On hard pack, if they were lucky, the cob’s tracks were mere dents and scuffs. Ella locked her book. She’d wanted to be a painter once. A nurse. A teacher talking facts. She called the mules names she’d seen in print or on screen. The tall ugly one was Ishmael. She watched the mule when her mind needed quieting, before she thought of the bottle. One red was Ivanhoe, the other Miss Kitty, one little gray was Marlo, the other Zane. Maul had his own names for them, of course. Puck. Lucifer. As though mules care what they get called. A mule is an outsider. Outside the herd, the tribe, the colony. Ella’s mind was working fine again. The town, village, settlement. The shaggy black was Starbuck. Saul always said this of mules in private: a horse was smart but followed commands without consideration, without employing native wisdom. In her day, Grannie went further: A horse is ruled by loyalty, love, submissiveness. That’s fine. If told to walk off a cliff a horse trots off it. A mule bucks the idiot off. The red jenny was Ahab, obviously. Then Ella failed completely with the buckskin. The world can be divided that way. Which are you?

In Misty Canyon, as dry as bone. Goats with heavy curls moved up cliffs along invisible slants.

Noon again. A shape turned into an elk. Saul glassed it.

“Ginny!” Dan called. The animal disappeared.

The riders took turns with the mules, rope in hand. They turned in the saddle to the shifting lines. The horses could have ridden the Old Swede’s Trail blindfolded. They went slow and mostly silent. The wind was too strong for speaking even via cupped hands. The old panniers were canvas. The newest were Kevlar. In the early morning, they’d been braced to the animals, who rolled their eyes. Mules were judgmental as to the skill of the hands working around the frames, tightening buckles and cinches around their bellies, breechings under tails, collars at the throat and down between the front legs, leather, rope, and wood designed over centuries for the containment of the four-legged beasts. The tack was dusty but not neglected. It was Maul’s first trip of the year. The sawbucks were sound with the nails in tight. Neat diamond hitches had been slung over last, tightened down and knotted, so the mules had the benefit of snugness. Maul said, “Nothin’ worse for a mule than a loose load,” as if they didn’t know.

The black patch over Dan’s eye was some shiny fabric, from an old raincoat maybe, or a taffeta skirt from a back closet. Maybe Ginny’s own taffeta. As Ella cut salami in the headlamp at the stone corral their first night, Maul asked her, from behind his hand, if it was true Dan had sewn his right eye shut.

“’Course he didn’t.”