Dante of the Maury River (19 page)

About then, Ashley came into the barn. She stopped in her tracks when she saw her mother. Her eyes flared white. “Mom? What are you doing in Dante’s stall? I told you to be careful around him. I just asked you to peek in and see if his water bucket was empty, that’s all.”

“Oh, honey, he’s a gentleman. What a sweet horse.”

Good glory, I couldn’t help myself. Yes, I did whicker. Nice and loud, too. I’d been called a lot of things in my lifetime: handsome, spirited, athletic, talented, promising, unfit, demented, intelligent, stupid, a head case, mean, and rotten. But never had any person or equine ever called me sweet. So I whickered again.

That day, Ashley had a pretty easy time getting me tacked up for our two classes. She took the time to longe me, and the work paid off. We didn’t win, show, or place in the Walk-Trot class, but we didn’t get DQ’d, either. I didn’t bolt, rear, or buck her off. I did canter a little bit, though.

Surprise of all surprises, we placed fourth out of six in our Pleasure class. The credit was somewhat but not entirely due to Napoleon and his nemesis, a mule named Molly from over at Tamworth Springs, who chose that class to reinstitute their long-standing rivalry.

For me, a fourth in Pleasure was about as good as first.

“See!” Mrs. Maiden said. “I told you, Ashley. You two are making progress. Stick with it. Never give up.”

Now that I had been called sweet and had even placed in a show, I almost had a reputation to live up to. I wasn’t ready to admit to being spoiled or entitled, but the day had given me a lot to think about.

A
full day of showing and being on my best-ever behavior had wiped me out. I was ready to grab some shut-eye. We mares and geldings remained on evening turnout, but with a chill in the air and the light getting shorter, we all knew that the turnout schedule was about to switch from night to day.

The turnout schedule depended upon the air and on Mrs. Maiden. So any night could be our last one outdoors till spring. Sleeping under the stars made me feel closer to home and closer to the bloodlines, so I was hoping for a few more nights outdoors.

Best I could tell, the last of the show visitors pulled out of the Maury River Stables long about three o’clock. The students gave us our sweet feed in the paddocks, and then they left, too. We were in the field but for a lick when Daisy came trotting over to me in a huff, holding her head high in the air.
Here comes another lecture on leadership,
I thought.

She eyed the new horse. “I’ve been observing the Belgian. Macadoo could take the geldings over anytime if he really wanted.”

“But he won’t. He’s too busy missing his old life. Spends his nights wishing on stars, not picking fights,” I told her.

I looked around at the school horses and the boarders. All appeared calm and right in our pasture. Earlier, Ashley had emptied out the drinking tub, cleaned it, and filled it with cool, clear water. By morning, we would drink it dry.

Just minutes before turnout, Stu had chucked a couple of square bales into the field. No interlopers from the mountains — no deer, no coyotes, no bobcats. Not a stray skunk in the field. No loose children. No horses fighting.

All is well,
I said to myself.

I accounted for Macadoo up at the boulder, grazing and wishing like he liked to do. I noticed that Gwen, on the mare side of the fence, always stayed close by him. The boarded ones — Charlie, Cowboy, and Jake — were dirtying up the water bin already.

All geldings present and safe.

Except for Napoleon.

The Shetland was missing.

I scouted the field. He was not behind the cedar. Not on the great boulder, where he often stood to admire the view. I scanned the horizon and searched my memory. Stu had turned Napoleon out last, after giving us hay. Last I remembered was seeing his little legs trotting toward dinner.

One of my charges gone. Missing on my turn at the top.

I raced around the pasture whinnying. Angry that he was hiding from me. Afraid, when I couldn’t smell or see or hear him. “Napoleon! Napoleon! Come out, now!” I commanded. Nothing.

I paced alongside the mare field and whinnied for everyone to join me at the fence. Soon, all had come together. Mares and geldings, horses and ponies, and the boarders, too.

“Who saw him last?” I wanted to know.

The Belgian spoke up. “Earlier, he was near the back fence, grazing alone.”

“Yes, I was nearby for a while. Then I got thirsty,” said Jake. “But that was a while ago.”

“Search this field,” I ordered Macadoo. “Go to the gate and call for help,” I told the boarders, for we needed everyone.

“Whinnying won’t do any good,” said Cowboy. “The truck is gone. Stu is gone. Mrs. Maiden is, too.”

I pinned my ears. “I don’t care. Get down there.”

Cowboy trotted off. Jake and Charlie followed him.

Just then, I heard Macadoo squealing at the back of the field, closest to the Maury River. “Look! A break right here in the electric fence.”

“He went through it,” I said.

Then, for assurance that no other gelding would get the same idea that Napoleon evidently had, I bared my teeth and said, “You’re all forbidden to leave this field.”

The restless mares called us over for news of the Shetland.

“He’s gone,” I told them. “Toward the river.”

“I’ll go after him. I know the mountain,” said Macadoo.

“I know the mountain, too,” Gwen said. “I’ll come with you.”

Daisy interrupted. “The Thoroughbred will go. The Shetland trusts him. Only the ancestors know why, but Napoleon loves Dante.”

Macadoo challenged her. “With all respect, Daisy, I’ve spent my life in the splendid mountains.” He snorted toward me. “That soft horse has spent his life running in circles. He’s hardly been out of this pasture. If you send him, I’ll soon be out tracking the forest for the both of them.”

Daisy pinned her ears at the Belgian, but Gwen defended him. “Mac is right about this, Daisy, and you know it. You’re mistaken to send Dante.”

Daisy pawed at the ground. Her word was final.

