“Turning back⁠ ⁠…” the acknowledgment came. “… tried to save her.⁠ ⁠…”

The message stopped and there was a silence that Chiara’s mocker would never break again. He walked on, with Tip sitting very small and quiet on his shoulder. He had crossed another hill before Tip moved, to press up close to him the way mockers did when they were lonely and to hold tightly to him.

“What is it, Tip?” he asked.

“Goldie is dying,” Tip said. And then again, like a soft, sad whisper, “Goldie is dying.⁠ ⁠…”

“She was your mate.⁠ ⁠… I’m sorry.”

Tip made a little whimpering sound, and the man reached up to stroke his silky side.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’m sorry as hell, little fellow.”

For two days Tip sat lonely and silent on his shoulder, no longer interested in the new scenes nor any longer relieving the monotony with his chatter. He refused to eat until the morning of the third day.

By then the exodus of woods goats and unicorns had dwindled to almost nothing; the sky a leaden gray through which the sun could not be seen. That evening he saw what he was sure would be the last band of woods goats and shot one of them.

When he went to it he was almost afraid to believe what he saw.

The hair above its feet was red, discolored with the stain of iron-bearing clay.

He examined it more closely and saw that the goat had apparently watered at a spring where the mud was material washed down from an iron-bearing vein or formation. It had done so fairly recently⁠—there were still tiny particles of clay adhering to the hair.