The Island Horse (2 page)

“Leave here?” Ellie cried. She pushed her chair away from him. She stood up. “Move? But we can't. We can't leave here, Pa. We can't leave our home!”

It wasn't possible.

“Sweetpea, I know it will be hard for you to leave here. It will be hard for both of us. But I have to take this job.” Her father stood up, too. “We need it, so we can live.” He hesitated. “The supply ship goes to Sable Island only a few times a year, to take provisions across and to bring back the rescued. She'll be going soon, in ten days. We'll go aboard when she leaves. That means we'll have to leave here in eight days.”

Ellie stepped back.
Eight days?

“There'll be some good things about moving to Sable Island, Ellie. Lots of good things, I hope,” her father said eagerly. “We'll be given a horse so I can ride beach patrol. And then there's the wild horses. You'll get to see the wild horses on the island.”

But Ellie was not listening now. His words had pushed her underwater. She could not hear and she could not breathe.

She turned and ran. She tore out of the house and up the hill. Her own steps, and her parents', had worn this narrow path. Ellie reached the top, panting. She made her way to her mother's grave.

Ellie traced her mother's name on the headstone:
Lillian.
She ran her fingertip in the carved valleys of the letters:
Wife and mother.

It usually calmed her, but not this morning. This morning, Ellie threw herself down in the grass. She lay on her back, looking up at the blue sky, and her hands clutched the grass, not wanting to leave.

She lay there for a long time, and when the sun was straight above her, Ellie sat up. She brushed her tears away. She looked out and saw the dark blue sea. She watched the sea birds dipping and twirling above.

“Ma, we have to move. We have to move to Sable Island. But how can I leave you, Ma?” she said. “How can I?”

This was home, and nowhere else would ever be.

Chapter Three

The days passed.

Ellie could not speak. She could not eat. Still she felt as if she couldn't breathe. Still she felt as if all around her was water and she couldn't see the sky.

“Time to pack,” said her father gently on the seventh day. Ellie did not have much to take with her. Just her quilt, some clothes, her pencils and slate, her school books, the precious paper she had been saving and all her horse drawings. But she had so much to leave behind. She made a list:

My ma. Visiting her at the top of the hill.

Lizzie. My best friend. We've never been apart.

Her mom, who helps us. She was my ma's friend.

My one-room school.

Mrs. James, my teacher.

The chance of a stick of hard candy. Tucked into my pocket by Mrs. Rindall in the village store.

My home. We were going to stay here for always.

The eighth day was leaving day. Ellie wakened early. As her father put the kettle on, she slipped outside. She climbed the hill before the sun was up. When she reached the top, she looked up at the dark sky and out at the dark sea. As she watched the sun rise, she knew the day was really here. Then she saw a cloud of dust coming along the road below. It was the hired cart, coming to carry them away.

Ellie stood by her mother's headstone. A fresh bouquet of orchids lay at its base. Her father had already been here this morning. She traced the words
Lillian, Wife and mother
, and said, “Good-bye, Ma.”

Ellie stumbled her way down the path. Lizzie was waiting at her house. She hugged Ellie tightly and said good-bye. Lizzie's mother kissed her on the head and pressed a basket of sandwiches and cheese into her father's hands.

Ellie's father helped her up into the cart. Their few things were in back. A trunk, some chickens in a crate, several boxes and bags. Ellie gripped the sides of the cart hard, her knuckles white. Then her father climbed in beside her, and the driver, impatient, said, “Gee-up!”

Neighbors from up and down the road, and the village, too, stood near and called farewell as they rattled past. Ellie looked back. She watched until she could no longer see her house on the hill.

• • •

Two days later, Ellie and her father reached Halifax, tired and sore. It was mid-morning. Ellie stared at the rows of buildings, at the many people on the bustling streets, walking, selling, shouting. She had never felt so far from home.

They went directly to the wharf. The cart driver asked about for the schooner, the
Eagle.
It was down a ways, tied up at the farthest dock, being loaded.

“You're just in time,” the captain told them. “We leave shortly.”

Her father lifted their trunk, their few boxes and bundles and their crate of chickens from the wagon and paid the driver.

“Come, Ellie,” her father told her. “Hurry.” He took Ellie's hand, and she stepped onto the wooden gangway that bridged the dock and the
Eagle'
s deck.

The tip of her left boot was the last part of her touching home.

Ellie stood at the rail. She watched as barrels, crates and boxes were carried onto the schooner. Some lumber. A cow was hoisted aboard, eyes rolling. Last came their own possessions. For a moment, Ellie saw their chickens airborne.

The captain signaled from the wheel. The gangway was lifted. The sailors cast off the lines. They raised the sails, one fore, one aft.

Ellie's heart dissolved as the schooner slipped away from the wharf.

The wind gusted and filled the sails, and the boat plunged forward and away. Ellie looked back at the Nova Scotia coast. She watched her home disappear until all was sea.
There is nothing to look forward to
, she thought.

Ellie pulled off her blue bonnet and held it in one fist. The wind was wild. It blew her hair about her face and her skirt about her legs.

“Your first time at sea,” her father said. He stood beside her at the rail. “What do you think? Exciting, isn't it?”

Ellie couldn't smile. She couldn't even answer.

As the sun slowly rose higher, the schooner moved steadily onward. It cut through the waves, its sails billowing. It rocked, forward and aft, forward and aft.

How high is up? How deep is down?
thought Ellie, lifting and sinking.

