Son, the letter began with a smile between the lines, I can’t quote Shakespeare like one owner I train for, but I can quote old reinsman Hiram Woodruff. He used to say: “Keep ’em silk-mouthed. Then you can play upon the reins like a harper upon the strings and your horse will answer every touch with the music of feet and wheels.” That’s what we’re trying to do with your filly—keep her silk-mouthed.
And so the month spent itself, Gibson living on telephone calls and letters. It turned out that the bookmobile lady had indeed gone off with the book. She came hurrying in one day, holding it out to him, slim fingers fluttering her apologies.
“Oh, you poor, poor boy. I’m truly sorry. And now the book on boxing I simply can’t locate.” She kept saying her apologies over and over, while Gibson hunted for his place, trying to tell her it did not matter at all.
4: Crowbait
The hard fall jolted William Rysdyk to his senses. He scrambled to his feet in time to see the mare going for the river at a full gallop, Mister Seely riding hard to head her off.
‘Whoa-oa!’ called William Rysdyk, running, stumbling, breaking through the underbrush. ‘Whoa-oa, girl!’ he kept calling.
And then all of a sudden the steamboat that had been gliding so swanlike downstream let go an ear-splitting blast. Pitchy smoke and sparks of fire spurted from her funnel. To the mare it must have seemed the end of the world.
Rearing and wheeling in panic, she flew back toward the road, only to be met by a traveling peddler who had joined the pursuit. He was brandishing a rifle, flaying the air like a windmill. Fear rooted the mare. On all sides she was threatened. The monstrous whistling boat on her right, Sir Luddy charging on her left, and now this live windmill coming straight at her.
Only one sound tried to soothe. ‘Whoa-oa, girl. Whoa-oa, girl,’ came William Rysdyk’s singsong as he slowed toward her.
Like a weathercock when the wind turns she skewed in his direction. But all in a split second her bad leg caught in a tree root and she fell screaming in the brush, thrashing and struggling.
As she lay wedged in a little hollow where scrub willow grew rank, the three men stood over her, shaking their heads. It took all three to tear and cut the brush away and roll her onto her belly.
With a low moan she got to her feet and stood there, her face full of suffering, her body drenched in sweat.
‘Now my advice,’ twanged the peddler in mock sympathy, ‘is to put the old girl out o’ her misery. She’s old and spavined. Nothing but crowbait. Tell ye what I’ll do,’ he said, fondling the barrel of his rifle. ‘I’ll help ye with the unpleasant business. Then I’ll show ye my wares. Got some mighty fine clocks and firearms.’
A little shivering went over the mare. Her lower lip hung loose and trembling. She tried to put her weight on the hurt leg, then flinched in pain.
‘I fear the peddler is right,’ agreed Mister Seely, still puffing from exertion. ‘It is the merciful thing to do.’
The mare’s eyes looked at William Rysdyk, and he caught his own reflection in their soft reproach. ‘Please, sir,’ he said, turning to Mister Seely. ‘Why do we got to do this?’ He cast about him for some excuse and found it in the setting sun. ‘Look, sir. It comes already evening. Her hock only is outgiven. She could hobble with us along to a farmhouse maybe. There I make her a bed up. Tomorrow we see how goes it with her.’
It was a long speech for William Rysdyk. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, waiting to hear what Mister Seely would say.
‘Well, now,’ replied Mister Seely, loosening his cravat, ‘it will do no harm to wait. Hasty actions are oft regretted. Come. Let us proceed.’
The peddler whistled between his wide-set teeth. ‘Crowbait!’ he spat, as if the word took in men and mare both. Disgustedly, he walked over to the road, picked up his wares, and stalked off.
The first farmhouse that came into view could have been a hovel for all it mattered to the weary travelers. But it was, instead, a homey place nosing up out of lilac bushes and honeysuckle. The farmer, a tall, loose-jointed man, had to stoop a little to come out of his doorway. He walked toward them jerkily, as if his legs and arms worked from puppet strings.
After welcoming the strangers, he examined the swelling on the mare’s hock. ‘’Pears to me like she’s old and done for,’ he said. ‘But she’s more’n welcome to a bundle of hay and a bed in my cow barn.’
‘We shall be grateful to you,’ Mister Seely answered tiredly.
