Stacy Gregg - The Island of Lost Horses

Annie didn’t seem concerned. Still humming, she cranked up the gears and put her foot down. The engine revved and, in fits and starts, the tractor edged forward. As it did so, my horse seemed to stir back to life. Reawakened, she began flailing with her forelegs.

The tractor had loosened the mud’s grip and with a dramatic scramble of limbs, the horse lurched forward. She came halfway out so that her front legs were visible above the mud. She only needed to get her haunches out and she would be free. But her legs didn’t seem able to move any further. They had gone weak and numb from their hours thrashing beneath the mud. When Annie finally dragged her up so that she was almost standing, the horse wobbled as her hind legs collapsed. She was going to fall back into the hole!

Annie was ready for her. She let the horse find her feet, ignoring the seawater that had begun to fill the hole and the tractor tyres rapidly sinking down into the mud.

Then the tractor gave a loud growl as Annie suddenly gunned it forward and the horse was catapulted clear out of the mud hole.

I watched in horror as my horse stumbled and fell to its knees. For a sickening moment I thought she might break a leg, but Annie kept the ropes taut so that the horse managed to go forward in a series of awkward stumbles until it stood at last on firm ground.

Annie dug a handkerchief out of the sleeve of her dirty floral dress and used it to mop the sweat off her brow. Now that the horse was out, she had a look of utter relief on her face as she jumped down off the tractor.

The horse didn’t flinch at Annie’s touch. She stood weak as a kitten while Annie ran her hands over her and then untied the ropes and refastened them to the halter and hitched the horse to the back of the tractor.

“She be OK,” she said, nodding sagely. “Notink broken. Just some scratches is all.” Then she looked me over. “Bee-a-trizz,” she said, “look at you shakin’! You gonna catch youself ammonia from bein’ in dat hole. You be comin’ home wit’ me.”

Annie helped me up on to the tractor so that I was sitting on the wheel arch of one of the massive tyres.

“I want to go home,” I said. My voice sounded weird to me – so small, so pitiful. Annie didn’t even seem to hear me – or at least she didn’t say anything. She clambered up to take her place at the steering wheel in front of me and put the tractor into gear.

And so, with the horse following behind the tractor, and me perched up there on the wheel arch, Annie chugged slowly back across the mudflats. Not towards home, but in the opposite direction, away from Mom and the Phaedra , towards the dark jungle hills of Great Abaco.

“My boat is in the other direction… please…”

It was useless. Annie didn’t even acknow-ledge my words. She just kept driving, humming away to herself.

The ride got even bumpier when we left the mudflats and took the wide dirt track that cut up through the jungle hills. The horse stumbled on behind the tractor on wobbly legs, doing her best to keep up and I clung on, flung about with every pothole and rut we struck.

I was still feeling really woozy and I was about to beg Annie to stop when she cut the engine and said, “We is here.”

‘Here’ was a bright yellow and turquoise beach cottage, a tiny hideaway with its front porch poking out from beneath the trees. To the side of the cottage there was a rusted-out old car wreck, and beside it some makeshift wooden pens that looked like they were used to house animals, although they were empty at the moment. The only living creatures were three scrawny brown chickens roaming free and a painfully thin white cat who ran at the sight of us. A tinkling like wind chimes came from a tree in the middle of the front yard, its branches strung with beer bottles. Annie caught me staring at the bottle tree and gave a cackle.

“Dey for keepin’ away de evil.”

Annie jumped off the tractor and helped me down from the wheel rim.

“I want to go home,” I mumbled weakly as she lifted me to the ground. I felt like a four-year-old begging for Mommy. Annie paid me no attention. She just walked up to the front porch and I had no choice but to follow her.

The porch floorboards were so old they bent dangerously beneath my feet. Tangles of chicken bones and purple herbs were bound in knotted red twine and strung from the eaves, and I had to duck underneath to get inside.

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