Wild Blood by Kathryn Lasky

Author:Kathryn Lasky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2016-08-24T04:00:00+00:00

Tijo sat with his knees pulled to his chest in the small shelter. There was a stake in the ground with a chain, and that chain was attached to a metal cuff on Tijo’s ankle. In the three days he had been a prisoner of El Miedo, he had examined every link of that chain, trying to figure out how to escape. There was one opening in the shed but it, too, had metal on it. Metal bars. A prison guard came in now and drove the stake farther into the ground and checked the lock. Tijo observed him carefully. The man’s sly eyes crawled over him.

“You think you can get loose, boy? Well, you can’t … Oooh, and I have a nice little surprise for you.” Tijo did not understand a word he said. He saw the man go over to the door and pick up a yoke. “Now try this on for size.” He placed it over Tijo’s head so it set on his shoulders. “Perfect fit!” He brought his face close to Tijo’s. “You’re going to work the jerkline. You’re no more Horse Boy. You’re a mule boy!”

When the guard left, Tijo dropped his head to his knees. The rough wood of the yoke scraped his shoulders, and he let out a low cry. Until now, his capture had seemed like a nightmare from which he’d surely awake, but now there was no denying the terrible truth. He’d lost the herd, the only home he’d ever known. But although he knew only pain and despair awaited him, he worried more for Estrella than for himself. He knew what it was like to be alone. After Haru died, there’d been no one in the world who cared what happened to him. But Estrella had never been parted from her herd, never been subjected to the cruelty of humans.

He was trying to adjust the yoke when he spied the skulking shadow of a coyote outside. A silvery gray shadow nimbly slipped through the bars. Tijo’s despair melted away. He did not even feel the weight of the yoke. Joy flooded through him. He knew that Haru was with him.

“You have found a new spirit lodge,” he said with a smile.

“Yes, the coyote Hope. And he is your Hope in more than name.” Her voice blew through like a soft breeze. The coyote crept close to him, and Tijo felt a radiance issuing from her. It was love. Her eyes blinked and shimmered with tears as the coyote nuzzled his cheek, just as Haru used to do.

“Now listen and obey.” There was a quaver in her voice that he had never heard before. The coyote raised his paw. It was almost exactly like the times Haru raised her finger to scold him when he was naughty as a child. “Remember you are Horse Boy. You, like Estrella, are a long spirit.” And in that moment, Tijo saw the sparkly little horse hovering just above the coyote’s ears. The prison suddenly seemed crowded with good spirits.

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