by Jessie Haas
Phin sat close, stretching his hands to the blaze. He felt light-headed, and in spite of his frenzy about the nuts, not hungry.
That couldn’t be true. He must be hungry. The woolly feeling in his head kept him from knowing things, kept the whole world distant. Out beyond him in the dark, he imagined Fraser reunited with his horse, but the figures were tiny, too far away to matter. He took out a handful of nuts—
Never mind nuts. Feed the fire. He shivered in his coat, crouching so close to the flames that the heavy wool started to smoke.
After a while he noticed that his sensible hands, with no urging from his mind, had been cracking beechnuts and supplying them to his mouth. He supposed they tasted good.
They seemed to.
Taste good.
Brr!
Dark now, black dark. No moon. He’d had the moon with him this whole trip. Now it was gone, too.
The last stick was long and thick. He fed it into the fire gradually, shoving it deeper each time the end burned off.
Curled up beside it.
Pillowed his head on the end.
Face warm, anyway.
A touch on his cheek awoke him.
He sprang up, hitting and his hand struck something. His eyes popped open.
The sun glittered on a pillowy white landscape. Snow bent the branches and made caves and tunnels of the surrounding woods. The air smelled clean and moist.
In front of him the stallion backed away. He seemed gigantic, crisply black, with round smooth limbs and flowing mane. His eyes sparkled, his nostrils dilated, his tail dusted the snow, and his hard hooves trampled it.
He’d come close, the tracks showed, reached his nose to Phin’s cheek. A gesture of friendship?
“Easy,” Phin croaked. His throat hurt, but he was beginning to take in more. A long scratch marred the shining saddle leather. The reins were broken, and the bit still dangled.
Phin held out his hand. The stallion shied.
Something strange about the bridle. Phin’s eyes felt prickly. He wasn’t sure he was seeing right.
He reached in his pocket for some beechnuts, rattled them on his palm. At that the stallion’s ears pricked and his dark eyes brightened. He minced forward, stretching his nose toward Phin’s hand. Phin felt the familiar velvet muzzle, the strong lips squirming—
But barely opening. Hot breath on his hand, eagerness, but the horse only fumbled at the nuts.
Phin reached forward with his free hand. He took the dangling, broken rein stubs. The stallion bobbed his head lower, acknowledging capture, and Phin gasped.
The noseband was high on the bones of the stallion’s face, and cruelly tight. It pinched the delicate skin into pleats and bulges. A small iron ratchet, like a latch, held it closed. The horse could open his lips but not his jaws, and he couldn’t have eaten since Fraser had been swept from his back.
What kind of a man would do a thing like that?
Phin reached for the latch. The stallion tossed his head.
“Easy—” Phin suppressed his cough. Sudden sounds and movement had always disturbed this horse. Gently he scratched the velvet nose, rubbed upward and sideways. “Shh,” he said. “Shh.” A Dennis sound. They don’t go by words, Dennis said. They go by what you do.
His fingers touched iron.
The latch was tight and took some strength to open, but it was well-made and worked smoothly. The leather band released. The stallion put his head down, shaking it, then shook his whole body, filling the woods with an enormous shuddering sound and the squeak of saddle leather. Graciously he accepted a mouthful of beechnuts, delicately mindful of prickles.
Holding the reins as the horse crunched, Phin took his first real look at the morning. Five inches of wet snow had fallen. The clouds above were purple-gray like a pigeon’s breast, and moving fast. It wouldn’t snow anymore, he thought.
His throat ached badly. His feet were cold, but his hands must have been deep in the coat pockets all night, because they were fine. The heavy wool had kept his heat in, prevented it from melting the snow on top of him. He’d slept warm, really. He was all right. Just lost.
He looked at the horse, the saddle. The bridle with no reins. If only he had his rope—
He listened to the silent woods. Fraser was afoot now—they were both afoot. How far apart? Where was the pond? The road? The farm?
The stallion nudged his pocket. Phin brought out another handful of beechnuts and, offering them, stretched his arm, stepping toward the stirrup. The horse swung his rump away, unwilling for Phin to mount.
“Shh.” It hurt less than speaking. “Shh.”