‘Tsk,’ the farmer said, suddenly remembering, ‘Hetty, my woman, would like fer you folks to stay, too. Our house,’ he laughed, ‘looks little but she bulges fer comp’ny.’
Then he thought a moment. ‘You ain’t asked it, I know, but we got us a pined cemetery for our own animals down the road a piece.’ He thumbed toward the mare. ‘If she ain’t better by morning, ye’re welcome to my musket. And you can leave her there a-sleepin’ if you got a mind to.’
‘Why is it always got to be a shooting?’ William Rysdyk kept asking himself as he made a warm bran poultice and tied up the mare’s leg. ‘Why is it?’
Neither he nor Mister Seely did justice to the plain supper of wheaten bread, fresh butter, and stewed pumpkin which the farmer’s wife set out for them. And they were both up at dawn, hoping some miracle had happened in the night.
There had been no miracle. The mare lay on her side, quite still. When the men talked to her, she struggled to rise, moaning low in her throat. It was with great difficulty that William Rysdyk and the farmer boosted her to her feet.
‘Rysdyk,’ Mister Seely said, his face strained with emotion, ‘I’m loath to ask what needs doing. But it is better this way. Better for her to sleep in a piney woods than to end her days pulling a butcher’s wagon. You did not know her when she was a spirited filly, as I did. Will you do it for me? I’ll saddle Sir Luddy while you are gone and meet you down the road.’
‘Ach, wait! Wait!’ William Rysdyk began, but this time he could think of no reason for waiting. His strength suddenly washed out of him. Never in his life had he killed an animal. He who could jack up a wagon with his hands while weaker men rolled the wheel in place, stood limp as a string of herbs.
‘I’ll fetch my musket,’ the farmer said with a nervous jerking of his arms. He was in and out of the house, and still William Rysdyk stood.
But at last the waiting seemed worse than the doing. He made himself fasten the lead strap to the mare’s halter, made himself shoulder the long-barreled musket. With set face he led her down the path between the lilacs. He watched her head bent almost to her knees, watched her hobbled, painful step. Without knowing he was doing it, he too limped to her rhythm.
When she struck the road, however, an astonishing change came over her. She began to limber up and her head lifted in interest, sifting the scents and sounds. As they went on toward the conical trees she was walking more firmly than the man who led her, almost pulling him along.
At the entrance to the little clearing in the pines, William Rysdyk halted. ‘By golly!’ he cried out, determination in his eyes, ‘I will not shoot her dead. Here’s a mare who will stay in the life!’
He faced about and the mare followed him back to the road, nickering when she caught sight of Sir Luddy ambling toward them. As the two horses met and snuffed nostrils, William Rysdyk looked up between Sir Luddy’s ears, directly into Mister Seely’s face. ‘Butcher’s nag goes sound, sir. She comes with us along, please could be?’
Mister Seely blew his nose loud as a trumpet, then made a soft sound in his throat as if he wanted to talk but couldn’t.
‘She will have it pleasant with us? Yah, sir?’
The misted eyes could only nod.
‘And when deep winter comes and we have it cold and the ground lies shut and hard—she gets shelter? Yah, sir?’
‘Yah it is!’ Mister Seely laughed through his tears.
5: Rat-Tail Abdallah
The trip home to Sugar Loaf was slower than the trip to New York. William Rysdyk walked
all the way, except downhill. Then Mister Seely dismounted and led the mare while his hired man rode Sir Luddy.
The two men had little to say to each other. There was a bond between them now that made words unnecessary. They let the mare plod along at her own pace, let her stop to rest, nodding on three legs whenever she had a mind to. Meanwhile, William Rysdyk took off his boots and yarn stockings and cooled his aching feet in the grass. After a little while man and mare would be ready to start off again.
At the journey’s end it was the men and Sir Luddy who seemed travel weary. The mare appeared a little gaunt and she favored one leg, but her spirit was game.
As they turned into the Seely lane, Sir Luddy gave a loud and joyful neigh. ‘Here,’ he snorted quite plainly, ‘is Home! Green grass growing where grass should grow and shade where shade should be and snug horse barns with doors thrown wide to the sun.’
