Dragonholder (10 page)

Anne gave up — another avenue blocked. Then she remembered her brother Kevin and how he had withstood all the pain and terror of his osteomyelitis, and the memory inspired her. In a few days she had finished and sent off
The Smallest Dragonboy
, little realizing at the time that it would end up being the most reprinted story she had ever written.

The money from the sale was only $154 — not enough to pay rent or tuition or to buy food. Certainly not enough to pay for the cost of storing all the family's furniture and belongings left behind on Long Island. Anne talked it over with the kids, and tearfully wrote the warehouse telling them to sell off their goods.

 

T
he move to
Meadowbrook House
had not been without incident. Mick O'shea and the whole crew had pitched in and helped with the move, but one of the cars they used had a faulty trunk — as they found out when its contents spilled out over the road. Our cat, Isaac Asimov, was another casualty. He got to
Meadowbrook House
but didn't stay long.

We quickly got a replacement cat. Alec had the honor of naming him “Zeke the Cork,
Rabble-rowser from the Mountains” from Bob Dylan's book
Tarantula
. Zeke quickly
grew to be a tall, lean, black and white cat with an unmatched sense of humor. Zeke's humor
was pure cat — his favorite trick was jumping from the floor onto the top of an open
door — a jump of over eight feet — and then quietly waiting until a suitably
inattentive person passed underneath him. At which point he'd negligently comb that person's
hair with his claws and greet their upturned faces with a “Why, whatever did I do?”
smirk.

A stall was made in the barn in the backyard, and hay and straw were laid in for Mr. Ed.
Zeke, living up to his name, had absolutely no fear of Ed. In fact, I remember being
terrified the first night we were bedding Ed down — we'd put down a really nice thick
layer of straw for Ed to sleep on — and into this walked Zeke. With a bound, he dove
under the straw and was quickly lost from sight.

Ed was a marvelous horse with a keen sense of humor himself. This night he displayed it with
what has to be one of horsekind's favorite practical jokes: He stepped on my foot and then
— looking back at me with a “is there something wrong?” look — he put his whole
weight on that one foot! Frantically I pushed him off of me — over sixteen hundred
pounds of horse and only a hundred pounds of me.

So you can understand that with Ed in this mood, I was very worried for the safety of one very small and completely invisible young cat.

I need not have worried. Shortly after I got Ed off of my foot, he put his head down to the straw and blew gently over one spot — and out popped Zeke, trying very hard to pretend that he had meant for Ed to find him.

Anne shooed us all out and back to the house, leaving Ed and Zeke to get acquainted. When I came back the next morning, Ed was curled up on the ground. Horses are very nervous when they're lying on the ground — you rarely catch them there — so it was very odd. I was a bit worried until Ed turned his head, looking at his chest.

There, between his legs, slept Zeke. Long after Anne had written the scene in
Dragonquest
, Ed and Zeke recreated the same sleeping arrangements that F'nor's
brown Canth had with golden Grall.

The relationship between Ed and Zeke blossomed into something phenomenal. When the weather turned nice, Anne would let Ed out to graze on the front lawn.
Meadowbrook House
was surrounded by a high stone wall but Ballinteer Road was a bus route. People on the upper deck of a double-decker bus could see into the front yard.

It being Ireland, few would look askance at a horse grazing in the front yard. But we soon noticed that the bus riders were getting quite excited whenever Ed was out on a warm day. What they saw was that Ed had a very special helper warding off flies — Zeke the Cork, fly swatter from the hindquarters. Zeke would lie, paws up, on his back and swat the horse-flies away. Every now and then Ed would tease him by swishing his tail or making an unexpected move. Once in a while, Ed would trick him — and there would be this very wide-eyed cat sliding down on his backside off Ed's rump. Even though it cost him his dignity, Zeke never once used his claws.

 

I
t is the nature of publishing that a book is finished at least a year before it gets published. While nearly a year had gone by since Anne had written
Dragonquest
, it was just now nearing publication. Betty Ballantine sent Anne a copy of the cover art as a courtesy. It happened on a day when the plumbing had gone bad again. Bernard Shattuck and I were outside in the back yard running a plumbing snake — in this case a long line of bamboo poles which screwed together — in hopes of convincing the sewage to move into the septic tank rather than back to the house.

