Grandpa leaped forward as if he’d been shot from a cannon. Paul was a quick shadow behind him.
“Paul Beebe!” Grandma called out. “You come back!”
But Paul seemed not to hear. He locked step with Grandpa and they were almost the first to reach the officer.
Grandma sighed. “Who can stop a Beebe? We can be proud of our menfolk, can’t we, Maureen?”
Maureen burst into tears. “Oh, Grandma, being a girl is horrible. Paul always gets to have the most excitement. And he’ll be first to see Misty’s baby. Oh, oh . . . ” And she buried her head in Grandma’s bosom and sobbed.
“There, there, honey. We’ll find something real interesting for you to do. You’ll see.”
A handful of lean, weathered fishermen were now lining up as volunteers. The officer began counting from the tail of the line. As he came to Paul, he stopped, trying to make up his mind if he were man or boy. For the moment he left Paul out and went on with his counting, “ . . . eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen.” At fourteen he paused.
“But, sir!” Paul heard his own voice sounding tight and urgent. “The ’copter holds fifteen, and Grandpa needs me. Don’t you, Grandpa?”
The officer turned inquiringly to the old man.
“Fact is,” Grandpa said proudly, “when it comes to handlin’ livestock he’s worth ten men.”
“That settles it,” the officer smiled. “We’ve completed our first load.”
When the helicopter set down on Chincoteague right beside the Fire House, the Mayor was waiting for them, standing in the cold and the wet, slapping his hands together for warmth. He poked his head inside the cabin, quickly studied the occupants, then clipped out his orders: “Split into three bunches, men. Beebe, you and Paul go up to Deep Hole to check on the dead ponies and mark their location for removal by airlift. Charlie and Jack, you arrange for crews to pile up the dead chickens at convenient loading points. We’ll need the rest of you to work on the causeway so’s we can truck the chickens across. Thank you, men, for volunteering.”
Three DUKWs were parked alongside the helicopter waiting to take each group to its base of operation. The driver of the first one beckoned Grandpa and Paul aboard with a welcoming smile. “You men are lucky,” he said, “your house is okay; at least it was last time I was down there.”
“Is . . . uh . . . ” Paul stopped, embarrassed. The Coast Guardsman had just called him a man, and now he was frightened to ask a question, and more frightened not to ask.
“What you lookin’ so scairt about?” Grandpa wanted to know.
“I want to ask him a question,” Paul said miserably.
“Go ahead!” the driver encouraged as he steered through the debris-clogged street. “Go ahead.”
Holding his breath, Paul blurted, “Is Misty all right? Has she had her colt?”
“Sorry, Paul, we been too busy to look in on her. But Mayor says I can take you there before we go up to Deep Hole.”
It was strange, chugging down Main Street. Paul knew he ought to have remembered how it was from yesterday. But yesterday Chincoteaguers were sloshing along in hip boots, or riding horses or DUKWs, and they were trying their best to joke and laugh. Today there were no home-folk faces. Grim soldiers were patrolling the watery streets, rifles held ready.
“What they here for?” Paul asked.
“To prevent looting,” the Coast Guardsman replied.
But what’s there to loot, Paul wondered, looking at the houses smashed like match boxes, with maybe only a refrigerator showing, or a bathtub filled with drift.
They passed other DUKWs plying up and down, delivering food to the Fire House, to the Baptist Church, to the few houses on higher ground where owners had refused to leave. And they passed heaps of rubble which once were old landmarks—the oyster-shucking house, and the neat white restaurant whose owner boasted he bought his toothpicks by the carload. Now there was not even a toothpick in sight.
As the DUKW headed eastward to the spit of land that was Beebe’s Ranch, Paul winced. The pretty sign, “Misty’s Meadow,” was still standing, but it didn’t fit the spot. There was no meadow at all. Only a skim of murky yellow water.
Paul felt a strangling fear. He had waited all night and half the morning to see Misty. Now in sight of the house, he couldn’t wait another moment. He started to jump out.
Grandpa put a restraining arm across his chest. “Ye’re jerky as a fish on a hot griddle, son. Simmer down. Ponies can’t abide fidgety folk.”
