But as the snow kept driving down, the danger of the storm revealed itself. The deep snow muffled scent, and the fawn depended on his powerful sense of smell. If he could not smell, it was another kind of blindness. His parents slowed their pace and turned around often to scent mark so he could follow. But as the snow became thicker, the scent marks were covered up more quickly. Soon the fawn could smell nothing. Nor could he hear his parents’ frantic calls over the roar of the wind. He bleated helplessly into the snarling gusts, but his calls were greeted by the growl of the wind. It felt as if the world as he knew it, his parents, the softness of his mother’s belly when he nuzzled her while nursing, had been swallowed and he was alone. Completely alone.
He wandered aimlessly in the featureless land, cold and hungry, sometimes up to his neck in drifts. When he thought he was so tired that he couldn’t take another step, he sensed a break in the wind. Like a yawn in the night, something hollow loomed ahead. He forced himself on and soon found a small, shallow cave. It was thick with snow, but at least it offered refuge from the wind. The fawn entered and burrowed down into the soft and deadly snow, with only his nose poking out to breathe.
It was the first time in his short life that he had not had milk before going to sleep. That he had not had a story told by the stag, that he could not feel the starlight or the moon rising as his mother described it to him. If the fawn had not been blind, he would have seen that high on the cave wall were pictures. Some were animals, but one was a carving in the rock of a Once Upon — a two-leg with a hump on his back and a long piece of wood in his mouth, through which he was blowing a tune. The picture was directly above the little fawn’s head and it almost looked as if the figure was fluting him a lullaby.
When the wind outside the cave ceased howling and the storm ended, the fawn woke up. The cave had been a fine place to sleep. He was hungry, but most of all he was starving for his mother and father. He bleated loudly, hoping that they might be just outside the cave or perhaps in another cave nearby. But he heard no answering call.
The fawn took a cautious step outside. He walked a short distance in the deep snow, bleating. Suddenly, a strong scent washed over him. It was not his mother nor his father. It was a mountain cat.
The fawn frantically tilted his head one way, then another. His hearing was extraordinarily keen and he could hear the breathing and the even heartbeat of the big cat. Closer and closer the cat came. The fawn was so frightened that he stood in place, too scared to move. If he had only stayed in the cave, he thought. He had felt something in the cave protecting him, a guardian who hovered over him in his sleep. But there was no one to guard him now.
When it happened, it was quick. Quick and oddly silent. The fawn didn’t make a sound. He felt a sudden, crushing weight and then he was dead. His filmed blue eyes stared up into the sky he had never seen. A short distance away, another creature lurked, waiting his turn, waiting until the cat had eaten its fill. Then the coyote would come in for the bits the cat had left, come in to scrape the bones.
Several days later, the horses came across a sheer wall of stone and paused to look at the strange markings on it. Estrella stood close and blew through her nose, then inhaled with her mouth clamped tight, making a sound that horses sometimes used to greet each other. “You’re talking to a rock?” Azul sneered.
Estrella didn’t answer. She was wrapped up in the images streaming across the rock face. Images of animals — of deer, of spiders, of wolves — and images of two-legs. Men! But not like men today. Men from the long ago.
These are the rock pictures of the Once Upons! Without thinking, Estrella stuck out her tongue and began to lick an image, tracing it as the fawn said he had done. She shut her eyes. The fawn was an uncommonly bright little creature, and though he was blind, she felt he saw more with his filmed eyes than most creatures did with their eyes clear.
She began to wonder again about the Once Upons. The doe had said they were a mystery, unexplainable. They had two legs. So that meant they were human. She did not like humans. But if they had lived here so long ago, could they have ever been here at the time of the little horse? She thought not. For the little horse was very ancient. But had they lived at a time before the Ibers, before the Chitzen? Were the Once Upons the original two-legs, the original humans? And was there something she must learn from them and their time on this earth, something that she was meant to know even if she could never exactly understand it?
The other horses came in closer to look at the pictures.
“Look! Some are two-legs,” Hold On said.
