Contents
Title Page
Epigraph
PART 1: First Lodge
CHAPTER 1: Long Shadows
CHAPTER 2: A Father’s Bones
CHAPTER 3: Dangerous Allies
CHAPTER 4: Long Spirits
CHAPTER 5: Little Coyote’s Dream
CHAPTER 6: Grace and Hope
CHAPTER 7: Gods and Monsters
CHAPTER 8: Beasts of the Plains
PART 2: A New Lodge
CHAPTER 9: Pego Reflects
CHAPTER 10: Torn
CHAPTER 11: To Deceive a Deceiver
CHAPTER 12: Gods and Gold
CHAPTER 13: Awakened Dreams
CHAPTER 14: Breaking the Falange
PART 3: The Mighties
CHAPTER 15: Cut Free
CHAPTER 16: Tenyak
CHAPTER 17: A Blanket Returned
CHAPTER 18: The Beaver Pond
CHAPTER 19: The Eye in the Sky
CHAPTER 20: The River
CHAPTER 21: The Law of the Mighties
CHAPTER 22: The Place of Firsts
CHAPTER 23: Old Dreams
Map
About the Author
Copyright
Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.
— James Baldwin
Joy swept through Estrella as she and Tijo galloped out of the Burnt River Clan’s camp. But not just her own joy. The filly also felt the thrill of Tijo’s triumph at confronting the healer, the man who’d driven the boy away from his clan. The power-hungry leader had cowered at the sight of Tijo, who’d appeared like something out of a dream, or perhaps a nightmare, wearing a coyote pelt and riding a four-legged creature the healer had never seen before.
But even that couldn’t compare to the elation Estrella felt when she realized she’d caught the scent of the sweet grass once more. As long as she could lead her herd to the sweet grass, they would survive in this new world that had become their home.
As she sprinted across the windswept plain with Tijo on her back, Estrella heard the pounding hooves of the herd. She knew the distinct sound of each of the nine horses and the one mule galloping behind her, and let out a joyful whinny as she sensed a fresh spirit take over the old stallion Hold On. She turned her eyes toward him. Although almost blind, Hold On’s hooves struck the ground with a new assurance. The farther we are from humans, Estrella thought, the more powerful we become. The band of low red mountains to the west became a blur. She tossed her head and saw clouds streaking above. Estrella lengthened her stride and stretched out her neck, feeling Tijo automatically lean forward as well. I shall race the clouds!
Tijo marveled at the old stallion keeping pace next to them. When Tijo met Hold On, the stallion had been blinded in a canyon fire. His vision had improved slightly, but to this horse, the world was still mostly a shadowy one. While Hold On might not have been able to see the red blur of the mountains or the racing clouds, he could see the slashing shadows cast by the galloping horses around him. In his near blindness, the stallion had become a sifter of shadows, reading the gradations of darkness to light with a deep sensitivity. At the same time, his other senses had been honed to the sharpness of a bone knife’s edge.
“You smell the sweet grass?” Hold On asked as he drew up next to Estrella. Although they’d been galloping for some time, he sounded hardly winded.
“Yes,” she said, though smell barely began to describe the sensation. It was as if the grass were streaming through her veins. She could almost taste it. With each stride, she felt the heady mixture of ecstasy and relief. She thrust out her powerful legs and gobbled the land, streaking across the plain like the shooting star for which she had been named.
Sky tossed his head back and whinnied shrilly, “Race!” His playful challenge peeled into the air and electrified the horses. Sky and Verdad bolted across the hard ground and were soon leading, but it didn’t take long for Estrella to catch up.
“Race to where?” Arriero asked, pulling up next to her. The heavy stallion caught Estrella’s look of surprise and snorted. “What? You think an old stallion can’t run fast?”
“I won!” Sky whinnied triumphantly as he skidded to a halt by a large boulder. His odd eyes, one blue and one almost black, glittered.