Afternoon came. Her father pointed to three whales, rising to the surface alongside the boat. Two were long and cloud gray, with bulging foreheads. One, a calf, was chocolate brown. For a time, they swam alongside, keeping pace. “They're bottlenose whales,” her father told her. “Look how close they are, almost close enough to touch!”

Still Ellie couldn't smile, or even answer.

Now it was late afternoon. One of the sailors was leaning against the rails, resting. “Are we almost there?” Ellie's father asked him.

“Soon,” the sailor replied curtly.

“Say, can you tell us about Sable Island?” Ellie's father asked. “Can you tell us something about the wild horses?”

The sailor scoffed. “Island!” He spat over the railing into the waves. “The place doesn't deserve the name. No trees, no rocks. It's more like a big sandbar adrift on the waves.”

Ellie's father tried again. “The horses …?”

But the sailor would not be budged. He swung his arm all around, twirling his finger. “It's the wind, see? The wind is always blowing. It's moving the sand of Sable, above water and below.” The sailor wiggled his fingers, making them snakelike tentacles. “Sometimes the sand spits of Sable are here.” Then he flung out his other arm. It had a large hook on the end where a hand should have been. He waggled the hook. “Sometimes the sand spits are there.”

He bent down and grimaced in Ellie's face. “It's dangerous. Hundreds of ships have gone aground there, on Sable. And hundreds of people have drowned there — men, women … and children.” He smirked. “The island moves — here, there. Some say it's shrinking. Some say it will disappear altogether.”

Ellie trembled, and her father scooped her up and away. “We've heard enough, sir,” he said to the sailor, over his shoulder.

He carried Ellie along the deck to the bow of the schooner. “Did he frighten you?” he asked, holding her. “Don't worry, sweetpea. The island won't disappear altogether. Everything will be all right.”

But his words did not comfort Ellie. She had lost so much already. Out here, surrounded only by sky and sea, she feared it could happen again.

Chapter Four

It was twilight. Ellie had been tired, windswept. She had sat down, wedged among some massive coils of rope at the bow, and she had fallen asleep.

Now her father was gently shaking her. “Ellie, Ellie, darling. It's Sable Island. We've arrived! Look!”

She saw the sliver of Sable Island appear out of nowhere in the dark sea. Slender and slight. A crescent floating in the blue. Almost nothing. Tantalizingly close.

They sailed on, drew nearer, and Ellie could see the shore. The surf was a white line being drawn across the beach, again and again.

The sailors furled the sails and then went no closer; the ship dropped anchor. Ellie thought,
They're acting as if the island is a wild horse, as if it can lift its head, toss its mane and whirl away. Gone.

“Sable doesn't have a harbor where the
Eagle
can dock, so we must anchor out here,” Ellie's father explained.

Ellie saw lanterns waving on the shore, many dark figures moving busily. “They'll come to get us,” her father said. “Look, they're launching a smaller boat to get us and the supplies being delivered — a surfboat, small but strong and stout enough to put out into this heavy surf.”

Ellie waited and watched, and now there was a small boat approaching, two men rowing it with great strength. The boat drew alongside the
Eagle
, and there were cries of welcome. Hands grabbed at lines thrown up.

Now her father was lifting Ellie, passing her over the side of the schooner. The arms of an Islander reached up from the surfboat below, caught her, held her. “Hello to you, missy, and welcome,” he said. “The sea is a little rough this evening, but we'll get you landed in no time, never fear!”

But Ellie was shivering, adrift between ship and shore. The sailor with the hook muttered curses from above: “These waves want to dash us all to pieces!”

Her father lowered himself down into the boat, bringing one of their bags, and several of the sailors came aboard as well. Then the surfboat was set loose, and it lurched toward Sable, the waves high and surging.

Ellie's father held her tightly, an arm around her shoulders. The Islanders rowed, moving with the waves, trying to keep pointed toward the shore. Quickly the surfboat neared the beach, and then it surged forward at an alarming clip, sped along by the rushing urgency of a huge wave. The boat perched high on its crest, just balanced. It felt like flying, to Ellie.

The crew stopped rowing and rode the wave expertly. They were poised, alert, ready. The boat raced up onto the beach, delivered by the wave. Its bottom hit sand and skidded, spray dousing the passengers. Ellie's eyes were full of salt tears.

Immediately, before the forward momentum had even stopped, the two rowers leapt out and into the shallows, grabbing hold of the sides of the surfboat. The wave that had shot them forward onto land might drag at them, pull them back to sea in its powerful undertow. The men were digging in their heels, leaning hard toward land. Four more Islanders, ready waiting on the beach, had rushed out to help. They, too, were pulling on the surfboat, leaning, hauling again and again. Together the six men dragged the boat farther up the beach. It was as if this were a ballet and their movements had been practiced over and over.

Then there was more sand under them than water. And now, only sand. The boat was finally beyond the reach of the waves. Ellie realized that it was no use imagining they might never arrive. They were really landing.

There was a small gathering of other men on the beach, waiting with lanterns lit. They called out greetings. And then Ellie, from her seat in the boat, thought she saw someone standing alone, someone well back from the others. A woman? — no, a girl! — standing on the beach, watching. Ellie saw a blue skirt billowing like a sail. Hair whipping about. Then — did it really happen? — the girl raised her arms. Slowly she twirled away across the sand and was gone. And it was as if she had never been there at all.