Ширли Мерфи - The Sand Ponies

“Yes, it is queer.”

“Maybe they are fairy ponies, Karen!” he says, grinning.

“Maybe!”

A long time later the man and boy return, walking by the cellar and talking softly. The children hear a door close, then the woman’s voice: “Oh, Joe. Oh, poor, poor thing. Whatever is wrong, do you think?”

“It’s the sick one,” Tom whispers.

“Come on, boy,” the man says softly. “Come on there, so, boy, easy now, easy, boy, easy, slowly with the gate, Jerry, there, boy, there, now, close it gently, Jerry. Ah, there now. Go and put some water on for mash, Nell.”

“Shouldn’t he be in a stall, Joe?”

“Don’t think he’d do as well there; wild ones usually don’t. Hurry, now.” They hear the woman shut the door again. Later, when she returns, the children hear the three people talking softly, but cannot make out the words. Finally, after a long time, the man and boy come to sit on the cellar door once more.

“You think that’s all, Papa? Just hungry?”

“Hard to tell for sure, but I think so. Those ponies have been shut up someplace, nasty rope burns like that. Like to catch the dirty coward who did it.”

“Rope burns on all of them, Papa. How could anyone? Fresh burns on those fat ones, like they were just caught.”

“Yes. Sure would like to know why.”

“To sell?”

“No money in those little things.”

“Then why?”

“Meanness, maybe.”

They are silent for a while; then Jerry says, “Look, Papa, he’s starting to eat.”

“Good boy, go to it, boy,” the man says softly.

Karen and Tom look at each other and smile. “Like to work here?” Tom whispers.

“Oh, yes. They’re nice, Tom.”

“It’s pretty close to that ranch, Karen.”

“Would they recognize us?”

“From the Black Turtle, if not from the ranch.”

“Yes. What do you suppose was going on there? Besides the ponies, I mean?”

“I don’t know, hut it sure did sound funny. Something crooked, I’ll bet.”

“But what?” Karen asks.

“Stealing? Smuggling? I don’t know, hut I think we should tell the police.”

“But, Tom, how can we? Won’t they wonder what we were doing there?”

“When we come to a town, why can’t we just phone the police? They wouldn’t have to know who we were.”

“I guess we could. But what if it turned out to be nothing?”

“No harm done, then.”

“Yes.”

“Karen, let’s fix ourselves a good meal down here-later, figure out how much it would cost and leave the money—then get some sleep and leave before it’s light. We know this place is here, and we can come back to it if we want. We won’t starve, and if we do come back to ask for a job, we’d look a lot better coming from the north.”

“Getting the wanderlust?”

“Maybe. Made out okay so far, haven’t we?”

“And we will long as the cattails hold out.”

“And the fruit cellars.”

“Help me pick out a meal,” Karen says, getting up and going to the shelves.

They choose raspberries, raw carrots, and a jar of butter beans with ham. “Aren’t you supposed to heat these things before you eat them?” Tom asks.

“The berries would be all right, with sugar, I think, but I don’t know, maybe we shouldn’t eat the beans.” Karen puts them back on the shelf.

“Sure look good, though.”

“I know. But let’s see what else. How about … oh, look, here’s a cheese, Tom!”

“Well, that should be all right. We can cut it and take the rest with us. Are there more?”

“Yes, more. We won’t be taking the last.”

“Well, add everything up. I’ll put the money here.”

She does, then lies down, with her head on her pack. “I wish I had a book,” she says. “This would be a lovely place to read.”

“You can’t see very well.”

“But it’s so quiet.”

“Yes, not a bad place at all, if we had a lamp down here.”

“Go ask for one!” she says.

“Smart!”

“Really, though, what’s wrong with a cellar? Warm in winter, cool in summer, quiet. Could make a real nice house.”

“Well, I like to look at the sky, too.”

“Look, Tom, if you took that door out and put in glass, you could have light and look right at the sky.”

“Yes, you could. Part of the house could be on top. There could be steps here on the high part going up to a living room and kitchen. Down here could be bedrooms, and a quiet study.”

Karen takes a small note pad from her pack. “Got a pencil?”

“Sure.” He hands it to her.

Soon they are so engrossed in designing an underground house that the cellar has become quite dark and they are frowning, trying to see, before they finish.

They have heard little noise from above, but now the sounds of evening chores have begun, the clanging of a bucket, gates slamming, all the familiar noises. They sit quietly and listen.

Before the light is completely gone Karen cuts the cheese and opens the berries and Tom peels a few carrots. They dine royally, put their scraps in the jar, then spread out their tarps and coats behind the barrels.

“I hope I wake up,” Tom says.

“I will,” says Karen. “I want to wade in the ocean.”

CHAPTER 8

Karen wakes very early. The cellar is dark; the dial on Tom’s watch, when she kneels to see, says three o’clock. She dresses, opens a jar of peaches, then wakes Tom.

As the children leave the cellar the farmyard lies in moonlight all around them. “What about the dog?” Karen whispers.

“He didn’t bark when we came. I think he sleeps in the house.”

“Fine farm dog!”

“Be glad for it!” 1 am.

“I want to see the pony first,” Tom says, heading for the corral.

The little roan is standing, ears back, watching them as they approach. “It’s him, all right,” Tom says. “He looks better.”

“Yes. Look, his manger is clean, and his grain bucket.”

“He’ll be all right.”

The children skirt the corral and head toward the road. Soon they are all alone with the night, a cold breeze from the sea blowing in their faces. As the dawn begins to come they can see early rabbits in the fields, and once they see a doe. “Maybe we’ll see the Sand Ponies,” Karen says.

“Maybe.”

They watch the sun come up over the hills as they sit on a patch of high meadow above the sea. As the sky turns to pink a black shape glides and circles above them, cawing.

The crow has watched them come through a copse of trees and climb the hill to the meadow. He watches them eat their cheese, then soars into the sky to see what else moves so early in his fields.

Looking up at the crow and out at the sparkling sea, Karen thinks of home; of home and Kippy. Where are you, Kippy? she wonders. Where are you this morning?

It is some months earlier. Spring has come to the mountains, and a small buckskin horse lifts his head and gazes across a field where snow is melting. He is listening in vain for the pounding of the sea.

It has been a strange white winter. Kippy has never known heavy snow before; he doesn’t like it. It is cold to the feet and legs, and there is nothing green for grazing, only hay. The man has been good enough to him, has fed him and left him alone. The other horses have fared less well this winter; they have been ridden, and worse, carried pack, while Kippy—too small, perhaps, or too disagreeable—has been left to himself.

But now it is spring. The snow is melting and the first green shoots are beginning to mingle their scent with the smell of wet earth.

In some creatures more than in others, the beginnings of spring, the first blades of new grass, start a longing beyond description for the fields of their early years.