“Do you smell it, Yazz? You have been with them more recently than I have,” Hold On said. Yazz knew who “them” was. “Them” was the humans.
“I’m not sure,” Yazz replied, twitching her long ears uneasily. “For a while I thought I did smell them, but then it faded.”
“But now it’s back. Isn’t it?” Hold On could see a flicker of fear in the mule’s large, dark eyes.
“Back but different? Don’t you think?” Yazz asked.
The stallion paused. “Not so many perhaps, but one is enough.”
“It’s not just the number of them. Something else is different,” Yazz replied.
It was the hottest part of the day. The herd was resting in the shade of what they had come to call lace trees, for the delicate leaves cast a shadow that reminded the two old mares of the lacy mantillas their mistresses wore. The air seemed thick and drowsy. The horses were almost asleep. The stallion and the mule moved off quietly.
Hold On picked up a perplexing sound, a sound he had to untangle from the gurgling of a brook. He could just make out the alternate whimpers and soft cries of a baby!
Hold On began to tremble. “There’s a baby, a baby down by that creek.” He took off at a trot, with Yazz close behind.
The baby was standing up in the shallow water, crying and shaking what appeared to be the rattles from a rattlesnake’s tail. When the horse and the mule appeared, he opened his eyes wide with fear and screamed, “Mama!” Three owls were perched on a rock close by. The white-faced one stretched out her wing and began stroking the baby’s head and making soft clucking sounds as if she were trying to soothe the child.
“This is unbelievable,” Yazz said. “Can you see it at all, Hold On?”
“Yes, a little — but I can hear. A baby standing in a stream and an owl.”
“Yes. What should we do? I know nothing about children.”
“Get Tijo! Get him quickly.” Hold On was panting as if he had been galloping hard. But he was standing still, quivering.
A few minutes later, Tijo arrived riding Estrella, with the rest of the herd trotting sleepily behind.
Toshi ’N Tuki looked up. These new animals were huge, like none he had ever seen before. He squatted down in the water, hiding beneath the omo owl’s spread wings as he tried to make sense of these peculiar beasts, and then he spotted one that seemed to be a very odd assemblage of parts both animal and …
He gasped and threw his arms in the air.
“Tijo!” he cried.
Tijo leapt from Estrella’s back and landed almost directly in the creek.
“Toshi ’N Tuki … Toshi ’N Tuki. What … what are you doing here?” He splashed toward the child and picked him up in his arms, hugging him tightly.
Quickly, Tijo mounted Estrella and tucked the child in front, holding him firmly. Toshi ’N Tuki clasped his arms around Tijo’s waist and buried his head against his chest, weeping tears of joy and relief. He had been found.
Estrella slipped into a loping canter. Soon, Tuki’s tears ceased, and lulled by gentle rhythms, he fell asleep. Soft snores issued from his tiny nose.
They brought Tuki back to their encampment. The horses were fascinated.
“Look at that little foal,” Sky said.
“Just a tiny little colt,” Verdad whinnied softly.
Then Angela stepped forward. “He’s not a foal, and not a colt. He’s a baby boy. Well, some might say a toddler. And the last time I saw a baby was at the baptism of the princess’s son in the Old Land. Oh, he was dressed all in lace and had golden hair. But this one is just as lovely.”
“But he’s shivering!” Corazón said. “Get him a blanket.”
The child was shivering from the cold water of the creek. Tijo wrapped him in a hide and fed him bits of the grouse jerky he had cured.
Speaking with Tuki was not so easy since Tijo had forgotten much of the Burnt River Clan tongue. And although Tuki was a very intelligent little boy, he did not have all the words needed to explain how the clan was moving north, or how he had become separated from them at a stream where his mother and the other women had gone to wash clothes.
Tijo finally turned to Hold On. “Can you find their scent?”
“I’ll try.” Although Hold On had spent most of his time in the New World trying to avoid humans other than Tijo, he knew it was wrong to separate a young one from its dam.
