Şahin followed Xina’s scent across the beach. He wanted to speak to the mare again, to discuss Conquistador with her and to see if perhaps that moment of brief intimacy could be rekindled. They did not spend enough time together. Şahin aimed to fix that, but first he must find the spirited bay roan. Thus he trotted down the beach, at least until he saw heavy gouges in the sand that indicated the mare he followed had sped up considerably. Şahin wondered what had prompted such an increase in speed even as he lengthened his own stride to catch up to her.

He finally saw her striding out into the water, onto the sandbar where he had offered Conquistador the position of second in command in Paradise. There, too, was a horse he had not spent enough time with. Şahin wondered when it had become his duty to seek each member of his herd out, and why none of them ever seemed to come looking for him, but he pushed aside the loneliness that gaped suddenly in his heart as he saw a third figure standing directly beside Conquistador. The horse’s stance beside the young stallion was familiar —not familiar to Şahin, but as if though the two standing on the sandbar were familiar to one another.

The Nez Perce pushed his personal concerns aside as he splashed into the water to join them, his foreboding growing as he saw Xina’s pinned ears and the tension in her muscles. He came to a stop beside the mare and stood with her shoulder to shoulder. There was tension in the air, as if he had come upon the conversation —if it could be called that— during a break between speech. Şahin maintained his silence and measured the stranger with his eyes: a palomino roan stallion stood beside his son.

Şahin waited with all the patience of his fifteen years to see what would happen next.