Laughing Boy

I

He was riding the hundred miles from T’o Tlakai to Tsé Lani to attend a dance, or rather, for the horse-racing that would come afterwards. The sun was hot and his belly was empty, but life moved in rhythm with his pony loping steadily as an engine down the miles. He was lax in the saddle, leaning back, arm swinging the rope’s end in time to the horse’s lope. His new red headband was a bright colour among the embers of the sun-struck desert, undulating like a moving graph of the pony’s lope, or the music of his song⁠—

“Nashdui bik’é dinni, eya-a, eyo-o⁠ ⁠…

Wildcat’s feet hurt, eya-a, eyo-o⁠ ⁠…”