Hold On was the first to spot the other horses. He neighed and Azul looked over. The filly seemed to freeze. Her legs locked, and her ears sprang forward. It was just morning, the sun barely edging over the horizon, but the herd could clearly see a figure like a scrap of midnight in the distance. Soon the whole herd was alert to the approach of three horses led by a handsome black stallion. They were transfixed by the newcomers — the first horses they had seen in months.

They are horses — but why do they move in this odd manner? wondered Estrella. They pranced in a way that looked like one of the old gaits yet was slightly different.

Trouble! Hold On laid back his ears.

Corazón stretched out her neck and lifted her head to better see the newcomers. There was something comforting about the way they approached. What is it … ? Ah, a paso fino tiempo doble! And what a lovely double time it is!

Angela sighed softly and wondered if she still remembered the steps.

Arriero and Grullo twitched their ears, lifted their muzzles, and peeled back their top lips to test the air. They knew that scent — it was a stallion with whom they had shared a pasture briefly on First Island.

Him! They could even smell the scent of Don Esteban, his old master. The god stallion, they had called him scornfully. And like Hold On, they both had a single thought: Trouble!

Azul darted out from beneath the cottonwoods, and two squeals pierced the air.

“My filly!” Pego reared and the two raced toward each other. Soon the sire and his filly were nuzzling and inhaling the blood scent that bonded them, the blood scent that had stirred in the shadows of their minds for days.

The first herd remained quiet and observed the reunion. It was rare even in the Old Land that a sire and his foal ever met. Corazón and Angela both had tears trembling in their dark eyes.

Pego looked up and snorted abruptly. “Where do you come from? Where do you go?”

Hold On stepped forward. “We’re here.”

Pego blinked and cocked his head. Impudent! “I know you’re here! No games with me.”

Arriero tossed his head toward Grullo. “You know us,” he said. “We were all on First Island together — all except the young ones. We came on the Seeker’s ships to find the Golden One.”

“And we’re here now, as Hold On said,” Grullo answered. “That’s all that matters.”

“Hold On.” Pego turned his head sharply toward the stallion. “Is that a name? I don’t call that a name.”

“Then don’t call me,” Hold On answered patiently.

“Who named you that?”

“I named myself.”

Estrella stepped forward. “And I am Estrella, but that was not the name the Ibers gave me.”

“I’m Sky,” called the colt.

“Verdad,” said the other colt.

“And I am Angela.” Angela looked at Pego nervously, because she, too, remembered him from First Island.

“No, no!” said Pego. “Not with those spots on your nose. You were called the Ugly One, Fea.”

“No more,” Angela replied meekly.

“We have new names in this new world,” Hold On said, ears flattening. “You can name yourself.”

The dark stallion’s withers flinched. “I was named Pego by my first master. I was named for the sky god. I am Pegasus. I need no other name!”

A single cold star remained in the early morning sky.

The old scent of the sweet grass stirred in Estrella’s mind. “We need to go. We rested here nearly all night.”

“But you have no shoes!” said Pego. “What happened to your shoes?”

“I might ask you,” Grullo said, “why you still have yours.”

“We have lost some,” admitted Bella. “But we try to be careful.”

“Careful?” Hold On replied. He was stunned. “Careful? That’s not being careful. This is no country for metal shoes. You’ll never feel the earth, the terrain. It changes all the time.”

Pego’s three companions looked at the dark stallion. They seemed bewildered and slightly doubtful, as if perhaps this old gray stallion with the odd name was right, sensible in ways they had never before considered. Tension loomed in the air.

“Well, suit yourself,” Hold On said, hoping to dissipate the strain that enveloped them like a sticky web.

Pego snorted as if to say, I always suit myself, you fool.

Estrella started off.

“The filly leads?” Pego said. “Why does the young one lead?”

Estrella kept going, but Hold On stopped and turned to Pego. There was no way to explain anything to the arrogant Pegasus, whose bloodline made him look only back and never forward. How could Hold On make clear that Estrella’s bloodline and her heart would guide them to a future in the New World? Hold On merely gave Pego a level look and said, “She leads. We follow. Go where you want.”

But of course Pego did not leave. He followed, with the two mares and the filly trotting behind him.

For several days they traveled. An uneasy silence settled upon them. Estrella felt the disapproving eyes of the new stallion like burrs sticking to her haunches. But she was learning to ignore it. Occasionally, she would hear the clink of a metal shoe dropping, followed by a reprimand from Pego to his mares to walk more carefully. She felt sorry for the mares. They seemed so docile, so submissive in a way she was unaccustomed to.

Except from her brief life on the ship and what Hold On and the elder horses had told her, Estrella did not know much about the ways of men. Yet in a strange way, she sensed that Pego felt himself to be a master, like the Ibers. Yes, that was it. He wasn’t a leader but a master. He was an extension of the Ibers’ bit — a kind of living, breathing bridle.

Estrella had not seen any carvings by the Once Upons since Pego and his horses had joined them. But on more than one occasion, the herd had spied the shadowy profiles of coyotes slinking out of gullies or through thick brush. It made them all quite anxious. All except Pego, who seemed almost captivated by the sly invaders.

“Are they fox dogs like the ones in the Old Land? Their pelt is a different — a different color.”

“Their teeth are the same,” Arriero said grimly.

“You’re scared of them,” Azul sneered. She was enthralled by her father, and always traveled close to him. She was becoming more critical of Estrella and the herd. Pego, too, seemed to grow prouder and more cantankerous with each passing day. He still pranced about in his dainty paso fino and andadura. So far, he was the only horse who had not lost a single shoe. Of this he was inordinately proud, indeed vain. Occasionally, he would deliver short lectures on the importance of keeping the old ways of the Old Land.

Estrella wanted to burst out and say, “We don’t need shoes! We don’t need men. We don’t need bits or bridles — we’re free! We’re wild!” But she clamped her mouth shut and kept moving forward.

Although it was now approaching autumn, the weather became confused. Some mornings, it was chilly, and then later the same day, fiercely hot winds would blow. Estrella was not sure where they came from. They had been, she thought, moving into a colder season and there were even sometimes little snow flurries and patches of snow on the ground, but then she’d feel a gust of hot wind. The snow patches would melt quickly, and suddenly the weather would turn cool again. The sun was setting earlier and earlier and darkness falling more quickly.

“Wind wars,” Hold On said. “We’re squeezed between the mountains and the desert we passed through a moon cycle or more ago. The winds from each begin to fight on the edges of the season. Summer does not want to leave, and autumn and winter are eager to come. And so they fight. But summer will tire. There will be one last blast from summer. Recall the blizzard so many moon cycles ago?” Estrella nodded. “That was winter’s last stand before spring.”

One evening, they stopped along a shallow river bordered with cottonwood. The leaves had turned bright gold. Against the horizon on the other side of the river, blue mountains rose in the distance. Soon a moon would climb over those mountains and spill its silver onto the river. The horses were settling down. Bella, the mare in foal, lay down to sleep, Pego next to her. Azul stood close by with her legs locked. Hold On also had lain down, which was unusual for him. The ground was cooler, Estrella supposed. She peered at a rock at the base of a nearby cottonwood tree for any sign of the tiny horse, but there was nothing. Had he abandoned her? Was there no one left to guide this first herd?

A soft snore came from Pego. In his recumbent position, she could see the gleam of his shoes. He was so proud of those. But with or without them, he would still be a horse with the bloodlines of the Jennets and the Barbs, those Arabian ancestors about which he was so vain and spoke so often. As if he were the only one who shared those bloodlines. They all did, according to Hold On.

What a peculiar creature Pego was.