Chapter 1
My first memory is the sound of water. The warmth of the sun. The smell of my mother. The touch of her tongue on my skin, and the horizon a great circle around me. My second memory is the urge to run. It comes in one breath before I even have the strength to stand. I shake the wet off my mane. Mother licks me from ears to hooves. The wind carries smells sharp and fresh and sweet: piñon trees, sagebrush, and water. The horses of my family band lift their heads. Turn their ears toward me. Each auntie holds me in her deep brown gaze. Each one breathes me in. “He’s a small one,” Auntie Gale says. Auntie Rain noses along my legs as if to look for more of me. “He’ll get bigger,” she says firmly. Auntie Gale nudges the white splotches on my chestnut coat. “Cloud marked,” she says. “Like our stallion.” “May he grow to be a fighter like him,” Auntie Rain says. “We will call you Sky,” Mother decides. The aunties crowd together to block the wind that makes me shiver. But they let the sun shine through to dry me. “We are your shelter for as long as you grow,” Mother says. “Stay close,” says Auntie Rain. “We will watch for danger,” Auntie Gale says. I take in the sight and smell of my family. Mother’s bright chestnut coat. The shining black of Auntie Rain and the rich earth smell of Auntie Gale. Sagebrush shades my resting place. Golden clumps of grass bend over in the wind. Yellow and brown birds flit from shrub to shrub. I gaze up at the blue curve of sky and pale clouds running, running, running. Already I want to be running like them. Mother and the aunties browse slowly. Reach. Bite. Look to the trees. Chew. Flick ears forward. Sniff. Chew. Look to the horizon. Chew again. Flick ears to the back. Turn. Sniff. Check the hillsides. Reach. Bite. Our stallion, Thunder, stands on the ridge above, black-and-white against the blue sky. He watches, listens, waits for danger. Burros graze all around him, and farther away, the slender and shy deer. Birds swoop in. Their high voices float on the breeze, but the moment a dark shadow sweeps across the ground, they all go as silent as little brown stones. A silver shimmer in the valley below catches my eye. The shimmer spreads out like the web of a spider. Bands of horses come to the water to drink in turns. Pronghorn too. All the many scampers come to the water, the big one who catches fish and the tiny ones who hide in burrows. Fiercer creatures come to the water alone, and crowds of swimming birds never leave its ponds and puddles and streams.