So Hold On and Yazz went out that night. But Tuki would not let Tijo out of his sight. He curled up in Tijo’s arms under the blanket. Tijo looked down at the child’s lovely and perfectly round little face. He was at peace. The world that had been so scary and complicated for Tuki was once more safe and simple. Yet at the same time, it had become much more complicated for Tijo. He had to do what was right for the child. Return him to his people. But Tuki’s people were no longer Tijo’s people.
The horses heard Tijo humming the good-night song to the child, and the Boy Born with Luck on His Head felt safe and no longer thought the world had walked away from him. The vastness contracted. He felt the breath of Tijo as he sang and watched the stars appear, as if the night itself were listening to this lullaby.
Hold On and Yazz returned the next morning. Tijo was up as soon as he heard the sound of their hooves.
“Did you find them?”
“They are not that far.” Yazz nodded. She had seen their sledges with the dogs in harnesses. It had unnerved her. These people did not know about horses yet or mules. Mules who could pull one hundred times the weight four dogs could pull. She would die before she was harnessed or yoked again.
“Did they see you?” Estrella asked.
“No,” Yazz said.
“Are you sure?” Grullo asked.
“Yes, quite sure. They did not see us.”
Then they all turned toward Tijo. He knew what they were thinking. Would he go back, back to the clan that had treated him so poorly? And he thought to himself, They do not know the half of it. They could not understand the cruelty of the healer.
“The omo owl!” Estrella said softly. Tijo tipped his head up and caught sight of her. He had told Estrella about the owl, but had she ever seen it?
And then as if she were reading his mind, she spoke. “I saw the owl. It was the owl who killed the coyote. And now here she is. You must go to the clan. You must take the child back to his people. To his mother.”
Tijo knew she was right. There was no choice. He had to take the baby back. The omo owl at that moment felt once more a soft jolt in her gizzard. Her spirit lodger had returned for this journey. She spread her wings and lofted into the air from the stump where she perched, then settled on Tijo’s shoulder. Tijo looked up into her black eyes. She blinked, and a light flashed deep within them, ancient and yet somehow familiar, as if from the farthest stars that burned in the night. It flashed again, and he recalled the first time he had seen the light. It was when she had picked him up from the side of the trail and cradled him in her arms.
“Haru?” he murmured. Haru!
The herd watched Tijo astride Estrella with Tuki and the omo owl flying above dissolve into the vapors of the early dawn. They knew this was the right thing to do. Every single one of them had suffered when they had been separated from their young or when the young like Sky and Verdad had been separated from their dams. Humans were different but in some ways perhaps not that different.
To the east a dust storm had swirled up, and its outrider whirlwinds danced across the horizon. As the sun rose higher, Tijo saw the shadow of the omo owl’s wings printed against the hard-packed earth. Soon he recognized the tracks of the sledges of the clan. He caught the scent of their dogs. Footprints led into a gully where black sage grew, a plant favored for teas to treat stomach ailments. The signs of the people of the Burnt River Clan were all around. There was nothing quiet about the way the clan traveled through the country. The terrain appeared hectic with their passage. And with each moment, he felt a deep, growing fear. The signs of their travel had a fretful clamor
. He began to dread each step Estrella took. He clutched Tuki tighter.
Estrella was quiet as they rode and the baby, too, seemed very subdued and hardly shook the snake rattles that had quickly become a beloved toy. Every once in a while he would say a few words. “Mama … going to see Mama … Mama coming.” And Tijo would reassure him. “Yes, I am taking you to your mama.” The baby began asking, “How soon?” and Tijo would reply, “Soon, I think. Soon.” For the tracks were becoming fresher.
And then ahead, Tijo saw the many-colored tablelands rising up in the distance. These sudden elevations of terrain with flat tops and steep cliffsides stippled the landscape. He had heard Haru speak of this place. Formerly, the Clan of the Red Corn had lived on these tablelands. A complicated labyrinth of canyons carved between these formations. Soon he glimpsed the winding ribbon of green, the river into which the creeks and streams of the canyons drained. The people of the Red Corn Clan had left. No one was sure why. Tijo approached, he could see that his clan, the Burnt River People, had already set up poles for their shelters.
