Pony, Page 3

  1

  I KNOW THIS WILL SEEM UNLIKELY, but I remember the day my mother died. I was in her stomach for most of it, and I could hear her heart beating like a wild little bird as she labored. And when I finally came into Being, Pa put me in her arms and I squirmed and she smiled, but the wild bird in her was fixing to fly by then, so she handed me back to Pa just before her soul left her body. I saw it with my baby eyes, and I remember it now, clear as day, how her soul rose like smoke from a blaze.

  I know, upon hearing this, you may be tempted to think that Mittenwool somehow painted the picture of my nativity in my own recollections, but that is not the case. I remember it piercingly well. Mama’s eyes and her smile, tired as she was, aggrieved that she could not pass more time with me in this world.

  I don’t know why I was thinking about the circumstances of my birth as I rode away from my house. It is strange, the places one’s mind goes to in unruly times. I must have been thinking about Mama even before I left the house, for why else would I have taken her Bavarian violin with me, on what I thought would be only minor travels? There it was, hanging in its case on a hook near the door, where it had hung for twelve years, never opened, always treasured, and without rhyme or reason, I snatched it from the hook and took it with me as I left. My hands, mind you, were already carrying a coil of rope and a knife and a canteen of water and a sack filled with bread and salted meat, which all made sense for me to take on my journey. But a violin? That made no sense. All I can think is that maybe life knows where it’s going before you do sometimes, and somewhere deep inside me, in the rooms of my heart, I knew that I would not be coming home again.

  2

  THE PONY AMBLED SLOW ENOUGH through the tall grassy fields that Mittenwool could walk at an unhurried pace right next to us, but Argos was not interested in keeping up. No matter how much I pleaded for him to hurry, nor how many times I clicked my tongue for him to come, my one-eared dog followed us indifferently in that droopy-legged way of his. Finally, by the time we reached the top of the ridge, he looked at me as if to say, I am going back now, Silas. Good-bye! And then he turned around and hobbled away without a shred of sentimentality.

  “Argos!” I called out, my voice thick in the damp air. I started turning Pony around to fetch him.

  “Leave him be,” said Mittenwool. “He’ll make it home fine.”

  “I can’t let him go back alone.”

  “That dog can fend for himself just dandy, Silas. If he gets hungry, he’ll go to old Havelock’s house like he always does. Besides, you’ll be home by nightfall. Right? That’s what you promised.”

  I nodded, for this was truly my intent at the time. “Yes.”

  “So let him go back home. Anyway, we can go a little faster now, without having to wait for that slowpoke to catch up.”

  Mittenwool started running down the other side of the ridge, which was covered in short buffalo grass and tufts of poison buttonbush sprouting in between long stretches of sandstone. This is what makes this particular tract of land so inhospitable for farming, and why these environs are so desolate, why you could walk for hours and not see another soul. No farmers would touch it. No ranchers would go near it. Godforsaken Plains, it should be called on a map.

  I took a deep breath, and lightly nudged the pony with my heels to get him to go faster to catch up to Mittenwool. I was scared the creature would pitch a fit and throw me, or break into a wild run. Instead, he broke into the gentlest of trots. It felt like he was floating a few feet above the earth as we overtook Mittenwool.

  “Look at you on your winged steed,” he said admiringly.

  I pulled on the reins to slow the pony. “Do you see how he glides? His feet barely touch the ground.”

  Mittenwool smiled. “He’s a fine horse,” he acknowledged.

  “Oh, he’s better than fine,” I replied, leaning forward and patting the pony’s neck. “Isn’t that right, Pony? You’re better than fine, aren’t you? You’re a splendid horse, is what you are.”

  “Is that what you’re calling him? Pony?”

  “No. I don’t know what to call him yet. Maybe Bucephalus? That was Alexander the Great’s—”

  “I know who Bucephalus was!” he interrupted indignantly. “And that’s far too grand a name for him. Pony is much better. Suits him more.”

