The Winter Pony (3 page)

On a day in early spring, with patches of snow still on the ground, I was led out of the forest for the last time. The Russian drove a wagon and pulled me behind it, down through the valley, along a skidding trail that met a road that led us to the east.

After several days of traveling, we came to a dry valley where a huge wall stretched clear across the land. It rose from the ridge to the south, dipped through the valley and up to the ridge to the north, like a stone snake curled across the hills. And in the middle of the valley was a city.

What a bustle of people there were! By the thousands they hurried in every direction, like ants on a great mound, churning a haze of dust. Street sellers called out to the Russian, trying to sell him rugs and shoes and animals of every kind, both alive and dead. Little black monkeys chattered in their cages as they reached pink hands through the bars. But the Russian never turned his head as he drove along, tugging me through the city.

In a dirty field below the wall, a horse fair was under way. A mob of ponies had been gathered on a bit of grass, and thousands of people had come to buy them. Some of the ponies were being ridden madly through the crowd while others stood in long, tethered rows. Many looked old and weary, but just as many were strong young things, with years of work ahead of them. A few were utterly mad, turning in fury on any man who came too close.

The Russian gave me up to a dirty little Mongol in black clothes, in exchange for a very small handful of money. He looked at me one last time, and spat at my feet.

I was glad to be rid of him but frightened as well, for it seemed that every change took me to something worse, that each of my owners was more horrid than the last. The Mongol grabbed my halter and hauled me off across the fairground. His hair, in a filthy pigtail, swung back and forth across his neck.

I expected to be put in among the other strong ponies, to be sent to work again in the forest. But instead, I joined a sad little group that no buyer was bothering to look at. I was tethered among the old and the sick, with those who were crazy and those who had never been tamed. I couldn’t imagine that anyone would buy them, and I wondered—for the first time—what happened to worn-out ponies. Were they turned loose in the forest to find their old herds? Were they put out to pasture in a farmer’s field, with nothing to do but sleep and eat? Or was there something else that I couldn’t even imagine? I hoped for the best but feared for the worst.

All day we stood in the heat and the dust and the sun. People passed in great numbers, and the Mongol grew more and more fretful. He waved his arms faster; he shouted louder. He began to reach out and grab the sleeves of passing men.

Most shook him off with a disdainful look, as though the dirty little Mongol was another monkey in a cage. The only man who stopped to look at me was strangely pale and pink. He was an Englishman, the first I’d ever seen, with a Russian boy walking beside him.

The Englishman looked me over from head to toe. He came closer, lifting his arm toward me. I flinched. But instead of hitting me, the Englishman froze. He stood with his hand in the air until I stopped trembling. Then he looked me right in the eye.

“It’s all right,” he said softly. “I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.”

I sensed a caring in his voice, a tone I’d never heard. He reached out again, this time very slowly, and I tried not to shake, in case that made him angry. I let him stroke my nose. I let him pat the place between my ears and comb his fingers through my forelock. At first I wanted to run away. But he said, “There, there,” in that quiet voice, and I just closed my eyes and shivered.

The Mongol looked surprised. Then he grabbed the boy by the arm, and the two babbled madly in Russian. They waved their arms, they shouted, but the Englishman kept petting me. When he took his hand away, I was disappointed. I snorted and moved a bit closer, hoping he would touch me again. But
now
he
was the one who shied away, and I saw that he was a little bit afraid of me, as I had been of him. He didn’t feel safe with a big animal pressing against him. So he moved to my shoulder and rubbed the muscles there, and when he found the scars in my skin, he touched them very gently. His fingers lingered on the spot where a man had broken a bottle long ago. He said in a whisper, “Someone’s done some very dreadful things to you.”

The Mongol and the Russian were still talking, though now less frantically. The Englishman reached into his pocket, a quick movement that alarmed me. I skittered off with a frightened little whimper. For a moment he froze again. Then his hand slowed down, and when it came out of his pocket, I saw that he was holding a small white cube, like a tiny block of snow. He lifted it to my mouth, his hand splayed as flat as a stone.

I had lived eight years but never tasted sugar. I couldn’t believe that anything could be so good. I hoped there was another block of sugar in the Englishman’s pocket, so I nudged against him, and that made him laugh. “Ah,” he said. “I’ve got a friend for life now, haven’t I?” Then he rubbed my nose again and turned toward his companion. “What do you think of this one?” he asked.