“The Once Upons,” Estrella whispered. She was unsure who these Once Upons were, but something about them seemed different from the Ibers or the Chitzen. They were older, for one. And wilder. They’d lived so long ago, maybe in the time of the tiny horse she saw so clearly in her mind’s eye.
Estrella walked along the wall, examining all the pictures carefully. And then she spotted it, a tiny, horselike creature sprinting across the rock face. The rock looked almost like a windswept plain, its fissures and striations the blowing grass. Estrella could almost smell the sweet grass. They were on the right track! She was sure of it. This little streaking figure was exactly the image she had seen reflected in Perlina’s eye as the mare was dying.
The horses walked on under the shade of the rimrock. Estrella found three other carved figures of the tiny horse. Each time, she felt a sense of a new energy and a deeper connection to her dam and the flash in the dam’s eye. In the jumbled landscape of half-lost memory, the tiny horse was becoming a constant nearly as steady as the star that never moved. Until now, the search for the sweet grass and the blowing landscapes of the north had been only an instinct, a vague sense of a new way of life. But the quest was becoming more defined. Estrella knew that her journey was long from over, but the image of the tiny horse was in much sharper focus now. The herd was not simply on a quest, they were reliving a story, an ancient narrative that linked horses everywhere to that very first horse — the tiny horse that seemed to glimmer on the edge of dawn.
The day had grown very warm. Hold On said that he thought it was late spring and that the blizzard they had encountered had been the last blow of winter. The horses knew they were much farther north now. Hold On guessed that they were more than six hundred leagues from the beach where they had landed.
The shadow of a coyote slid across the rock face. They’d seen several coyotes since they’d arrived on the high plains of this desertlike country. Estrella found something unnerving about the coyotes. Their pelts were yellowish gray and they had long, sharp teeth that seemed too large for their small heads. For some reason, coyotes, although much smaller than the mountain lions, seemed scarier to the horses. Perhaps it was because of their stealth and the fact that they were often scavengers. The herd had the sense that the coyotes were always watching, waiting for an old horse to go lame, or a mare to lie down in a distant part of a meadow to foal. Then they’d sneak in and snap the tendon of a lame foot or run off with a newborn foal. Coyotes could slip through the narrowest cracks in a rock wall, and also thread through the shadows of the horses’ minds, brewing nightmares.
Hold On told Estrella that in the Old Land, horses called coyotes fox dogs or perros zorros. For they were sly like foxes but fought like mad dogs. Unlike the mountain cats, they seemed to be able to hide in the smallest cracks and crevices. And then suddenly their slinking silhouettes would appear against the sandstone walls. The herd tried to ignore the coyotes as best they could. But each of the horses wondered how many coyotes were lurking in the cracks of the sandstone cliffs they passed. There could be a whole pack of them, and as a pack they would be terrifying.
The snow had melted away almost as quickly as it came, and the day grew warmer. The herd was walking at a leisurely pace, trying to keep out of the sun. Water seemed scarce in these parts, and the horses didn’t want to work up a deep thirst.
They kept their eye out for coyotes as they traveled. Sky spotted
one on a cliff above them, his tail lifted high in the breeze as he peered down on the herd. Estrella noticed that the fur of his muzzle appeared darker, stained. She realized the stain was dried blood, and a chill ran through her.
Hold On took the lead of their somewhat straggly line, as he seemed to have the best instincts for water. Estrella soon lagged behind the others at the end of the line. She kept pausing to study the paintings on the rock walls they passed. The humpbacked music maker and his horn fascinated her. She wanted to hear the music he blew. And she kept a sharp eye out for the tiny horse.
Suddenly, there was a shrill whinny. Hold On galloped back toward Estrella. She could feel a current of agitation running through the line of horses.
“Follow me!” Hold On said.
Estrella and Hold On shot off, with the others following.
Estrella picked up a scent, and a sense of dread filled her. It was two scents really — that of deer and that of mountain cat. They came to a halt over a small pile of bones. She would always remember how tiny and delicate those bones were. The fragile backbone had been snapped in half.
