Horse Returning Mountain Jana Russ There are no horses here, only goat boys fishing with string nets, a woman washing clothes, brown murk of the Yangtze soaking into her blue trousers, and a few unconcerned goats snatching ferns from the cliff face. Three red characters painted on rock name this place: horse, return, and mountain. No horses, though. Just a row of sampans on a gravelly beach. No roads, no trails. Not like Emerald Gorge where holes in the granite walls recall huge beams that held ancient walkways, wide enough for wagons and whole teams. A horse might wander from up there. Leave his master stranded in Double Dragon town where he stopped for a cup of tea and some little potatoes grilled on bamboo skewers, the ones women still sell to tourists at the water’s edge. A horse could go down, looking for tender ferns and long grass, down to the river where the goats play with the garbage washed up to catch on brush. And maybe some fishing boy would find that horse among his goats. Ride him back to town, get a string of coins for his trouble. Square-holed Imperial coins his children's children's child would swap someday, on the riverbank, for three American dollars. Maybe he painted the three red characters there. On the mountainside, just above where goats graze. Goats are never lost. They know their boy will come to chivy them back up the path, crowding the tourists who tromp toward mountaintop temples to stare at the hundred Bodhisattvas of white jade, and gilded wood, and paper mâche.