“Good pony,” said the boy. He gestured down the row of old animals as the Mongol smiled slyly behind him. “All ponies, good ponies.”

The Englishman stroked his chin. I tried to follow him when he walked down the row, but only tugged up on my tether. I hoped he would buy me.

He looked only at the light-colored ponies. All others he
passed right by, though some were the best of all. When he was far down the line, I heard a pony nicker, and another cry out in fear. I saw one rear up, suddenly rising above the others. It snorted and whinnied; it struck out with its forelegs. Then the Englishman stumbled backward, and the boy tried to pull him away.

The pony kept rising up on its hind legs, plunging and rising again. Dimly at first, I remembered that pony. When I saw the dark patch on its chest, a thousand memories came back very clearly. It was the silvery stallion I had known long ago, the leader who had watched over me when I was young. He was more gray now than silver. His back was bent, his shoulders strained from pulling, and his eyes had a wild stare that made him seem quite mad. But as he towered up on his hind legs, mane and forelock flying, he looked just as strong and magnificent as ever.

I called out in a high-pitched whinny, but there was no answer from the stallion. I saw the Englishman get up and slap bits of straw from his clothes. “Well, that one’s got spirit,” he said.

He bought the stallion. He bought nineteen others, including me. Most were old or mean or angry, but all as white as snow. The Englishman seemed very pleased with himself, though the Mongol was even more delighted.

That very day—that very hour—we were led away by the Russian boy. Some, like the stallion, fought him all the way. They kicked and bucked so wildly that people ran to hide in doorways. But in the end, the boy won. He got us to the railway yard, and a train arrived in the morning.

The train had a whistle that was high and shrill, like the cry of a frightened rabbit. I looked toward the sound and saw smoke above the buildings, a line of gray and black. The huffs and puffs of the engine pulsed in the air like the breaths of a terrible creature. Then the engine came chugging around a corner, black and filthy, snorting steam, swaying from side to side.

It frightened me. I had never seen a train, and I didn’t like the sounds or smells. When the smoke wafted over us, we all jostled uneasily, every pony trying to find a bit of space where there wasn’t even room to turn around.

A Russian standing guard shouted at us to be quiet. He whacked the fence with his stick.

The engine’s breaths grew louder. It whistled again with a piercing blast, and the stallion started kicking. He reared up and bashed at the fence, his ears pressed back, his nostrils flaring. He flung himself against the boards, wanting only to get away.

The man shouted again. He made his stick swish and whistle as he swung it at the stallion. He struck the pony across the eye, and a dark line opened in the silvery hair.

The stallion cowered back. He blinked and hung his head with a sad little whimper.

I had seen that pony drive away a mountain bear. I had watched him take on three wolves at once, kicking at two while he grabbed the third with his teeth. But now he was just an old and frightened thing, flinching from a willow branch.

The man stood up on the fence rails. He hit every pony that he could reach and didn’t stop until he was out of breath. He was coughing then, doubled over with his hands on his knees, still holding the stick that dripped with our sweat and our blood.

I hoped the train would take me to the ponies’ place. In a sense it did, though the journey was so long and so hard that I couldn’t have known it started then.

We were pushed aboard a cattle car, and a door was slammed behind us. It was dark in there, and scary, until the sun found his way between the boards. He reached through narrow cracks and knotholes, touching my ribs. A golden mist of trampled straw floated in the air, making me sneeze and snort. With a puff of the engine and a jolt of cars, we started on our way.

It was hard to balance against the rolling of the train. We all swayed and rocked together, like the fat women who danced in the lumber camps. Through day and night the train carried us on, stopping only when the engine was thirsty. I was thirsty too, but there was no water for me, though I heard it splashing out across the tracks at every watering place.

We traveled through forests that smelled of moss and mushrooms, reminding me of my first days. We crossed a range of stony hills, rattling over many bridges above rivers that roared and foamed. We went all the way to the ocean, and down to the docks where the Englishman was waiting.

His name, I learned, was Mr. Meares. He brought along a
doctor who looked us over and shook his head. The doctor told Mr. Meares that someone had pulled wool over his eyes, which seemed a strange thing to say. “They’re the poorest lot of animals I’ve ever seen,” he said. He pointed to a wheezy pony whose shoulders were crooked from pulling carts. “That one stays behind.”