Star Rise

by Kathryn Lasky

  Tijo took Hold On across the stream to where a fine patch of the silver sage called winterfat grew. “Here you are,” the boy said softly, and picked up a bunch of the stiff grass. Big Dog sniffed it, then took a tentative bite. “Same color as your coat — or at least where the smoke didn’t smudge it.” The unsoiled patches reminded Tijo of the dappled light in early winter when the sun still seemed to want to stay out longer despite the shortening of the days. Tijo had already decided he was going to wash Big Dog and make his coat bright and silvery again. But first he would do something for his eyes. He noticed as the night thinned that Big Dog began tossing his head about as if looking toward the sky.

  “What do you look for? What do you feel?” Tijo asked. He wondered if perhaps this creature was like Haru, but instead of smelling weather, Big Dog could smell light, even though he could not see it.

  Tijo was short and Hold On was tall. But now he wanted to look straight into those dark sightless eyes. There was a boulder nearby.

  “Come, Big Dog.” The creature seemed to understand. Tijo scrambled up on the rock without touching Hold On’s face and peered deeply into his eyes. It was like looking into a starless night. He could see that they wept almost constantly and the eyelids were very swollen. Tijo remembered that when he was very young and something had blown in his eyes, Haru had made a paste from the sap of a broadleaf plant called old man’s cane. He would find it and milk it, then mix it with the sap from the medicine tree, the piñon tree.

  But for the remainder of this night, he would make sure that Big Dog drank and ate the silver sage. Perhaps he had followed Haru for another reason beyond that of making sure she did not die alone.

  Hold On stood patiently by a creek with his eyes squeezed shut while the boy climbed up on a log and applied the paste. This was the third time he had treated his eyes. It seemed to Tijo that not only was the puffiness decreasing but he could almost feel a pulse beneath the eyelids, as if the creature’s eyes were scanning some half-lit landscape.

  “What are you seeing, Old Fellow?” Hold On gave a muffled snort. How could the boy ever understand that he belonged to a herd? They were comprehending more of each other’s odd language every day. That was why the boy now addressed him as Old Fellow rather than Big Dog. Tijo sensed that Hold On did not like being called that name.

  Hold On was seeing something that was very hard to explain even if he and the boy had shared a language. The very image that had eluded Estrella twinkled beneath his eyelids. Could it be the constellation, the winged stallion for which Pego had been named? But no, this horse had no wings and it was very small. It did not stand still in the sky but was moving very fast, much more swiftly than the measured pace of the transit of the stars across the sky. Hold On could almost feel the vapor of the tiny horse’s breath each time it had turned to beckon him. This must be the same tiny horse that Estrella had pointed to that day, the one that had glistened in the crystal-studded rock face. The first horse had returned for him.

  But would the tiny horse lead him back to his herd? This boy had done much for him, but Hold On belonged with his herd, and the boy belonged with his people. Yet Hold On realized he had never known a human quite like this boy. They had seemed to enter each other’s heads, or was it each other’s dreams, for it was all still darkness for Hold On, a long dark tunnel into an endless night. Although the tunnel was not so lonely now, and the darkness seemed to be thinning into a feeble dawn.

  “What’s that, Old Fellow?” For Tijo could tell that the creature, though standing still, had wandered far off into his own private shadowland. Might he be able to help Old Fellow navigate through that shadowland? Tijo wondered. But winter would come and then who would help him? To be alone when the cold winds peeled off the mountains to the north would mean certain death. They were called wolf storms because their front edges were like fangs of ice and could tear apart a dozen lodges in a short time. The best refuges were cliff dwellings. But how would Old Fellow find a cliff dwelling without Tijo? And how would Tijo be able to move through heavy snow and ice? Was it possible that he and Old Fellow might be able to help each other survive the savage winter? They were an unlikely pair. But who else was there? He had already decided that returning to his village was impossible. When the aging chief died, the healer would undoubtedly take over. A brutal, ruthless man who had always been jealous of Haru, and had hastened her death with the tainted cup.

