A Horse Named Sky

Story of a wild horse, from his youth to young adulthood. At first he lives free and loves the feel of the wind in his mane, loves to run and spar with other young horses. He knows that his days of living with his natal band are numbered, that eventually he will be ousted, but that doesn’t happen until a drought comes on the land, threatening all the animals with thirst. While still learning to live on his own, and hoping to join the companionship of other young ‘bachelor’ colts, he has his first encounter with humans. Together with a few other wild horses, he’s driven into a canyon that’s been turned into a trap, and is then corralled. Desperate to be free, but unable to escape. He’s taken to a station of the Pony Express (but of course doesn’t know what this is) and soon -against his will- trained to accept a rider. The goal is to run fast and straight between two points, then rest up and race it again back the other way. This doesn’t make any sense to the horses, but they learn to comply and do their best anyway. Sky communicates with other horses and mules that live among humans (with the horses he speaks in full sentences, the mules and other animals just get phrases across, and the humans are incomprehensible) and finds that most of them see no point in resisting or trying to escape. But Sky is determined to find a way, even if he has to wait a long time for his chance. He starts to recognize that the humans have different personalities and begins to care for some of them, before finally making his escape. Immediately starts for his home range, but finds that things have drastically changed, because of humans destroying the environment in their search for precious metals. Sky finds some of his original band, old friends, all trapped and enslaved by the humans. Can he get them free? and will they follow him to safety? His homeland is ruined, so they must find a new place to live.

I found this story a lot more engaging than the wolf one. It seemed to me that the descriptions were better written, so it didn’t feel quite so dull. Also, the interactions of the horse with other animals, and his encounters with humans, his bafflement at their behaviors and what they were doing to him, was interesting. It reminded me of several other horse stories that started with a young foal born in the wild, then caught and pressed into human service- Smoky the Cowhorse by Will James and Buck, Wild by Glenn Balch. Just like in A Wolf Called Wander, the back of the book has pages with facts about the wildlife featured in the story, the different habitats they lives in, and some history of the region as well.

One thing that was odd to me was how the horses referred to other animals and things in the narrative. For some, the regular names were used: horse, burro, mule, human. But while a bee was called a bee, all other insects were called “flutters.” A cougar was called a “claw beast” (very fitting) but a bear was just a bear. Rabbits and squirrels were “bounders” and “scampers”, a snake was a “slither”, human hands were “grabbers”, the bridle and/or reins were “guiders”, and so on. I just didn’t get why some things had descriptive horse-given names, and other things had their real names.

Borrowed from the public library.