"Come." Manuel waved in front of him a leather bridle, a girth strap, and a heavy sheepskin. "Take."

Something in his manner warned Zepherin that this was not the invitation his father at times gave him to go hunting. Full of anticipation, he bounced up, lifted his own bridle, belt and sheepskin from a hook on the told wall, and was at his father's heels as he came out into the clear morning air. Outdoors smelled good and the cold air tightened the skin all over his body. He rubbed his arms and legs briskly until his awakened mind focused on the reason for this unexpected call. "Where are we going, Papa?" he asked.

Manuel did not even turn his head.

This was evidently a time which called for even fewer words than usual, so Zepherin remained silent and followed his father to the corral. With a nod Manuel indicated the horse Zepherin should mount. After slipping the bridle over the head of his own horse, he slung the sheepskin across its broad back, fastening it with a tug or two of the girth strap. The horse waited impassively, now and then twitching its long, sensitive ears. With an agility completely belying his age, he leaped onto this primitive saddle and rode out of the corral. Glancing over at Zepherin, he grunted as the boy, with a heave and twist of his lithe young body, mounted and cantered after him.

Shielding his eyes with his hand the cacique gazed for a moment westward. Then he grasped the reins firmly, tightened his knees about the horse's flanks, and settled into a crouch. Zepherin was beginning to think his father had forgotten him when Manuel turned. "Follow," he grunted. With a hoarse cry of "Gualichu!" he was off in a swirl of yellow dust.

Startled by the cry, Zepherin galloped off desperately trying to keep up with the breakneck pace. Every time he drew near, Manuel dug his heels into his horse's flanks. Only once did he get close enough to see the strange expression on his father's face, and what he saw frightened him. The eyes were staring, the mouth grim, and both he and his horse were covered with sweat. He kept tugging at the reins to hurry it on, and every now and then he raised his clenched fist and cried, "God of the Indians!" or "Death to the huinca invaders!" Never before had Zepherin seen him so excited.

Other Indians he had seen like that only after they had taken drugs, or else had drunk too much pulchu. But Manuel never took drugs and the only effect drinking had on him was to make him drowsy. Besides, it was too early for anything like that.

At last, however, both horse and rider began to run themselves out. Gradually Manuel slackened his grip on the reins, straightened up in the saddle and loosened his legs from about the horse's belly.

Sensing the change in its rider the horse tossed its head a few times, slowed to a walk, then stopped. After it had regained its wind it stretched out its long neck to nibble unconcernedly at the sparse grass of the pampas.

When Zepherin rode up alongside, Manuel, still breathless and flushed, turned to him. "Son, did you understand what I was doing?"

Zepherin caught a note of elation in the hoarse voice, but shook his head in wonder.

"Have you forgotten what I told you last night?"

"About the Indians and the huincas?"

"I was living again the days of my glory." Manuel's body stiffened; his gnarled hand swept across the limitless pampa. "When I led my warriors I could ride for days over land that was free. The bonds of men who fought for me still lie beneath this soil, their spirits still inhabit these wild places. They shared my victories over those who dared to dispute my authority -- even over the huincas. But now," the stocky figure slumped, "where has all my glory gone?" He turned to the boy. "Do you know where it has gone?"

The boy shook his head violently. There were times when he did not understand his father and when he did not, he was a little afraid.

"No? Then I will tell you. It has fallen into the hands of the invader; everything -- our lands, our power, our people. And all this because he was braver and stronger? No one was ever braver or stronger than the Cura. No! He took it from us because he held secrets we did not know, skills we did not possess. But," Manuel glared at Zepherin so fiercely the boy wondered if he had done something wrong, "all is not yet lost. We can still win it back!"

After this outburst, Manuel jerked his horse's head erect again and they rode westward where the great ice-capped peaks of the Cordilleras pierced the blue sky. Ahead of those peaks lay the region of the pre-Cordilleras which Manuel told Zepherin was the most beautiful land on earth. His father had once taken him close to it on a hunting trip. While the men had hunted wild board, guanaco and deer for meat, or the puma and the pampa cat for sport, the boy had hunted hares and rabbits.

