A few hours into his march, Bernardo realized that he was being followed, but when he turned and glanced over his shoulder, he saw nothing but trees watching over him like quiet giants. In this forest he was embraced by ferns with shining leaves, surrounded by twisted oaks and fragrant firs and quiet, green space lighted with splashes of light that filtered through the leaves. It was a sacred place. It would be most of the day before the shy creature accompanying him would show itself. It was an orphaned foal, still so young that its legs, black as night, were wobbly. Despite its newborn delicacy and its orphan’s sense of solitude, Bernardo could see what a magnificent horse it would grow into. Horses travel in herds, and always in open country; what was it doing alone in the woods? He called it with the finest sounds of his flute, but it would stop some distance away, eyes suspicious, nostrils flaring, legs trembling, too skittish to come closer. The boy plucked a handful of moist grass, sat down on a rock, put it in his mouth and chewed it, spit it into the palm of his hand, then offered it to the beautiful little creature. Time passed before the foal decided to take a few hesitant steps forward, observing Bernardo through clear chestnut eyes, weighing his intentions and reckoning its retreat in case of danger. It must have liked what it saw, because soon its velvety muzzle touched the extended hand to taste the strange food. “It isn’t the same as your mother’s milk, but it will do,” Bernardo murmured. Those were the first words he had spoken in three years. He felt each one take shape in the pit of his stomach, rise like a cottony ball up his throat, roll around a bit in his mouth, and then, well chewed, be spit out like the mash for the foal.
Something broke inside his chest, something thick and heavy, and all his rage and guilt and his oaths of terrible revenge poured out in an uncontainable torrent. He fell to his knees on the ground, crying and vomiting a bitter green mud, shaken by the memory of that fateful morning when he had lost his mother, and with her, his childhood. His retching turned his stomach inside out and left him empty and clean.
The foal retreated, frightened, but did not go away, and when finally Bernardo grew calm, able to get to his feet and look for water to wash in, the foal followed close behind. They were together for the next three days. Bernardo taught it to use its hooves to paw down to the tender est grass, he held it until its legs were steady and it could trot, he slept with his arms around it at night to keep it warm, and he entertained it with his flute. “You will be called Tornado that is, if you like that name so you will run like the wind,” he proposed with his flute, because after that one sentence he had again retreated into silence. He intended to tame the foal and give it to Diego; he could not think of a more appropriate fate for such a noble creature, but when he woke on the fourth day, the foal was gone.
The mist had burned off and the sun was painting the hills with the white light of dawn. Bernardo looked for Tornado in vain, calling it in a voice hoarse from lack of use, until he understood that the animal had not come to him in search of an owner, but to show him the path he should follow in life. He knew then that his spirit guide was the horse, and that he should develop the horse’s virtues: loyalty, strength, and endurance. He decided that his planet would be the sun, and his element the hills, where at that moment Tornado was surely trotting back to the herd.
Diego’s sense of direction was not as good as Bernardo’s, and he was quickly lost. He also had less skill in hunting, and all he could catch was a tiny mouse, which after it was skinned was reduced to a handful of pathetic bones. He ended up devouring ants, worms, and lizards. He was so weak from hunger and the demands of the previous eight days that he did not have the strength to foresee what dangers lay in store, but he was determined not to give in to the temptation to go back. White Owl had impressed upon him that the purpose of that long test was to leave childhood behind and become a man, and he did not mean to fail his grandmother halfway through; nonetheless, the urge to break into tears was growing stronger than his determination. He had never known solitude. He had grown up beside Bernardo, surrounded with friends and people who cherished him, and his mother was never far away. For the first time, he was alone, and it had to happen just when he was deep in the wilderness. He was afraid that he would never find the way back to White Owl’s small campsite, and it occurred to him that he could spend the next four days sitting under the same tree, but his natural impatience pushed him forward. Soon he was completely lost in the vastness of the hills. He came upon a stream, and seized the opportunity to drink and bathe; then he ate some unfamiliar fruit he picked from trees. Three crows, birds venerated by his mother’s tribe, circled a few times low over his head. He took that as a sign, and it gave him spirit to go on. At nightfall he found a hollow protected by two rocks; he lit a fire, wrapped himself in his blanket, and was instantly asleep, praying that his lucky star would not fail him Bernardo said it would always light his way because it would not be at all funny to have come so far only to die in the claws of a mountain lion. He was wakened in the middle of the night by the regurgitated acid of the fruit he had eaten and the howls of nearby coyotes. Only timid coals remained of the fire, but he fed it with a few sticks, speculating that such a ridiculous little fire would not do much to keep away wild beasts. He remembered that earlier they had seen several kinds of animals that had roamed nearby but hadn’t attacked, and he sent up a prayer that they wouldn’t know that he was alone. But at that exact moment, in the light of the flames, he saw a pair of red eyes watching him with ghostly intensity. He clutched his knife, thinking that it must be a particularly bold wolf, but when he sat up and could see it better, he recognized it as a fox. So what are you doing here, zorro} he wondered. It seemed strange that it didn’t move but just sat there like a cat warming itself by the embers of the fire.
He called, but it did not come, and when he tried to approach it, the fox retreated with caution, always maintaining the same distance between them. Diego tended the fire for a while, until weariness overcame him and he dropped back to sleep despite the faraway howling of coyotes. Each time Diego snapped awake, not knowing where he was, he would see the strange fox in the same place, like a watchful spirit.
The night seemed eternal, but finally the first rays of the sun backlighted the profile of the mountains. The fox was gone.
In the next three days nothing happened that Diego could interpret as a vision, except the presence of the fox, which arrived at nightfall and remained with him until dawn, always quiet and watchful. On the third day, bored and faint with hunger, Diego tried to find his way back but could not locate the site. He decided that it would be impossible to find White Owl, but that if he headed downhill, sooner or later he would come to the sea, and there find the Camino Real. So he started walking, thinking how frustrated his grandmother and his mother would be when they learned that all their preparations for those rites had not provided a vision, only dejection, and he wondered whether Bernardo had been luckier than he had been. He did not get very far because as he stepped over a fallen tree trunk he stepped on a snake. He felt a stab on his ankle, and in a couple of seconds heard the unmistakable sound of a rattlesnake and was fully aware of what had happened. No room for doubt: the serpent had a slim neck and triangular head. Fear struck him in the stomach like the unforgettable kick from the pirate.
He jumped back a few steps, away from the viper, at the same time reviewing a few vague facts about rattlesnakes. He knew that the venom is not always lethal, that it depends on the amount of poison released from the fangs, but he was in a weakened state and far from any kind of help. Death seemed probable, if not from the poison, from starvation and weakness. He had seen a vaquero dispatched to the other world by one of those reptiles; the man lay down in a haystack to sleep, and never woke up. According to Padre Mendoza, God had called him to his blessed bosom where, incidentally, he would never again beat his wife through the perfect combination of poison and alcohol. Diego also remembered the drastic treatments for such cases: cutting the puncture wounds with a knife or burning them with a live coal. He could see that his leg was turning purple, he felt his mouth filling with saliva, his face and hands prickled, and he was shaking with cold. He realized that he was panicked, and that he had to do something soon, before his thoughts clouded over completely. If he moved, the venom would circulate more rapidly through his body, and if he didn’t, he would die right there. He chose to keep going, even though his knees were rubbery and his eyelids were so swollen he couldn’t see. He began stumbling downhill, calling his grandmother in a sleepwalker’s voice as his last strength drained away.