The-Hummingbird-s-Cage(72)

I heard a voice then, calling from farther up the road. But deep—the voice of a man, not a child. “Hello up ahead!”

Simon and I turned as one toward the sound. “Hello!” Simon shouted in return.

Out of the darkness appeared two riders at a hard trot. They were nearly upon us before I recognized them—Reuben and his father, Morgan Begay.

They reined in as they reached us. They didn’t offer pleasantries or explanations about how they, too, had joined the search.

“Nothing on the road this side,” Begay said in his clipped voice. “We’ll double back. Hit some trails.”

Simon nodded. “We’ll take some trails, too. She’s headed up—we know that.”

“She kept hearing a barking dog,” I said to Begay. “Any idea where it might be coming from?”

Begay shrugged. “Hard to tell. Lots of dogs here.”

“You find her, fire off three shots,” Simon advised him. “And we’ll come fetch her.”

He said it as casually as if they were talking about a child who’d wandered off in a supermarket: You find her in aisle three, give a holler.

“She won’t be lost long,” Reuben said gently, watching me. “Tse has a mother spirit.”

A mother spirit? What on earth did that mean? That made as much sense as Simon telling me to “try not to worry.”

I wanted to light into both of them, kicking and punching. When your daughter runs off God knows where into the freezing cold, lost and alone, you try not to worry.

We divided again, each pair returning the way we’d come. Except this time we didn’t go far before Simon pulled up beside the barrel-sized trunk of a nearly leafless oak tree. It stood next to a narrow path I hadn’t noticed the first time we passed.

“Started out as a deer track,” Simon explained. “Hunters use it mostly.”

My heart dropped.

“We must have passed dozens of these,” I said. “We don’t have time to check them all.”

“Farther up the Mountain, a lot of them join together, like a big tangle,” he said reassuringly. “But the layout makes sense, once you know what you’re dealing with. And I’ve been here awhile. I know what we’re dealing with.”

The track cut up the Mountain at a steep, snaking incline—so steep in places that Nastas and Yas had to strain to climb as we stood in the stirrups, leaning forward for balance.

On either side, trees towered over us, many of them bare and black as woodcuts, others shaggy pines; together with the clouds snuffing out the moon, they made it impossible to see far in any direction. Now and then we’d stop and call, then keep still for a response, ears pricked, the horses under us panting from their effort in the thin air. Morro already sat at high altitude—more than a mile high. This mountain was taking us higher still.

Finally we stopped to call out again, and this time I heard something in the distance.

Not a voice. Not a human voice, anyway.

But a whinny.

I held my breath and waved for silence.

There it was again.

“Over there!” I said excitedly.

“I heard it,” said Simon. “Wait here. I’ll check it out.”

“Like hell,” I said, wheeling Nastas toward the sound and kicking off.

The forest was thick, and Nastas had to maneuver carefully, picking his way on slim legs through a natural obstacle course of dead tree trunks toppled at weird angles, over brush and limbs and large rocks. I could hear Simon and Yas close behind. But Yas had surer footing in rough terrain and soon lunged around us, Simon urging him on. I tried not to think Simon was worried about what I might find if I got to the source of the whinnying first.

But soon there it was, in a clearing some fifty yards off.

It was Tse.

Riderless.

Her saddle was empty and slightly askew, as if it hadn’t been cinched tight enough; the reins hung loose from the bridle. She stamped and whinnied again as we neared.

Simon was well in front then, and I could hear him murmuring, “Whoa, girl,” as he got to her and reached from Yas’s back to gather up the reins.

It was then that Tse—gentle Tse—reared up, lashing out with her hooves. It startled Yas, who reared up, too, then landed and bucked.

It wasn’t a hard buck, but it caught Simon just as he was leaning to the side, off-balance, and pitched him to the ground. He landed with a cry of pain.