A Kingdom in a Horse (3 page)

If I were rich, David thought suddenly, I’d have a place just for old hack horses. A big pasture and a good dry barn where they would live, never ridden, until they died from old age.

He looked away from one horse with a wide gash in its forehead from which fresh blood was flowing to join the rivulets of dried blood that reached its forelegs. He had been to many horse auctions, and he was always made furious by the sight of an animal that had been hurt in an overloaded trailer.

Making his way back through the passageway, now filled with people, he saw his father talking to the man with the cane. He wanted that mare more than anything he ever wanted in his life, even more than he wanted to be a rodeo clown. He could go up to his father now, apologize for what he had said about not wanting a horse. He could tell him that he’d pay him back if he were to buy that horse for him. He could even act like a kid and beg. This was his chance! His father was now petting the mare’s neck and looking down at her feet.

David bit his lower lip. He could do none of those things. He could not ask his father to forgive him, nor could he ask for the horse. If he did ask, and if he were given the horse he would once again feel chained to his father. By love and gratitude. A double burden. And he had learned how to do without burdens. He had learned how to live alone. He turned his back and walked away to the exit door.

The enclosure of the auction hall was packed by the time they reached the tiers of wooden seats. The seats formed a horseshoe above the auctioneer’s high desk and the sawdust floor. The tack was being sold from station wagons parked where the horses later on would be shown. They found seats in the highest tier and David sat a few feet away from his father, leaving a space in between, hoping that someone would separate them. No sooner had they sat down than an old lady did sit down between his father and him. He looked at her sideways, wondering what she could possibly be doing in this place filled with horse traders, camp owners and horse breeders. In her tweed suit she seemed very much out of place among the blue jeans and sport shirts which were worn even by the few women present.

“Could you help me?” David heard her whisper to his father.

“Sure, ma’am. What can I do for you?” his father answered immediately.

“I would like to buy something for a horse,” the old woman said, and David, glancing at her profile, noticed that she had blushed. “But I don’t seem to understand what is being sold and how to bid.”

“What would you like to buy?” Lee asked.

“Well …” she hesitated. “Everything that a horse might need.”

“What kind of a horse do you have? ”

“I haven’t got one. Not yet. That’s why I’m here. To buy one.”

“You’re sure putting the cart before the horse.” They both laughed at that, and David turned his face away from them and toward the auction floor.

“Are you looking for a western or an English horse?” Lee asked.

“I don’t know,” she whispered, and after a moment added, “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know the difference.”

David shifted in his seat, and the woman turned toward him and smiled. He did not return the smile but instead looked directly in front of him at a man who was reading a newspaper. What would an old woman want with a horse? he wondered angrily.

“Who are you buying the horse for?” his father asked, and he heard the woman catch her breath. David waited for her to answer, and when she finally did, her voice seemed louder than she had intended it to be.

“For myself.”

It was funny, David thought, but in a way that could not be laughed at. Her brave admission was a fine thing, the sort of thing adults rarely did. She could have lied.

“Then,” his father was saying, “I think I know the horse for you. I saw it a few minutes ago. It looked very gentle, and it’s a mare, not young, mind you, but she’s still got a lot of life in her. The man who was selling her said that she rides both English and western. I’d say you should get yourself a western saddle. They’re much more comfortable to ride in, and you can always get an English one later on.”

He was telling her about the chestnut mare! Ever since he had seen her, David had hoped desperately that something would happen, that something might be said, by his father or by him. He wanted that horse! It was exactly the kind of horse that he had always hoped he would meet and own. That horse alone would change his whole life. If he only had it, nothing would matter. He could go on living in Vermont forever. His school, the house, his father, he could no longer hate anything, he would no longer have time to hate. But his thoughts suddenly filled him with an angry sadness. He was mad at himself for wanting that animal so much, mad for being ready to be “bought” back into living happily. And he was sad because they were now talking about getting a used saddle and all the other things the mare would need. And he knew it was too late for wishing. The old woman and not he would have the mare.

“If you want,” his father was saying to the woman, “I’ll bid on the tack for you. I know a good buy when I see it. Although from up here it would be hard to tell. We should go down and stand by the auctioneer, and we could examine the things we buy.”

“Oh, could we do that?”

“Sure,” Lee said and leaned across the woman. “David, let’s go down.”

He did not look up at his father.

“I’d rather stay here,” he said.

“We’ll need you,” his father said with firmness, and David got up and followed them out.

“By the way,” his father said and extended his hand to the woman, “my name’s Lee Earl and that’s my son, David.”

“I’m Sarah Tierney,” she said, shaking his father’s hand. “Hello, David.” But he had already passed them and pretended not to have heard.

“This is a sort of busman’s holiday for me,” Lee said quickly as if to distract the woman from David’s impoliteness. “I do blacksmithing around Middle-bury.”

“Middlebury!” the woman cried happily. “It’s not far from where I live. I have a farm near Cornwall.”

“If you buy a horse then I’ll probably be shoeing it. There’s no one closer to you that I know of.”

“That’s marvelous!”

They had reached the auction floor.
“Abraduble-room!”
The auctioneer’s voice was loud, yet his face did not show the strain of all the shouting he had to do. Lee had moved closer to the men who were standing around the auctioneer’s raised desk. He was flipping over some used saddles and testing the leather on the bridles, and talking to those who were selling.

The woman turned toward David.

“Can you make out the words of the auctioneer?” she asked him.

“Sometimes,” he answered, not looking at her or at anything in particular. He felt more miserable now than ever.

