Until the idea for this story came to me, I'd been on horseback only a few times. And I never could have imagined the adventure that lay ahead of me. Now, I have taken hundreds of lessons with a top-notch trainer, sometimes riding three days a week to prepare for my research rides. I've seen wide-open spaces, vast and stark, where the sky feels so big it could swallow you up. I've ridden six hours at a stretch in freezing rain to track a band of wild mustangs, been caught on horseback in a swarm of "mean bees," and I've called a tepee on the banks of the Sweetwater River, home. Through all that, I developed an impassioned respect and affection for equus caballus, the horse. As my character, Maya, grew in my imagination, I discovered new territory, too, away from the safe and familiar. Together, we became the horse and the starts . . . and the wind. Won't you come along?

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Updated January 13, 2008