As the horse took the nuts, Phin grabbed the saddle horn and stabbed his foot at the stirrup. The stallion whirled, the motion throwing Phin into the saddle. Snowy branches whapped his face. One hit hard, taking his cap. Snow went down his neck.
He ducked low, clinging to the horn with one hand and a twist of mane with the other. The horse wove through trees, his head low. Phin saw tracks, maybe horse tracks, but he was moving too quickly to focus.
Where was he being taken? The pond? The road? Somewhere else entirely? All Phin knew was the spring and power of the animal. He’d ridden mine mules and phlegmatic freighters who trudged and plodded and shuffled and jogged. This was something else entirely. Even the train seemed slow by comparison.
The trees thinned. The horse paused, and Phin raised his head.
In front of him stretched black water; a white-covered mound in the middle of it; a long, white-covered dam. A pair of ducks flew up and the water shuddered; rings spread.
The horse seemed to listen for some sound which didn’t come. Now he went to the shore and drank. The rings spreading from his muzzle met the rings from the ducks, a pattern of shivering diamonds on green-black water.
With a sigh the stallion lifted his head. He gazed across the pond, then turned and looked toward the trees. With a little bob of his head he set off up the bank and into the woods, and at a familiar-seeming place, turned downhill.
Phin saw the dark line in the air, and a long shape in the snow beneath, unmoving. No, he thought. No, not dead. He never meant that. A fog filled his stomach.
Fraser lay face up, half flung against a tree. Snow was on him. One hand rested on his leg, gloved fingers loosely pointing toward the sky.
The stallion lowered his head. Phin gripped the saddle horn as dark muzzle brushed dark beard.
Fraser’s eyes opened.
Phin vomited; just in time he leaned and missed soiling himself. The stallion shied, dumping him beside Fraser in the snow.
Fraser turned his eyes toward Phin. His tongue passed across his lower lip, moistening it.
“Grass,” he said.
21
A MAN COMPLETE
“What?”
“Grassed me.” Fraser’s hand fell off his leg. His fingers splayed across the snow. “Grass.”
“Snow,” Phin said, and was surprised at the faint flash of amusement on Fraser’s face. Oh. Grassed. The horse grassed me, people said; meaning, dumped me.
Phin stood up. He didn’t know what to do or say, or think, or feel. He was aware of the broad silence around them, of being alone with Fraser; who lay where he had fallen, who hadn’t moved all night; who was alive, but might not be much longer. Everything was suddenly much stranger. The air throbbed with it, and Phin was grateful when he thought of the next things to do. Brush his coat off. Kick some snow over the steaming patch of vomit.
As he did that, he looked covertly at Fraser. Something was far wrong with the man. He lay so still. Could his neck be broken?
But then he wouldn’t be alive, would he?
He asked, “How bad are you?”
Fraser closed his eyes, and seemed to be assessing.
“Hard to say.” He turned his eyes toward the stallion, vigorously gnawing tree bark. “Get your rope?”
Phin looked at it. It seemed impossibly high, though he’d climbed up and tied it only yesterday.
/> “Bad are you?” Fraser asked.
Phin shrugged.
“He can help.” Fraser pointed at the stallion with his eyes.
Phin shook his head. “No reins.” The way his throat felt, he grudged every word.
“Bring him,” Fraser said.
Phin got the stallion and led him to his master, wondering at his own docility. There was no need to obey the helpless Fraser, but a thin clear oil seemed to flow through his head, and he did what he was told, waiting to see when he would come to himself again.
“Get on.”
Phin moved toward the stirrup. The stallion started to swing away. “Ho,” Fraser said softly.
The stallion froze. Phin crawled up into the saddle.
“Use your knees,” Fraser said. He made a kissing sound to the horse, who moved forward. Phin pushed with his right knee, pointing the stallion toward one of the trees his rope was tied to. When he was under it, Fraser said, “Ho.”
Phin could reach the rope easily now. He untied it and, winding as he went, pulled himself and the horse under him back toward the other tree.
He finished coiling the rope, and swung the stallion around. It was easy when you knew the trick of it. He looked down at Fraser. The man’s eyes met his, making Phin think of Engelbreit.
