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on Tuk.
    â€œTuk,” Kenir said. Tuk remembered his manners and performed a low-stretch bow to Dos.
    â€œYou’re big,” Tuk said to Dos.
    â€œBig enough to eat a lamb in a bite or two,” Dos said.
    â€œI’m big for a lamb,” Tuk said.
    â€œThree bites, then,” Dos answered.
    â€œOur kind doesn’t eat flesh,” Tuk said.
    â€œSo that’s what was causing my indigestion.”
    â€œI have seen blue mountain, sir. Can you lead us there?”
    â€œIt is the matriarch who leads the herd, west or otherwise,” Dos said.
    â€œBut it is for rams to explore,” Kenir replied.
    After a pause, Dos said respectfully to Kenir, “I would speak with this Tuk alone.”
    Kenir nodded and walked away.
    When they were alone Dos asked kindly, “Is it true you pushed the puma child?”
    Tuk was high enough to see the whole herd below, his bandmates and Balus and the yearlings looking up in wonder to see him talking to Dos. Tuk was high enough to see the barren ewes that had been like mothers to him, and the proud rams. He was high enough to see how the bighorn lived gently on the mountain, graceful on the steeps, strong on the tough alpine grasses, and how they found safety in fellowship.
    He looked down at the puma child far below on the rocks. “Yes,” he said. “I fought.”
    Tuk wondered if Dos had heard him, because for a time he did not speak.
    â€œSomeday, Tuk,” he said at last, “you will have big horns. With them you could fight a lone wolf, but wolves are seldom alone. My horns cannot protect me from a hunting pack. Even if they could, I cannot protect every weak or sick or aged bighorn in the herd, or every lamb. My horns do not protect me from man, from their hunger for our territory or from their guns. But the mountain gave us gifts—feet to climb the steeps and teeth to find forage on the heights, and strong bodies and thick coats so we need not fear the cold, and noses that can read the wind, and, most of all, our stories that we pass down through the generations so no trail is lost, no lesson unlearned. As a herd, we are strong.”
    Tuk lowered his eyes. “When I did not save Sto from the eagle, I wished to save Mouf from the puma.”
    â€œAh. Yes, I heard of the eagle. I was very sorry.”
    â€œMaybe I am not the usual kind of bighorn.”
    Dos looked down to the rocks below. “You stayed here all night to be alone, to be ashamed. Are you done being alone and ashamed?”
    Tuk could not answer that question, so instead he said, “Let’s tell Kenir that we should go to blue mountain today!”
    Dos stared west, and then he laughed and shook his head. “Not today, Tuk. Today the sun shines. Today the ewes want courting, and I am the king. But perhaps tomorrow—”
    Bang!
    The air cracked with a noise like rock on rock.
    Dos leaped one way. Tuk leaped another, the taste of metal in his mouth.
    Bang!
    Below, the rams and the whole herd scattered and ran.
    The ringing sound of gunshot filled Tuk’s mouth and echoed off the cliffs. He sought the safety of the cliff and stayed there a long time, perched above the body of the puma child.

 
    EARLY SNOW
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    Men came to the meadow, but Dos and the other rams had run to where they could not find them. The men tromped about and called, but eventually they left and Tuk lost the sight and the scent of them.
    The sunlight was slantwise when Tuk and his mates returned to the meadow. Kenir and Pamir and a few old ewes had already wandered back and were grazing as if everything were usual. The wind had picked up by the time the rams also began to creep back from where they had fled.
    At twilight Dos limped into the meadow. His right foreleg was black with blood. Kenir hung her head and stopped grazing. The great ram stood tall on three feet and held the other off the ground, quivering. After a time he lay painfully down, and Tuk went to