In the weeks that followed, William Rysdyk was a boy with his first pet. He was boy and nurse and doctor too. He pulled off the mare’s shoes. He trimmed her bruised and broken hoofs and rubbed them with goose grease. At night he led her down to the drainage ditch, and making a cup of his hands bathed the swollen hock with cool water. Then he turned her loose to stand barefoot in the dewy grass.
There were so many little ways in which William Rysdyk cared for the mare. He crushed her oats and ground her corn, knowing her old nippers and tushes were too worn to grind the hard kernels. And when he found she liked milk, he brought her each evening a little piggin of it, still fragrant and warm.
‘Egad!’ Mister Seely remarked one day as he saw her capering about in the pasture lot. ‘She grows most pleasant to look upon—her coat glossed, her eye clear and bold.’
‘Yah! She feeds hearty, sir,’ nodded William Rysdyk proudly. ‘Soon it comes time to step her on the road.’
Mister Seely ruminated a moment, roughing up his muttonchop whiskers. ‘Hook her up now, Rysdyk. We’ll see how she goes.’
Once out on the road the Kent mare threw a challenge to every horse they met. She seemed unable to abide hoofbeats behind or hoofbeats ahead. She took the bit and raced down the pike as if she were trotting the Union Course. Then, with the brush over, she hobbled home, moaning in pain. It was plain to see she would never go the distances again.
And so fingers pointed and heads wagged and voices laughed to scorn. ‘Ho-ho! A prize Alderney bull for a broken-down butcher’s nag!’ The words had a sting to them.
Winter came and the ground lay ‘shut and hard’ as William Rysdyk had said it would. And the mare was given shelter.
Her purple-brown eyes, sometimes vixenish, sometimes sad, laid a kind of spell on Mister Seely and his hired man. But they were alone in their feelings. The townfolk could not see in her the look of eagles. It was not given everyone to see. Even Mistress Seely regarded the Kent mare as a bad bargain, taking money from her own till, money that might better have been spent on new carpeting or tea plates, or even a fur muff.
Winter shuffled off and spring came mincing in. And one early June afternoon when William Rysdyk arrived at Sugar Loaf to do the chores, he found Mister Seely sitting on a pile of logs beside the smoke house. ‘Sit down, Rysdyk,’ he said, waving his arm toward the logs as if offering a fine plush chair.
William Rysdyk sat. No words were spoken. Nothing happened. Impatiently, he crossed and uncrossed his legs. He had the Jerseys and the Alderneys to bring home. The milking to do. The horse stalls to clean. Then the same chores to be done for his other employer, Mister Townsend.
‘I’ve news,’ Mister Seely said at last, taking off his hat and letting the wind pick up his milkweed hair.
‘News? So?’
‘Aye, my brother Ebenezer was here this day.’
What news was that! Ebenezer, a brother, comes. ‘Comes he not often, sir?’ William Rysdyk asked.
‘Aye. But this day he had the stallion, Old Abdallah, with him.’
‘Old Abdallah?’
‘Old Abdallah. And this day of June, eighteen hundred and forty-eight, the Kent mare was bred to him.’
‘To Old Abdallah!’ William Rysdyk tried to swallow his resentment. It was done, and now no need to make questions, but in his mind he was seeing the coarse and ugly stallion, and the words spat themselves out. ‘Why, he is old as the Sugar Loaf Mountain, sir.’
Mister Seely laughed hollowly. ‘Not that old, Rysdyk.’
‘Is he not over the twenty-five, sir?’
‘Aye.’
William Rysdyk stood up. He began stripping the bark from the logs, venting his anger on them. ‘The mare is a horse whereon you can be proud, sir. But Old Abdallah . . .’ he could think of no words strong enough. ‘Old Hollow-Back! Old Rat-Tail!’
‘Aye,’ the answering voice was quiet.
‘A big homely head he has.’
Mister Seely nodded.
‘And hardly no more hairs in his tail as a naked stick.’
‘I, too, have noted the scraggly tail.’
‘And his temper it is fierce, sir.’
‘That it is,’ agreed Mister Seely, remembering.
A cat came sidling along, thinning herself against Mister Seely’s legs. William Rysdyk saw Abdallah in the cat. His voice rose. ‘That Abdallah has cat hams, sir.’