“Here look at this,” Anne said to Bernard with a smile. Bernard, a well-muscled young man with curly brown hair and soft brown eyes, looked at the cover and saw a well-muscled young man with curly brown hair and soft brown eyes perched on a dragon's tail.

“That's nice,” he said. I looked at it over his shoulder, and at him, and back again. “That's
you!
” I said.

First we find Lessa in Jan Regan and then unbeknownst to us, an artist draws a F'nor that
looks like Bernard Shattuck.

 

E
d — “Horseface” as Anne called him — was just a short
walk from our kitchen door and always ready for a ride. While Anne did much of the mucking
out of his stable and general grooming, we all took turns riding Ed.

I liked riding for enjoyment. Gigi was a more serious rider and often took Ed out for long
rides. Poor Gigi came back in tears one afternoon, leading Ed. “He's hurt! He's hurt! He's
bleeding! Help!” she shouted as soon as she got close.

Ed had cut a vein just above the ankle on a shard of glass. Gigi had done an excellent job of getting him back home as fast as she could without scaring him. The wound was spurting blood every time his heart beat.

Anne rushed out immediately with a kitchen towel. She cleaned the wound, located the cut, and pressed the wound shut with the towel wrapped around. Ed was worried and in pain. As soon as she felt he was stable and not shocky, she got me to take over while she went to phone the vet.

For the next hour we traded off, kneeling down by Ed holding the vein closed while the kitchen towel got wetter and wetter, was replaced by a clean one, which in turn got drenched with blood. The back yard looked like a battle scene — the grass was smeared red with Ed's drying blood.

Finally the vet arrived. He took a while examining Ed, making sure of the extent of the wound
and sizing up the options. “I'm going to have to anesthetize him,” he said. We had to put a
twitch on Ed – a rope that twisted his nose – to get him to stand still while the vet
injected the anesthesia.

Ed fought the drug. When it finally took affect, he toppled slowly, nearly skinning his front knees before we could roll him on to his side. He lay there, legs straight out, eyes wide with fright, twitching. It was too much for Anne, who had been so calm throughout the ordeal. Before she lost it completely, I ran inside, found the liquor cabinet and poured a shot of Cointreau. I rushed back and handed it to her, “Drink it.”

It must have been the right thing to do because Anne knocked it back, made a face, and said, “Thank you, I needed that.”

The vet stitched Ed up, gave him the antidote for the anesthesia, and waited while the big horse got back on his feet.

The sun was setting as the vet told us, “He'll be all right. Just watch he doesn't cast
himself.” If a horse lies down against a wall it can position itself so that it can't get up
again — and the horse is “cast” — a terrifying position for an animal and one
that often results in horses thrashing themselves to death.

Anne sent Gigi off to make Ed's bed in the stable while we slowly walked him over. Gigi had laid a big deep pile of straw and Anne made him a rich mix of bran mash with an extra dollop of sweet molasses. Ed ate it hungrily. We all watched until we realized that he was all right and we were famished.

Ed's stable was just slightly out of line with the kitchen window, but not so much that we couldn't keep on eye on him. When Anne was cooking, one of us would watch out the window, and when she had to see for herself, one of us would stir the pot. I don't think we ate standing up, but I can't be sure..

It was late before we were willing to consider going to bed. Ed was still standing in his stall — pacing around in circles. He never did go to sleep — he was still on his feet the next morning, and the thick straw bed that had been laid for him had been ground into fine chaff.

 

A
nne's mother, called “Bami” by us grandchildren, was an amazing
and well-loved grandmother. She taught me to play chess and was mature enough to play down
at my level — letting me win sometimes. By the time we were in Meadowbrook House, Bami
had decided that I was old enough to play against her best and she would regularly trounce
me. In fact, I don't remember beating her once when we were in Meadowbrook.

I had made friends with Geoff Hilton — a fellow schoolmate. Geoff's family was English, his father had been brought over by his company, Hoover. Aside from board games, mostly military war games, Geoff and I frequently played chess — I frequently beat the pants off of him. I learned later that Geoff would learn one new chess trick and beat me with it until I figured out on my own how to counter it.

I remember one day, however, when Bami was practically fuming that Geoff had trounced her
with a new gambit that he'd thought up. Immediately afterwards, she challenged me to a game.
When I demurred, she nearly forced me to the chessboard. Well, she beat me in about five
moves — I didn't know what had hit me.