After what seemed an eternity but was only a minute, the DUKW jolted to a stop and Paul and Grandpa were out and up the steps.
Breathless, Paul opened the door a crack, and all in a split second his worry fell away. Misty was whinkering as if she too had waited overlong for this moment, and she started toward him, but stepping very carefully, lifting her feet high, avoiding something dark and moving in the straw.
“My soul and body!” Grandpa clucked, looking over Paul’s shoulder. “Ee-magine that!”
Then he and Paul were on their knees, and Paul was laughing weakly as he stroked Wait-a-Minute and admired her litter of four squirming, coal-black kittens.
“Ee-magine that!” Grandpa repeated. “Misty’s postponed hers, but Wait-a-Minute couldn’t!”
“A whole mess of kittens in Grandma’s kitchen!” Paul said. Disappointed as he was, he couldn’t help laughing.
Chapter 13
UP AT DEEP HOLE
AFTER HE had poked and felt of Misty, Grandpa threw up his hands in despair. “Could be a week yet.”
Paul groaned, wondering if maybe the foal was dead inside her and that was why it wouldn’t come out, wondering if she was really going to have a colt at all.
“Yup,” Grandpa said, “mebbe she’s goin’ to wait till her stall dries out. She’s still got plenty hay, so you feed the cat, whilst I take a quick gander about the house.”
As Grandpa hurried down the hall, Paul searched the refrigerator. He took out the pitcher of milk and smelled it. “Phew-eee!” he said to himself. “She’ll just have to be satisfied with the left-over beans.”
Grandpa soon came back, rubbing his hands. “Water seeped into only one bedroom,” he announced. “But the rooms is colder’n a tomb, and they stink like old fish. Beats all how nice it is here. Somethin’ companionable in the smell of a hoss.”
Misty, as if in appreciation, offered to shake hands.
“Sorry, gal. No time for tricks ’n treats today. Now then, Paul, come along. We can’t keep the DUKW man waiting forever, and I got to see ’bout my herd up to Deep Hole.”
Tom Reed was getting into his boat when the DUKW reached his place on the north end of the island. “Figured ye’d come along about now,” he called. “Get out of that new-fangled contraption, Beebe, and climb aboard my old scow.”
“How come she didn’t get blowed away, same as mine?” Grandpa asked as he and Paul waded over. “And how come you and the missus didn’t evacuate?”
“I tied her up to the rafters of my barn, that’s why.”
Paul grinned. “Is she still hanging there?”
Tom chuckled at the idea. “No, son, ’twas the boat. Truth is, Marjie just flat refused to go.”
The driver of the DUKW was turning around, ready to leave. “Hey, Mr. Beebe,” he shouted, “how soon should I come back?”
Tom answered for him. “No telling, captain. Could be all day. Ye’ll just have to keep checking.”
As Paul climbed into the boat, he noticed a bundle of sticks and a cellophane bag stuffed with pieces of cloth. “What they for, Tom?” he asked.
“They’re rags from my wife’s scrap bag. They’re to make flags to mark where the dead animals are. Can’t expect the ’copters to find ’em if they don’t know where they be.”
Although the air was bitter cold, the wind had lessened and holes of blue sky showed through the clouds. But the water about them was muddy-brown and full of drift. Grandpa reached for an oar.
“Wait a minute!”
Tom said. “I got strict instructions from Marjie to give you coffee afore we set out. Wait a minute.”
Grandpa guffawed. “We got a cat by that name ’cause she never does.”
Paul broke in excitedly. “And she just had four kittens—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.”
“Well, I’ll be a chipmunk’s tail,” Grandpa chortled in surprise. “No worse’n namin’ people for saints who they don’t resemble a-tall.”
“Easy to remember, too,” Tom said, “and no hurt feelings if you call one by t’other.” He was pouring thick black coffee into the lid of his thermos. “Its extry stout,” he said, offering it first to Paul, “to fortify us for what’s ahead.”
Paul tasted it, trying not to make a face. Then he gulped it down, feeling it burn all the way.
Grandpa sipped his, meditating. “Over to Assateague,” he thought aloud, “over in those dunes there’s plenty hollows to ketch nice clean rain. Whatever ponies is left, there’s places for ’em to drink. But here . . . ” All at once he dumped the rest of his coffee overboard. “We got to rescue the live ones right now, or they’ll bloat on this brackish water. Let’s go!” he bellowed.
