"I kept stepping on them," the child said, trying to justify her deed.
"Poor little shits," said Coyote, practicing dance-steps.
"Coyote," the child said timidly. "Did you ever have any children? I mean real pups?"
"Did I? Did I have children? Litters! That one that tried feeling you up, you know? that was my son. Pick of the litter... Listen, Gal. Have daughters. When you have anything, have daughters. At least they clear out"
***III***
The child thought of herself as Gal, but also sometimes as Myra. So far as she knew, she was the only person in town who had two names. She had to think about that, and about what Coyote had said about the two kinds of people; she had to think about where she belonged. Some persons in town made it clear that as far as they were concerned she didn't and never would belong there. Hawk's furious stare burned through her; the Skunk children made audible remarks about what she smelled like. And though White-foot and Chipmunk and their families were kind, it was the generosity of big families, where one more or less simply doesn't count If one of them, or Cottontail, or Jackrabbit, had come upon her in the desert lying lost and half-blind, would they have stayed with her, like Coyote? That was Coyote's craziness, what they called her craziness. She wasn't afraid. She went between the two kinds of people, she crossed over. Buck and Doe and their beautiful children weren't really afraid, because they lived so constantly in danger. The Rattler wasn't afraid, because he was so dangerous. And yet maybe he was afraid of her, for he never spoke, and never came close to her. None of them treated her the way Coyote did. Even among the children, her only constant playmate was one younger than herself, a preposterous and fearless little boy called Horned Toad Child. They dug and built together, out among the sagebrush, and played at hunting and gathering and keeping house and holding dances, all the great games. A pale, squatty child with fringed eyebrows, he was a self-contained but loyal friend; and he knew a good deal for his age.
"There isn't anybody else like me here," she said, as they sat by the pool in the morning sunlight
"There isn't anybody much like me anywhere," said Horned Toad Child.
"Well, you know what I mean."
"Yeah... There used to be people like you around, I guess."
"What were they called?"
"Oh—people. Like everybody..."
"But where do my people live? They have towns. I used to live in one. I don't know where they are, is all. I ought to find out I don't know where my mother is now, but my daddy's in Canyonville. I was going there when."
"Ask Horse," said Horned Toad Child, sagaciously. He had moved away from the water, which he did not like and never drank, and was plaiting rushes.
"I don't know Horse."
"He hangs around the butte down there a lot of the time. He's waiting till his uncle gets old and he can kick him out and be the big honcho. The old man and the women don't want him around till then. Horses are weird. Anyway, he's the one to ask He gets around a lot And his people came here with the new people, that's what they say, anyhow."
Illegal immigrants, the girl thought She took Horned Toad's advice, and one long day when Coyote was gone on one of her unannounced and unexplained trips, she took a pouchful of dried salmon and salmonberries and went off alone to the flat-topped butte miles away in the southwest
There was a beautiful spring at the foot of the butte, and a trail to it with a lot of footprints on it She waited there under willows by the clear pool, and after a while Horse came running, splendid, with copper-red skin and long strong legs, deep chest, dark eyes, his black hair whipping his back as he ran. He stopped, not at all winded, and gave a snort as he looked at her. "Who are you?"
Nobody in town asked that—ever. She saw it was true: Horse had come here with her people, people who had to ask each other who they were.
"I live with Coyote," she said, cautiously.
"Oh, sure, I heard about you," Horse said. He knelt to drink from the pool, long deep drafts, his hands plunged in the cool water. When he had drunk he wiped his mouth, sat back on his heels, and announced, "I'm going to be king."
"King of the Horses?"
"Right! Pretty soon now. I could lick the old man already, but I can wait Let him have his day," said Horse, vainglorious, magnanimous. The child gazed at him, in love already, forever.
"I can comb your hair, if you like," she said.
"Great!" said Horse, and sat still while she stood behind him, tugging her pocket comb through his coarse, black, shining yard-long hair. It took a long time to get it smooth.
She tied it in a massive ponytail with willowbark whera she was done. Horse bent over the pool to admire himself. "That's great," he said. "That's really beautiful!"
"Do you ever, go... where the other people are?" she asked in a low voice.
He did not reply for long enough that she thought he wasn't going to; then he said, "You mean the metal places, the glass places? The holes? I go around them. There are all the walls now. There didn't used to be so many. Grandmother said there didn't used to be any walls. Do you know Grandmother?" he asked naively, looking at her with his great, dark eyes.
