Horse Country, Mongolia

Hot golden prairie lay silent and pristine beneath an endlessly blue sky. The air was still and I could see forever. I had been alone inside the landscape for hours. But now there was a horse rising into the periphery of the vast nothingness, and soon it was beside me, the rhythmic thud of its hooves slowing to match the pace of Greene's wheels. The glow of late afternoon was settling over the grassland. A herd of horses grazed in the distance. Gentle mountains rimmed the world. He was beautiful, this boy who was almost a man. He rode like a prince. We moved on together, out across the prairie.