DAUGHTER of the CENTAURS

Jayke’s Rope
For as long as she can remember, Malora has dreamed of
dancing with horses.
“Daughter of the Mountains,” Malora’s mother calls her,
for her skin and hair are the dusky red-brown of the rocks,
and her upturned eyes—so like her father’s—are the vivid
blue-green of the nuggets of malachite that dot the streams
running down from the peaks. But when Malora hears her-
self so called, she frowns. “No!” she insists. “Not the moun-
tains! I am the Daughter of the Plains.”
For the horses come from the plains.
These are the days when the People occupy the Settle-
ment, a mere one hundred men, women, and children living
together in a canyon in the shadow of the mountains that rear
up over the plains running to the north. From this canyon, the
men ride out on horseback every dawn to hunt, leaving the
women to keep the houses and raise the children. Like all
the women, Malora’s mother has a secondary job, and hers is