With reason. Down there on the snow, Fraser looked up at a young enemy who suddenly had everything; a horse between his knees and a rope to make reins with; money in his pocket; a gun, doubtless, in the saddlebags. A man complete. Many a man had started life with less.
And what kind of a face did Fraser see? The last time Phin had looked in a mirror, he’d seen a lank and dreamy boy. He didn’t think that boy was there now. What was there called forth fearlessness in a man like Fraser. That meant Phin was very dangerous indeed.
A strange exhilaration raced in his veins. He stroked the sleek arched neck in front of him. But his eyes stayed locked with Fraser’s.
Who’d die if Phin left. Maybe he would anyway, but certainly he’d die left alone.
And Phin could ride away. He had that freedom; freedom to do wrong. He might pay for it later—probably he would—but at the moment nothing bound him.
He took in the awkward way Fraser lay, the shine of sweat on his skin. A pearly ray of sun penetrated the trees. Snow slid off a branch with a heavy sound; the leaves underneath gleamed wet and golden.
Had the horse stirred at that moment, had he taken a step in any direction, Phin might have nudged him in the ribs and ridden on. The balance quivered within him. It could tip either way.
The horse lowered his head, and heaved a sigh of boredom that rocked the saddle. The ordinary, human sound drew Fraser’s gaze away from Phin’s for a second, brought a flickering smile to his face.
“Aye, lad,” he said. “Right enough.”
Phin felt the pain in his throat again, and the shiver of fever on his skin. The exhilaration was still in him, and an easy-heartedness. Decisionless—after all, there was no decision to make—he stepped down from the saddle, thinking, A man complete. He hadn’t been. He’d only thought so. But it became true the moment his foot touched ground.
He put the rope around the stallion’s neck to hold him. “How do we do this?”
Fraser’s eyes widened. He seemed to look through Phin at something far off. “Eat,” he said after a bit. “Saddlebags.”
Phin opened the nearest one. His old canvas jacket was stuffed in the top. That was what Fraser held under the stallion’s nose, back by the abandoned house. It seemed small. He wondered if it had really fit him.
Under it was a leather pouch like an envelope, fastened with a thong, that contained about twenty pemmican cakes. They gave off a rich meat-and-berry smell.
Phin’s stomach wrung as if it were eating itself. He snatched a cake and twisted off a bite. It was firm and resistant, rich with fat and fruit. He turned with one for Fraser.
“Him first.”
“But—” Meat? The horse ate meat?
He held out a pemmican cake on the flat of his palm. The stallion blew a long warm breath over it, and with a pinched, peevish expression engulfed it. Phin got another cake for Fraser.
“Can you sit up?”
“I’d better. Be able to.” Fraser braced his hands in the snow, and bent his knees in a slow vague way, as if unsure where they were. Beads of sweat popped out on his forehead. He pushed, turning pale, and inched slightly up the tree trunk. Phin stuffed his pemmican cake into his mouth and reached under the man’s arm to help.
An iron hand siezed his wrist. Fraser’s eyes glared into his. “Don’t. Touch. Me!”
This close, Phin smelled blood, saw the dark crust on the breast of Fraser’s coat. He nodded.
Fraser forced himself up another inch, a third, until he was more or less sitting. He was greenish, the lines deep-carved around his eyes. Phin put a pemmican cake into his slack hand. Fraser didn’t want the food; Phin could see that. This was an effort of will and intelligence. Strength was needed; therefore eat.
Phin could already feel the strength himself. He took another cake. The stallion refused a second and gnawed bark above Fraser’s head. Moving to stay close to the animal, Phin saw in the snow near Fraser’s right hand a long and wickedly curved bowie knife.
Had he turned and ridden away, would he have gotten that between the shoulder blades?
He looked up from it, and met Fraser’s amused eyes. “Nay,” Fraser said, barely above a whisper. “I had other plans for it, lad.”
Alone and starving in the snow; you could end it. One of the things you could do with a knife. Phin had kept himself from knowing that in his own dark hours.
