyon was engulfed in flames in seconds. Screams filled the air as the horses tore through a sea of fire. Sparks landed on their manes and tails, igniting them. The flames devoured the very air, and Estrella realized she was fighting for every breath. This was death! Stone walls boxed them in, and as they raced away from the heat, a third wall rose in front of them. A dead end! They were trapped in a box canyon.
Hold On was running too fast, and blinded by smoke, he slammed into the rock face. He staggered and choked. His tail had burned off entirely. Estrella’s eyes rolled wildly as she scanned the wall for a way out.
A door, you fool? she scolded herself. Is that what you’re looking for, like the dream door that led to this nightmare? A horse gasped beside her and collapsed on the ground. Was it Hold On? The smoke was too thick to tell. There was a loud crack, and lightning forked through the smoke. In the heat, Estrella experienced an odd sensation. She realized that her hooves were wet. She was standing in a flow of water. The creek was barely a trickle now, not enough to reach past her hooves to the ruff of her coat just above them. So where had this water come from? A new river?
Estrella looked, wheeled around, and spotted a tiny figure, no larger than a dog. It was the little horse, not the carving but a figure that moved and breathed. Had it been unlocked from its stone wall? It seemed to glow in a gauzy light. A jet of flame streaked out behind him, and the little horse turned and beckoned with its head, as if to say, This way! This way!
“This way! Follow me!” Estrella whinnied. She galloped toward the tiny horse ahead of her. Just as she reached him, h
e vanished into a crack in the wall that the smoke had obscured. The horse is so small! We’ll never fit! She bunched herself up as much as she could and threw herself at the rock.
Estrella stumbled into a cool passageway. The rock walls of the passage were studded with bright crystals, just like the ones on the cliff near the spirit city. But now the figure of the little horse had escaped from the stone and, with its bright white tail, he was easy to follow. She could hear the rest of the herd behind her, their hooves splashing in the tumbling waters of the stream that had carved a way through the rock.
They’re following!
Estrella kept her eyes fastened on the tail of the tiny horse, but soon he dissolved into darkness. The crystals of the wall seemed to float out from the rock, and the tunnel grew darker and darker, until all of a sudden, the tunnel widened and the horses found themselves safe, through to the other side, under the comforting black of the night. Then one by one, the crystals began to reappear, suspended in the velvety black of the night. They had become the stars.
Estrella and the horses had emerged into a starlit canyon. They could see the glow of the fire behind them, but brighter still was the star that never moved. The North Star. Estrella heard the horses coughing behind her, some panting in pain. But they were coming. The ground sloped upward. They were climbing out of the deadly river valley they had followed for so many days. Snow spun in the air and for the first time in so long, the air felt cool and crisp.
As they emerged on a high plain, dawn was rising. A bird carved an arc in the pale pearl gray of the sky, a soft gray just beginning to steal across the horizon. Lavender clouds skimmed low along the skyline, like fish swimming in a shallow sea. The stream gushed nearby, and the herd found a grove of piñon tees.
Estrella looked over the herd. They were singed, and some were still coughing violently, but were they all there? Pego, Azul, and the three mares were missing. But she saw Angela, breathing heavily, and counted Corazón and Grullo, Arriero, Bobtail, and the two colts.