  “Not from where I’m sitting. I’m telling you, there’s something very special about this horse.”

  “I don’t disagree. But I still think Pony’s the right name for him.”

  “Something better will hit me, you’ll see. Want to ride him with me?”

  “Oh, I’m fine walking.” He kicked at the knobby shrubs with his bare feet. For as long as I’ve known him, Mittenwool has never worn shoes. A white shirt, black trousers, suspenders. The occasional hat. But never shoes. “Though I have to admit, this ground feels very strange underfoot.”

  “This must be the salt licks,” I said, looking around. “Pa digs for the bromine here.”

  “Like walking on a dried-up pond.”

  “Remember him saying it was all ocean here once, millions of years ago.”

  “I don’t remember it feeling this crunchy last time we came here.”

  “Dangit, Mittenwool, I should’ve gone with him.”

  “What are you going on about? You know he wouldn’t let you.”

  “I don’t mean last night. I mean all those times he’d go digging for salt here. All those times he went hunting in the Woods. I should’ve gone with him.”

  “Hunting’s not for everybody.”

  “If I hadn’t been such a crybaby…”

  “Who wouldn’t get scared of a bear? Come on now, that was a long time ago.”

  I shook my head. “I should’ve gone when I got older. That’s the truth of it.”

  He kicked at the ground again. “Well, you’re here now, that’s all that matters. And you know something? I think Pa’s going to be quite taken by your doing this, Silas. Not at first, mind you! He’s going to be livid that you didn’t listen to him—and don’t say I didn’t warn you! But after a spell he’s going to be proud that you did this, that you had the gumption to get on this strange-looking beast to go searching for him all by yourself.”

  I half smiled despite my mood. “He’s not a strange-looking beast.”

  “You know he is.”

  “You’re the strange-looking beast.”

  “Boo-hoo to you.”

  “And I’m not by myself.”

  “Well, he’d think so.”

  “Tell me honestly. Do you think this is a fool’s quest?”

  He looked up at the ridge ahead of us, which was jagged, like broken glass.

  “I sure hope it is,” he said truthfully. “Look, Silas. Pa is a brilliant man. He wouldn’t have gone with them if he didn’t think it was the best thing to do.”

  “He is a brilliant man,” I concurred softly. Then, “Do you think that’s why they took him? Maybe it had something to do with the patent?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “I bet Mr. Oscar Rens, whatever-his-name-is, probably heard about this genius living in Boneville. That’s why he sent Rufe Jones with this business proposition. Don’t you think so?”

  He nodded in agreement. “It makes sense.”

  “I mean, everyone in these parts knows Pa’s a genius. It’s not just me saying it.”

  “You’re telling me like I don’t know that.”

  “I know you know.”

  Of course he knew. From the time I was little, we both knew that about Pa. That there wasn’t a subject on this great big earth that Pa didn’t comprehend. There wasn’t a question he couldn’t answer. He had only to read a book once to memorize its entire contents—I’ve seen him do it! It’s how his mind works. And there are so many b
ooks, so many scientific journals, stored in that mighty mind of his. By all rights, Pa should have been the Isaac Newton of these times. The Galileo. The Archimedes! But when you are born poor and left alone by the time you’re ten, the world can close in on you. That’s what happened to Pa, as far as I can tell, from the tidbits he’s told me over the years. The truth is, Pa doesn’t talk about himself much. His life is like a jigsaw into which I try to fit all the tiny pieces of what I know.