“You didn’t win,” Verdad protested. The creamy-white colt was dancing impatiently. In contrast to the rest of his coat, his legs were black from his fetlocks to his hocks. “You just declared the finish line. You can’t just make up the rules of a race like that.”
“Why not?” Sky said with a snort.
“Not in the middle of a race.”
Yazz the mule trotted up to them.
“My goodness!” Corazón exclaimed. The old mare, who had also just arrived, turned to look at Yazz. “Look who’s here!”
“Don’t be so surprised. I’ve gained quite a bit of speed since joining the herd. It’s amazing how much faster one can go when not in a jerkline pulling a load of rocks.” Yazz shook herself vigorously, as if the ghost of a yoke still hovered on her shoulders.
As Estella glanced over at Yazz, she thought how far the mule had come. She’d escaped the most dangerous of enemies — El Miedo, the Iber who was as hungry for horses as he was for gold. Yazz had been a pack mule for El Miedo until, after witnessing one brutal beating too many, she kicked down a fence and bolted, eventually joining up with the first herd.
Early on, Yazz had warned them that this treacherous and violent Iber had his sights set on the first herd. She’d been right. Not long after, the Iber chased the horses to the very edge of a ravine, and Estrella had jumped a nearly impossible distance to clear it. She could remember vividly hanging in midair over the deep chasm, thinking that she would prefer to fall to her death and break into countless pieces than be captured again. And she knew that every single horse of the first herd felt the same as they leapt after her. Better to die free than live in captivity.
The horses stood breathing hard now at the boulder, the so-called finish line. They peeled back their lips and inhaled the pungent scent that swirled around them.
“It’s the sweet grass,” Estrella whispered reverentially, as if she were afraid it would disappear if she uttered the words too loudly. She scanned the surrounding terrain. It was all hard dirt, without a blade of grass … yet never had the scent been so strong. How could they smell it and still not see any grass at all? This was worrisome. They needed good grazing to fatten up and preserve their strength before they attempted to cross the Mighties — Tijo’s word for the vast mountain range. Summer was not endless, and winter would come again soon.
But how far behind them were the Ibers? They could ride fast, and with their long lassos that spun out into the air like snakes, they could bring horses at a full gallop down to the ground.
Long before that ravine, El Miedo had captured one horse, Pego the dark stallion, in just this way. But Pego did not seem to mind, and soon became a favorite of El Miedo. It was Pego who had betrayed the first herd by leading the tyrannical Iber to their track.
Pego and El Miedo had made a dangerous team. The two creatures, one horse and one human, were evil entwined and loomed like some monstrous apparition. However, they were not a specter, but very real. Mounted on Pego, El Miedo had run them to the very edge of that ravine. He’d never expected the horses to jump. But they had. At the crucial moment, each member of the first herd had glimpsed something sparkling in the night — the tiny horse that periodically appeared to Estrella, helping her lead her herd to the sweet grass on the other side of the Mighties. And so they’d leapt, leaving El Miedo and his men gaping in wonder.
However, there were other obstacles ahead. There was no grass in thi
s region. The plants were thorny and tough as wood. Horses were supposed to get fat for winter. Even Tijo, who did not graze but ate meat, found the hunting poor. He had grown thinner before Estrella’s eyes, and when he’d mounted Hold On the other day, the stallion had said, “You’re so light, I wonder if you’re even on my back.”
A stream meandered not far away, and Estrella could see Tijo taking out his fishing tackle — the bone hooks he had fashioned, the fishing line he had made from the gut of an animal, and the slender alder limb that he would attach to the hook and line. She admired the orderliness of his quest for food. If he were successful, he would be able to eat. But the herd needed grass, not fish, and there was very little orderliness involved with their own quest for nourishment.
