Wild Horse Spring (6 page)

Lynne and Daddy were going to be gone almost the
whole day. I could tell Diana was ecstatic but trying to act very calm at the same time. My mouth felt dry.

“Now, I want you girls to put on sunscreen before going down on the beach.”

Daddy came out of the bedroom wearing his favorite green Masters golf hat. He carried his golf shoes as well as Lynn’s. Lynn hadn’t played golf until she met Daddy. Daddy said she’d picked up the game really fast, but Lynn kept saying she wasn’t very good.

“And no swimming,” he said, “since we won’t be here.”

“Daddy, the water’s freezing,” I said. “We’d have to be crazy to go in.”

“And you can hang around the house and on the beach area nearby, but no wandering off looking for horses or anything like that,” Lynn said. She pulled her hair into a thin ponytail and slid on her golf visor. “Understand, Diana?” She raised her eyebrows.

“Yes.” Diana didn’t make eye contact with Lynn.

“Okay, give me a hug,” Lynn said. She wrapped her arms around me, patting me on the back a few times, and then moved the Cheerios box and hugged Diana, kissing the top of her head. Diana focused on balancing a spoonful of Cheerios, ignoring her.

“All right,” Norm said, his hand on the door handle.

“We’ll call from the turn. Hey, maybe you could even start memorizing your poems for school today.”

“Oh, Daddy!” I said.

“Well, you’ve got to do it sometime. Anyway, if things go well today, we’ll be much more likely to trust you girls to be on your own later in the week.”

“Have a good game,” I said.

The door slammed. The minute the car started down below, Diana threw her spoon into the air. “Yes! Five hours alone!”

“Whoo-hoo!” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic. But what would Diana do? “Are you going down to the beach?” I asked her. “I’ll wait for you if you want.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “You go ahead.”

I stared at her. “Aren’t you going to come down?”

“Sure,” she said. “Later.”

I was sure Diana was up to something. She always was. I almost said something to her. But then I decided,
I’m just not going to, I’m just going to go down on the beach and read my book
. Maybe Cody would come talk to me.

“See you down there,” I said.

I
went upstairs and put on shorts, a T-shirt, and running shoes. This was my chance. Downstairs, I got a bottle of water and took a big swig. Then I stuffed a couple of apples and carrots into a plastic bag and went out the front door, jogging down the path toward where I’d last seen the horses.

Eventually, Stephanie would figure out that I wasn’t coming. I would be back before Mom and Norm got back from golf, and they would never know. I probably wouldn’t even have to go that far.

In
The Black Stallion,
the boy had taken a long time to get close to the stallion. Today, I had five whole hours. I could accomplish a lot in that time.

I hurried through the first stand of gnarled trees, ignoring the way the branches seemed to reach out and claw at me like long-fingered arms. As I ran along, moving farther from the beach, the soil changed. Underneath the top layer of white sand, the soil was dark and loamy.

The path wound around a few curves, leading deeper into the forest. An SUV passed me, and I kept running. It was warmer today, and I was soon sweating.

I thought about the last time I’d seen Dad, over last year’s spring break. The thought of seeing him made my chest tighten and my cheeks go hot. How would he be? Would he be in one of his jovial, funny moods? Would he pay attention to me, or ignore me, like last time? I had told myself that it was cool last time I visited, because he let me do anything I wanted. I asked if I could taste his beer, and he told me I could have one. I got one out of the fridge, but then I took one taste and changed my mind. Another time I wanted to walk to a shopping center down the highway, and he didn’t say a word about it being dangerous. Then Stephanie said he probably let me do that because he was basically ignoring me.

Why did I care so much about making him notice me, anyway?

Mom had told me a million times not to get my hopes up about him calling. But it seemed like this time he had sounded different.

When I got to a jagged Y-shaped piece of driftwood, I angled farther from the water and deeper into the maritime forest. The scrub pines, yaupon bushes, and live oaks became thicker. I slowed way down because running was a lot harder. Some of the sand was deep, and large puddles had formed across the beaten-down road.

