The mares guarded the dead colt for over an hour, then they moved away leaving the mother alone. She remained standing over the twisted carcass, whinnying nervously. Then the killers leaped in and circled around her, darting toward her, two behind and two in front. She lashed at them, pivoted, kicked wildly, her pounding hoofs striking nothing. The chestnut stallion came to her rescue and drove the wolves away, then he drove her down the slope to where the band was feeding. She went slowly, halting to stand with her head up and nicker softly. The wolves leaped on the carcass and began devouring it while the buzzards walked over the snow, halting with their necks stretched out, their hard eyes glittering. They must wait for their share, which would be the gnawed bones.
And so the battle against the snow and the cold went on through the long winter. Another colt was lost to the gray killers, and an old mare went lame. She dropped behind in spite of the savage nipping and crowding of the big stallion. That night she bedded down alone in a little canyon and a gaunt cougar came upon her in the gray dawn. Her end came swiftly, without a struggle.
Then spring came with rushing torrents, slush in the arroyos, and slick, yellow mud on the hillsides. Streams boiled out of the dry canyons thick with raw clay and sand. This was the season when nature carved deeply into the face of the desert. Only the sand washes and the dunes on the flats resisted the water. The sand ate it up and packed hard so that it did not cling and drag when the band galloped over it.
With the speed of a miracle the desert bloomed. The sage flats flared white with the blossoms of the primrose and the mariposa lily. Countless other stunted plants put forth flowers, eager to create and ripen seed before the heat and drought of summer came. And the grass shot out of the ground, rich and sweet. The band cropped and moved on, ever searching for taller grass.
The mares were lean and gaunt, their ribs pushing ridges up under their shedding coats. The chestnut stallion was lean, too, but in a hard-muscled way. Lady Ebony had lost much of her fire and love for frolic. The sun was warm and the air soft but she needed rest. She looked away toward the white slopes of the Crazy Kill Range. Spring would not reach the high mesa for another month, but she was restless. She would have headed away into the foothills but the big stallion kept close watch over his band.
One day a horseman rode out on a rim. He sat on his bony horse and looked down on the wild band feeding on a bench. For a long time he sat there looking intently before he rode away. Yellow Man smiled as he galloped toward his hogan. There were many good colts in the band and one black mare. The black mare was a horse such as he had never seen before, the sort of mount he had always dreamed about. He would tell the other men about the band, but the black mare was to be his because he had been the first to see her.
He rode to his hogan and picketed his pony. Walking to the glowing fire which flickered inside the door he stooped and held out his hands. Four men sat along one wall while a half dozen brown-faced women sat on the other side. On the men’s side of the hogan lay riding things, bridles and blankets, a saddle. On the women’s side were the cooking pots and the blankets. Yellow Man sat down. For a long time he said nothing. His black eyes were on the fire.
Finally Yellow Man lifted his eyes to the face of an old man beside him.
“I have seen many good horses,” he said.
The old man grunted softly while the others bent forward.