A Kingdom in a Horse (9 page)

“I don’t know about this particular toothpaste,” Sarah said one day while brushing Gypsy’s teeth. “I tried it myself and didn’t care for the taste of it.”

Margaret laughed. “If there is still a place,” she said, “where they worship horses, you might find the competition rather keen, but in the Christian world I am sure there is no other horse more pampered than this old mare of yours.”

One day, after seeing her friend ride, Margaret asked, “Would you mind letting me
try?”

Sarah looked at her with amazement. “You? On a horse?”

“My skirt is wide enough for an elephant, so what seems to be the problem?”

She mounted by herself and did quite well at a walk, even better at a canter, always in full control of the animal, and seated more firmly in the saddle than Sarah.

“Where in heaven’s name did you learn to ride? I’ve known you all my life.”

“Except for one summer,” Margaret Evans reminded her. “The summer I went to Colorado to visit my aunt.”

“That was when you were fourteen, wasn’t it?”

“Fifteen.”

“And you rode out there?”

“Not only did I ride. I was given a horse.”

“You never told me! ”

“No, I never did.”

“But what happened? Why didn’t you bring the horse back to Cornwall with you? ”

Margaret Evans passed her hand gently over Gypsy’s neck. “I never brought it back,”—her voice was not the harsh one everyone knew; it was now low and sweet sounding— ‘because the day we were going to leave, my horse broke a leg.” She paused and then added very quickly, “I had to shoot it.”

“And you shot it yourself?”

“Yes, I shot it! It was my horse and it was I who had to do it. And that’s why I would never have another. And also that is why I was so mean when I found you’d bought a horse.”

Summer came and with it the fight against flies. The stable had to be sprayed and Gypsy rubbed down with a fly repellent. They would go out now in the early morning ör very late in the afternoon, not because of the Vermont heat but because of the deer-flies that seemed never to tire in their attack.

But summer was also a time of fun. For Gypsy it was the time of roaming free. She was no longer locked in the pasture behind a fence, but was given the freedom to go where she pleased. It was a time of rolling in the fragrant grass, of lying down for a sun-bath and a morning nap amidst the clover. It was a time of long days and short nights, a time of warmth and security.

For Sarah it was a time of discovery. She discovered that Gypsy did not mind at all sharing her hours of sunbathing. She would lie down alongside her horse, using its neck for a pillow, and fall asleep under the warm sun. She discovered Gypsy’s willingness to come into the house, and the kitchen became the place where both of them would have their afternoon snacks, Gypsy a bowlful of quartered apples and carrots and Sarah her tea. Often that summer Sarah would spend nights in the stable, sleeping on a cot, loving to see her horse lie down for the night, the great copper body in repose, deerlike in its beauty. Before falling asleep they would listen to the radio. Gypsy’s ears were only alert when jazz or popular songs were being played, but she seemed to pay no attention whatever to the news or the weather.

That summer, during their time of quiet happiness, Sarah also discovered that being a creature of habit she was very much like her horse. And both of them seemed to relish the tranquility of their existence.

For David it was the worst of summers. There was summer school and all that it meant, being cooped up while others swam and had fun and were free to do whatever came into their minds.

One day in the mail he received an invitation to the twins’ overnight birthday party. He had a whole week to think about it before he was supposed to call and accept or decline the invitation. All through that week he struggled with himself. He wanted to go and yet was unwilling to admit it, or he didn’t want to go and yet thought he should. Finally he picked up the phone. He coughed twice to clear his throat while he listened to the ring.

“I’d like to come to the party,” he said very fast, not even having noticed if the person who answered was a woman’s voice or one of the twins.

“Who is this?” a woman asked.

“David Earl. I got the invi—”

“What number are you calling?”

“Isn’t this 467?”

“No, it isn’t, dear. This is 457. Dial again.”

He didn’t.

He rushed out of the house, feeling humiliated, stupid, and angry at himself, and sat for hours in the dark garage thinking. He was a misfit, he decided. It was too late for him to join the rest of the world. He had even grown too far apart from boys his own age; he had nothing in common with them. He imagined how it would be if he had gotten the right number and had gone. He would mumble if someone spoke to him and he would have nothing to contribute to any of their conversations. What did they talk about, anyway?

Twice that summer Peter Pollock came to his house, once to ask him to go camping and another time to take him fishing, and he made excuses both times. When one of the twins broke a leg the other stopped by David’s house to see if he would like to enter a go-cart competition in his brother’s place. Again he made an excuse, and after that no one came to see him.

And now he only seemed to have Gypsy as a friend. He would often come to spy on her and the old woman. Seeing them together made him both miserable and happy. Miserable because he still wanted, more than anything else, to own Gypsy, and happy because he saw that she was loved as much as any horse could be loved. And because of that love he both hated and liked the woman.

He did not dare to ride Gypsy now, not while the woman spent so much time in the stable, even slept there at night. Sometimes he would wait, hoping that Sarah would go shopping and he could be alone with Gypsy long enough to ride her. But she hardly ever seemed to go away.

One day, on his way to summer school, he saw her Ford in front of the post office. He waited until she came out. She was dressed as if she were going somewhere, and to make sure, he came up to her.

“Hello, David,” she said, seeing him. ‘Tm on my way to Burlington, to get Gypsy some things she needs. Why don’t you ever come to see us?”

“I’m going to summer school,” he said.

“Oh, I’m sorry. But evenings are so long. Couldn’t you come riding one day?”

“Thank you,” he said quickly, his mind already on what he was going to do that day. “I will one evening.”

He Biked furiously all the way to Gypsy’s stable. He would have hours with her; he would ride her and talk to her and have his sandwich with her. And for at least one morning his life would be beautiful.