My lungs burned. My calves ached. A damp coating of sweat and salt covered my entire body. I hadn’t realized how much longer this was than my usual cross country course. And it was late morning, a fairly stupid time to run, if I did say so myself.

But no matter how much my muscles hurt after a run, my mood was always fantastic. About a ten on the Moronic Mood-o-Meter. On days we had cross country practice, I sometimes forgot to take my mood pills. I started feeling so good, I didn’t need them, like a kind of cool brain buzz, like right now. I felt like nothing could stop me.

It had been almost a full day since I’d seen the horses. They could be miles away. But I was counting on them being out around here somewhere. I wouldn’t give up until I found them.

Pretty soon I had to slow down to a walk. The sand had turned fluffy, and it sucked my feet down into it like a drain. Panting, and pushing sweaty tendrils of hair back from my face, I finally found the packed-down road we’d been on yesterday. I climbed it to the top of a dune. And before me lay rolling sand hills dotted with the small scrub pines and sea grasses that the wild horses had learned to eat.

Off to my right stood some houses on stilts with old, faded looking cars sitting outside. Nailed to trees around the yards were black and red signs reading No Trespassing and Keep Out.

No horses anywhere.

At the top of the next dune, I sat down, took off my shoes, and poured a bunch of sand out of each one.

I put my shoes back on and wandered farther. The sun blazed above me, and away from the water the breeze died away to nothing, so the air sat heavy as a blanket. My mouth felt like cotton, and my teeth gritted on sand. When beads of sweat rolled out of my hair and into my eyes, I swiped them away, but it didn’t stop the burning.

I decided to walk over one more dune. See what was on the other side. If I didn’t see anything, I’d turn back.

There! Gathered in the shade of a huge live oak with twisting branches and small, dark, shiny leaves, six
of them. The black stallion, the foal, which I was now calling Dark Angel, and its mother. The younger sorrel stallion that looked a little like a palomino. And two other mares. I stood, catching my breath, watching. The air was still, and they twitched their ears and swished their long tails, shooing flies. They looked like a family, all grazing on this rugged land together. The stallion raised his head and looked at me. He seemed to be considering whether I was a threat. I stood still, angling my head away, not making eye contact, so I didn’t look like a predator. I’d read in one of my horse books about relating to horses like that. He lowered his head again to graze.

Moving slowly, I sat down, took a swig of my water, and removed the baggie with the apples and carrots from my pocket.

I was dying to get closer and see if I could touch one of the horses, but I patiently sat and watched. The mustangs had a loose, rhythmic walk that I could watch all day. Just being around them made me feel relaxed. They were small, but their proportions were so perfect. I loved watching the pecking order in a herd, just like the pecking order in a group of kids at school. The black stallion was in charge of the group. The younger sorrel stallion was full of energy, circling a small bay mare, while Dark Angel followed her mother around
like a shadow, wobbling on her skinny, knobbed legs, staying close to her mother’s shoulder, her slanted, brown eyes never leaving her. The mother was caring in a tough sort of way, nuzzling Dark Angel and making sure she was always with her.

I slowly moved the slightest bit closer, imagining the joy of the moment I first touched one of them. The young sorrel stallion caught my attention. He was spirited, breaking into a canter, whirling, and throwing heel kicks. He circled behind the small bay mare, lowering his head and trying to herd her.

I loved his spirit. I named him Firecracker.

Just as I moved a bit closer, the black stallion trotted over to Firecracker, lowered his head, and tried to separate him from the mare. Firecracker trotted a few yards away and then wove his way back in the bay’s direction. The stallion’s ears snapped erect. He lowered his head and pawed the ground.

The other mares moved a slight distance away, the mother nudging the foal along. In a matter of seconds, I realized that I was now watching the two stallions, the black and the young sorrel, face off. The black stallion was reclaiming the bay mare.

Suddenly, with a screeching whinny, the black laid back his ears, rose on his hind legs, and lunged at the sorrel. Their bodies, as they collided, made a sickening
thudding sound. Firecracker stumbled backward, then whirled and rose to his hind legs, kicking up clouds of sand, his teeth bared.

