When he had the flasks full; Oktar splashed back to hand them up.\u00a0 His feet were bruised by rocks, aching from cold.\u00a0 His grandfather looked down at him.\u00a0 “Drink one swallow.\u00a0 Then give flask. Catch your horse.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
His horse. \u00a0He looked around wildly.\u00a0 His horse had crossed the stream and now grazed on the far side, the rein trailing.<\/p>\n
“And take off socks before you walk on the land. Wring dry, tuck in shirt.”<\/p>\n
The socks were not dry, but cold and damp when he dropped them down the neck of his shirt. Carefully, wincing at the rocks under his feet, he made it to the other side of the creek and up onto the muddy bank.\u00a0 The horse eyed him and ambled on a few steps.\u00a0 At least the ground, once he was up, had grass on it.\u00a0 He walked toward the horse; the horse moved away.\u00a0 No matter how he tried, he could not get within reach of that trailing rein.<\/p>\n
“Sit down, fool!\u00a0 And call horse.”<\/p>\n
He sat down: his legs were shaky anyway.\u00a0 But call the horse?\u00a0 How?<\/p>\n
“I taught you horse-calling chant: were you not listening?”<\/p>\n
That droning song? Oktar hadn’t understood any of the words, but the rhythm stuck with him.\u00a0 He tried it without words.\u00a0 His grandfather joined in, this time facing him; he tried to copy all the sounds.\u00a0 From behind him he heard a slight swish, then a warm breath caressed the back of his neck.\u00a0 Finally, the horse bumped him with its muzzle.\u00a0 Cautiously, he reached back with one hand and felt the rein in the grass and grasped it.<\/p>\n
“Now you turn, sitting, and breathe into horse nose.”<\/p>\n
That was ridiculous.\u00a0 But he had no choice; he wiggled around and faced the horse, whose muzzle was then only a handspan from his face.\u00a0 From here on the ground, the horse looked looked impossibly tall.\u00a0 The horse reached out to sniff, and Oktar breathed carefully into one of the large nostrils, then the other.\u00a0 The horse blew slobber all over his face.\u00a0 Oktar wiped it off on his sleeve, then reached out to scratch under the horse’s chin, something he remembered his father doing.<\/p>\n
“Now up, one down jerk on rein, put leg over neck, pull mane up, horse lift you.”<\/p>\n
Oktar followed these directions with misgiving, and the horse’s abrupt lift almost made him fall again.\u00a0 He squirmed back to a balanced position, but behind him was the bulge of the pad and sheepskin.\u00a0 He had no idea how he was going to get back onto it.\u00a0 His grandfather offered no advice.\u00a0 Oktar tried one thing after another, finally discovering that bracing his knees on the horse’s shoulderblades and his arms on the neck allowed him to raise his backside enough to lift himself back into the hollow his morning’s ride had created.<\/p>\n
“Follow me this way,” his grandfather said, and rode out of the creek on the far side.<\/p>\n
Oktar’s horse followed. He sat on the sheepskin, his rump warming up a little, but the rest of him shivering in the wind that blew from the north down the little valley they followed.\u00a0 His damp socks, a cold lump next to his belly, warmed very slowly as he rode. He clutched the single rein tightly, not sure what to do with it–he had never seen a horse ridden with a single rein.<\/p>\n
His grandfather sang.\u00a0 Oktar’s horse walked a little faster until it was almost beside his grandfather’s horse.\u00a0 His grandfather did not look at him.\u00a0 Sometime in the afternoon, when his clothes had dried, his grandfather handed him one of the flasks.