The omo owl swooped down. But it was the voice of Haru in his head. This is the Place of Sliding Water, and they have begun already to build brush arbors.
He signaled Estrella to slow down. A strange conversation began in his head. Sometimes the voices became tangled and he was unsure if it was himself speaking, questioning, or if it was Haru. And then sometimes it seemed as if there was the voice of Estrella.
What is my place? Is it clan or herd? These horses and the mule have treated me better than any human ever has except you, Haru.
You must decide. I cannot tell you.
But you always told me what to do.
You were a boy then.
I am still a boy.
You are not the same boy. You are a boy older than time.
Time weaver, is that what you are saying? But there was only silence now. Then more silence. He would try again.
Remember how they teased me? Remember the snare with the rattlesnakes, Hikyu’s snare?
But look at Toshi ’N Tuki. He shakes the snake’s rattles. They are his totem.
HIS TOTEM … HIS TOTEM … The words sang down Tijo’s bones with an electrifying resonance.
The sky seemed to hang with dust and in the afterglow of the sunset the sandstone cliffs of the tablelands turned bloodred. Tiny dark figures melted out of the rock. They appeared like ants emerging from a sandhill at this distance. The totem, Tijo thought again, and reached behind Tuki for the bundle of coyote skin that he had rolled up. Estrella stopped so Tijo could slip it over his shoulders and set the coyote head atop his own. It covered his forehead down to his eyebrows. He touched the scar on his cheek, shaped by the wound he had stitched. He heard Tuki shake the rattles. Two totems, he thought.
They drew closer and closer. Nearly the entire clan was walking toward them, led by the healer, who wore a chieftain’s headdress. It appeared to be identical to the one the last chieftain had worn. There were the antlers of a deer, from which hung the fangs of a mountain lion.
They were now within scant feet of one another. The people’s eyes were wide with disbelief. The chieftain was holding his spear pointing down toward the ground, then suddenly he raised it. At the same moment, Toshi ’N Tuki peeked out from behind Tijo’s back. A woman screamed and rushed forward. Estrella charged. The healer fell back, his spear clattering to the ground.
“Mama!” Tuki cried. Quickly, Tijo slid the child around so the mother could grab him. Then he signaled Estrella to walk up to the healer, who was still sprawled on the ground. Tijo looked down at him. The healer was clearly frightened. Hikyu, his son, came forward and attempted to help his father get up, but the healer pushed his son’s arm away. He staggered to his feet.
“Leave the spear!” Tijo said.
“Who are you?” the healer said. Clearly he did not recognize Tijo under the pelt and head of the coyote.
The omo owl hovered close and the people cowered. For it seemed that all things powerful, more powerful than the healer, were coming together. The ghostly owl, the pelt of the witch dog coyote, and the face marked by the claw of a bobcat.
“Who am I?” Tijo said. “I wear the pelt of the Trickster, but I am no trickster.”
“Who are you?” the healer repeated. “And what is this creature you ride on?”
Tijo flipped back his head so that the coyote head fell away, revealing his face.
“Look!” Hikyu shouted out. “It’s Lame Boy, that’s all.”
The omo owl swooped down from the sky and knocked Hikyu to the ground. In the same instant, Estrella reared up, pawing the air. Tijo lifted his arms to the sky. “I am Horse Boy. That is my name. Call me Horse Boy.”
There was a mighty thud as Estrella’s hooves struck the ground. Then she spun around, breaking into a gallop that left the people dazzled by her beauty and speed. They watched in silence as Horse Boy became no more than a shadow on the horizon, then faded completely.
Kathryn Lasky is the author of the bestselling Guardians of Ga’Hoole series, which has more than seven and a half million copies in print, as well as the Wolves of the Beyond series. Her books have received a Newbery Honor, a Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and a Washington Post–Children’s Book Guild Award. She lives with her husband in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Copyright © 2015 by Kathryn Lasky
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available
First edition, January 2015
Cover art by Richard Cowdrey
Cover art © 2015 by Scholastic Inc.
Cover design by Whitney Lyle and Ellen Duda
e-ISBN 978-0-545-66285-7
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