Today the hunt must have been far from his father's thoughts. This was not his way while hunting, for then there was fun and excitement. His father seemed preoccupied, communing with himself, and Zepherin felt reluctant to cross this barrier of reserve. Looking about him he noticed that the sun stood above their head -- the time when he was accustomed to return to the toldo from his games to eat.

"Papa," he called out. "It is time to eat."

"Then let us eat."

"But we did not bring any food."

"When your father goes hunting does he bring food into the forest or out of it?"

Zepherin did not know what to say. Smiling with pleasure at his son's embarrassment, Manuel dismounted and handed him the reins. "Wait," he said.

"If you are going to hunt," said Zepherin, quickly comprehending, "I shall light a fire to cook."

His father said nothing. Crouching slightly to avoid overhanging branches, he disappeared into the woods.

Tethering the horses to a shrub, Zepherin collected an armful of dried leaves with which he built a tiny pyramid. He rubbed two dry twigs together, and even when he saw tiny wisps of smoke curl up he still kept rubbing until the smoke increased and the twigs began to glow. Quickly thrusting them in the midst of the leaves he blew on them and, as if to increase the youth's intense satisfaction, the smoke thickened and burst into flame.

At last Manuel reappeared, on his shoulder a spear shaped from a long branch. At the end of it, stuck through the belly, dangled a rabbit as big as a small deer, the blood trickling down the stick. Manuel flung the rabbit at Zepherin's feet.

"Food," he said.

Using a sliver of wood for a knife Zepherin, working from the neck down, deftly skinned it and screwed off its head. After cleaning out the entrails, he tore off the limbs and laid them out separately on a bed of pine needles. He took out the brown liver, the dark red heart and two small kidneys, placing them side by side with the limbs. Proud of his ability, he worked the thick hind legs in among the embers, glancing up to see how his father was taking all this. To his surprise his father had already seized the liver, dripping with blood, and was devouring it! Zepherin knew that he should not feel at a loss; he himself had often eaten raw meat, especially the warm flesh of a mare during a celebration. But this was somehow different. It had something to do, he felt, with the failure of the Indians and the success of the huincas.

"At the hunt there is no time to cook," said Manuel. "This kind of meat is spoiled by cooking." Manuel swallowed the last morsel of liver with a gulp. He reached over, took up the heart, and examined it for a moment. "My warriors used to eat the hearts of any brave enemy they captured. That way they swallowed his courage."

Zepherin had heard many strange and terrible stories from the Indians as they smoked and drank in the toldos during the long winter nights. But so far he had never heard them mention eating human flesh. He looked up at his father whose lips were still smeared with blood.

"Papa," he asked, "did you ever . . . eat . . ."

Manuel glanced sharply at his son's troubled face as the youth's unfinished question hung in the air. About to say something the cacique changed his mind. A few minutes later he said: "Is anybody in the pampas braver than Manuel?" Zepherin made no reply.

After they had eaten, Manuel rose. "Let us go still higher. There is something you must see."

They remounted and Manuel led the way up the steep side of the hill where the forest was thick with dwarf oak trees. Zepherin wondered how his father could find his way, until he remembered the legend: "The cacique that carries a compass in his head."

Once on a hunting expedition they had challenged his ability to find a place without guideposts. He had laughed and told them to bury a stone in the heart of the pampa where there was only sand. Moreover, the strong winds shifted the pampa sands os that they quickly covered paths, trails and markers. After a hunt lasting several days they returned by a different route and asked Manuel to find the sone. The cacique rode in a wide circle; stared at the naked blue sky, examined the ground; even sniffed the air as if to smell the wind. Finally he raised his arm and pointed. The group dashed off in that direction and after a short ride came to the spot indicated. "There," he said. They dug where he pointed and found the stone. When the people suggested that he must possess preternatural powers, Manuel did nothing to discourage their belief.

The climbing grew steeper and the horses pulled themselves forward with their heads. The woods thinned out until only one or two stunted pines stood isolated on the hillside. Further on even the undergrowth disappeared, and the hoofs slipped on the shale. On reaching the last small tree, Manuel signaled, and Zepherin slid off his horse in relief.

