KUJUR
Forested mountains rise around me, their peaks hidden by moon-varnished clouds.
Blessed Spirits, it’s beautiful here, but I’m tired. Really tired. Sweat mats my blond hair to my face and trickles down below my armpits. My hide shirt is drenched. I’ve been running behind the other boy for hands of time with no idea of where we’re going or when we will arrive.
Twigs crack in the pines ahead of me, and I see the long-horned buffalo bull again, loping through the forest shadows. When he steps out into a patch of moon-glow, I stare at him. The bull met me the instant I stepped through the glittering wall, and has never left my side. He just trots a short distance away, always within sight, like a guardian.
I wasn’t born buffalo clan, but I know this bull has special power. White hairs fringe his black nose, which means he’s old, far older than the number of long winter nights he’s stood keeping watch over his herd. I’m sure he was standing guard the night the world was born.
The bull silently edges onto the trail and breaks into a trot. I follow him up over a rise, and when I plunge down the other side, for the first time since I left the Flame Bird, I see dawn swell above the dark mountains.
The bull suddenly roars like a lion and charges down the trail with his tail flying.
In the distance, I see the other boy running headlong after a buffalo herd that thunders on pounding hooves toward a brightening valley below.
Behind them, the spirit bull lopes in a cloud of dust.
Gasping, I stumble to a stop to watch the herd curl like a breaking wave over a hilltop, then disappear with dawn light flashing from their horns.
My heart actually aches at the serene vista.
The sky is shading pink, revealing a blue river that winds through endless rolling green hills. The buffalo charge down to the river and spread out along its banks to drink from the clear water, but the other boy keeps running. I see him flying down the trail toward a copse of pines with his short legs pumping and his arms open as though he sees someone he loves running to greet him.
All I see is a peaceful mountain valley.
I fill my lungs with the pine-scented air and ponder this strange feeling in my chest. I’ve never felt this way before. There’s no shame here. No fear. I have lived with both for so long, I’m not sure who I am without them. I miss Quiller, RabbitEar, and my sisters, but somehow that’s all behind me now. The farther I run through this magnificent world, the more my memories of them fade. And losing them doesn’t hurt now. Somehow, it’s right and exactly as it should be.
When the youngest orange calves finish drinking, they dash out into the meadows and run headlong through the tall grass, bleating in sheer joy, while they kick their heels up and bound around like bouncing hide balls.
I smile, and my gaze roams the high, forested peaks, silhouetted against the dawn. There’s something strangely familiar about all this, as if I remember this valley, the playing buffalo, the sunlight being born into a warm world. I wonder if this place has always existed inside me, perhaps behind the swaying buffalo hide where the other boy lived? Is that why he kept calling me? He wanted me to come here?
A breeze rustles the pine boughs and the scents of fresh grass and wet earth rise. Taking a deep breath, I hold it in my lungs for as long as I can.
The herd is beginning to move away from the river. The lead cow starts out at a slow trot, then the rest of the herd falls in line behind her, moving toward the trail to pursue the other boy, who’s running very hard now. They thunder away with their tails flying and hooves kicking up dust.
As though wondering where I am, the big bull charges back up the trail and stands four paces away with one hoof lifted. Father Sun has just crested the horizon and yellow flashes fall through the pines and flit across his back like secretive butterflies hiding in his fur.
Lifting his huge head, he rumbles to me.
“I’m comin’,” I answer.
The bull whirls and charges away to catch up with the herd.
Breaking into a tired sprint, I pound down the trail behind him.
I don’t know where the buffalo lead me.
All I know is I’m going home.