  As he rubbed Old Fellow’s ears, he muttered to himself, “All we have is each other, Old Fellow. Just each other, and here we are on the rim of winter.” He felt a chill pass through him as if one of those icy fangs of the wolf storms had reached out and traced its tip down his spine. “Just each other,” he said again, and Hold On’s ears seemed to pivot about as he ducked his head, burying his muzzle in the warmth of Tijo’s armpit.

  Pego’s huge heart was pounding in his chest as he stretched into a full gallop across the hard-packed land, fueled by an engulfing anger. He couldn’t believe his herd had turned on him, just because he had better things to do than tend to a sick mare. Yes, she’d been carrying his colt, but that didn’t mean Pego had to abandon all his plans.

  But his herd hadn’t seen it that way. They’d looked at him with cold horror. Even Azul, his own filly! She wanted to lead. Pego saw it in her eyes. He had to admit that in a certain way Azul was just like him, but the feeling in his heaving chest was nothing close to pride.

  He stopped now on a rise. He had gone quite a distance since he left the others three days before. One could make good time traveling alone. It was dawn, and as the sun climbed into the sky, pale bands of light began to spread on the horizon. A wind stirred the grass. The possibilities seemed endless in such a land. It could all be his. He would find a new mare. A new herd to lead.

  A familiar scent wound through the air. Pego stiffened. Then a narrow yellow face with tilting green eyes slipped out from a burrow.

  “And so we meet again, old friend.”

  “What do you want?” Pego snapped.

  Coyote cocked his head to the side and surveyed Pego. “Azul and Lourdes were fools. The blood of the Pura Raza runs in their veins and yet they turn squeamish! Shocking. You know what the color of their livers are? Yellow — yellow as my coat. Yellow as the lily flowers.”

  “Yes, yes, I suppose you are right,” Pego said, warming to Coyote’s voice and feeling his own outrage at those horses boil up anew.

  “I know it’s hard on you. I understand,” Coyote said, his voice thick with empathy.

  “I had wanted to start a herd. My own herd.”

  “And you shall! How would you like to lead a herd of six hundred horses?”

  Pego tossed his head with a snort. “That is impossible. Where will I find six hundred horses?”

  “El Miedo,” Coyote said, savoring the word.

  “El Miedo!” Pego had heard of that great Iber. Though he had never seen him, he could picture him: a man even larger and stronger than the Seeker, with regal bearing and ambition in his face.

  “You know him, Pego?”

  “Of course. El Miedo. His name means the One Who Is Feared.”

  “And do you know who feared him the most? The Seeker. The very man who left you to die in this new world.”

  “You are right!” Pego said with an indignant toss of his head.

  “I know what you’re thinking.” Coyote slithered up to the stallion and gave him a friendly nudge with his muzzle on his hocks. “We have become socios, associates, partners, so to speak.”

  The coyote had slipped into Pego’s dreams. Yearn, yearn deeply enough for anything and Coyote will come. But Pego did not understand this completely. He did not realize that the yearning was like an open wound that, once licked by Coyote, could fester.

  “El Miedo shall not call you Pego,” Coyote said.

  Pego’s ears flattened. “But that is my name. That was what my first master, Don Arturo, named me. He named me for the constellation, the sky horse Pegasus. I am a Pura R
aza.”

  Coyote shook his head in mild disgust. “He will have a better name for you. El Noble.”

  “The Noble One?” Pego’s ears suddenly pricked forward. He peeled back his lips as if to smell the name.

  “Yes, I think it suits. Don’t you?” Coyote asked.

  “Yes … Yes, of course.” The rising bands of color had stretched over the entire sky. Pego tipped his head up and basked in the reflected glory of the dawn. The sun began to warm his face. He felt anointed, blessed, as if a crown had been placed on his head.

  And so the pair set off together, and spent two days traveling in a southerly direction. On the morning of the third day, they caught the scent. It burst upon the landscape like a suddenly blooming flower — the sweet dung scent of six hundred horses and two score of mules and donkeys.

  Pego broke into a weary trot.

  “Slow down!” Coyote yipped.

  “What? Why? You said he is expecting me. In his dreams he had visions of such a horse as I. El Noble.”

  “You do not look noble right now.”

  “I don’t?”