\n“One swallow.\u00a0 Don’t drop it.”<\/p>\n
The flask had a thong loop through the neck.\u00a0 After taking a swallow, Oktar worked the end of the loop through his belt and around the belly of the flask, so it hung at his side, as his grandfather’s hung.\u00a0 They rode on.\u00a0 Oktar’s stomach ached, demanding food.\u00a0 He had no food.\u00a0 He wasn’t sure his grandfather had food.\u00a0 When the sun had dropped well behind one of the hills, his grandfather stopped his horse and rolled lightly off its back.\u00a0 He handed his rein to Oktar.<\/p>\n
“Hold this. Wait.”\u00a0 He took a long time untying the pack, lifting it one-armed from the horse, opening it on the ground.\u00a0 Most of the bulk was a pair of wool cloaks; inside them were four small packets.\u00a0 Then his grandfather looked at him.\u00a0 “Get down.\u00a0 Do this.”\u00a0 He took the rein of his horse back from Oktar and tucked it into his belt.<\/p>\n
Oktar slid off awkwardly, biting his lip when his bruised feet hit the ground.\u00a0 He tucked his rein as his grandfather had.\u00a0 His grandfather was doing something with the girth of his own horse’s pad.\u00a0 Oktar looked…there was a knot, sort of.\u00a0 He found it on his horse, worked it loose, then pulled off the pad and sheepskin.<\/p>\n
“Take off this.”\u00a0 His grandfather was pulling the bridle off his horse; Oktar did the same, wondering how they would keep the horses from wandering away.\u00a0 But the two horses walked into the creek, drank, then set to grazing along the creek’s edge.<\/p>\n
Supper was a handful of raw oats–one for him, one for his horse, who lipped it from his hand and then walked off to graze again.\u00a0 He had never eaten raw oats; he had thought them food for horses.\u00a0 But he was hungry so he chewed and swallowed without complaint.\u00a0 His grandfather brought back some leaves of a plant Oktar didn\u2019t recognize and gave him two.\u00a0 He ate the bitter leaves, drank the four swallows of water his grandfather ordered.<\/p>\n
Oktar had never slept anywhere but on a straw-stuffed bag on the floor of his father’s house, where walls kept out the wind and rain.\u00a0 Now, for the first time, he lay on the ground under stars, wrapped in one of the cloaks, the hill wind finding every opening and every damp fiber of his clothes.\u00a0 His grandfather had shown him how to fold the pad to support his head, and use the sheepskin under his neck and upper body.<\/p>\n
“Demons in ground steal heart,” his grandfather said.\u00a0 “Never lie down on ground without sheepskin.”<\/p>\n
In the morning, he rolled the pack up with his grandfather’s instructions, put the pad and sheepskin back on his horse, then–this time without difficulty–got his horse to lift him up again.\u00a0 His grandfather made him get off.\u00a0 “Girth loose,” he said.\u00a0 Oktar tightened it until the old man nodded.\u00a0 The horse sighed heavily, but lifted Oktar up on its neck again.\u00a0 He squirmed back into place, wishing he wasn’t as sore.<\/p>\n
“We go faster or no food,” his grandfather said.\u00a0 “Lean back.”\u00a0 And booted his mount into a bouncy trot.<\/p>\n
Oktar’s horse followed, and Oktar grabbed for mane.\u00a0 Leaning back made no sense, but he did it, and then took the pounding on his tailbone until his grandfather said “Hyah!” to his horse and both of them broke into a faster gait.\u00a0 Smoother, too, a sort of up and down rocking motion.<\/p>\n
The land came at them faster.\u00a0 Soon the creek was narrow enough to step over and then just a trickle in the grass, and the horses were lunging up a steeper slope.<\/p>\n
“Hoy!” his grandfather said when they were high enough Oktar could see over the top; the horses slowed to a halt.\u00a0 On the far side of the rise, the land was a tumbled mass of hills, with a distant line of higher ground against the sky.<\/p>\n
“We go down a little.\u00a0 Never stop on ridge.”\u00a0 His grandfather’s horse picked its way down slowly; Oktar followed.\u00a0 His grandfather’s horse stopped, lowered its head.\u00a0 “You never drop rein,” Oktar’s father said.\u00a0 “But you stand on horse back.”<\/p>\n
To Oktar’s surprise, the old man bent over, put his crooked hand on his horse’s withers, got his knees on his horse’s back, and then stood up, still holding the rein in his good hand.\u00a0 He looked completely at ease.\u00a0 “You!” he said to Oktar.<\/p>\n
Oktar used both hands on his mount’s withers and slowly–breathing hard–got his knees up.\u00a0 It felt far worse than sitting, sore as his rump was.\u00a0 He felt unbalanced and he wasn’t even on his feet.<\/p>\n
“Look at hill, not grass!”\u00a0 Oktar obeyed.\u00a0 “Tuck feet under–stand!”<\/p>\n
Wobbling, nearly-but-not-quite-falling, Oktar finally made it to his feet, arms wide, the rein still clutched in his sweaty heart-hand.\u00a0 He swayed, but caught himself…and then began to feel stable.<\/p>\n