‘So he has. I’d never thought of it just like that. But,’ Mister Seely’s voice firmed, ‘you forget two things, Rysdyk. He can trot. And his dam was a Thoroughbred.’
The words floated over and around the hired man, unnoticed. ‘And ears so big he has, with sharp points.’ Suddenly William Rysdyk clapped his hands to his own ears. He smiled a little. ‘I must to the chores now,’ he said. ‘I feel myself not good.’
Mister Seely’s eyes were on the distance. ‘When the colt is born, Rysdyk, you’ll forget all about Old Ab. Good night.’
The hired man forced a nod. Heavy-legged, he trudged off toward the upland pasture. ‘Till seeing,’ he said. ‘When the colt comes . . .’ The words tailed off into nothing.
Fourteen
INTERRUPTIONS! Gnat-like interruptions. Little but time-suckers. Always, it seemed to Gibson, when the story was most exciting—a runaway floundering through bramble and brush, a mare going to foal—always then the book had to be laid aside. Rest. Eat. Study. But in his resting and eating and studying half of him went on with the story, building it in his mind, making it come out right.
Only when letters came from his father did the book characters slide into the past where they belonged. Then he was himself, Gibson White, owner of the filly Rosalind, bred and born to trot.
The letters all began the same, like a tune bursting because it couldn’t be held in. Your filly . . . your filly . . . your filly . . .
Your filly’s the trottingest little piece of horseflesh ever looked through a bridle.
Your filly hasn’t shed the long hair under her belly, but already she knows the breaking cart is harmless as the whip.
Your filly’s training to order. Took her out on the track today. She went around the turns like a hoop around a barrel!
Your filly punches her legs up and out until the rhythm kind of takes your breath. No daisy cutter, this one. Action high. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a youngster like her.
Your filly can count! Three times around the track and she knows it’s quits—pulls toward the stable to remind me.
Your filly’s game and plucky. If you as owner request we don’t hurry her training, she’ll be a two-minute trotter and earn her keep.
Gibson wired at once.
REQUEST YOU DO NOT HURRY ROSALIND. DON’T RUSH HER.
GIBSON WHITE
A day later his father replied.
YOUR INSTRUCTIONS RECEIVED. WE ARE PROCEEDING EASILY WITH ROSALIND. NOT DOGGING THE HEART OUT OF HER.
BEN WHITE
One afternoon when time came for Gibson to rest, he made his eyes turn away from the open hasp of the book, away from his bulletin board, too. To hurry the slow ticking of the clock, he began countin
g the flowers in the wallpaper. They were big cabbage roses, each with two leaves. He counted all of them, including the number of leaves. Then he began on the split flowers where the strips of paper were joined.
Suddenly he heard the knob turn quietly in the door and a voice whisper, “You awake?”
He turned to see Dr. Mills tiptoeing sheepishly into the room, as if any moment he expected a nurse to tweak him out by the ear. His glance fell on the book with the hasp open.
“Like it, Gib?”
“It’s the best I ever read. Only . . .”
“Only what?”
“Only,” Gibson sat up, pummeling his pillow, “I get interrupted all the time. Silly things—like papering a circular room for a Mr. Anderson who doesn’t exist, and taking baths when I had one yesterday, and resting when I’m not tired.”
“How far are you?”
“The Kent mare’s just been bred to Old Abdallah. Does she get a good colt? Or is she too old?”
“Gib—”
“Yes, Doc?”
“Will you turn out your light a half hour earlier tonight if I let you read now?”
“Oh, Doctor Mills! Sure I will.”
“Then hop to it.”
6: The Foaling Spot
William Rysdyk worked in a wrath of energy, hoping the harder he worked the faster time would go; hoping, too, it would help him forget that no-account Abdallah.
Almost a year to wait for the foal!
Slowly the days piled one on top of the other. Days of stooping and lifting and dragging stones to clear a new field for Mister Townsend. Days of plowing and cross-harrowing and pulverizing the land. Days of scattering seed until the very sockets of his arms ached. Rainy days and dusty ones. And blistering days when his beard dripped sweat. Days of making hay when he stopped only to let the work horses blow or to put the nosebag on them. He, too, was a work horse. At night when he pulled off his boots and stockings it sometimes surprised him to see feet and ankles instead of hoofs and hairy fetlocks.