Skull
Teacher Leigh claimed Nellie for the fastest horse in a hundred miles, come from a line of breeding older than the Western territory. He never raced her. Said it wouldn’t be fair sport to the cowboy ponies.
Now they test the truth of it. Sam mounts first, Lucy behind. The two of them, and the rucksack of Ba, are still lighter than the trunk was. Nellie paws the ground, eager to run despite her skimpy diet of grass. Lucy expects an answering impatience from Sam.
Instead, Sam leans forward and whispers. The mare’s gray ears twitch back, subtle as speech.
And then Sam whoops.
Nellie stretches long, long—legs flicker over grass and they are flying, the wind shrieking, the sound from Sam’s throat raw and thrilling, at once Ba’s pride and Ma’s husky rasp and something all Sam’s own, wild as a beast—and Lucy realizes the sound isn’t from one throat. It’s hers too.
If this is a haunting, then it’s a good one.
—
Were a traveler to go by wagon, it takes a month to cross the Western territory. The main trail that they left starts at the ocean in the West, bumps against the inland mountains to the East. There the trail turns North, hugging the range till it flattens. East the trail loops, into the gentle plains of the next territory. A clear path, well-traveled. Easy enough to find again if they wished. But Sam, drawing in the dirt that night, has other plans.
“Most people do this,” Sam says, tracing the first part of the wagon trail with a stick. Sam depicts mountains as Ma did: clusters of three peaks.
Teacher Leigh claimed Nellie for the fastest horse in a hundred miles, come from a line of breeding older than the Western territory. He never raced her. Said it wouldn’t be fair sport to the cowboy ponies.
Now they test the truth of it. Sam mounts first, Lucy behind. The two of them, and the rucksack of Ba, are still lighter than the trunk was. Nellie paws the ground, eager to run despite her skimpy diet of grass. Lucy expects an answering impatience from Sam.
Instead, Sam leans forward and whispers. The mare’s gray ears twitch back, subtle as speech.
And then Sam whoops.
Nellie stretches long, long—legs flicker over grass and they are flying, the wind shrieking, the sound from Sam’s throat raw and thrilling, at once Ba’s pride and Ma’s husky rasp and something all Sam’s own, wild as a beast—and Lucy realizes the sound isn’t from one throat. It’s hers too.
If this is a haunting, then it’s a good one.
—
Were a traveler to go by wagon, it takes a month to cross the Western territory. The main trail that they left starts at the ocean in the West, bumps against the inland mountains to the East. There the trail turns North, hugging the range till it flattens. East the trail loops, into the gentle plains of the next territory. A clear path, well-traveled. Easy enough to find again if they wished. But Sam, drawing in the dirt that night, has other plans.
“Most people do this,” Sam says, tracing the first part of the wagon trail with a stick. Sam depicts mountains as Ma did: clusters of three peaks.