  “There’s a slow stream over there. Take a look at yourself.”

  Pego glared at Coyote, then tossed his head and approached the stream warily. He peered at his reflection. His almost black coat was dusty and in places encrusted with the rime of dried sweat. His mane and tail were strung with burrs. He looked as shabby as any field horse.

  “Take a bath!” Coyote urged. Pego entered the stream and walked to where a deep pool formed. He hunkered down in it for several minutes, then emerged, shaking the water out of his long mane.

  “So now we can go,” Pego said, twitching to shake the water out of his coat.

  “Not quite yet,” Coyote replied. “There is still work to be done.”

  “What work?”

  Once again, Coyote shook his head in a gesture of disgust and his green eyes seemed to slide around. “You have lost your gaits.”

  Pego stood erect. His neck arched in indignation. “What are you talking about?

  “I saw you trying a paso fino the other day. You looked like a savage. El Miedo won’t have use for a warhorse that moves like a mule. I suggest you start practicing.” The paso fino was an elegant four-beat gait somewhere between a walk and a canter and was performed on a slant.

  “But what if El Miedo moves the herd?”

  “El Miedo is not moving fast, believe me. He has five hundred men, six hundred horses, fourscore or more carts. We have time. Now start practicing! Let’s begin with the paso fino.”

  They practiced for an entire morning — all the gaits that well-bred horses were trained to perform with brio. That was the term the Iber used to describe the crisp vigor, controlled energy, and, most important, the willingness to serve a rider. It was all to serve the rider. For these were animals in thrall to humans every moment of their lives, even when they were bred. The proper mate was selected by humans in the hopes of producing another Pura Raza that could carry on the bloodlines of the Jennet, the Barbs, those species that began in the deserts of Arabia, the wellspring of the most noble horses in the world. God’s horses!

  As the sun crossed over into the western sky, Pego’s impatience grew. “When? When can we go?”

  Coyote sighed in exasperation. How truly unimaginative this horse was! With studied patience he began to explain. “When you go, it shall be dark, pitch-black except for the moon and the stars. The constellation for which you were named shall ride high in the sky. Its light will bless you. You will gleam in the darkness, illuminated by the stars like the god you were born to be.” Coyote paused. “Do you now understand?”

  “I understand, compadre,” Pego replied solemnly.

  “Good. Now back to practice. I want to see that andadura once more.”

  Coyote watched the moon climb over the horizon.

  “Not yet. Not yet,” he whispered. He wanted it perfectly positioned, low in the sky but with the first stars breaking out just above. “Soon … soon … you’ll hear me howl, then step out.”

  They were in a grove of piñon trees not far from El Miedo’s encampment. El Miedo was sleeping in his tent. The first howl of Coyote wound through his dreams. The second howl woke him. He heard the horses in the nearby corral stirring. Something was coming. The braying of mules twined through the chill air of the night. He pulled on his boots and grabbed his blade, the Crusader dagger from Toledo, where the finest blacksmiths in the world forged the steel in their fires. The horses were whinnying nervously. He heard some guards mumbling, “Un sueño negro, sueño oscuro.” A dark dream.

  The words resonated in his head. How would they know what his dreams had been these last restless nights? The dream shadows that streamed through his sleep. Then his eyes opened. It was here. El caballo de destino, destiny’s horse. El Noble.

  The horse loomed up against the rising moon. Its dark coat caught the chips of starlight like diamonds in the night. The stallion leaned into the wind as he pranced in a paso de aire, air steps in which he appeared suspended against the moon while performing a four-beat ambling gait

  “El Noble! He is here at last!” El Miedo whispered. He felt his blood stir, and knew that with this horse his destiny was assured.

  Tijo and Old Fellow’s days fell into a comfortable pattern. Tijo would lead the stallion by walking ahead of him. The only time he touched him was to put the salve on his eyes. He thought it was helping, but he couldn’t be sure. The swelling had certainly gone down. But then again, having never seen such a creature as Old Fellow, Tijo was not sure what his eyes were supposed to look like. However, there was one thing of which Tijo was certain. The creature could almost see with his ears. His hearing was extraordinary. He would swing his head suddenly toward the sizzling noise of a grasshopper and immediately head for that clump of grass without Tijo leading him. At night he picked up the clicking sounds of the desert bats weaving through the darkness, and sometimes he would make a noise to orient himself, like a bat. On these occasions he would stop and whinny softly in the direction of a rock or a cliff, to see if an echo came back.

