Worse, possibly, he’d seen one of their mules running free this morning and did nothing. Yesterday, was it? He was confused in general, now, about time in conjunction with location. That red jenny (the correct term for a female mule) had caused his mental muddle, though he had no idea how. Much worse yet, he’d had an encounter with the red jenny, along with a lone steer, at dawn. The two strays, the jenny and the steer, had been aimed downhill at the encounter. They’d appeared out of nowhere on the other side of a creek crossing. Silent mountain nights are so entirely full of sound, so deafening, Mother. And to be truthful to himself at least, the sight of their eyes, then the huge bodies containing them, had taken his breath. Even divided by a creek, he’d seen that between the mule and the steer had arisen a kind of kindly interspecies friendship, Mother. He’d heard of such between horses and other species, goats and sheep, even dogs. In his flashlight the steer had followed the mule, a little to the side, a half pace behind. The steer had been spooked by the flashlight. The steer had snorted and lowed as if in pain at the sight of the yellow horse. He’d lowered his head at the yellow horse even, over there—from the steer’s point of view—across the water yet. The yellow horse didn’t care. She’d splashed in, straight under a branch, and he, the rider, had had to duck. The packhorse followed the yellow horse. The packhorse made no decisions. The rope between them decided. The yellow horse had pushed through smaller branches. In time the creek would rise and take the whole tree. The mule was calm as she entered the far shore. Plowed out toward the middle, the steer in her wake. The flashlight prohibited true “eye contact.” How opalescent and alien their stares anyhow. He looked away toward the ridges, no comfort there, too dark, confusion of the mind, only to be revived some by water that poured into my boots! He felt the shock of cold. He rode, in fact (he thought) with the flashlight under his armpit, the reins in both hands, another sign of a greenhorn. He’d forgotten a headlamp, a rookie error, never to be repeated.

Novice. Plebe. Wet-behind-the-ears.

“Some are late bloomers,” said the yellow horse, “to the Big Window.”