For Tijo was not the only one who had grown thin. The coat of the big, bulky stallion Arriero seemed to hang on him, too large for the gaunt figure inside it. Verdad and Sky, the colts, seemed to swim in their pelts as well. The hip bones of the two mares Angela and Corazón stuck out sharply. Estrella could count their ribs. They were all too skinny for the end of summer. And so am I, Estrella thought. But it was the big stallions whose thinness was most visible.
Bella, a mare, had always been thin to begin with; now she seemed frail. She stood under the shadows of a cottonwood tree while the fluffy tufts shed from the branches blew around her hooves. The shiny leaves shimmered and trembled in a light wind as Bella walked up to Estrella.
“What troubles you, Estrella?”
“Look at the stallions. They seem so small, so slight to me.”
“Maybe it’s because you’ve grown bigger? You’re a filly about to become a mare.”
“It’s not that. We are all too thin.”
“Try not to worry, Estrella. We’ll find the sweet grass. You haven’t let us down yet. Have faith, young’un. We all have faith in you.”
Estrella felt something stir inside her. Did she deserve their faith? Faith was a heavy burden to carry. Heavier than any human who might threaten to capture and ride her with a bit, bridle, and saddle.
Estrella looked toward the range of mountains ahead. She’d always sensed that they would have to cross those mountains to get to the sweet grass. And now she knew for sure. In the twilight, they loomed immense and impassable. The peaks appeared to scrape the moon.
“You know, Bella, Tijo calls those mountains the Mighties.”
“It’s a good name,” Bella said softly. The mare had always spoken quietly, but there’d been an extra tinge of wistfulness in her voice ever since she’d lost her colt.
“We have to get there, but it’ll take many days to even reach the foothills.”
Bella pricked her ears and looked across the wide, flat plain. “How long do you think?”
“Through the rest of spring and most of summer. We need to cross them by autumn or else the snow will make it impossible.” She paused. “And we need to grow fat on good grass before we begin.”
The scent of sweet grass might stir through the air, but there was no visible sign of it. Nor could she see the sparkling little horse that appeared in the past like a twinkling constellation, a glimmer on the far edge of the night just before the dawn. Since the first time Estrella caught sight of the little horse, she knew it connected her to a wisdom that stretched through the ages. But now she felt as if she were in a kind of free fall.
The herd thought of her as their leader, but in truth, Estrella was just a follower, being led by the tiny horse on a quest not merely for the sweet grass, but a quest to relive the story of their very origins. They were traveling to the most distant borders of time — a time before time. This land that the Ibers called the New World was not new for the horses. They were coming home.
Bella stepped closer and ran her muzzle through Estrella’s tangled mane. “We’ll find grass, Estrella. We’ll grow fat again. You’ll lead us to the Mighties, and we’ll cross them. I have faith. We all have faith.”
If they made it, Estrella knew they’d be truly free. There’d be no chance of El Miedo, or any man, forcing them into servitude again.
Little Coyote crouched in the shadows, watching the herd. He’d been following the horses since they left the camp of the Burnt River People. Tijo’s people had not recognized the boy and had backed away, cowering at what he wore on his head — the head of Little Coyote’s father. Never before had they seen a horse. Together, the head, the boy, and the horse fused into one terrifying monster.
It was a gruesome sight for Little Coyote, even though he had never felt anything close to love for his father. In fact, he had loathed him. But this … this was terrifying. His father seemed even more horrific in death than he had in life.
Watching Tijo ride away, wearing his father’s pelt, Little Coyote had felt an odd mixture of disgust and relief. He was relieved that his cruel father was gone. But then there’d been that head. Where the eyes had been were two terrifying dark holes that peered straight at him, demanding vengeance. If Little Coyote did nothing to avenge his death, would he be haunted by his father until the end of his own life?
Little Coyote had only the briefest memories of his mother. She had died shortly after he had been weaned. Of his father he had too many memories — all of them bad. His body was scarred from the hundreds of bites he had endured from his father’s fangs. There were unsightly patches on his rump and shoulders where fur never grew anymore. Little Coyote was a ragtag creature if there ever was one.
