The Horse Boy by Rupert Isaacson

Author:Rupert Isaacson [ISAACSON, RUPERT]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIO026000
ISBN: 9780316053259
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2009-04-14T04:00:00+00:00

WE TOOK LEAVE of our guides by the banks of the stream in the sunny, rapidly warming morning. A number of herdsmen had ridden in, no doubt having heard through the local equivalent of the bush telegraph that foreigners were camped out here in the middle of… well, not exactly nowhere. This was their home, after all — to them it was local, familiar. To us, utterly exotic and foreign. Suffice to say that we were entertainment. Despite the early hour, as we packed up the tents and backpacks, ready to say goodbye to the horses and to the guides who’d taken such good care of us, and to load everything into the van, bottles of vodka began to appear. Another man showed up, not on horseback but on a motorbike, with a large plastic jug of airag. We were all a little tipsy by the time the first thermos of tea appeared on the little camp table, along with the inevitable Mongolian butter cookies (aptly, and hilariously, named Rain Man cookies). Rowan and Tomoo splashed in the stream, looking for — and finding, thankfully — a number of the toy animals that had been left there in the mud the previous evening.

“Time to say goodbye to Blackie,” I said to Rowan. “Come on, let’s give her a kiss and say thank you for carrying us.”

“Goodbye to Blackie,” echoed Rowan automatically, not that interested, then yelling loudly as I lifted him up to make the goodbye a reality.

“All done horses!” he yelled, kicking his legs.

“Yes, all done horses,” I confirmed. “We’re just giving her a kiss goodbye!”

He relaxed, allowed himself to be taken over to the grazing Blackie, and dutifully gave her a hug around the neck and a kiss on her soft black nose, then ran back to the riverbank and Tomoo. I watched him go, feeling sad, despite the magic of the night before. And worried, again, that when the time came to head off into Siberia to find the reindeer people, he would not get back on a horse. Which was the only way to get there. Not to mention the nagging worry that I had actually put him off horses for good, out of my desire for him to be some kind of horse wonder boy. When I’m heavily stressed, I sometimes manifest it physically with cold sores on the lip. I could feel the tingle of one coming now, and sent up a prayer that it wouldn’t be a big one.

There was a tap on my shoulder. The youngest and tallest of the guides was trying to say something to me, pointing to Rowan and pointing to Blackie. With no Mongolian, I couldn’t understand, but I did make out the words kuni and boli, horse and boy. Kristin wandered over, as did the other guides and the locals who had gathered. A vodka bottle was proffered from somewhere. I took a breakfast swig.

“Is he calling Rowan a horse boy?” I asked, trying to make sense of what was evidently a fairly important message.

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