With Tom directing, they each took an oar and poled off into the morass. It was heavy going. The sludgy water was choked with boards from smashed chicken houses, and with briar and bramble and weedy vines so thickly interlaced it was like trying to break through a stout wire fence. Silently the three in the boat threaded their way along, stopping time and again to push rubbish aside and to scrape the seaweed from their oars.
Suddenly there came a thud and a jolt. The three oars lifted as one. All movement ceased. The men stared down in horror.
“Oh God!” Grandpa whispered. “It’s my Black Warrior!”
No one spoke. Tom Reed reached down and took one colored square out of the bag and tied it to a stick. He drove the marker into the mud next to the stallion’s body. “’Twas a piece of Marjie’s petticoat,” he said nervously, just to say something. “I allus liked it with all the bright pink flowers.”
Grandpa’s eyes looked far off. “I was proud of the Warrior,” he said quietly. “He used to help on Pony Penning Days to drive the really wild ’uns to the carnival grounds, and his tail was so long it sweeped the street, and his coat a-glistenin’ like black sunshine. Recomember, Paul?” He wiped his arm across his eyes. Then his voice changed. “Move on!” he commanded. “We got to find the livin’.”
The grim search went on. A quiet hung over the bog, except for the sloshing of oars and twigs snapping as the scow moved heavily along. Then a raucous, rasping sound sliced into the quiet of the morning.
“Look!” Paul cried. “Crows!”
The men poled faster until they came to a cloud of bold black birds flapping over a huddle of dead ponies.
Grandpa’s face twisted in pain. “The Warrior’s mares and colts,” he said in utter desolation.
It was almost as if they were alive. Some were half-standing in the water, propped up by debris. They looked as if they were old and asleep.
“Guess they just died from exposure and cold.” Tom’s voice quavered, but his words were matter of fact. “One flag can do for all.”
Grandpa got out of the boat and he grabbed the flag from Tom’s hands. He stabbed it hard and fierce into the mud. Then he took a good look, and he began to name them all, saying a little piece of praise over each: “This one’s a true Palomino. She had extry big ears, but gentle as the day, even though she’d never been rode. And this great big old tall mare was blind of one eye, but she had a colt ever’ spring, reg’lar as dandylions. And this mare, she’s got some pretty good age to her. She’s somewhere in her twenty.”
The crows came circling back, cawing at Grandpa. Angrily he whipped them away with his hat. “Likely she’s had twelve, fifteen head in her day, and expectin’ again.” He sighed heavily. “That Black Warrior was a good stallion. He died tryin’ to move his family to safety, but . . . ” his voice broke “ . . . they just couldn’t move.”
The heart-breaking work went on. They came upon snakes floating, and rabbits and rats. And they found more stallions dead, with their mares and colts nearby. And they found lone stragglers caught and tethered fast by twining vines. As the morning dragged into noon, and noon into cold afternoon, the pile of flags in the boat dwindled.
Sometimes an hour went by before they came on anything, alive or dead. Then Tom would chatter cheerfully, trying to lighten the burden. “Not ever’thing drowns,” he said. “Early this morning I found me a snapper turtle under a patch of ice. He’d gone to sleep. Y’know, Paul, they snooze all winter, like bear.”
Tom waited for an answer, but none came. “Funny thing about that little snapper,” he went on, “he was a baby, no bigger’n a fifty-cent piece, and he was froze sure-enough. ‘Tom,’ I said to myself, ‘he’s dead.’ But something tells me to put him in my inside pocket. And walking along I guess the heat of my body warmed him up, and guess what!”
“Grandpa!” Paul screamed. “I see something alive! In the woods!”
They turned the boat quickly and went poling through the soggy mass of kinksbush and myrtle. And there, caught among broken branches was a forlorn bunch of ponies, heads hanging low, their sides scarcely moving.