They climbed the short distance to the foot of the mountains. Zepherin stared in wonder at the immense palisade which soared straight into the air. Were they to scale those sheer heights? His father did not even glance up. Instead, he pointed to the south wall of the palisade. As Manuel moved on, Zepherin turned to admire the view beneath him. But his father waved him on forward. "Not yet," he said.

When they came to an opening in the face of the wall, Zepherin began a new kind of climb. This time he had to find his way through a forest of jagged needles of rock. His breath came shorter and the muscles of his legs were stiffening. The cacique did not glace behind to see if the boy were following, but kept on climbing; Zepherin -- breathless, his body aching, his legs and arms bleeding from slipping on the rocks, or stumbling against the rock needles -- pressed on.

At last they reached the top of the mountain. Dizzy with fatigue and blinded with sweat, Zepherin could see nothing further ahead; nothing higher to climb. Utterly exhausted, he pitched forward and fell at his father's feet.

He lay there until his heart stopped pounding. Up to that moment Manuel had not spoken a word. Now he raised the boy to his feet and a tenderness that was rare for him crept into his eyes. He pointed down. "Son," he said, "look; my land and yours."

Zepherin was aware only of the astonishing height, the nearness of the clouds scudding between the mountain and the canopy of blue sky, the earth beneath him rushing across the heavens. A sudden dizziness overwhelmed him. He staggered and would have fallen but for Manuel's steadying hand.

Once he had regained his balance he looked around. Slowly unfolded before him a scene of breathtaking beauty, the spread of the golden pampas watered by the river Limay, its tributaries branching off like the veins of an oak leaf. To the west ran a long chain of even higher mountains, their peaks covered with blue-tinged ice that sparkled in the sun. Surrounding him stood clusters of mountains and high hills in an astonishing variety of shapes and forms, some topped with needle-pointed peaks; others with round heads and others still wearing enormous crowns of columns.

From the utmost peak a huge black-and-white condor, king of all birds, spread its enormous wings and taking off, soared into the heavens, disappearing at last among the distant peaks.

Some of the mountain faces were craggy and foreboding, like the faces of bad-tempered old men; others were as smooth and silken as the cheeks of a young girl. Some dropped into broad expanses of water bluer than the dye his mother used to color the cloth she wove. Swift waters churned and gurgled in between these mountains, tugging at the base of shrubs, and sometimes bearing off an uprooted tree. But for the most part the mountains sloped so gently they seemed to flow down the sides of the valleys.

The air, too, smelled clean and fresh; distant objects stood out clearly. Zepherin drew this pure air into his lungs. He felt invigorated; strength and enthusiasm flooded him. Eyes rounded with happiness, he turned to his father.

"Papa," he said, "is this the place the huinca padre said was heaven?"

"No! Huincas have nothing to do with this!" he said sharply. "I brought you here so that no matter where you go you will never forget your people or your land." Then his voice softened as he continued: "Where you sand is called Spirit Mountain, a place to adore the great Gneche. There lies Thunder Mountain where the great spirit speaks with the voice of thunder. You see Lanin, the mountain of fire, his head snow-white with grief, mourning our fate?"

Pursing his lips he shouted in the direction of the valley: "Ooooout!" The cry rose from a low note to a high pitch. He repeated this and cupped his hand to his ear. There was no answering sound. Taking a deep breath, he tried again and still there was no answer.

"Time was when my call would have summoned to my side from those valleys and those woods a thousand warriors. But now, who comes?" With an impatient gesture he brushed away the melancholy thought. "See that pass in the mountains?" He pointed to a line a snow-covered hills. "Through that pass I, Manuel Namuncura" he struck his chest, "and your grandfather before me, Calfucura, drove cattle we captured in our raids into Chile and sold them for much silver."

"But, Papa," objected Zepherin, "how could people buy them if they knew they were stolen?"

"Stolen? Who says stolen? We took them in payment for the lands the huincas had stolen. Many caciques became rich, married Chilean women and deserted us."