I pawed at the ground, too. Was I afraid? You bet. Afraid I’d never find Napoleon. Afraid Macadoo and Gwen were right about me. But I understood what Daisy was doing. She was giving me an opportunity to step up and be a leader who ruled by example.

“Boarders, keep calling for help,” I ordered.

Daisy brought us all together. “We can’t wait around for Mrs. Maiden. There’s much to fear in the night, and our Napoleon is out there alone.”

Macadoo whickered. “He’s tough, Daisy. Haven’t you heard Claire call him a demon pony? Coyotes would be crazy to mess with Napoleon.” Macadoo tried to reassure everyone.

Gwen spoke softly. “Napoleon’s not afraid of coyotes.”

I had to admit that as his friend, I didn’t know the pony feared a single thing on earth. “What is he afraid of ?” I asked.

The Hanoverian lowered her head. Quietly, so that only the school horses could hear, she said, “He’s afraid of the dark.”

Daisy whickered at me. “He’s always with you the minute the sun sets, isn’t he? Always nearby,” she said.

I had to agree. “All night he stands so close to me, up underfoot. I’ve often teased that he wasn’t weaned properly, but I reckon it’s no joke.”

“He feels safe when he’s near you,” Gwen said.

I snorted my disbelief. “But why would a pony be afraid of the dark?”

Daisy spoke up. “I will tell you a story that my dam told me when I was a filly, but we must be quick. We’re losing daylight.”

I whinnied for her to get on with it.

“Once, on an island far away from here, across the ocean”— Daisy interrupted herself to explain —“an ocean is a great body of water, much, much larger and deeper and fiercer than the Maury River, or any river you could imagine.”

“I’ve seen the ocean many times,” said Gwen. “I grew up on an island in the ocean. Called Manhattan.”

“Go on, Daisy,” I urged her.

“Yes, well, you see, the Shetland’s breed originated in the Kingdom of Scotland, mine in the Principality of Wales. Both of our native lands are cold, barren, windy places. One thing the Shetland Isles do have is mountains. Mountains with caves and tunnels. Deep, dark narrow doorways with openings enough that only a small pony can get through. There was a time when these small, devilish ponies occupied every cave of the Shetland Isles, hundreds, thousands of them peering out from burrows and hollows. Then came the dark years.”

“What happened to the Shetlands then?” I asked. Everyone crowded closer to the fence line to hear.

Daisy hesitated, as if she couldn’t bear to go further. “One day, men came to capture the diminutive horses. Most all of the ponies were stolen from the mountains, captured, blinded, and sent deep into the earth to serve the greed of man, pulling out riches from the coal mines. The ponies started out living in the earth and then were forced to stay there, many never to see the light of day.”

“But what has all this to do with Napoleon?” I asked. “That all happened a long time ago.”

“Not as far back as you might imagine. The ancestors that were subjected to this abuse live on in the Shetlands of today. It will take more than a hundred years over for the breed to heal from such suffering and oppression.”

“But I don’t understand,” I said. “No one here would ever hurt him. What is he afraid of ?”

Macadoo uncharacteristically lashed out at me. “Do you even hear yourself ? No one wants to hurt you, either, but all you do is react to the harm that’s been caused to you in the past. How can you possibly not understand?”

“Napoleon was never in the mines himself. That’s all I meant,” I said.

Daisy tried to explain. “Dante, the fear of the dark is in his blood. For many generations, the grands and greats of Napoleon’s family lived underground in coal tunnels. Even Mrs. Maiden has learned to keep him in the sunshine. She doesn’t even try to put a fly mask on him or cover his face. What she knows without knowing why is that he needs light at all times. Why do you think the barn is never dark? Napoleon colics when all the lights are out. So, you see? We all have bloodlines, for better or worse.”

Daisy’s story stunned all of us into silence, and I did finally understand. My own ancestry, my breeding, made me fleet of foot, and the Belgian’s made him strong in back. The Shetland’s made him fear the dark, and night was coming.

“
N
ow, hurry,” Daisy urged me. “You’re in the most important race of your life. A race against the sun. Napoleon is small and vulnerable out there alone and very likely afraid. You know something of him now that few outside of his own breed will ever understand. Bring him home.”

My fieldmates were counting on me. Napoleon was counting on me.

If I had doubted it before then, all doubt was erased. I loved the Shetland and would do anything for him, including swallowing my pride to ask a draft horse for help. “Macadoo, you’re right. I don’t know Saddle Mountain. Where do I start?” I asked the Belgian.

He pawed at the ground. “Use your ears. Use your nostrils. Those whiskers you won’t let anyone trim? You’ll need those, too.”

The boarders took up their posts. So did the mares.

Macadoo, Gwen, and Daisy looked to me.

“I’ll find our pony. I won’t come back until he’s found and safe,” I promised.

The lick of the problem before me was this: all the other Maury River Stables horses had experience on the trail. They knew the river and the mountain.

Not me.

Except for the unorthodox hours I had spent in the Willis River with Filipia, my entire life up to that moment had been lived in confinement, of one fashion or another. A stall, a ring, a track, a trailer. Walls brought me comfort. A fence was as natural to me as the moon and the stars.

I had no skills, no knowledge, no nothing that I needed for this search-and-rescue mission.

Plus, plenty of time had passed since anyone had believed in me, and I felt a bit rusty as to how to handle that.

Though what choice did I have but to go forward?

Napoleon’s stubbly, well-insulated body had plowed through the loose electric fence and brought it down. I stepped over the cold fence ribbon and started down the path toward the Maury River. Mrs. Maiden and her students used this path with school horses to access the river for late-summer swims and to reach Saddle Mountain all year long. The trail was only wide enough for a single horse to pass. The grass alongside me had gone to seed, but it still stood long and dragged across my forelegs.