  But that he’s a bona fide genius, that’s just something everybody in Boneville knows. The boots with the little drawer in the heel. The color-tinted irontypes. Your pa’s a genius! I’ve been told that so many times over the years by his happy customers, I’ve lost count. People recognize wondrous things when they see them. And with Pa, they don’t even know the half of it! If they had an inkling of the other wonders in our home Pa had invented? The mechanical ice machine? The hot-air furnace? The glass bulb that lights the air? There’d be a stampede of people wanting all those things for their houses, too! Pa could be the richest man in town if he chose to be, just from the sale of those inventions. But Pa didn’t care about any of that. It was for Mama he’d made these marvels. It was for her he’d built our house and filled it with all the lovely workings of his mind. She’d left everything behind to come live with him, and he’d wanted her to have every creature comfort possible out here in the wilderness. Which she did, for a while.

  “Who do you think this Mac Boat is, anyway?”

  I had fallen into a bit of a sleep atop Pony.

  “What? Oh, I don’t know.”

  “Sorry, didn’t know you were napping.”

  “Not napping. Just resting my eyes. Pony knows where we’re going anyway. Look, I’m not even holding the reins.” I raised my hands so he could see.

  “You just called him Pony.”

  “Until I can think of a good name for him. Hey, why’d you ask that?”

  “Ask what?”

  “About Mac Boat. Why do you care who he is?”

  “I don’t. I guess I’m a bit curious, is all.”

  “Curious about what?”

  “Nothing. I don’t know. Don’t go reading into it now.”

  “I’m not reading into anything! Except I don’t know why you would ask something unless you were thinking something. And if you’re thinking something, I wish you would just go ahead and say it.”

  Mittenwool shook his head.

  “I’m not thinking anything you’re not thinking,” he answered sullenly, and then he pulled his hat out of his back pocket, put it on, and walked ahead of me.

  Pa once asked me, for he was ever curious about my companion, if Mittenwool casts a shadow. The answer is, he does. Right now, as the sun was low on the shining fields behind us, Mittenwool’s shadow was like a long dark arrow pointing ahead to the edge of nothing.

  3

  WE REACHED THE WOODS LATER THAN I thought we would, and stood at the tree line looking in. There was no slow entry into it from here, no spattering of small trees until you got to the dense part inside. It was like a fortress made of giant logs looming behind a hedge of tall spiky shrubs.

  “Pa!” I screamed into the wall of trees. I thought there would be an echo, but it was just the opposite. It was like my voice was muffled by an invisible blanket. Like I was making the tiniest sound in the universe. “Paaaaa­aaaaa­a!”

  Pony shuffled backward a few steps, as if he were making room for a reply. But none came. All I heard was the cawing of dusk birds and the mighty chorus of insects coming from within.

  “Do you see any sign of him?” I asked.

  Mittenwool was crouching a little ahead of me, trying to peer through the bramble. “No.”

  “What about footprints, or horseshoe tracks? Maybe we can see where they entered,” I pressed, looking around for any telltale signs of where they might have gone in. I dismounted and walked toward Mittenwool, leaving Pony grazing on some of the dandelions that sprouted between bald patches of rock.

  “The rain washed everything clean,” said Mittenwool.

  “Keep looking.”

  “Call him again.”

  “Paaaaa­aaaaa­aaa!” I hollered, cupping my palms over my mouth to see if my voice could penetrate the wall of trees this time.

  We waited, alert for an answer. Nothing came.

  “Well, he’s not here,” said Mittenwool. “That’s a relief, right? You were afraid you’d find him in a ditch somewhere, and he’s obviously not. So that’s good. I hope you feel better now.”

  I shrugged and nodded at the same time, glancing back at the lavender sky behind me. The edges of the dark clouds were starting to glow like embers. Mittenwool followed my gaze.

  “We only have about an hour of daylight left. We should start heading back.”

  “I know,” I answered. But I didn’t move.

  Instead, I looked back into the Woods, trying to remember what Pa had told me about them, the last time we came here together. This is an ancient forest, Silas. People hunted here for thousands of years. You can still find the trails they left behind, if you know how to look.

  But I did not know how to look. I had never learned, because I had always been too chicken-livered to come back with him again.

  “I should have come with him,” I mumbled to myself.