The presentiment of disaster came upon her suddenly. She had never been away from Gypsy for quite so long. Before leaving for Burlington she decided to leave Gypsy in the stable since it looked as if it might rain. She had been gone for over five hours, and stopping in Cornwall for two boxes of lettuce, she suddenly felt that something was wrong. She scanned the sky for any sign of fire. That was her first thought, that somehow the house or even the stable had caught fire, but the sky looked gray and ominous with rain clouds and no smoke was visible anywhere.

She drove fast, skidding on the turns of the dirt road. She rushed into the stable and immediately saw that her intuition was right. Gypsy was out of her stall, standing over an empty basket which had been filled with corn Sarah had got from Margaret’s garden a few days ago. The horse looked heavy, her stomach distended, her big eyes listless. Every ear of corn was gone.

“Oh, Gypsy, I didn’t lock the gate!” Sarah wailed, leading the heavy-footed horse into her stall.

She rushed to the house and called Lee Earl.

“Gypsy has gotten into some corn,” she cried out, tears streaming down her face. “She looks very sick.”

“How many ears did she eat?”

“Three dozen.”

“That’s bad. She’ll probably get colic unless you walk her. Just keep walking her. Don’t give her any water to drink, just keep walking her. If she wants to lie down, and she probably will, don’t let her! Kick her, hit her, but don’t let her lie down. Once she lies down she’s as good as dead. Horses can’t fight, or don’t want to fight, for their lives. They’ll just lie and wait for death. Don’t let her lie down. Keep walking her.”

“Will you come over? ”

“I can’t now. I must go and shoe some horses which have to be shipped to a show tomorrow. But Gypsy’ll be all right if you walk her, and I’ll come as soon as I can.”

“Shouldn’t I call the vet?”

“The vet won’t walk her for you and that’s the best remedy. If she looks like she wants to lie down, put a rope around her neck and pull her up. I’ve heard of horses getting into twice that much corn and coming through.”

Sarah rushed back into the stable, praying that she would not find Gypsy already lying down. Gypsy was standing, but the look on her face told Sarah how ill she felt. Putting a halter on her, Sarah took Gypsy out and began to walk her.

“Oh, my darling,” Sarah was saying, tears running now uncontrollably from her eyes. “I couldn’t bear it if anything were to happen to you. Why is it that I didn’t check that gate? What made me forget? And why did you have to eat all that corn? Corn is bad for you—I knew that—but it was to be a treat, an ear at a time. No, keep your head up, and keep on walking, my love.”

The rain came slowly, the drops small and falling far apart. But the sky darkened and it started to rain in earnest. In Burlington she had looked for a rain blanket for Gypsy but couldn’t find one. She got out an old horse blanket that Father Connen had talked someone into giving him, and put it on top of Gypsy to keep her dry. She herself was soon soaked to the skin, and she shivered as she continued talking to her horse.

“We’re not young anymore, you and I. But the time hasn’t come for either one of us to die. We’ll see a winter together, we’ll keep warm together, and then, together, we’ll welcome spring. … I don’t blame you for eating that corn. I blame myself. Don’t think I’m mad at you. I could never be angry at you. I should never leave you, not even for a little while.”

Before Lee left to shoe the show horses, he told David what had happened to Gypsy. The boy waited until his father’s truck pulled out of the driveway before getting on his bicycle and starting off for the old woman’s house. The rain caught him halfway. He had wanted to admit to the woman that it had been his fault, that it was he who had left the stall gate open, but the closer he got to her house the harder it became to confess this. If he did, he would have to admit to sneaking into the stable, to riding Gypsy in secret. He would have to admit to spying on the two of them. He was ashamed now of the secretiveness of his actions and especially ashamed to confront the woman.

Huddled against the rain next to the wall of the stable, afraid to move, afraid of what he had done, hating himself for his cowardice, he heard each word the woman said to her horse. He knew he should come out, help the woman, take over walking Gypsy. Yet he could not move, and he despised himself for the strength of his fear.

The dark of night came earlier, with the sun hidden by layers of thick, black clouds. They continued walking in the enclosure of the pasture. The rain fell steadily. It was ten o’clock before Sarah gave up. She could not take another step. Her arms were so weary from holding Gypsy’s head up that they were numb with pain; her knees were buckling under her. She brought Gypsy into the stable, lit the kerosene lamp, took off the soaking-wet blanket, and rushed into the house to call the veterinarian.

David had only a few moments alone with Gypsy. He was crying as he tried to rub her dry with feed bags, not able to say anything to the horse, for in the soft light of the lamp she looked very ill, and her appearance filled him with dread.

He heard the woman’s footsteps on the gravel outside and barely had time to duck behind the rocking chair.

“He is on his way, darling,” Sarah said to Gypsy, stroking her. “The doctor will be here soon. I’ll sit right here beside you, but you, you must keep on standing. We won’t walk anymore. You need a rest too. It’s so dark and wet outside.”

She shivered, and David could see that her clothes were completely soaked. To keep from falling asleep the woman talked to her horse, and the more she talked the more ashamed David felt of listening, for it seemed to him that he was overhearing private words of love. And before the doctor arrived, David’s shame turned into a lashing self-hatred.

“Walking her,” the veterinarian said to the woman,

“saved her from colic. She’ll be all right after I give her a shot, an enema, and some medicine. You better go in and change your clothes, and if you have some whiskey in the house, take a slug. I’ll attend to everything here.”

David watched the doctor from his hiding place and did not think much of the way he worked. He knew a bad vet from a good one by the way they approached the animals more than by anything else. This one was obviously afraid. He wanted to shout to him that Gypsy was a very gentle mare, the gentlest horse in the world, but he did not. When the vet took out the large needle and syringe, David looked away. He couldn’t bear to watch as the vet gave Gypsy a shot in the neck.