But that didn’t matter. He was his own creature. He was not a “trickster,” although that was the human name for his kind. His father had proudly used the coyote word apuk, which covered it all — deceit, tricks, schemes, ruses. “This is our heritage,” he would proclaim while swaggering about. But Little Coyote knew that it would never be his heritage. “What’s wrong with you, boy?” his father would ask repeatedly. He held his son in such utter contempt that he had never even named him. He called him boy, which was a clan word, and not pup. To call an animal by a human word was the worst insult that a father coyote could confer on a young one. So this nameless pup called himself simply Little Coyote, and as such, he had to endure his father’s boastful strutting every time he had pulled some trick. That horrible shrill chant as he pranced around still rang in Little Coyote’s ears.
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.
Little Coyote’s world had become pleasantly quiet when his father’s final trick ended in death during the last of the winter moons. Big Coyote had attacked two horses, the old stallion and the young filly with the star on her forehead. For a short time, the old horse and the coyote wrestled in a tangle on the ground as the boy tried to get a clear shot at Big Coyote with his dagger. Suddenly, a white-faced owl plunged from the sky and snatched Big Coyote in his talons. It flew high into the star-spiked night, and then the owl dropped Big Coyote.
Downwind of the horses, Little Coyote had watched it all, transfixed in horror and amazement. His father, the bragging trickster, was dead, killed by an owl.
Numb with shock and unsure what to do next, Little Coyote had begun following these strange, fascinating creatures who’d defeated his father without tricks, showing great courage.
I should make them pay, he thought. They are responsible for my father’s death, and I shall be haunted forever by him.
Little Coyote would never forget the moment when he saw his father’s skin stretched on the rack of alder branches. After witnessing his father’s terrible fall, he’d been careful to stay downwind of the horses. But that night, there was a wind shift and an unexpected yet familiar scent came to him, cutting through every other smell i
n the high, dry country. As soon as he caught the first whiff, he knew what it was. His father’s bones.
Little Coyote was perplexed. He’d assumed the scavengers would devour his father’s remains. It had also snowed heavily that same evening. So how could he be catching his scent now? A chill ran through him. Had he been right? Would his father’s ghost haunt him until he had avenged his death?
He shook his body as if to rid himself of the scent, the wraith of this father. Then he crept as close as he dared, blessing the wind that both blew away any trace of his own scent and carried that of his father’s bones. He saw that the bones were stacked neatly in a pile — a disturbing sight, but nothing that would haunt him. But that wasn’t all. Little Coyote turned and saw his father’s pelt stretched on a rack made from slender branches. He stared in horror. He had seen the clan people do this to hides of sheep or goats, but never with a coyote, for they deemed it ill luck. A sudden wave of dread washed over him. Although he had no love for his father, now he’d need to avenge him so his father’s spirit could find his way to the spirit camps.
A moment later, he set off after the horses, following them as quietly as a shadow.
Inside the tent, El Miedo was not praying. He was brooding and cursing. Over and over, he relived the awful scene at the ravine. He had been so close to capturing the herd led by the filly with the star on her forehead, the beautiful filly who’d begun to haunt his dreams. What an animal she was! And then there was the stallion Arriero. A veritable bull of a horse. He was muscular but had great speed.
Who could have imagined that the herd would have jumped that ravine? Something had inspired them. It was almost as if they had been possessed by magic. Had they grown some sort of invisible wings? For indeed they appeared to almost fly.
El Miedo would have followed. He would have jumped. “¡Adelante! ¡Adelante! El Noble. ¡Mi Pego!” The sound of his own voice came back to him as he recalled urging the dark stallion on. The spurs hanging from the tent post were still stained with the blood of the cowardly horse. The stallion had skidded to a dead halt, trembling with fear. The beast named for the winged horse constellation had actually balked! The chase had ended. And then, to add insult to this injury, the stupid animal reared and threw him.
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