What happens when you mix another realm with the old west? You get a book like this. Start with a girl who must disguise herself as a boy, and a mixed race boy who was freed in his father's will, but has a white half brother bound and determined to keep him enslaved. Both are in dire situations which lead them to be hired for a very odd job as Pony Express riders. They must ride at night and get to California in a time span that seems impossible. Add in gender orientations that were hardly acceptable for the times, horses that can ride far beyond realistic expectations, characters who shift their goals and goodness/badness before your eyes, and you have a dandy mix that qualifies as somewhere between strange history and magical realism. ( )