“Cut a stick.” Fraser made a circle with thumb and forefinger, showing Phin the diameter.
Phin handed him the horse’s rope, picked up the bowie knife, and stepped away. There were branches all around and no need to go far, but he wanted to stand back from Fraser a moment. The smell of blood was heavy in his nostrils. He didn’t understand how there could be blood, didn’t understand Fraser’s hurts.
He scooped a handful of snow and swallowed it. The cold eased his throat a little. He looked back at the man and horse beneath the tree. Fraser’d caught him in a way neither of them had expected. Or he had caught Fraser. However it worked out, they were in this together now. Phin squared his aching shoulders under the big coat, squeezed a hard lozenge of snow in his palm to suck, and cut a branch.
“Short,” Fraser said when he brought it back. He spread his hand, showing how long. “In my mouth.” Phin looked a question, and Fraser looked pain back at him. Phin understood; you bit a bullet, or a knife blade, or a stick, to keep from screaming.
Screaming would scare the horse.
The stick shook in his hand as he brought it to Fraser’s mouth. Fraser had something to say first.
“Bring him. I’ll stand. Put my…foot in the stirrup.”
Now Fraser was ready. Phin put the stick between his teeth and he crunched it.
Phin took the stallion’s rope and led him closer. Fraser reached up, his mouth straining around the stick, and began hand-over-handing up the stirrup leather. So slowly. Such a long gap between one hand reaching and the next reaching above it, feeling for the leather as if blindly. A sort of growl came out of Fraser. The stallion put his head high and pinned his ears, trampling the snow.
“Ho,” Phin said. “Ho!” The horse quivered to stillness.
Fraser seized the horn and collapsed against the saddle. Sweat streamed into his beard. His breath whistled. The stallion’s skin shuddered, and Phin stroked him. “Shh. Shh.”
Finally Fraser lifted his head a quarter inch and nodded. Phin bent to his next task.
Fraser wore tall, slippery boots. His leg was heavy; Phin struggled to keep hold and lift it and stab his foot at the stirrup while the stallion minced up and down in place, his breath fluttering in his nostrils at this strangeness.
“Ho!” Phin gasped. Fraser’s other leg collapsed for a moment, but
his hands were clamped around the saddle horn and held him upright. Foot in stirrup now; a dangerous in-between moment should the stallion spook.
“Uh,” Fraser said.
It was either a grunt of pain or a command. Push, probably. Phin put a shoulder to Fraser’s backside and shoved with all his strength. Fraser slithered loosely into the saddle and fell forward on the stallion’s neck.
His face had gone gray. He spit out the stick. It fell to the snow next to the stallion’s front hooves, carrying a spray of blood dark as ripe berries.
“Tie me.”
“Don’t we need reins?”
Fraser just looked at him.
Phin loosed the rope from the stallion’s neck, and wound it around Fraser and the saddle horn. He wasn’t sure of the best way to do this, but the only help Fraser offered was a whispered “Ho,” whenever the stallion moved.
When he had Fraser secured to the saddle, Phin went to the stallion’s head and took the stubs of reins.
“No.” Fraser’s voice was hoarse. “He’ll take us.”
Where? Phin didn’t ask. His throat hurt too much, and he’d find out soon enough.
“Grab his tail,” Fraser said.
It wasn’t an order Phin wanted to obey. The stallion stood high-headed, tense, and Phin remembered the kicks like pistol shots, the boards of the stall ringing.
“Tail,” Fraser said.
Reluctantly Phin stepped behind the stallion and wrapped the luxuriant black hair around his hands and wrists. The powerful haunches were squarely in front of him. If the stallion kicked, he was dead.
“A’righ’?”
“Yes,” Phin croaked.
Fraser made the kissing sound and the stallion started walking.
The sky was crisp and deeply blue. The snow sparkled with tiny lights—blue, green, red—and slid moistly off branches to show the bright fall leaves. Phin sweated in the cold fresh air. It all felt like fever—fever heat, fever images.
But it was real, and among the realest things were the stallion’s fresh tracks in front of him; the deep triangular bite of the frog and the snow melted as well as compressed, as if the horse came hot from the underworld.
