Prologue
Sunlight glared off of the metal bowl I had cupped in my pudgy hands, casting reflections in the water as miniature swells caught the scorching rays. I held it out tentatively as I stepped towards the creature who was huddled flat along the ground, ears back and tail flush against the red sand. Quivering heatwaves rippled over the entire surface of the expansive Navajo desert, distorting the monolithic rust-colored rocks that were the only interruption to the scene of total desolation.
Crups weren't a natural part of the wildlife in the Colorado Plateau, so how this zebra-striped beastie found himself in the middle of a wasteland was a mystery to me. He panted heavily, eyes squinted shut. Mommy had always warned that untamed crups were dangerous beasts, but this one was alone, abandoned, and couldn't survive in this suffocating climate without my help.
I knelt down to offer him a drink. His eyes came to light at once, popping savagely open, and a growl rumbled in his throat as he lifted his lips over jagged yellow teeth. I jumped back slightly, sloshing precious drops of water over the sides of the bowl that I still held out to him.
"Shhh… it's okay, just some water," I whispered in my small voice. His jaw snapped at me in response, but I held still, determined to make him see that I was safe. Trustworthy.
I moved to place the bowl within his reach and in a blink he lurched forward and closed his teeth around my knuckles. I suppressed a wail and bit down on my tongue, forcing myself not to react as my eyes watered rabidly.
Pacing my breaths to throttle the pain, I said, as gently as possible, "please, you need water… please let go and drink… it will make you feel better."
The crup glared up at me with suspicion for several agonizingly long seconds. I held his gaze and compelled an easing smile to my lips. "It's okay. Really."
Slowly, cautiously, he released his hold on me, then began to lap up the water, all the while keeping an untrusting eye on me. Blood dripped from seven punctures across my hand, staining the orangey sand a deeper shade of crimson. Sharp pain shot up my wrist, but I waited until the crup devoured the entire bowl, looked to me with another deep growl, then dashed off into the distance before allowing myself to let out a whimper and wrapped my hand in the hem of my shirt.
When I got back to the Navajo village and my mom saw the injury, she flew into a panicked frenzy, ushering me into Grandma Nita's Hogan and getting to work healing me at once. Mom had always been that way: quick and decisive.
"What were you thinking, Rowan!? That thing could have killed you!" she scolded after I explained what had happened, the lines of her face etched with anger and worry.
"No mommy!" I said with assertion. "He was just scared. No one else is looking out for him. He's all alone out there and he needed me. And I have to find him again, he'll die without food and water!"
The wound now entirely healed, she relaxed her shoulders. Her smile was somber as she held my tiny hand in one of hers and stroked my copper hair, an identical shade to her own, with the other.
"Oh, Rowan," she sighed. "Do you know what I admire most about you?"
I shook my head.
"That when you love, sweetheart, you love with everything you are… so deeply, so purely, and so wholly. Never forget that passion. Or, of course," she laughed a small laugh, "that stubbornness. But always, always, be cautious of who you give that love to, because, I fear, they will have great power over your heart."