Manuel turned full circle, his eyes taking in the scene. "I love these mountains where I hid when I was defeated. When the huincas beat us with their new instruments of war the other caciques surrendered. But, I, Manuel, with a few faithful warriors retreated to the Cordilleras. They would never have found me! But they caught my family. See that valley? When they came after me I escaped through that pass between those two peaks. But first I had to cross the ledge running along the side of that mountain to the right."

Zepherin gasped. "You and your horse crossed that?"

"No, my horse was killed but I escaped on foot. The huincas did not dare follow me."

"Then how did they capture you? "Capture me?" Manuel snorted. "I would have died first! My followers were starving and could not have lasted another winter. Also, for an Araucano to be without his family, that is terrible. I was always thinking what the huincas might do to them."

"Who owned this place, Papa, before the huincas came?"

"Owned?" repeated Manuel. "How can anybody own the air and the birds that fly in it, or the rivers and the fish that swim in them, or the woods and the beasts that roam through them? Nobody owns them. `Own" is huinca talk. When they `own: the land, what do they do with it? They close it in and will let their brothers starve before they will allow them to use it. That is what the huinca means by `own.' While I have a single sheep or a horse or a cow, will any of our tolderia starve? That is our law. It is not the law of the huinca. He will even kill another starving huinca who takes only what he needs to live.

"Papa," Zepherin asked suddenly, "do you hate huincas?"

"I do not say I hate them. And you must never say you hate them, either. Otherwise they will never help you. But if they had been just we could have lived in peace together. They stole our hunting grounds and when we complained, they laughed at us. They left nothing for us but the malon. We took their cattle to feed us, and we took captives to replace the Indians they had killed without cause. Can I forget that I who once ruled over all these territories, now live on the edge of the desert? They claim everything, even the salt of the lakes which we need and take it away in their great carts. This forced Calfucura to unite the Indians into one great army to drive the huinca into the sea. Oh, if only it had not been for the huincas' secrets! Now it will never be possible. But," the cacique gripped the boy's arm fierce, "we can still make them treat us like free and proud people, to let us go where we can lead our own lives." He fixed his gaze on Zepherin. "That is shy I brought you here. Before we leave this spot so dear to the memory of our people, I must ask you something and you must give me an answer."

Suddenly, Zepherin heard his heart pounding against the wall of his breast. "What do you wish to ask me, Papa?" He hoped his voice did not betray him.

"Your heart must know already." The cacique paused, then solemnly went on, "I have chosen you to go among the huincas to learn their secrets. Compare their skills with ours. our men can ride and hunt; our women can weave cloth and make pottery. But can they count beyond the number of their fingers? Can they read the clock? Can they measure distances except by saying it is so many days by horse? Oh! There are so many things I myself do not understand but which even the most ignorant huinca does. Do you accept this task for the good of your people?"

The question did not take the boy completely by surprise. Ever since that night when his father had taken him aside and told him of his plans, he had been expecting something like this. Nevertheless, he did not have a ready answer, and he closed his eyes to think and to avoid his father's steady gaze.

At first he was elated by the proposal. It would mean traveling to the great huinca city, the city of the "Good Air." He would see the strange things he had heard about, the huge dwelling places, the trails so hard a horse could not run on them, the strange vehicles that ran faster than any horse, the great canoes and the immense ocean which had no end. What an exciting adventure!

On the other hand, he would have to leave behind his father and mother, his brothers and sisters; the companions with whom he had played since the day he was born. He would have to leave behind the games, the hunting, the carefree summer days he spent swimming or fishing or just lying on a soft green bank looking up at the sky. How could he live, how could he even breathe where buildings five, six toldos high shut out the sight of the open pampa? If he went there would he ever again see the sun and the moon and the stars?

Of course he would! He would not stay with the huincas forever -- only until he had learned their secrets. Then he'd return to teach his own people how to become equal to them. He did not like his father's idea about fighting the huincas. Like his mother, he had secretly been horrified by the stories the Indians told each other of the massacres and the shedding of blood. But he would be glad to help his people become as clever as the huincas, even if it meant leaving them for a time.

When he opened his eyes his father was still staring at him. He quickly lowered his gaze for he did not want his father to see the tears.

"Papa," he said, and his voice trembled slightly, "for the good of our people, I accept."