  “Let it rest, Silas.”

  I didn’t respond, but paced left and right in front of the forest wall, looking for an obvious entry point, a wedge through which I could squeeze myself. The shaggy barks of the first line of trees were dark gray, almost black now, even where the low sun beamed upon them. And beyond them, it looked like night had already descended inside the forest.

  I started kicking through the bramble toward the ironwoods.

  “What are you doing?” Mittenwool asked.

  I ignored him. I just kept looking for a way in.

  “Silas, come on now. You promised. It’s time to go back.”

  “I told you I wanted to peek inside.”

  “Are you forgetting what happened last time?”

  “Of course not! Like you have to remind me!”

  “Stop yelling!”

  “Well, stop arguing with me.”

  It angered me that he thought he had to remind me. Like I would ever forget that time before. Me going in with Pa, holding his hand. I’d been looking forward to hunting with him in the Woods for weeks. But almost from the moment we walked inside, I started feeling peculiar. My head began to hurt. It was daytime and springtime and the trees were flowering, but I felt the shudder of winter inside me. It came very quickly, like a chill sweeping over my body.

  Pa, I don’t like it here. Maybe we should go home.

  You’ll be fine, son. Just hold my hand.

  He had no way of knowing the terror taking hold of me.

  What’s that sound?

  It’s just birds, Silas. Calling to each other. Just birds.

  But they did not sound like birds to me. They sounded like something strange and sad, like wails or shrieks, and the farther into the Woods we walked, the louder they got. Then, all of a sudden, the trees seemed to come alive all around me, human-formed and unquiet, branches shaking. I started to cry, and closed my eyes and covered my ears.

  Pa, take me out of here! There’s something coming through the trees!

  I don’t even know what I saw, or thought I saw, because no sooner had I screamed than I fell to the ground. Passed out cold. Mittenwool told me later that my eyes had rolled to the back of my head. I have no recollection of Pa carrying me out of the Woods. All I remember is coming to in the wagon, Pa leaning over me, pouring water on my forehead, stroking my hair, which was matted to my face. I was shivering in his arms.

  I saw something, Pa! I saw something in the trees. />
  You have a fever, Silas, he told me.

  What was in the trees, Pa?

  Later on, after I was feeling better and we started talking about what had happened, it was Pa who put the notion in my head that it might have been a bear that I had seen. He even suggested that my eagle eyes probably saved our lives, though I knew he was just saying that to make me feel better. Was it a bear I had seen? Maybe it was a bear.

  “There has to be a trail inside somewhere,” I said, frustrated that we were here, in front of the Woods, and I could not find a way in. “Don’t you remember how we got in last time?”

  Mittenwool, his arms crossed in front of him, cocked his head. “I can’t believe you’re not keeping your promise, Silas.”

  “I told you I wanted to take a peek inside! I won’t go in far, obviously. I know better than that. Come on, you must remember the way in.”

  He looked up. “I honestly don’t, Silas. All these trees are the same to me.”

  I did not believe him. “Dangit!”

  “How about we go home now, and come back tomorrow morning?”

  “No! Pa passed through here not twelve hours ago! There has to be some trace of where he went! Come on, Mittenwool, please help me. All I want to do is go inside and look around a bit, that’s all.”

  “But look around for what? What exactly do you think you’re going to find?”

  “I don’t know!” I cried.

  “You’re not thinking straight, Silas.”

  The calmness with which he said this infuriated me.

  “Fine, don’t help me,” I muttered, unsheathing my knife. “Not like you can help me anyway, you and your long empty arms.”

  I started hacking through the thicket in front of me, stabbing at it left and right, pushing at the thorny branches, but after a minute or so, I saw the fruitlessness of my labors. It was like trying to cut into ropes of iron.

  “Dangit dangit dangit!” I screamed. I threw the knife down and sat cross-legged, elbows on my knees, my face in my bloodied hands, which had been shredded.