  Tijo loved to watch Old Fellow’s ears. He had never seen a creature whose ears could move so independently of each other. They twitched every which way as he collected the sounds of a moment: the burred trills of chickadees, then the swooping notes of a blue-throated sparrow and the soft shivering song of a plover all laced through the sunlight.

  For Old Fellow, it was as if there were sound pictures scribbled on the wind. But soon Tijo began to suspect that it was not just sound or scent that filled the sightless world of the creature but in fact he was becoming more sensitive to light. Old Fellow still stumbled, perhaps not quite as often, but Tijo sensed that his vision was improving.

  On the third day, Tijo led Old Fellow to the low flat sand banks of a shallow meandering creek that ribboned through great swaths of white sage. The tumbling water of the creek danced with spangled glints of sunlight. It was a beautiful day. Old Fellow’s ears flicked this way and that as he listened to the sound of the creek.

  But now Tijo noticed a ghost of movement beneath Old Fellow’s eyelids. Was it the glints of sun bouncing off the creek’s rippled surface?

  Hold On took a step closer to the water’s edge. Tijo’s heart quickened. The sand here was called the cleaning sand. This was a creek where people often bathed or brought the fleece of their sheep to wash. Would Old Fellow let Tijo wash him? He wanted to scrub the smoke and ash that so darkened what he felt was a beautiful coat.

  Tijo waded in deeper ahead and then turned around. “Come! Come along,” he coaxed. Hold On took another step. The water swirled around his hocks, and some of the filth of the fire turned the curling foam dark as it ran downstream. Tijo dared to crouch down and, cupping his hands, scooped up some of the fine white sand from the creek bottom.

  He began to gently rub the wet sand up from Old Fellow’s hooves to his hocks. “There you are!” he said as he saw the hair lighten. Old Fellow rem
ained calm. He seemed to enjoy the feel of the boy’s hands rubbing the sand against his coat. Tijo’s eyes widened. It looked like a new horse was emerging out of the sooty hide. He was a silvery gray with darker spots, like a night sky with the moon and stars scudding behind pale clouds.

  The water was now up to the boy’s waist and he could not quite reach to the stallion’s withers. He so wanted to see this “new” creature all clean and glowing. Tijo felt his own feet leave the bottom as the current lifted him up. He was treading water now beside Old Fellow’s shoulders. But it was hard to tread water and scrub. The charred ends of Old Fellow’s mane had broken off days before, but there were still dark streaks. He wondered if Old Fellow would notice if he held on to a hank of the mane. Would it hurt him? For if he could just hold on, he could steady himself in the water better and have one hand free for scrubbing. They were coming to the deepest part of the creek. What would happen if it was too deep for Old Fellow? Could this creature swim?

  Tijo pressed his face close to Old Fellow’s ear. “Old Fellow, my friend, may I hold on?” Old Fellow turned his head toward the boy. For the first time, his eyelids were entirely open. He looked deep into the boy’s eyes. “May I hold on?” Tijo repeated.

  The water stirred as the creature’s withers flinched and he gave a soft whinny, a sound unlike any that Tijo had ever heard. The horse kept his nearly sightless gaze on Tijo. His ears, which had been soft and relaxed, now pricked forward as if listening intently, and he whinnied a second time as if to say, Say again, say again, please?

  “Hold On! Hold On! That is your name!”

  He grabbed the soot-streaked mane as Hold On’s hooves left the creek bed and suddenly he was floating. The powerful legs began to churn the water. “Hold On! I am holding on!” Tijo shouted joyously into the clear blue dome of the sky. Hold On rolled his body slightly to one side, and Tijo felt himself float up above his back. His legs straddled Hold On’s barrel. It felt more like flying than swimming. The big muscles of Hold On’s shoulders worked rhythmically as they powered down the center of the creek. Tijo leaned close to his withers.