'Your grandmother?"
"Well, yes—Grandmother—You know. Who makes the web. Well, anyhow. I know there's some of my people, horses, there. I've seen them across the walls. They act really crazy. You know, we brought the new people here. They couldn't have got here without us, they only have two legs, and they have those metal shells. I can tell you that whole story. The King has to know the stories."
"I like stories a lot"
"It takes three nights to tell it What do you want to know about them?"
"I was thinking that maybe I ought to go there. Where they are."
"It's dangerous. Really dangerous. You can't go through —they'd catch you."
"I'd just like to know the way."
"I know the way," Horse said, sounding for the first time entirely adult and reliable; she knew he did know the way. "It's a long run for a colt" He looked at her again. "I Ve got a cousin with different-color eyes," he said, looking from her right to her left eye. "One brown and one blue. But she's an Appaloosa."
"Bluejay made the yellow one," the child explained. "I lost my own one. In the...when...You don't think l| could get to those places?"
"Why do you want to?"
"I sort of feel like I have to."
Horse nodded. He got up. She stood still.
"I could take you, I guess," he said.
"Would you? When?"
"Oh, now, I guess. Once I'm King I won't be able to leave, you know. Have to protect the women. And I sure wouldn't let my people get anywhere near those places!" A shudder ran right down his magnificent body, yet he said, with a toss of his head, "They couldn't catch me, of course, but the others can't run like I do..."
"How long would it take us?"
Horse thought a while. "Well, the nearest place like that is over by the red rocks. If we left now we'd be back here around tomorrow noon. It's just a little hole."
She did not know what he meant by "a hole," but did not ask.
"You want to go?" Horse said, flipping back his ponytail.
"OK," the girl said, feeling the ground go out from under her.
"Can you run?"
She shook her head. "I walked here, though."
Horse laughed, a large, cheerful laugh. "Come on," he said, and knelt and held his hands backturned like stirrups for her to mount to his shoulders. "What do they call you?" he teased, rising easily, setting right off at a jogtrot. "Gnat? Fly? Flea?"
"Tick, because I stick!" the child cried, gripping the wil-lowbark tie of the black mane, laughing with delight at being suddenly eight feet tall and traveling across the desert without even trying, like the tumbleweed, as fast as the wind.
Moon, a night past full, rose to light the plains for them. Horse jogged easily on and on. Somewhere deep in the night they stopped at a Pygmy Owl camp, ate a little, and rested. Most of the owls were out hunting but an old lady entertained them at her campfire, telling them tales abbut the ghost of a cricket, about the great invisible people, tales that the child heard interwoven with her own dreams as she dozed and half-woke and dozed again. Then Horse put her up on his shoulders and on they went at a tireless slow lope. Moon went down behind them, and before them the sky paled into rose and gold. The soft nightwind was gone; the air was sharp, cold, still. On it, in it, there was a faint, sour smell of burning. The child felt Horse's gait change, grow tighter, uneasy.
"Hey, Prince!"
A small, slightly scolding voice: the child knew it, and placed it as soon as she saw the person sitting by a juniper tree, neatly dressed, wearing an old black cap.
"Hey, Chickadee!" Horse said, coming round and stopping. The child had observed, back in Coyote's town, that everybody treated Chickadee with respect She didn't see why. Chickadee seemed an ordinary person, busy and talkative like most of the small birds, nothing like so endearing as Quail or so impressive as Hawk or Great Owl.
"You're going on that way?" Chickadee asked Horse.
"The little one wants to see if her people are livingthere," Horse said, surprising the child. Was that what she wanted?
Chickadee looked disapproving, as she often did. She whistled a few notes thoughtfully, another of her habits, and then got up. "I'll come along."
"That's great," Horse said, thankfully.
"Ill scout," Chickadee said, and off she went, surprisingly fast, ahead of them, while Horse took up his steady long lope.
The sour smell was stronger in the air.
Chickadee halted, way ahead of them on a slight rise, and stood still. Horse dropped to a walk, and then stopped. "There," he said in a low voice.
The child stared. In the strange light and slight mist before sunrise she could not see clearly, and when she strained and peered she felt as if her left eye were not seeing at all. "What is it?" she whispered.