“It was the mountain cat,” Hold On said, his voice brimming with sadness. “But look at the skull — it has the marks of a coyote’s teeth.”
Estrella flinched. That bloodstained muzzle!
“Coyote?” Grullo asked.
“Yes. The big cat left the small bits to the dogs! Malditos carroñeros,” he muttered. Estrella had never heard Hold On curse, and this was the harshest curse a horse, a grazer, could cast on another animal.
Sky had been listening quietly. He came forward, his ears laid back, his blue eye shining with fear. “Are coyotes like the vultures you told us about in the meadows in the Old Land? Scavengers?”
“Both. They scavenge and they kill,” Hold On said grimly.
Estrella shivered. At least the cat was a noble creature, an honest hunter. There was something degenerate about the coyote.
A few tufts of the fawn’s tawny coat had caught up in the prickles of a sagebrush and were quivering in the breeze. Estrella closed her eyes. The image of the fawn dancing under feathery white clouds came back to her. Had there ever been a lovelier or livelier creature? And now he was just bones, and somewhere the coyote skulked, fur still stained with the fawn’s blood.
All the horses were very quiet. Their heads hung down as if searching for a reason for the little fawn’s death. Deep inside, they knew this was simply the way of the land. This was the price for being wild and free. The weak were prey for the strong, the grazers often victims of the meat eaters. One part of Estrella knew this, and yet another part of her called out, Not fair! A small, defenseless creature had died, but the world still went on. The sun was shining brilliantly. New grasses were pushing up. The sky was a clear and beautiful blue. But the ground was stained with the blood of the fawn.
The horses moved on. They found water shortly after leaving the bones of the fawn. But after, the water grew harder to find. What grass there was grew short and dry. Tempers grew as short as the grass. Azul had shifted her anger from Estrella to Verdad.
“I just want to make one thing clear,” Azul said in the haughty voice she often assumed. “If we find another water hole, I do hope someone will keep an eye on Verdad. He has a way of sneaking up first and drinking the hole halfway down before the rest of us even have a chance.”
“I do not!” Verdad protested. “How dare you?”
“Your name means truth, or so Hold On says.” Her voice dripped with contempt. “But I’m not sure if you’re so truthful.”
Estrella was shocked. She laid back her ears, lowered her head, and began to wave it back and forth at Azul.
“Do you have a problem?” Azul asked.
“Indeed I do. You have managed to insult two of our herd in a very short space of time. First Verdad, claiming he takes an unfair share of water. And then you doubt Hold On’s word.”
“And I might add I doubt you!” said Azul. “You keep leading us north — north to some sort of sweet grass — but why should I believe you know what you’re doing? We’re going to die out here! There is no water, no decent grass to eat.”
Estrella narrowed her eyes. “You’re free to turn back. Yes, go back to the City of the Gods. See how many more horses’ heads have been cut off.”
Angela and Corazón appeared to be seized by tremors.
“Look at them,” said Azul with a flick of her black tail. “Those two old mares. They’ll never make it.”
Corazón now stepped forward. “I’d rather die of thirst with Estrella leading me than see another horse’s head cut off by men. Now, young filly, stop this nonsense!”
The word nonsense was like a spark on dry tinder for Azul. She laid her ears flat. “Shut up, you old biddy,” she snarled.
Corazón’s eyes blazed. She lunged at Azul with her mouth open and bit down smartly on the blue roan’s flank. Azul howled as much in humiliation as pain. Angela rushed in, wheeled around, and delivered a sharp kick to Azul’s other flank. The rest of the horses stood by amazed.
“Don’t look so surprised, Hold On,” Corazón snapped. “My sire was in the first cavalry of King Carlos, and my dam died in the Battle of Fornovo. I know how to fight. Old biddy, my withers!” She narrowed her eyes and glared at Azul.