Grandpa slid overboard, trying not to make a splash, trying not to panic them. Softly he called each one by name. “Nancy. Lucy. Polly. Gray Belle. Princess. Susy . . . ”
The low, husky voice was like a lifeline thrown to drowning creatures. They lifted their heavy heads and one tried a whinny, but it was no more than a breath blowing. They were held fast, rooted in the boggy earth.
Tom and Paul were beside Grandpa in an instant. Without any signals between them, they knew what had to be done. They must drive the ponies to higher land near Tom’s house, or they would die. Grim and determined, they maneuvered their way behind the ponies. Then grabbing pine boughs for clubs, they brandished them, whacking at the water, yelling like madmen, stirring the almost-dead things to life.
A pinto mare struggled free and led off in one desperate leap. The others stumbled after, trying to keep ahead of the wild thunder behind them. Scrabbling, crashing through uprooted trees, squeezing through bramble and thicket, they slogged forward inch by inch. And suddenly a mud-crusted stallion leaped out of the woods to join them.
“It’s Wings!” Paul shrieked.
Men and ponies both were nearing exhaustion. But still they drove on. They had to. Shoving the boat, the men nosed it into the laggards, frightening them ever forward.
And at last they were in Tom’s yard. Safe! As one, the ponies headed for the water barrel. Single-handed Grandpa overturned it, spilling out the dirty water tainted by the sea. He tried the spigot above it. “Pressure’s good!” he exulted. “They got to blow first, then they can drink.”
He and Tom and Paul were blowing, too. But it was a healthy blow. Something at last had gone right.
Chapter 14
MISTY GOES TO POCOMOKE
IN THE HELICOPTER on the way back to Wallops Station, Grandpa and Paul talked things over. They would try to seal off today’s grief. No need to speak of it tonight, with folks listening in. It would be like unbandaging a wound for everyone to see. They would talk of the kittens instead. And so, when the plane landed, their faces were set in a mask.
Maureen and Grandma, bundled in coats and scarves, were there to meet them. Maureen rushed up, bursting with curiosity. Before she could ask her question, Paul said, “You’d never, ever guess.”
“All right, Mr. Smarty. Then I just won’t try.”
“There’s more than one!”
“Twins?” she gasped. “Oh, Paul, isn’t that wonderful! One for you and one for me!”
“Nope. It’s quadruplets—it’s four of them.”
“Can’t be!” Grandma broke in as they walked toward the mess hall. “I may be a sea-captain’s daughter, but I know ‘nough about ponies to know they don’t have four to once. Speak up, Clarence.”
Grandpa took off his hat and let the wind pick up the wisps of his hair. “Yup, Idy,” he nodded, “yer kitchen’s a nursery now with four little ones . . . ”
Grandma wailed. “Oh, my beautiful new table all bit up, and my linoleum ruint.”
“Pshaw! The little ones ain’t bigger’n nothing,” Grandpa said, flashing a wink at Paul.
At the door of the mess hall Maureen stopped in her tracks and began jumping up and down as if she had the answer to a riddle. “It’s Wait-a-Minute!” she shouted. “She’s had kittens again!”
Paul smiled. “Yep, Grandma’s kitchen is a mew-seum now.”
The children and even Grandma and Grandpa laughed in relief, not because they thought the joke so funny, but because it was good to be together again.
The refugee room had been transformed—cots lined up against the wall, neat as teeth in a comb, and new tables and chairs, and a television set with a half-circle of giggling children.
The Beebes went directly to their corner. Maureen and Grandma were still full of questions. But the answers were short.
“Yup, Misty’s okay.”
“No, no sign of Skipper anywheres.”
“Rabbit’s gone, too.”
“Yup, our house is dry, ’cept for a tiny bit of wetting in one o’ the bedrooms.” Here Grandpa pinched his nose, remembering. “But it’s got a odor to it that’ll hold you.”
In her dismay over her house, Grandma had forgotten all about Grandpa’s ponies. Now as she helped him pull off his sweater, she asked, “What about your ninety head, Clarence? Are they . . . ”
Paul kept very still, and Grandpa’s old leathery face did not change expression. He looked dead ahead. “There was losses,” was all he said. He turned to Maureen, and his voice was tight and toneless. “Me and Paul have done a lot of yelling today, and we’re both wore out. We just don’t feel talky, do we, Paul?”
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