The two pawed, kicked, and twisted their heads, each trying to reach the other’s jugular vein. The sounds were awful—the thud of their bodies colliding, their screams and grunts, the battering of their hooves on the ground. Swirling dust rose into the air. I held my breath, taking one step forward and then two back. At one point both of the black’s front hooves rested on the sorrel’s withers, just like they were dancing.

But they weren’t. They were trying to kill each other.

The struggle continued, with high-pitched whinnies and sand exploding from their hooves, until at last the black sank his teeth into Firecracker’s neck. Firecracker squealed in pain and wrenched himself away. Then the black raced back to the herd, pawing the ground, bucking, and tossing his head. Firecracker, after standing uncertainly for a moment, doggedly began to make his way back toward the herd, with his head lowered. The black wheeled and charged again, reared on his hind legs, and again aimed his teeth at the front of Firecracker’s neck. Firecracker tried to pull away, but when the black’s entire weight fell on him, his rear legs crumpled underneath. After a few long seconds, the black disentangled himself from Firecracker and
galloped back to the herd. Firecracker dragged himself to his feet and trotted away, shaking his head as if to clear it.

Was the black kicking Firecracker out of the herd? I had read in my horse books that when one of the mare’s colts became old enough, he sometimes would challenge the stallion who led the group. When this happened, whichever stallion loses the challenge would then be shunned from the group and be out on his own. Was Firecracker being shunned? I had read that the herd was everything to a wild horse. Wild horses knew that surviving without the safety of the herd was practically impossible. Would Firecracker survive? Would he find another herd?

Now the black was herding the mares and the foal away from Firecracker. He circled behind them, urging them toward a marshy area on the other side of the trees. I stared at Firecracker, holding my breath, as he stood looking longingly at the harem. Again he shook his head, and his straw colored mane feathered in the wind. He took a step toward the other horses, then pawed the ground with his small, neat hoof, and lowered his head again. My throat tightened and my eyes stung as I watched him.

Even though I never talked to anyone about it, I knew that feeling. I felt shunned at school. Like when
people were talking about me behind my back, calling me “Animal.”

Stephanie knew about my mood pills, but nobody else knew. Sometimes I worried that people would find out, but I was pretty sure she hadn’t told.

Firecracker began to nibble at the sea grass a short distance from the herd, occasionally cocking one ear in the direction of the others. He took two steps toward them, then one step back.

I followed Firecracker, a little distance behind. Did he have a wound on his neck? Was he losing blood? What would happen to him? Would he battle his way back into the herd, or would he find another one?

He’d need strength. Now was the time to offer him the apples and carrots.

After an hour, I was sitting on a fallen log within ten feet of Firecracker. He was grazing along the side of the path, following the herd at a distance, never letting the rest of them out of his sight. I had finally gotten close enough to see that on the side of Firecracker’s neck was a wound from the stallion’s bite, and a thin stream of blood crawled through the fur on his neck toward his foreleg. Slowly, I got to my feet and held out half an apple at arm’s length in the flat of my hand. I stood very still and talked to him.

“Are you doing okay? That’s a good boy. How about
a nice, juicy apple. I promise I will never hurt you. Here.”

Firecracker slowly raised his head and snorted softly. I held very still, so I wouldn’t spook him. His nostrils quivered as he smelled the apple.

He looked at me with tired, wary eyes and cautiously stretched out his slim, damaged neck, his velvety lip beginning to wrinkle.

F
or a while, I sat on the beach by myself. The tide was out, and the beach was wide and flat, with a few other families sitting under umbrellas. I had set up my chair near a tide pool that had collected in a low spot on the beach, then went down and stuck my toes in it. I loved tide pools. The were usually warmer than the water, and sometimes I could see little critters digging into the sand on the bottom, sending tiny bubbles squiggling to the surface. It was like its own little world.

While I waited for Diana, my mind kept going over the last day of school before break, about the way one of the eighth grade football players had called her Annn-i-MAL while we were in the hall between classes. I didn’t know if she heard him. I wanted to keep ignoring it. That would be the easiest thing to do. But maybe not the right thing. I mean, what would I say if I was to stand up for her? And it’s not as if she wanted my help. She barely talked to me at school! I didn’t want to think about it.