“Sold to Lee Earl!” the auctioneer shouted, and to David’s and the woman’s surprise a portion of the crowd applauded, some calling out his name.

“Your father must be someone famous,” the woman said.

“He used to be in rodeos,” David said sullenly.

“Oh,” she said.

Lee was coming toward them carrying a large saddle and over it a blanket and a bridle.

“I got you a very good buy,” he said to the woman. Wordlessly David reached for the saddle and threw it over his shoulder. “You see, this is a Navaho blanket,” his father continued, speaking to the woman. “It’s soft and strong. Feel it. Sure, it’s used, but it will last a lifetime. And the bridle is in very good shape too.”

When they reached the mare, David didn’t want to look up at her. He kept his eyes on the ground, and yet he could not help seeing how wonderfully thin her legs were and how small the hoofs.

“This here’s the best animal of the lot,” the man with the cane was saying. He moved the horse around for the woman to see, and then suddenly, dropping his cane, he bent down and limped half bent under the horse’s belly and to the other side of it. He was smiling a toothless grin as he came back the same way. “Gentle as a puppy,” he said, lifting his cane. “You couldn’t do that with another horse that’s here.”

“What’s her name?” the woman wanted to know.

“I don’t know her name,” the man answered and spat some tobacco juice. “Lady, I only sell them. I don’t live with them. A private party wanted me to sell this here mare and I forgot to ask for her name.”

The mare turned her head and the woman saw the blue eye.

“Is she blind?” she asked.

“Nah,” the man said, “that’s what’s called a ‘watch eye.’ It’s very prized out West because a horse with an eye like that will see real good in the dark.” Suddenly the man touched David with his cane. “Hey, you! Jump up on her, from the rear if you can.”

The half-challenge, half-order was so unexpected that he stepped back, and then, quickly, did as he was told. I want to try her out, he thought, as he landed on the mare’s back, cushioning his weight with the palms of his hands and sliding onto the beat-up saddle.

He leaned for the reins; then barely touching them he neck-reined to the right, and the mare turned as sharply as he knew she would and sprung immediately into a canter. Although there were people in the passageway between the stalls, the horse ran as if she were in an open field, smoothly and fearlessly. Coming to the end of the barn, she turned left at the touch of the reins and David caught his breath at the speed of that turn. With hardly a command from him the mare came to a sharp stop a foot away from the woman. David gently pulled back on the reins, and the animal backed up immediately, going in a straight line as long as the reins were not loosened, and when they were, she walked slowly forward, lifting her feet high and tossing her neck.

David slipped off, gave the reins to the man, and approached his father.

“Can I go back to the truck now? “ he asked.

“You don’t want to see the auction?”

“I’ve got some books. I’d rather study now.” He didn’t look at his father nor at the woman.

“Okay,” his father said, “I’ll be around for another hour.”

He walked away very fast, without saying goodbye to the woman, without looking at the horse; and when he reached the truck he sat for a long while with his eyes closed, holding back the tears. And then, noiselessly, he began to cry.

They had loved each other for almost half a century. During all those years Sarah had not once thought of how it would be to live without her husband.

The morning after the funeral had seemed very quiet except for the noises of birds and the slight movement of the new foliage. It was still cool but the air was scented with spring and the sun was drying the muddy earth. Sarah stood on the porch of her farmhouse, which her father had built in the exact center of the rectangular property. The house was surrounded on one side by a grove of maple trees and on the other three sides by fields. When they had decided they could no longer farm the fields, they plowed them and planted grass. In the middle of the summer the grass stood high and green. In the fall it turned yellow from the goldenrod growing freely in it. Not far from the house and in the back of it, stood the large barn where they had once kept cows. It was freshly painted white, as was the fence that enclosed the pasture and the house itself.

Sarah began to walk toward a little hill, from the top of which she could see her land stretch until it reached the hills on three sides and the highway on the north side. Beyond that was the edge of a pine forest.

She had always considered this her total world. As a child she lived here with her parents and her older brother. Shortly after he was killed in the First World War her mother died. For a while there were only her father and she. At nineteen her life seemed to really begin, yet her world remained the same. She married Paul Tierney, and but for a brief honeymoon trip to New York City, they had always lived here. When her father died, he left the property to Paul, for he had grown to love him as much as if he were his own son. As Paul and Sarah had no children, their world remained within this rectangle. Beyond it lay a strange country Sarah only liked to visit, because her world’s center was here, and its axis was Paul. Now without him it seemed to her that she was in a strange and unfamiliar place.

She walked slowly back toward the house. She stopped by a square structure with three round windows. From the outside it looked somewhat like a little chapel. Once it had been a stable but for years it had been used as a storage place.

Suddenly she remembered something that she had completely forgotten. Her brother, when he was fifteen and she only eight, had had a horse. It was a black stallion with a white spot on its forehead. She could still see the animal quite vividly, and just as vividly she remembered crying in this stable.

Why did I cry, she tried to recall, unbolting the Dutch door of the stable. A shaft of light illuminated the dusty interior. There were tables and chairs and old trunks and picture frames. She walked inside the box stall and was amazed to see that it looked as if it were ready for a horse. It even had some straw covering the wooden floor, and there was no smell of mustiness. The feeder was still hanging in the corner.

She looked up toward one of the round windows with its network of shiny cobwebs. And now she remembered why it was that she had cried that day long ago. She had been forbidden by her brother even to come close to his horse and was told that she could never ride it. She had cried because she was jealous. She had cried because she wanted more than anything else to have a horse of her own.