“Now we go,” his grandfather said, pulling on his horse’s rein.\u00a0 Up came the head.\u00a0 His grandfather said something in horsefolk talk, and his horse walked off, while he stood on its back as if rooted to it.<\/p>\n
Oktar’s horse lifted its head–the movement of muscles in its back almost threw him–and walked after the other.\u00a0 Oktar half-crouched, trying to stay in balance with it, but they were going down-slope, the horse picking its way with uneven steps over small rocks and around larger ones.\u00a0 Oktar’s toes clung to the sheepskin, digging into the fleece…and there ahead was his grandfather, straight as a pole. He could see, from behind, how his grandfather’s knees were slightly bent, and his hips moved with the horse’s movement, while his shoulders stayed level.\u00a0 Oktar tried to copy that, but his legs were shaking with the effort by the time his grandfather turned to look at him.<\/p>\n
“Now down,” his grandfather said, with a nod that might have been approval or not.\u00a0 He sat down on his mount, and did not wait to see if Oktar had made it back to the horse’s back before kicking his own into the faster rocking gait.<\/p>\n
Oktar grabbed mane and managed to stay on, just barely.\u00a0 He reeled in the length of rein he’d let out.\u00a0 He was shaky, hungry, but…he had stood up on the back of a horse, a moving horse.\u00a0 He’d never done that before.\u00a0 None of the boys he’d fought had done that.\u00a0 He imagined showing them…but his grandfather’s horse jumped something ahead of him.\u00a0 He felt his horse gather itself, a great shove–a jolting landing–and he was off-balance, losing his grip on the mane–he was falling.\u00a0 He hit the ground hard, rolled over rocks and finally lay still, stunned.\u00a0 His shoulder hurt, his back hurt.\u00a0 He tried to sit up and his head spun.\u00a0 He heard hoofbeats coming toward him.<\/p>\n
“Is not my blood!\u00a0 Must be false.”<\/p>\n
Oktar looked.\u00a0 His grandfather was sitting on his horse, looking up at the sky.\u00a0 His own horse was standing a distance away, the rein dragging and the sheepskin pulled awry.<\/p>\n
“Cannot be.\u00a0 My seed does not fall off horse.\u00a0 Twice in two days.”\u00a0 The old man spat aside.\u00a0 “Not my son’s son.<\/p>\n
Something rumbled.\u00a0 Oktar stared.\u00a0 The morning’s milky blue sky now curdled into clouds, thickened more, darkened at the base, and a roiling tower of white rose high, gleaming in the sun.<\/p>\n
“I try.\u00a0 I tell him.\u00a0 Has no…nothing of horse in him.”<\/p>\n
A louder rumble, then a roar; Oktar’s ears popped.\u00a0 A cold wind buffeted him; the horses turned tail to it, heads down.\u00a0 He struggled to his feet, only to be battered by a fall of rocks–of ice, he realized, hard cold lumps falling out of the cloud that now broke right on top of him.\u00a0 He fell to the ground, covering his head with his arms, as the ice pounded his back, his legs, his arms.\u00a0 What about his grandfather?\u00a0 He tried to look; through the confusing blur of falling ice, he saw his grandfather’s horse…and on the ground, a dark lump.\u00a0 His grandfather was down?\u00a0 Hurt?<\/p>\n
Despite the battering ice, Oktar forced himself up, staggering, slipping on the ice that now covered the ground, ice-rocks battering his head, to get to his grandfather.\u00a0 His grandfather lay still, his pack over his head.<\/p>\n
“Granfer!\u00a0 Are you–” At the sound of his voice, his grandfather peered out from under the pack.<\/p>\n
“You!\u00a0 Why come?”<\/p>\n
“I thought you were hurt.”<\/p>\n
“Use eyes.\u00a0 Under horse no ice falls.\u00a0 Put head under.”<\/p>\n
Oktar put his head under the horse’s belly, above his grandfather.\u00a0 Nothing hit his head.\u00a0 A last few lumps of ice pounded his back and legs, and then it was rain, hard and cold.\u00a0 He shivered; he couldn\u2019t help it.\u00a0 Then his teeth chattered.\u00a0 His grandfather blew a long, horselike sound through his lips.<\/p>\n
“Get under all the way, stupid one.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When he had the flasks full; Oktar splashed back to hand them up.\u00a0 His feet were bruised by rocks, aching from cold.\u00a0 His grandfather looked down at him.\u00a0 “Drink one swallow.\u00a0 Then give flask. Catch your horse.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[115,102],"tags":[22,28],"class_list":["post-2616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-snippet","category-story-2","tag-characters","tag-snippet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2616"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2616"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2618,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2616\/revisions\/2618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}