Azul went into a deep sulk and not a word was heard from her. The fight seemed to energize the rest of the horses almost as much as a good graze or a long drink of water. Corazón and Angela had broken the tension, for now. But Estrella was worried. What if they didn’t find water soon? What if the grass continued to recede. What would they eat? The tough-skinned plants with the sharp spikes would tear up their mouths worse than any bit. The herd followed her on blind faith. What if she failed?
The horses were passing under a soaring cliff wall, and the sun struck the rock ahead at a fierce angle. Flecks of bright crystals sparkled in the sunlight. The rock face seemed almost to tingle. There, in the center of a nimbus of light, was the carved figure of a tiny horse. It was as if the creature spoke to Estrella. Tell them! Tell them about the first horse. Tell them how the herd shall run free once more.
“Come, come in close to this rock!” Estrella called to the herd. She looked fierce and stubborn as she stood against the high cliff. The other horses sensed they were going to hear something of vital importance. Even Azul shoved her ears forward and shed her bored and disdainful air.
“Do you see this figure here in the rock wall?” Estrella pressed.
The horses squinted slightly, for the stone seemed to dance with light. “What do you see, Sky?” Estrella asked.
“A tiny horse running. Running very fast.”
“You’re right.” Estrella paused. She hoped she could explain it properly. “I don’t lead us. It’s this horse who leads us. This is First Horse, and we are simply following his trail. Do you understand? First Horse was here long before there were any humans, long before there were horses that looked like us. He is the first horse of the New World, and we are here to find our way back to the fields and meadows where he grazed.
“First Horse passed this way. He went without water and without food for days and yet he survived. Survived to become our first ancestor! And we shall survive, too. We just must believe. See how his neck curves. See his hocks. See his perfect head. This is the horse from the dawn of time.”
The nine other horses crowded close to peer up at the tiny horse inscribed in the rock wall, sparkling against a field of embedded crystal flecks.
No one said a word for the rest of the day. But as the herd moved forward, they kept the dawn horse fixed in their minds. The idea that something so small had been the start of them all was almost too much to comprehend. It was an idea as big as the sky, as big as the universe and its most distant stars. And yet many of the horses found a comfort in the thought of a universe old and vast enough to create such a long thread of life.
Hours after they left the rock wall, in the engulfing purple light of th
e dusk, they discovered two good water holes. After they drank their fill, the herd continued on. Soon they came to a small river and waded across it to the other side. They followed the river as it meandered through groves of cottonwood, willow, and tamarack. In the distance, they could just make out a ragged ridge, but as they drew closer, they realized they had unwittingly descended into a canyon. In the failing light, they saw a most peculiar formation in what appeared to be the cliff walls of the canyon.
“What’s that?” Estrella asked, tossing her head to the sheer walls, which had several large openings.
“Windows!” replied Corazón.
“You mean like the portholes on the ship?” Sky asked. He rememberd that some sailors had looked at him through round openings when he had been taken aboard the brigantine.
“But they look like windows in a cliff,” Grullo offered.
To Estrella, the windows looked like empty eyes staring blindly into the night.
“Who would live in a cliff?” Corazón asked.
“The Once Upons,” Estrella said, peering into the cliff’s dark eyes.
“She’s right!” Hold On nickered. “And there appear to be trails leading up to those windows.”
“But the Once Upons are gone,” Angela said. “The deer family told us that.”
“Yes,” Estrella said softly. She began to quicken her pace.
“Where are you going?” Arriero asked.
“This is their place; this is where the Once Upons lived in the long ago.” She could tell the others were agitated.
“Estrella, listen to me,” Hold On said. His ears were laid back, and his coat twitched. “I — I — I don’t think it’s a good idea to go in there.”
“Why not?”
“This might have been their city! You know what cities are like. It’s all death.”
But Estrella shook her head. “No. You’re wrong. The Once Upons were before the new men, before the Ibers. They — the Once Upons — were more … more …” She stammered for a moment. “More wild. More like the little horse on the crystal wall. They were the Originals. This is not a city of death. It’s a spirit city.”